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Why read a document which they want to demolish because it gets in the way of the type of government they would like to see put into place. Especially Rick Perry with reference to his religious views. We have both Democrats and Republicans who do not read and do not like the current Constitution which has served us well for so long. If it is so bad why do so many people want to come live here? Personally I would love to see Rick Perry and his state secede and form their own country and we could send all of his friends down to serve in his government. The list would include Cantor, Boehner and - well, too many to name.
Mr. Madbeats
I don't recall Thom ever saying that it was OK for President Hope to bomb Libya without congressional approval. Also, when did he say that Ron Paul was nuts? But I agree that he should spend more time criticizing corporate Democrats that bow down to the military industrial congressional complex.
Anyone else care to comment? Anyone else think that conservatives are trying to kill people they hate and that there is rampant racism? Anyone care to explain why they feel hate for poor people or racism is an inherent problem on the Right?
The anti-intellectual, nativist genome of the Republicrats is frightening. They always were an authoritarion bunch (Dean's "Conservatives Without Conscience") but like all bullys, when they won a majority they've escalated their jack-boot thuggish tactics.
They are in for a big surprise in 2012. Can anyone spell backlash?
They read/interpret the constitution the same way they read the Bible. Proof-texting their way to whatever they want it to mean. Every time they express an opinion about it illustrates their ignorance of it's true meaning.
The U.S.Constitution? No, as if there were any question. Even conscientious Republicans don't recognize 'their own' party. 'Just a bunch of corporatists, really. PS Bill Press is just g r e a t , Thom! Thanks for having him pitch-hit for you.
As if that matters much to you Thom. Cute question though I suppose, funny how it only matters whether one reads the constitution or not and how that is or is not relevant depending on wether it's your guy not abiding by it or the other guy not abiding by it. In other other words, when Obama takes us to war in Libya without congressional consent it's okay, cuz he's a dem and so are you. But when Ron Paul starts quoting the constitution and talking about whether this or that is constitutional or not, then he's a nut job for following the constitution. Got it.
BTW, if "Now – the first circuit U.S Court of Appeals has ruled that citizens have a right to film government officials conducting official business." this is true (I have no reason to believe it is not) then that's good news, especially for the guy in Illinoise that is facing 75 years in prison for filming and recording the police.
This Ohioan watches these Ohio Assembly Republican arrogant jokers on the Ohio Channel all the time--this is their main stage before making it to the big time in Washington. All they are about is grandstanding for their agenda and kissing up to their corporate handlers. I can guess how each will vote on any given issue--I find I'm rarely wrong. I suppose, unfortunately, they learned it at home first.
I do not think they read it, although at least one (is it Boehner?) carries a pocket copy with him. Many of them have not read it, but perhaps more importantly, they do not understand it. (Nor do some of our supreme court and lower court justices.) It is hard to apply a 200-year old document to the complexities of this world. Some of them seemed to anticipate some of our issues, warning about corporations wielding undue influence, for example.
None of the 5 who voted on Citizens United could have read it, or the various decisions made up until Citizens United; 100 years of opposite decisions, which they overturned. None of those who voted to stop counting ballots in Florida, thus putting Bush in office, could have read it. It was a bad decision, Sandra Day O'Connor who voted for it was ashamed of doing so later, and in the decision itself the court wrote that it was not to be used for any other issue that came before the court.
Live by the constitution, die by the constitution...
Stantak, do you actually believe that conservatives want people to die on unsafe highways (that they drive on), that they don't care about the poor (whom conservatives disproportionally donate more of their income to charities that help the poor than do Liberals) and middle class (whom they make up a large percentage of). You think Conservatives want to take more of your money and your property (when they fight for people to keep more of their money and have greater private property rights). You actually believe conservatives are EVIL people filled with raging racism? Or might we conclude that you don't have effective arguments to convey, so you must resort to baseless hate mongering and demonization of your opponents? Maybe in the hate bubble that you live in, this nonsense will go unquestioned and likely supported, but in the real world you are just another intollerant race baiter with no content. Also, you are wrong about the president, conservatives want America's economy to grow strongly. Obama makes himself look bad (specifically on issues of economics), conservatives simply point it out. By the way, I voted for this terrible president who has ruined the economy (not single handedly, and not even from liberals alone). Unlike our ineffective leader, at least I can admit when I made a huge mistake.
As for the ridiculous question above, the answer is the 3rd option: The $800,000,000,000 stimulus package was for the same thing, and that didn't build many roads, stimulate the economy, or save or create productive jobs, so why would we burden future generations with billions or trillions more with the poorly acted sequel 'Stimulus 2, Keynsian Strikes Back'. Conservatives want an efficient government that works, and this isn't that.
WANTED POSTER - I caught part of what you were talking about yesterday, Tuesday, August 30 re "wanted" posters made of people asking undesirable questions at town hall meetings. Can I get more information on this?
The Repugs will do anything to make the President look bad, including making highways so unsafe that they will kill people. They don't care about the middle class or poor. They only care about getting our money and property. It's amazing how low these people have gotten. I'm reading 'Last Call: The rise and fall of Prohibition' by Daniel Okrent. Republicans during Prohibition were exactly as they are now. Evil racists and money-grubbing theives.
Just a word...Don't forget folks, there are plenty of demoquacks as guilty as the rebumblicans and if the demoquacks weren't then they'd be getting a lot more done right now. I have yet to hear or read about how the demoquackic party not to mention the president have finally grown some nuts. Mr. Press did mention today that the president is going to give his speech next week on jobs. I sure hope he plays like Mr. Press and all of us would like, HARD BALL! Put not just the rebumblicans against the wall but the whole congress! They are all just a bunch of shills pissing in the wind and we, all of us, left, right and center ar egetting the shaft and what i think most people miss is that all the media machine does every day is blame Obama. I just don not get it!
This also applies to slander and libel when it comes to public officials. We are allowed to voice our opinions and question the actions of public officials in print. Naturally this should only be done where huge heaps of evidence are stacked on the side of the citizen. Today's journalists are big scaredy cats, not like Drew Pearson, who researched every politician and told it like it is or was.
For example, my favorite Thom Hartmann phrase is "Bush Crime Family." How does one get away with calling two ex-Presidents members of a Crime Family? Because the Bushes know, when push comes to shove, the evidence is heaped up on the side of the citizen.The last thing they want is for others to come out and prove it in a case of libel.
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Revelation weighs in.
The concise 55-letter anagram of the seven churches:
Seraph phrase Guilty Cad Is a Load In My Life Is a Load Seraph phrase
There is a rare double double double in this one. I take that to indicate emphasis. Before the book title was announced this anagram had no meaning to me.
By-the-by. A Couple of years ago I purchased an extra copy of Bugliosi's "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" and took it with a cover letter to my County Courthouse (at least three military killed had listed there hometown within this county) saying the homework was already done and to let me know what else they needed from me in order to proceed.
They refused to accept the book (and I was born here in the 50's) and have not answered my letter or follow-up email to the address listed on the County webpage.
For a group claiming to be so big on Law and Order - enforcement is really selective, but at least all this brew-ha-ha is displacing any news about what's gong on with The Rupert. Might explain why the press tour got moved ahead of the publish date.
This just in: DOJ to Block AT&T and T-Mobile Merger.
By JOELLE TESSLER and PETE YOST, Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department filed suit Wednesday to block AT&T's $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA on grounds that it would raise prices for consumers.
The government contends that the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition and thus lead to price increases.
At a news conference, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the combination would result in "tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for mobile wireless services."
The lawsuit seeks to ensure that everyone can continue to receive the benefits of competition, said Cole.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/att-tmobile-merger-antitrust-complaint_n_943324.html
For-profit hospitals + for-profit doctors + for-profit drug companies. All with a history of charging much more than they do in other countries. Put them all together in a program than means you can't even take your money and go elsewhere (you can't save for a year or two with a high deductible, then go to a hospital in Mexico or Japan), and it's highly likely that ObamaCare can't work for a lot of people. In Vermont, maybe it can work. In McAllen, Texas, how could it?
QUOTE: “If you’re starting from scratch, then a single-payer system — a government-managed system like Canada’s, which disconnects health insurance from employment — would probably make sense. But we’ve got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that’s not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they’ve known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside.”
— Barack Obama, in an 05/07/2007 New Yorker magazine interview explaining why Americans shouldn't properly replace a criminally corrupt insurance company profit care system that chains people to their employers, and often renders even those who have "insurance" health careless.
Obama frequently repeated his "No We Can't" disrupt this sick society's legacy systems message on the campaign trail, and near 70 million maniacs apparently either weren't listening to the change disqualifying qualifications he attached to his "promises" of change (all offered with his Cheshire Cat grin), or they manically assumed he was just saying that to get elected... or Obama's maniac millions never actually wanted any change to come.
If voting for Democrats was any part of the solution we wouldn't still have The Problem... and our children wouldn't be facing certain extinction, while "progressive" Democrats seek to establish an End of Times market for Goldman Sachs to profit from bundling pollution swaps.
It could be useful for those 70 million "progressive" liberals to stop being (D) bigger part of The Problem that they've always been.
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Yeah, I've known people like you. In fact, my father was like you. He deeply and bitterly resented paying taxes that, as he said it, went to lazy, indigent, good-for-nothings who simply didn't want to work. And yet, when he got a catastrophic illness, guess what he did. He did exactly what most republicans would do: he transfered all of his assets into a trust so he could get the government to pay for his medical treatment.
Unlike you, I have lived and worked in slums, in places where people lived in concrete-floor one-room shacks that had an open shower in one corner of the room, one bare light bulb, a noisy little refrigerator, a hot plate to cook on, and no furniture other than a mattress on the floor. And I'll tell you something: on the whole they were better people than republicans. They didn't have enough for themselves, but they would share with you if you needed it, even if it meant they would go hungry. They were simply better people than republicans. They behaved like human beings, not like hypnotized robots who only know how to repeat Rush Limbaugh's latest line of bull____. They were human beings, not pretend Christians who actually worship Glen Beck and his hateful lies. And I'll tell you something else: they were not white. They were black and hispanic. I think it's very interesting that the people repubicans hate the most, are actually better people, morally and ethically superior to republicans, more truthful and trustworthy, and with better family values.
If everyone was like those poor people, this would be a pretty good world. If everyone was like republicans, this would be a hell world. Take your pick; what kind of world do you want to help create?
Reply to # 13
Here's what you said: "Medicare and social security represent the productive part of society supporting the basically unproductive, so I don't undersatand your reasoning."
Wmstol, MaryMary, (or nameless worker sitting at a computer in a republican-owned boiler room) maybe I can help you understand. Even productive people can run into unpredictably difficulties in their lives. Now, we can take the republican approach to this statistically and historically unavoidable situation where a certain number of us need help, and just throw them under a bus, take them to the edge of town and leave them there to die, or maybe- I don't know- put them in gas chambers and concentration camps. (Does this kind of talk cheer you up, make you feel almost giddy with excitement? If so, you are a republican, all right.) The republican approach works for everyone who doesn't get sick or who has so much money that even the costs for treating a catastrophic disease wouldn't make a dent in their bank accounts. But the republican approach doesn't work for anyone else. In other words, the republican approach doesn't even work for 99% of the people in the republican party, but they don't see that yet. But they will. It will be unavoidable.
And see, part of the problem here is that so many of the super-rich people got super rich by screwing the little people or by outright theft and fraud, so it is truthfully and quite directly their fault that millions upon millions of Americans don't have enough money for health care. The republican approach works for people who do not consider themselves part of the human race. The republican approach works for people who are superior to the little people. You know, they are sort of an ubber race, and all the little people are basically just animals with no rights, to be ordered around and used until they die. And by golly, when it's put like that- truthfully- it sounds kind of like most republicans are mentally ill. Which they are.
Ok, that's medicare. Now let's take a look at social security. Is social security a gift from the government to the people who get social security? You republicans say that it is. You call it an "entitlement," as though an entitlement is a bad thing. And yet, the word entitlement means something that a person is entitled to, something they have a right to receive. And you only pay social security tax on the first $106,000 of your yearly income. Every person who earns an income in America pays into social security, and the government collects that money, and then issues social security checks to people who have paid into social security. I have no idea what would make you think that social security is a gift to unproductive people. I have a friend who has worked very little in his life, and so his monthly social security check is going to be about $115 a month. I have seen the letters he has gotten from Social Security explaining that he will get $115 a month. He didn't put enough money INTO social security to get more. IN OTHER WORDS, SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT A GIFT, AND IT IS NOT A PUNISHMENT FOR THE RICH. SOCIAL SECURITY IS A FUND THAT PEOPLE PAY INTO, AND THEY GET OUT OF IT ACCORDING TO HOW MUCH THEY PUT INTO IT. Geez, if you're going to argue with me, try to get at least ONE of your "facts" straight. I mean, debating with you is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Now, let's say you are a woman, about 25 years old, with three children, and your husband has become a violent, abusive drunk. He is unsafe for you and the kids to be around. You want to protect your children, and you are terrified of your husband. One night, he beats you, breaking your shoulder and fracturing your skull, and threatens to kill you and the kids. In the republican world, such a woman can just sit there and wait for her husband to kill her and her kids, because there is no way in hell (literally, in hell, because that's the kind of world you people want, isn't it?) that the government is going to interfere in her life by protecting her and her children. If her husband's going to kill her and her kids, well, that just must be God's will, am I right? Can i get an amen?
By the way, that woman I mentioned in the last paragraph, was my mother. I saw my father beating my mother, When I tried to stop him, he hit me so hard that I flew the room and when I hit the wall I was knocked unconscious. And you, who no doubt make a lot of fraudulent noise about being a Christian, think the government should not spend a penny of your tax dollars protecting helpless women and children. Great, I'm sure Jesus is up there rooting for you, because he hates big government too. Right? Too bad you've never read the New Testament, where Jesus says, "As you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto me." So actually, republicans aren't Christians, they are Old Testament, pre-Jesus, eye-for-an-eye people who just kind of like causing and watching suffering.
With the current situation in America. The fractured broken system in American society. The civic response to corruption is apathetic and indifferent at best. Who is going to stop the fascist state being constructed out of American public institution, military, churches and economic wealth. We live in a divided and conquered society.
Thom,
You missed an opportunity here. The main question Chu needed to be asked was, "How can you continue to push nuclear power in the wake of Fukushima?"
On Earth Day of this year, Obama sent out a letter that redefined nuclear, coal, and natural gas as "clean energy," and committed to a goal of 80% "clean" energy generation. Big whoop.
Chu probably had a hand in writing this letter. When he said early in this interview that "Our technology should dominate the future" he meant nukes (such as the two reactors Obama sold to Chile); "clean" coal (pumping CO2 into the ground where it will leak back out in a century or two); and fracking.
I'm afraid he's evil.
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Single payer is the best health care system for people of a caring society. Remove a 'for profit' health care system and let's rid ourselves of the Insurance corp's / CEO's greed and corruption of a human necessity that should never be privatized. Health care is an industry that NEEDS to be nationalized. For profit health care is shameful, we are better than this.
Remove money from politics and we all get true representation from our elected representatives. Democracy.
The only kind of health insurance reform that will really fix the problem is the nonprofit kind, the kind the rest of the world already has.