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Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
I think I got the last word in a conversation on Facebook with a libertarian friend of mine (usually I give up first because he gets me so angry). He had said, among other things, that the government doesn't grant freedom to the people, the people grant power to the government (which I agree with). I said, Yes, so when the people grant power to the government, the government gets to use that power. The difference is that when liberals grant power to the government, they do so to help humans. When conservatives grant power to the government it's to help non-humans, i.e. corporations. Since his issue of the moment was corporate corruption, I may actually have gotten through to him.
Maxrot, good idea with the cake! re: the cop: I find it hard to believe that a cop, even in an emergency, could mistake his pistol for his taser.
Never disappointed with libertarian arguments that hold water like cheese cloth. Your guest from "Reason" magazine really really believes that putting a toy in a "happy meal" is some sort of free speech?! If there were any truth in advertising, they'd have to change the name of their publication ... maybe they could call it "Agenda" or "Anarchy" ?
Here's my question about the Oscar Grant issue, why in the hell did the cop need to even go for his taser if the suspect was already handcuffed?????
Load of BS, seems to be an unnecessary use of force to me.
"Don't taz me bro!"
N
@mstaggerlee, perhaps if we baked you a cake with an antenna, antenna wire and a drill bit inside....
N
Why we can’t "afford" Social Security
In the past, some “conservatives” and now the new debt commission want to change Social Security because it is too costly. One reason it is in financial trouble could be that our government has been spending one third of the Social Security revenue on other programs since Ronald Reagan. The share of taxes paid by corporations and the wealthy is now half of what it was in the 1980’s. The Wall family billionaires have been working for the permanent repeal of the estate tax. It expired this year. This year, one billionaire’s estate of eight billion dollars owes nothing to the government. We also have tax loopholes for hedge fund managers. One manager made four billion dollars last year and only had to pay 15% tax. Corporations and the wealthy have successfully shifted the burden of taxes to the endangered middle class. This is just another step in the “race to the bottom” for the American middle class. They wish to drive average Americans to the level of the third world with cheap wages and no social safety net.
Mugsy, are you kidding? Wal mart could BUY manhattan.
Thom, there's no Wal*Mart in Manhattan because they can't afford the rent selling "bargains".
I thought conservatives are all into State's Rights, or at least the concept. So if a state or area wants to do something, shouldn't they have the right? Anyway, I hardly doubt that no cheap plastic toys in a Happy Meal is going to decrease McDonald's or Burger King's or anyone else's business. Which is the real thing this guy is objecting to.
Anyway, about the toys in kid's meals, they're cheap! I don't even like my son at McDonald's or any of those places (my husband doesn't mind), and yet we have tons of cheap plastic toys from the few times he eats a Happy Meal. I used to just throw them out, but now I save them (unopened, since my son doesn't even usually open them) and I'm going to give them out at Halloween instead of candy. Along with other small toys that just clutter things.
The building I work in is made of Corrugated Steel and Marble - it's essentially a mausoleum, and almost completely radio-proof! Unless you have a window in your office (I'm a cube dweller - no view of the outer world), you have no prayer of getting even local AM Radio (and I'm New Jersey, where lots of the NYC-market transmitters are located!). Sattelite? I can listen in my car, but NOT in here! Also thought I might be able to listen on my Droid, but even Verizon's vaunted 3G network can't penetrate THESE walls!
And so, it appears that I have been relegated to the world of delayed gratification. Such is life at the beginning of the 20-teens, I guess.
@mstaggerlee, even if your not listening to the show live, you can still join the live conversation here, heck we all go off topic from time to time anyway. I'd say after about the first 1/2 hour most of the comments are replies to replies and comments on comments anyway. Sorry to hear that your company has put your Internet gateway on lockdown (that's a bummer).
N
PMI is only one of the rips foisted upon us. Title insurance is a payment by the borrower to protect the title company from its own incompetence.
See "The Screwing Of The Average Man" by David Hapgood.
re: #7: re:; show time: yeah, until recently, there were 20minutes of commercials in radio and TV hour of broadcast, looks like they upped it recently. however, its not thoms fault.
mstaggerlee, could you listen on one of those XM radios? I thought that's what I'd have to do if they cut me off. I can't get into Thom's (or anyone else's) chat room because, I think, of firewall software.
@mstaggerlee:
Thom isn't a capitalist. Capitalists only pretend that they are working. Their delusions are harmful to society.
I believe I detect a note of sarcasm in your posts today Jeanie.
Greetings to my live-blog buddies ... didja miss me?
Well, you're gonna continue to. I believe I've mentioned here before that the Internet police here in my office have turned somewhat fascist, and will no longer tolerate any live streaming activity over our internal network. This is mainly due to a handfull of idiots who were live-streaming video of World Cup matches, which eats a whole lot more bandwidth than an audio stream does, but hey, bringing out an Atlas missile when a fly-swatter would do the job IS the Amurilkan way, right?
So, I'm now downloading the podcasts at home every night, and generally listening to yesterday's shows (Fridays show today, obviously). I'll continue to post when something gets under my skin, but it'll be in the topic blogs as opposed to the live blog, cuz I'm no longer listening live.
BTW ... do ya realise that there's only 36:30 of non-commercial content in every hour of this show? I guess Thom really IS a capitalist! :-)
Or about miners. Or about blown up men on oil rigs. Or about people who can't afford to seek medical care.
Jeanie, I don't think the "pro lifers" care about the lives of little brown foreign children.
Don't worry about banksters starving people--now that Harper's published an article about how Wall Street is starving millions, the so-called Pro-Lifers will get right on it and protest outside the homes of Wall Street execs and harrass their families (and hurt and kill some of them), will blow up banks and investment firms, will go on news shows and talk about how banksters are, in effect, murdering people, and they will be heard. And churches will preach about how wrong it is that Wall Street is starving people for profit and instruct their flock to vote for those who aren't murdering millions. And people will listen and they'll work to change public opinion to their way of thinking.
Imagine that.
In regards to wall street creating food shortages, I recently heard a report about Monsanto. Monsanto had previously provided GMO corn and soy to farmers at fairly reasonable rates which enabled farmers to reap more crop per acre and make more profit. The report, however, stated that Monsanto figured out that farmers receive about a 30% subsidy from the government. This year Monsanto supposedly raised the cost of their GMO seed products by about 30%, thus transferring those government subsidies directly from the farmers to Monsanto. However, the report also state that means that the cost of those commodities will automatically need to increase by about 30% to manufacturers who produce food in order for farmers to make a profit. It also means that food prices made from those products will also need to increase by about 30 per cent. I would like to hear from people in the agriculture industry about this subject.
Obama Should Take Guidance from Latin leftists
by Mark Weisbrot
Imagine that Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise “to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change.”
Imagine....indeed.
Too many people expect wonders from democracy, when the most wonderful thing of all is just having it. -- Walter Winchell
At this point it would be useful to wonder if democracy exists at all in these United States. Between the stolen elections, the voting machines without accountability, the corporate domination of the media, the national security state, the military's revamped domestic spying (TALON), the meme of American Exceptionalism...
Hope and Change...?
Obama’s Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick
by Chris Hedges
Corporate America scares the Crap out of me.. Every single independent ,functioning entity that this country had ,has been bought out in a giant Corporate merger.. (Including our news media) It's clear as crystal for some of us but unfortunately most people get their information from "The Corporate Media Cartel".. The Sunday morning advertisements give it away.. The Media is owned by B.P., G.E., Exxon, Bank of America, Boeing, Monsanto, Pfizer, Ect Ect.. You know the culprits..It would be great to pass some meaningful legislation that banned the Corporate Drug Pushers and the Futile Militaristic Blood Lords that find it necessary to advertise to the American public... What are they trying to sell to me anyways?? An oil rig?? An F-15 fighter jet?? A "Clean Coal" generator?? A factory farmed grocery store?? or just some REALLY GOOD pill that makes me take my mind off of this Crap???