Hillary lies. She would probably be worse than Bush II and Obama together.

@Gene Savory, with the loss of the middle class most Americans must beg for food and even some low paying slave wages. Most Americans do not have the luxury of marching. Our only hope is the ballot box but with rigged electronic voting machines most of our votes will never be counted. The GOP did not rig the vote in 2008 because they knew Obama would fail as president. People with the gold make the rules.

I shared with you an article titled, "Portrait of a Son." God, the Father, gave to us His Son, Jesus. His Son's portrait was given to us through His words in the New Testament. We could buy His portrait and have everything in eternity or we could reject His portrait. Acceptance of the Golden Rule is accepting Jesus' portrait.

The previous commenters have made some telling points. I'm the same age as Cosmotopper (Ted) (though I live in Australia), and I feel that, like me, he would remember the natural sense of 'being in good hands' that arose from having Ike as the U.S. President. The quotes from Karl go to that point. Of course, Ike was human and fallible, as are all Presidents.

It's a little strange after all these years for the western world to have lost its light-on-the-hill leadership. I'm not going to interfere too much as someone from 'offshore' except to say that, as a long-time Americanophile, I followed the 2008 election closely and breathed a sigh of relief at the result. I can remember commentators saying things like 'The Republicans will be out of power for a generation', after the obvious disastrous failure of the neocon-led domestic and foreign policy agenda. I found an article at The Guardian from the time along those lines, when Colin Powell gave his endorsement to candidate Obama. It's here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/uselectionroadtrip/2008/oct/20/uselections2008-newmexico

I can only say that the shambles that Pres. Obama inherited would likely take more than a few years to address (notwithstanding setbacks like the spill, the Afghan war situation, as well as the filibuster syndrome), and since it's clear that there is no change in the policies of the 'right' (indeed they seem to have doubled down on their strategies), what benefit would it be to reward them at the same time as punishing those who tried to clean up the mess?

A case of the least-worst option till a new generation comes through maybe?

Thom & Louise:

FYI, I'm a lifelong Republican who voted for Obama in 2008. Not only did I not get what I (audaciously) hoped for, I believe we have elected a President who constitutes a clear and present danger to the future of this country, by his pursuit of fiscal policies intended to precipitate a second more serious crisis, one which he and his Chief of Staff can fully exploit.

Over the last two weeks, I decided to listen to the "Progressive Talk Radio Station" here in Portland, Oregon, KPOJ 620. I wanted to hear what 'Liberals/Progressives' (don't know the distinction) have to say about our President, now that he's had 18 months to bring about the change we were supposed to believe in. I've been listening to your show nearly every day, but apparently, until today, you (Thom) have been on vacation.

Apropos the commentaries I heard until today, I found them generally repellant: short on facts, self-serving, self-justified, and betraying an abscence of critical thinking and intellectual honesty. However, I heard a couple of canned trailers for your show (most while listening to your show with guest hosts), in which you very precisely described the scam which has been perpetrated on "Main Street" by the Financial Moguls who live and work on Wall Street. In the trailer, you describe a group of highly sophisticated racketeers who control our capital markets, enabled and protected by a corrupt cabal of Republican and Democratic elected officials and appointees who have orchestrated the plunder of $Trillions in government funds over a period of years. (You suggest 8 years, I suggest 18.)

I wish I could articulate it as well as you did. What you described matches up quite well with the results of my own research, which goes back to 1992, when Wendy Gramm (wife of Senator Phil), persuaded George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to approve a rule change at the CFTC which enabled Enron to get into the energy futures trading business. If I recall the trailer, you did not specifically reference President Obama's role in this tag-team scheme where Bush & Paulson passed the baton to Obama & Geithner, but you clearly referenced the nearly $2-Trillion in faux US Dollars which were created by the Federal Reserve (on March 19th, 2009), and subsequently used to relieve the major banks which comprise "Too Big To Fail, Inc." of their toxic assets (via TALF & PPIP), thereby enabling them to cleanse their balance sheets and raise capital sufficient to pay off their TARP obligations. (Not to mention the fact that these banks who created the toxic assets, retained their authority as servicers of the mortgages, which enabled them to receive servicing fees from the government for managing them.)

Furthermore, your trailer managed to cram in a reference to the 1% of GDP skim that the Wall Street racketeers take for themselves every year in the form of bonuses ($145-Billion in 2007, if I remember correctly), most of which end up lining the pockets of a few hundred individuals (many of whom can be found in the Forbes 400 annual "polo suit edition").

At this point, I kept wondering: how can this guy Thom Hartman know all this, and still be an advocate & defender of Barrack Obama? How can he take seriously Obama's posturing as a President seeking to impose regulations on these crooks, while in actuality, orchestrating a so-called "financial regulation reform package" which actually consolidates and entrenches TBTF, Inc. with it's government maintained monopoly over major capital markets, and the obscene and completely unjustified levels of compensation they receive every year?

This morning, Friday July 9th, I realized I was actually listening to Thom Hartman (yourself), and a caller happened to be raising yet another issue important to me, which may ultimately prove to be the ultimate example of criminal negligence on the part of our President: his grotesque incompetence and pathological disregard for his responsibilities as Commander in Chief with respect to the massive "dirty bomb" which was detonated off our southern shores on April 20th of this year.

I was prepared to hear you parrot all the other "Progressive Talk Show Hosts" who act as shills for the Obama administration by perpetuating the notion that everything that has gone wrong, is being done wrong, and everything that should have been done but has not been done, is the fault of BP, while failing to recognize the concentric interests of both 'BP' and 'BO', and failing to hold 'BO' accountable for a major share of all of it. Instead, you proceeded to articulate in clear measured language, the obscene symbiotic relationship between a reckless, greed-driven private corporation, and a President with extremely limited management skills, and a willingness to exploit the magnitude of the disaster to advance his political agenda. And I would add (in my opinion only): a President with a clinically obvious personality disorder, (according to the DSM IV: The Narcissistic Personality -- aka NPD), which prevents him from delegating critical responsibilities in times of crisis to those who's abilities to act decisively, might somehow eclipse or compromise his fantasy self-image.

I repeat: I'm a Republican who vehemently opposes the Politically Correct fascism which permeates the rhetoric and sophistry of the Democratic party line, and regard the strategic core of liberal dogma: "wage and benefit entitlement" to be the single greatest threat to the survival of this country in my lifetime (57 years). On the other hand, I am equally opposed to the obscenity of "Trickle Down Economics", which I regard as a euphemism for a more appropriate term: "Predatory Capitalism", which has provided the excuse for the Democratic party counter-argument, and perpetuated what amounts to an interchangeable, "Good-Cop, Bad-Cop" scam, fine-tuned by both the Republicans and the Democrats to keep more or less the same people in power for as long as possible, and guaranteeing their ability to plunder the assets of this country as long as there are any assets left to plunder.

So my question is simple: How can you know all you know, which demonstrates that you do indeed have the critical thinking skills and intellectual honesty to arrive at the conclusions you articulate so well, and still adopt the "Progressive/Liberal" label, and still be willing to allow the corrupt operators on the "left" to get away with their grotesque abuse of the public trust?

I believe there are indeed "Truths which are self-evident..." and that with thoughtful, honest discourse, the vast majority of us who are the object of exploitation by a corrupt few, should be able to form a consensus as to appropriate governance which prevents perpetual corruption from ruling this country. Unfortunately, partisan antipathy always seems to trump honest introspection, and a willingness to listen to those who's views (and entrenched interests) conflict with our own.

If this post gets your attention, I'd surely like to hear what you have to say about it.

Ted in Portland

Strengthening Social Security

A good way to strengthen Social Security- to decrease the projected future shortfall in Social Security funds- would be to tax different types of income for Social Security, instead of only taxing regular income for Social Security, as the current system does.

Currently, employees pay 6.2 % of their regular income into Social Security and their employers pay a matching 6.2 %. Self-employed people pay the full amount, 12.4 % into Social Security. Income over the cap limit ($106,800 in 2009) is not taxed for Social Security. Incomes from capital gains, dividends, interest, gifts, and inheritances are not currently taxed for Social Security.

Taxing these other types of income for Social Security would strengthen the Social Security system and would substantially improve the projected outlook. Moving toward taxing different types of income the same as regular income would also make the market place freer. More even taxation of different types of income would more allow free markets to work, instead of the market place being distorted by the federal government giving tax advantages to certain types of income over regular income.

Adjustments in Social Security benefits should also be considered. One adjustment could be to keep the ratio of working years to retirement years about the same as it is now. So if people continue to live longer, the age to receive benefits could be raised. Another adjustment could be to link increases in benefits more closely with inflation of basic needs of seniors and less of a link to wage inflation.

Medicare could also be strengthened. Taxing incomes from capital gains, dividends, interest, gifts, and inheritances for Social Security and Medicare would make the Social Security and Medicare systems stronger and the United States’ economy freer.

Government Trying to Sweep Size of Oil Spill Under the Rug, Just As It Has Tried to Sweep the Economic Crisis, 9/11 and All Other Crises Under the Rug

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/

@DRichards, actually, its my understanding that there is. The one guy I mentioned that wanted to carry a gun openly, was having a tough time passing the psychological test for the cities/counties he applied at. However, that's not to say he didn't go to some other city/county and try to pass the psych test there keeping in mind what might have caused him to fail the other test. In other words, as far as I know, there are obstacles, but clever people always can figure out how to overcome them. I was only associated with this fellow for a short time, he was fired from the job for stealing. I don't know what happened with him. In fact I don't know if any of the people I mentioned went on to acheive their dreams, (for different reasons). But of course that wasn't the point I was trying to make, I was just saying that the minority caused a negative conotation that for all practical purposes over rode the majority.

As the old joke goes, one "Aw-shit!" removes all prior "Atta-boys".

N

Maxrot

Re: Cops

Are candidates for the position given any type of personality test to weed out the ones that will get drunk with power?

Letter to the Editor: ‘Conservative’ voice of Ike’s worth hearing

Published: Wednesday, March 3, 2010

http://delcotimes.com/articles/2010/03/03/opinion/doc4b8ddd3a11958500688077.txt#blogcomments

By KARL KOFOED

As a child I remember America’s romance with the our 34th president — “the man who beat Hitler” and staunchly led America and her allies to victory in World War II, ushering in the greatest age of prosperity known to man. His campaign buttons read, “I Like Ike.”

I still like Ike, who gave us, among many other things, the interstate highway system. He, too, was a president for “change.”

No president knew more about war and peace or held our Constitution and our founder’s dreams more dear. As an homage to Dwight David Eisenhower, let’s let his classically “conservative” voice speak:

* “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible, and they are stupid.” - President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nov. 8, 1954.

* “All of us have heard this term ‘preventive war’ since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time ... I don’t believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn’t even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.” — Dwight Eisenhower, in 1953, after being shown plans to launch a preventive war against the Soviet Union, as quoted by Jonathan Schell, in the Nation (March 3, 2003).

* “Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower.

* “I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower.

* “Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite. It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Is it conservative to send American jobs to other nations, even to “communist” China, and to make America a debtor nation to them?

Is it conservative to let the voices of moneyed corporations speak louder than the needs of our people?

Is it conservative to choose war over diplomacy?

Can we be secure if we don’t have a manufacturing base or even make our own steel? How secure can a nation be if it relies on imports?

Today we can’t even make a cruise missile or a jet plane without Chinese parts.

Boy, do I feel secure thanks to our free market patriotic conservatives; who want profiteers to be middlemen between you and your health care but not a government of we the people.

Now that’s “change I can believe in” because it happened right before my eyes. Today I’m a Democrat because most of them still work for we the people and not corporate lobbyists who want to privatize everything and destroy our government.

Karl Kofoed is a resident of Drexel Hill, PA

(and a long time fan of the Thom Hartmann show which inspired this column) _KK

The country should build a huge fence on its southern border!

The country of course being Canada, which needs to brace itself for a wave of undocumented workers from the United States:

Stubbornly high unemployment rates got you down? Not sold on the economic recovery? Look no further than America's polite neighbor to the north, where jobs numbers are surging and home prices have been rising steadily for nearly a year.

Last month, Canada, a nation with roughly one tenth of our population, created about 10,000 more new jobs than America.

This story is obviously in error -- any country with socialized medicine and with "big government" regulations on mortgages and the financial sector could never create so many jobs.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/

What's going on in the Gulf!?!?!? Its being poisoned, the only question is will it be fatal or just cause planetary sickness?

N