Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
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.
@maxrot: you can podcast it later.
@harry, I heard about the last half hour of that Democracy Now segment.
N
Hello Thom fans:
I stumbled on to a site worth checking out. Maybe if we all sign up and be active in the forums and in our neighborhoods we can rebuild America again. Well, manufacturing will still be a problem after we are all networked online and offline, but I think this is a good site to start from if we all believe in this.
The site is swarmusa.com but don't jump right in until you read the stuff I uncovered about swarmusa.com. It's best to be a bit wary at first in an age of all these fake, hidden-agenda movements out there, anyway, right? That being said, I think this is the best honest attempt yet by being outraged without causing harm or being otherwise uncivil.
So here are some problems with the site that I'd mention up front:
1. It seems to be related to conservative sites.
http://www.google.com/search?q=related%3Awww.swarmusa.com
#1 related site is Drudge Report.
#2 related site is fdralloveragain.blogspot.com.
#3 related site is The Daily Caller (Tucker Carlson's site).
Not that it's a bad thing. Thom tries and sometimes succeeds in getting agreement from the conservative side of the aisle. And note what is at the end of that search page:
#8 related site is Huffington Post (Who among us hasn't been there yet?!).
2. Their most recent YouTube video seems to try to almost discredit Global Warming (or Climate Change) at 1:09 from the video linked below. But it seems that this isn't the only problem with "honesty" of the video. There is already a healthy debate of facts going on between YouTube members on this page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pAAuvsNaps
Given that, there are also great things to report on swarmusa.com.
The current "Emergency Swarm" asks you to contact Bernie Sanders of Vermont and keep fighting for the Audit the Fed bill.
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/content.php/148-Swarm-Central
I also saw this code of conduct and this simply warmed my heart in this age of "uncivility." I wouldn't want to have a debate with racists or even "closeted racists," ("Oh, no, I'm not a racist. I just want my country back." *cue the groan*) so this makes me believe that they aren't here, or here abundantly, at least.
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/content.php/232-Swarm-Member-s-Code-of-Conduct
(That page includes the following rule: "9. We agree not to attempt to contact elected representatives or other Swarm targets at unlisted personal numbers or locations without invitation. We will not make public any such number or location. Additionally, we agree to keep one another's contact information such as email addresses and phone numbers private and will not share such information without consent.")
On those rules... which I hope you've read by now... doesn't it seem that it was written by a Thom Hartmann listener than someone who reads Drudge and the Daily Caller? The more I think about swarmusa.com and what this site represents, I have to believe that those who have started swarmusa.com understand the nature of movements that "when a stranger is being hurt, I am being hurt, too" is as common-sense as movements get.
Which leads me over to the forum. There are categories already set up to poke around in, however I found some specific posts that should garner your interest in swarmusa.com...
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/showthread.php/1882-Matt-Taibbi-Writer
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/showthread.php/1510-Elizabeth-Warren
But again... please note, I found that they have twice as many interests on the opposite side of the isle, at least, in the moment I wrote this...
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/showthread.php/1431-What-about-Rand-Paul
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/showthread.php/1394-Tea-Party
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/showthread.php/1420-Peter-Schiff-verified-by...
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/content.php/258-Political-Supporters
Then again, I saw this page that seems to reflect the ideals of people who like transparency... Who are the major players of swarmusa.com? Well, there is a page to answer that question...
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/content.php/171-media-relations
All in all, I hope this site is a good find! Maybe we can get the rest of the country to adopt a sound monetary policy, as well as an affirmation on how to have a sound political debate! So what do all of you think?! Is this a "networking site" we've been waiting for to get active in??? Well, maybe it's just me, I'll admit to that... :)
-Alex
If you haven't seen Lewis Black ripping into Glenn Beck on the Daily Show, then I have a gift for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMOh9L60FKw
Best Lewis Black I've seen, f'n hilarious.
N
Today's Democracy Now! includes a commemoration of the Jackson State killings, 1970, 10 days after Kent State.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Thom,
Thank you for being the voice of reason and common sense.
I am late in writing this comment about a woman’s question from the Wed., May 12 show about an Americans who give birth overseas.
The United States will recognize that child as a full American citizen if born on ‘federal’ property such as a military installation. If a birth takes place on foreign soil, the child is considered a dual citizen, American and of the country of birth. If the child lives in the U.S. for five consecutive by the time he/she is 18 years of age or older, they may go to the Department of Immigration and Naturalization to apply for full United States of America citizenship. One must fill out the application and have one witness sign to verify the five consecutive years of residence. The applicant then receives a document of Naturalization as a full American citizen.
I had to go through this process in 1972 as my father was a U.S. Army soldier stationed in Germany, married my mother, who was a German citizen at the time of my birth and did not qualify for use of the base hospital. I was born in a German hospital. My mother did not receive her U.S. citizenship until I was nearly one year old.
It was actually quite a blow to me to find out that as a Naturalized citizen, that I could never run for president, as it is required to be born on U.S. soil.
My father always told me I could be anything, even president. Once I received my Naturalization document, I realized this disqualified me.
I suppose most people would not be affected by this one fact, but in setting my sights as a child to be able to achieve the most honored office and highest service to my country (as taught by my father), this reduced my goals to not be involved in seeking a political office. Although, it did not affect my participation in the political process.
Bev A.
I'm not sure if the visa you entered on was an H-1B or some other, but I think my remarks from earlier are applicable.
In any discussion on H-1B there's always someone who says he's pulling down good money as a visa'ed worker. And in truth, not all the the H-1B applications are about cheap labor, but I believe most are. This reinforces my argument to distribute visas by auction.
Yes, outsourcing is a bigger problem than a glut of visa workers, but corporations don't act altrusitically. The decision to import a worker instead of exporting a job is made when outsourcing doesn't allow enough control over the work flow. Worker visas are the next best thing for a company looking to shed American jobs. A visa worker can be exploited while in the US, then sent back home along with the job.
I have nothing against education, but that follows, not leads job opportunities. American college students have no reason to enter STEM majors if there aren't going to be job opportunites after they graduate.
All sorts of opinion here, some based on fear I think. I came over from Scandinavia on a work-visa myself. I work for an international company that was trying to establish itself in the US, and it would not have been possible to get the product-specific experience by hiring all US employees. If myself and some others had not come over, the company would have no choice but to either have just a sales office in the US, or shut down US operations completely.
I think there is a lot of generalization, even on Thom's part. Everyone I know of that have come over is well paid, on par with American workers. I'm not saying this to brag, but to make a point, that I am a lower level manager in my company, and I make more money than 95% of the US workforce. At least with my company we hire Americans when we can, and bring over people from overseas only when necessary.
You should also realise that outsourcing is a much bigger problem than the relatively few people coming into the US. It was not easy or cheap to get a visa (and later a green card). I also pay a great amount of money in Taxes/Social Security, plus all my spending is helping Americans every day.
I'm a progressive myself, and find it (due to my situation I suppose), quite contradictary that we complain about (illegal) immigrants being harassed in Arizona, and that we should offer Amnesty to them, while Thom runs out and criticize people who come to the country legally and help out the economy.
The only people I have run into in my years in the US that complained about me stealing their jobs were people that had not even gone to college, so there is no way they would get my job in the first place.
In closing, I do fully agree that there should be large investments made in the US education system, and that we should do everything we can to help the students get a degree without getting bankrupted. It is however the wrong approach to just attack the people that seek opportunity in what is supposed to be the greatest nation on earth. (or so my American wife tells me).
Silence from Americans is damning all American souls for eternity.
Listen to Seymour Hersh!!!
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0512/hersh-battlefield-executions-continue-obama/
@Maxrot, I would feel better if more posters would say that the letter is BS.
I saw an article about people collecting panty-hose to sop up oil. Problem is, almost nobody wears panty hose nowdays; prob. because of unemployment. However, Frisco leads because of all the cross - dressers!
Published on Thursday, May 13, 2010 by The Guardian/UK
Oil Firms Ignored Warning Signs Before Blast, Inquiry Hears
by Suzanne Goldenberg
@Flotron9: I got it. :D
Day one without Quark, feeling a bit bummed about that. :-(
N
@flotron9 "Are you referring to the dispersants they're spraying to break up the oil, Mark? That is an unexpected positive!"
No, I was facetiously referring to the petroleum. Not serious.
My wife and I were listening to some of the "crazier" (as far as the MSM is concerned) ideas about the Gulf clean-up ... stuff like using straw or hair .. and she asked me "but WHY are those ideas crazier than using some chemical that's just going to make the water even more poisonious?"
"Oh, that's very simple," I replied "Nobody stands to make a fortune on hair or straw. Don't you know that the only workable solution to any disaster caused by greed is one that's going to make some crony of the greedy offender more wealthy?"
@Zero G re: #98: yep. the 21st century will be known as the century of "perpetual warfare".
Nels,
It is true that the more I know, the better I can define what I don't know.
Climate Bill sounds like a loser to me. 20 nuclear power plants, that give off what-- water vapor- a serious greenhouse gas. Everyone repeat SOLAR THERMAL
Obama Scraps Iraq Withdrawal
by David Swanson
The liability of companies with regard to their initiating environmental disaster should be the actual cost PLUS punitive costs PLUS public costs PLUS the cost of regulation that actually works, PLUS the loss of balance in the environmental system that affects fishing, etc.
@LeMoyne re: 93: yer right, lawns are like altars for some people. Personally, I don't think we can afford to keep lawns anymore. I zeriscaped mine. Mowing, fertilizing, chemicals, pest control; we need to save that for growing food, and not meat animals.
Careful Zero G. its my understanding that the more that people learn the more they learn that they know less than they thought, you may get caught in an endless spiral. ;-)
N
@Nels,
I learn better by reading than by watching...sometimes I do catch C-Span via the net, though.
There have been scientific papers that posit grasses as the dominant genera and we in the US do their dirty work through deforestation and then enshrine them in our lawns.