We are on an exponential line to a thermus maximus event and mass extinction. We buried a car on campus in Ann Arbor in 73. We knew then, that if we did not bury these petrol chemical burning cars they will bury us. Exonn-Mobil knew it then, too. Jimmy Carter understood and put solar on top of the white house and set a national priority for renewables. Reagan Bush oil took them down. Clintons didn't put them back up or ever addressed global warming and a national green energy program. Hillary was all for fracking in eastern europe and keystone at first. Only a few politicians like Al Gore and Bernie Sanders have shown true leadership on global warming. It is too late now. Mankind would have to demand a ban on the manufacturing and export of all fossil burnig vehicles now. End to coal burning and slash burn deforestation. Plant a trillion trees and end rain forest tree cutting. Switch from tree pulp to hemp for paper products. We only have a window of 17 years at most to reverse the trajectory to mass extinction. We know species out of balance with nature are doomed to extinction. Why do we still talk as if we are exempt? Where are the plans to reverse global warming? Will we have to wait to we see the blue methane clouds appear? How do we re-freeze melted permafrost? Will it even matter, if the methane already has been released in amounts that will doom us? 200 species a day go extinct. We are not going to piece back an ecosystem web so badly torn. Rachel Carson knew these things in the 50's. It has only gotten worse. Some of us knew better and did nothing. We have become insane primates out of balance with nature destroying a planet. How do we look our great grandchildren in the eyes?

Save the world, go poop in your neighbors yard:))

"awfully" informative piece, ain't it? We may need another Ragnarok to restore balance to this F'n mess!

And we need to stop reproducing at an unsustainable rate. Mother Earth would be in much better shape if our numbers had never passed the 2 billion mark. But now it's too late...the damage is done and it's permanent.

Let us have that political revolution Senator Sanders speaks of. Bernie 2016!

Brand these idiots with their benefactors trademark.

There's no other way to say it. Those in our country like the Koch brothers and the Tea Party Republicans are the number one enemies of the U.S. citizenry.

Hi Thom,

Greetings. Thanks for your good work. I agree with you over 90% of the time, but not all of the time.

One major disagreement is the 'affordable health care act.' I would favor a single payer system paid from general revenues, but only if adequate cost constraints can be applied so that it is not an entitlement program for the health care industry.

Thom, I have low opinion of American doctors and the American health care industry in general. I don't want to be forced to pay for health care which I don't want with doctors and a system that I don't trust. Frankly, I would rather get on a plane to Canada and see a doctor up in Montreal which I have actually done. Doctors in Canada practice medicine for medicine's sake not for money's sake, and that is what I want to know when I talk to my doctor.

I checked the so-called 'affordable health care' plans and they are like $800 per month for lously coverage and high deductibles for a person in my age bracket even though I am healthy. Thom, I can't afford to throw away $800 a month for health care I don't want and won't use so as to subsidize Obama's campaign contributors in the health care industry.

I would support and vote for Bernie Sanders as I know that he also has strong reservations about this so-called 'affordable' system. I know that Bernie has actually led trips to Canada for pharmaceuticals for seniors and that is all the proof I need that he 'gets' the problem.

What has Hiliary Clinton done? NOTHING! She failed to pass her previous lousy plan, and continues to accept huge amount of both corporate and foreign money including from the health care industry which is a complete conflict of interest.

Thom, I wish you would have your staff do some reseach on the 'affordability' of the so-called affordable healthcare act....if one does not qualify for the subsidies which I think the cut off may be as low as $27K per year which is relative peanuts and not enough to even live in poverty in Fairfax, Virginia. I don't dispute that some people who can fall exactly within guidelines will benefit, but I think that is a distinct minority.

Being forced to buy something you don't want to buy is mercantilism or fascism and as bad as anything the Republicans are doing with making us all pay for their corporate welfare and recent endless wars....

You and your program rightly attack the Republicans, but you don't hold Hilary Clinton to an equal standard, or do you hold Barack Obama accountable either. Just two points: Obama per recent leaks on the drone program has killed about 1,000 innocent civilians worldwide..theintercept-com, while Hilary Clinton made unprofessional disgusting remarks about killing Khadaffi rather than bringing him to the Hague for trial which encouraged the breakdown of law and order in the post Khadaffi era. Hilary Clinton escaped all responsibility for her actions and lack of judgement in having no plan to discourage violence in Lybya post Khadaffi, and the people of Libya are now paying for her callousness and arrogance...some with their lives. I would rather vote Republican than vote for Hiliary Clinton as at least they admit to being for corporate interests while Hilary Clinton is just a liar who says for vote for me for my gender....

Your program should stop pawning of Hiliary Clinton as any kind of progressive when she has gladly accepted mountains of corporate money for years...and worse then that her chief of staff while was Secretary of State was on the payroll for Qatar. Ms. Clinton's behavior is totally unacceptable....and unfortuately the Republicans can not philosophically call her on the issues for she most deserves to be confronted on for which there are many. Having programs like yours continue to 'worship' this woman who has accomplished very little other than marrying an important man who actually did accomplish something 'the economy' while he was President. Her tenure as secretary of state was a disaster even by recent low standards....and her gall to keep saying how she is for the middle class while accepting corporate money and having favored both special corporate and even special foreign interests for decades justs reduces your otherwise very good program to a Democratic party propaganda arm....with the obvious reason that the Russians wrongly think the Democrats will give them a better deal.....and that, I reget to say is 'very, very, ugly.'

I thought for sure I would vote for Trump because he would make TV the most interesting. But Carson is one strange and crazy bastard. He's so soft spoken you might think he'd be too boring, but what comes out of him makes him more entertaining that Trump. I think news reports would be more entertaining of Carson suddenly stabbing Putin in the name of the Lord than just Trump telling Putin he's a loser.

My system doesn't require voters to vote any differently. It's also possible that instant-runoff voting could be grafted onto it. (I've actually come up with a fictional scenario where that would be useful.)

I've also tried to understand STV, but it's hard without seeing how it's derived. Just a description of what happens in one example, as on Wikipedia, leaves a lot unexplained.

Typos!
The question must be asked, "What is the purpose for an economy? Is it to make life good for all or just for a small minority at the expense of all the others?". For conservatives the latter is their definite answer and the smaller the minority the better for their purposes so as to have to share the wealth with as few as possible.
Those not of the select, privileged minority are that minority's cattle or beasts of burden. Everything else from them is just a working backwards from that. Once you know that you understand what's going on.