Recent comments

  • Should Trump have corrected the man who called Obama a Muslim?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Most Republicans know it's better to be politically correct on well known facts, and twist or lie about things that are not known by the public or only known behind closed doors.

  • Could a Muslim ever be elected President of the United States?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Not in the immediate future but once things in the middle east is settled and there is an end to all the propaganda and maybe even reverse-propaganda I see no reason why someone of the muslim faith wouldn't eventually be sworn into presidancy. as the "yes" side states it's about policy not faith, and the nation was founded under the notion of being secular when it comes to religion. Anyone sworn into office are required to uphold the first amendment in it's entirety (and not cherrypick portions of it to miss-represent the amendment)

  • Is it wrong for House Republicans to boycott the Pope's speech?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    both "yes" are fully correct, I chose the first because it is my opinion of reguardless what anyones stand on climate change, it is still very disrespectful to boycott someone's freedom of speech. What the Pope stands for is more than his stand against climate change and he is one of the few religious figures I have gained a strong respect for.

  • Will Republicans shutdown the government over Planned Parenthood?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    I doubt they will shut it down. there is too much debunked data out there to fall on to push for the defunding. The right wing are more interested in having people ideology split and against one another not against their ideology.

  • Will GOP move farther Right after Boehner resigns?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    their goals will always be a right as it is today but their PR people will realize that going any further to the right in their approach will be a bad move. My gutt feeling is the move is more about putting a new face on the same right movement to lower suspicion to take some attention away from the right wing ideology.

  • Has the Supreme Court become too politicized?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    just the idea of not approving new members to the supreme court because you don't like the presidant or their affiliated parties alone is too politicised.

  • Does having over a million donors legitimize Bernie’s campaign?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    i'm with the first "yes". there is more power in numbers than in money when it comes to voter count.

  • Why the Media isn’t Covering Citizens United   9 years 36 weeks ago

    The only media we had before radio was newspapers. There were many newspaper publishers. Every city had a newspaper and they really were the guardians of democracy. Large wealthy local companies would buy the newspaper publishing companies and have the news printed to say what the company heads wanted it to say. George Hearst and his son, William Randolph Hearst did just that. The Hearsts used their newspaper, The San Francisco Examiner, to promote their political and corporate agenda. So, what we see today in news is not new. We need to ask our political leaders to support, enact, and bring back legislation that makes the news givers truthful, fair, and servants of the general public.

  • The Billionaire Hypocrisy of Helping the Poor   9 years 36 weeks ago

    In my county (in south Georgia) I haven't seen any Bernie stickers other than my own which are so small as to be unseen or ignored. I opted for window paint and did GREAT HUGE "BERNIE IN 2016" on my auto, storm door glass, etc.

    I've printed copies of the platform and offered them to have them refused! How do you crack a closed mind?!

  • The Billionaire Hypocrisy of Helping the Poor   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Reagan's "treacle down" economics (slow as molasses in Antarctica) didn't promise the jobs would be in the good ol' USA. The free trade agreements work the opposite of as advertised with NAFTA which purported to level living standards in North America by raising the living standard of Mexico, PanAmerica, etc. Like treacle down economics, NAFTA also worked a--backwards, pushing living standards down, down, down.

    Most people want the opportunity to improve their situation. That's not wasteful, lazy, or self-serving. And most want their fellows to also have that opportunity.

    Delivering pizzas for Domino's will not lead to a franchise ownership and most of the jobs created since 2008 are just as dead end as delivering pizza.

    I'm on the downside of 65 and I wonder EVERYDAY where did we, as a country, a super power, go wrong. Somewhere, since 1944, we took the "right" fork in the road until we've almost come full circle to pre-FDR!

  • Why the Media isn’t Covering Citizens United   9 years 36 weeks ago

    and for the same reason Bernie isn't covered.

  • We CAN make the switch to clean energy.   9 years 36 weeks ago

    The point I've made is that it simply makes no sense to develop nuclear power when advances in solar, wind, etc., show the way toward an energy future that is fully sustainable, clean, and safe. The use of solar energy for heating, cooling, and electrical power is growing exponentially. The problem of storage is being solved. The costs across the board are coming down rapidly. Why mine thorium and uranium and build expensive reactors that generate radioactive waste when all the energy we need for electricity shines down on us from a natural thermonuclear reactor every day? It defies common sense.

  • Why the Media isn’t Covering Citizens United   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Amazing how the history books are modified in order to protect the ruling elites. Even Thom, who should know better, has been suckered in by their version of history.

    In fact the revolutionary war was fought over their inalienable right to public Money Creation NOT some mickey-mouse tax on tea. The colonies were prospering thanks to the Colonial gov't providing its own publicly owned currency. The private English Banksters of the day could not allow that, so they had the British gov't ban their currency. This resulted in mass unemployment, people had no jobs, merchants could not sell their products with insufficient currency in the hands of the people to buy those products. So who would give a damn about a tax on tea when you have no money to even buy tea, never mind pay a tax on that.

    Essentially the American Colonies faced the same brutal attack by private Banksters that Greece has had to do when the criminal Banksters cut-off their supply of Euros, and even forced the once-proud social democratic PM, Alexis Tsipras to capitulate like a beaten dog. Now he is no more than a little puppy, licking at the boots of the rulling Bankster elites.

    The true cause of the American Revolution, not mentioned in our corrupted school version of history:

    Benjamin Franklin, Colonial srip was very successful:

    “There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.”

    “We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”

    Soon afterward, the English bankers demanded that the King and Parliament pass a law that prohibited the colonies from using their scrip money. Only gold and silver could be used which would be provided by the English bankers. This began the plague of debt based money in the colonies that had cursed the English working class.

    The first law was passed in 1751, and then a harsher law was passed in 1763. Franklin claimed that within one year, the colonies were filled with unemployment and beggars, just like in England, because there was not enough money to pay for the goods and work. The money supply had been cut in half.

    "..While visiting England, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was asked how he accounted for the prosperous condition of the Colonies. His reply was: "That is simple. It is only because in the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called 'Colonial Scrip' - and we issue it in the proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry."

    "..Soon that information was brought to the ROTHSCHILD's bank which coerced the English Parliament to pass a Bill providing that no Colony could issue its own money. Franklin said, "Within one year from that date the streets of the Colonies were filled with the unemployed."

    ".. Franklin later said that this was the original cause of the Revolutionary War. In his own language: "The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the Colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction."

    This opinion was confirmed by great statesmen of his era:

    "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

    History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance. - James Madison

    “Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.” - John Adams

    English historian, John Twells, wrote about the money of the colonies, the colonial Scrip:

    “It was the monetary system under which America’s Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to write about them: ‘Nothing in the history of the world resembles their progress. It was a sound and beneficial system, and its effects led to the happiness of the people.

    In a bad hour, the British Parliament took away from America its representative money, forbade any further issue of bills of credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all taxes should be paid in coins. Consider now the consequences: this restriction of the medium of exchange paralyzed all the industrial energies of the people. Ruin took place in these once flourishing Colonies; most rigorous distress visited every family and every business, discontent became desperation, and reached a point, to use the words of Dr. Johnson, when human nature rises up and assets its rights.”

    Peter Cooper, industrialist and statesman wrote:

    “After Franklin gave explanations on the true cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, the Parliament exacted laws forbidding the use of this money in the payment of taxes. This decision brought so many drawbacks and so much poverty to the people that it was the main cause of the Revolution. The suppression of the Colonial money was a much more important reason for the general uprising than the Tea and Stamp Act.”

    http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/hidden-history-according-benjamin-fr...

    http://www.freedom-school.com/money/famous-quotes-on-money.html

    "...According to a July 5th article titled "Greece - The One Biggest Lie You're Being Told By The Media," the country did not fail on its own. It was made to fail:

    [T]he banks wrecked the Greek government, and then deliberately pushed it into unsustainable debt . . . while revenue-generating public assets were sold off to oligarchs and international corporations..."

    http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31912-grexit-or-jubilee-how-greek-deb...

    The best video on the subject:

    97% owned - Economic Truth Documentary:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcGh1Dex4Yo

    No honest, rational government would ever allow abdicating the right to create a nation's currency over to a bunch of worthless screwup greed-crazed parasites who produce nothing, unless they were in fear of retribution, mostly from bad press and no funding or cushy jobs & speaking engagements post-government but at the extreme, assassination.

    "..The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity..".

    Abraham Lincoln

    “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

    Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.

    It was Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild (1840-1915) who once said:

    "...“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”

    What was true of the British Empire is equally true of the US Empire, controlled remotely by the London based Elite through the Federal Reserve System. Judged by its consequences, the Federal Reserve System is the greatest con job in human history...."

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-really-controls-the-world/5445239

    The Banker's Manifest, 1934:

    "Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.

    "When, through process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of the government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers.

    "These truths are well known among our principal men, who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance.

    "It is thus, by discrete action, we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished."

    Montagu Norman, Governor of The Bank Of England, addressing the United States Bankers' Association, NYC 1924

    "The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented ... Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with a flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again ... if you want to continue to be slaves of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit."

    Sir Josiah Stamp, Head Of The Bank of England, 1781

    Emanuel Josephson stated in the Rockefeller Internationalist:

    "They (the Rockefellers) control most of the important newspapers, magazines, and book publishing houses in the country, including the Curtis Publications, the Hearst Publications, Time, the New York Times, the Associated Press and many others."

    The Elements of Economics, by J.L. Carmichael

    John Moody wrote:

    "Seven men on Wall Street now control a great share of the fundamental industry and resources of the United States. Three of the seven men, J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, George F. Baker, head of the First National Bank of New York belong to the so-called Morgan group; four of them, John D. and William Rockefeller, James Stillman, head of the National City Bank, and Jacob H. Schiff on the private banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb Company, to the so-called Standard Oil City Bank group...the central machine of capital extends its control over the United States...The process is not only economically logical; it is now practically automatic."

    Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins

    "...Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it..."

    Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)

    "...So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes...."

    Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)

    Consider the 1961 statement of US President John F. Kennedy (JFK) before media personnel:

    "...The word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society, and we are as a people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, secret oaths and secret proceedings. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy, that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence. It depends on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published, its mistakes are buried, not headlined, and its dissenters are silenced, not praised, no expenditure is questioned, no secret revealed… I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people.”

    Secret societies, secret oaths, secret proceedings, infiltration, subversion, intimidation – these are the words used by JFK!

    "....President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in November 1933 to Col. Edward House: “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centres has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” It may be recalled that Andrew Jackson, US President from 1829-1837, was so enraged by the tactics of bankers (Rothschilds) that he said:

    “You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.”

    Interlocking Structure of Elite Control

    In his book Big Oil and Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families and Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics and Terror Network, Dean Henderson states: “My queries to bank regulatory agencies regarding stock ownership in the top 25 US bank holding companies were given Freedom of Information Act status, before being denied on ‘national security’ grounds. This is ironic since many of the bank’s stockholders reside in Europe.” This is, on the face of it, quite astonishing but it goes to show the US government works not for the people but for the Elite. It also shows that secrecy is paramount in Elite affairs. No media outlet will raise this issue because the Elite owns the media. Secrecy is essential for Elite control – if the world finds out the truth about the wealth, thought, ideology and activities of the Elite there would be a worldwide revolt against it. Henderson further states:

    The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP Amoco and Chevron Texaco); in tandem with other European and old money behemoths. But their monopoly over the global economy does not end at the edge of the oil patch. According to company 10K filings to the SEC, the Four Horsemen of Banking are among the top ten stockholders of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation.

    It is well known that in 2009, of the top 100 largest economic entities of the world, 44 were corporations. The wealth of these families, which are among the top 10% shareholders in each of these, is far in excess of national economies. In fact, total global GDP is around 70 trillion dollars. The Rothschild family wealth alone is estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. So is the case with the Rockefellers who were helped and provided money all along by the Rothschilds. The US has an annual GDP in the range of 14-15 trillion dollars. This pales into insignificance before the wealth of these trillionaires. With the US government and most European countries in debt to the Elite, there should be absolutely no doubt as to who owns the world and who controls it. To quote Eustace Mullins from his book The World Order:

    The Elites rule the US through their Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Federal Reserve System with no serious challenges to their power. Expensive ‘political campaigns’ are routinely conducted, with carefully screened candidates who are pledged to the program of the World Order. Should they deviate from the program, they would have an ‘accident’, be framed on a sex charge, or indicted in some financial irregularity...."

  • Should free public college be available to wealthy Americans?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    I believe in a means test for SS benefits and free public college tuition

  • Why the Media isn’t Covering Citizens United   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Thanks, Thom! Sure, Citizens United is terrible! But let's not waste an amendment on revoking it, if we leave "corporate personhood" in place! Reducing the money in elections by itself does nothing to eliminate corporate constitutional rights as persons that allow them to "get their way" in case after case in the courts; and the influence of money in elections was not much less befoe 2010. Let's focus on getting rid of Corporate Personhood - and money as speech! www.MovetoAmend.org is the only initiative that's focusing on both!

  • Why the Media isn’t Covering Citizens United   9 years 36 weeks ago

    I'm sure most of those small tea shops, at least in the Boston area, were supplied through John Hancock's black market. He was smuggling Dutch Tea among other things, which ticked off the British because of revenue loss, revenue needed to pay for the recent "final" French and Indian war.

    Being undercut by the East India Company motivated Hancock to finance most of the early protests in Boston, which helped ignite the revolution. So indeed it was an anti East India Company sentiment with Hancock as the key player.

  • Why the Media isn’t Covering Citizens United   9 years 36 weeks ago

    I imagine when the time comes ,and too big to fail corporations are on the chopping block, our Media Giants will be amongst the first to get 'chopped.' That is one day I really look forward to.

  • The Billionaire Hypocrisy of Helping the Poor   9 years 36 weeks ago

    As a former small business owner and employer I have my own perspective on corporate operations. I believe from my experience working with multinational coprorations that they are wasteful, inefficient, and unsustainable. They are behemiths just like dinasours

    and their way to survive is usarius and exploitive and that is why they outsource. It's survival. I've always believed that small business is what keeps the employment and opportunity going, how ever small business is hard to come by today. Outside of certain trades small businesses have been aquired by corporations who found a way to lasoe

    a service or trade industry by gobbling up all the competitors and running all the independents out of business. It is a trend that cannot be denied. It's also price fixing,

    monopolizing, and unethical and unfair competition. Small munufacureres sell out to corporate holding companies who inturn are supported by investors etc. Because of their inefficient (leaky bucket ) strategy they are forced to outsource to balance the books in order to satify investors. The wall street strategy is not the most stable incubator for business or investors and sooner or later it crashes because its designed to fail. It is designed for short term (boom and bust) gain and not slow stable sustainable growth. I believe a more Amish mentality in business with a little neighbor to neighbor socialism will serve us much better, but it won't satisfy the greed of most US citizens. It's in our culture to be wasteful, lazy, self serving gamblers.

  • Daily Topics - Wednesday October 7th, 2015   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Thom, "Hillary Clinton is campaigning as the middle-class candidate, but Bernie Sanders might just have her beat, according to the latest poll conducted by Google Consumer Surveys for IJ.com." http://www.ijreview.com/2015/10/438587-bernie-sanders-lefts-middle-class-candidate-latest-poll-says/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=owned&utm_campaign=ijalert

  • Daily Topics - Wednesday October 7th, 2015   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Thom, don't watch corporate media, it's a fools errand, except for weather, surprised they reported on U.S. airstrike on a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital.

  • Daily Topics - Wednesday October 7th, 2015   9 years 36 weeks ago

    MSNBC = Make Sure No Bernie Coverage / Maintain Sanders Not Beating Clinton

  • Is there still a chance to stop the TPP trade deal?   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Let's hope that as more people become aware of how bad TPP is for ordinary citizens, paying more for prescriptions, loss of net neutrality, etc., they will demand that their legislators vote NO. Time for the corporatist members of Congress to do what's right for their constituents!

  • Full Show 10/6/15: Republicans’ political liability   9 years 36 weeks ago

    I was very disappointed to see Thom cite a statement from Michael Mann in the October 6 program.

    15 years ago, Mr. Mann gained a lot of notoriety for a graph of temperature records over the past milennium. Unfortunately, the formula Mr. Mann used showed a bias in terms of skewing downward the more distant temperature record. While his graph was initially trumpeted worldwide, and used quite frequently, it has been quietly put away in recent years. Mr. Mann did science (and the climate debate) quite a disservice with such disingenuous behavior.

    I would hope that Mr. Hartmann could cite/quote less polarizing figures, and ones with less controversial credentials.

  • Full Show 10/6/15: Republicans’ political liability   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Reveling in Disheveling

    …. …. ….

    Stuff goes badly at every level;

    our world’s in a state of abject dishevel.

    Yet the Rightists persist in their brain-dead revel

    in the things which have us going to the devil.

    ====================================

  • The Billionaire Hypocrisy of Helping the Poor   9 years 36 weeks ago

    Leaving aside the substance, which is still secret, available only to a few special interest lobbyists and various government actors, there are several differences we know of now.

    1. This agreement includes more nations, and they are strategically selected to create a juggernaut for all other countries. Pretty much any nation that wants an international trade agreement with any other nation will eventually bump up against the TPP members, who have already agreed, in restraint of free trade, to not agree to (or insist on agreement to, as the case may be) certain terms and conditions in all of their agreements with non-party nations. So even though it is a small number of countries, it carries serious global clout.

    2. The agreement represents the worst of any deal. We know this because these countries were unable to get global bodies, such as the WTO or (for purposes of so-called intellectual property) WIPO, to agree to these terms. The merits of the U.S. corporate position and its power of persuasion was no match for nations that had no skin in the game of cowtowing to the wealthy. So what they did instead was do their own deal, and then they can say to the world, "you may not agree, but if you want to deal with us, we are bound, by this deal, to insist on certain non-negotiable terms." If this were private industry, it would be what we call a felony violation of the Sherman Act in the U.S. But instead, these corporations simply bought access to our government, which is immune from Sherman Act antitrust liability.

    3. Finally, this one is different in the humor arena. It has been the most secretive of all, for fear that if we, the people, knew the terms being negotiated, we would make a big ruckus. On the other hand, this most un-transparent and corrupt of all agreements contains a "Transparency and Anti-Corruption Chapter": http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/tpp-ptp/understanding-comprendre/24-Transparency.aspx?lang=eng

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