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.
Hi Donna,
You will not be able to expound your point of view as long as you use obscure acrnyms. TTFN.
Roland
Unemployment benefits allow workers to hope to continue earning a decent wage. That is what bothers the Repugs, whose goal is to take us back to the 1880s (if not the eighth century) when folks would grovel for the chance to work for a daily crust of bread.
Roland
Unemployment benefits are insurance paid for by the workers themselves, not by Republican scumbag plutocrats.
Roland
Well, the plutocrats (their lackeys, rather) have been working pretty hard for almost one hundred years to extinguish democracy and teach the serfs that their place is on their knees.
Roland
Sure, everyone should be able to spend $1 billion on an election and send the bill to the Kochs.
Roland
I couldn't care less about he game of football, but football politics interests me. It amazes me how these guys get paid six figures or more a year, while the NFL can't even pay their cheerleaders more than minimum wage. And those concussions will have retired fooball players too messed-up to enjoy their mcmansions or their money. It'll all get sucked into healthcare and overpriced drugs. - AIW
Dunno. It is impossible to guage the cupidy of the white trash who support Republicans.
Roland
Single payer is the only plan that makes sense. The insurance industry is a parasite. But to get this fixed we may need to deport all the traitors err, Republicans.
Roland
Well, They did put up some fancy NEW & IMPROVED stickers. The most expensive stickers ever conceived.
Roland
Not anymore, Truevet. Look at all the hospitals, built and paid for by the taxpayer that were turned over to "investors" between twenty and forty years ago. Roads and bridges? Same thing.
Roland
Sports are emphasized too much in our society, on purpose, I think. It creates a competitive ethos where the winners are lionized and the losers are sneered at. Power and predation are respected and virtues like honesty and loyalty are not and it doesn't allow for compassion for the less fortunate.
Since the '80s it progressed in tandem with the "greed is good" business and mainstream popular culture. "How you play the game" ceased to matter, only "whether you win or lose" did anymore.
The billionaires complain about their taxes being an unfair redistribution of wealth. To be accurate they only complain when tax money is redistributed to programs for citizens who are poor and in need . When the welfare recipients happen to be wealthy such as NFL owners and military industrial corporations the redistribution is viewed as an intelligent business choice. The Teapublican Party wants the unemployed parent who is at their wits' end because they lost their job do to free trade agreements to feel shame and embarrassment at having collected social safety net income. At the same time George W. Bush can arrogantly be the recipient of welfare in the millions with one shady deal and it's written off as a business investment return...LMAO!
1789!
8,000 dollars for a ticket? 4+million for a 30 second commercial. A brawl amongst the players near the end of the game. The whole event was insane. Good entertainment though. There's an old saying that sports doesn't build character. It reveals it. Lots of fun to watch. But, if the game never happened, I wouldn't miss it either. Stadium was full. Not my cup of tea. At that price, TV's good enough.
Rich of J and Intermit -- re #19 -- If 83% of the populace doesn't even know that the repugs controlled the house in the last congress, how are you going to get them to the voting booth or main st?
I don't mind building new stadiums if it brings a sports team your city. But I hate when they tear down a perfectly good one to build a new one. That's when it benifits the owner not the city.
I think Thom sure be clear about the NFL being non profit. The NFL is but the teams pay billions in taxes.
Big League Sports, Inc., especially the NFL provides living proof there's a massive amount of wealth redistribution going on. Only this time the beneficiaries are, as expected, doing whatever they can to paper over, gloss over and whatever else over the simple fact that the wealth that's being redistributed is going upwards and directly towards the sky boxes to subsidize the palatial viewing quarters the wealthy use for further deal-makin' n' brokerin'. Which of course, will no doubt lead to more of the same. During the glory days of the Roman Empire, both Rome's and Constantinople's major chariot arenas featured a "super box" off its day that was directly linked to Caesar's palace. At least the Latins and Byzantines were more upfront a b out it all.
Think of the NFL, etc., in terms of trickle down economics. This generation strongly believes in the trickle-down theory. This is how we address our poverty crisis: Increase the wealth of the middle class, and something will trickle down to the very poor. Problem solved. The extraordinary investment we make in Big Sports would be downright foolish if it didn't benefit the entire nation, serving as massive economic stimulus. After all, we're not fools, right?
While I wrote my little editorial last night I couldn't help notice all the jingoistic fanfare during the pregame show. The height of the show was the Blue Angels screeching across the sky. One has to wonder if the NFL would waste so much time and energy with patriotic excessism and pageantry if it had to pay for all those excesses out of its own pocket--as well as its fair share of taxes every year. Maybe then they would just sing a simple pre recorded anthem and skip the Blue Angels, fireworks, celebrities and parade. Who knows? How much could it possibly cost to pay the Blue Angels to buzz your little public spectacle? Maybe I can contract them for my next Birthday party?
I couldn't agree more, Thom. Good luck getting that little fact through to any fans though. I took advantage as much as I could with everyone I know to point that out yesterday. Didn't get one reply yet. Nobody cares. Everyone I spoke with is more than happy to bend over as far as possible for the NFL. Oh, well! At least it was a really good game. I feel I got a sliver of my return on investment back. Wish I could have got a return on my effort at complaining about the non-taxable status too. Maybe you'll have better luck.
Every football fan can end this on their own by not buying NFL tickets and merchandise. Without our money they have nothing. We made them filthy rich! Stop buying it!
As far as today's TH radio program,
Ms. Trotter seems to think that she wins an argument if doesn't let her opponent get a word in. Fortunately that's not possible on an Internet forum. What Thom might've said - and was trying to say - was that the reason more people are on food stamps today than ever before is because, obviously, the Great Recession, caused by Bush and the Republicans, knocked more people on the unemployment line, and thus on food stamps, than any time since the Great Depression and then the unprecedented Republican obstructionism in the Senate (500+ filibusters when the normal number is less than 10) and House (which wouldn't consider ANY of the president's initiatives - he even tried to break up his jobs\infrastructure bill into its component parts and get each passed individually) effected the egregiously reprehensible Republican strategy of sacrificing the well being of America for their own political ambitions. Thom got as far as introducing the Caucus Room conspiracy - which is not at all a far fetched story, Mitch McConnell publicly admitted his allegiance to its purpose and Newt Gingrich acknowledged the meeting and its resultant conspiracy on one of Thom's programs - which I heard.
Perhaps the most egregiously reprehensible practice of Ms. Trotter or the Republican Machine is to take advantage of the relative ignorance of the public on these matters to baldly lie to it.
chuckle8 @ 17 -- I cited my source properly, so that everyone could take it how they want. If you doubt the information you can, as always, do your own research. It seemed important to mention, but I didn't have time to dig deeper.
The action our Gov. is already taking is undisclosed to the public tho we see it happening daily above our head. Many deny the existance of global dimming not to mention the health effects of these ill advised tactics. SRM is real and is being done with out consent.
Until the TRUTH is made public I have little faith that our country will ever do the right thing. Like that movie quote that keeps haunting me "you can't handle the truth"...
I second that (RichardofJeffersonCity's comment #19).
Of course, with our system of representative democracy, we still need representatives/political leaders... (it's high time the honest politicians (not always an oxymoron) lead in getting something new and different off the ground - a not-for-sale populist political movement - Real Democracy)
Why must we wait on politicians? It is time for the people of "Main St.", which doesn't exist anymore, to organize into Democratic Unions. Let us stop pandering to the political class, and organize into massive democratic intuition - Then we could start dictating our demands to Congress instead of hoping a politicians will do the $$$right$$$ thing for the US citizenry.