• Guest: Andrew Kleit, Independent Institute. The free market and energy bills.
• "President Bush is over in the Gulf now begging the Saudis and others to drop the price of oil. How pathetic." Hillary Clinton.
• Jan. 15 Democratic debate.
• Congressman Robert Wexler, investigate Dick Cheney.
• Guest: Congressman Steny Hoyer. Economic stimulus package. Transcript.
• Tomorrow and Friday, Laura Flanders will be standing in for Thom.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Wednesday 16 January '08 National show

• Guest: Andrew Kleit, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics at Pennsylvania State University. He says says "only" the free market can cut our heating bills and serve the public good. How can you deregulate a natural monopoly? Distribution is, generation is not. He's for deregulation. Thom listed states having problems.
• Bumper Music: We're Enron, Billionaires for Bush.
• Clip:
  "President Bush is over in the Gulf now begging the Saudis and others to drop the price of oil. How pathetic." Hillary Clinton.
• Hillary Clinton said Bush was "begging". Obama is running to include people. Hillary is running as a hero. Edwards is there for the average person, but also to lead, he is going to take on entrenched special interests. Any of the three would be a good president, he would vote for them. Republican debacle. Mitt Romney won Michigan. Be careful what you wish for; he hired the PR firm that Rove hired and did John McCain. He's a 'win at any cost' guy.
• Bumper Music: My, Oh My, The Wreckers.
• Tomorrow and Friday, Laura Flanders will be standing in for Thom. He hopes his plane is not going to be cancelled.
• Clip:
  Williams: "It may not come as news to you that there's a lot of false information about you circulating on the Internet. We received one e-mail, in particular -- usually once several weeks; we've received three of them this week. This particular one alleges, among other things, that you are trying to hide the fact that you're a Muslim, that you took the oath of office on the Koran and not the Bible... that you will not pledge allegiance to the flag or generally respect it. How do you -- how does your campaign go on about combating this kind of thing? "

  Obama: "Well, look, first of all, let's make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible."

  Williams: "I figured."

  Obama: "I pledge allegiance and lead the pledge of allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I'm presiding. I haven't been there lately because I've been in Iowa and New Hampshire. But you know, look, in the Internet age, there are going to be lives that are spread all over the place. I have been victimized by these lies. Fortunately, the American people are I think smarter than folks give them credit for. You know, it's a testimony -- these e-mails were going out in Iowa. They were going out in New Hampshire. And we did just fine.

  If we didn't do well, for example, in New Hampshire, it wasn't because of these e-mails. It was because we didn't do what we needed to do in our campaign. "
  Jan. 15 Democratic debate.

• The problem is that Obama email is going to Republicans. It is having less of an effect on Democratic primaries. It's mutating and getting worse.
• Article: Michigan Results Reveal Some Dangerous Trends For Clinton.
• The political calculation that would go into the choice of vice president if a Democrat won.
• Interview: Thom Hartmann: Edwards Next Potential FDR, Obama Next JFK, December 11, 2007.
• Book: "Portrait Of A President", William Manchester.
• When the candidates were asked what their main weakness was, Obama said his desk was disorganized. Jack Kennedy was the same and was always losing things; Thom calls him a 'high functioning person with ADHD' in one of his ADHD books.
• Bumper Music: I Won't Back Down, Johnny Cash.
• Bumper Music: The Mail Must Go Through, Larry Groce & The Disneyland Children's Sing Along Chorus (clip).
• Guest: Congressman Robert Wexler, wexlerwantshearings.com. He said:
  

  What I'm trying to do is simply get the House Judiciary Committee to open up hearings regarding the very serious, substantive allegations that have been made against Dick Cheney which relate to the precise powers of the Vice Presidency. These are the things I think we need to inquire about:

  • whether the Vice President manipulated intelligence which brought us into war in Iraq on false pretence
  • whether or not he knowingly ordered the illegal use of torture
  • whether the Vice President exposed covert agents for political purposes, and
  • whether he and his subordinates obstructed federal investigations by ignoring subpoenas, and
  • to examine how the vice president has abused executive privilege.

  And one of the things I think some people are not aware of, that the Bush/Cheney team has abused executive privilege far more than any other administration in history in my view, and the one aspect of impeachment hearings that is different than all other hearings or Congressional inquiries, is that executive privilege is not available to the administration.

  United States v Nixon. The Watergate tapes did not emerge until after hearings had begun. And many who were opposed to impeachment but let hearings go ahead became in favour of impeachment once the tapes came out. Ask your Congress people to have hearings. The House of Representatives should fulfill its constitutional obligation to find out the truth. Dennis Kucinich has put forward a bill calling for impeachment. Kucinich has taken a leadership position, and been very steadfast in illuminating the abuses for the people. His forcing the issue on the House enabled Wexler to make progress. Will this issue become part of mainstream discussion in the Democratic Party? It is among the public, but not the mainstream media and DC. He listened to Town Hall meetings, and he rethought his initial reaction not to hold hearings. democrats.com. afterdowningstreet.org.

• Bumper Music: It's My Life, The Animals.
• Article: The Antarctic ice sheet hits the fan.
• Article: Microsoft seeks patent for office 'spy' software.
• Article: Wi-Fi Users, Beware: Hot Spots Are Weak Spots.
• Bumper Music: Season Of The Witch, Donovan.
• Article: Iraq: Awoken To A New Danger. Awakening forces.
• Bumper Music: Yes Sir No Sir, Beth Nielsen Chapman.
• Article: How the Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. Iran threat. general Henry Obering said the missile defense system in Europe is needed. She's at the UN. The Security Council may take up more sanctions against Iran. Commondreams.org lead story on how the Pentagon planted a false Hormuz story. ACLU privacy, supporting Larry Craig. John Boehner on earmarks. Bush exempted the navy from restrictions on sonar. Steny Hoyer. Bush becomes a blogger today: he will dictate it. Afghanistan; Gates thinks NATO don't know how to combat guerillas.
• Video: Thom Hartmann - Is There Liberal Fascism?. Thom Hartmann confronts National Review's Jonah Goldberg www.randomhouse.com on his new book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.
• Clip:
  "But I have to say, it's not enough to talk about the extraordinary service of men and women who are wearing the uniform and have worn the uniform of the United States of America. Tonight across this country, 200,000 men and women who wore our uniform and served this country patriotically, veterans, will go to sleep under bridges and on grates. We have men and women coming back from Iraq with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, other kind of emotional problems; many with serious physical injuries. EDWARDS: We have families who are here at home, while they serve in Iraq, who are having a terrible time paying for child care, paying the bills. We have reservists and members of the Guard who go to serve and get paid 50 cents, 60 cents on the dollar for what they were making in their civilian jobs. What are we going to do about this? Every man and woman who comes back from Iraq or Afghanistan deserves to have a thorough comprehensive evaluation of their medical needs, including mental health needs and physical health needs. Every one of them ought to get job training if they need it, and additional education if they need it. We, America, you know, we should help them find a job. They didn't leave us on our own, we shouldn't leave them on their own. And we need to narrow this gap between civilian pay and military pay, and help these families with their child care. And then finally, for all the veterans who have served this country, we need a guaranteed stream of funding for the Veterans Administration so we don't have veterans waiting six months or a year to get the health care that they deserve."
  John Edwards, Democratic Debate in Las Vegas, 15 January 2008.
• Bumper Music: Signs, Five Man Electrical Band.
• Clip:
  [Beck]: "I have to tell you, I said on my radio show today, I`m beginning to come to a place where I just -- I love my grandfather, but I just want to slap himself across the face for liking FDR. I think that was one evil son of a bitch."

  [Moore]: "Well, he certainly left us the bills, no doubt about it."

  [Beck]: "He sure did. And he was the first one to go in and say, hey, let`s nationalize health care and energy and everything else. And made this depression go on and on and on for a decade."

  [Moore]: "And he was the one, Glenn, who was the first president in history, who said, you know, deficits are good."

  [Beck]: "Yes."

  [Moore]: "Let`s run up the deficit. Let`s live high on the hogs. Well, and then we`ll let the future generations, our kids pay for it."
  Glenn Beck and Stephen Moore, senior economic writer at "The Wall Street Journal", January 15, 2008.

• Franklin Roosevelt never said deficits were good. He ran a major deficit during the last year of World War Two in order to pay for the war. He said that government had to be the employer of last resort. He got the US out of the Great Depression. He established the foundation for the biggest and strongest and most powerful middle class ever which has been systematically deconstructed since 1980.
• Quote: "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." First Inaugural Address March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Bumper Music: The Truth, Good Charlotte.
• Article: Big Business Is Even More Unpopular Than You Think.
• Bumper Music: Hold on tight to your dreams, ELO.
• Guest: Congressman Steny Hoyer. Economic stimulus package. Transcript.