• Guest: David Sirota. Can Barack Obama win the presidency?
• Guest: Carrie Lukas, Independent Women's Forum. Why are Republicans in favor of throwing people out of their homes?
• Have we passed the point where humanity is doomed? Transcript.
• Guest: Karen Ackerman, Political Director, AFL-CIO. AFL-CIO launches major new push to expose Senator John McCain's economic record and disastrous health care proposals.

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

Monday 12 May '08 show

• Article: Democrat country keeps its distance from Obama.
  "Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

  "I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife's an atheist," said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

  Mr Simpson's remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of tomorrow's primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls...

  Josh Fry, a 24-year-old ambulance driver from Williamson, insisted he was not racist but said he would feel more comfortable with Mr McCain, the 71-year-old Vietnam war hero, in the White House. "I want someone who is a full-blooded American as president," he said.

  "
• Book: The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington, David Sirota, May 27th, 2008.
• Guest: David Sirota. Can Barack Obama win the presidency? People can talk about misogyny; the Hillary nutcracker, testicle lockbox, but not racism. West Virginia does not appear to fit in his thesis as it is 5% black. He says it is a special case; it doe not have its own media market because there is not a single large city; it shares bits of other states' media markets. New Hampshire and Delaware are similar. The Reverend Wright publicity accentuated Obama's black aspects, and was deliberately used. Sirota has a book "The Uprising" coming out in couple of weeks. Race will be offset in general by a higher black turnout, and moderate suburban swing voters. It is different to JFK's Catholicism which was less obvious, known than Obama's blackness.
• Upcoming Event: May 16, Darien, Chicago, Il. 7pm. Talk and book signing at Frugal Muse bookstore.
• Upcoming Event: May 17, Chicago, Il. Chicago Green Festival. He'll be at the WCPT Booth from 11am - 1pm and speaks to the crowd at 1pm. He'll sign his new book directly after.
• Article: Domestic spying far outpaces terrorism prosecutions.
• Movie: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. Lots of nudity etc. but funny. It parodies racism. America is becoming so much more diverse. Hillary AP quote last week. We should say we are Americans first. There are no genes for race. Talk about the issues facing America first.
• Bumper Music: Brothers of the Highway, George Strait.
• Thom wanted to become a long haul trucker.
• Bumper Music: What a Friend we have in W, Jim Terr, The Mornin' Pumpernickel Choir, Blue Canyon Productions.
• Article: Hagee Reneges On Retraction Of His Katrina Comments: ‘God Always Punishes Unconfessed Sin’.
• Radio Lady: Hillary Clinton has been verbally lynched and some of the perpetrators are right here.
• Article: OH THIS IS RICH! Latest Clinton Ad Uses Newspaper Clipping on TROOPERGATE!.
• Ron Paul talking about metaphorically blowing up the Republican convention.
• Thom is not calling for Hillary to drop out.
• Use 'European American' for 'white' like 'African American' for 'black'? Most Americans are mongrels. The terms are divisive. Dick Gregory said of whites, "you look pink to me".
• Bumper Music: Running down a Dream, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
• "On Friday, a military judge barred Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, “from participating in the case against Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver.” Hamdan’s lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, alleged Hartmann’s “dual role of supervising the prosecution and providing legal advice to the commissions administrator, who must make impartial rulings,” constituted a “conflict of interest.”"
  ThinkFast: May 12, 2008.
• Phil called and described his experience at a Frank Luntz focus group.
• Guest: Carrie Lukas, Vice President for Policy and Economics, Independent Women's Forum. Author, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism". Why are Republicans in favor of throwing people out of their homes? Theirs is a conservative website. Why bail out just some? One third were responsible and stayed renting, and others are sacrificing to make their payments. This is for victims of fraud, not bailing out banks. Abandonment of homes is 2%, this is being people being turfed out. Somebody's going to have to pay. Thom said the bubble is due to deregulation and Greenspan's low interest rates to help Bush. Some people waited and should be able to buy as the price comes down - they lose out if the price is not allowed to fall. Neighborhood Stabilization Act. A caller suggested that since an increase in unemployment leads to higher crime rates, social conservatives are betraying themselves if they vote against anything that helps keeps families together. Carrie said we don't see the people less obviously impacted. Programs like this reduce the consequences. In Ohio and Florida 75% of foreclosures were traced back to fraud. Loan officers inflated values, but they would not be helped by the bill. Somebody relaxed "prudent". She said banks would be shielded by this legislation. Thom said no, it is the GOP proposals that would do that.
• Ron Paul, social security.
• Article: Germany calls for higher health standards for EU food imports.
• Bumper Music: Troubadour, George Strait.
• Competition. Before the last segment of the show, go to thomhartmann.com and post a comment in response to today's "On the Program" entry. The winner gets a signed copy of .
  The winner was caryltrager for:
  

  Thom, with regard to stereotyping, when you were referring to your mother-in-law you said, "Well, she's in her 70's 'but' she's great" or some such adjective. (this with regard to the movie you saw) Many of us in our 70's are "great", progressive, liberal, active, with it, etc., etc. I know you didn't mean it that way, but it made me laugh. The 'consciences' of those of us over 70 were probably being raised before you were born.

• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. She was back in the US, on a train in a station. Breakfast with Senator Harry Reid, who spoke about Senator Hillary Clinton coming back to the Senate if she loses; she would not be the first. A lot of people think she is after his job. Thom thinks she should have it. Filibusters - they have slow motioned everything, including Mothers Day. He should have made the people realize it by making them filibuster. She thinks he does a good job pulling people together behind the scenes. FEC, one guy they will not let be approved. Republicans need the FEC more than Democrats, but Democrats need it for a McCain probe. Bush has taught his puppets to be more Orwellian than he is. War supplemental in 3 phases next week - overall, added items such as a GI bill, and bringing troops home. It will go to the House first. Bush will veto. He will veto farming bill, but there is so much pork that it will get past him.
• Have we passed the point where humanity is doomed? George Bush's and John McCain's procrastination. CO2 levels now 387 parts per million (ppm). James Hanson saying that anything above 350 ppm could make things much worse. Transcript.
• Article: World carbon dioxide levels highest for 650,000 years, says US report.
  "Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

  The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm - the fourth year in the last six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

  "
• Article: Civilization’s Last Chance: The Planet Is Nearing a Tipping Point on Climate Change, and It Gets Much Worse, Fast, Bill McKibben.
• Article: Spoiled Americans Fail the Green Test.
• Article: McCain urges free-market principles to reduce global warming.
  "He also took a swipe at President Bush, who balked at the beginning of his term at signing the Kyoto global warming protocols. McCain said he would return to the negotiating table.

  "I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach -- an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation," he said.

  "
• Bumper Music: I like it like that, Dave Clark Five (video).
• Guest: Karen Ackerman, Political Director, AFL-CIO. AFL-CIO launches major new push to expose Senator John McCain's economic record and disastrous health care proposals. McCain's speech. Denmark. European dream. They are doing walks, going to do 22 states. Anti-union, card check adverts costing millions. They are mobilizing union voters.
• Bumper Music: In Your Mind, Johnny Cash.
• What is activism?
• Bumper Music: You can leave your hat on, Randy Newman.
• Article: Woman leaves Calif., takes nearly-naked activism to Oregon.
• Global warning. Methane in permafrost. It won't effect what we take into our bodies? Soda pop effect. Methane hydrate. Greenhouse gas. The previous time there was a lot of it, naturally, it reacted with oxygen and oxygen dropped from 30% to 10% of the atmosphere. The first life was methane based. Trees are the lungs of the planet.
• Book: "Silent Spring", Rachel Carson.
• China pollution, water, cancer. US Love Canal, Silent Spring, China going through the same phases on steroids. Capitalism can exist in an authoritarian country. China is fascist. By fiat they can produce changes much more quickly, like the one child rule, so it is possible they could sort it out quickly.
• Bumper Music: Welcome To Wherever You Are, Bon Jovi.