Quote: "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." Malcolm Forbes.
Is the Capital Gains program to help kids get good grades good school policy or "government bribery?"Article: 'Nightly News' Promotes Paying Children for Public School Success By Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute.
Guest: Dan Gainor, Vice President & T. Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow at the Business and Media Institute. "Has it really come to this...paying children to succeed in school?! A program where students are paid for grades. Thom thought they should pay their kids for grades, Louise not. Studies show vouchers have no effect on performance, the background of parents makes the difference. but apparently paying does. Voucher problems. The test is, do people want something? Rich people will always send kids to private school. Thom is concerned about paying to pass test, rather than education.
Bumper Music: School's Out, Alice Cooper.
Bumper Music: The Mail Must Go Through, Larry Groce & The Disneyland Children's Sing Along Chorus (clip).
Post: Did Thom make a mistake on this? by Richard C. Swedish economy.
Education is the largest variable, best predictor is not quality of school or race background but their income. And we have a crisis in education, go back to LBJ's war on poverty, a great society that cares for all, Clinton's ending welfare as we know it. If the minimum wage had tracked productivity over 30 years, it would be $16-18, but the difference has gone to profits, the rich.
Bumper Music: (Remember The Days Of The) Old Schoolyard, Cat Stevens (video).
Rove was deposed yesterday, they will not release details until later, it is confusing just how much later. Attorney scandal. Was the Siegelman case brought up?
Harry Reid said yesterday to Baucus, stop trying to make nice with Republicans. Thank him.
Marijuana Policy Project of California video, California Tax and Regulate TV spot. Lots of TV stations are refusing to carry it.
Bumper Music: Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Paul Simon.
Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
Article: Police: Connecticut man shows up naked and 5 days late for dental appointment.
Article: Inside The Great American Bubble Machine. Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression .
Has Goldman Sachs taken over the economy of the United States and used it to screw us?
Article: Regulator considers US curbs on oil trading By Joanna Chung in New York and Miles Johnson in London.
Guest: GOLDMAN SACHS, CORPORATE GREED AND HOW THEY KILLED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY. Investigative journalist & Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi joins Thom to talk about his revelations on Goldman Sachs, corporate greed and their role in bringing down America’s economy. The company has pushed back after his article. They usually say no comment to everything. He sent them a list of questions before he wrote his story, and they declined. They have since said that they are conspiracy theories, invented. Paulson. Goldman alumni are in the Obama administration and heads of Canadian, Italian, World banks, the New York Fed and others. 100 years ago. Start? They created trusts, sold shares to the public, bought some to raise the price. Similar in Internet IPO years. They overwrote 1/5, they were leader. It was the end of standards for IPOs. The oil price spike was mostly Goldman and Morgan Stanley. Oil was traded 29 times before use. This morning Obama talking abut regulating oil? Gary Gensler head of commission, a former Goldman Sachs banker, heavily involved. b Bernie Sanders and others demanded sweeping reforms. There is a lot of opposition.
And they're about to do it gain. Cap and trade, billions for environment lobbying. Not tax, but new commodities. The number of credits made available will go down, so the value will go up. Buy futures that will increase. Doing it as credits not tax means people can make money. OpenSecrets.org. Goldman Sachs was Obama's top donor, and other Democrats. $4 to Democrats for each $1 to Republicans. What can, should be done? Growing awareness, Congress is beginning to feel the heat. Lobby your Congressman. Goldman has an in with both parties. Gramm, Clinton. Bring back the Glass Steagall Act? Start with stop giving them money.
Article: Cops: Man went naked to dental appointment.
Article: Ahmadinejad Tries To Swat Large Fly During Speech, Fails (VIDEO).
Upcoming Events: Thom's book tour for "Threshold":
July 27th - Portland, OR - Baghdad Theater & Powell's Books 7p
July 30th - Seattle, WA - Town Hall. Details TBA
Aug 4th - San Francisco, CA - World Affairs Council. Details TBA
Aug 5th - Santa Monica, CA - Santa Monica Library. Details TBA
Aug 17th - Minneapolis, MN - details TBA
Aug 19th - Chicago, IL - details TBA
Aug 21st - Madison, WI - details TBA
Thom is signing some copies of "Threshold" for Buzzflash.
Mini rant about money is energy.
Bumper Music: Jai Ho Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack.
Decriminalization of marijuana. Phillip Morris would sell it. Better than tobacco? They put ammonia in tobacco. We've figured out how to deal with different alcohol content.
Overpopulation. Dead enders shouldn't vote?
Book: The Family : The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau.
Book: Killing the Buddha : A Heretic's Bible by Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau.
Killing the Buddha : School of the Undivine site.
Topic: Is there a secret society of Christian crazies and is Mark Sanford a member?
Guest: "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG": Sanford, Ensign and the self proclaimed 'Christian Mafia' known as "The Family". Jeff Sharlet, contributing editor for Harper’s and Rolling Stone and an associate research scholar at New York University’s Center for Religion and Media, where he has taught journalism and religious studies and edits TheRevealer.org. Co-editor of the just published "Believer, Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith". We have misunderstand the Christian right, this organization is older than Pat Robertson, etc. Sanford and Ensign. "Stealth persuader". The more invisible you can make your organization, the more influential you can be. Some argue that AA is a cult, although highly decentralized, but it is not trying to influence power.
Is the family just a support group? He would have said so if he had not done his research. A Somalia dictator wrote to leader Doug Coe, said he would agree to pray to Jesus with Grassley, for conditions. The Family did it. A family in Obama funded ES&S and newspapers, some of whose members suggest the constitution should be replaced by the bible, is the Family in that realm? There is a little overlap. Liberals are not recognizing populist fundamentalism and elite fundamentalism. Religion of the status quo. The Taft-Hartley Act, the family began as union-busting. Biblical capitalism. They don't want theocracy, but corporate government - fascism. They took on Hitler people who would turn from Hitler to Jesus. They remain strong, influential, been around 70 years. Obama not taking on. Hillary is a friend of the group, says Doug Coe is a genuine loving guy.
Article: Senators Buck Obama, Urge Progressives To Keep Targeting Dems On Health Care.
" "My own view is that constitution of this country provides the right of the people to get actively involved in the political process and express their point of view," the Senator told the Huffington Post. "Barack Obama would not have been elected as president of the United States without the active support of many of those people.
"I hear from people every single day who are very upset that single payer has not been given a real hearing or a real open acceptance in terms of at least being part of the debate," Sanders added. "So there's that reality. But to suggest that the people who helped elect Barack Obama, the strong grassroots activists who are fighting for working people and fighting for the environment should not be actively involved in this process, in demanding that at the very least every United States Senator in the Democratic Caucus agree to stop a Republican filibuster, I think if that message is coming from the White House it's an unfortunate message. It's a wrong message. We should encourage people to participate in the process."
"
Good news - Harry Reid says we have 60 votes, we can ignore filibuster attempts if we all vote to stop debate, whatever you vote on the actual bill. Mary Landrieu says she refuses procedural straightjackets. Ben Nelson says he doesn't know. The bad news is that Obama is against progressive ads on health care. Bernie's reaction. Ron Wyden has been the recipient of ads, says it is ok, 1st amendment.
Bumper Music: Dizzy, Tommy Roe.
Article: Dimwitted thieves steal fake cell phones in Mexico.
Article: Class Claims Swim Club Barred Black Kids.
Clip: "Too much and for too long we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product now is over 800 billion dollars a year, but that gross national product, if we judge the United States of America by that, that gross national product counts air pollution, and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic squall. It counts Napalm, and it counts nuclear warheads, and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our city. It counts Whitman's rifles and Speck's Knifes and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet, the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play; it does not include the beauty of our poetry of the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate for the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country it measures everything in short except that which makes life worth while. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."
Remarks of Robert F. Kennedy at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968.
Bumper Music: Democracy is coming to the USA, Leonard Cohen.
Member of the day was Richard Adlof who won a copy of "Cracking The Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, & Restore America’s Original Vision" for blogging:
Pay teachers, fire-fighters and cops ONE BUCK more than the median income of the area that they serve!!!!!! AND subsidize their living in the communities they serve.
Victoria Jones of Talk Radio News. Rove deposed, Siegelman? Any information out? What comes next? Nobody knows. Today the VP announcement about health care, hospitals to give up some Medicare and Medicaid to help pay for changes. Admission of enormous waste or profit, etc. The rest of what he said. We must and we will enact reform by the end of August. Harry Reid telling 60 to vote to stop filibusters, and Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson complaining. Herding cats. Others won't. Trent Lott. Flex muscles. The next vote could be this week.
