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Thom's blog
The GOP Death Panel
The death panels are real and they’ve been found! Back in 2009 when the healthcare debate was at its most crazy, Republicans warned us that once Obamacare was passed, government officials would get to ration health care, and as a result, have control over the life and death of millions of Americans. They called the group of bureaucrats who supposedly got to make these decisions “death panels.”
The idea of death panels had actually been swirling around the right wing media echo chamber for a while, but it really crossed over into the mainstream when Sarah Palin talked about it in an August, 2009 Facebook note. Palin said that if the healthcare bill became law, people like her disabled son would “have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats [could] decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
Soon everyone, pundits and politicians alike, was talking about death panels. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, for example, told a crowd of supporters on August 11, 2009 that the House version of the healthcare bill would allow government “to decide when to pull the plug on grandma." Grassley’s warning about a grandmother-killing socialist plan was just one of the many such scare stories told by Republicans that summer.
It’s easy to laugh at them now with 8 million more Americans getting health insurance because of Obamacare and people's lives actually being saved by Obamacare, but the ironic thing is, people like Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley who warned us about death panels were actually kind of right. All across the country right now, people are literally dying because politicians are denying them the healthcare they need to survive, and it does have something to do with Obamacare.
-Thom
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Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Welcome to the two new internet realities... (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)
Have a question or comment for Thom? Grab your phone, hit record and send your video to YourTakeMyTake@gmail.com and we may air it on "The Big Picture."
The Best of the Rest...
Daily Take: The GOP death panels...
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Tuesday's Daily Stack
Hour One: CO Passes "Right to Try" Law - Is it Safe?- Lucy Caldwell, The Goldwater Institute
The Big Picture- Nate Sweet, The Big Picture producer
Plus, Help Ben & Jerry's get the $$$ out of politics- Ben Cohen, StampStampede.org / WAmend.org
Hour Two: Who wins big if net neutrality dies?- America's Lawyer Mike Papantonio, Ring of Fire Radio
Plus, the new populism...how we take back America- Roger Hickey, Campaign for America's Future
Hour Three: Great Medicine, but Nobody's Getting Rich
Speech: " A Rendezvous With Destiny", Franklin D. Roosevelt, 27 June 1936 speech to the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. " These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power."
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Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 3-6pm ET
Hour One: Sovereign Citizens, Oath Keepers, American Spring...oh my!- Sheriff Richard Mack
PLUS, Tag...they're IT!- Jeff Golden, Our Family Farms Coalition.
Hour Two: What happens when the bees are gone?- Greg Loarie, Earth Justice
Hour Three: The GOP death panels...
PLUS, PDA Progressive Round Table- Michael Lighty, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)
And, the best of the rest of the news and your calls right here on...
The Thom Hartmann Program...your media support group for "we the people"...
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Thursday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 3-6pm ET
We'll have the best of the rest of the news...all the latest news & information you won't be hearing from the corporate owned news media...
And, my favorite segment of the week...geeky science together with your calls right here on...
The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"
And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...
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Thom's Poll
Is there a new populist movement gaining steam in the U.S.?
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Watch & Listen to Thom
Watch the Full "Big Picture" Show...
Full Show 5/20/14: FCC Chair Defends Net Neutrality Plan
Thom discusses FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's testimony on net neutrality with Attorney and Radio Host Mike Papantonio and how to hide from the NSA by encrypting your web data with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Yan Zhu. Tonight's "Politics Panel" discusses today's primaries, the Koch Brothers plan to kill Detroit's pensions and Obama's bizarre nomination of Michael Boggs. In tonight's "Daily Take" Thom discusses how the Koch Brothers are taking their war on workers on the road.
The New Populism...How we Take Back America
Help Ben & Jerry's get the $$$ out of Politics!
The Thom Hartmann Program - May 20, 2014
Who wins BIG if Net Neutrality Dies?
Great Medicine, but Nobody's Getting Rich
CO Passes "Right to Try" Law - Is it Safe?
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Show Info
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Thom and Louise Hartmann founded the New England Salem Children's Village (NESCV) in New Hampshire in 1979. With states delaying payment for the children they entrust to the village, they need help with cash flow. Can you help? Now on Facebook.
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