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Thom's blog
Why Have No Republicans Turned on Trump?
 There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. In 1976 (Buckley v. Valeo) and 1978 (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti), the Supreme Court ruled that when corporations and billionaires purchase their very own politicians, it is constitutionally protected "free speech" rather than "bribery," which is how we defined it from the beginning of our republic until 1976. In 2010, the Supreme Court doubled down on its betrayal of American democracy with its Citizens United decision. After those twin decisions in the 1970s, money from corporations and the morbidly rich began to flow into the coffers of the Republican Party, hoisting Ronald Reagan into the White House. (Democrats were then still largely funded by unions, and thus not so easily up for sale.) The spigots of cash never turned off; the 2016 election was a $6.5 billion affair. Read more here. -Thom |
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Thom's blog
Part 1 - Is Economic Disaster About to Hit & Are You Prepared?
Right now the United States and the world are facing four massive trends that, in combination, we haven’t faced since the 1920s. We are seeing the rise of a new and brutal form of governance with extraordinary industrial capacity and power in China, much as Nazi Germany rose in Europe. We are seeing the exhaustion of monetary policies as interest rates hit zero and below, much as monetary policy was failing the world badly between 1929 and 1933. We are seeing levels of inequality and poverty in previously wealthy, industrialized countries that were only last seen in 1929. And we are seeing massive governmental and private sector debt that is being used to hold together, because of low interest rates, governments and large businesses, with the latter using that debt in many cases to simply buy back their own stock rather than investing in new products or services, much as margin debt fueled the stock market mania of 1929. As these variables rush together, we find the world on the brink of a second Great Depression and a Third World War. To navigate times like these, we need intelligent and committed leadership, but instead we have a thief and a con man in the White House. This is a prescription for worldwide disaster; hopefully -Thom |
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Thom's blog
Part 2....
Artificially low interest rates are a atomic bomb embedded deep inside our economy. With interest rates in a normal range, around 5 or 6 or 7%, businesses only borrow money when they know that they can earn more money than the cost of interest with the equipment or expansion or new products they are rolling out as a result of the borrowed money. With interest rates around 1%, though, businesses don't need to make anything in order to make money; as long as the stock market is going up, all they need to do is buy their own stock, which raises stock prices and executive compensation, and then ride stock up with the market. Companies right now are buying back literally trillions of dollars worth of their own stock every year. The problem is that this adds nothing to the strength, wealth, or resilience of the companies, and when a downturn comes or interest rates start to rise these companies will be wiped out by their own debt. The CEOs who ran the share buyback Ponzi scheme will have already walked off with their hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, but the entire economy of the country will be left in shambles. We need sane monetary policy and laws to prevent this kind of extraordinarily risky behavior by corporations. -Thom |
Tuesday's Daily Stack 
Hour One: Is Economic Disaster About to Hit - Are You Prepared?
Quote: "When the last man who remembers the horrors of the last great war dies, the next great war becomes inevitable." - attributed to Arnold Toynbee.
How Do We Stop the Next Generation From Dying Young?
Bible: " Matthew 25:31-46: The Sheep and the Goats". " ...All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats... For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat ... 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"
Bible: " And Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were amazed at Him." - Mark 12:17.
Quote: " It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being at the essence of getting the nominations for president or elected president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and Congress members. So now we've just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election's over'." - President Jimmy Carter on unlimited money in politics on the Thom Hartmann Program, 28 July 2015.
Have We Reached "Peak Reaganism"...?
Quote: " each generation is as independant of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. it has then, like them, a right to chuse for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of it's own happiness: consequently to accomodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself that recieved from it's predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind that a solemn opportunity of doing this every 19. or 20. years should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation to the end of time, if any thing human can so long endure." - Thomas Jefferson. Tweet: " The Impeachment Scam is driving Republican Poll Numbers UP, UP, UP! Thank you Shifty." by Donald J. Trump. Quote: " I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans" - Bill Clinton. |
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Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET
We'll be listening to today's House Judiciary Hearings on Impeachment, plus my take and yours.
And, the best of the rest of the news along 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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Watch & Listen to Thom
Inside The Coup Against Bolivia (w/ Medea Benjamin)
Are Democrats Going Communist on Prescription Drugs? (w/ Charles Sauer)
Weighing In on Impeachment Inquiry (w/ Mark Pocan)
Allowing Predatory Private Insurance to Exist Is Insanity
An Incomplete List of Trump's Worst Crimes!
Is Poverty A National Healthcare Emergency?
How Donald Trump Betrayed America (w/ Mark Pocan)
Your Life Is On The Line In the 2020 Election
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