I agree with you Outback. The reaction by some women has been over the top and disgraceful. Instead of rejoicing in a world where we are co-equals, it seems many just want to take their revenge out on every person who is male and make us culpable for the evil of these creeps like the Weinsteins and Cosbys. They are putting all men into their category and I think it's unfair. Yes, women have been victimized, but it's more by our culture.

Wow, what insight! Thank you, Thom, for explaining the past six thousand years of hunman evolution in terms of the "me too" movement. I believe that there are alternative realities. How about this one: Women have ALWAYS held the upper hand. They just let us testosterone driven slobs THINK we have the upper hand. Sure, there are abuses, but they cut both ways. I think you're making this way too simple.

11-14-17 show - Authoritarian

You missed a big difference.. There is a huge difference between a CORRECTIVE father who corrects the child nicely, and being an ABUSIVE father (child beater). The abusive father is almost all we hear from Republicans these days. It seems to go with Fascism..

But there still are still a few GOOD Republicans that do good every now and then, and they DO deserve credit. BTW.. I was a hard core Republican until George Jr. lied about the weapons of mass destruction. Then I woke up.

Put a microphone in front of every Republican's face and ask whether (s)he supports cutting billions from Medicare.

I wonder if ikebertersen has been listening to Thom long enough to hear Thom talk about the two Santa Claus theory. The theory (actually political plan) published in the NY Times in the 1970's by Jude Wanniski.

My oh my, how the issues that matter to Republicans change with the political winds. Remember during the Bush administration when they routinely rubberstamped increases to the national debt, to borrow for Bush's tax cut, unfunded Medicare Part D, and the war on terror? Then Obama inherited the Great Recession, with the economy in free fall. His first year, 2009, the deficits piled up as revenue dried up, all of this predicted by the CBO. Cue the Republican outrage over the national debt. Never mind that the deficit was already 'baked in the cake,' and most of the year was on Bush's budget, suddenly the debt was THE most important issue ever. In subsequent years, the Obama administration reduced deficits, as a percent of GDP, to the lowest levels since the Eisenhower administration. That did not matter to Republicans, who could only chant "20 trillion dollars debt!" over and over.

Now Republicans are in power again, and, presto, chango, deficits don't matter anymore. Maybe a lot of people have short memories, but I don't. Republicans are frauds.

Thom, your comments about how we are NOT FREE are right on! So well said! Please say it more! Thank you!

Thanks Thom! I'm baffeled by the con job big corporations have done in obscuring the real issue behind the trade imbalance: the unwillingness of the American "consumer" to pay a fair price for consumer goods. Folks tell me they shop at Wally World because products are cheaper and they have no other choice. Phoey! We in the West massively over-consume as it is, so the moral thing to do is to reduce, reuse, and recycle, which is an old Sierra Club phrase. Small towns all over America are folding and forcing our children to move to already massively overcrowded cities (how's that air quality in Delhi or Beijing or LA or NYC or...?) because we are not willing to pay a few more dollars at a local hardware, or 5 and 10 store, or local grocery store for our products. 15 of the mega-container ships plying our oceans bringing cheaply made goods from near slave labor factories in China and Indochina emit as much CO2 as ALL THE AUTOS IN THE WORLD, and there are over 60 of them, as well as 50,000 smaller ones! Think global, but shop local and save the planet. Take responsibility for your behavior and stop blaming those in power. Take back the power, one purchase at a time.

Is there any refuge of sanity anywhere anymore?

​Snooore... Another week, another episode of "Life and Lies in La La Land" with thread after thread of grossly ignorant and sadly misinformed Republican trolls and/or phony Democratic turncoats on full display, trying desperately to have their paranoid conspiracy theories, Hillary hate, and right-wing fantasies taken seriously...

What a load of pure crap! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were only banker-owned bit players in the larger story of the deregulated shadow banking system that exploded after the Village Idiot and his Wall Street minders deregulated the financial industry and cut taxes on the rich back in the early 2000s. It's a direct link. The actual history goes far beyond the hyper-partisan lies, half-truths, and one-sided, self-serving, corporate propaganda fed to the cowed-eyed mannequins staring blankly at their Fux News' idiot boxes.

And now, the same dynamic is on the verge of repeating history. In the real world, there are many true accounts written about the underlying causes of the world-wide economic meltdown of 2007-8 ...and a cesspool full of funny books. Guess which political party is trying to rewrite the history?

Legend, you're on the right side of history. Perhaps you may have already read these, but out of several books in my library on the subject, these two well-written and engaging accounts are perhaps some of the best as far as understanding in layman terms what actually happened:

BAILOUT by Neil Barofsky and GRIFTOPIA by Matt Taibbi.

@#50,

Yea, thats the one. It was ending in 2009.

Let's have a look at the timeline and how this came to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

You mean the Great Recession that started in 2007. Caused by banksters, derivatives, cutting of revenues (taxes for the wealthy) and massive increases in Defense spending. Are we repeating that? Seems like the Republican plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession_in_the_United_States

Let's see what we can do for Medicaid and SS disability. The Republicans just passed a budget that cut Medicaid by $1.5 Trillion and SS by $0.5 Trillion. That should really help.

I agree, age of the individual is a huge factor. So is an individuals attitude toward health care. I believe the more choices available for anything, healthcare included, makes a better society. Isn't that what diversity is all about?

I don't know enough about mental health to have an opinion. Since it is an area where results are difficult to measure, it's ripe for fraud.

To use a baseball analogy, it's government's job to call balls & strikes. It's the citizens right to live their lives. It's not the umpires nor the government's job to decide the outcome.