Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Prospects for American fascism should be taken seriously.
http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/09/15/chris-hedges-dark-vision/co...
Americans will never learn.
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/15/us-to-pump-thousands-of-combat-enable...
Would there be some way to start a movement to boycott health insurance companies? If we could get everyone to line up with just one company, like Kaiser for example, then we could put everyone else out of business, without needing approval from the Senate Health Committee.
Death Panels
The Nazi Party continues to say that the Dems health care plan will create death panels. Actually, it is our Nazi insurance companies setting up death oanels.
http://sickforprofit.com/
I am very concerned about the fact that the debate about whether or not health care will be provided to illegal immigrants has been stirred up by the right simply to further divide those in support of a public option. The Senate committee, President Obama, and just about everyone in favor of health care reform understands that illegal immigrants need to have health care, but they are being forced to argue this and put the no health care for illegal immigrants clause in this first bill.
I think that all of us need to stop talking about this issue because we will wind up having to remove health care for illegal immigrants from emergency room policies if we don't stop the discussion right now!
The right has succeeded in turning this issue into a wedge issue and we need to stop talking about it, and focus on the public option. We must debate health care for illegal immigrants after we get the bill out of the senate committee. We cannot let a bill pass without making sure illegal immigrants can see a doctor, but we also cannot allow the right to use this issue to slow the bill down again.
Arlington ISD cancels 5th-grade field trip to see Bush
Six days after drawing fire for not showing President Barack Obama's speech to schoolchildren, Arlington Superintendent Jerry McCullough announced Monday that he also will not be allowing 600 fifth-graders to attend a Super Bowl event next week featuring former President George W. Bush.
http://www.star-telegram.com/local/story/1612049.html
I would amend the citizenship clause in the 1st section of the XIV Amendment with this:
"All Persons born to two Citizens of the United States, or born within the United States to one Citizen thereof, are natural-born Citizens of the United States. All other persons shall not be citizens of the United States, unless naturalized according to procedure set by law, and subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States. Every citizen of the United States shall be a citizen of the State wherein he resides. The Congress may establish procedures for citizens to voluntarily forfeit citizenship, but no sentence in a court of law shall include loss of citizenship of a natural-born citizen."
To put it in simpler terms, there are 3 ingredients: the citizenship of each parent of, and the birthplace of, the individual in question. If any 2 of those are of the same country, the individual is a natural-born citizen of that country. If all 3 are different or if the individual wants to become a citizen of some other country, then the individual must be naturalized.
If every country used this rule, it would provide natural-born citizenship to everyone except a person whose parents are citizens of two different countries and who is born in a third (which should be rare). It also has the advantage of giving a Constitutional definition of "natural-born citizen".
Separate from the economics of the immigration issue, my experience with illegal or legal immigrants have been very positive and refreshing. I have had several building projects and have had both Caucasian Americans and immigrant contractors work for me. I cannot tell for sure if these immigrants were legal or illegal. In my experience, the immigrant contractors were not necessarily cheaper, but were definitely more honest, hard working, friendly, and timely. I preferred working with these groups of people over the "Americans". The American group were generally unprofessional, not as honest, messy, and not very pleasant to be around. This is just my experience. But I feel that we have forgotten what the real immigrant experience is. After all, in a historical sense most of us are immigrants.
There is a book out, "I Hate People." It is a popular book because more and more Americans hate people. I have read parts of the book.
. this country is being run by corporate power. we need a strong government that will put restrictions on corporations. corporations bottom line is profit . they will do anything for profit. they will pay fines and drag out court cases as long in the end they see profit. our country has lead coups based on corporate power. why do others countries may hate us i say its because our country has backed corporate power around the world.
Thom is in D.C. for an immigration conference. Let me start with some truisms.
H1B visas have no limit on the numbers of immigrants entering our country.
Corporations control governments and they decide how many immigrants will enter our country. Corporations want cheap labor for profits and they keep the salaries down for profits. More immigrants can destroy the unions. Reagan's amnesty for immigrants opened the flod gates for more immigrants.
We have 40,000,000 legal and illegal immigrants in our country and that number will grow dramatically in the years to come. The United States can have a population of 650,000,000 by 2050 and over a billion population by 2100. Where will the jobs be for workers?
SSI benefits are given to grandparents who enter this country to be with sons and/or daughters who are legal immigrants in our country.
Ok, you can't embed YouTube videos so here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4
Had to share this with you Thom.
We're #37!
I don't know if anyone noted this already, but the PBS special "Sick Around The World" is available for viewing online:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/
There are few dirty little secrets that you very rarely hear mentioned as a part of the debate regarding illegal immigrants.
Employers and big business are not the only ones exploiting these people, what about the billions of dollars generated through the use false social security numbers that line government coffers that illegal workers will never see a dime of?
If we really wanted to stop most illegal immigrates from coming to our country, it certainly would not be that difficult.
Just simply enact laws that would punish employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants, and tighten up border security (wasn’t that suppose to happen back in 2001 anyway?).
Thom,
You had a caller on Monday who said he spent three-hundred-some-odd dollars making the trip to Washington for the Million Moron March, and you complimented him on his activism having spent his own money rather that getting on the right wing bus.
I have a different take on his trip as well as why so many people are going out of their way, sometimes at their own expense - and here’s the key – spending their own time in an effort accomplish what is contradictory to their own best interests. It’s all about entertaining oneself. Our populace, aside from being “dumbed down”, is bored. And since the 1980’s the entertainment media, television in particular, has conditioned us to regard insults as comedy, lies as nothing more than a trivial offense and deception as valid means by which one can further their cause. What we saw in the healthcare town hall meetings is not unlike something you might expect when you tune into say the Jerry Springer show. What we continue to see out of our representatives as they promote outright lies and deception, is not unlike Tommy Flanagan, the Pathological Liar (Jon Lovitz – Saturday Night Live) “"Yeahhh! That's the ticket!"
Your caller paid for a holiday, a vacation to a theme park of sorts. And all these Tea Bagger’s and the like are doing nothing more than entertaining themselves, and doing so at great expense. Unfortunately all of us as a society will pay dearly for what is nothing more than a few hours, a few weeks or a few months of mindless entertainment.
You know, Rasta and Jsmith - it's very simple. If you don't like Thom, don't listen to the show! Why are you listening to him and commenting on his blog if he upsets you so??
I think we'd all be a lot happier if you just found another place to hang out.
Here is a behavior that will increase people to covert to Islam.
http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/09/14/where-are-the-peaceful-musl...
Rasta,
I have no idea what crawled up your butt but your comments about Thom are rude, Insulting and inappropriate.
Perhaps you can not make the distinction so I will explain to you some facts you might not be aware of. Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein are journalists. Thom Hartmann is a talk show host. Both Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman have been on Thom's program many times. They will be on his program again. If this article you are so upset about is an important news story they will probably be on his show soon.
I don't understand why people like you think you have to try to insult and belittle other people, It really does reflect poorly on you. it also diminishes any legitimate statement you were trying to make.
i am sick of the folly of our country . we need more restrictions on corporations not less. i hope and pray that the supreme court will look at the history of what corporations have done to society. corporation will take risk in society if it will bring a profit. they will pay fines , they will drag out court cases as long as at the end they will see a profit. our government has been involve in coups of other counties because of corporations. it is time that in the 21 century that we tame the folly of corporations to reflect what it really means to be a part of person hood of the world and our nation
I feel like Mike Malloy: I HATE THESE PEOPLE!*
*The corporate "masters" who control everything
Rep. Barney Frank on MSNBC's Morning Meeting this a.m. reiterates Elizabeth Warren's plea for Americans to CALL CONGRESS to get legislation passed (video):
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_meeting#32858008
Hey, it looks like THOM was correct to suspect some hanky panky with the tea baggers on the DC Mall--
[excerpt]
Teabaggers Epic Fail
Teabagger protesters trying to tout the size of their march on Washington last weekend have been passing around a photo of a packed National Mall. But the picture is years old.
Yet the photo showed the crowd sprawling far beyond that to the Washington Monument, which is bordered by 15th and and 17th Streets. Problem 1: The crowd only filled the Capitol grounds up to 3rd street.
Problem 2: The photo is missing a building; the National Museum of the American Indian which is loacted at 4th St. and Independence Ave. which opened on Sept. 14th 2004.
[end excerpt]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/912-tea-party-photo-false_n_286...
We are the greatest country??? What a pack of lies!!!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-Census-Bureau-Confirms-by-Stephen-Le...
What a Week!!!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-A-Week-by-Joe-Walsh-090913-610.html