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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.
Is it possible that Eric Holder is keeping the Bush judges in place until he can get cooperation with them to get Rove?
If you are like me, I bet you are partying like its 1999!
Rachel Maddow announced that Richard John (Rick) Santorum (R-PA) is considering a run for the White House. Yes, that Rick Santorum!!!! NOTED Corporate Rights advocate and influence peddler. Also known for working furiously to squelch human rights for millions of Americans . . .
Your homework:
1. Google the word "santorum" ten to twenty times a day and click on the site:
http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/
to drive up the count.
2. Write an email to the FBI and Eric Holder's office inquiring after the influence peddling investigation into the actions of Rick Santorum and his duaghter.
3. Give a call to your Congress Critters and ask what they have done today to repeal DADT.
While this news is better than the potential ticket of Palin/Bachmann in 2012, we can not rest on our laurels. Report back HERE for your grade!
I wonder why...
Drew Westen: Change We Can Believe In: Feelings Toward the Administration by Those Who Elected It
AP/Alex Brandon
Drew Westen: Over the last couple of weeks I've been hearing rumblings. They're not from the staged or misinformed protestors at town hall meetings who have decided that shouting down a member of Congress is their right as American citizens. They're ordinary voters who either sometimes or reliably vote Democratic, who were members of the Obama majority in 2008 and were convinced that this time their vote really mattered. Now they're disillusioned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/change-we-can-believe-in_b_258...
I have a personal request for blog readers living in Oregon. LNG is fighting really hard to change laws that protect Mt Hood forestland. This pipeline will affect all sorts of businesses ranging from wineries to oyster farms not to mention messing with hard won laws designed to protect wilderness areas.The pipeline will mess up the ports from Astoria to Portland because of homeland security issues. This will affect longshoreman, farmers trying to sell their grain, and railroad employees who load ships. It will also raise the price of goods due to the costs associated with these sorts of delays.
Does anyone who reads this blog live on property at the coast or along the river and will be very personally affected by LNG if this pipeline is built?
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 38 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Years after President George W. Bush fired nine U.S. attorneys, lawmakers are still searching for answers. But they seem to be ***asking the wrong questions.*** In ***keeping the controversy alive***, ***Democrats have muddied*** the discussion: Did political adviser Karl Rove fire a prosecutor so his friend could get the job? Did the White House cut a deal with a senator and agree to fire a prosecutor in exchange for putting a judge on the bench? Did political operatives second-guess decisions about what cases prosecutors were filing?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090813/ap_ ... s_analysis
democrats are just idiots because they "ask the wrong questions", "keep the controversy alive" "democrats muddle". besides the slander and obvious bias/lying of this reporter... he leaves out that the main characters have refused to testify for years. if they did they lied. the white house (bush) has destroyed most of the documents and/or given the investigators hundreds of thousands of irrelevant documents to delay the case. if siegelman was set up wouldn't that be a conspiracy? if your family family was "set up" by a U.S. Attorney and now in jail and you're looking for justice is that "keeping the controversy alive?" if Bernie Ward of KGO was targeted and set up wouldn't that be criminal. if ACORN was targeted without any wrong doing wouldn't that be criminal? there's got to be hundreds of other cases and Apuzzo calls it "keeping the controversy alive." he's a liar working for a filthy republican corporation
Hartman
I hear what you are saying but what you are doing does make a difference. Just keep doing what you are doing! It has and will continue to have an impact on my thinking and I am constantly affecting others. It might take time but the tide will turn and people will pick hope over hate, fear and despair (I don't mean to use Obama's words because I am not to happy with him and his policies right now) but let's have faith in the American people. Thanks for all you do!
Thom - Could you cover the H1N1 vaccination issue on your show? Meryl Nass has been blogging about this issue and I see her as a fairly trusted source since she figured prominently in Glenn Greenwald’s reporting of the Bruce Ivins case. (Link to her blog: http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/) When I saw that she had picked up this issue of squalene and the vaccines, I took notice. Is this an issue or not? While I do not prescribe to a depopulation conspiracy theory, I do think that the corporations involved in the production of these vaccines are not 100% trustworthy and I question the “testing” process. But most of all, I see the MSM getting ready to portray vaccine resistors in the same vein as the Deathers and the Birthers when I think there is possibly a real issue here. Here’s what I want to know:
1. Is squalene going to be used and in which populations?
2. Are vaccines going to be mandatory? (So far, I have not heard that they will be, but Joyce Riley mentioned that they will be mandatory. Is this true?)
3. Is it true that under emergency provisions set up after 2001, under Bush, that the vaccine makers will not be liable if there are complications and deaths as there were in 1976.
Please do a show on this soon. It is getting close to the beginning of school and decisions will need to be made soon (mandatory or not).
By the way, I am not an anti-vaccine person. My kids have actually had all their other shots, but it sounds like this one in particular is different due to the rushed production, the use of attenuated virus, and the use of adjuvants such as squalene.
Rasta, Thanks so much for the information about cell phone costs in other countries. I bet they are more up-front in socialized countries about the actual cost as well. Here companies can advertise $40 per month which winds up to be so much more in actuality. Many of those hidden fees are taxes which I agree with but the actual cost should be advertised.
Quark, I am so sorry you have to struggle with such high insurance costs that aren't doing much for you. This issue is very personal for you. I have some medical issues too and go without health insurance which is really dumb, but I just don't have the dollars at the moment.
I loved Thom's rant about the reason they have to pay such high prices for sociopathathic insurance CEO's. Most people wouldn't behave like that for all the money in the world because it would make them go crazy. Another brilliant rant from our zany, wise leader.
Here's the CEO of Whole Foods weighing in on the healthcare debate. His answer? Eat your whole foods!
Here's the link through TPM:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/whole-food-exec-slams-health-...
It sounds like he is all for the type of "freedom" or free market that Thom is ranting about today. No reform for him. Nice! The people who cannot afford insurance most likely cannot afford to even shop at Whole Foods. I know I can't.
This will cheer you up -
Hilarious! See Lily Tomlin at work on health care reform: http://www.californiaonecare.org/
Does John Naisbitt have the answer to your question, Thom? I swear, someone had me read John Naisbitt's first book in 1980 and it shaped my entire career. I feel bad that others have not read it. I have not made time to read Megatrends 2010 but I think the answer to your question is in there.
http://www.naisbitt.com/bibliography/megatrends.html
The MOST IMPORTANT economic reform we can make in today's USA -
Too big to FAIL is too big to PLAY!
Quark,
Wow... the natives are restless today. 30 comments all day yesterday and 33 comments in the first hour of today's show.
Anyway, before I get irritable with today's blog, if you personally want to listen to the interview with Obama's doctor, I believe KPOJ is still archiving Thom's show for free listening. The archives are at
http://www.620kpoj.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=har...
If you want Thom to replay it for the benefit of all.. well I can't help you there.
If you're talking about Dr. David Scheiner, there's also a 26 minute interview with Scheiner on Democracy Now on July 22.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/22/president_obamas_longtime_physicia...
OK.. now I'm going to go act like the last stop in the digestive system.
P.S.: Thanks for responding to Rasta's post as if he is any other valued member here. Oh you and your good heart.
I checked. The shareholders don't run the corporation, the board does. They all sit on each other's boards and vote themselves their paychecks. So, maybe there isn't that much of a shortage of sociopathic CEO/Board members.
BTW, have I mentioned that, as a cancer survivor, I can only get healthcare through a state program that is administered by a HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY - Medica.
Several years ago, I started with monthly payments under $400/month, with minimal drug co-pays and an annual deductable of $1000.
Today, I pay about $600/month, have much higher drug co-pays and an annual deductable of about $5000. Not only that, so many of the charges by Dr.s, hospitals, radiologic co.s, etc. have been strong-armed down, with the balance paid by me (with no or minimal payment by the ins. co.)
My question: why should Medica get such a large cut of my payments? Of course, we all know the answer...
@Quark - Not so much vested interest, I think, as Libertarian distrust of "Big" Gov't.
Here's something REALLY scary to consider - let's stipuate that somehow, before Obama leaves office, a single payer health care bill actually DOES become law.
Now jump to some point in the future, and assume that an ideological grandchild of Dick Cheney becomes President.
How quickly could the system turn bad then? IMHO, what the Rethugs are currently warning us about could be EXACTLY what will happen if we pass a good law now, and THEY then assume power.
Thom
Re: sociopath CEOs are hard to find, thus their mega paychecks.
Could be, assuming that the shareholders actually still run the corporations. But then I remember last year when the shareholders confronted the board of some corporation and were told that the shareholders may own the corporation, but they don't run the corporation. (Sorry, I am still seach google for the news article).
How can the right get so many people riled up about tax "increases" (which are really letting tax decreases expire since they didn't have the positive effect the Republicans promised), and the left can't get people riled up about premium increases?
I'm a healthy single person with no medical history, but no employer-sponsored health insurance. Massachusetts law requires me to get health insurance. BlueCross/Blue Shield charged me $515 per month last year. That $6,180 a year was my biggest single expense...and I didn't use any health care!
Just got my renewal for the next fiscal year. My rate's going up to $730 per month! $8,760 per year.
I guarantee you that if the government raised the average person's taxes $2580 per year in taxes, Fox News, Sean Hannity et al would be out there burning Obama in effigy, screaming at the "liberal media". But when there are increases in what I call "private taxes"--fees and costs everyone has to pay one way or another--the media is silent. The whole "Chicago School of Economics" ideology in the long run has made us publicly impoverished, and a few privately wealthy.
I don't know if I'd call those few at the top sociopaths, but certainly obsessive-compulsive about their bank accounts, a kind of neurosis that leads to tunnel vision. When your business sector impoverishes their own customers, eventually that is bad business, even deadly business.
Luckily, the majority of people in business and health care are sane, moral, and aware. The trick is to not let the sick ones control the debate and the economy.
Thanks, Thom.
Thanks for solving the mystery, Thom. I couldn't imagine what makes CEOs worth so much. They need to be from the 3% of the population that are sociopaths!
How do we deal with THAT?
Rasta,
"Capitalist" seems to mean "get every dime you can from those who can afford it least."
Okay- just trying to see the silver lining - it is my understanding per Huffington Post that in turn, the drug companies will help the President pass a health care bill. I still say putting together a simple PowerPoint Presentation and doing what Mad as Hell Drs are doing is the right thing to do.
PS IF EXXON is behind Americans for Prosperity- who is behind the health care hoolighans, it is because EXXON knows the next bowling pin to fall will be energy. WE are only making the cookie cutter for change now.
mstaggerlee,
RE: @Quark - Not ALL doctors are in love w/ Single Payer … Neither my internist nor my chiropractor would be on board.
Why? Do they have a vested interest in keeping the status quo?
Mobile phone calls most expensive in ‘capitalist’ US, Canada & Spain; cheapest in ’socialist’ Finland, Sweden & Netherlands
11/08/2009 - Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden have the lowest prices for mobile phone calls among OECD countries, according to the latest OECD Communications Outlook. The highest were found in Canada, Spain and the United States.
http://www.oecd.org/document/20/0,3343,en_2649_201185_43471316_1_1_1_1,0...
@Quark - Not ALL doctors are in love w/ Single Payer ... Neither my internist nor my chiropractor would be on board.
@ DRichards - thanx for the huffpo link - it also brought me to this, from the horses mouth -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/12/grassley-endorses-death-p_n_257...
Thom,
Can you rebroadcast your interview with Obama's former doc?