Recent comments

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Hah! Yeah, the flying monkeys really outdid themselves with this orange orangutan human imposter.

    Notice that they no longer brag on their last knuckle-dragger -- the Bush half-man/half-ape war criminal who blew up the Middle East and tanked the world economy. All their boisterous swaggering sure turned quickly into deafening silence and crickets in the night, once they realized their "ex" alcoholic, cocaine-addled "decider" didn't really have much of a brain left with which to decide.

    And Trump the pussy-grabber, who doesn't even know how to open a door on a bus, makes Bush look like a Mensa member. But trust him; it'll be so great!

    At least Alec Baldwin will be gainfully employed on SNL.

  • Why Won't the Media Push Back Against Liar Think Tanks and Experts?   8 years 8 weeks ago

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  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Actually he meant: Make America Grate Again. And no doubt with Trump, it will become grating beyond our wildest dreams.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    And, God forbid, when their arteries finally clog up, their hearts explode, their brains suffer strokes, or their overweight bodies get cancer, I sure hope they still have access to affordable healthcare and don't fall victim to what Rep. Alan Grayson (D. Florida) once described on the House floor as the Republican two-part healthcare plan:

    #1. Don't get sick.

    #2. If you do get sick, die quickly.

    Mmm ... maybe that's what their junk-food king in chief had in mind with his patronizing slogan, "Make America Great Again."

    Laissez-faire natural selection ... it might just work.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    I'm thinking that it's their steady diet of fast food or processed food products, that makes these trolls think that opening the the gate to let the wolves guard the henhouse, will somehow bring them the aryan utopia the dream of.

    Gee! It worked so well with Dubya. Why not bet the farm?

    Have another Ding Dong, Big Mac and Twinkie. That's what will make America Great Again! Yum, Yum, Yum...dumb, dumb, dumb. I'm lovin' it!

    To quote Steinbeck..."the flies have conquered the flypaper."

  • What’s the Fake News Freak Out Really About?   8 years 8 weeks ago

    To clarify:

    Resistance will be the reprieve.

    Know thy enemy so you can succeed.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Hooray for bigots!

    ... sooo Amerikkkan!

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Diane Reynolds: The left's greatest fear is not that the next four years will be a disaster for the American people. They are terrified that the next four years will be successful. (Good for the mainstream, middle class, good for American Exceptionalism, bad for terrorists, bad for the liberal "intelligensia" trying to social engineer our country into a hyper-diverse "mediocracy", bad for illegal aliens, and good for law abiding citizens and the laws and police that protect them.)

    The left was so smug in their assurance they would prevail, they were ready to coronate Hillary, break that big glass ceiling they had readied in Hillary's "victory" hall, and prance around the "diversity tree" while gleefully throwing (environmentally acceptable) wood on the funeral pyre of the "old white men" whom they despise so much.

    Now that things didn't go their way, they are hysterically screaming that the "sky is going to fall".

    Too bad. (Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle!).

    Out with the old, (including illegals), and in with the new. A good thing for this country, Very good.

    By the way: I don't see too many people, promised or otherwise, who are leaving for Canada. I guess this nation is not really as bad for them as their hyperbole.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    In July of last year, discussing SCOTUS's 5/4 conservative vote on Citizens United, President Jimmy Carter told me: "It violates the essence of what made America a great

    heph it is is the peace. Thom brings it up all the time

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    ... In other words, new year same as old year -- insults, sarcasm, false portrayals, and deluded judgments.

    Your happy is like the happy at a happy farm... :)))

    But here's a truly happy thought gift for you to ponder this new year, while Trump utterly fails your Pollyannaish expectations:

    If certain theoretical physicists' theories are correct about an infinite number of universes, somewhere we are all living in a clean environment, an equal society, a fair economy, and a true democratic republic. It's a world with clean energy, with no wars over oil, where Al Gore won in 2000. (He was the people's choice in this universe too, before the right-wing Supreme Court installed the village idiot.) The selfish, one-party-rule, corporate-owned Republican Party went the way of the Whigs, and a new conservative party emerged, which actually follows the principles that Abraham Lincoln laid forth. Politicians from both sides of the aisle sincerely work together to achieve what is best for the People rather than to further the profits of the already obscenely wealthy elites.

    It's a universe far, far away from this one.

    ... Here, we can only dream of what woulda coulda shoulda happened.

  • What’s the Fake News Freak Out Really About?   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Resistance will be the reprieve.

    Know thy enemy to succeed.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Here is a new year wish from a lefty:
    A fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2017, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make the America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in the western hemisphere,) and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

    (By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferrable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

    This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to
    replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)

    A new year wish from the rest of us:

    HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

  • As a lefty - Can you be friends with Trump supporter?   8 years 8 weeks ago

    No. I can be friendly with them, but not true friends. My husband is Arabic, so anyone who would vote for us getting harassed at the airport, or excluding him from going to visit family all together, they don't get to pretend to be my friend.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    What you define as excuses, are actually FACTS. That is one of the favorite Republican ploys, creating their own definitions to suite their delusional, extremist views. No matter how many facts are presented to them, they will either ignore them outright or alter the definitions to accommodate their own understanding. In fact, they are apparently genetically incapable of processing facts other than to suite their own favorite beliefs, no matter how wrong or destructive they may be.

    What could be more reassuring, than knowing that young believers and supporters of a sadistic, racist, KKK supported, pathological lying, misogynistic, serial sexual abusing peeping-tom predator and bomb happy, revenge obsessed paranoid, are out shooting their AR's. Whatever they are? I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel.

    But since I suspect you don't really read the comments that you reply to. You are merely content to just throw out a bunch of rightwing talking points, no matter how inaccurate or out of context they are…or else, you would have seen that I already wished you a Happy New Year.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Gloat while you still can. I do agree with you, though, that it will be, to say the least, interesting times -- but for only four years, not eight... ;-)

    Happy New Year!

  • As a lefty - Can you be friends with Trump supporter?   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Yes, first of all, I don't base all my relationships around politics, but also, I enjoy debating with republican friends who can maintain a conversational tone and avoid getting their ego into it. Yes, I am happy to be friends with republicans, especially if they are willing to listen to my so-called radical lefty views. That's how things change. Conversation, friends; the realization that leftists are real people who have often thought their views out and they are based on practical considerations, science and nature. If you can't be friends with a Drumpf supporter, you might consider that the left is about more than fitting in with hipster crowds.

  • As a lefty - Can you be friends with Trump supporter?   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Yes, first of all, I don't base all my relationships around politics, but also, I enjoy debating with republican friends who can maintain a conversational tone and avoid getting their ego into it. Yes, I am happy to be friends with republicans, especially if they are willing to listen to my so-called radical lefty views. That's how things change. Conversation, friends; the realization that leftists are real people who have often thought their views out and they are based on practical considerations, science and nature.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    @ 19 & 20

    good examples of why I come here. It has become entertaining listening to the same old excuses and declaring you will do what you preached against Republicans doing for the last eight years. How would you expect me to respond? I am now reevaluating my thoughts toward Obama. Aside from being the greatest gun salesman in history, he cost the Democrat party just over 1000 legislative seats in his terms as PTOUS. What's not to love if you are a conservative?

    I understand not everything Trump does do will fit in my bucket but I damn well know much of it will. Like today when I finished up the year with my deplorable children and grandchildren all shooting AR's whose ownership will not be in jeopardy in the foreseeable future thanks to a few million firearm owners that voted Trump & CO.

    Here's to an interesting upcoming 8 years.

    If it is too not politically incorrect,

    HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Here's a compendium of right-wing spinmeisters: "Democrats should just sit down, shut up, and let our bigoted, lying, fascistic, serial sexual predator [who did not win the election by the people] do whatever he wants to whomever he wants. Trust us. And, we have a wall to sell you, too."

    Does everyone see the irony here -- the false equivalency, the brash hypocrisy -- or do some of us still need some more "white-‘splaining?" Okay, gather around children; this is a true story:

    First, a powerful faction of unapologetic racists are alive and well in the Republican Party. Then, a black man "from Kenya" dared to climb to the top. A damn Democrat too! Naturally, the mortified party of rich white guys couldn’t handle it, ain't in their DNA.

    Thus, rather than go dancing, this clan of extremist Republican legislators held a grim meeting with two of their favorite ideologues, Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz, in the Caucus Room restaurant on Inaugural Ball night, January 20, 2009. ("When the Tea Party Came to Town" by Robert Draper) In effect, they swore a borderline treasonous blood oath to block absolutely everything this uppity boy might try to accomplish, while cleaning up the horrific mess left after the last Republican binge, with frat-boy Bush. No matter what good he offered the people, they were committed to make the "n----r" a one term President and erase him from the history books of their "Ameerkkka."

    For example, before the Affordable Care Act was enacted, according to a 2009 study by Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, nearly 45,000 fellow Americans every year were dying from lack of access to healthcare -- more piles of bodies than "radical Islamic terrorists" could imagine in their wildest dreams! Obama chose this particular plan because it was the preferred Republican Frankenstein, created in the lower laboratory of the Heritage Foundation. How could they possibly object to their own idea? Obviously, he underestimated their depravity.

    The double-dealing double-crossers tarred it with his name and diluted it with every possible legislative poison pill and booby trap imaginable, so that it would blow up in his face, which it finally did right before this last election. Meanwhile, in the run-up to the 2012 election, they slammed Obamacare mercilessly for their own original sins. Dammit, the people reelected the black guy from Kenya anyway!

    And never forget, these fleas on the body politic also pulled out all stops in 2011 and tried to shut down the government, resulting in the infamous "budget sequestration" of the Kenyan's second term. This meat-axe approach was the dumbest way imaginable to run a complex budget for a nation of 350 million hapless citizens. Again -- Obama’s fault!

    Ultimately, the ne'er-do-wells triumphed, exceeding all expectation! They knew that the over-stimulated public doesn’t pay much attention to the deceitful Republican choreography at the second level of government. After eight years on the job, an incumbent party always gets the blame for gridlock. It was the long game. The cons now own all that they broke: the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary (and the corporate media).

    "So, all you loser 'Dumbocrats,' can you please just play nice now, try to ignore our smelly soiled underwear, and let us get on with the business of destroying the last remnants of democracy in America? It'll all be good. No, really!"

  • As a lefty - Can you be friends with Trump supporter?   8 years 8 weeks ago

    I know that we should, but the fact is, I can't be friends with some one who hates themselves, me, children, truth, and the planet.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    Dianereynolds, Perhaps the reason you keep laughing you ass off, is because you're a delusional rightwing puppet.

    Could you please give us some specific examples of how progressives "keep peeing down their own leg?" And please, do explain, why exactly, there is an Electoral College and WHO exactly, it protects? But with specifics, not rightwing talking points and generalities.

    And please explain exactly, how if Hillary was a "horseshit" candidate. How did she get about 3 million more votes than Trump? Wouldn't that also make Trump a "horseshit" candidate too?

    I do agree with you about one thing though. Obama did not know how to "deal with the opposition." Had he rightly fulfilled his oath when he took office, Bush, Cheney and their entire cabinet and most of his fellow Republicans would have been tried, convicted of treason, war crimes, election fraud and dereliction of duty by allowing 9/11 to happen on their watch, and then shipped off to Guantonomo Bay. Had he honored his oath to protect Americans from enemies "Domestic" and foreign and chosen an effective attorney general, there would have been a wholesale cleaning out of corrupt Republican politicians to the point that the remaining few would have been quaking in their boots and kissing his ass. And unlike the phoney endless Republican Benghazi hearings and the Email hearings, these would have been hearings about real matters of national defense, real abuses of public offices and real treasons. Not just sham hearings for the purpose of pandering to their extremist base and campaigning on the public dime.

    But the thing that interests me most is, if you are so put off and offended by what progressives have to say? Why do you keep coming back to this site. You surely must realize that you have as much chance changing our views as I would have of making you "moderate" your views. Bottom line…not gonna happen!! You're not gonna convince me that their is a Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus either.

    After all, I don't go on rightwing sites. If I want to know what they are thinking, I can just turn on the television or the radio about any time.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    @k. allen

    "Surely, it would be more entertaining to go out and watch people pee on themselves ... taunt and ridicule those who challenge our views ... now, doesn't that sound like good, healthy fun for everyone ... (!?!)
    Preaching and predicting positivity while nurturing negativity only promotes more hypocritical static quo ... on all sides ... not much fun for anyone."

    I don't look at it as taunting (although progressives are very good at peeing down their own leg) as much as pointing out the absolute hypocrisy of so many here and especially the likes of Thom Hartmann, Bill Press, Rachel Maddow, etc. They complained for eight solid years that the "Republicans blocked everything Obama attempted to do". Well guess what? Obama never figured out how to deal with the opposition. That is the mark of a leader. Instead we got a petulant child in office. Now that America has selected a different model, the shoe is on the other foot and the mantra being delivered from all those who complained for eight years, plan on doing exactly the same thing. My god, the day after the election I heard stammering and sputtering about "block every move" , "march in the streets", resist, resist, resist. I thought I was listening to a right wing hate group. The negativity and disrespect of Trumps family was disgusting and if ANY individual had even hinted similar comments on Thom's show referencing Obama's children there would have been hell to pay. My god if there was even a negative Hillary thought started from a caller, that individual was over talked and quickly cut off. All the while blaming it on paid callers. Come on, paid callers? Give me a break.

    I still laugh out loud at the constant stream of excuses especially the 3 million vote"win" by Hillary. Get real. We all know why there is an Electoral College and who it protects.

    When I start to see or hear anything resembling Trump support from one of the talking heads I will moderate my views but I doubt that will be happening anytime in the near future.

    So here is our reality. Trump will be president and you have a choice. Run around complaining, whining about Reagan, blame the loss on anything but what it really was, (a horseshit candidate that could not motivate her voter base), or the high road and give him a chance before prematurely announcing that Trump WILL do when in office. And yes, I am referring to all the "he will kill Medicare, Medicaid, cancel social security, kill all babies, stop the moon from circling the earth, etc." Thom should be ashamed of himself for putting out this crap but do I realize he is the doing the exact same thing he accuses Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. of doing.

    Infotainment using scare tactics.

  • What’s the Fake News Freak Out Really About?   8 years 8 weeks ago

    p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica}

    WE GRIEVE {a limerick}

    Today is the new year’s eve,

    and already we’ve started to grieve

    that Trump will be

    in the {presidency} presidencee.

    From disaster there’ll be no reprieve.

    ============================

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    (Dianereynolds):
    "Let's all run around with our hair on fire before Trump even gets in office.
    Surely self promoting scholars constantly preaching and predicting negativity promotes mental health among progressive/socialists that already live in a dark world filled with therapy sessions and tin foil hat conspiracies."

    Surely, it would be more entertaining to go out and watch people pee on themselves ... taunt and ridicule those who challenge our views ... now, doesn't that sound like good, healthy fun for everyone ... (!?!)

    Preaching and predicting positivity while nurturing negativity only promotes more hypocritical static quo ... on all sides ... not much fun for anyone.

    Would it serve whole health to communicate with open mind/heart, respect, optimistic attitude ... and willingness to acknowledge nobody knows it all ... so, maybe we all have more to learn, and room to grow?

    Possibly ... more so, the more of US who do.

  • GOP Plans to Destroy Our Safety Net Will Also Kill Democracy   8 years 8 weeks ago

    The primary generator of right-wing talking points comes from so-called "scholars" at so-called "think" tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the numerous other propaganda machines put together and funded by the billionaire class, led primarily by the predacious Koch brothers. For the consumption of a dumbed-down, over-stimulated, willfully ignorant audience of passive spectators of artificial life (Think Fox "News," hate radio, right-wing blogosphere, et al.), the debate has been reduced to some ridiculous, cartoonish battle that pits pure capitalism against pure socialism.

    Purity in anything is a fantasy. The reality is that functioning economies are a blend of both, where roughly ten percent are actual capitalists -- those who make money on money, thereby infusing capital into the system -- and are no more or no less important or worthy as the bottom ninety percent who provide all of the productivity and therefore all of the demand (read jobs).

    Historically, societies and economies became hopelessly dysfunctional when the greed-mongers at the top sucked too much wealth out of everyone else. Invariably, this led to massive wealth inequality, depression, rebellion, and war.

    Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party (My, how far it has strayed!), summed up beautifully what the Framers of our Constitution understood about history and human nature and how they intended to mitigate the insatiable thirst for wealth and power by ruling elites: "... government of the people, by the people, for the people ..."

    Socialism is not an abstract concept reserved only for ideological discussion; it is a hard, on-the-ground fact of how every single human society has always been organized into a civilization, based on the collective resources of all the people. There are many degrees of socialism.

    Mainstream liberals (Yes, the mainstream is liberal.) are not asking for pure socialism, where the government controls all the means of production and distribution. Neither are they asking for pure capitalism, where the rich own everything and have all the power. Nobody in America wants the government to manufacture cars, TV's, shoes, or any other commercial product that is in the purview of private enterprise.

    What they are asking, however, is that the government protect and nourish what our Founders called "the Commons" -- all those things that we collectively own, such as the air, water, infrastructure, public lands, educational systems, our health and general welfare, etc. The commons are the true wealth of a nation and what our Founders absolutely understood as a balanced model society. Private enterprise and the morality of healthy socialism can and should exist together in harmony. Or, as the late Paul Wellstone put it, "Everyone does better when everyone does better!"

    Alas, unfettered greed always seeks to upset that delicate balance, for which the Founders spilled their blood. The question becomes who benefits from socialism. Should the sweet fruits of an economy accrue mostly at the top -- as is happening right now in our nation in real time -- while the bitter fruits of runaway capitalism are heaped onto the meager plates of the working poor, which is fast becoming all the rest of us? (A large middle class is, unfortunately, a historic aberration.)

    So, is the reinterpretation of our Constitution and the plutocratic model of society by the Republican Party nothing but socialism for the rich and the harsh consequences of unregulated, dog-eat-dog, Darwinian capitalism for the people? It seems so. We have seen this before, far too often; it is nothing new.

    And, it is immoral.

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