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.
She has one problem.
Dose she worship this
All but one have taken from this
The fact is it doesn't matter if we elect "sort of progressive" Hillary, or "really progressive" Bernie...if we don't win back either the Senate or the House, we will have 4-8 more years of gridlock. We should be spending more time focusing on the House and Senate races than the Presidential one...
Archaelogists in 3016
{… 1.8 limericks …}
When archeologists exhume
America from her tomb,
they’ll blame whom
for our nation’s doom?
Repugnantans, we presume.
Hence our gloom
that the bastids might zoom
into power, wearing a Fox costume.
{It’s Fox News which sponsors the doom.}
. . . .
Duck Dynasty wearing a Fox:
http://www.smartambala.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/77.jpg
===========================
How about a hybrid ticket?
Bernie for president and Hillary for VP.
He captures the populist energy.
She appeals to many women, Latino, and Black voters.
As a female Lyndon Johnson she would definitely kick butt in the Congress.
ct
I will vote for Bernie in primary but if he loses, Hillary gets my vote in general election To vote for Cruz, Trump would amount to being UN American . Yes I feel that strongly GOP policies, trickle down.. cuts in SS & medicare, cuts in education, appointing more pro wealth judges, anti fair wage , anti birth control, which stops abortions. Reagan was last Repub I voted for ( Shining City on a Hill ? What a crock ! ) I have learned a lot since then.. I see NO GOP family values... Just the opposite
Hillary is 100% REPUBLICAN! The reason why she CHANGED her Party is because she could NEVER MOVE UP within the Republican Party as she has within the Democratic Party!
Hillary is a STRAIGHT UP REPUBLICAN, and she and Bill have PROVEN that with their NAFTA BILL, and Killing the Glass Steagal Act!
SCREW THE CLINTON'S SEND THEM TO WHERE THEY BELONG, WITH THEIR REPUBLICAN PARTY!
Hillary is 100% REPUBLICAN! The reason why she CHANGED her Party is because she could NEVER MOVE UP within the Republican Party as she has within the Democratic Party!
Hillary is a STRAIGHT UP REPUBLICAN, and she and Bill have PROVEN that with their NAFTA BILL, and Killing the Glass Steagal Act!
SCREW THE CLINTON'S SEND THEM TO WHERE THEY BELONG, WITH THEIR REPUBLICAN PARTY!
I think we are all Progressives. We all don’t have to agree on everything. I am a Christian but I know a few people who have said I do not pass their test and as a result, as far as they are concern I am not one.
The idea that to be a progressive I have to agree with you on everything will be a mistake. We can disagree on issue but if we start pushing people out we are no different from the conservatives.
Ideological purity will destroy us. Sometime as progressive is it not our job to move a mountain. Because doing so or trying to move a mountain will be the detrimental to our health. Sometime we get our changes incrementally.
We should learn from the conservative group and see how they never really push to move the mountain but just move as much rock they can one at a time.
The human nature is always afraid of too much change too quick. Even when the change is good, it is the human nature.
I know you sometimes say President Obama did not fight hard enough. The truth is we did not push him to fight hard enough. You might remember the louder voices during his presidency where not the progressive. The T-party was loud and we kept quit. We did not show up to the polls to let him know. We did not call the office of the president like the T-party and the conservative movement did. Everything is not Obamas fault.
The general disagreement is on process who’s way is the best. I enjoy the debates I love politics but we have to be careful of not do the republicans job for them by destroying our candidate before the general election.
PS in the general the Republican Party is not going to give up all the cash that will be rolling their way.
I almost never disagree with you, Thom, but in this case I do. I am a Bernie supporter, but I believe that most Americans, while supporing progressive "issues," don't connect those issues to progressive "candidates." This crazy disconnect will probably doom Bernie this year. Eventually though, Americans will get it. Clean energy, tariffs, free health care, breakup of the banks, will happen. It just probably won't happen in my lifetime.
WOW! Now this is some HIGH VALUE PROGRESSIVE communication! Focused on real world issue the really does effect our country. This moves my "Independent-Fiscal Conservative - Social Moderate" stance more towards "The Bern". I hate his democratic socialistic position but on this and these HORRIBLE trade agreements, I agree with him totally and know that this part of the "revolution" is necessary for us, THE USA, to regain some of the American Exceptionalism we have lost. Thanks to you Thom, while I am not as "progressive" as most of your followers, I do agree with the need for trade reform and bringing back jobs for citizens and not jobs for low wadge aliens. I look forward to the HB-1 process being difficult and well tested. There are wonderful humans from all over the globe that would contribute to the USA in ways that benefit all mankind. However, the challenges are hard and it is clear that the GOP and DEMs continue to be "OPPOSAMES" when it comes to these issues.
I am a boomer who has worked hard to get to upper middle class standing without any need or help from Washington! I had a great public education, good solid Judeo Christian values and an appreciation for building and maintaining stronge work ethics, (With out Union Help as well). Free Market Capitalism is far better than Socialism but our two party system of money hungry and power hungry men and women has created crony capitalism on both sides of the asile equally. No Hillary for me, No Bush for me, No Trump for me. The Bern may be our only source of real change now. We lost the last two to a population and media that celebrates celebrity. Kasich and Kusinch had my votes early on. Too bad the rest of the population could not see the forest for the trees.
There is still hope, but I fear we are in for a very LONG SLUG back to the past!
of course, h2b visas -- are being increased too - as Trump uses them to bring in legal mexicans to work for him. the abuses of both are designed to lower wages in the US for Americans. h1b visas are used to deny teaching tech workers the latest updates.
Karma for a better Dharma
{… a limerick …}
May the corporations’ karma
constrain the wicked Big Pharma, -
- so that America retrieves
from corporate thieves
a semblance of wholesome dharma.
===========================
Hello Thom and fellow bloggers, how do I respond to the following: "If Ted Cruz does win the presidental elections, people will be responsible for their health and healthcare which will be offered by private insurers at affordable prices due to national market competition. Business will be able to employ again - HUGE. My friend HAS to pay now $1500 a month & doesn't even need to go to the doctor & had to go on food stamps to be able to pay it! Also,we won't have to pay for 50 million abortions a year!!! My cousin died in the hands of institutionalized healthcare at age 48...." This is certainly the response coming indirectly from a Republican think tank. It is a reponse that I received after having posted Thom's text concerning Cruz's altra radicalism. As always the responder did not direct their response to criticisms found in the article.
Thank you
One thing to note is that just in the last couple of days, it has been reported that India is looking to take us to court in the WTO because of recent actions where we've raised the fees on H-1B permits. So the free trade crap is tied in to this abused program, and there have been rumors in the right wing press such as breitbart.com also that the TPP, if passed, will remove all quota limits on H1-B Visas. This should be looked at, as it could be even worse later if the TPP actually gets passed.
http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/h-1b-fee-hike-india-toughens-stand-mulls-taking-us-to-wto/206903/
There's a good discussion both in the video on this page and the article that interviews Bruce Morrison, who actually authored the original immigration bill in the 90's that created the H-1B Visa program, and he talks on how this program has been abused from the way he intended it to be used (the way Thom in the video clip really describes well his example of how it should have been used according to his vision).
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/09/h-1b-visa-program-needs-an-overhaul-exper...
As an IT worker that has been unemployed a lot lately who was paid more 20 years ago than he is in a lot of contract jobs that dominate this industry now, this is an issue that strikes at the core of workers in this industry which got hit by NAFTA oustourcing, H-1B visas, and layoffs quickly in the mid 90's to take away any shot at any kind of decent unions to be created then that the work force really didn't feel a need for before that time. This issue really needs reform. It is one that appeals across the aisle in a populist fashion towards both independents and Republicans, which is likely one reason why both Trump and Cruz are doing better since in addition to speaking against free trade have lately been speaking against H-1B visas as well. Which is why the Democratic Debates really need to talk about this topic, or if someone like Hillary Clinton winning the nomination doesn't have to speak about it (since she last did in 2008 election) and she gets asked about it in a general election debate against a Cruz or a Trump, the Republican will appear to the voters watching this debate as the populists more concerned about American jobs than she will since she supported this program before, and has avoided talking about it since that time.
If Bernie wins the nomination, then the corporate media will try to make him along with a Cruz or Trump unfairly to look like xenophobes on this issue, if someone like Bloomberg follows his earlier comments on entering the race if Bernie wins. He's stated he wants to remove H-1B quota limits about the same time he made the comments on entering the race as noted here:
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3026241/it-outsourcing/bloomberg-champions-limitless-h-1b-visas.html
Bloomberg will be made to look like the candidate that wants immigration reform, and like earlier questions and corporate news media reports, the media will also try to make Bernie look to be against immigration reform, because of his votes against these bills due to the guest labor programs in them, that they will try to label as xenophobic positions.
Thom, I'm glad you've finally caught on to the immigration scams going on but it's not just the H1-B visas.
First, the immigration system isn't broken. It's the politicians and DHS that are abusing it. Sure there are some changes needed but if utilized the system will do what it is suppossed to. Right now the Obama administration has basically shut the system down so don't just blame this on the Republicans. Yes, they mostly do it for the cheap labor but the Dems do it for the votes.
Second, the illegal aliens are doing the same thing at the low-skilled jobs level. The DEmocrats decry out-sourcing of jobs to save a buck but have no problem in-sourcing the labor to get a vote.
The "immigration reform" bill would have given almost every illegal alien working papers and created a chain migration nightmare that would have brought in millions of more low-skilled workers taking more American jobs. At the same time the number of H1-B visas would have been raised by hundreds of thousands. Whose bill was that? Who supported that bill? Obama and the Democrats along with a few Republicans.
As a lifelong liberal I've been waiting for some liberal media outlet to finally start telling all of my "bleeding heart" friends the truth about immigration, legal and illegal. I'm not against legal immigration but only if we are not hurting American workers and jeopardizing national security.
The middle class and the poor have been sold out by both parties. Even Bernie has succumbed to the amnesty bandwagon to pander to the Hispanic community which will actually be the biggest losers if "immigration deform" (not a typo) passes.
Michael Moore didn't create Occupy Wall Street, Dr. Palms, in fact, I don't think he had anything at all to do with it. It was a collective effort and most central to it were writers for a Canadian, anti capitalist, anti consumerist and environmentalist magazine, Adbusters.
Move to the center? The D Party has moved to the center and then to the right of it at least since Reagan. Then the "new" Democrat, Bill Clinton comes along and was nice enough to repeal Glass Steagall for Wall Street and signed NAFTA which enriched corporations and the banks at the expense of working people. THIS IS THE PROBLEM with the D Party....it has been dominated by the corporate Democrats for too long. The D Party now is nothing more than a corporate owned organization....just look at how they circle the wagons around Hillary Clinton..its been disgusting to watch and then they wonder why Dems don't show up on Election Day...they abandoned the FDR Progressive new deal for the money and power of corporations and banks. GO BERNIE !!!!!
Just this afternoon I did a Gallup "survey" on presidential candidates. I went through each candidate they wanted information about -- Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Hillary -- and the survey was over.
In the little box for additional comments at the end I wrote: "Where's Bernie? Don't you want to know what I think about him?"
I thought, "Wow. They left Bernie out? That's crazy!" He's the only one of the five for whom I would have had glowing responses. If this isn't a blackout, what is?
This is the 1st time I've ever seen a legitimate use of the H1-B visa. Multi-national globalism is just a ruse to grease the skids for the coming 1-World Gov't, unless we put up a fight to stop it. We've been re-training unemployed programmers to become unemployed something elses since Silicon Valley began, & it's always the fault of the uneducated Americans. There's always some elusive requirement Americans don't have that investors need. Of course, the real requirement is low wages & tax break welfare for investors. If the lawyers running America can't see what's going on, they're blind.
It's nice to have a politician like Bernie that one wants to vote for instead of the lesser of two evil Feel the Bern
This practice is been going on for years in the health care business. Hospitals find cheap medical labor by sponsoring H1B visa right and left. They just need to prove there is a need but they circumvent the truth.
I live across the street from MicroSoft near Seattle.
Literally thousands of Indian IT workers work and live here.
But I read about the many US college grads living at home with part time work.
As a former programmer I can assure readers that it takes less
than a year to make any motivated English major into a productive IT worker.
These big companies are clearly saying "screw you" to US citizens in order
to boost their bottem line.
And the scumbag senators whom the company bribes will see that this situation continues.
ct
Ski resorts bring in cheap labor this way also.
Those of us who love Bernie Must NOT stay home on election day if Hillary becomes the candidate . That will add up to a vote for radical anti middle class GOP ( anti fair wage, anti women, cuts in our earned SS, cuts in education, more Fat cat tax cuts , loopholes, subsides...likely MORE war profiteering. Bush Cheney wars made war HUGELY PROFITABLE Taxpayers paid trillions People died or were maimed. One look at GOP policies and we know they have NO family values Cruz is almost fanatic when speaking to his' loyal fans. Neo Nazi's support Cruz ! Cruz's wife is a Goldman Sachs fat cat . I do NOT believe that God wants more unwanted, uncared for babies to be born, some who are beaten or neglected. IF you hate abortions Then DO not have one. But women must not be forced to go back to back alley unsafe abortions BE responsible Use birth control.