Author: Thom Hartmann

A parasitic industry: Understanding why America does not define healthcare as a basic human right

A parasitic industry: Understanding why America does not define healthcare as a basic human right

Posted by | Feb 4, 2023

Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, and already have their sights set on forcing major cuts to “entitlements” like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. One of the promises McCarthy made to become speaker was to force a vote on dialing back 2023/2024 spending back to 2021 levels — and there’s been a 7% inflation increase in costs/expenses since then. In other words, they want massive cuts. His Republican colleagues have already outlined the starting point for their demands, as reported by Yahoo News: “The Republican Study Committee proposed a budget for fiscal 2023 that would gradually increase the...

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Murdered By Police: Congress should pass legislation of a national standard for law enforcement

Murdered By Police: Congress should pass legislation of a national standard for law enforcement

Posted by | Feb 1, 2023

As the horror of the police murder of Tyre Nichols washes across our TV screens, we are reminded again of a crisis that is unique to America among developed nations. Police violence. As Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, told CNN: “When I saw the police officer, you know, they have this little like stick, this metal thing that they pull out. I saw them pull that out and started beating my son with it. And I saw officers hitting on him, I saw officers kicking him. One officer kicked him like he was kicking a football a couple of times. “But...

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Demise of liberal democracy: We are living in the final stage of Reaganism’s dystopia

Demise of liberal democracy: We are living in the final stage of Reaganism’s dystopia

Posted by | Jan 31, 2023

Back in 1981, when Ronald Reagan was sworn in and implicitly promised to destroy our government because it was “the problem,” many of us who strongly opposed him wondered what the final stage of Reaganism would look like. Now we know. We are there. Violence toward women and minorities has exploded. Armed militias tried to assassinate the Vice President and Speaker of the House in an attempted coup directed by the Republican President of the United States. They tried to kidnap and murder the Democratic governor of Michigan. They’re blowing up power substations from Oregon to the Carolinas. They’ve...

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Is this true? The algorithms used by social media are not attuned to what is best for society

Is this true? The algorithms used by social media are not attuned to what is best for society

Posted by | Jan 30, 2023

The man who coined the term “virtual reality” and helped create Web 2.0, Jaron Lanier, recently told a said that there is an aspect to the internet that could endanger the literal survival of humanity as a species. It is an amazing story, and I believe he is 100% right. Humans are fragile creatures. We don’t have fangs or claws to protect ourselves from other animals that might want to eat us. We don’t have fur or a pelt to protect us from the elements. What we do have, however, that has allowed us to conquer the planet and...

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Imposing a judicial code of ethics on SCOTUS could protect it from wealthy rightwing “Christians”

Imposing a judicial code of ethics on SCOTUS could protect it from wealthy rightwing “Christians”

Posted by | Jan 29, 2023

The European Parliament and the U.S. Supreme Court are both ensnarled in major corruption scandals. Each was caused by powerful politicians having no independent legal check on their own behavior. And on “this side of the pond” Congress needs to act as soon as possible. While news coverage of the EU here in the United States is mostly confined to the rarefied pages of financial and diplomatic publications and “international news” in major papers, the European Parliament is in the midst of a major, multinational bribery scandal. Numerous members are accused of taking hundreds of thousands of Euros in cash as...

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Why President Biden should follow President Truman’s courage and revive a Berlin-style Airlift for Ukraine

Why President Biden should follow President Truman’s courage and revive a Berlin-style Airlift for Ukraine

Posted by | Jan 25, 2023

This is not the first time Russia has tried freezing and starving people to death to get them to submit. They have done it at least twice before, once successfully in 1932 and once unsuccessfully in 1949. Although I would not be born for another two years, I “remember” the Berlin Airlift of 1948/1949. It was part of the story of my growing up: my mother’s first fiancée was killed fighting the Germans and my father volunteered for the war as soon as he got out of high school, returning from Japan, I believe, in 1948. My parents felt so...

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