tagged w/ Thom Hartmann
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The New York Times is out with a new story today on WPP - a London-based corporation that is buying up most of the big lobbying shops here in Washington, DC. The Times refers to the company as a "consolidating force at work in the influence-peddling industry." WPP is a $72 billion dollar foreign corporation - running more than 150 public relations, advertising, and lobbying companies employing nearly 160,000 people. And K. Street is getting devoured by WPP - as more and more lobbying boutiques join up with the massive one-stop shop of influence. As the Times writes, "WPP has become, in effect, a special interest mega-firm, with offerings for conservatives and liberals, environmentalists and polluters, gun lovers and gun haters, Tea Party die-hards and public sector unions, old guard media and their high tech competitors - the entire gamut from left to right, top to bottom."
So if you're a Texas energy baron - and you want to blow up EPA regulations on toxic coal ash - then reach out to WPP - where you'll have... First, access to their public relations team to promote your corporation and give it a good name in the community. Second, access to their advertising team to run smears against the EPA and "job-killing" regulations. And third, access to a lobbyist to whip up support for your anti-EPA agenda on Capitol Hill. Mitt Romney's Bain Capital did just that in 2011 - giving WPP $320,000 to monitor "tax reform development." And here's what's most troubling - WPP runs operations in 107 different nations including the United States - it's like an unofficial branch of government that knows no national boundaries. This is a Libertarian's wet-dream - a one-world, corporate government that answers to profits instead of principles. And it shows that those of us who want restore true democracy - represented by "we the people" and not corporations - still have a lot of work to left to do.
Throughout history - democratic governments have always been a society's best defense against massive wealth and corporate power. But now that democracy is being privatized and monopolized, it's increasingly going to the highest bidder. While WPP can run these operations in numerous countries, the US is particularly vulnerable, because our Supreme Court hatched this bizarre idea that money isn't property like common sense would tell us, but that it's actually a form of speech, which the First Amendment says can't be regulated. Because of this Supreme Court-created doctrine - which no president and no Congress has ever advocated - in fact, many have pushed back against it - because of this, WPP and other big corporations can essentially buy the laws they want.
This is not democracy in action - it's the death of democracy at the hand of big corporations like Bain Financial and JP Morgan Chase. We need our lawmakers to ban the practice of corporations writing laws, giving those laws to legislators along with big campaign checks, and running massive advertising and PR campaigns to ensure public acceptance of those laws. But for now, it's illegal for our legislators to enact such a ban, because the Supreme Court says they'd be trampling the free speech rights - the use of money - of the corporations the Supreme Court recognizes as "people." It's time to put an end to the subversion of democracy in America by a British corporation. But before that can be done, we need to stop the Supreme Court from pushing their bizarre doctrine that corporations are people and money is speech. For that, go to movetoamend.org and join in the movement to amend the Constitution to end this corruption of democracy by the Supreme Court.The New York Times is out with a new story today on WPP - a London-based corporation... more
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Sam Sacks, Progressive writer/strategist & Brian Darling, Heritage Foundation & Caroline May, The Daily Caller all join Thom Hartmann. Has Mitt Romney bullied his way into power all of his life? - and shouldn't losing 2 billion dollars be a red flag that more financial regulations are needed in America?Sam Sacks, Progressive writer/strategist & Brian Darling, Heritage Foundation... more
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The Justice Department is suing infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio - accusing him of civil rights violations. Will Republicans continue to stand by their man - and continue being the party of hatred and bigotry?The Justice Department is suing infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio - accusing him of... more
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Seth Freed Wessler, Applied Research Center/Colorlines.com joins Thom Hartmann. Children are being ripped from the arms of their parents at an alarming rate today in America. 5,000 American children are in foster care today because their parents have been deported. So is this really what Americans want when they call for greater enforcement of our borders? Or has something gone terribly wrong with immigration enforcement?Seth Freed Wessler, Applied Research Center/Colorlines.com joins Thom Hartmann.... more
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A Reverend goes unhinged about womens' right to vote. And while most Americans would write the guy off as a crackpot - Fox so-called News calls him a contributor and a guest.A Reverend goes unhinged about womens' right to vote. And while most Americans... more
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James Bamford, Investigative Journalist/Author joins Thom Hartmann. There's a massive new building under construction in the city of Bluffdale, Utah - population just seven and a half thousand people. It's a two billion dollar project commissioned by the National Security Agency - complete with heavy fortifications, surveillance, and top-secret clearance. The building - officially being recognized under the innocuous name - the Utah Data Center - is expected to be completed by later Summer of 2013. But what exactly is it? What will be going on within the top-secret walls of the $2 billion Utah Data Center? The answer...surveillance - but not just surveillance - we're talking the biggest spy center this nation has ever seen. And if you use the Internet, talk on the phone, or check out books from the library - then you should be very concerned with this so-called Data Center - or Spy Center - under construction in Utah.James Bamford, Investigative Journalist/Author joins Thom Hartmann. There's a... more
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Adam Peck, Think Progress, joins Thom Hartmann. You might remember back in 2004 - Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry was dogged by these outrageous and misleading ads. Those were funded by the group Swift Boat Veteran's for Truth - a right-wing organization that attempted to spin John Kerry's military service against him. The ads were so effective they cost Kerry that election - and introduced a new word in our American political lexicon - "swiftboating" - meaning to launch unfair or untrue political attacks. And now - as we're heading into the 2012 election - one group is trying to swiftboat President Obama with this new ad - trying to spin President Obama's killing of Osama Bin Laden against him. The group behind that ad is calling itself "Veterans For a Strong America." So what more do we need to know about this group - as it begins its ad assault on the President?Adam Peck, Think Progress, joins Thom Hartmann. You might remember back in 2004 -... more
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Professor Max Fraad Wolff, Economist/Instructor, New School University joins Thom Hartmann. After years of Technocrats and banksters having their say on European budgets - democracy finally had its say. So what do this weekends' elections across Europe mean for the 1% trickle-down austerity agenda - and the future of the global economy?Professor Max Fraad Wolff, Economist/Instructor, New School University joins Thom... more
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With England and Spain in double-dip recessions - and civil unrest from Madrid to Athens - austerity might be coming to an end. But is something else dying along with austerity - and why will it leave the likes of Paul Ryan and Ron Paul in tears?With England and Spain in double-dip recessions - and civil unrest from Madrid to... more
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In the fall of 1773 - a group of revolutionaries dressed up like Indians - boarded a ship belonging to the East India Tea Company - and dumped over a million dollars worth of tea over the rail and into Boston Harbor. It was later called the Boston Tea Party - the first act in a drama that eventually led to the Revolutionary War - and the birth of the United States of America. What most people don't know about the Boston Tea Party is why exactly it happened - what the colonists were actually protesting against. It wasn't just against the King, or taxation without representation, or a fight for freedom. It was a protest against corporate control over the North American economy. It came after the British Parliament - who were mostly shareholders in the British East India Company - gave the largest corporate tax break in the history of the world to the world's then-largest corporation, the East India Company - so it could pull a Wal-Mart and put out of business all the local tea sellers up and down the east coast of the colonies. Enraged by that blatant example of crony capitalism - the Tea Act of 1773 - the colonists put feathers on their heads and dumped the tea overboard - and the rest is history. Our nation has a history of - and in fact was founded on - rebelling against corporate monopolies and rage about corporations getting huge tax breaks from Parliament.
Which brings us to today - when tens of thousands of Americans across the nation have taken to the streets to once again protest against too much corporate power and corporate corruption of our government. They're protesting against massive tax breaks for job outsourcers, tax subsidies for insanely profitable oil corporations, and bailouts for Wall Street banksters. And in the irony of all ironies - it just so happens that the most corrupt of our politicians today - the most in-the-bag for the big corporations - are calling themselves Tea Partiers. A lot of the discontent of today was sewn three years ago. Wall Street got bailed out - and the rest of us were stuck with the worst recession since the Great Depression while banksters were cutting fat bonus checks to each other. Americans knew they got screwed. And the banksters, CEOs, and corporate politicians knew that Americans knew they got screwed. So they tapped into that anger to defend themselves.In the fall of 1773 - a group of revolutionaries dressed up like Indians - boarded a... more
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In the United States - nearly 75 percent of all supermarket foods are genetically engineered or modified in some way. And while this fact alone is enough to make you think twice about what you buy at your local foodstore - it gets worse. The United States doesn't require labeling of genetically modified foods - so you really have no idea whether you're buying something natural or vegetables filled with fish genes - and that's how biotech and agribusiness companies want it. But - a new grassroots campaign is underway - with hopes of toppling the big biotech bullies - and outing genetically modified foods. So - if you think that you can't control whether or not you eat genetically modified foods - than everything you know is wrong! Joining Thom Hartmann now is Alexis Baden-Mayer - Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association.In the United States - nearly 75 percent of all supermarket foods are genetically... more
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After searching long and hard - and disenfranchising thousands of Americans along the way - Republicans have finally found the culprit in their great voter fraud scandal. Turns out they didn't have to look very hard at all...After searching long and hard - and disenfranchising thousands of Americans along the... more
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More bad news coming from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. While speaking to Swiss lawmakers last month - Japan's former ambassador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, warned that if the building housing reactor four at the plant were to collapse - as many officials fear might happen - then it would lead to a global catastrophe like the world has never seen before. As Reader Supported News reports - a former official with the U.S. Department of Energy commented on the consequences of a building collapse around reactor four saying, "If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident." And if that fire were to consume the thousands of other radioactive spent fuel rods at the Fukushima plant - then the radiological event could be 85-times greater than the Chernobyl disaster. So just how dangerous is the situation still at the Fukushima plant - and what are the consequences for the United States? Kevin Kamps is back - he is the Nuclear Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear.More bad news coming from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. While... more
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Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, joins Thom Hartmann. California beware! A radioactive wave is headed toward the West Coast of the United States courtesy of the Fukushima nuclear disaster? So with nuclear power still wreaking havoc on the environment - why are the Japanese about to flip on more of their nuclear reactors?Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, joins Thom Hartmann. California beware! A radioactive... more
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Gary Weiss, author, Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul," joins Thom Hartmann. Paul Ryan may have introduced a budget that destroys the middle-class - but his ideas aren't new. So where did he get all his crazy ideas about giving tax cuts to billionaires - eliminating Medicare - and robbing schoolkids of an education? Here's what Congressman Paul Ryan said about Ayn Rand.Gary Weiss, author, Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America's... more
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On Sunday night - a homemade explosive device was detonated outside a window of a Planned Parenthood office in Wisconsin - but you haven't heard a peep about it from mainstream media. The Fear Machine is tearing apart American society. How can we turn it off and return America to the land of the free and the home of the brave?
The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101720157
"Are you afraid or are you still out shopping as GW told you too???"On Sunday night - a homemade explosive device was detonated outside a window of a... more
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John Horgan, Center for Science Writings joins Thom Hartmann. War - what is it good for? The song will tell you "absolutely nothing" - and new research suggests it doesn't have to be part of human nature at all. Modern history will teach you that war is an inevitable part of American culture - after all - we've been involved in over a dozen wars or conflicts over the last century. But is modern history the exception - and not the rule? Could it be that the true nature of humans is to be peaceful?John Horgan, Center for Science Writings joins Thom Hartmann. War - what is it good... more
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"In the midst of the Republican battle on Super Tuesday - Progressives suffered a major defeat. Congressman Dennis Kucinich joins us tonight to talk about where his fight for progressive causes will take him next."!
"In the midst of the Republican battle on Super Tuesday - Progressives... more
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Russ Baker joins Thom Hartmann. Just when you thought it couldn't happen again...Could another Bush be moving into the White House? What happens if Romney and Santorum keep splitting delegates like this - and Ron Paul keeps taking his share too - and no one in the race ends up with the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination?Russ Baker joins Thom Hartmann. Just when you thought it couldn't happen... more
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Lets get geeked out on some science. New research suggests that methycillin resistant Staphyloccus aureus - better known as the highly antibiotic resistant superbug MERSA - the flesh-eating bacteria that has killed so many people - may have evolved its defenses to antibiotics on a factory farm. A paper published by the American Society for Microbiology lays out how a human strain of MERSA was originally drug-defeatable - but then transferred into a pig population where it developed its resistance to antibiotics - and bounced back into the human population. Like most forms of livestock - pigs are often fed antibiotics to help them grow faster and prevent the infections that come with the crowding and horrible conditions in factory farms. As a result - any infection they may have - like MERSA - becomes immune to the high levels of antibiotics in their systems. The fact that pigs have played a role in creating a human superbug shouldn't come as any surprise considering pigs and humans are biologically quite similar. Until a human insulin drug was made in 1978 - Pig insulin was routinely used to treat diabetes in humans.Lets get geeked out on some science. New research suggests that methycillin resistant... more
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