Russia Today: Thom Hartmann & Thor Benson On Bernie Sanders

Source:Russia Today- Thom Hartmann & Thor Benson talking about Senator Bernie Sanders (Democratic Socialist, Socialist Republic of Vermont) on President Vladimir Putin's Russia Today.

"Thor Benson- Stop Calling Bernie Sanders a Socialist?"

Source:Russia Today

"RT (formerly Russia Today or Rossiya Segodnya) (Russian: Россия Сегодня)[9] is a Russian state-controlled[1] international news television network funded by the Russian government.[16][17] It operates pay television and free-to-air channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in Russian, English, Spanish, French, German and Arabic.

RT is a brand of TV-Novosti, an autonomous non-profit organization founded by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti in April 2005.[8][18] During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance to Russia.[19][20][21] RT operates as a multilingual service with channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (2010–2022),[22][23] RT UK (2014–2022) and other regional channels also produce local content. RT is the parent company of the Ruptly video agency,[5] which owns the Redfish video channel and the Maffick digital media company.[6][7]

RT has regularly been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy.[2] Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters (including some current and former RT reporters) have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation[58] and conspiracy theories.[65] UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality, including multiple instances in which RT broadcast "materially misleading" content.[72]

In 2012, RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan compared the channel to the Russian Ministry of Defence.[73] Referring to the Russo-Georgian War, she stated that it was "waging an information war, and with the entire Western world".[17][74] In September 2017, RT America was ordered to register as a foreign agent with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[75]

RT was banned in Ukraine in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea;[76] Latvia and Lithuania implemented similar bans in 2020.[77][78] Germany banned RT DE in February 2022.[79] After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland and then the entire European Union as well as Canada announced they were formally banning RT as well, while independent service providers in over 10 countries suspended broadcasts of RT.[80][81][82] Social media websites followed by blocking external links to RT's website and restricting access to RT's content.[83][84] Microsoft removed RT from their app store and de-ranked their search results on Bing,[85][86] while Apple removed the RT app from all countries except for Russia." 

From Wikipedia

I believe the best way to differentiate a Socialist, or Democratic Socialist from someone who is way Far-Left and a statist like a Communist, would be to put the two factions in separate groups. Democratic Socialists, which is the mainstream form of Socialists in the world and Marxists. Which is a fringe statist faction about as Far-Left as you get on that side of the spectrum. 

Bernie Sanders, is a Democratic Socialist. Fidel Castro, was a Marxist at least up until ten years, or so when Cuba started privatizing parts of their economy. But Fidel is still a Marxist on most issues like when it comes to personal freedom, which is he's against and individual rights.

What you get with Marxism is state-ownership of the entire economy, plus no individual rights. Individuals are essentially subjects, or children of the state with no rights of their own and not even allowed to think and speak for themselves. 

In a Marxist state, the truth is what the national state tells you it is. You work and live where the state says you do and I could go on, but I won't. 

In a social democracy the job of government is to see that everyone is taken care of, but not to try to do everything for them. Private economy, private ownership, property rights even, but a large central state and welfare state to make sure that no one has to go without anything that they need to live well.

Under a Bernie Sanders Administration, (lets say) the Federal Government would be bigger, taxes would be higher across the board perhaps, the roles of the states and localities would probably be smaller with more power when it comes to social welfare going to the Feds. But our Federal Republic would essentially still be the same. Federalism would still be alive in America with our three levels of government Federal, state and local. Schools, banks, energy companies, hospitals, wouldn't get nationalized and most of the economy, or at least a large percentage of it would still be in private hands. But taxes would be higher, even on the middle class and the Federal Government would have more responsibility to see to it that every American is taken care of.

Thom Hartmann: Caller: 'We Need to Repeal The 2nd Amendment!'

Source:Thom Hartmann- We the people. Not we the welfare state or we the big government.

Source:The New Democrat 

“If you liked this clip of The Thom Hartmann Program, please do us a big favor and share it with your friends… and hit that “like” button!” 

From Thom Hartmann

Thom Hartmann and even the caller to a certain extent, even though he called for repealing the 2nd Amendment, actually sounded reasonable here.

Look, I’m for what I and probably most Democrats call sensible gun control, or commonsense gun control. And what is that? We know who buys and has guns in America and if you’re not a criminal and not mentally handicapped in anyway and are let’s say 18 or over, you could own as many guns as you want from gifts and purchases.

But if you had history of violence, especially towards innocent people, whether its criminal violence, or you’re mentally handicapped and you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t have that right. Thats all I’m talking about.

And you did a national, independent, non-partisan poll, lets say from Gallup, or some place like that, you would get probably 3-5 of the vote in favor of a system like that. Before you buy a gun, or receive one as a gift, you go through a 24 hour background check. You pass that and you get, or keep your gun. You don’t pass that and you don’t.

We don’t need to repeal the 2nd Amendment to accomplish that. We need a solid majority in Congress, both House and Senate that believes in commonsense and doing things like this. That also believe mental health care is as important as physical health care. That we fully fund mental health care in America. And we could do that simply through the insurance system. And stop releasing mentally handicapped people, because we can’t afford to take care of them.

And we also don’t need big government coming in and saying that firearms are only for, well, big government. Other developed democratic free countries, may not have the Right to Self-Defense. But those countries also allow for their citizens to own firearms.

But they also have commonsense gun control policies, to keep guns away from violent criminals. And allow for their responsible law-biding people to own and use firearms. Just as long as they aren’t shooting innocent people.

We could do that in America, while keeping our 2nd Amendment in place and electing a responsible commonsense Congress and replacing just one of the Supreme Court Justices, that see the 2nd Amendment as absolute. While they compromise on the rest of our constitutional rights.

Thom Hartmann: Video: This Week, Governor Mike Pence Doesn't Understand Discrimination

Source:The New Democrat

If a church whatever the church decided not perform gay weddings or inter-racial weddings or inter-ethnic weddings, they would be perfectly within their rights. Remember, Separation of Church and State goes both ways. Government won’t endorse religion or interfere without churches practice their religion. And members of churches are more than welcome to believe that homosexuality is a sin and that gays are not equal to straights. And even express those views in public. Just as long as they are inciting violence or falsely accusing gays of lets say bad behavior. But we are not talking about that, which is why this so-called Indiana Religious Freedom Law will either get thrown out by the courts. Or Indiana will decide to scrap their own law because of the lost of economic revenue that will come to Indiana. With different states and private business’s and groups deciding not to do business in Indiana. This is not about religious freedom, but creating some new right for private groups that are open for the public, to deny access to people simply because they are gay and for no other reason. Which is bigotry and will be thrown out.

Thom Hartmann & Michael Medved: Debating the Role of Government in America

Source:Free State MD

You ask the question’s what’s the role of government and you’ll get many different answers across the political spectrum in America. From Socialists who want government to do almost everything. Who believe the best society is the society that is as equal as possible. With no rich, middle or poor people. "And the best way to do that is through centralize power through the Federal Government". To Libertarians who want government to do almost nothing. Who don’t believe in limited government. 

Today's Libertarians are talking about  small government, not limited government. And basically believe that government’s job is to protect individual liberty and constitutional rights. To Liberals such as myself who believe in limited government. And just want government there to do the things that we can’t do for ourselves or do as well. To Conservatives who believe that government should be even more limited. And there are less things that the people shouldn’t be doing for themselves.

Thats where we are as a country when it comes to the role of government. And where its people on the Far-Left that want the Federal Government doing almost everything when it relates to the economy. To people on the Far-Right who believe that government isn’t doing enough to regulate people's personal lives. That we have too much individual liberty and we need more restrictions on who we live our own lives. 

To Libertarians who want Government out of the economy and out of our social lives and leave us alone. And these are the three loudest voices in this debate right now. Believers in limited government, Liberals such as myself are in a debate where its about whether we should double the size of the Federal Government ,or cut in half. And we are sort of in that middle of that debate.

I myself, I’m a Liberal Democrats and a believer in limited government. That it should only do what people can’t do for themselves or as well. Based on the authority it has in the U.S. Constitution. And for me that’s, law enforcement, national security, foreign policy and regulation of the economy. Protecting innocent people from the abusive harm of others. Not trying to protect people from themselves. That it’s about individual liberty and responsibility for me. That's what you get in a liberal democracy. Instead of government trying to protect us from ourselves, or do for us what we can do and do better for ourselves.

Thom Hartmann & Michael Medved: Debating The Role of Government - Part 2

Source:Free State MD

I think both Thom Hartmann and Michael Medved hit it on the head in their opening statements and perhaps the first and last times they’ll agree on anything in their lifetimes and they are about the same age. But they said it as well as it could that this debate is really about what the role of government should be in America. And they both said that the role of government should be about protecting our rights and that’s exactly what the role of government should be. 

So then the question should be what are our rights. And what Americans have the right to in America and the right to life is exactly that we as Americans have the. Right to our own lives and the right to live our own lives. Not run the lives of other Americans or harm or take the lives or run the lives of others. And that it’s the job of government to protect our right to live our own lives. Not to run our lives and try to protect us from ourselves or to try to say what’s good for us and what we should be doing with our own lives. But protect our right to live our own lives.

This means that we have the right to freedom, but not that freedom is given to us by government or anyone else, but that we have the right to get the freedom for ourselves to live our own lives and we have the right to live our own lives as long as we aren’t infringing on the rights of others who are innocent from, living their lives. In other words hurting innocent people.  

Where government comes in is to regulate how we interact with each other so we aren’t hurting innocent people. But not there to run our lives or protect us from ourselves and the other role of government is to create and keep up an environment where we all can use the freedom to live our own lives. And that means things like an effective and affordable infrastructure system. Universal access to quality education and a safety-net for people who fall through the cracks of the private enterprise system so we can get on our own feet and take care of ourselves.

That’s really the only right that Americans have the right to. Life and the right to live in freedom and live our own lives and. The only thing that government has is to protect out rights to life and freedom. And everything else that we get in life has nothing to do with our rights to those things that we get. But we get things based on what we do with the freedom that we have and the freedom that we have is based on what we do with the opportunities in front of us to live in freedom.  

Russia Today: The Big Picture With Thom Hartmann: Pat Buchanan: 'The Greatest Comeback'

Source:Russia Today- author Patrick J. Buchanan talking to Thom Hartmann, about his book about Richard M. Nixon.

Source: The Big Picture: Thom Hartmann- In Depth With Pat Buchanan: Richard Nixon's Greatest Comeback

"RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-controlled[1] international television network funded by the federal tax budget of the Russian government.[15][16] It operates pay television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.

RT is a brand of TV-Novosti, an "autonomous non-profit organization" founded by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti in April 2005.[10][17] During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance to Russia.[18][19][20] RT operates as a multilingual service with channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (since 2010),[21] RT UK (since 2014) and other regional channels also produce local content. RT is the parent company of the Ruptly video agency,[5][6][7] which owns the Redfish video channel and the Maffick digital media company.[8][9]

RT has been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy.[2] Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters (including some current and former RT reporters) have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation[42] and conspiracy theories.[48] UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality, including multiple instances in which RT broadcast "materially misleading" content.[55] RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan compared the channel to the Ministry of Defence and stated that it was "waging an information war, and with the entire Western world".[16][56] In September 2017, RT America was ordered to register as a "foreign agent" with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[57] RT has been banned in Ukraine since 2014,[58] and in Latvia[59] and Lithuania[60] since 2020." 

From Wikipedia 

"Patrick J. Buchanan, The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority talks to Thom." 

From Russia Today

"Legendary political commentator and New York Times best selling author Pat Buchanan came to the Richard Nixon Library on July 21 to discuss his new book, “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.”  

Source:Nixon Foundation- author Patrick J. Buchanan, talking about his book about President Richard M. Nixon.

From the Nixon Foundation

I actually agree with Pat Buchanan over Thom Hartmann on this. And I disagree with Thom Hartmann on a lot because he is so far out in left field that it would be impossible to hit a home run out at that ballpark at least to left field. You would need a jet plane to fly the baseball and drop it over the wall at that ballpark. 

I agree with Pat Buchanan as much as it snows in Los Angeles. Because he is so far to the right that he makes the Islamic theocrats in Iran look moderate. But I probably agree with Hartmann more often than Buchanan on most civil liberties issues like the War on Drugs.

And this is why I agree with Buchanan here, because as much as the far-left likes to paint Richard Nixon as some type of right-wing authoritarian with the illegal bugging and other criminal activities inside of the White House, Dick Nixon was actually pretty moderate or progressive even as it related to civil rights issues. And even consumer and workers protections is it related to the environment and civil rights. 

As Mr. Buchanan said Mr. Nixon was way ahead of the Southern Caucus in the Democratic Party on civil and equal rights and supported all of the civil rights bills of the 1950s and 60s. And even supported affirmative action in the 1970s. 

You can also see this post at FreeState MD, on Blogger.

Thom Hartmann: Video: Senator Bernie Sanders on the Demand Side of Economics

I'm going to try to put this in a way that perhaps even a Libertarian or Tea Partier could understand. The caller in this video as Senator Sanders said laid out real well or perfectly as I would put it what demand side economics is. Which is when someone invests in something or creates a new product or service that people want at an affordable rate that investment will pay for itself because of the consumer demand that it will bring in return with people buying that product or service. And then of course the money that goes back in the economy and the jobs that get created as a result.

As far as government is concern when it comes to investment. I'm not here to try to make a case that all government investment is good and good for the economy. Or as let's say the further left is concern "all non-defense or security related investment is good for the economy". Why because people who actually believe in that do enough of that all the time. But the things that government should be investing in as it relates to the economy they should be investing in it a hell of a lot more and do it in a fiscally responsible way. And infrastructure investment is a perfect example of that.

Government awards money to construction companies to fix and build new infrastructure and now what do you have, but companies with work to do and of course they need workers to do the work. So that is where the jobs come in and now people who weren't working last week and collecting a public assistance check are working this week collecting a solid pay check for the work they do. What do they do with that money is pay off current bills that they didn't have the money for previously. But each further check goes into the economy to pay those workers bills and for them to live well and enjoy life. Which creates new jobs because of the new consumer demand.

Demand side economics is a term that I wish I've been using a long time ago. But that is exactly what it is and a role and not the only role, but a role that government has in seeing that certain projects that the country needs for the economy to be as strong as possible get done and gets done in a fiscally responsible manner. Which puts money in the economy and creates new jobs as well.

Thom Hartmann: 'We The People Are The Ultimate Arbiters!'

Source:Thom Hartmann with We The People.

"Thom reads Thomas Jefferson's words - We The People should have the final say on constitutionality of law!" 

From Thom Hartmann 

So under Thom Hartmann's theory, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton that was passed by a Republican Congress that SCOTUS had no constitutional authority to do that. 

By the way, DOMA was a law making it illegal for same-sex marriages to be recognized by the Federal Government. Which to me at least is unconstitutional on its face and deserved to be thrown out. But under Mr. Hartmann's theory SCOTUS had no business touching that bill.

Thom Hartmann making what would be called a strict-constructionist argument about the constitutional authority of the U.S. Supreme Court. Which means to put it simply, that if the actual words do not exist in the Constitution for individuals or governments or organizations to do X or Y, then those rights and powers do not exist. 

To use as an example of strict constitutional constuctionism: since the word privacy does not exist anywhere in the Constitution, Americans do not not have a constitutional right to privacy in the United States even under the Fourth Amendment. That would be a strict-constructionist argument.

I hate to break it to anyone who is not aware of this especially people on the further left in America (to be nice), but America is not a social democracy and we never have been. We are a federal republic in the form of a liberal democracy which is different. And just because there's a popular majority that says Congress should pass X or Y and Congress does pass X or Y, doesn't mean Congress does actually pass that law in the first place. 

But even if Congress does pass the law that doesn't mean that law stays in place forever. And that is where the Supreme Court comes in to decide not if laws are well-written or are good laws. But to decide on the constitutionality of them and nothing more.

You can also see this post at FreeState MD, on Blogger.

Thom Hartmann: Dr. Ravi Batra- A Revolution is Coming!

Source: Thom Hartmann

Source: Thom Hartmann: Dr. Ravi Batra- A Revolution is Coming

Just an editor's note: I watched about seventeen-minutes of this video and didn't hear a damn thing about any revolution.  Actually seventeen minutes before I started writing about this video and continued to watch it while I was blogging.

I'm getting tired of hearing these bold predictions about ending unemployment in a year or two, as in Dr. Ravi Batra's case, or even ten years.  These predictions are worth as much as a paper cup of creek water. You would only drink that if you were dying of thirst and had nothing else to drink.  We need to be talking about bringing unemployment down to historic levels, between 5-6 percent, since the late 1980s and getting back to the size of workforce that we had back in 2006-07.

To do that we need Congressional action.  We need to finally get back to rebuilding our infrastructure. We moved away from that in the early 2000s and have fallen deeply behind as a result. We need more access to job training and education for our low-skilled, low-income adult population.  We need to get companies to invest in those communities.  We need a real national energy policy built around producing American natural resources which create jobs inside of the United States.

We need, as well, to lower taxes on all investments and profits made inside of the United States, along with eliminating corporate welfare, so that more companies, domestic and foreign, would be encouraged to invest and make money in America.  This would get us back to strong economic growth of three-percent or more and create 200-300 thousand jobs a month with a falling unemployment rate, debt, and deficit.  Our economy would be headed back to full strength.

Thom Hartmann: Video: Our Tax system is Up-Side-Down!

Thom Hartmann says that he makes his living by producing services for the general public through his talk shows and writings, whereas investors like Mitt Romney make their money by investing in other companies.  When those companies do well, so does Mitt.  When they lose, so does Mitt, the differences between producing and investing.

I wouldn't go as far as Mr. Hartmann here and tax all rich people at ninety-percent. If you want people, to be doctors, lawyers, accountants, mechanics, business people etc., to be productive and successful then you shouldn't discourage them from being successful.  You shouldn't tax the hell out of them simply because they are successful.  I prefer taxation by the income you spend rather than the income you earn.

RT: Video: The Big Picture: Thom Hartmann: It's Time to Outlaw Billionaires

Thom Hartmann should change the name of his political segment "The Lone Liberal" to The Lone Socialist. The Lone Liberal segment on this show is where Thom Hartmann, the supposed Liberal, takes on at least two right-wingers in a debate but socialism is really what Mr. Hartmann is espousing.  He says that wealth is basically a bad thing and should be eliminated that so there are no longer extremes of income.

If you don't want Americans to be as productive as they can be and to enjoy the benefits of their productivity, then take away their incentive to be productive and successful. Taxing people at 100 percent of any income over a billion dollars or 90 percent over a million discourages our most productive people people from being productive.

Free Speech TV: Video: The Big Picture With Thom Hartmann: Jeffrey O'Hara: How Do We Stop Paying for Foods That Kill?

If we want to encourage people to eat healthy diets and take care of themselves, we have to change the Federal Government's farm policy to stop subsidizing junk food and soft drinks and to change our  Food Assistance programs so that low-income people can afford healthier diets.  We need to change the crop allotments of the farm subsidy programs, which were set many decades ago, to reduce or eliminate subsidies for animal feed crops and to shift those funds to crops that are more healthy for human consumption.  Food Assistance funds should not pay for junk food and drinks but should be targeted on  healthy foods and drinks.

This is a good example of how encouragement, or subsidization, of positive behavior, which has been the New Democratic approach to problem solving going back to the early 1990s or further, beats the paternalistic big government approach that says, "Dammit, these things aren't good for you so Big Brother isn't going to let you have them."

The encouragement or subsidization approach realizes the fundamental fact that telling someone that they shouldn't or can't do something that they've been doing, and enjoying, for as long as they can remember will not stop them from doing it.  But you can show them that there is a better way and give them financial incentives to improve their behavior.

Thom Hartman: Video: The Progressive Budget vs. Paul Ryan's Budget

I wish I knew how many members would have actually voted for the so-called House Progressive Caucus budget.  I actually posed that question that on Google+ and Twitter.  You can see for yourself, if you have absolutely nothing else to do, if you've tired of watching  paint dry.  I can tell you how many people voted for the official House Democratic budget, the Van Hollen/Pelosi budget, 160 Democrats.

If you want to get an idea about the Progressive Caucus, think Green Party and the Democratic Socialist Party.  Look, I'm sure that there are some actual Progressives in the group, at least two, maybe more.  Most members of this caucus  are Democrats in name only because that is the way they can get elected in American politics, outside of getting elected statewide for governor or U.S. Senate.  They come from the furthest left districts in the country that have been gerrymandered so that they can be elected and reelected.

To be honest with you, I haven't actually read the CPC budget.  The CPC is made up of the most left Representatives and a few Senators in Congress.  If it is anything like the 2011 CPC budget that repealed all of the Bush tax cuts, included a fifty-percent tax hike on the middle class, and got something like forty votes in the House, then this budget never had the Chicago Cubs chance of winning the World Series of ever passing.  Most Congressional Democrats are smart enough not to vote for middle class tax hikes in an election year.

There has to be some choice between the Paul Ryan/Ayn Rand plan that balances the budget by having middle class seniors pay more for Medicare and guts public assistance to people who have to have it in order to survive and the Progressive Caucus/Socialist plan which turns almost everything in the country over to the Federal Government and lets the Feds run our lives for us.  Some choice to give voters and why neither of them will ever become law.

Thom Hartmann: 'Time to Fire the DEA Director Michelle Leonhart!'

Source:Thom Hartmann- Drug Enforcement Agency Director Michelle Leonhart, testifying in front of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Thom Hartmann says President Obama needs to fire DEA head Michele Leonhart over her stance against marijuana legalization." 

From Thom Hartmann

If you still don't believe that big government in America is nonpartisan issue in America, just look at the so-called War On Drugs. Which is just another way of say Americans in favor of stupidity and insanity, because supporters of the so-called War On Drugs do the same thing and support the same things and policies over and over, expecting different results. 

The War On Drugs was a failure in the 1980s and 30 years later, basically have the same policy when it comes to the WOD, punish people for what they do to themselves and expect them to learn that hurting themselves is bad for them, by making their lives even worst and forcing them to want to get even higher, because now they're in jail or prison. 

The Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency, is example 1 of what it's like to be insane and stupid in America, because the continues to support the same War On Drugs, expecting different results, even though we already know that it's a gigantic failure and waste of America tax dollars. 

You can also see this post at FreeState MD, on Blogger.

Thom Hartmann: Video: Mike Papantonio: Our Looming Judicial Crisis

At risk of sounding completely inside the beltway and like a congressional junky who knows too much about U.S. Senate rules, Senate Democrats should consider a new rule and even do it with a 51-vote majority necessary and make it permanent:   If you don't show up to vote, you lose your vote and the committee, in this case the Judiciary Committee, will move on without you and vote on these nominees.

Five years ago I would never have guessed that Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, would be so irresponsible an obstructionist that he would go to such lengths to stop President Obama from getting his appointments through the Senate as to tell his members of the Judiciary Committee not to show up to vote because that is the only way to stop the President from getting his appointments through.  That is assuming Senator Grassley is behind this immature strategy; I simply don't know that yet.

Russia Today: The Big Picture: Thom Hartmann- 'Time for White Americans to Wake the Hell Up'

Source:Russia Today- from Thom Hartmann's RT program.

"RT (formerly Russia Today) is a state-controlled international television network funded by the Russian federal tax budget.[5][6] It operates pay television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.

RT operates as a multilingual service with conventional channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (since 2010),[7] RT UK (since 2014) and other regional channels also offer some locally based content." 

From Wikipedia 

"It's time for white Americans to wake up - and help heal the wounds caused by 400 years of slavery and discrimination in our country." 

From Thom Hartmann

What Thom Hartmann doesn't mention that is some of the stereotypes of the African-American community gets positive play in the hip-hop community, a community that obviously has huge influence over the African-American community when it comes to music, movies, lifestyle, clothing, and I could go on but I'll spare you. But also it has to do with what hip-hoppers like to call Thug Life or Gangsta Life, and young African-American men especially see this and decide that this is how they want to be and to be seen and tend to be successful at achieving that.

Mr. Hartmann is not making any news here because, of course, people are people and just a small percentage of people of all races, not just Caucasians, see people as members of groups that should be avoided. 

We should all just be treated as individuals and not members of groups, which is one of my core values as a liberal. But no one race in America has a monopoly when it comes to racism and having racist views and no one race in America has a monopoly when it comes to the effects of being looked at stereotypically.

The Far-Left doesn't seem to understand that no one race in America has a monopoly when it comes to stereotyping one race of people. I mean, if you want to use the cab driver analogy when it comes to African-American men, with Black men, let's say not being able to get a cab because of their skin color, well guess what, not all cab drivers, in case you are not that experienced with cabs, are Caucasian and a lot of them are South Asian or Native African, such as Ethiopian, or Middle Eastern, and African-American, who are turned down for cabs by people of various races.

And it's not just one race of people who are guilty of stereotyping and it is not just racial minorities who are victims of racial stereotyping. Caucasians get stereotyped, especially if they are from the South or rural America, as being bigots across the board by people not from their culture and lifestyle. Or they get stereotyped as Ivy League or rich and they are stereotyped by people from the media and even from their own race.

Latino is not a race, but Latino men and women in this group are stereotyped as illegal immigrants and people on welfare are stereotyped as as car thieves. And not just by Caucasians and Asians, Orientals especially are stereotyped as being brilliant or intellectual and not being American, who can't speak English, and again not just by Caucasians. 

So racial profiling and racism are all around us, practiced by all sorts of Americans and are something in America that the Far-Left needs to understand if they are truly interested in racial equality.  Stereotyping by perceived good qualities may be just as negative as stereotyping by perceived bad qualities.

RT: Video: The Big Picture: John Farrell: What is Energy Decentralization?

This sounds very interesting, because instead of talking about nationalizing energy or State or local governments turning energy companies into government-owned agencies, John Farrell is saying the opposite.  Instead of creating a new government or public or private monopoly, he's talking about ways to empower individuals and private groups to provide their own energy rather than use the energy provided by a public or private monopoly.

I've been thinking about this for about 7 years now I guess, as a native Marylander and still a Maryland resident who lives halfway between Maine and Florida, meaning we can get both Arctic weather in the winter and Caribbean hot and humid weather in the summer, which means northeasterly blizzards in the winter and long heat waves in the summer with no rain.  When we finally get rain, it comes as a violent storm that wipes out much of our power.

The State of Maryland has one private utility company, Pepco, which is responsible for all of the electricity for the State, meaning it has no competition and no incentive to be efficient. It provides lousy service to say the least, and on several occasions in the last few years, as in the July 2012 heat wave, we were out of power for about a week in a 100-degree heat wave because Pepco was unprepared to handle power outages for a State of 6 million people all by itself.

The Big Picture: Video: Thom Hartmann & Tim Cavanaugh: When Conservatives Embraced Big Government

What Thom Hartmann doesn't mention is that a lot of those Federal jobs were created in the Reagan Administration in the U.S. Department of Defense and a large number in the private defense industry and most of that money for the DoD was put on the national debt card. Ronald Reagan might have been an economic conservative but he sure as hell wasn't a fiscal conservative, taking a budget deficit of roughly $40 billion in 1980 up to 200 by the time he left office in January 1989 and adding something like $4 trillion to the debt.

So President Reagan was not hiring all of these social workers or increasing the size of the U.S. Department of Education or the number of employees at the Social Security Administration, Medicare, and other social insurance agencies. He was expanding the size of the national security state, not the welfare state, because he wanted the Cold War with Russia to end, which was a great thing. But the country paid a hell of a price for that with the stock market crash of 1987 and the recession of 1990-91.

Free Speech TV: Video: The Big Picture With Thom Hartmann: Richard Wolff What to do when Capitalism Fails

Didn't catch the part about what Professor Richard Wolff would do when capitalism failed. He just said how he believed it would fail and why it would fail but not what would happen next. I could give you what he's said in the past about what should replace capitalism, at least in its current form in America.

And he's argued in the past for simply replacing capitalism with a Marxist economic system of state ownership across the board, and a few months ago I read a column of his arguing for economic cooperatives, which is a more Socialist form of capitalism, where the employees themselves would each own a share of the business at which they work, not government, which is different. I believe this is an excellent alternative to the corporate centralized model as long as it is not mandated by government but where management or individuals make the decision to cooperate themselves, for lack of a better word, but I didn't hear him call for these things in this video.

Thom Hartmann: Video: Caller: Taxation is Not The Solution To The Sugar Problem!

I agree that we should as a society be able to hold people accountable for their own bad decisions. Whether it comes to diet or anything else instead of allowing those people to pass those costs onto society as a whole. Because it us unfair for people who make good decisions in life eat and drink well, properly exercise on a regular basis, to then get stuck with the bad decisions of people who do not make good lifestyle decisions.

Where I differ with Thom Hartmann comes to why I would tax these unhealthy products. We know prohibition doesn’t work and trying to outlaw junk food and soft drinks salt and sugar would be just as costly as trying to outlaw marijuana and other illegal narcotics. So we don’t want to go down that road of arresting and locking people up for making unhealthy decisions with their own lives. Which means personal freedom and responsibility are the alternatives. You want to live unhealthy fine, but you and you alone will pay the costs of those bad decisions and no one else.

Well actually the companies who make these products would pay those costs as well. And then what you do with the money is to give it to people who live healthy. By making healthy behavior cheaper so everyone could afford to eat and drink healthy. Workout and so-forth and you reimburse hospitals who have high bills because of all the uncompensated health care. They have to give because of people using their emergency rooms.