Thom Hartmann: The Good, the Bad, and the very, very Funestly Ugly

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 02:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdCmpASvwSs   Posted on YouTube: September 15, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 131   Posted on DU: September 15, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 830

 
The Good! Ralph Nader. Ten years after 9/11 - Nader isn’t afraid to tell some inconvenient truths about our nation’s response to that grim day. In an interview with The Nation magazine reporter George Zornick - Nader spoke about the rise of the military industrial complex - saying, “The folly of the military-industrial complex is that it not only erodes our economy and destroys a quality standard of living, but it also insures an empire which is insatiable in terms of the contracts that Lockheed Martin and others want to dominate the world…It’s just the opposite of defense, an empire eventually devours its own people.” Nader’s right - and we need more people like him to highlight this dark road that America embarked on post 9/11 \\

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The Bad! Washington’s revolving door. According to a new report by Legistorm - over the last ten years - 5,400 former Congressional staffers - and 400 former lawmakers have gone on to become lobbyists. Not only that - more than 600 former lobbyists have gone on to work in Congress. As Jock Friedly the founder of Legistorm noted, “For every person the American people have elected to sponsor legislation of public benefit, special interests have more than one former legislative advocate now working on the inside in Congress…That represents a large network of people to influence decisions and to provide valuable intelligence.” It also represents the erosion of our democracy. We need to shut the revolving door on Capitol Hill for good - and hold our lawmakers accountable to voters - and not deep-pocketed lobbyists \\

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And the Very, Very Ugly! The Drudge Report. The right-wing fear mongering hack website had an interesting take on last night’s Republican victory in New York’s 9th Congressional district - what used to be Congressman Anthony Weiner’s seat. Plastered across the top of the Matt Drudge’s webpage was the headline, “Revenge of the Jews.” The headline linked to a Washington Post article that described the district’s high percentage of Jewish voters and argued that many of them may have been upset with the President’s foreign policy toward Israel - and voted Republicans. So naturally - Drudge took it as a Jewish revolt against the President. Of course - considering that Drudge tries so hard day in and day out to stoke fears of a coming race war - it’s no surprise he’s also trying to spark a religious war too. That’s very, very ugly.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[sabrina 1]

1. Love Tom Hartmann's show.

They are running their own 'lobbyists' for Congress, so it is in a sense, a silent coup. Until the money is taken out of the electoral system, it can only get worse.

[NewImproved Deal]

2. Thank you, Thom!

Always enjoy your Video clips--especially with Bernie.