The Thom Hartmann Program Blog

Hour One: Grace-Marie Turner www.galen.org Topic: Thom and Grace-Marie debate healthcare, Obama v. McCain or…

Hour two: Carrie Lukas www.iwf.org Topic: Thom and Carrie "Mix it up” about the economic crisis and big corporations - should they continue to get big tax breaks?

Guest: Robert Greenwald www.BraveNewFilms.org Topic: McCain's anger problem?

Hour Three - President/CEO Humane Society Wayne Pacelle www.hsus.org Topic: Factory-farm practice of caging farm animals in spaces so tight that they are unable to turn around, stretch or lay down.

Will the nationalization of our banking system signal that “laissez-faire” capitalism doesn’t work and never has? This hands off brand capitalism has now brought us the easy credit that exploded the housing market, that lead to Wall Street creating a flood of damaged investments and an economy in a recession with a hint of the next Republican Depression on the horizon.

Here are a couple of headlines for those who haven't had the time to study both economics and history:

1. There is no such thing as a "free market."

2. The "middle class" is the creation of government intervention in the marketplace, and won't exist without it (as millions of Americans and Europeans are discovering).

The conservative belief in "free markets" is a bit like the Catholic Church's insistence that the Earth was at the center of the Solar System in the Twelfth Century. It's widely believed by those in power, those who challenge it are branded heretics and ridiculed, and it is wrong.

In actual fact, there is no such thing as a "free market." Markets are the creation of government.

Governments provide a stable currency to make markets possible. They provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible. They provide educated workforces through public education, and those workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government. Businesses that use the "free market" are protected by police and fire departments provided by government, and send their communications - from phone to fax to internet - over lines that follow public rights-of-way maintained and protected by government.

Quote: You have to know the past to understand the present - Carl Sagan, Cosmos
 
Hour One  - "Brunch With Bernie" Senator Bernie Sanders www.sanders.senate.gov

Hour Two - Dr. Ravi Batra www.ravibatra.com  Topic: Economic crisis...when and where will it end?

Quote: As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action. (you liberate a city by destroying it.) Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests - Gore Vidal

Hour One - Bill Gertz www.gertzfile.com Topic: Thom is challenging Bill on his new book "The Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading us to War"

Hour Two – The Economy – Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts!

Guest: Brad Friedman www.bradblog.com Topic: Voting Alert update

Hour Three - Ellen Brown www.webofdebt.com Topic: economic crisis/bailout

Guest: Christy Harvey www.americanprogress.com Topic: News Under the Radar & North to Alaska

Quote: When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Hour One - Who won the Debate? That One?

Hour Two  - Terry Jeffrey www.cnsnews.com Topic: Economy, bailout and tonight's debate
 
Hour Three  "Everything You Know is Wrong" Matthew "Mat" Stein www.whentechfails.com Topic: How to survive "When Technology Fails" 

Congressman Brad Sherman of California's 27th congressional district has now said some Congressional representatives were threatened with 'Martial Law' if they vote against the $700 billion bailout and the measure failed.

Congressman Sherman said "Many of us were told in private conversations, that if we didn't pass this bill on Monday, the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points, another couple thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be Martial Law in America if we voted no."

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnbNm6hoBXc

According to Wikipedia: Martial law is the system of rules that takes effect when the military takes control of the normal administration of justice.

Martial law is sometimes imposed during wars or occupations  in the absence of any other civil government. Examples of this form of military rule include Germany and Japan after World War II or the American South during the early stages of Reconstruction. In addition it is used by governments to enforce their rule, for example after a coup d'état (Thailand 2006), when threatened by popular protests (Tiananmen Square protests of 1989), or to crack down on the opposition (Poland 1981 ). Martial law can also be declared in cases of major natural disasters; however most countries use a different legal construct, such as a "state of emergency".

In many countries martial law imposes particular rules, one of which is curfew. Often, under this system, the administration of justice, called a court-martial . The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is likely to occur.