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From The Newshour with Jim Lehrer--TV, Radio Talkers Shaping Political Discourse in U.S. It was nice to see Thom Hartmann and Media Matters' Eric Burns featured in this segment. They both did a great job here.

GLENN BECK, Host, "Glenn Beck": If it wasn't for FOX or talk radio, we would be done as a republic.

JEFFREY BROWN: In a multimedia world of talk and more talk, the latest big talker is Glenn Beck, known for his folksiness and emotion, which sometimes spills over to tears...

GLENN BECK: I just love my country.

JEFFREY BROWN: ... and, most of all, for his over-the-top style and words, which, for many, push the limits of acceptable public rhetoric.

GLENN BECK: ... is that there are Marxist revolutionaries who have dedicated themselves to principles that will destroy our nation as we know it.

I'm saying he has a problem. He has a -- this guy is, I believe, a racist.

JEFFREY BROWN: Since moving from CNN Headline News to FOX last year, Beck has successfully built up his cable TV audience. He now reaches almost three million viewers with his 5:00 p.m. show, unseating FOX's Sean Hannity for the number-two spot, right behind the network's Bill O'Reilly. On radio, Beck's audience of nine million is second only to Rush Limbaugh.

All of these talk show hosts far exceed the numbers of their liberal counterparts. And, as the numbers grow, so has the attention in other media, and Beck's seeming influence on the national agenda.

Beck is a persistent critic of the president and his policies. Among much else, he helped rally opponents to show up and speak up at this summer's town hall meetings on health care, and led the way on exposing problems with ACORN, the community organizing group that ran into numerous public controversies.

ROGER HEDGECOCK, Radio America: I like Glenn Beck personally. And I like that his TV show, in that he is speaking truth to power. That's his attitude. He really is trying to overturn the apple carts.

We're not in favor of illegal alien amnesty.

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Thom Hartmann talks to Jeremy Scahill about his run in with Chuck Todd on Real Time with Bill Maher this past Friday.

As always, Thom Hartmann makes a lot of sense:

One of the most powerful forms of stimulus we could apply to our economy right now would be to lower the current Social Security retirement age from the current 65-67 to 55, and increase the benefits back to where they were in inflation-adjusted 1960s dollars by raising them between 10 to 20 percent (so people could actually live, albeit modestly, on Social Security).

The right-wing reaction to this, of course, will be to say that with fewer people working and more people drawing benefits, it would bankrupt Social Security and destroy the economy. But history shows the exact reverse.

Instead, it would eliminate the problem of unemployment in the United States. All those Boomers retiring would make room in the labor market for all the recent high-school and college graduates who are now finding it so hard to find a job.

Hartmann goes on in the article to discuss in detail about how lowering the retirement age would open up thousands of jobs nationwide, and how wages for working class Americans have been devastated since the days of Ronald Reagan and our old pal Alan Greenspan started gutting unions and trying to lower our standard of living:

In September of 2007, in an interview on C-SPAN for Book TV, Greenspan said: “We pay the highest skilled labor wages in the world. If we would open up our borders to skilled labor far more than we do, we would attract a very substantial quantity of skilled labor which would suppress the wage levels of the skilled, because the skilled are essentially being subsidized by the government, meaning our competition is being kept outside the country.”

It’s shocking that ideologues like Greenspan, Reagan, and Clinton believe this, but they do. And the only way to reverse the past 29 years of Reaganomics/Clintonomics is to tighten up the labor market again. While a great start would be to pull out of our insane trade treaties and begin again protecting American manufacturers, that will take a decade for the impact to be truly felt even if we were to go back to our 1980 tariff levels today. Read on...

Thom finishes by stating that his plan would ultimately "take us to nearly zero unemployment and dramatically stimulate the economy." I happen to think it's a good idea. What say you?

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John McCain thinks it's just amazing that a Colonel decided to volunteer for his sixth, yes, his sixth tour of duty in Iraq. Isn't that wonderful? Incredible in McCain's words. Well, I agree, but not for the same reason McCain does. It horribly incredible that anyone is over there for a sixth tour of duty.

I agree with Thom Hartmann who thinks that Afghanistan is going to be Obama's Vietnam if we don't get the hell out of there. Any time I hear Mr. "I Know How to Win Wars" John McCain agreeing with the President on anything I figure we're pretty well screwed.

Stephanopoulos points out the strain this is putting on the enlisted military and their families, but that doesn't seem to phase McCain and his insistence that somehow our military can sustain that kind of prolonged presence in the region.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you answer the argument, though, of others who say that adding more troops now to Afghanistan is a fool's errand in nation-building? That we can achieve the goal of denying a safe haven to al Qaeda by letting the Afghan government take the lead and taking them out with drones when necessary?

MCCAIN: Well, I say with respect, and I understand that argument, but that was the same argument under Rumsfeld and Casey that didn't work. I think the fundamental to success of a counterinsurgency is to clear and hold and secure an environment for people so that the political and economic progress can be made.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's a 40-year effort, isn't it?

MCCAIN: I think within a year to 18 months you could start to see progress. It's very hard. It's very tough. We're facing a very determined enemy that will stand and fight in some instances that are very adaptable, and obviously with safe havens in Pakistan.

But as the president described it in the campaign, this is a good war and one that we have to win. And I think he'll hold to that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We're seeing now that the American public is turning against the war.

MCCAIN: Yes.

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One of my favorites from Thom Hartman. His recital of John Gray's Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican:

"A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican"

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.
He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, "We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have".

Thom Hartmann takes on the CATO Institute's Tad DeHaven over whether we should privatize the United States Postal Service. When I get a chance to catch Hartmann on my satellite radio, his daily segment such as this one, where he takes on these right wing think tank hacks are some of my favorite portions of his show.

From The Thom Hartmann Show, the myths about Canadian health care. Hartmann interviews Dave's cohort at Orcinus, Sara Robinson, who has written about the issue here and here.

Okay, this is really just disgusting to hear. Why aren't these corrupt Bush DOJ appointees fired yet? According to Don Siegelman, the talk in Alabama is that A.G. Eric Holder cut some sort of deal with Jeff Sessions, yeah, Jeff Sessions, and is keeping Leura Canary in place as Attorney General in Alabama. File this one under you've got to be f@#$ing kidding me.

Call your Congress critters and tell them that these corrupt Bush DOJ appointees need to go now. Don Siegelman deserves some justice and it's long over due.