Is Elon Musk paid too much? What should we make of this week's Supreme Court rulings? What do I want for Fathers Day? Watch this week's Coffee Klatch with Heather Lofthouse of @imcivicaction to find out.
Could raging inflation during the Biden administration, and the unchecked corporate greed driving it, stem from the inevitable realization among corporate high rollers that they can rake in record profits and let the spending class blame the current administration, not the greedy corporations in control, for the price of groceries and gasoline. Cynical translation: to get more Republicans in office, less regulation, more tax breaks, more buybacks, more CEO/CFO take-homes, more union busting, more off-shore troves, more yachts, villas, private resorts, jets.
They also assume too much about the likelihood poor people have to succeed under unfettered, late-stage capitalism. I prefer nails on a chalkboard over what they say.
As an independent, there’s no way in hell I’m going to sell my country out and vote for Trump. The corruption in the GOP, and the direction they are going in, is so obvious and clear, I can’t understand how anyone could vote for them.
Ok. True enough but not for anyone other than Democrat is not helping either! Biden isn't my favorite but we have no choice as fascism is staring us down in the other political party. They have billionaires of corrupted $$$$$ to throw to their candidate. Struggling Democracy vs Fascism. Biden & voting blue ballots is the only way out.
My Grandfather was German. As a kid I asked my dad how a country could be dumb enough to vote for Adolph Hitler. He told me that conditions in Germany between the World Wars were really bad. We have no such "justification." Germany didn't either but they were coping with inflation and war reparations America has NEVER seen.
@@elizabethsohler6516unfortunately the media and politicians have been allowed to make people think things are that bad. It's time to remove the right to intentionally lie to, or mislead the public from our media and politicians. Once you decide those are your career choices, you lose the first amendment right to say whatever you want, unless it's true.
Address every single one of Dr Jill Stein's positions: the positives & negatives. Weigh all those would-be consequences to all the would-be consequences of each of the other candidates running for POTUS. Whoever those are. If Stein is not optimal among all candidates, then compute one who is: who matches your beliefs the closest. If that candidate is YOU, then write your own name on the ballot. If you do NOT do that then nobody needs to take you or your life or your imaginary "property rights" seriously. If you deflect by blathering on with impossible-to-know gaslighting assumptions about how OTHERS will rank candidatess, then nobody needs to take you or your life or your imaginary "property rights" seriously.
Reform this stinkin' "Supreme" Court. Reform Capitalism to regulate GREEDY corp. policies. Reform political money (Citizens United, campaign finance reform).
Not going to happen without an actual leftwing or progressive party. The democrats run on things like this, they have absolutely no interest in doing anything about it.
While you're at it, also don't vote Democrat as they're the ones that allow the GOP to get away with things like this. If they weren't progressively shifting the Overton window to the right, the GOP would have to put some actual effort into appealing to independents and people towards the left.
GOP has values? Oh, really? What are/were they besides offering poor, struggling workers, elderly, disabled and everybody else who wasn't greedy rich "to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps," which was downright coldhearted, selfish and vile, to say the least. GOP. And what is grand about a political tribe that puts money ahead of life when they refuse ANY sensible gun control yet have no problem controlling women with their own tortuous, if not deadly rules and laws that they themselves refuse to follow?? GOP, my ass. Since Nixon this was true!
To be fair, watching Jan 6, the rallies and protests have effected how I see them. I have watched hundreds of interviews with these people, and none of them are good.
Yes, it's amazing that it doesn't take more than that to turn the world upside down. Of course, with the help of influencers and mainstream media too, which began even before Trump's presidency, but they "hijacked" him for their cause, knowing that he was unintelligent, narcissistic, power-hungry and a top-greedy conman.
John Roberts should resign. It would be courageous, epically historic, and patriotic to allow President Biden to appoint a replacement and restore a modicum of trust, dignity, and balance to the Supreme Court.
He wants most everything the other retches do, his just both more canny and cowardly than they are. He'd never even consider it. But that's just my opinion.
He knows the GOP will block it in the Senate and hold it up through the election... or through an entire second Biden term, if they keep sufficient control in the Senate.
Those clowns are why we're in this mess in the first place. Stop voting for Republicans running as Democrats or it's just going to get worse. Obama could have made the GOP paid a price for stealing his nomination. The Democrats could have refused to seat any nominee during that last year of Trump's Presidency or refused to confirm any of the judges that the Trump administration was nominating the way that the GOP did, but they chose not to. They chose not to because they didn't care about what's going on now happening. If they were unaware that this was a likely outcome, it was professional malpractice as just about everybody knew that it was going to get bad. You can't have judges on the bench that can't get through a confirmation hearing without perjuring themselves and expect that they'll be any less corrupt once seated.
You can’t vote “for” democracy! “A Democracy” is a legislative assembly, “Democracy” is how that legislative assembly is formed and how it functions, and “Consensus Choice” is the legislative process which governs the legislative assembly to reach a majority consensus of those assembled as a democracy” There are only two purposes for voting; either as a legislative assembly, or to form a legislative assembly. When the members of a legislative assembly are apportioned an equal vote to reach a majority consensus of all that are assembled, that constitutes a democracy, when the legislative assembly is an exact representation of the members, “The People in their Collective Capacity” assembled as the “Most Numerous Legislative Branch”, that constitutes a Republican Form of Government, and in a simple republic assembled in a unicameral legislature, each member has a proportional vote to reach a majority consensus of all the members assembled, in a Confederated (compound) Republic assembled in a bicameral legislature, each member has a proportional vote in the Most Numerous Legislative Branch, and each Member has an equal vote in an Equal Branch, which forms an iterative legislative process with legislative checks and balances, where the matters of collective interest are are identified and ranked in the popular branch, and those matters are transmitted to the equal branch for concurrence. Today in the United States the 9 largest States can form a proportional majority in the House of Representatives, however when those measures are transmitted to the Senate for concurrence there are 41 smaller States to reject those measures returning them to the House for reconsideration along with amendments to advise those 9 largest States what would be required for the concurrence of those 41 smaller States. By the way, consensus choice is noncompetitive, which means it’s apolitical, which means it cannot have control determined by majority party affiliation based upon competitive partisan elections!
They not only own the Supremely Corrupt court, but Leonard Leo and the Heritage Foundation have had lists of judges for republican presidents to put in place in the lower courts too. Aileen Canon is one of those judges and look how she's running interference for tRump. Packing all the courts with rightwing judges has been a long-term 40+ year republican party goal, that only now can be seen coming to fruition. That's how we get all these cases like trying to ban mifepristone coming out of the court in Texas. Project 2025 also wants complete control of the judicial system so the most extreme laws put in place won't be overturned and all states will be effected, not just red states.
@@VickiTrusselli No one, or faction, can own, or influence, the Supreme Court, read my comment to understand why! Every State has a right to have one of their own citizens available in the pool of justices to hear and decide all matters before the Supreme Court, that is a fundamental principle of all democratic and republican forms of government, which also includes a democracy!
I've been following Robert Reich since I was 19. I am 60. I don't understand why intelligent people don't get it. Money in a bucket that is not reinvested into factories, jobs and people is a huge suck on the economy. Pay is still the same as when I entered the job market. I cannot thrive, nor am I able to buy goods. Pay me more, or I can't buy your shit. Period.
Tesla wants to give that clown,a 50 billion dollar bonus---!!!! WTF 😒. Inflation? Food? Gas? People complain. Look at the crap that we take lying down.
Big money cartels making huge profits off cancer treatments are shameful. Musk works within the system hiring thousands, paying taxes, and creating useful products that people want.
Remember the next time you want an electric car.. and there are good ones out there, stay away from Tesla. Another monopolized corporation. No dealerships, no service Representatives. How the hell do you get it fixed when you need to? And there are many problems to deal with.. quality control on those cars sucks. That is from owner's mouths. And who will get a 560 billion dollar compensation package next year?
@@user-bb6wb7zf2v my 2010 Nissan is the last car I plan to buy. I can't afford insurance on a new car let alone afford a new car. Retired on fixed income.
Maybe so - the current one isn't bad either. Biden should get more credit for that. What an uphill battle that must be right now, and the labor sec has been doing it!
With the 50 billion dollars that Elon Musk received every single employee at Tesla could be given a $360,625 bonus. How could that much money change a parsons life? It's absurd that that much wealth should be given to one person.
CONservatism, unfortunately, is still very popular with too many Americans today. One major reason for that is CONservative owned media. Where there is any major channel, it is owned by reichwing/CONservative uber rich, if not reichwing billionaires. No progressive media other than self-funded FSTV that struggles everyday to stay afloat. And struggling to stay funded by it's own audience rather than greedy billionaires who only want get out what THEY WANT to get out to Americans, leaves progressivism to flounder. And it's not just in America, either. Plenty of progressives in Europe see reichwing fascism on the March and only standby hopelessly because just like it is in America, progressives aren't organized & just don't have the money, the funds it takes to do it large scale. Reichwing billionaires are looking for world dominance. Greed, as you say, and reichwing CONservatives can never have enough $$$$$.
yup no matter how many ways we describe it, and no matter the decade in which the discussion occurs, it all comes back around to the "G-Word" (Greed). conspicuously many are afraid to speak the word.
The 11th circut has already received 1,000 complaints against Judge Loose Cannon. Impeachment of judges and justices is exceptional rare. Contact your representative and senators in Washington DC.
Mrs alito know nothing about Phili's 2022 flag at their house at LBI in NJ. Their code of ethics is not worth the paper it was printed on.Millionaires and billionaires purchase sens and reps in DC. Billionaires purchase justices on the SCOTUS with millions.
So when the Court goes rogue who exactly are the adults supposed to be in that room? Why are the Judiciary Community so passive about the top of their tree going rotten? Somebody? Anybody?!!!
The Judiciary Committee can issue subpoenas, which corrupt judges will ignore. They can make recommendations, which the GOP-controlled House can block. The Judiciary Committee cannot make the House impeach these corrupt judges, cannot make the Senate vote to remove the judges and that is the ONLY legal way to get them out. This means the ONLY adults capable of fixing things are the American voters. We must VOTE for DEMS in every open seat in Congress. Taking back the House means an impeachment vote is possible. Enlarging the DEM majority in the Senate means we might get a few GOP Senators who saw what happened to the GOP Senators losing their offices by supporting MAGA stop blocking a Senate vote to remove. And with Sinema and Machin gone we can finally end the tyranny of the bigotry-enabling filibuster and finally give Congress the power to do their job instead of being toadies for the billionaires.
How did the court go rogue? Dobbs was correctly decided. So was the bump stock decision. Not because I prefer the outcome but because Dobbs was consistent with the constitution and the bump stock decision was consistent with the relevant statute If you want a new law go to the constitution. SCOTUS is not the proper place to make laws
Trickle down economy is bs. The world is upside down. Care for our children, health workers, senior support systems and essential workers, dangerous jobs .....are so under compensated. A select few are incredibly compensated. The best companies share ideas, decisions, and profi.ts
re: "Trickle down economy is bs." yup, welcome to the insidious nature of RHETORIC and PROPAGANDA as learned from WW2 in the 1940's, and then reused to good effect by Reagan in the 1980's. turns out, people often believe what they hear (for no other reason than someone "suggested it"). ref: Lack of Education. also ref: Lack of Political Maturity.
These weekly conversations between Heather and Robert are one of my favorite things about Saturday morning! 😊And if they have the energy to go long every Saturday, I'm in! But don't tell 'em I'm not a coffee drinker. 🤫
You're lucky, price is going up. Then again, so is everything else. It's not Biden, it's the planet. It is slowly eliminating the cause of Global Warming.
What the billionaire class seems to be ignoring is a strsight forward fact of history. Frustration can be explosive. And frustration explosions happen.
But in our modern world, it is so easy for billionaires to misdirect and redirect the dissatisfaction of their victims. So, we end up fighting each other, rather than them. We're watching that happen right now.
It takes about 2 weeks for amillion seconds to go by. It takes 32 years for a billion seconds to go by. Food for thought. A billion dollars is not needed by one single person.
While I agree with your premise, I think your example is flawed in its current state. Just comparing dollars to seconds doesn't do enough intellectual work to support your point. Point out that while spending a dollar a second (something that's pretty much impossible to do), it would take 32 years to expend one billion dollars.
@langpatrick3589 so this works out to $1 Billion= 1,000,000,000 (9 zeros after "1") at $1 per second 60 seconds = 1 minute = $60 per minute = $15,625 per Hour (at standard 40 hours work per week) - for 32 years. = $31,250,000 every Year for 32 years (over $2.6 MILLION PER MONTH) Thirty One Million, Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars for 32 years straight. - This does not account for the interest and/or investment returns that would be growing over the 32 years as well, adding the "burden" of having MORE money to give away, invest, spend. What a difficult situation! 8-D
How do you debate Math (facts), I get the best from WSJ & Forbes. Even the conservative press doesn’t hide it anymore. Better question, why aren’t more Americans upset, angry, mad, etc..
they gave them something to focus their anger on before they started. thats why they keep targeting trans people, and gen z, and everything but billionaires.
Recommendation: Have reserved seats on the supreme court for each of the bill of rights, 1 justice for each that is concerned with. Make decisions by consensus if possible, or supermajority ¾ if not. If a constitutional issue, then just consensus (abstentions don't count against). If consensus cannot be reached on constitutional issues, by default the court rejects the law as unconstitutional. And each justice should have been an advocate for their respective fudnamental right (free speech & press, state vs federal, etc).
My Mother(RIP)lived thru the Gt. Depression (‘30s) & saw this coming. We r in danger of repeating history, but the names Hitler & Mussolini have changed.😡😭
The folks in the great depression were remarkably savvy and progressively minded (those who weren't fascist). We're catching up now, but from the days of Reagan to the start of Trump we did a CRAZY amount of forgetting.
@@elizabethsohler6516 Actually "We the People" did not vote for the convicted felon. The Electoral College (who are unelected "representatives") makes/made that dirty decision. Our presidential electoral system is not truly democratic -- it was jerry-rigged to give control to rural plantation owners -- who no longer exist (they sold their soul to the "Big Agro" industry).
Fun fact: Originally, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was meant to be sarcastic or to suggest an impossible accomplishment. Remember that next time it is suggested to someone living in poverty with a full-time job.
thanks for the insight...🤙 that does seem to make sense once you hear the FULL CONTEXT of the phrase (which is something we tend to "truncate" and leave out of our conversations)
Yeah, I read the original humor piece from, I think it was, the 1800s. A guy was supposedly a great jumper, and he jumped over fences by pulling himself up (and over) by his bootstraps! Everyone should read it!
And takes away your right to religious beliefs, or no religious beliefs . And your right to listen to medical Dr's. About your health choices . From inoculations, to abortion , and any other reproductive decisions .
@@katherinecrossman8521 Most worrying is their signalling (especially by Thomas) that they'll use Dobbs to remove other rights, not just reproductive rights. He's hinted at Brown v. BOE and others which is central to fair access to education.
If there could be a segment on local news all across this country that shows how our congress people vote on bill it would be a game changer. People who aren't engaged have not a clue what bills come for a vote, let alone whether their congress person voted for or against. I'm very engaged and I miss bills that were voted on, I either stumbled upon the info, or miss it completely. We have to do better in exposing the public on bills and who voted for or against that particular bill!!!
A number of steps need to be completed. 1st, each and every election must be realized as, "the election of a lifetime." Americans must elect forward-thinking progressive Democrats over not just any Reichwinger, but over any CONservative Democrat, as well. Blue majorities in both the House and Senate are necessary, & we can't ever let reichwing win majority again.The Senate will need those progressives to then push the traditional thinking Dems, "the institutionalists," as Biden has been referred to, to move to expand SCOTUS to 13 judges. That will take nerve and backbone as it defies conservatives who refuse real change, and unfortunately alot of Democrats are included in that group. This change to SCOTUS should be a no-brainer by now seeing as destructive and deadly atleast 2, 3 of the reichwing judges are on SCOTUS. I think all 6 are pure evil and downright dangerous to our lives. There are still too many Americans that don't agree with even this elementary change. That boggles the mind! Just how bad do our lives have to get before these ppl wake up?! We can't keep thinking a mere subpoena issued to one or two of the worst of them will change anything they do! They are too far gone! And trying to set up ethics rules means that Congress must keep up that strong blue majority as any session that gives power over to the reichwing politicians, we all can kiss those ethics standards goodbye. We need to vote blue and do it with sheer dedication to one goal: changing SCOTUS so we can live in peace. Democratic party leadership is pathetic. Again, DNC is useless and Biden himself is not going to go along with it. We need more progressive fighters. Start by voting blue.
the MAGA crowd love their convicted felon - Matt Taibbi called the case "ridiculous" - he and other Trumpers many law professors argue that the case was a sham... I think that the US has been ruined by a long history of class bias and racism going back to the Founding - even Lincoln argued that the Union is more important than justice equality and human rights, see his Peoria Speech (~1857)
RR, ALWAYS KEEP ON sharing your knowledge, your educative vids/talks/classes, your passion, your UNIQUE experience and perspective. Much health to you, good man.
My dad always told me . Wars through history , to current times , big or little all have two common denominators . They are all fought , in the names of GOD AND OR GREED . The older I get the more I understand , how right he was . Lifetime appointments to judicial positions , must end . We have travel , and communication , and education resources to make Supreme Court Justices, lifetime appointments unnecessary .
Any millionaires I have met in my 8 decade life have been self-righteous and look down on those with lower income as not good people. I hope that isn't the case for them all.
The lies and the bad actions matter to me. I cannot understand people who can ignore, or forgive this behavior. In my own family we were raised to be honest, yet half of my sisters can throw out a basic tenet of our upbringing.
Saying that another branch has "gone beyond it's officially grant of power" is pretty gdamn rich coming from a body that GRANTED ITSELF the ability to judge laws and their validity when it's not in the Constitution... Laughable power grab
Its a win win win win for the wealthy. A hungry working class is more productive. The working class is paying for all their infrastructure, and also subsidizing their cheap labor workforce. They know when the average person has no money to spend under Republicans, we go into a recession. But they welcome a recession because they'll capitalize on that too, by selling their stocks high right before the crash, and re-purchasing them once the next democrat president takes office. When are people going to wake up? I'm a trucker who lived paycheck to paycheck since the mid 80s.....STOP VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS!...YOU'RE THE ONES PAYING FOR ALL THOSE ROADS I DESTROYED WHILE CORPORATE AMERICA LINED THEIR POCKETS. AND THEY EVEN GIVE YOU ANOTHER THANK YOU AGAIN WITH HIGH PRICES, AS THEY NICKEL AND DIME YOU TOO.
About 20yo, adoption agencies all over the U.S. closed their doors. When the adoption agency that I used when I put my newborn up for adoption called me to tell me they were closing down along with all the others in the country, I asked why and she said it was due to birth control and the internet, mainly, was the answer I got. Well, you know who controlled the adoption agencies...the same church that is in charge of orphanages! Pro-life my a$$!! The church wants to reopen their adoption agencies again! The Church isn't on the side that's helping the people, let alone helping parents to be able to afford to raise the children they're being forced to have in many States. So, after they ban birth control, we will be seeing these agencies reopen...in other words, the Church is planning to make money by selling our babies!! Nothing tells me more than the fact they want to end IVF...that way couples that want babies will adopt them from their agencies!! It's so cruel and sick that they are still trying to control the country and remove our Rights...on everything little by little...PLEASE VOTE BLUE! So, Congress can pass things through that benefit me and you!!
Lemme add a few more words: …was allowed to take over the courts because of Democrats’ ham-fisted, anemic resistance and willingness to use long-term damage to courts as short-term bargaining.
Sick the IRS after Justice Thomas and Jack Smith really needs to add his wife, Ginni, to that list of J6 organizers and for her actual appearance at the rally on J6...then Thomas REFUSES to recuse himself from any of the cases about J6 or Trump at all...
the "liberal" justices just made organizing labor more difficult. turns out, SCOTUS is entirely united to make sure nothing fundamentally changes for any worker, regardless of how you vote.
On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people[a] and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The motive for the shooting is officially undetermined.
The functioning of the bump stock is actuated by recoil, which resets the trigger mechanism and the bolt automatically reloads the chamber for continuous firing at a rate of up to 800 rpm. The many machineguns use the recoil to automatically fire by blowing back the bolt with exhaust gases to reload the chamber. Both systems use recoil to automatically reload the chamber and continuously fire with one pull of the trigger.
Re: the 1999 interview, how does Mary's "I-pulled-myself-up-by-my-own-bootstraps" argument make any sense in the context of the given facts? Given the Business Week's numbers you presented? When she was starting out, the CEO vs. Blue-Collar salaries would've been closer to that 1980 mark of 40x, not the 1999 of 475x. The bootstraps that may have been in reach in her time were provably out of reach at the time of that broadcast.
Good show this morning. Put on a pair of boots and try to lift yourself up. I hate this saying because it is literally impossible to do that. No one can lift themselves up from the bootstrapes
🎯 Robert broke that Raygun term down on a commercial PSA he did for FSTV. He said that fallacy of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," was actually taken from an 18th century fairy tale. Leave it to a Rethuglicon president like Raygun to sell BS to The People and have the corporate-owned media repeat it like it was factual and based on science. Of course, reichwing billionaires are all behind the repeated lies Rethuglicon presidents tell us. To just keep the rabble down, keep up frustrated among ourselves is reichwing billionaires goal while they pick our pockets clean with more of OUR tax payer subsidies and tax breaks for them.
Recommendation: Have reserved seats on the supreme court for each of the bill of rights, 1 justice for each that is concerned with. Make decisions by consensus if possible, or supermajority ¾ if not. If a constitutional issue, then just consensus (abstentions don't count against). If consensus cannot be reached on constitutional issues, by default the court rejects the law as unconstitutional. And each justice should have been an advocate for their respective fudnamental right (free speech & press, state vs federal, etc).
Thanks again for such wonderful content. My Saturdays are more introspective and deep in thought as a direct result of listening. I particularly love the optimism and would like to believe in remains infectious.
If the choice is between fascism/insurrectionism or democracy and you are an independent what is your choice? Is there really a midline between the first two choices?
The word is, "greed.” Greed, greed, greed. I love the show, and Robert, but let’s take a few minutes to pull up those key words that precisely describe the present situation. Greed, is one thing, but really human nature is the other. Even Hillary Clinton, defended taking hundreds of thousands, for “speeches," she gave to, “finance,” where she said, “It’s what they offered.” Bottom line, if you can take it, you will That’s human nature. There is no counterbalance today, but shame always helps. Now, do narcissists have shame? No, but a slightly different subject.
I don't think narcissists and greedy politicians are a different subject. Especially today. Conservatism is all about narcissism. Since Nixon, definitely since Raygun, conservatism has been, "You need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps," cause government isn't going to help you anymore. So, the rich got richer and the poor and blue collar worker got even more poor. Narcissists are all about everything for them, nothing for everybody else. Many of the traits of a narcissist; lack of empathy, lack of conscience, vengeance, exploiting others, never taking responsibility for your own crimes and mistakes but blaming others, pathological lying is what all reichwingers support with their money & votes. They support that malignant narcissist and they themselves even exhibit those same personality traits as their leader has. There's no difference between conservatism and narcissism. They are intertwined. Always has been, just more obvious today.
Speeches require travel , accommodations, and a lot of prep work on the topic, not to mention the custom-tailored essay that is presented. They aren't an invite to the neighbor's house for tea and cookies. Amazing that anyone might downgrade someone else's labor unworthy of compensation! Yikes!
Bob, we worked in tandem at Marketplace. I took your editorials in through ISDN, and I just want to say I love that you are doing this! I am no longer in public radio. I am an art model now, but I have many happy memories. Thank you, Sir!
And yet MAGA does not want anyone point out the fact that Trump is not much younger than Biden. “Only Biden is too old, Not Trump”. Trump is 78, not 38. And 3 to 4 years younger than Biden isn’t that much younger at all.
