Thom Hartmann

Over six million people are now out of work, and unemployment figures released today show that now-record number is continuing to climb.

CNBC Correspondent Rick Santelli called for a “Chicago Tea Party” on Feb 19th in protesting President Obama’s plan to help homeowners in trouble. Santelli’s call was answered by the right-wing group Freedomworks, which funds campaigns promoting big business interests, and is the opposite of what the real Boston Tea Party was.

“Money” is a convenient replacement for barter in an economy.

The workers are being helped by 500 supporters who are protesting outside and are bringing them food.

Whenever a politician or commentator bloviates about the brokers at AIG who are getting bonuses, we should all be remembering Lynndie England and Charles Granger. AIG brokers are to the financial meltdown what England was to the Iraq war.

AIG's taxpayer-bailout was not because of it's insurance division, but its investment division, which came up with the idea of selling credit-default swaps – financial instruments premised on the idea that home values would never decline.

Citicorp executives are using $45 million corporate jets for luxury family vacations in Baja at $12,000-a-night hotel rooms, all courtesy of bailout money from you and me.

Rick Warren is providing the invocation for the presidential inauguration. As a pastor whose books have been read by tens of millions of Americans and whose voice is respected by an equal or larger number, he has tremendous influence and power.

The bloviators say that Caroline Kennedy doesn't have enough "experience" in the political world to be a US Senator.

Alexander Hamilton, in 1791, proposed to the United States our first true industrial policy.