Transparency belongs in all parts of a democracy.

This morning, President Obama announced that back in January we accidentally killed two hostages, including one American a U.S with a drone during a counterterrorism operation targeting Al Qaeda operatives in a compound along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border .

The hostages, American Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto, were apparently in the compound when it was hit by the drone strike.

Officials are saying that they had no idea Weinstein and Lo Porto were in the compound at the time of the attack.

The strike also killed two American-born Al Qaeda operatives, Adam Gadahn and Ahmed Farouq.

Speaking about the tragic deaths of Weinstein and Lo Porto, President Obama said that, "As president and as Commander-in-Chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations including the one that inadvertently took the lives of Warren and Giovanni."

The president then talked about why the government had chosen to make the operation and its tragic results public.

He said that, "As soon as we determined the cause of their deaths, I directed that the existence of this operation be declassified and disclosed publicly. I did so because the Weinstein and Lo Porto families deserved to know the truth. And I did so because, even as certain aspects of our national security efforts have to remain secret in order to succeed, the United States is a democracy, committed to openness in good times and in bad."

President Obama is absolutely right. The United States is a democracy, and transparency is an absolutely necessary prerequisite for a democracy to properly function.

But when it comes to transparency you can't play pick and choose.

You can't be transparent about a counterterrorism operation that went horribly wrong, but then be incredibly secretive about something like...the TPP.

Earlier this week, President Obama was interviewed by Chris Matthews. One of the major topics of that discussion was the TPP.

In his interview with Matthews, President Obama continued to tout the TPP, saying that he wouldn't promote something that would hurt our economy and hurt working-class Americans.

President Obama also called out TPP opponents like Senator Elizabeth Warren, saying that she and others are wrong about the facts of the deal.

But here's the problem. It's hard to know who's right or wrong about the facts of the TPP because it's been negotiated largely in secret behind closed doors.

Any information we do have about it is from leaks, and there is still a great deal we don't know about the agreement.

 

Read more here.

 

-Thom

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Caroline Fredrickson, "Under the Bus: How Working Women Are Being Run Over" (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

 

Be sure to check out our newest video: RESTORATION - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners / Visit GreenWorldRising.org to check out all the videos: CARBON, LAST HOURS & GREEN WORLD RISING - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners

 

 

Need to Know: TPP - Where is the Transparency?
- Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL, 9th district)  

 

Screwed: Are the Europeans Pushing for Regime Change in Greece?
- Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research / Just Foreign Policy / Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong About the Global Economy      

 

 

Conversations with Great Minds - Caroline Fredrickson, American Constitution Society for Law and Policy / Demos / Under the Bus: How Working Women Are Being Run Over      

  

Thursday's Daily Stack 

Hour One: It's "Brunch With Bernie"... the honorable Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) joins Thom with all the news from our nation's capitol and as always he'll be spending the hour taking your calls and answering your questions too...
Follow Bernie:     campaign site.

Article: "Sanders stalls action on trade bill with arcane Senate law" by Ted Barrett.

Article: "Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement" (TPP) by EFF.

Article: "Sanders, Labor Leaders to Protest Disastrous Trade Deal" by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Article: "Loretta Lynch heads for confirmation as attorney general" by Erica Werner.

Article: "Sanders Rallies with Low-Wage Workers" by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Article: "House And Senate Budget Conference; Appropriations 302(B) Allocations And Spending Limits; House Appropriations Committee To Mark Up Appropriations Bills".

Article: "Bernie Sanders Busts The GOP Plan To Take Health Insurance Away From 27 Million Americans " by Jason Easley.

Chart: "All the new income from 2009 to 2013 went to the top 1%" by Pavlina R. Tcherneva.

Article: "House Passes Bill To Repeal Estate Tax" by Midori Nishida.

Case: "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" (2010).

Article: "Marco Rubio takes lead in Sheldon Adelson primary" by Alex Isenstadt.

Article: "Gov. Branstad's plan to privatize Iowa Medicare moves forward"

Article: "Clinton, Other White House Hopefuls Should Reject Job-Killing Trade Deal, Sanders Says" by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Article: "Sanders: Slow Down Fast Track" by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Article: "TPP Trade Deal Will Be Devastating for Access to Affordable Medicines" by MSF.

Article: "Wyden defends 'fast-track' trade vote in Congress" by Bill Theobald.

Site: Elizabeth Warren.

Hour Two: Why are you a liberal Thom?
- Sheriff Richard Mack, The Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association (CSPOA)    

Article: "10th Amendment" "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".

Article: "Report on the Subject of Manufactures" by Alexander Hamilton.

Article: "Constitution of the United States" Article 1 section 8 (Powers of Congress).

Book: "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class" by Thom Hartmann. Get "Screwed" by Thom Hartmann!

Article: "Feudalism" by Wikipedia.

 

Speech: "A Rendezvous With Destiny", 27 June 1936 acceptance speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt. "An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men.""

Article: "Senate Approves Fed Audit Sanders Amendment to End Fed Secrecy Passes " by Sen. Bernie Sanders, May 11, 2010.

Article: "10 Years Before Freddie Gray, Baltimore Police 'Accidentally' Snapped a Perp's Spine" by Michael Daly.

Article: "Immaculate Conception" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Virgin birth of Jesus" by Wikipedia.

Article: "The Jefferson Bible" by Thomas Jefferson.

 

Talk Radio News Segment:
- Victoria Jones 

Article: "Drone Strikes Killed American, Italian Hostages" by William McDonald.

Article: "Warren Weinstein's wife: US efforts to rescue husband 'disappointing'" by Alan Yuhas.

Article: "Senate Passes Trafficking Bill, Paving Way For AG Vote" by William McDonald.

Article: "Loretta Lynch Confirmed As US Attorney General" by TRNS.

Article: "Obama to sell trade deal to his own political arm" by Edward-Isaac Dovere.

Article: "Few People Lost Jobs With V.A. in Scandal" by Dave Philipps.

Article: "Jon Stewart: Cheating teachers go to jail. Cheating Wall Streeters don't. What's up with that?" by Valerie Strauss.

Article: "Deutsche Bank Expects $1.6 Billion in Legal Costs" by Jack Ewing.

Article: "Rep. Steve King Announces Bill to 'Restrain the Judges on Marriage'" by Lauretta Brown.

Article: "Watch: Cholene's ThankList" by Ellen Ratner.

Site: Thank List.

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 4/23" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 4/22" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "Enhancing dentate gyrus function with dietary flavanols improves cognition in older adults" by Adam M Brickman, Usman A Khan, Frank A Provenzano, Lok-Kin Yeung, Wendy Suzuki, Hagen Schroeter, Melanie Wall, Richard P Sloan & Scott A Small.

Article: "Dubya Paid $250K to Perform for Casino King Sheldon Adelson" by Peter Stone.

Article: "Feds investigating video of US Marshal destroying woman's camera" by RT.

Event: London, 22-26 June, 2015: "Saving the World From Extinction - How To Create A World That Works For All" With Thom Hartmann and special guests.

Article: "The Powell Memo or Powell Manifesto".

Book: "The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America--and What We Can Do to Stop It" by Thom Hartmann.

Quote: "But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson", Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1783).

The good: No Somos Delito: "First-Ever Hologram Protest Challenges New Law in Spain" by NotImpossibleNow.

The bad: Scott Walker: "Fifty-seven DNR staff receive layoff notices amid talk of budget cuts" by Lee Bergquist.

The very, very ugly: Sen. Lindsey Graham: "The people in Guantanamo Bay are probably going to die in jail, and that's okay with me".

Article: "Support the Benyounes Family".

Article: "10 States With the Worst Taxes for Average Americans" by 24/7 Wall St.

Article: "To Pay For His Failed Experiment With Trickle-Down Economics, Kansas Governor Could Raid The School Budget" by Alan Pyke.

Article: "Kansas lawmakers want the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich" by Max Ehrenfreund.

Book: History of the United States by Charles Austin Beard.

Book: We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution by Forrest McDonald.

Book: What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return to Democracy by Thom Hartmann by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention of 1787" by James Madison.

Friday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET 

 

It's anything goes with Actor/comedian/ Hal Sparks, host of The Hal Sparks Radio Program MEGA World Wide on WCPT.

 

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Sincerely,