During an appearance last Thursday at the GOP congressional retreat in Philadelphia, President Trump gave a ringing endorsement of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and his budget plans, saying that the days of Ryan writing up his budgets and "nothing happening" were over.

"Speaker Paul Ryan very, very special and he is writing his heart out, right? And we're actually going to sign the stuff that you're writing. You're not wasting your time. He would write and he'd send it up and nothing would happen. But now it's gonna happen."

On a surface level, those comments from Trump aren't all that interesting. After all, he's just a Republican president endorsing the budget plan of a Republican Speaker of the House... right?

Wrong.

Trump didn't just endorse any old budget plan yesterday, he endorsed a budget plan written by PAUL RYAN - the guy who's called for voucherizing Medicare, privatizing Social Security and block-granting (aka massively cutting) Medicaid in EVERY SINGLE ONE of the budget plans he's come out with over the past 6 years.

Again - not totally surprising that a Republican president would endorse a budget plan like that. But remember, Trump just spent his entire presidential campaign talking about how he was the only guy who would protect the social safety net.

He even bragged about it on his campaign website, saying that he "wouldn't touch your entitlements".

So what happened?

Was Trump ever serious about protecting the social safety net or was all that talk about savings entitlements just another one of his scams?

-Thom

(What do you think? Tell us here.)

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10:30pm... Is America Experiencing A Fast Moving Coup? (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Monday's Daily Stack 

Article: "Fireside Chat. May 26, 1940" by Franklin D. Roosevelt. "Our present emergency and a common sense of decency make it imperative that no new group of war millionaires shall come into being in this nation as a result of the struggles abroad."

Article: "Trial Balloon for a Coup?" by Yonatan Zunger.

Article: "Inside the confusion of the Trump executive order and travel ban" by Evan Perez, Pamela Brown and Kevin Liptak.

Article: "Trump's state department purge sparks worries of 'know-nothing approach' to foreign policy" by Julian Borger.

Article: "President Trump tells the FEC he qualifies as a candidate for 2020" by Matea Gold.

Article: "Who Hasn't Trump Banned? People From Places Where He's Done Business" by Richard W. Painter and Norman L. Eisen.

Article: "They Thought They Were Free" (book review, Nov. 6, 2005) by Thom Hartmann.

Book: "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer.

Article: "The Trail of Tears " by PBS.

Article: "No mention of Jews in White House's Holocaust Remembrance Day tribute" by Ben Jacobs.

Article: "Hours after Trump signs Muslim ban, Texas mosque goes up in flames" by Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani.

Article: "Donald Trump Puts Coal Lobbyist in Charge of Prosecuting Environmental Crimes" by Lee Fang.

Tweet: "You nailed it. Period!" by Sean Spicer.

Article: "Augusto Pinochet" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Pol Pot" by Wikipedia.

Site: Our Revolution

Article: "Chinese Exclusion Act", 1882 by Wikipedia.

Book: The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great by Harvey J. Kaye.

Book: The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance by Kirstin Downey.

Book: Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey J. Kaye.

Article: "Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's frustration as FBI sat on Donald Trump Russia file for months" by Kim Sengupta.

Book: "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein.

Article: "Trump to announce U.S. Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday night" by Ayesha Rascoe and Susan Heavey.

Article: "Otto von Bismarck" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Transcript: Stephen Cohen: There Are Too Many 'What-If's' For Us To Go In To Cold War Mode! - 13 December '16" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "California Threatens To Cut Off Funds To Washington" by Tyler Durden.

Article: "Trump's newest national security moves labeled 'stone cold crazy'" by Steve Benen.

Article: "Bannon Is Given Security Role Usually Held for Generals" by Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman.

Tweet: "This is stone cold crazy. After a week of crazy. Who needs military advice or intell to make policy on ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan, DPRK?" by Susan Rice.

Article: "Trump's EPA pick stonewalls senators questioning his industry ties" by Samantha Page.

Article: "Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan & Kevin McCarthy: Plot To Sabotage US Economy with Frank Luntz" by keepemhonest.

Book: Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer

Article: "Schumer to oppose 5 more of Trump's Cabinet picks" by Al Weaver.

Article: "Anti-Trump petition to stop UK state visit passes 1m signatures" by Nicola Slawson.

Petition: "Prevent Donald Trump from making a State Visit to the United Kingdom.".

Article: "The Observer view on Britain's relationship with America" by The Observer.

Article: "Theresa May and Donald Trump held hands and everyone's grossed out" by Ashitha Nagesh.

Article: "George Orwell's '1984' leaps to top of Amazon bestseller list" by Sean Rossman.

Article: "Constitution of the United States", article 5 (amendments, convention).

Site: The Convention of States (COS) Project.

Site: Muslims For Progressive Values

Article: "Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline" (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline, TAPI) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Donald Trump asked Rudy Giuliani how to 'legally' create 'Muslim ban', claims former New York mayor" by Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith.

Book: The Roosevelt I Knew by Frances Perkins.

Article: "Quinnipiac University poll: Almost half of American voters support Trump's immigration order" by Jim McKeever.

Article: "My Testimony for the Downing Street Memo Hearings" by Cindy Sheehan, June 16 2005.

Quote: "In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed." - James Madison.

Book: We the People: A Call to Take Back America by Thom Hartmann, illustrated by Neil Cohn

Article: "The GOP's Stealth War Against Voters" (Crosscheck) by Greg Palast, August 24, 2016.

Article: "Barack Obama attacks Donald Trump and says 'American values' hang in the balance as protesters flood streets across Britain" by Reuters.

Article: "Canada to offer temporary residency to travellers stranded by Donald Trump's immigration ban" by Reuters.

 

Talk Media News Segment:
- Luke Vargas 

Article: "BREAKING NEWS: Full Text of Draft Dissent Channel Memo on Trump Refugee and Visa Order" by Benjamin Wittes, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic.

Quote: "Discrimination on nationality alone is forbidden under #humanrights law ... The US ban is also mean-spirited, and wastes resources needed for proper counter-terrorism." - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein.

Article: "Trump 'will definitely pull out of Paris climate change deal'" by Tom Batchelor.

Article: "Elon Musk joins Donald Trump's advisory council despite critical comments on President-elect" by 14 December 2016.

Article: "Leonardo DiCaprio gives Ivanka Trump a copy of his climate change documentary" by Olivia Blair.

Article: "Al Gore has an 'extremely interesting conversation' with Trump" by TMN.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Site: Governor Free Don Siegelman 

Article: "NBC wants to be 'the next Fox News,' insiders say" by Carlos Greer.

Tweet: "The joint statement of former presidential candidates John McCain & Lindsey Graham is wrong - they are sadly weak on immigration. The two..." by Donald J. Trump.

Tweet: "...Senators should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III." by Donald J. Trump.

Article: "Jihadist groups hail Trump's travel ban as a victory" by Joby Warrick.

Article: "Robert McKee" by Wikipedia.

Site: Robert McKee Seminars.

Book: "Conservatives Without Conscience" by John W. Dean.

Book: The Authoritarians by Robert Altemeyer (free online).

Book: The Authoritarians by Robert Altemeyer.

Site: "Maryland Correctional Institution - Women".

Article: "Right-Wing Extremists Are a Bigger Threat to America Than ISIS" by Kurt Eichenwald, 2/4/16.

Site: The Hartmann Report

Article: "McCarthyism" by Wikipedia.

Site: Oak Meadow.

Article: "How America's rejection of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany haunts our refugee policy today" by Dara Lind.

Quote: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell, Animal Farm.

Book: "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell.

Article: "Joseph Goebbels's secretary who 'knew nothing' about the Holocaust, dies aged 106" by Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith.

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

 

I'll be talking with Angel Padilla, Co-Author, Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting Trump.

 

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

 

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

 

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...