Hartmann Report

Civil society requires that its citizens feel safe in public spaces; destroy that generalized sense of safety and you will radically warp public opinion to the right. Yesterday was, by some media counts, the 309th terrorist mass shooting in America so far this year. No other country in the world experiences this so often or so severely. Civil society requires that its citizens feel safe in public spaces; destroy that generalized sense of safety and you will radically warp public opinion to the right (which promises safety and “tough on crime”) while producing a whole new generation of safe-space destroyers.

The future of our nation is now at risk just as much as it was in 1800, only this time it’s a radicalized Supreme Court that’s hell-bent on rewriting the American social and legal compact. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” — Ecclesiastes 1:9 In that famous verse, Solomon could have been writing about the Republicans who control today’s Supreme Court. Having helped blow up the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch now want to dial the First Amendment back to 1798.

"You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessings." —President Andrew Jackson It costs money to run a government, and the more you want the government to do, the more it usually costs. One point to consider is how much do we want our government to do? Another is, who should pay for it?

Saturday Report 6/2/22 - Can a Flu Shot Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by 40%? Thom plus logo The Best of the Rest of the News. — This weekend we celebrate the Founding generation successfully fighting a Revolutionary War against what several identified as the rich, theocrats, and warlord kings. — Polling shows that Trump beats all comers, including DeSantis, in a Republican primary as speculation swirls that he may announce a 2024 run for president this 4th of July weekend. — This Supreme Court is committed to remaking America in the vision of the rightwing billionaires who paid for it. — Texas educators are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place when it comes to teaching the history of slavery in that state. — Tucker Carlson is two-timing Orbán for Bolsonaro, his newest favorite strongman wannabee dictator. — Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law took effect this past week and schools are rolling out restrictions on teachers wearing rainbows, blocking discussion in class of same-sex parents, and forcing teachers to notify parents if they think a child may be dressing or behaving in a way that’s not “traditional” for their gender. — Arizona is doubling down on the GOP war on public education wit a new “universal voucher” law that gives $7000 a year to families who pull their kids out of public schools and put them into for-profit private, religious, or all-white rightwing schools. — Worries about the economy are spreading, according to polling. — Geeky Science! Can a flu shot reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by as much as 40 percent? — Crazy Alert! Rudy Giuliani was offended when Cassidy Hutchison testified this past week that he’d sought a pardon from former President Trump.

This scenario isn’t just plausible: it’s probable. GOP-controlled states are already changing their state laws to allow for it, regardless of how their people vote. Six Republicans on the Supreme Court just announced — a story that has largely flown under the nation’s political radar — that they’ll consider pre-rigging the presidential election of 2024.

Big money is the cancer that has been eating away American politics ever since the Supreme Court blew up hundreds of good government laws designed to protect our democracy from predators like Trump. Donald Trump wasn’t joking back in 2000 when he first seriously considered running for president and told us, “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” While president, he raked in an estimated $1.6 billion, much of it (particularly during the pandemic) money from pushing government contracts and the like to his own properties and companies.

Lying about religion — in the sphere of politics — ceases to be about religion and instead becomes about power. A power that has sought, repeatedly throughout history, to replace democracy. It’s not often that a photograph makes its way into a Supreme Court ruling, but it happened this week because Justice Sonia Sotomayor felt it necessary to expose Neil Gorsuch and his Republican colleagues on the Court as unrepentant liars. Lying has become a habit for Republicans on the Court.

Instead of fleeing the Democratic Party, we must reach out & tell our leaders that we have their backs. That they can afford to be brave, and together we can save our freedoms and our republic. We’re in the midst of a war for the future of America; abortion is the most obvious battlefield right now. And when you’re at war, you don’t want Neville Chamberlain running the country: you want Churchill, Zelensky, or FDR. There was an era when the Democratic Party had that kind of courage; many of us lived through it and remember it well.

If we don't get a correction - get ready for the vigilantes to come for your daughter when she’s raped and looking for options on the internet… Across America, women and girls are deleting period-tracking apps from their smartphones and fitness trackers so police and bounty-hunter vigilantes from Red states can’t use their data to pinpoint people getting abortions or having “suspicious” miscarriages. But that won’t be enough.

When corporations gained the protections that had been written for persons in the United States, a substantial shift began in who bears what risk, resulting in an imbalance that now affects virtually all parts of the world. Most companies handle risk responsibly, but many corporations are legally allowed to avoid responsibility in ways that would never be permitted for an individual. Risk is a matter of who suffers when something goes wrong. Corporations and their shareholders may risk loss of income or even loss of their investment, but that pales in comparison with the risks that humans share as a result of a corporate activity—such as degradation of the environment, higher rates of cancer and other diseases, job-related disfigurement or death, community and family breakdown after a factory is closed and jobs are shipped overseas, and even a life with no income or health insurance if we choose not to affiliate with a corporation.