Hartmann Report

When judges or legislators break the law to enrich themselves in ways that would land you or me in jail, it damages democracy. Republicans — and a few Democrats — have done a pretty good job of putting the grift in grifter. Most recently, the notoriously corrupt Senator Tommy Tuberville told a reporter for the UK Independent newspaper that efforts to ban his ability to make millions off insider information in the stock market would discourage other grifters from going into politics and, somehow, that would be a bad thing.

If we can’t stop this disintegration of trust in America & the ability to reform & make our government work for all people, apathy will turn us over to the hard right, ending the American experiment. There’s been quite an outbreak of rightwing radicalism in America recently, much of it organized on and amplified by social media and all of it working to tear apart Americans’ trust in their government and each other.

The current Republican Party is unsustainable: the public is both exhausted & increasingly sickened by Republicans who appear to be devoid of any principles whatsoever. While Republican successes in blocking legislation, judges and even presidential nominations may seem like the Party is on a roll, the reality is that the GOP is in the midst of an existential crisis as severe as any party has seen since the Whigs died out in the early 19th century. Billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is now openly calling them out in an editorial from the publication’s editorial board itself.

Nixon's "War on Drugs" continues to terrorize Americans; it's time to drive a stake through this 50-year-old legal Frankenstein's monster that has killed so many Americans for no good reason. Another day, another dead civilian from a no-knock police raid, this time 22-year-old Amir Locke in Minneapolis. It’s Breonna Taylor all over again. All because Republican president and criminal Richard Nixon decided to create a phony national “moral panic” that would win him the 1972 election (it worked, by the way).

Why sickness bankrupts you and makes others insanely rich.

The Best of the Rest of the News.. — Trump pulls a Stalin in seizing the Voting Machines as part of the GOP "War on Democracy." —What will be the outcome of the GOP Civil War? —Dejoy defies Biden on electric trucks…and why is he still there? —Republicans are trying to "protect" children from an illustrated book about the Holocaust that tells the story through characters that are cats and mice. —Trump pays off Mark Meadows to keep his mouth shut? —Kyrsten Sinema rakes in the cash as she betrays American democracy. —Florida Republicans are trying to eliminate the right of Floridians to put up ballot measures for things like legal pot, voting rights and a $15 minimum wage. Geeky Science: The magic of N-95 face-masks. Crazy Alert! Alabama parents are certain that Black History Month is part of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) their state banned from classrooms last month.

A recent study of 100 US cities found that — between 1993 to 2017 — billions were spent to expand highway capacities by 42% but, instead of reducing congestion, traffic delays actual went up 144%! You’d think that if your freeway is clogged up every rush hour, adding an extra lane would reduce the congestion. You’d be wrong. And an uprising against Oregon state government plans to widen the I-5 freeway here in Portland may end up changing how cities around the country decide to use the hundreds of billions of dollars in highway funds coming to them from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Reagan's policy of starving education & cranking up student debt has made US banks piles of money, but stopped generations of young people from starting businesses, having families & buying homes. Ronald Reagan knew that an educated populace was more progressive and more Democratic, and he was determined to stop the explosion of college educated Americans caused by both the 1944 GI Bill and free tuition at the University of California. Forty years later, student debt has crippled two generations of young Americans: over 44 million people carry the burden, totaling a $1.5 trillion drag on our economy that benefits nobody except the banks earning interest on the debt.

If the DOJ and Congress don't prosecute Trump and change our laws, the next Republican to occupy the White House will probably also try to end our democracy. “Precedent” sounds boring and wonky. In reality, it’s the way past criminal Republican presidents have taught those who followed them to break the law. This is the shocking story of how Republican presidents taught each other to break the law, and how — if Trump isn't prosecuted — the next Republican president will try to end democracy in the USA.

And why a disparate group of billionaires, Republican politicians, televangelists, media outlets, and white supremacist militias have found common cause around a new and exciting moral panic. The moral panic currently sweeping America about Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been covered ad nauseum by the press and commentators across the political spectrum. That’s what typically happens with moral panics (more on that in a moment). What nobody is talking about, though, is the why of this particular issue at this particular time. As a result, we’re mistaking the tool for the goal.