Hartmann Report

Who can argue that it’s crazy or wild to suggest that the “registration, license and insurance” that every cop asks for at every traffic stop wouldn’t be reasonable when somebody is found with a gun? It’s Thanksgiving, and many of us are gathering with friends and family. Given the horrific news of our having passed another world record for mass shootings, the dinner topic in many homes this afternoon will inevitably turn to the political debate around guns. That discussion about guns in America generally falls into two polar opposite positions: don’t regulate guns at all, or ban large parts of the spectrum of guns and heavily regulate ownership of the rest. And you know in your gut that this Thanksgiving crazy Uncle Ralph is going to go off on FOX/rightwing culture war stuff like the “right to own weapons of war.” But there’s a third position, entirely outside of that spectrum, which every actual “free market” conservative in America could embrace, and liberals could be down with as well.

Milei's victory is an international marker, of sorts, for America’s billionaires and largest corporations, who share his desire to end liberal democracy and the so-called “welfare state”... I hope I’m wrong, but I think I just saw the future of America if Republicans manage to sweep the 2024 elections, Trump or no Trump. Argentina just embarked on a Grand Experiment, untried before in any developed country in the world; it’s one that multiple American billionaires have been pushing in the US ever since David Koch ran for VP on the Libertarian ticket in 1980. When I arrived at the airport in Buenos Aires on Sunday morning this week, Election Day, I asked my cab driver who he’d be voting for and why.

The bottom line is that we — voluntarily or involuntarily — have now had the full GOP experience. We're no longer listening to the GOP politicians who are continuing to sell us this bullshit… The 1970s was a pivotal decade, and not just because it saw the end of the Vietnam War, the resignation of Nixon, and the death of both the psychedelic hippie movement and the very political (and sometimes violent) SDS. Most consequentially, the 1970s were when the modern-day Republican Party was birthed. Prior to that, the nation had hummed along for 40 years on a top income tax bracket of 91% and a corporate income tax that topped out around 50%. Business leaders ran their companies, which were growing faster than at any time in the history of America, and avoided participating in politics.

As we watch the Trump campaign prepare to replace 50,000 civil servants with fascist toadies if he wins the White House, it’s important to remember that Dwight Eisenhower was the last Republican president who believed in democracy, the rule of law, and that government should prioritize what the people want. From 1960 to today a series of leaders within the Republican Party have abandoned the democracy that American soldiers fought the Revolutionary War to secure, the Civil War to defend here at home, and World War II in Europe and the Pacific to defend around the world. This has brought us a series of criminal Republican presidents and corrupt Republican Supreme Court justices, who’ve legalized political bribery while devastating voting and civil rights.

Today, things are even worse than in FDR’s time. “The top 1 percent of families captured 58 percent of total real income growth per family from 2009 to 2014,” wrote economist Emmanuel Saez for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. In large part, the concentration of both wealth and income has come about in the era since the Reagan presidency and the introduction of “Reaganomics.” In the 40 years prior to Reagan, income and wealth among working people was growing at a faster rate than it was for the top 1%. Since Reaganomics was instituted—a system within which we’re still operating— the wealth and income of the top 1% has exploded.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab. — Quote of the Day, “One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing. One. That I can go campaign on and say we did,” Texas Republican Congressman Chip Roy said. “One!” Is he watching my show? — How Mike Johnson got played. — Is a national abortion ban coming? — Coming to a Republican-controlled town near you? Murfreesboro Tennessee outlaws being gay. — Why the Washington Post published graphic images of mass shootings. — Crazy Alert! The “QAnon Queen” threatens locals with public execution as she abandons tiny town....say what?!

There are few Americans alive today who remember Hitler, the details are lost to the mists of time. But Donald Trump is bringing it all back to us with a fresh, stark splash of reality… The Nazis in America are now “out.” This morning, former Republican Joe Scarborough explicitly compared Trump and his followers to Hitler and his Brownshirts on national television. They’re here. At the same time, America’s richest man is retweeting antisemitism, rightwing influencers and radio/TV hosts are blaming “Jews and liberals” for the “invasion” of “illegals” to “replace white people,” and the entire GOP is embracing candidates and legislators who encourage hate and call for violence. Are there parallels between the MAGA takeover of the GOP and the Nazi takeover of the German right in the 1930s?

Preply did a national survey of Gen Zers that was published last month & found that more than half of them were seriously interested in or actively considering permanently moving out of America.. Young Americans have a resource those of us who came of age before the late 1990s lacked: instant and easy access to information about people and life in other countries. Between the Internet and social media, Gen Zers have a better understanding of what life is actually like overseas, and they’re liking what they’re seeing. Or, put another way, they’re looking around at America and not liking what they’re seeing. The language tutoring site Preply did a national survey of over 3,000 Gen Zers, published last month, and found that more than half of them are seriously interested in, or actively considering, permanently moving out of the United States. For a bit over a quarter of them, the main attraction of living in the UK, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Ireland, or Italy (the top 10) was free or low-cost access to healthcare and higher education.

Why won’t Congress act? Because they’re on the take. Courtesy of Citizens United and its predecessors voted into law by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court… “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” — Frédéric Bastiat (French economist)

What baffles me is why a TV news host who earns $2.9m a year would go to such lengths to avoid even mentioning a solution that’s been signed onto repeatedly by virtually every Democrat for decades? Why did NBC’s Kristen Welker use an incomplete frame for her question about Social Security at last week’s GOP debate, and why didn’t Lester Holt or anybody else correct her? Here’s her question: KRISTEN WELKER: “Americans could see their Social Security benefits drastically cut in the next decade because the program is running out of money. Former President Trump has said quote, ‘Under no circumstances should Republicans cut entitlements.’ Governor Christie, first to you, you have proposed raising the retirement age for younger Americans. What would that age be specifically, and would you consider making any other reforms to Social Security?” The simple reality is that if a person earns $160,200 a year or less, they pay a 6.2% tax on all of their income. In other words, a person making exactly $160,200 pays $9,932.40 (6.2%) in Social Security taxes.