Hartmann Report

“Please name one country, anywhere in the world, any time in the last 7000 years, where libertarianism has succeeded and produced general peace and prosperity?” First, Michigan’s Republican Governor ended the power of cities to govern themselves, replacing them with “emergency managers” and producing the Flint water crisis. Now the Republicans who run Tennessee are trying a similar trick, wanting to defy the voters to take over the town of Mason in that state. As the headline at the Tennessee Lookout newspaper notes: “State officials ask residents of a small, predominantly Black town near the site of new Ford investment to forfeit their city charter or face takeover.”

Public outrage is building: the Court’s approval rating is now around 40% - Congress needs to act, before an entire branch of government sinks into an irredeemable Trump-fueled muck of corruption. So now, as expected after decades of taking big bucks for her rightwing work on behalf of America’s oligarchs, we learn that the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginny Thomas, was in Trump’s January 6th “rally” up to her eyeballs. Let’s just say it right out loud: the US Supreme Court is corrupt. And Americans know it.

If we don’t start listening to our screaming planet, Covid and Ukraine may be the least of our worries. Our planet is screaming a message at us, and Covid is part of that communication. The death of nature and the appearance of Covid are all part of the same thing. And it also ties into Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.

Glimpses into the life of an extraordinary man . More than two decades ago I spent a fair amount of time over several visits to remote northeastern Australia with Geoff Guest, who was thinking of affiliating his program for Aboriginal children with the German Salem International program I worked with for decades. Geoff was part Aboriginal, part white and was stolen from his parents at a young age as part of Australia's program back in the day to "civilize" Aboriginal youth. He was part of the "Stolen Generation" of Aboriginal or mixed-race children taken from their parents by the Australian government between 1910 and 1970.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Ukraine Update: NBC is reporting that Putin's forces in Ukraine have killed more civilians than soldiers. — You'd think the Southern Poverty Law Center's report that the number of hate groups in America has "declined" in the past two years is good news. Turns out, not so much. — Wannabee Strongman DeSantis Deploys Election Police. — Republicans in Missouri are now suggesting the appropriate response to a woman getting an abortion is the death penalty. — As America prepares to go maskless, the "hidden toll" of long Covid is almost completely missing from our headlines. — Republicans have a plan for America and Fox News loves it. — Why do Republicans want to keep gas prices high? — Methane is the most potent naturally occurring greenhouse gas ... hundreds of tons of it are pouring out of abandoned oil and gas wells across America every day. —Death Cult Alert! South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was driving while reading a story about how terrible Joe Biden is on his phone when he struck and killed a pedestrian. — Crazy alert! The truckers who are driving in circles around DC burning tons of fuel to complain about the "tyranny" of having, in the past, to wear masks… or something.

Florida is putting into effect the first “election police” in the nation - expect other GOP-run states to jump onboard soon, as the Republican War on Democracy continues apace. “There's a famous statement: Sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate.” —Donald Trump They used to go by the name Ku Klux Klan, those guys who’d show up every election day to “police” the ballot boxes and make sure only “authorized” people had a chance to vote. By the 1960s, when William Rehnquist got into the game and would stand outside polling places near Phoenix challenging the credentials of every Black, Hispanic or Native American, they’d changed the name to the infamous Operation Eagle Eye. Now Governor Ron DeSantis is bringing to the game millions of taxpayer dollars and the power, held solely by government, to imprison people.

For the majority of Americans who are so poor they barely have to pay income taxes, Scott’s plan is just the latest in a 40-year barrage of assaults and insults coming from the GOP. They’re at it again: Republicans want to raise taxes on poor and working-class Americans, end Social Security and Medicare, jack up pollution and corporate profits, all while continuing to pamper their billionaire donor base. This time it’s the guy in charge of getting Republican senators elected and re-elected, Florida’s Senator Rick Scott.

Want to know why gas costs so much? Trump may be long out of power, but the impact of his corrupt treachery lives on... It was a double-whammy for two of then-President Donald Trump’s biggest patrons, Vladimir Putin and American fossil-fuel billionaires and their industry: the price of oil was too damn low. Between the pandemic-induced collapse in demand for oil and the price war Saudi Arabia was then fighting with Russia — two of the world’s largest producers — Putin was being pinched badly. And in America, from Pennsylvania to Texas, oil producers were outright losing money on the oil they pumped. Gas prices were at record lows, gutting the profits even of refiners. So, Trump acted. It seemed inexplicable at the time, but in retrospect (knowing now how tied to Putin he was) it makes perfect sense.

The US & our allies must push the UN to convene a new round of negotiations leading to solid and unambiguous treaties that will prevent rogue nations from invading nearby states they covet. Nuclear non-proliferation and preventing war — stopping or even reversing the spread of nuclear weapons across the world and preventing the invasion of one country by another — is right up there with doing something about climate change in terms of guaranteeing a future that includes safety and security for the people of our planet. Right now we’re engaged in negotiations with Iran, for example.

We lost 45 years to the fossil fuel billionaires and their GOP toadies, who’ve kept us dependent on fossil fuels to keep their profits high - but still they want more, more, more... As Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine tears that nation apart, his army is in the process of seizing a second nuclear power generating station, which will allow him to cut off power — and thus communications, heat, and water — to large chunks of that nation. If most households in Ukraine had solar panels on their roofs and battery storage in their basements — as two states in Germany and the US State of California are now requiring for all new construction — blowing up or seizing a central power station would have far less ability to brown out large parts of the country.