Hartmann Report

Racism, Demagoguery & Political Opportunism are Killing America. Ray DeMonia of Cullman, Alabama was a good and decent man, an antique collector and auctioneer, beloved by friends and family. He and his family were vaccinated, so they didn’t have to worry much about Covid. Two days short of his 74th birthday Ray died of a heart attack that, in and of itself, had nothing to do with Covid. But that’s only part of the story.

America has been preaching democracy all over the world for more than two centuries. Isn't it time we tried it here at home - end the filibuster & let the chips (and the voters) fall where they may? Rolling Stone is reporting that President Biden has told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that he’s prepared to begin lobbying so-called “moderate” Democratic senators to end or reform the filibuster this week. This is a very, very good thing. Ending the filibuster could be what puts the final nail in the Republicans’ coffin. When all Americans finally see their insane proclamations actually put into action, they’ll never govern again.

The best of the rest of the news. — On this day that America remembers 9/11, as many people as died that day will die this weekend because Republican politicians across America have banned mask mandates in our schools and “conservative” media like Fox “News” promote anti-vax lies and hysteria. Meanwhile, it’s a virtual guarantee that none of today’s media coverage will mention how the Bush/Cheney were warned multiple times that “Bin Laden [Was] Determined To Strike Within the US” and ignored the warnings while Cheney was carving up Iraqi oil fields and Bush told Tony Blair, 3 days after 9/11, that he was going to use the terror attack as a rationale to attack Iraq. Nor will there be any mention of how the government of Afghanistan had virtually nothing to do with 9/11. But on this terrible anniversary, Donald Trump is bragging to the media that he’s going to make “an obscene amount of money” calling a boxing match.

We're witnessing the symptoms of a culture going through the early stages of transition from democracy to oligarchy - it quite literally starts with “average people” randomly behaving like asses.

The monster of fear, hate, and greed the right wingers have created – as it rises from the primordial mud and shakes itself into life – will eventually consume them. Many commentators and pundits have worried out loud that the Texas “precedent” of using vigilantism to end safe, legal abortion in that state is either wildly unconstitutional or, if it stands, will set a precedent to take down other rights like free speech or protest. Republicans are playing with fire here, but it’s not just around abortion rights. They’re also explicitly going after a wide variety of other rights that Americans have fought to maintain for centuries.

The simple solution to the Medicare Advantage problem is to kill off the program. It was just a Trojan horse to privatize Medicare. Over 100 Democratic lawmakers last week introduced legislation to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60. There is one small problem that needs fixing, though: so-called “Medicare Advantage.” This week my new book, The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich is officially available in bookstores nationwide and online. Here’s a chapter excerpt I think you’ll find interesting, particularly after all those awful TV ads with former football and sitcom stars we’ve had to endure the past few years…

Genuine patriots work to heal a country, to bring out its best, to strengthen its social and political fabric and make a better nation and world for future generations. They show up at school board and city council meetings sometimes literally wrapped in the American flag while carrying semiautomatic weapons in one hand and bibles in the other, screaming obscenities and threats at public officials. They demand that children be exposed to Covid in school, then support governors who refuse federal money to expand Medicaid in 12 GOP-controlled states that would have paid for the medical treatment of low-income kids and their parents when they become ill.

We don’t need to read fiction about “handmaidens” to know what America is capable of when religious fanatics make and enforce law. This actually happened. Back on August 30th, I wrote a Daily Rant here about how hate, misogyny and the use of religion to control Americans was nothing new. That was before the Texas Abortion Bounty Hunter Law was allowed to go into effect by the Supreme Court. In that Rant I included a few verses from John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, first published in 1894, titled How The Women Went From Dover. Given the events of last week, it’s worth reading in its entirety as a reminder of what happens when “religious” men assert their claim to power over women’s minds and bodies.

The best of the rest of the news. — Roe v Wade is dead and, along with it, are equal rights for women in Texas. For over 50 years, Republicans have fought the Equal Rights Amendment and with their new vigilantism abortion legislation they’re tightening the screws on the rights to privacy, equal protection and bodily autonomy women still had. As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “This is untenable. It cannot be the case that a State can evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry. ... [The] Court has rewarded the State's effort to delay federal review of a plainly unconstitutional statute, enacted in disregard of the Court's precedents, through procedural entanglements of the State's own creation. The Court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligations to protect not only the rights of women, but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law.” The question now, as I posited in Thursday’s Daily Rant, is whether the voters of Texas will reward or punish that state’s GOP (and, indeed, Republicans across the country) for this. My guess is that this is not a “victory” for the GOP — they wanted the issue so they could pander to its hardcore adherents (who only make up about a third of the base) during election time — but the majority of voters and probably of Republicans will think twice when the long arm of Greg Abbott’s law reaches out for their daughters, wives and friends. I believe they’re overreached and this, along with Covid denialism, will hurt the GOP badly in 2022. If not, G-d help us all.

Times of great crisis are also moments of great opportunity, and, while some will give up and walk away from political activism, others realize the importance of doubling down on our activism... Some Americans feel like we’re living through a “last days” biblical Revelation kind of scenario. There’s a worldwide pandemic that is even killing our children; climate change has drowned the East Coast while the West Coast is on fire; emergency workers and firefighters are struggling with Covid; and a group of rightwing billionaires and religious freaks have seized control of one of our political parties and are hell-bent on pushing us back to the 19th century, crushing democracy and rolling back voting rights while taking ever-more control over women and minorities.