Hartmann Report

Buying a Medicare Advantage policy is a leap in the dark, and the federal government generally is not there to catch you: forewarned is forearmed. In my multiple writings on the Medicare Advantage scam, the most common two responses I get (besides, “Thanks, you may have saved my life!”) are, “I’ve never had a problem with my Advantage plan,” and “If it’s so bad, how come so few people are saying so?” Both are honest, good-faith questions and highlight how easy it is for insurance companies to get away with their Medicare Advantage scams. The answer to both boils down to the unique nature of insurance being the only “product” we buy where we have no idea if it’s any good until something bad happens — which can take years. Every state in the union has an insurance commissioner. But why?

If the GOP doubles down on fascism & racism, Lincoln’s “last, best hope for Earth” will rest in the hands of the European Union and America will become unrecognizable. The Democratic Party hit its crossroads moment in 2021 when President Biden embraced a progressive vision for America, breaking with Clinton's and Obama's neoliberal centrism. Even if Senators Sinema and Manchin prevented him from putting them into effect, Biden's hearty support for Bernie Sanders' $3 trillion Build Back Better plan and John Sarbanes' For The People legislation that ends gerrymandering and big money in politics showed his newfound commitment and progressive credentials.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. noted in the landmark 1919 Shenck v. United States case that shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater does not constitute free speech; the Bill of Rights guarantees that a person’s opinion can be expressed, not that there are no limits on what one can do. But consider how this fundamental freedom has been bent by corporations since Santa Clara.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — “All Roads Lead to Trump” is the headline at The American Prospect, and it accurately depicts what the January 6th Committee laid out Thursday night. — A functioning democracy requires the truth, actual news, and honest reporting by the media: Fox “News” did none of those during the Committee hearing. To the contrary, they deceived their viewers. — Ginni Thomas was far more aggressive at pushing state legislators to overturn the will of their voters and award Trump the presidency than we’d previously known. — If you want to see how far down the rightwing/fascist rabbit hole the GOP has gone, consider this: the leading Republican candidate for Governor of Michigan was just arrested by the FBI, apparently for participating in the seditious attack on the Capitol. — Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are trying to both save and expand Social Security. — When you mention January 6th to a rightwinger or hear mention of it on hate-talk-radio, they’ll invariably say, “What about BLM and Antifa burning down cities across America?” — Global warming is picking up pace so quickly that the glaciers in Antarctica are melting at a rate not seen in over 5,500 years, according to scientists. — Geeky Science! A glass of beetroot juice a day may help with coronary artery disease.

Sedition is the word for what we call, during times of war, treason. Trump and his Republican and media allies are in it up to their necks... “I have said that any man who attempted by force or unparliamentary disorder to obstruct or interfere with the lawful count of the electoral vote should be lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder gun and fired out of a window.” —General Winfield Scott, 1861 Last night the January 6th Committee’s co-chair Liz Cheney told us that “Representative Scott Perry sought a pardon” along with “multiple other members of Congress” for their participation in the attempted coup, their sedition against the United States of America. They understood they had committed a crime. And they wanted Trump to give them absolution, to prevent them from being prosecuted, to keep them out of jail.

The Supreme Court legalized bribery for only one very narrow and very specific group of people in the United States: politicians & if America is to survive as a republic, we must end the legal bribery. Why don’t we have gun control? It’s because our Supreme Court, or, more correctly, five Republicans on our Supreme Court, legalized bribery.

Fifty-four years of Republican presidents using treason to achieve the White House (or inheriting it from one who did) has transformed America and weakened our democracy. Dwight Eisenhower was arguably the last Republican president who believed in democracy, the rule of law, and that government should do 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. None of this was a mistake or an accident, because none of these people truly believed in democracy.

We can’t pretend we don’t know what’s happening and where it will lead if it’s not stopped - the question is what we will do about it. It’s time to talk about what an American fascist government would look like. The word “fascism” gets thrown around a lot, but most Americans have no idea what it would look like or how it would actually play out. It’s critical to lay out what a fascist America would look like now because this is what is being envisioned right now by many in the Republican Party, and it might come to pass.

Apparently, Medicare now needs the money to pay the Advantage scammers, who continue to pour millions into TV advertising to sucker in new rubes…er…customers. The latest grim news from the for-profit “Advantage” assault on Medicare is two-fold. First, the private “Advantage” plans continue to rip us all off; there’s a new round of busts of companies caught defrauding our government and every worker in America who’s paying into Medicare through their FICA payroll taxes. Second, the “Real Medicare” price hike of a few months ago (originally rationalized by the price of the new Alzheimer’s drug) will stay in place, even though that drug won’t generally be available. Apparently, Medicare now needs the money to pay the Advantage scammers, who continue to pour millions into TV advertising to sucker in new rubes…er…customers.

How Corporations Became 'People' - and How You Can Fight Back. During the bruising primary election season of 2008, a right-wing group put together a ninety-minute hit-job on Hillary Clinton and wanted to run it on TV stations in strategic states. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruled that advertisements for the “documentary” were actually “campaign ads” and thus fell under the restrictions on campaign spending of the McCain-Feingold Act and thus stopped them from airing. (Corporate contributions to campaigns have been banned repeatedly and in various ways since 1907 when Republican President Teddy Roosevelt pushed through the Tillman Act.) Citizens United, the right-wing group, sued to the Supreme Court.