Hartmann Report

The GOP has become, as Eisenhower warned, “merely a conspiracy to seize power” and the tragic result is a weakened, potholed, polluted and impoverished America. Texas is showing us all how the corruption that has overwhelmed the GOP has reached a crisis point, and it’s killing people. President Dwight Eisenhower said, “If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.”

Trump’s tribe of psychopaths are finding each other & coming together in armed groups, plotting revenge against a society they feel has unfairly tried to constrain their selfish impulses & behaviors My friend and colleague on SiriusXM radio, Dean Obeidallah, reminded me yesterday when we were chatting on his show that he pointed out last week that “air rage” incidents have exploded this year. He wrote a great op-ed about it for CNN here. The FAA says there have been 2900 reports of air rage since the first of the year, and 2200 of those involved people becoming enraged over mask requirements.

They must play hardball; the future of our republic is at risk. When your opponents are deeply corrupt, using the word corruption isn’t just a strategy, it’s an imperative There is one word Republicans fear more than any other, for good reason. That word is corruption, and they fear it because it has brought down multiple rightwing politicians and governments. When dealing with a corrupt political party, I t’s the most powerful word in politics.

Frank Luntz is advising his rich patrons to continue to kneecap the middle class with a slick new sloganeering strategy. Have Americans finally figured out the the "long con" of the Reagan Revolution? Frank Luntz, who made millions messaging for the wealthy and powerful, has an idea. His most recent survey found that across American society there is widespread skepticism about capitalism and outrage at the tendency of deregulated capitalism to produce mind-boggling wealth and terrible poverty.

Prosecuting Donald Trump and Bill Barr is not a matter of political payback. It has very little to do with Donald Trump or the Republican party, in fact: it’s about the future of our republic. Honoré de Balzac said, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” Apparently there are multiple great crimes behind the Trump fortune, stretching all the way back to his stealing most of his initial wealth from other members of his family, as his niece Mary Trump is alleging in a lawsuit. But the crimes of Trump we should all concern ourselves with are his crimes against our nation and democracy itself.

"With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.” I’m struggling to explain why a Fox News host would say to the American people, “they’re trying to take down the white culture!”

Thom plus logo …we have to ask if the bullies have won, after all? Or is the Biden administration going to finally start setting limits and imposing logical consequences? Certain types of behavior can be contagious. Seriously; adolescent suicide is probably the most well-known example of this. It’s like they reach into us and draw out of us that part which may have a slight tendency toward that particular behavior and then, by drawing it out, fill us with it. A great example of this is bullying.

“Housing First” is a the solution that has been embraced by countries around the world. Time to repudiate the failed Reaganomics experiment and take it seriously again here in America. America has a massive homelessness problem. We could solve it in a decade or less with a simple solution that has worked very well in Japan, Denmark, Singapore and even parts of Canada. Simply outlaw homelessness. Not as in “make homeless people outlaws”: we’ve already done that. It hasn’t worked particularly well. What I mean is to mandate the federal government end homelessness.

The GOP and, sadly, a few white Democrats like Manchin want to answer that question with a definite “No.” This weekend, Louise and I took a long drive to a small town in a rural part of Oregon. Watching people walk down the street, we imagined we could identify who would vote Democratic and who would vote Republican largely by how they looked and dressed (and who wore a mask or didn’t). It sounds like a very superficial analysis, but take a look at the people who show up for Republican party meetings versus the folks who show up for Democratic party meetings. Or the people who show up to protest police violence and the people who show up to “support the police.”

Like the poor dogs in the animal shelter ads on TV, these Republicans need our help. Let’s work to save them, to rescue them, to free them! If Utah governor Spencer Cox or his wife Anne, both good Mormons, were diagnosed with heart disease and at risk of a heart attack, odds are they would get on their knees and pray. And then they’d go to the doctor. They probably wouldn’t show up at the fatty-food all-you-can-eat buffet and chow down as much heart-attack-inducing fried foods they could. Particularly after they talked to their doctor. Utah right now is in a severe drought, the worst in the recorded history. It’s the result of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.