Hartmann Report

A recent study of 100 US cities found that — between 1993 to 2017 — billions were spent to expand highway capacities by 42% but, instead of reducing congestion, traffic delays actual went up 144%! You’d think that if your freeway is clogged up every rush hour, adding an extra lane would reduce the congestion. You’d be wrong. And an uprising against Oregon state government plans to widen the I-5 freeway here in Portland may end up changing how cities around the country decide to use the hundreds of billions of dollars in highway funds coming to them from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Reagan's policy of starving education & cranking up student debt has made US banks piles of money, but stopped generations of young people from starting businesses, having families & buying homes. Ronald Reagan knew that an educated populace was more progressive and more Democratic, and he was determined to stop the explosion of college educated Americans caused by both the 1944 GI Bill and free tuition at the University of California. Forty years later, student debt has crippled two generations of young Americans: over 44 million people carry the burden, totaling a $1.5 trillion drag on our economy that benefits nobody except the banks earning interest on the debt.

If the DOJ and Congress don't prosecute Trump and change our laws, the next Republican to occupy the White House will probably also try to end our democracy. “Precedent” sounds boring and wonky. In reality, it’s the way past criminal Republican presidents have taught those who followed them to break the law. This is the shocking story of how Republican presidents taught each other to break the law, and how — if Trump isn't prosecuted — the next Republican president will try to end democracy in the USA.

And why a disparate group of billionaires, Republican politicians, televangelists, media outlets, and white supremacist militias have found common cause around a new and exciting moral panic. The moral panic currently sweeping America about Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been covered ad nauseum by the press and commentators across the political spectrum. That’s what typically happens with moral panics (more on that in a moment). What nobody is talking about, though, is the why of this particular issue at this particular time. As a result, we’re mistaking the tool for the goal.

According to the Framers of the Constitution themselves, the real reason for the Electoral College was to prevent a foreign power from placing their stooge in the White House... So Donald Trump is now telling us that having Mike Pence overturn the electoral college result would have been "perfectly legal." He's dead wrong, both factually and conceptually, and his admission should lead him straight to a jail cell.

How humans are hitting the thresholds of our environmental, cultural and psychological limits...and what we can do to rescue ourselves and life on our planet.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Get ready for lots of media attention to crime, probably starting in a big way this summer. — The rightwing cancer on American Democracy — Voter suppression works. — When cops are criminals — The gun industry targets our children — Privacy lost: When people call into crisis or suicide hotlines, they assume privacy and confidentiality. — The beginning of the end of the pandemic? — Crazy Alert! "Female problems" at Fox "News"? — Biden is cleaning up poisons.

Welcome to the racist, misogynous, anti-democracy faction that has seized control of today’s GOP and their media cheerleaders: How long will they hold onto their power over the entire party? The Republican Party has lost all its legitimacy because, in the past few decades, it has become a white supremacist version of what Father of the Constitution James Madison called a “faction.” Loosely, a “faction“ is a “special interest” group of people who are willing to damage the interests of other people just to gain their own benefit. And, as Madison warned us, factions destroy democracies.

Children are the future & to cripple a fifth of our kids with poverty while forcing their families into terrible choices between childcare or food is grotesque & America can do better. Does it, as the old African saying goes, take a village to raise a child? According to Republican Senator Ron Johnson, the answer is “no.” “I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children,” Johnson said while trying to lay his hands on some of the $403,733 that Kwik Trip’s executives and employees coughed up in the last election cycle (most went to the RNC). Johnson added that it wasn’t just his philosophy that rich people’s tax dollars shouldn’t help children in poverty get decent nutrition or housing. He thinks if we use those tax dollars to help out struggling families it’ll actually be bad for America.

After four years of America having a professional, lifelong criminal as our president, is it any wonder crime is up? Years ago when Nextdoor.com rolled out, Louise signed up to see what was happening in our neighborhood; back then it was mostly people offering kittens, trying to find their lost dogs, or begging neighbors to take piles of zucchini. Today, in many parts of the country, it’s become a running list of assaults and burglaries. Crime is up and people are noticing. Which means it’ll get political, and fast. Republicans are planning to make crime a big issue this fall for the elections: Newt Gingrich just pointed out on Fox how well it worked for Glen Youngkin in Virginia and they see it as a template for November.