Hartmann Report

Sunday book excerpt: The Hidden History of the War on Voting As the drama of writing the Constitution for a new nation was going on during the summer of 1787 in Independence Hall in Philadelphia (then the home of the Pennsylvania Legislature), a different kind of drama was playing out in the streets of that city. It was, according to the newspapers of the day and the letters sent home from delegates to the convention, a brutally hot, muggy, mosquito-infested summer in Philadelphia. This was during a time when the mechanisms of weather were largely unknown, and superstition was thickly merged with Christianity. Thus, on May 5, when a boy of about five years died of an apparent heatstroke, an elderly woman in town was accused of being the witch who’d cast a spell upon him.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Whoa...Was Trump selling America's secrets on Iran & China? — On top of being a traitor, Trump is also a criminal, although this most recently identified crime was also in furtherance of his attempts to destroy democracy in the United States of America. — While Ukrainians are fighting for their lives, Republicans are openly bragging that they intend to stab our allies in the back. — Meanwhile, it appears that Putin is upping his genocide threat against Ukraine, while his own military may be sabotaging his desire to use tactical nuclear weapons against that country. — The predictable consequence of too many guns. — If you want to destroy a democracy, the first step is to convince its citizens that they can't trust their own election systems. — What's up with the polls? — Why is the mainstream media ignoring the GOP plan to blow up the global economy and destroy Social Security? — Good News: Record numbers of Americans are voting early.

We can have democracy here in America, or we can have leaders of government beholden to billionaires and corporations - we can’t have both. As long as money is considered First Amendment-protected “free speech” under US law, we will remain gridlocked in a corrupt stasis where the will of the American people is ignored in deference to the will of billionaires and giant corporations. I just checked, and there’s $86 in the pocket of my jeans. I rarely use cash anymore; it’s probably been in there for at least a month, maybe two. And in that entire time, I’ve never heard a single word, sound, or even a grunt from my small wad of dollar bills. Nonetheless, in defiance of literally hundreds of good government laws passed over a 200-year period by both federal and state legislatures and signed by multiple presidents and governors, “conservatives” on the US Supreme Court have declared that my $86 is “speech.”

Instead of putting the Supreme Court in charge of US laws, the Framers of the Constitution did the opposite: they put Congress in charge of the Supreme Court. Why isn't congress regulating them? The Supreme Court may be within a few months of ending democracy in the United States and turning the White House over to a group of billionaires who’ve already funded the GOP takeover of multiple state legislatures. But don’t just take my word for it. Consider these sources: Law & Crime: Election Law Experts Sound the Alarm About ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Voting Rights Case the Supreme Court Just Agreed to Hear Demand Justice: Republican Supreme Court to Decide If Democrats Are Allowed to Win Elections Anymore The Atlantic: Is Democracy Constitutional? MSNBC: Moore v. Harper Could Upend Elections as We Know Them And Moore v Harper is just the latest in a long string of naked assaults on American democracy and the rights of average American citizens, particularly when they conflict with the rights of billionaires and giant corporations. So, how the hell did we end up here?

When you compare Trump’s cons with the $50 trillion that the GOP has swindled out of the American working class and given to the top 1 percent since 1980, Trump looks like a piker. The title of Maggie Haberman’s new book about Donald Trump is “Confidence Man” and, truth be told, Trump has been a con man his entire life. Haberman documents it all in excruciating detail. But when you compare Trump’s cons with the $50 trillion that the GOP has conned out of the American working class and given to the top 1 percent since 1980, Trump looks like a piker. He played his role in that GOP con, of course, setting up the very richest Americans to get more billions of dollars a year in tax breaks for the foreseeable future, but he’s a Johnny-come-lately to the GOP game.

It’s all in the message and it’s repetition, but if you don’t engage a topic, put it at the top of your 3-item list, and relentlessly pound on it - it’s as if it doesn’t exist. Republicans are pulling ahead in the polls right now because of the issues of the economy, crime, and homelessness, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll published just yesterday. More than a year ago, I wrote about this very danger in an article titled, “A Crime Wave Could Take Down the Democrats in 2022” (among others). Democrats must start addressing crime and homelessness right now, and the most effective way to pull it off is to fold it into a holistic message that includes two more issues — say, the economy/inflation and the environment — so that they’re making use of “the rule of threes.”

History shows that letting dictators get away with land grabs & genocidal attacks on nearby nations leads not to peace but to even worse wars than stopping that activity early would have done. History shows that letting dictators get away with land grabs & genocidal attacks on nearby nations leads not to peace but to even worse wars than stopping that activity early would have done. This morning the strongman dictator of Russia used 28 "Kamikaze" drones supplied by the theocratic dictators of Iran to attack the democracy of Ukraine's capitol, Kyiv. Some of my tragically misguided former colleagues and guests on the left are joining with the most virulent Trump-humpers and Orbán/Putin-lovers on the right in calling for Ukraine to simply surrender a fifth of their country to Russia in exchange for "peace." (As if giving other people's sovereign land to violent dictators has ever led to peace.) What these people on both political sides are missing is the power of democracy itself to prevent wars, along with the certainty that oligarchy and autocracy, in their end-stages, so often lead to war.

Our vote is the most important part of the American commons. The commons are those realms that we all own and jointly administer through our government. They include our air and water; our roads and skyways; the frequency spectrum we use for communication, radio, and television; our public school system; our military, police, and fire departments; the agencies we use to ensure the safety and quality of our food and medications; the systems and laws that keep people playing the game of business within legal boundaries; our jails and prisons; our oceans and public lands; and our social safety net—among other things.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Were other senior officials in the administration conspiring with Trump to end American democracy? — The Fed's rate hikes are not working: is that because our inflation is not being caused by an "overheated economy" but instead, at least in significant part, by the confluence of supply chain issues, corporate greed, and the price of oil? — Fake news is poisoning America. — Are Putin's agents trying to "clean up on aisle 5"? — Rightwing power continues unabated in America as experts warn about violence that may come along with our elections next month. — Crazy Alert! Don't mess with Nancy Pelosi! — Good News! Seniors are getting a raise starting in January. — More good news! Representatives Pocan and Khanna have introduced the "Save Medicare Act" in the House of Representatives.

Corruption never backs down - As long as the fraudulent Citizens United Supreme Court decisions are allowed to stand, fascism stands just within the outer hallways of our system of government. Could it be that American oligarchs and politicians are working with hostile foreign governments and greedy corporations to increase inflation, screw average Americans, and thus meddle in the upcoming elections? We all know how Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United have let corporations legally corrupt our nation’s politicians. But what if the flow of corruption is working both ways, and some of our politicians are also calling the tune that some corporations — and even foreign governments — are playing to with regard to our economy and other issues?