Hartmann Report

Americans deserve to know how we’ve been manipulated, & by whom, for the past 40 years. Hopefully the Democrats & our media will begin to call the GOP out on Wanniski & Reagan’s Two Santa Clauses scam. The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus. —Jude Wanniski, March 6, 1976 The stock market is falling, a reaction to GOP threats to shut down the government: it’s all part of their plan.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — You’ve probably already caught the news, but in case you didn’t: if you’re over 65 you can get a booster shot starting next week. If the US follows the trajectory of Israel, who reached high vaccination levels months before us, I’m betting there will be boosters for people younger than 65 in a few months. Meanwhile, vaccines for kids 5-12 will also probably be coming in the next few weeks or a month or two at the most.

The cancer of money in our politics is much deeper than just a handful of corrupt Democrats; they're also now blowing up President Biden’s effort to put America back together and save American lives. Want to know who owns your member of Congress? Just look at how they vote. For example, this week Representatives Kurt Schrader (D-OR), Scott Peters (D-CA), Kathleen Rice (D-NY) and, on another committee, Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) all voted with 100% of their Republican colleagues to kill the ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

If the GOP had the courage of the Senate Republicans in 1974, Milley never would have been in a position to worry that an American president might start a nuclear war just to hang on to power. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley stepped outside the realm of his constitutional power to prevent Donald Trump from starting nuclear war with China or Iran. It was definitely unconstitutional and probably illegal. But he’s not the true villain in this story; the true villain is almost never mentioned in the press.

So Texas kids continue to sleep on office floors, get handcuffed to desks, and trafficked out of state while Abbott & his GOP buddies bask in the votes of “concerned” white evangelical voters. Governor Abbott and Republicans in Texas will tell you that they’re very, very, very concerned about children. Particularly before they’re born. Even when they’re the size of a grain of rice and have a tail, indistinguishable from a tadpole, at around 6 weeks of gestation. But when children are “post-birth” and old enough that the State of Texas might have to use tax dollars to pay to care for them when their own birth parents can’t or won’t? Suddenly Texas Republicans have amnesia about their much-vaunted concern for kids.

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.