Hartmann Report

Justice Stevens and his fellow “liberals” on the Court warned us Citizens United could doom our republic, something that’s now within our sight. When Bobby Kennedy went after organized crime in the early 1960s, one of the things he learned was that the Mafia had a series of rituals new members went through to declare their loyalty and promise they’d never turn away from their new benefactors. Once in, they’d be showered with money and protection, but they could never leave and even faced serious problems if they betrayed the syndicate. Which brings us to the story of Kyrsten Sinema.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — 2020 Election: How close was America to having Trump declare himself president-for-life? — Trump’s people are trying to run out the clock or outright defy the January 6th Select Committee — The Founders and Framers put the Emoluments Clause into the Constitution to prevent a president would was in financial trouble or beholden to a particular patron or interest from holding office — What the hell is Joe Manchin talking about when he says, “I cannot accept our economy, or basically our society, moving towards an entitlement mentality”? — It's the Algorithm, Stupid! — Morbidly rich people around the world are hiding hundreds of billions of dollars in South Dakota — Crazy Alert! New Orleans Republicans dump their leader for praising slavery and she’s spittin’ mad — In Good News: A historic vote for a clean environment — As 1 in 500 children in America have lost a caregiver to Covid, an Oregon group is now calling out corrupt Republican politicians for spreading lies about vaccines, masks and the disease.

Big Pharma’s obscenely-priced drugs developed w/tax dollars will continue to drain working people of income, savings, and – ultimately – their health until America recognizes healthcare as a right. Molnupiravir is the new pill that’s been all over the news recently because it can cut hospitalizations and deaths of unvaccinated Covid-infected people by as much as half and doesn’t require folks to go to the hospital or an infusion center, like the monoclonal antibody remdesivir. Just take a pill every day for five days and you’re good. It was originally developed by Emory University to treat horses infected with Venezuelan equine encephalitis with a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense and $19 million from the National Institutes of Health. In other words, its invention was paid for with your tax dollars.

If an alliance of neoliberal billionaires & authoritarian Republican politicians succeed at blocking Biden’s progressive reforms or drag us into a recession - we are truly screwed. Mitch McConnell’s use of the debt ceiling, and two Democratic senators taking big bucks from billionaires and the fossil fuel industry to sabotage Democratic efforts, illustrate a major — and largely unacknowledged — crisis point in American politics.

What is the most horrific crime humans can commit against other humans? Let’s take a momentary break from the insanity of our politics today and look at what is really and truly driving all our crises around the world. “The Lost People,” was originally published in Spirit of Change magazine, November 1998. It’s even more relevant today than it was then: please set aside a few minutes to read it all the way through. I believe you’ll find it worth your time and would love to read your comments and thoughts on it; it cuts to the root of our “modern” world’s core crises.

How what started out as a pleasant view of Aunt Sally's summer vacation ends up with a bloody police officer on the floor of the US Capitol and a democracy in flames. The difference between cocaine and crack cocaine is almost entirely one of pH, the relative scale of acidity or alkalinity. Regular cocaine in its original plant form, coca leaf, is commonly consumed by people across the mountainous parts of South America and has been for millennia, much as caffeine has been used through drinking tea in parts of Asia. It causes little to no harm; people can drink coca tea with no more impact than the caffeine from a soft drink.

The GOP believes to their core that by the end of 2024 they can do to America what Viktor Orbán did to Hungary – and therefore never again face serious political opposition: will it work? While it’s fashionable in some circles to compare Donald Trump and the modern-day GOP to Hitler or Mussolini and their fascist movements from the 1930s, what’s happening on the international stage right is actually somewhat different and, once in power, far harder to stop or overthrow. Call it “soft fascism” or neofascism. The problem with the old fascism was that it was too brutal and militaristic: it offended voters’ democratic sensibilities, killed way too many people, and caused nearby nations to respond militarily to its perceived threat.

— Is the Billionaire Sabotage of the Democrats Baked In? After the Nixon and Agnew bribery scandals that led them both to leave office, Congress passed some really good legislation to get money out of politics. Conservatives on the Supreme Court blew it up, most famously in the 5-4 Citizens United decision in 2010, and the entire Republican Party put out their hands to the billionaires and big corporations (if you know of even one single Republican who doesn’t take corporate PAC money, let me know). A large handful of Democrats decided this was a good idea, too. The past decade has seen a significant pushback against these types of politicians, with the Congressional Progressive Caucus growing and taking serious power. As I mentioned in yesterday’s rant, the big question is whether this movement within the Democratic Party will be successful in “going big” like FDR and LBJ did, or will get crushed by the billionaires and the corporations empowered by SCOTUS, including the media corporations. Laura Clawson over at Daily Kos adds some very insightful thoughts on the issue of the media’s inherent bias against the progressives and toward the Gottheimers' of the party.

Can the anti-grift Democrats pick up enough energy & votes to save America from a total descent into Trump’s GOP-corporate-funded Hungary-style grift? We’ve reached “maximum grift” in America, both in business and politics. We’re on the edge of a tipping point.

What if foreigners are, today, the ones largely responsible for much of the division, death and destruction sweeping America and, in many cases, are doing it not for ideology but just to make a buck? The stories of Covid deaths and disability are often tragic, and they’re happening by the millions in America. These stories — and the grim spectacle of armed white people protesting at schools, election sites and hospitals — illustrate a dangerous new intersection of public health, politics, and social media. Many, it turns out, are driven by an entire foreign-based industry called “troll farms” using social media to crank Americans into foaming-at-the-mouth crazy, including armed groups in our streets, just to make money.