Hartmann Report

When Barbie has more integrity than six Republican members of the US Supreme Court, you know American democracy is in a crisis… Sam Alito wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week that: “No provision in the Constitution gives them [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.” He’s deeply, profoundly, and constitutionally wrong: in fact, the constitution requires Congress to regulate the Supreme Court. I’ll get to that in a second, but first the important stuff: Barbie! Louise and I went to see the new Barbie movie Friday afternoon. Sitting in the theater, we both nearly choked on our popcorn when, in the first few minutes of the movie, one of the Barbies said: “In Barbieland, corporations are not people, and money is not considered protected free speech!” Wow! I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that Barbie has more common sense than Sam Alito, but there it is.

Among the new objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me with greater force than the equality of conditions. I easily perceived the enormous influence that this primary fact exercises on the workings of the society. —Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835), on how economic equality in America strengthens democracy and reduces violence

The Best of the Rest of the News. — New charges, “The boss wants it deleted.” — More evidence the Russians created the whole Hunter Biden laptop thing for the GOP. — Did giant health insurer Cigna flip off hundreds of thousands of claims, spending less than two seconds evaluating each? — In Florida now, it turns out, the state is requiring teachers to tell students that Black Americans shared the blame for their own massacres. — Is Bidenomics working? — Is Gen Z about to take the 2024 electoral baton and, if so, what will that mean? — The major automakers are building a new nationwide vehicle charging network! — Crazy Alert! Fox “News” guest flips out over “super diverse” movies. — Conservative of the Day: Example of “narcissistic collapse” as rightwing TV host freaks out over Giuliani’s confession that he lied about the election being stolen.

It looks like the billionaires who control the MAGA movement have learned from January 6th and won’t make the mistake of having an independent military, FBI, press, or Department of Justice again... The morbidly rich often believe they’re immune from the politicians they fund turning on them. And they’re often wrong. Now, here in America, rightwing billionaires are repeating the same mistake Germany’s ultra-rich made in the 1930s. And the MAGA Republicans and the billionaires who fund them are now gung-ho to put you and me under the thumb of the US military, just like Hitler did. There’s even some concern that Tommy Tuberville’s Senate hold on military promotions may be a way of keeping top military positions open so Trump or another MAGA Republican president can fill them if the GOP takes the White House in 2024. After all, it was one part of the military (the Secretary of Defense) that first helped Trump nearly assassinate Mike Pence and thus end American democracy, but then another part of the military (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) that apparently stopped him from finally succeeding.

Are the Great Conveyor Belt and the “Clathrate Gun Hypothesis” about to throw the planet into an existential crisis? You may remember the 2004 disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, in which large parts of Europe and the American East Coast suddenly freeze up? The plot device is that the Great Conveyor Belt — also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — which brings heat from the south Pacific around the southern tip of Africa and up the east coast of the Americas (we call it the Gulf Stream) into the North Atlantic and Europe shuts down. The AMOC and the heat it brings to the North Atlantic ocean is the main reason why London (at the same latitude as Calgary) has a relatively temperate climate year-round, instead of being snowbound six months out of the year.

It follows a fairly ancient pattern of destructive Big Lies that goes back to Renaissance Italy and even the Roman republic and ancient Greece... Will 2024 be the year Big Lies overwhelm our entire political system? Is that the goal the GOP is working towards now? Trump’s people are promoting a new lie-filled fascist advertisement, which even the normally unflappable Frank Luntz called “disturbing.” It follows a fairly ancient pattern of destructive Big Lies that goes back to Renaissance Italy and even the Roman republic and ancient Greece.

He’s already using the language of narcissistic collapse, priming his cult followers to experience rage and act out revenge fantasies on his behalf in a clear call to stochastic terrorism... When I was young, I dated a girl who, on reflection, was a classic malignant narcissist. She went from loving me to, when I ended the relationship, stalking and threatening me with both social and physical violence. This may well be what America has in store as Trump descends into a legal hell of his own criminal creation, particularly when he’s facing real jail time; if he’s rejected by the GOP primary voters; or if he’s the nominee and loses the election while still facing jail time. It’s called “narcissistic collapse.”

This truly is a climate emergency, and every day that goes by without significant action further endangers the future of almost all life on Earth, including us... Is Phoenix Ameria’s first unlivable city? Will this be the year America and the world wakes up? CBS News is reporting that people in Phoenix are rationing their air conditioning; a British climatologist has declared it the developed world’s first “uninhabitable city without air conditioning.” In large parts of the United States this summer, climate change-driven heat domes are making pavement so hot that when people pass out and come in contact with it they end up in the hospital with second and third-degree burns. Multiple hospitals report that their burn units are near capacity.

"I would like to have an ample fund to spread the light of Republicanism, but I am willing to undergo the disadvantage to make certain that in the future we shall reduce the power of money in politics for unworthy purposes." —President William Howard Taft commenting on the 1907 Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal elections and was overturned by Citizens United

— How a conservative activist spiffed a $1.8 million propaganda campaign to flatter Clarence Thomas — Looks like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal was possibly a Russian hack. — GOP AG's are planning for a “fugitive slave act” to track abortion and trans “felons.” — Red states continue to “shackle” Black people. — How a single lie on Fox “News” threw Michigan’s politics into chaos and is being used to try to flip their legislature from Democratic to Republican. — A lawyer is forging ground that others may will follow about big oil: this could be tobacco all over again. — Geeky Science/Orwell Alert! What is America going to do about AI now being used for “deep fakes” in politics?