Hartmann Report

Madison wasn’t talking about an abstraction or some highfalutin concept. He was talking about how some rich people will inevitably try to seize political power to screw everybody else. Republicans don’t even try to hide it anymore. Amazingly, the House managed to pass a piece of legislation Wednesday that both helps hungry kids and gives a boost to businesses that want to invest in future products. It was a compromise and neither side is ecstatic, but both Democrats and Republicans got something for their constituents. Democrats got to lift 400,000 children and their families out of poverty, and the legislation will immediately carry an additional 3 million kids from “deep poverty” to mere poverty with an expanded child tax credit. Over the next year, reports the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the legislation will help over 16 million children growing up in low-income households.

Not only has Section 230 turned the web into a stalking ground for sexual predators, it’s also given Putin cheap & easy access to Americans, an access he’s been using for years to tear us apart... Yesterday, families whose children died as a result of interactions with social media companies confronted the industry’s top CEOs. The most dramatic moments were when Senator Lindsay Graham told billionaire Mark Zuckerberg that he had blood on his hands, and when Senator Josh Hawley demanded Zuck apologize to the grieving parents in the room — which he did (sorta). But behind all that drama, which the TV networks loved, was a huge issue that the networks largely ignored because they benefit from it, too. It has to do with something called Section 230. The Republican case against regulation of business has always boiled down to arguing that when people are harmed by a company’s behavior they can sue for big bucks. ... But the five fabulously wealthy CEOs who were grilled by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday occupy a unique space in American law: they can’t be sued, can’t be arrested, and can’t be held accountable for almost anything happening on their platforms, even if they knew all about it and failed or refused to stop it. Nor can their companies, or any of their employees or shareholders.

This year’s election may be our last chance to push back against the oligarchy that the GOP has been constructing for the past forty-three years… Like an alcoholic family that won’t discuss alcoholism (proving Don Quixote’s warning never to mention rope in the home of a man who’s been hanged), far too many Americans are unwilling to acknowledge or even discuss the ongoing collapse of democracy in the United States. We see it in everything from our last two Republican presidents having lost the national vote but taking office anyway, to the extreme gerrymandering happening in every Red state in the country, to the naked bribery of our legislators and Supreme Court justices. And our media exclude it from almost every conversation. Networks run promotions mentioning Trump’s indictments, but completely fail to point out that he is calling for the end of democracy in America, the suspension of the Constitution, and playing the role of a “dictator” on day one.

Just turn everything over to the morbidly rich and let them and their companies run the entire country along the profit motive lines? What could possibly go wrong? Usually it’s Republican politicians bragging that they’re “more libertarian than conservative” but this time it’s a former Democrat, Bobby Kennedy Jr., who’s reportedly thinking of running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket. This bizarre experiment of libertarianism — now officially a political party with ballot access in all 50 states — has been promoted by the billionaire class ever since World War II. And it’s literally killing some of us, along with threatening our democratic republic.

Yes, prior to the Reagan Revolution American companies actually invested in their workers, their communities, and their business. They attended to the needs of their customers, by in large... A Boeing 737-Max9 lost a side door during flight, and commentators in the industry point out the plane manufacturer used to be run by engineers, but now, at the insistence of Wall Street, is run by bean-counters looking out for profits. One of my kids bought a new American-made car last year. While driving on the highway it died, complete with smoke coming out from under the hood; she barely made it to the shoulder where a tow truck could pick her up. The dealer held the car for months before she hired a lawyer who — after more months — finally forced them to take back the car and give her a partial refund under Oregon's lemon law: at every turn, she was stonewalled by both the manufacturer and their dealer here. Apparently this has happened to a lot of Americans.

The war for the heart and soul of America, funded by libertarian billionaires, has moved into the press, the internet, and our political arena. In that struggle, it’s more accurate to portray libertarians as “feudalists” than as advocates of anything new. Feudalism doesn’t exclusively refer to a point in time or history when streets were filled with mud and people lived as peasants. More broadly, it refers to an economic and political system, just like democracy or communism or socialism or theocracy. The biggest difference is that instead of power being held by the people, the government, or the church, those who own property and the other necessities of life hold power. At its essential core, feudalism could be defined as “government of, by, and for the rich.”

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Rogue State Texas? Will Biden take over the National Guard in Texas? And what happens if he does? — New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that during the past 18 months, since 14 states have totally outlawed abortion, there were an estimated 65,565 pregnancies in those states as a result of 519,981 rapes. — Speaking of rape, Donald Trump now has to pay E. Jean Carroll an additional $83+ million for having raped and then defamed her. — Hunter in a Farmer’s World Alert! Hunters Meet the Self-Help Movement: On Being a Professional Victim of ADHD. — Alabama’s Governor Kay Ivey ordered a man tortured to death with nitrogen gas. — New rules for journalists? — Crazy Alert! A male Wisconsin legislator who’s a “cow doctor” says he knows “more about abortion” than women because he’s done ultrasounds on pregnant cows: he’s now pushing a bill to outlaw the procedure after 14 weeks. — EU threatens to silence Hungary if Orbán continues to block Ukrainian aid. — Biden is killing what may well be the largest fossil fuel project in the world.

There’s a long tradition of Republicans running for president committing treason, or at least criminal manipulation of international affairs, to advantage themselves & hurt Democratic presidents... Once again, America and the world are watching with horror as a Republican candidate for president — just to win an election — manipulates world affairs in a way that will cause widespread death and destruction while damaging the interests and reputation of America. There’s a long tradition of Republicans running for president committing what can best called treason, or at least criminal manipulation of international affairs, to advantage themselves and hurt incumbent Democratic presidents.

Can you build bridges to Trump cultists that may, over time and with work and love, help you pry them loose from the authoritarian leader or movement to which they've bonded? We are living in James Madison's nightmare. A Reuters/Ipsos poll right after Trump was handed the White House by the electoral college (after losing to Hillary by 3 million votes) found that fully 16 percent of Americans had stopped talking with a family member or friend because of the poison Trump has brought into politics. When Madison wrote his first contribution to the Federalist Papers, Federalist #10, he described the greatest threat to our new republic as the growth of a powerful "faction" that might eventually seize control of government itself. They would tear the nation apart, he worried, by fostering phony differences between people and then pitting them against each other.

“Limited government” means to take power away from governments elected by and answerable to the voters and hand that power off to massive, monopolistic corporations and the morbidly rich… So, Nikki Haley — the nation’s currently most famous advocate for “limited government” — turned in a respectable showing in New Hampshire last night. What might that mean for our country?