Hartmann Report

The real question at the core of the Ukraine conflict, is simple &straightforward: "What's the best way for humans to govern themselves?" Yesterday, Politico published an interview with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy titled "Zelenskyy warns Russia has penetrated U.S. politics, invites Trump to Ukraine." It's a chilling read. Democracy is in trouble, and the Russian/Ukrainian conflict highlights how imperiled it is becoming in the 21st century. The real issue in Ukraine isn't just land, any more than the real issue in the US is abortion: that's all the activity on the surface. What's grinding away below the surface, however, is the erosion or outright destruction of democracy itself, whether by invasion from without or corruption from within.

If we fail to aid Ukraine and Russia succeeds in overwhelming that country, expect Putin to head to Moldova and Poland or the Baltic states next: his generals and his #2, Dmitry Medvedev have said so… Today, the House of Representatives is back from a 2-week vacation and news reports suggest that Speaker "Moscow Mike" Johnson may put legislation on the floor to provide aid to Ukraine. Other news reports, however, say that his entire "I'll consider Ukraine aid" is just BS: that he's going to poison pill the legislation by attaching riders and amendments demanding things that Democrats won't go along with. Sunday, Johnson told Fox "News": "We've been talking to all the members, especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we'll be moving a product, but it's going to, I think, have some important innovations." Innovations? You mean scams? Like calling the aid to Ukraine a "loan" or funding it with seized Russian assets, a process that could introduce more months of delay.

Is the GOP's cynical manipulation of religion, gender, and race enough to keep them voting to hurt themselves and enrich Republican fat-cats? Rural white voters have, in many cases, far more political power than suburban or urban voters, and they're using that outsized power to push our nation toward disaster. While they're only 20 percent of the country, for example, because of gerrymandering they control fully 42 percent of seats in the House of Representatives. The authors of new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy point out that rural whites are measurably more bigoted and xenophobic than suburban or urban voters, 13 points more likely to hate on queer people, 15 points more likely to support Trump's Muslim ban.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — How Trump is tapping into an “authoritarian axis” around the world. — Letitia James is not screwing around. — Republicans hate Social Security and they’re never going to give up — Could states be the ones who bring in Medicare for all? — Is this how Saudi Arabia weighs in for Trump? — Might the FCC bring back Net Neutrality? What is that? — Geeky Science! Can a vegan diet help diabetics? — Hunter in a Farmer’s World alert: ADHD: Put a Notepad By Your Bed For Ideas — Wisdom School Alert! Is Learned Resilience is a Key to a Good Life? — Alabama Republicans are trying to criminalize librarians just for doing their jobs.

Replacing Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh would take the balance of the Court back to where it was in 1973, before Nixon decided to drive Fortas out with bogus charges. There may be a way... When the Mifepristone case came before the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito bizarrely brought up their desire to see the Comstock Act again enforced. Even arguably worse, they're in part responsible for giving Trump months of delay in the case Jack Smith has brought against him for trying to overthrow our form of government.

Yesterday, the State of Maine took America one giant step closer to ending the antidemocratic grip the GOP's had on our presidential elections… What if the person the majority of Americans voted for became president? It usually happens, but no Republican has been elected to the White House by a majority of Americans since 1988. Just imagine how different America (and the world) would be today if neither George W. Bush or Donald Trump had ever set foot in the White House because both lost the federal election, the national popular vote.

The Republican nominee for governor of NC, Trump-endorsed Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, knows how to fix America's political and social problems: prevent women from voting… The Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina this year, Trump-endorsed Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, knows how to fix America's political and social problems: prevent women from voting. In a video from his presentation to — ironically — the Republican Women of Pitt County in March of 2020, when Robinson was successfully running for lieutenant governor, he came right out and said it: "I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn't vote," Robinson argued. "Do you know why? Because in those days, we had people who fought for real social change, and they were called Republicans. … That's the America we want to bring back. We want to bring back the America where Republicans and principles and true ideas of freedom rule." Of course, Robinson isn't onto something new for the GOP. What's new is that some of the party's most extreme voter suppression efforts — theoretically only targeting Blacks and Hispanics — will be working this fall to prevent women from voting as well.

While democratic governments are driven by the public good, authoritarian governments — like the old American Confederacy that Trump wants to emulate — are driven by fear & hate… Authoritarian governments are drawn from and always represent, first and foremost, the interests of the majority group within their country. Christians in 1933 Germany. Orthodox Slavs in Russia. Hindus in India. Whites in America. Authoritarian leaders bind themselves to these groups by defining members of minority groups as "the enemy" of the larger majority, demonizing them and subjecting them to economic and physical brutality under the nation's laws. This is exactly the dynamic playing out right now in the nearly-all-white GOP. They have an extensive plan to exploit charges of "racism against white people" to seize control of the American government.

Here the fascists are again, this time calling themselves MAGA. And they're using the classic fascist tactic of the Big Lie, just like Hitler and Mussolini did… Donald Trump has made good use of the propaganda technique known as the Big Lie, but he didn't invent or popularize it. While the strategy has been around as long as humanity's had psychopaths trying to seize power over others, the Big Lie was really brought into pop consciousness in the 1930s. I was going through my old audio library yesterday afternoon and found this short clip from President Franklin D. Roosevelt talking specifically about the Big Lie. FDR, of course, was the man who saved America from the Republican Great Depression (what they used to call it), created Social Security, the right to unionize, the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and fought and won against the Nazis in World War II even as he was so disabled by polio that he hadn't walked in decades. As you'll hear, it was as if FDR could see Trump using the Big Lie today. Which makes perfect sense, because FDR fought with his own Nazis and fascists in America in the 1930s and 1940s. They even tried to assassinate or kidnap him, but were stopped by a brave Marine general, Smedley Butler.

Conservative commentator Brit Hume noted, in a 1999 interview with PBS, “This operation [Fox News] loses money. It doesn’t lose nearly as much as it did at first, and it’s—well, it’s hit all its projections in terms of, you know, turning a profit, but it’s—it will lose money now, and we expect for a couple more years. I think it’s losing about $80 million to $90 million a year.” But that loss wasn’t viewed by these right-wing billionaires as a “loss”—rather, it was an investment.