Hartmann Report

Hopefully, for the good of the nation, the party will reject its most extreme billionaires and politicians and return to the classically conservative side of true American values... Liz Cheney — a member of multi-generational Republican royalty — didn't just tell Republicans this week they shouldn't vote for Trump. That would have been easy; he's manifestly unfit for office and a danger to our republic. Instead, though, she took a huge step beyond that, saying that she was voting for Vice President Harris and Governor Walz — openly implying that every decent, America-loving Republican should do the same. "As a conservative," she said, "as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this — and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris." This could represent the earliest leading edge of a critical turning point for a GOP that has lost its way and, in the process, become an actual threat to our nation, peace in the world, and our children's future.

He intends to use it to try to bring the Biden administration, and thus the Harris/Walz campaign, to its knees in the next few weeks... Get ready. Donald Trump has made good use of the propaganda technique known as the Big Lie 1.0, famously claiming that the 2020 "election was stolen" from him. And now he's preparing to use Big Lie 2.0 to shut down our government this fall, believing it'll hurt the Biden administration and thus the Harris/Walz campaign. That second weapon — this Big Lie 2.0 — is the false allegation of widespread "voter fraud" in America. He intends to use it to try to bring the Biden administration to its knees in the next few weeks. And, as a bonus, if it works, he gets to prevent millions of people, particularly minorities and women, from voting. Republicans have been using this lie to attack the heart of our democracy right out in the open ever since the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the year they responded by rolling out Operation Eagle Eye, yelling about nonexistent "voter fraud" and using it as an excuse to intimidate minority voters in the Goldwater/Johnson race.

It drained many of us of our hope and optimism, much as it did in the 1950s when Joe McCarthy last led a national bullying campaign… On his eponymous TV show, Joe Scarborough pointed out this week how angry and toxic Xitter has become recently. I've seen the same thing, as have many others; quitting Xitter has become a thing, largely as a result of the venomous culture that's taken hold there. This seems to be more closely connected to it being taken over by a morbidly rich South African immigrant who seems to delight in bullying his own child (and others) than to the political season; previous election cycles didn't see similar reports of such widespread hostility and bullying behavior that was driving people to quit particular social media sites altogether. That's probably because one of the first rules of social organization is that culture flows from the top down.

When we handed America over to Ronald Reagan in 1981 it was a brand, gleaming new country with a prosperous and thriving middle class… Today begins the official political season of 2024, the fall countdown to election day and inauguration day, and the start of billions of dollars raised by morbidly rich rightwingers that will be pouring into our media, email, and phones. The Democratic Convention was really rocking (I was broadcasting live from the SiriusXM booth), laying out both the horrors of Republican red state governance and expanding the good-for-America-and-the-middle-class programs that President Biden first signed into law almost four years ago. He's stopped inflation and given us the highest stock market, best jobs numbers, and fastest return of factories to America in over 50 years. It all raises a critical question: How did America go so far astray after FDR saved us from the Republican Great Depression? And what can we learn from FDR that can help Democrats win elections and put America back together again?

The NRB's lawsuit could be the death knell for the Johnson Amendment… A group representing rightwing preachers is trying to bring about a merger of church and state with a new lawsuit. This is incredibly dangerous.

Outside of Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan (and a hedge fund guy), just about all American billionaires are white. And while their white privilege helped most of them to become billionaires in the first place, for the politically active billionaires on the right, it’s their money that they care about the most.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — For fans of Ali Velshi’s brilliant weekend show on MSNBC, internet gods permitting, I’ll be on with him at 11:45 AM Eastern time tomorrow. — The “Other Project 2025.” — Trump is promoting a street-sign campaign by a notorious racist who goes by the name “Sabo.” — “The bullying needs to stop.” — CNN shows everything that’s wrong with 2024’s repeat of 2016’s election coverage. — Why aren’t the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice seeking criminal assault and trespass charges against the Trump staffers who assaulted an Arlington National Cemetery employee and then proceeded to use gravestones as end-tables and campaign props? — Hunter in a Farmer’s World Alert: How to deal with the problem of time. — Wisdom School Alert: Are you reaching the happiness available to you?

A federal ruling could finally tear down the legal shield that lets platforms profit from poisonous content—and it's about time… This week saw a dramatic turn in our nation's desperate efforts to clean up the increasingly poisonous online sewers that we call social media.

Sometimes you can learn as much from attending to what Republicans suddenly stop saying as to what they are talking about… Republicans have pulled off a coup against an entire branch of government, and nobody seems to have noticed. But if you pay attention, it's shocking. Sometimes you can learn as much from attending to what Republicans suddenly stop saying as from what they are talking about. In this case, it's their half-century-long obsession with convening a constitutional convention to rewrite the US Constitution. Under Article V of our Constitution, when two-thirds of the states formally call for a "con-con" to rewrite our nation's founding document, it officially comes into being. They can then make small changes like enshrining the right of billionaires and corporations to bribe judges and politicians, or insert the doctrine of corporate personhood into the document, or simply throw the whole thing out and start over. Many on the right are hoping to insert a national ban on abortion into a new constitution; others want to end the right of women to vote, do away with all antidiscrimination laws, outlaw labor unions, or return the selection of senators to the states.

And it's one more vital reason why the Harris/Walz call for Americans of all races, religions, and gender identities to embrace each other and bring our nation together is so vital… Some Republicans appear to have decided that Kamala Harris is only 3/5ths of a person and therefore cannot run for president. What do Senator Ted Cruz's father Rafael Cruz, Kellyanne Conway, former Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Rand Paul, Former Representative Michele Bachmann, Former Republican Presidential Candidate Pat Buchanan, Publisher and former Republican Presidential Candidate Steve Forbes, former diplomat and Republican Presidential Candidate Alan Keyes, and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell have in common? All are members, executives within, or endorsers of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), a group that grew out of a 1934 California assembly and went national in 1996. The group has been called "The Tea Party before there was a Tea Party" and "the Republican wing of the Republican Party," although it operates independently from the GOP. They made big news last week, though, when they charged that Kamala Harris is not a "natural born citizen" and therefore not eligible to run for or to hold the office of President of the United States. In an echo of Donald Trump's notorious birther movement of 2008, NFRA cited the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which removed citizenship rights from Black Americans, as a basis for their argument.