Hartmann Report

Foreword By Mike Farrell Years ago, probably the late ’70s, I went to a fund-raising event in Los Angeles to hear Rev. George Regas, one of the founders of the Interfaith Center to Reverse the Arms Race. I remember being struck by a unique part of his fund-raising pitch that day. He said that our society’s priorities are upside down: human existence is being endangered by the makers of war, so in a rational society those working for peace should be funded by the government while the Pentagon has bake sales to raise its budget. He said it better than that, but the idea stuck with me. And when I think about it, so many of the things we do in this country tell me he’s right. The “official” policies are too often counterproductive in a society that claims to respect the dignity of each individual, in a state that claims to believe in equality and says it intends to “promote the general welfare.” The general welfare means, roughly, taking care of the needs of the common citizen. And that’s us, folks.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Trump Indicted - Is America in uncharted territory? What will the reaction be? Could we see our first president behind bars? — Why has Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner received 2.5 billion from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar? — California Governor Gavin Newsom is taking his campaign to “fight authoritarianism” to the Red states. — Texas Republicans want the ability to overturn elections in Houston, the largest bastion of Democratic votes in the state. — Is it price-gouging or inflation? — What can America do about a “lying & deceiving” propaganda network posing as news? — Oh, oh: There’s a new study showing the collapse of the crucial ocean circulation system could bring big climate changes to the entire world. — Geeky Science - Why are American IQs falling? — Crazy Alert! America is not a democracy according to right-wingers!

Many Americans are baffled. Why, they ask, would Republicans refuse to act when semiautomatic weapons designed for the battlefield are used against our children? Now that Donald Trump has been indicted, expect to see the fascist movement in America heat up quickly. And become more deadly. That it’s happening at the same time our children are experiencing an unprecedented level of slaughter is no coincidence (more on that in a moment) and helps explain Republican unwillingness to do anything about guns. Many Americans are baffled. Why, they ask, would Republicans refuse to act when semiautomatic weapons designed for the battlefield are used against our children? When we’ve had 38 school shootings — and over 100 mass shootings — all using semiautomatic battlefield-style weapons in the first 90 days of this year?

Bannon’s grift in East Palestine is the smallest of the small, after his being busted for a “Build the Wall” scheme and others, but is still emblematic of the Republican strategy at governance... Nobody ever accused Republicans of not knowing how to make a buck or BS-ing somebody into voting for them. Lying to people for economic or political gain is the very definition of a grift. Whenever there’s another mass- or school-shooting, Republican politicians hustle out fundraising emails about how “Democrats are coming to take your guns!” The result is a measurable and profitable spike in gun sales after every new slaughter of our families and children, followed by a fresh burst of campaign cash to GOP lawmakers. But the GOP’s ability to exploit any opportunity that comes along — regardless of its impact on America or American citizens — goes way beyond just fundraising hustles.

Leadership from multiple venues in American journalism should get together and decide what photos to release, for maximum impact and minimum trauma. And now we have another mass school shooting, this time in Tennessee with three 9-year-old girls dead as well as 3 adults. Immediately followed by another pathetic Republican congressman claiming that Congress can’t do a thing. A community is grieving, schoolkids across America are terrified, and after 130 mass shootings in the first 87 days of this year — 33 of them in schools and colleges — you’d think average Americans would finally understand the horrors of the gun violence Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court have inflicted on us. This is a phenomenon as systemic and unique to the United States today as Jim Crow was in the 1950s. The gun control movement needs to learn from the Civil Rights movement. Back in 1955, young Black people like 14-year-old Emmett Till were routinely murdered by white people all over America, usually with no consequence whatsoever.

Thanks to the Republican Party, fully 82 percent of all the human beings living in the world’s wealthy countries killed by firearms lived in the USA… Yesterday a 28-year old graduate of a Christian school shot up the place, killing three 9-year-old students and three adults. This was almost 2 years to the day that Republican Governor Bill Lee signed a wide-ranging gun deregulation bill allowing Tennesseans to carry guns — open or concealed — without a permit or any other government interference. Republicans are trying to distract America from the easy access Audrey Hale had to weapons of war by discussing Hale’s personal life, but the availability of guns and the Republican embrace of death as a political weapon are the only real issues here. We’re the only developed country in the world that unconditionally allows civilians to own military-style assault weapons, that allows “open carry,” and that lets gun manufacturers openly buy politicians (thanks, Republicans on the Supreme Court).

This is how democracies are transformed into fascism oligarchies. Political power, wealth, and impunity for me, Republicans say, but not for thee. The Republican Party has adopted a motto embraced by despots throughout history. In other democracies, people are rebelling against this embrace of fascism: will we here? They’re revolting in the UK against Boris Johnson’s lack of accountability, viz “Partygate.” In France, people are burning things in the streets protesting President Macron’s raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 without subjecting it to the accountability of a vote of parliament or the people.

A novel written 136 years ago is as brilliant and compulsively readable as it was when Grover Cleveland was president... In this Sunday excerpt space, in addition to publishing chapters of my own books, I occasionally slip in a review of someone else’s book. This one is particularly well worth reading! Ralph Nader told me about this novel, first published in 1888, and how it was one of the major inspirations for the Progressive movement of the late 19th century. It positively inspired Bernie Sanders’ hero Eugene Debs, for example, Nader told me. At the time, I was also reading Dan Brown’s book, ”The Lost Symbol,” an excellent novel in the classic, formula-adventure-fiction of this century that’s so much fun to read. But once I started reading Bellamy’s book, I had to suspend Brown’s: Bellamy’s book totally captured me, even though it was written more than 100 years ago. The plot device of Bellamy’s novel is that the hero is “Mesmerized” — hypnotized — and the trance is so deep that he wakes up in the year 2000, his bodily functions having been so dramatically slowed that he’s still a young man in his twenties and in fine physical health (albeit a bit hungry and weak).

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Who regulates the Supreme Court? — Medicare Advantage companies are throwing everything they have at Congress and the public to preserve their corrupt cash cow. — Latest rate hike: Why is the Fed playing with fire? — Hospitals are shutting down their obstetrics and childbirth departments because of the abortion ban: how many women will die? — Did China’s President Xi just own Russia’s President Vladimir Putin? — “Banning Books But Not Guns—What the Hell Are We Doing?” — Geeky Science! Trump helped the GOP become the party of death via the EPA. — Crazy Alert! Fox host is upset because an underwear company is using a model who’s disabled.

Instead of being in Congress or on TV, they should be in a court of law answering for the deaths and destroyed families they’ve caused in their quest for political power and advertising dollars... Rand Paul was shocked this week to learn from the CEO of Moderna that more people get inflammation of the heart from catching Covid than from the mRNA Covid vaccines. Republicans in Missouri just passed legislation outlawing an employer’s ability to fire workers who refuse to take vaccines. Republicans in a dozen state legislatures (so far) have put forward legislation preventing medical licensing boards from punishing doctors or nurses who prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. It’s the law now in North Dakota and Tennessee.