Hartmann Report

As the Economy Recovers, Republicans Want to Destroy Your Generation, too. Don't Let Them... Is it just that they’re evil? Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was pulling no punches in calling out her six Republican colleagues on the Supreme Court in the student loan case, Biden v Nebraska. None of the Republican states suing would have lost a penny had Biden’s student loan forgiveness program gone forward; there was no injured party and therefore no standing to even be before the Court. “[T]he Court,” she wrote, “by deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.” Additionally, the law being debated (the HEROES Act) specifically gave the administration the power — it’s literally spelled out in the statute — to forgive student debt. Which is why Kagan called out the radical Republicans for rewriting a law authored by Congress and signed by a president, a power that is not found anywhere in the Constitution.

With the help of a Trump-appointed federal judge, who was the perfect patsy, because he’d previously drunk the Kool-Aid on Covid, masks, and vaccines... First off, if you have access to a Netflix account, watch the short documentary Eldorado as soon as you possibly can. Then re-read this article. It will take on a new meaning. President Biden and a large swath of the federal government have been legally barred — under threat of federal prison — from communicating with Twitter, Facebook, and other social media about lies and misinformation that “conservatives” may have posted on those sites.

Media consolidation that’s happened since the Reagan Revolution makes our overall media landscape much easier to seize, control, and manipulate should our government ever flip fully fascist... Last week’s holiday weekend gave Louise and me an opportunity to take a week off to visit a few friends and take a break from American politics. Instead, we got a splash of cold water in the face; it’s an amazing story... ... in Portugal, at the home of an old friend who spent much of his career as a reporter and then senior-level media executive... he told Louise and me about the new project he’s working on with a loose group of people scattered across several EU countries. It involves preparing for something that, I confess, hadn’t even been on my conscious radar: helping safely smuggle American reporters and opinion writers — and their families — out of the US in the event of a sudden fascist takeover and press crackdown by a figure openly hostile to reporting like Trump or DeSantis.

Tragically, for the third time in our nation’s history, patriots who believe in the ideals of July 4, 1776 have to defend America against those who don’t... It’s July 4th, the day we celebrate the founding of our nation and the values proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that was signed (more or less) on this day. But does today’s America reflect the belief that all people “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”?

Student debt is a crime, weakening our intellectual infrastructure while maintaining and rigidifying racial and class caste systems inherited from the eras of slavery and indenture... Six Republicans on the Supreme Court just killed President Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness program. Republicans, predictably, are giddy, celebrating another Supreme Court victory in which, on behalf of their neofascist billionaire owners, they’re again “owning the libs.” They’re ecstatic that poor and working class people — particularly Black women who, as ABC News noted, “hold nearly two-thirds of the nearly $2 trillion outstanding student debt in the U.S.” — will find it ever harder to climb into the middle class, which increasingly requires a college degree.

"The War on Drugs employs millions—politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military—that probably couldn’t find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners." — Science-fiction author and political activist L. Neil Smith

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Republicans on the Supreme Court tell students to go screw themselves. — Are lunch counters denying service to Black people next? — Stochastic terror is their strategy, just like it was for the Nazis before them. — Geeky Science: Democracy prevailed in the Americas long before Europeans showed up. — Crazy Alert! Imprisonment for peeing your pants?

Is democracy — a system of decision- and rule-making that encompasses the collective wisdom of the group — a survival system every bit as important as technology, science, & economics? Republicans want a top-down, hierarchical political and economic system. Democrats want a bottom-up system with maximum participation and broad sharing of society’s wealth. Who is right?

As President Biden said, “We can't take democracy for granted any longer. … Make no mistake. Democracy is on the ballot...” NBC News reported this week that Trump is not only still leading the GOP field, but that his margin is growing: “Former President Donald Trump has expanded his lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican presidential field since Trump’s latest indictment on federal criminal charges, according to a new national NBC News poll.” Another national survey, reported by NBC on Monday, shows a tossup in a Trump-Biden matchup; Biden’s small lead is within the margin of error. All of which raises the question: what would America be like if Trump or a similarly fascist Republican were to take the White House in 2024? What would the dire warnings about American fascism, were they realized, mean in real life?

Is there something in the GOP’s core beliefs and strategies that just inevitably leads to hating on their citizens and worshiping poverty, death, and disease? Yesterday in my Daily Take I documented some of the horrors Red state governors and legislators are using stolen Blue state tax money to inflict on their citizens. They include specific policies intended to impoverish workers, subjugate women, increase gun violence, enrich local oligarchs, and make life miserable for racial, gender, and religious minorities. But how did they get to this point?