Hartmann Report

We are the last barrier to America being overwhelmed by this fascist tide. You, me, and average people like us. Nobody else is coming to our nation's rescue. As we remember and honor the sacrifice of American GIs who died at Normandy in the battle against fascism, it's vital to realize that the struggle against that evil form of government is once again before us. From November 2020 until last week we lived in the era of Trump Big Lie 1.0, his assertion that he'd won an election he actually lost by over 7 million votes. It was a bold, audacious move, something no American politician had ever had the fundamental lack of integrity, decency, or shame to try. While some of the most spineless, craven, and sold-out Republicans were quick to take his side with Big Lie 1.0 (139 of them in the House of Representatives and 8 in the Senate) — even in the face of his throwing a deadly mob against the US Capitol that tried to hang his Vice President and murder the Speaker of the House — there were still some who held to principle and didn't vote to overthrow the election. Those Republicans are now mostly all gone, purged from the party or cowed into silence by fear of violence against their families or the end of their political careers. And now, as of last week, we live in the era of Trump Big Lie 2.0: that Trump is the victim of a political prosecution.

This fall may well be the first big national test of this "new internet," and, like the Internet Research Agency's interventions in 2016, could well lead to disaster... In one of the great and thought-provoking albums of all time, I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus (1971), my dear old buddy Phil Proctor and his three brilliant colleagues in The Firesign Theatre envisioned a world constructed largely of holograms — including one that's the President of the United States, directly interacting with average voters — run by a giant AI. Today, this is no longer unthinkable, and it might help Trump into office this year. Artificial Intelligence systems are pushing Moore's Law to warp speed, and the most sophisticated of them are already indistinguishable from real humans in every dimension except in-person interactions.

Religious evangelism can be a deadly thought virus. It explicitly posits that, "There is only one right way to live and we know what it is" along with, "There is only one true God." Twenty-eight states, nearly all Republican-controlled, are now spending billions of taxpayer dollars to support indoctrinating children in religion through voucher programs that can be used for mostly Christian schools. Five Republican-controlled states are in the process of letting vouchers ghettoize their entire public-school systems. As The Washington Post noted yesterday: "Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades." Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, flies an "Appeal to Heaven" flag outside his official congressional office that, since 2013, has been the semi-official logo of a militant arm of charismatic Christianity involved with January 6th. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito flew a similar flag outside his summer home.

Irregular warfare involves the use of propaganda, proxies, or people willing to betray their own country... Trump lies that the guilty verdict against him — by a jury of his peers that his own attorneys picked — is an illegitimate, politically motivated show trial. Trying to help Trump destroy Americans' faith in our democracy and its justice system, Russian president Vladimir Putin's spokesman today said of Trump's trial: "If we speak about Trump, the fact that there is simply the elimination, in effect, of political rivals by all possible means, legal and illegal, is obvious." Hungary's dictator Viktor Orbàn and Italy's neofascist Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, both also argued that Trump is the victim of political persecution. Right wing media commentators and Republicans in Congress have leaped at the opportunity to echo Putin and Orbàn. This sort of propaganda is called "irregular warfare" (IW) — warfare by means outside of troops, bombs, navies, etc. — and the US used to be an expert at it. Typically, irregular warfare involves the use of propaganda, proxies, or people willing to betray their own country.

The American Revolution would probably never have gotten off the ground were it not for meeting places available to the public—the most famous being Sam Adams’s tavern. Similarly, churches open to the public (although privately owned but regulated on a nonprofit basis) were the core of the 20th century’s civil rights movement. Facebook has, for millions, replaced these public places as a nexus for social, cultural, and political interaction. As such, it resembles a part of the natural commons. When radio achieved the equivalent of four hours of “screen time” a day for the average American, in 1927 and 1934 we passed comprehensive regulation of the industry to prevent the spread of disinformation and mandate responsible broadcasting practices.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — First Prez convicted of a Felony in history... — Chief Justice John Roberts — whose wife has taken over $10 million from law firms doing business with the Supreme Court — has told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin to go screw himself and his questions of members of the Supreme Court being on the take. — Why are Republicans fighting to keep America defenseless against the next pandemic? — Biden will allow Ukraine to use weapons for strikes in Russia! — Trump repeatedly used the N-word when filming the Apprentice show. — Hunter in a Farmer's Alert! ADHD: Our Culture is Increasingly Intolerant of "Different" People — Wisdom School Alert! Costa Rica: A Haven for Social Democracy and a Blue Zone

A movement, being about ideas, has specific, achievable goals. A cult, on the other hand, is mainly about devotion and faithfulness to one person… Donald Trump is now a felon, busted for and convicted of stealing the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton and the American people. Our criminal justice system has worked, and there will almost certainly be some political fallout to both Trump and the GOP. Nonetheless, odds are he won't see a day in jail or even a particularly punishing fine and will probably be long dead before his lawyers finish with his inevitable years, perhaps decades, of appeals. But what will this mean for America? How will it affect our political system and the Republican Party, which he has so thoroughly corrupted?

It’s already too late for millions of insect, plant, and animal species that have gone extinct; it may soon be too late for us if we don’t wake the hell up and take decisive action... It’s early summer here in the Pacific Northwest and the flowers are blooming; above is a photo Louise took with her iPhone yesterday morning as we were walking along the Columbia River. The hillside is ablaze with wildflowers. But it was also eerily silent. Look carefully: No matter how much you enlarge the photo you’ll not see a single insect. Thirty years ago this hillside was swarmed with bees, flies, and dozens of other winged bugs. Today, although pretty, walking by it felt like I was passing a graveyard. I’ll never forget the day the trucker called into my radio show from southern Illinois. It was about seventeen years ago, and he was a long-haul driver who regularly ran a coast-to-coast route from the southeast to the Pacific Northwest a few dozen times a year.

So, here we are, handing billions of dollars a month to insurance industry executives so they can buy new Swiss chalets, private jets, and luxury yachts... They're competing unfairly with Medicare, and you and I are paying for it. It's obscene. When George W. Bush and congressional Republicans (and a handful of bought-off Democrats) created Medicare Advantage in 2003, it was the fulfillment of half of Bush's goal of privatizing Social Security and Medicare, dating all the way back to his unsuccessful run for Congress in 1978 and a main theme of his second term in office. Medicare Advantage is not Medicare. These plans are private health insurance provided by private corporations, who are then fully reimbursed by the Medicare trust fund regardless of how much their customers use their insurance. Thus, the more they can screw their customers and us taxpayers by withholding healthcare, the more money they make.

How did America reach this point where about half our country thinks up is down, black is white, and Republicans are best trusted with our money and national security? The fifteen or twenty percent of Americans who follow actual news reporting are dumbfounded.