Hartmann Report

If their plan works, these Republican toadies of the billionaires who fund and own them will rewrite our Constitution & state governors, the US Congress, and the President will have no say whatsoever… One of the right's favorite fever dreams over the years has been to gut the US Constitution of many of its checks and balances and officially turn America into a legal oligarchy with a strongman presidency, nearly bulletproof legal immunity for the morbidly rich, and full personhood for corporations. As of this month, it's no longer just a dream.

If Democrats don't figure out a way to match the passion & fervor of Trump's MAGA movement with their own passionate and action-driven movement, things could get very ugly for next year's elections… Most people, particularly Democrats, would never speak of Donald Trump and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the same breath or context. But the very strategy that King used to help end legal discrimination in America is what Trump is today using to try to win back the White House in 2024: movement politics. And if Democrats don't figure out a way to match the passion and fervor (and organization) of Trump's MAGA movement — yes, it's as real a movement as was the Civil Rights movement — with their own passionate, broad-based, slogan- and action-driven movement, things could get very ugly for next year's elections. As of this moment, the biggest mistake the Democratic Party and most Democratic politicians are making is not realizing that political movements and political parties are very different things.

The bottom line here is that Republicans in the House and Senate who are dancing to Trump's pro-Putin tune are playing a dangerous game that could lead to unimaginable disaster… Last week, Senate Republicans refused to even allow that body to debate whether or not America should continue funding our commitment to the Ukrainian European democracy that is now under a brutal, violent, and sustained attack by Donald Trump's friend, Russian President Putin. The nations of the world are aligning themselves into alliances reminiscent of the 1930s. The dangers associated with this are radically compounded by the Senate Republicans' intentional decision to play politics and suck up to Vladimir Putin's protégé, Donald Trump, who is now demanding we throw the millions of people in Ukraine into the arms of a Russian army made up in part of freed professional murderers, rapists, and convicted criminal psychopaths. The GOP, bowing to the demands of Vladimir Putin via Donald Trump, is playing with fire. A fire that could destroy civilization itself.

Ms. Mornin: That’s good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute. President Bush: You work three jobs? Ms. Mornin: Three jobs, yes. President Bush: Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that. —President George W. Bush, Omaha, Nebraska, Town Hall, February 2005

The Best of the Rest of the News. — The stink continues with Trump's proposed loyalty-first Cabinet picks....behind the curtain — Republican Senator wants the FBI to investigate op-ed writers...say what?! Is this a preview of what happens if Trump becomes president? — It’s the monopolies, stupid! Now we know where the inflation really came from — Texas’ allegedly corrupt Attorney General threatens to prosecute doctors and hospitals who perform an abortion for the woman a Texas judge ruled could receive life-saving care — Is the GOP trying to “kill” Hunter to emotionally destroy Joe Biden and thus shatter his presidency — When they pitched Medicare Advantage to you, I’ll bet they never told you that some hospitals across the country are refusing to accept it — A new study identifies planetary climate tipping points that pose an “unprecedented” threat to humanity — Putin Lover Alert! Tucker Carlson and Trump Jr demand Republicans go along with Putin and stop all US aid to Ukraine.

America — and the Democratic Party — have arrived at one of our nation’s history’s great crossroads. Hopefully, we’ll make it through… Senator Chris Murphy gets it. And he’s begging his fellow Democrats to wake up, too. Forty-two years ago, Ronald Reagan launched America into a great social, economic, and political experiment. It was based on the 1940s utopian thinking of a handful of conservative economists and promised to bring peace and prosperity to the entire world through a magical thing they dubbed the “free market.” Reagan and his Vice President GHW Bush, who initially called it “Voodoo Economics,” became true believers, as did Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. And, it turns out, it was based on a lie and has produced an utter disaster for America.

At least never in the lifetime of anybody around today. Trump's stink is a tragic part of American history that will last generations… Dear Republicans, After the corruption of the Coolidge and Hoover administrations crashed the world economy, kicking off the Republican Great Depression in 1929, it took your party decades to rid itself of the stink. After Nixon extended the Vietnam War to get himself re-elected, unnecessarily killing over 20,000 American soldiers and a million Vietnamese civilians, and then got busted for Watergate and the bribes he solicited in the White House, it took you almost a generation to rid yourselves of the stink. But you'll never rid yourself of the stink of Donald Trump. At least never in the lifetime of anybody around today. Trump's stench is a tragic part of American history that will last generations.

You could call it 21st Century Jim Crow, but this time it's more like Ja It's no secret that for years Republicans have targeted Black and Hispanic voters, doing everything they can to make it harder for these folks to vote. Their latest targets are young people: the GOP has decided (probably correctly) that Gen Z is their mortal enemy. The DLC's National Communications Director, Abhi Rahman, laid it out for Rolling Stone magazine... You could call it 21st Century Jim Crow, but this time it's more like James Crow, PhD. The GOP has turned voter suppression from an anecdote into a computer-based science, and they've had a lot of help along the way from five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court.

Will VP Harris Drawing a Line In the Sand for a Two-State Solution Hold? Thom plus logo Will her stepping into this topic on the world stage help bring peace to the Middle East and elevate her profile? Behind the scenes at the COP28 Conference in Dubai, Vice President Harris has been engaged in aggressive diplomacy to try to bring about a two-state solution with a future Palestine and Israel, something currently opposed by Prime Minister Netanyahu. She has spoken with several Middle East leaders, including Egypt's President and the King of Jordan, at the global climate summit in Dubai over the weekend. Yesterday she gave an impassioned speech about it.

Then came the twin hits of trade liberalization in the 1970 — cutting tariffs and allowing cheap imports, so that American workers were competing with lower-paid, then-mostly Japanese workers—and Reagan’s massive tax cuts of the 1980s, which explicitly encouraged employers and CEOs to drain as much money out of their companies as they could rather than reinvest it or pay their employees well. Since the 1970s, productivity has increased by 146%,16 but wages have actually either stagnated (if looking at household incomes; today many more are two-wage-earner households) or fallen (looking at individual incomes). CEO compensation has rocketed from 30 times the average worker’s to hundreds of times, in some industries even thousands of times (for example, Coca-Cola’s CEO, James Quincey, gets paid $16.7 million per year—or 1,016 times the typical employee’s pay).