Hartmann Report

We made the same mistake average Russians are making right now. Repeatedly. It’s all about human nature being exploited by ruthless politicians... At least a dozen times in the past week I’ve heard American TV commentators wonder out loud how it is that average Russians don’t believe the horrors their government has inflicted on Ukraine and its people. The most common story is of Ukrainian refugees or people under bombardment who’ve tried to tell friends or relatives back in Russia what’s going on and gotten a disbelieving response.

Worldwide, Democracy is under threat - not just as a result of Putin’s murderous war against Ukraine, but brewing since the 1980s and Reagan’s neoliberal revolution. Putin’s attack on Ukraine is producing a series of crises which are going to, in all probability, bring a period of great pain and instability to the world and to America in the near future. Republicans are already working to exploit it.

Biden is now promoting a tax on the top 0.01% and billionaires are already fuming. It’s a start to what’ll be necessary to bring back a functioning democracy & middle class. The headline says it all: “‘Fuming’ Billionaires Issue Profane Denunciation of Biden’s New Minimum Tax Plan.“ President Biden yesterday rolled out his new $5.3 trillion 2023 budget for the United States.

Will the media amplify the voices of Republicans who’re saying it’s really no big deal, trying to overthrow the government, and that Thomas should stay on the Court? In 1969, Richard Nixon and congressional Republicans took down the Supreme Court's most liberal member, Abe Fortas, threatening to send his wife to prison. There's a lesson here for today's Democrats and Clarence Thomas. Today's Democrats are calling on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from decisions involving Trump's conspiracy to overthrow our government. They should be calling on him to resign and his wife to be prosecuted.

Banding Together for the Common Good. In the beginning, there were people.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Was Clarence Thomas trying for a twofer? — After the single most racist confirmation hearing before the US Senate in my long lifetime, Republican leader Mitch McConnell says he’s not going to vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. — Republicans in Arizona just passed the most extreme voter purge in history, requiring anybody who registered to vote more than 18 years ago to re-register before their votes can be counted. — Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court — without hearing any arguments or pleadings — chose to cancel a voting map that would have created a largely Democratic (and Black) congressional district in that state. — What’s going on with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s decision to abandon his office’s prosecution of Donald Trump and his family? — Another plus for open, honest democracy: it looks like Putin’s losing his war against Ukraine because of corruption in his own government. — The Turner Diaries narrative that animated Tim McVeigh to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in the hope of starting a race war in America live on. — Geeky Science: What will be the impact of finding plastics in our blood? — In Good News, the largest “built all at once” wind farm ever has opened in Oklahoma, and is now on track to save its customers over a billion dollars.

It's past time to update the "castle doctrine" for the internet. There are castles on the Internet, and the rules they live under are quite different from those of your home or your business. In this age of “Stand Your Ground” laws, and after the murder a decade ago last month of Trayvon Martin by a racist invoking them, most Americans are familiar with the concept of the “Castle Doctrine.” Sir Edward Coke, in The Institutes of the Laws of England, laid it out in 1628: “For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man's home is his safest refuge].”

In America, there is only one way for us to accomplish the progressive goals we’ve fought for all these years, and that’s through getting inside and seizing control of the Democratic Party. Years ago, a caller named “Jeff from Denver” used to call my show complaining of a lack of progressive action and sold-out Dems in Colorado. One day I challenged him to show up at his local Democratic Party and do something about it instead of just complaining. He stopped calling, which made me think I’d offended him and he’d stopped listening. Instead, about six months later, he called back in to say that he’d joined first his county and then his state Democratic Party and not only helped get a good progressive candidate on the ticket but participated in writing the national Democratic Party platform.

They've sold out to big money and don't give a rat's ass about the issues that really matter to most Americans. It’s somewhere between comical and tragic watching the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Lindsey Graham throws his trademark hissy fit and storms out, John Cornyn tries to sound erudite and fails, Marsha Blackburn outs herself as a fanatic, Ted Cruz thinks Black judges should vet children’s books about racism, and Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton just end up making fools of themselves. But none of them really care. None of the Republicans do.

Most of the countries of Europe & Asia (Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) have laws in place that guarantee a healthy middle class: poverty, like in America, doesn't haunt their dreams. The Washington Post just published a heartbreaking story about Dave Ramsey Jr., a working class American who fell out of the middle class and couldn’t afford an urn for his father’s ashes, much less a memorial ceremony. To save money, the funeral home gave him his dad’s ashes wrapped in a cloth bag.