2019 Archives

Posted at Salon on Dec. 10, 2019

Is It Time to Regulate or Nationalize Facebook?

I was oblivious to the real significance of Facebook in everyday life until the company disabled my personal, private thomhartmann account. The list of “possible” reasons they posted for doing this included “impersonating a celebrity,” so maybe they shut me down because they thought I pretending to be that guy who’s a talk show host and author. (Facebook, if you’re reading this, I am that guy.)
Posted at Salon on Dec. 4, 2019

Why have no Republicans turned on Trump?

There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump.
Posted at Alternet.org on Oct. 28, 2019

How the Supreme Court and the morbidly rich are ruining democracy in America

People being killed by wildfires in California and people dying because they can't afford their insulin are the same thing. Both represent the capture of government by corporations-in other words, both are symptoms of democracy in the United States being replaced by a corporate state with little regard for morality, life or the law.
Posted at Salon on Oct. 21, 2019

Is war on the menu for 2020 elections?

We complain that democracy is under assault from Donald Trump, but he’s just a cog in a much larger worldwide machine that is tearing down democratic self-governance.
Posted at Truthout on Oct. 14, 2019

Here’s What the Framers of the Constitution Had to Say About Impeachment

There has been much discussion about what the framers of the Constitution thought about impeachment of the president, particularly given the wide range of impeachable things Trump has done, and the debate around whether impeaching him is consistent with the thoughts of the men who wrote the Constitution’s impeachment clause.
Posted at Alternet.org on Oct. 7, 2019

From Nixon to Trump: Here’s how ideologues and partisans seized the Court

After Brown v. Board and its subsequent supporting decisions in the 1950s, and Roe v. Wade in 1973, Republicans concluded that they needed to curb—or seize—the power of the Court. The easiest way to do that would be to have as many Republican presidents in the White House as possible, as each could potentially nominate new conservative justices to the Court.

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