2022 Archives

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 18, 2022

Saturday Report 6/18/22 — Is America doomed to follow Russia and Hungary’s path to fascism like Fox “News” and the GOP are hoping?

The Best of the Rest of the News. — "A Big Mistake": Economists warn Fed rate hikes risk plunging US into recession. — Is America doomed to follow Russia and Hungary's path to fascism like Fox "News" and the GOP are hoping? — Hating on LGBTQ people has been the province of bigots and those who'd advance their political goals at the expense of people least likely to fight back. Cowards, in other words. — New Mexico is the first test run for Republicans refusing to count votes before the critical 2024 presidential election. — When Republicans want to string along Democrats — the modern version of Lucy and the football — they call on Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn. — Republicans have been trying to end Social Security and Medicare ever since both programs were put into law. — I remember "duck and cover" when I was in elementary school in the 1950s, but we never really took the possibility that we'd all die in a nuclear holocaust seriously, in part because we never saw any evidence of it happening (at least until the Cuban Missile Crisis). — In Good News, Houston has moved over 25,000 people off the Streets and into homes of their own. — GOP Death Cult Alert! DeSantis doesn't care how many children die from Covid, and is proud of it.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 17, 2022

Forgiving Student Debt Isn’t Giving a Gift - It’s Righting a Wrong

Student debt is a crime against our nation, weakening our intellectual infrastructure - Any nation’s single biggest asset is a well-educated populace and student debt diminishes that. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) along with 55 colleagues just sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona requesting both details and rapid action on President Biden’s campaign promise to forgive student debt in America.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 16, 2022

Trump's Secret Plan Was No Secret

When Trump ordered Pence to overturn the 2020 election, he was trying to repeat what Republicans did in 1876. There are things we can do to prevent a third attempt in 2024 and we need to do them now. Today’s January 6th Committee’s hearings are about the pressure campaign on Mike Pence to hand the election of 2020 to Trump. Official Washington and the media are shocked — “Shocked, I tell you!” — that John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump had come up with the “bizarre” idea that Vice President Pence could toss the election to the House, thus keeping Trump in office. They’re amazed when they reference five states having submitted two slates of electors each, the “real” Biden ones and the “phony” Trump ones that Giuliani and Eastman conspired with Republicans to create. But this was neither bizarre nor new.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 15, 2022

How Much Money is Worth Killing 212,000 Americans in a Single Year?

If saving trillions of dollars and millions of lives isn’t enough to end political bribery in America, what will it take? Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Lindsey Graham had a debate on Fox Nation. Sanders asked: “In the United States, Lindsey, we spend twice as much per capita on health care compared to the people of any other country, while major countries like Canada, the U.K., Germany manage to supply health care to all their people. Why is that?” The simple answer is the same reason we have an ongoing climate crisis and a student loan crisis that Republicans refuse to let Congress address: the legal bribery of politicians like Lindsey Graham.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 14, 2022

How Medicare Advantage Scammers Get Away With It

Buying a Medicare Advantage policy is a leap in the dark, and the federal government generally is not there to catch you: forewarned is forearmed. In my multiple writings on the Medicare Advantage scam, the most common two responses I get (besides, “Thanks, you may have saved my life!”) are, “I’ve never had a problem with my Advantage plan,” and “If it’s so bad, how come so few people are saying so?” Both are honest, good-faith questions and highlight how easy it is for insurance companies to get away with their Medicare Advantage scams. The answer to both boils down to the unique nature of insurance being the only “product” we buy where we have no idea if it’s any good until something bad happens — which can take years. Every state in the union has an insurance commissioner. But why?

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 13, 2022

Will the GOP Embrace White Supremacy & Fascism, or Go Back to Being the Party of the Rich?

If the GOP doubles down on fascism & racism, Lincoln’s “last, best hope for Earth” will rest in the hands of the European Union and America will become unrecognizable. The Democratic Party hit its crossroads moment in 2021 when President Biden embraced a progressive vision for America, breaking with Clinton's and Obama's neoliberal centrism. Even if Senators Sinema and Manchin prevented him from putting them into effect, Biden's hearty support for Bernie Sanders' $3 trillion Build Back Better plan and John Sarbanes' For The People legislation that ends gerrymandering and big money in politics showed his newfound commitment and progressive credentials.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 12, 2022

Unequal Uses for the Bill of Rights

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. noted in the landmark 1919 Shenck v. United States case that shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater does not constitute free speech; the Bill of Rights guarantees that a person’s opinion can be expressed, not that there are no limits on what one can do. But consider how this fundamental freedom has been bent by corporations since Santa Clara.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 11, 2022

Saturday Report 6/11/22 - The Glaciers in Antarctica are Melting at a Rate Not Seen in Over 5,500 Years

The Best of the Rest of the News. — “All Roads Lead to Trump” is the headline at The American Prospect, and it accurately depicts what the January 6th Committee laid out Thursday night. — A functioning democracy requires the truth, actual news, and honest reporting by the media: Fox “News” did none of those during the Committee hearing. To the contrary, they deceived their viewers. — Ginni Thomas was far more aggressive at pushing state legislators to overturn the will of their voters and award Trump the presidency than we’d previously known. — If you want to see how far down the rightwing/fascist rabbit hole the GOP has gone, consider this: the leading Republican candidate for Governor of Michigan was just arrested by the FBI, apparently for participating in the seditious attack on the Capitol. — Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are trying to both save and expand Social Security. — When you mention January 6th to a rightwinger or hear mention of it on hate-talk-radio, they’ll invariably say, “What about BLM and Antifa burning down cities across America?” — Global warming is picking up pace so quickly that the glaciers in Antarctica are melting at a rate not seen in over 5,500 years, according to scientists. — Geeky Science! A glass of beetroot juice a day may help with coronary artery disease.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 10, 2022

Trump's Sedition: George Washington Warned Us In 1796

Sedition is the word for what we call, during times of war, treason. Trump and his Republican and media allies are in it up to their necks... “I have said that any man who attempted by force or unparliamentary disorder to obstruct or interfere with the lawful count of the electoral vote should be lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder gun and fired out of a window.” —General Winfield Scott, 1861 Last night the January 6th Committee’s co-chair Liz Cheney told us that “Representative Scott Perry sought a pardon” along with “multiple other members of Congress” for their participation in the attempted coup, their sedition against the United States of America. They understood they had committed a crime. And they wanted Trump to give them absolution, to prevent them from being prosecuted, to keep them out of jail.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 9, 2022

When Was Bribery of Politicians Legalized In America?

The Supreme Court legalized bribery for only one very narrow and very specific group of people in the United States: politicians & if America is to survive as a republic, we must end the legal bribery. Why don’t we have gun control? It’s because our Supreme Court, or, more correctly, five Republicans on our Supreme Court, legalized bribery.