2022 Archives

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 11, 2022

Solutions to America's Voting Crisis

Sunday book excerpt: The Hidden History of the War on Voting. Part III: Solutions. The Electoral College is a disaster for a democracy. —Donald J. Trump. If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. —Shirley Chisholm, America’s first black woman elected to US Congress

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 10, 2022

Saturday Report 12/10/22 - Trump wasn’t that bad...other than when he was...

The Best of the Rest of the News — Did Kyrsten Sinema switch from Democrat to Independent to become a well-paid lobbyist? — Jack Smith is not messing around... — Trump wasn't that bad...other than when he was — German police break up a Qanon/Trump-inspired plot to overthrow their government — What have the Kushners done? — A decade ago, anti-government terrorist gangs in Haiti shot up electrical substations in three cities — Oregon's state epidemiologist is pleading for all to wear masks right now. — Geeky Science! How insanely destructive sugar is to the body.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 9, 2022

Democrats Have Enough Votes to Get Gigi Sohn On the FCC—Will They Succeed?

We need to reverse Trump’s Internet sellout and time is running out. You’ve probably never heard of Gigi Sohn, but America needs her and we need her now. This is a call to immediate action to restore Net Neutrality and stop a tiny slice of corporate America from spying on us and our lives. Donald Trump’s first year in office was a big boon for the predatory companies that bring the internet into our homes and onto our cell phones, commonly referred to as Internet Service Providers or ISPs.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 8, 2022

How To Kill and Get Away With It

I don’t know the names of the men who poisoned & killed my father & my brother, but I know where they worked and why they did it. Odds are these killers will never see the inside of a jail cell. If you live in New York State and lie to that government about your income to reduce your taxes, you go to prison. If you’re criminally convicted of 17 counts of such lies — such tax fraud — you could spend a long time in prison. But The Trump Organization, a New York corporation that was just convicted of 17 criminal counts of tax fraud, not only won’t “go to jail” but also won’t even be dissolved for its crimes.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 7, 2022

Is It Time to Revive the Berlin Airlift for Ukraine?

Leaving millions to starve & freeze to death is nothing less than complicity in the genocidal war crime Russia is currently committing - hopefully President Biden has the courage President Truman did. This is not the first time Russia has tried freezing and starving people to death to get them to submit. They’ve done it at least twice before, once successfully in 1932 and once unsuccessfully in 1949.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 6, 2022

Is "Creative Expression” the New Strategy for “Christian” fundamentalists & SCOTUS to Heart Bigots?

Bigots are switching to “creative expression” instead of religion as the club they’ll use to beat down public accommodation laws. The Supreme Court appears hell-bent on making America bigoted again. Step-by-step, they’re undoing every bit of progressive legislation from the past 80 years that they can find. Now they’re going after the right of gays and lesbians who want to get married to shop for a website, or pretty much anything else that requires “creative” effort.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 5, 2022

The Danger of the Rich & Powerful Man-Bubble

All these rich and powerful men think they’re “secret geniuses”; once they’ve concluded the “truth” of their own infallibility, they stop listening to those whose opinions contradict their own. It was a mistake a flock of geese wouldn’t make. It was a mistake nature and evolution have designed against in all animal life. But a small group of humans keep making it over and over again, and our Supreme Court has made the situation far, far worse. There’s a reason Donald Trump just came out against the United States Constitution, and it’s not because he’s simply a fascist or that the guy he paid to show up for his classes in prep school and college didn’t fill him in on civics.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 4, 2022

The Beginnings of a Myth: Voting Fraud

Sunday book excerpt: The Hidden History of the War on Voting. For over a century, most states used biometrics to verify voter identity. Signatures done in front of a witness are nearly impossible to fake (unlike IDs, which can be easily faked). Polling place workers would compare the original registration signature with the signature of the person signing in to vote, and if they didn’t match, the worker would disqualify the voter. When the Motor Voter Act was passed in 1993, not a single state required proof of citizenship to vote, and there was no national problem of voter fraud. The threat of a few years in jail is more than enough to discourage even the most ardent partisan from trying to double-vote or fraudulently vote.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 3, 2022

Saturday Report 12/3/22 - We now know why Zebras have stripes - Ain’t nature amazing?

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Is Bidenomics Working? Sure looks that way. — Speaking of those rail workers, the administration’s proposed 7 sick days would have cost the railroads $321 million a year. — The 11th Circuit Court has finally told Trump that he’s not above the law. — Will Putin face a worldwide tribunal for his crimes against humanity in Ukraine? — New bipartisan Senate study shows we’re still failing to confront “the persistent and lethal” threat of white supremacist terrorists within the United States. — Has Alabama brought back debtors’ prison? — Geeky Science! How about a roof full of solar panels to go with that new electric car? — Crazy Alert! Why would evolution put stripes on zebras instead of something looking more like camouflage?

Posted at Hartmann Report on Dec. 2, 2022

Why Was the Media Ignoring Blatant Efforts to Suppress the Democratic Vote in Georgia?

"Voter fraud" today is every bit as phony an issue as was Nixon’s “drug crisis” in 1971. But our media is almost completely overlooking the story... Finally, The New York Times figured out something skeezy was going on in Georgia. From their article yesterday titled Turnout Was Strong in Georgia, but Mail Voting Plummets After New Law: “Data released by the Georgia secretary of state showed that mail voting in the state’s November general election plunged by 81 percent from the level of the 2020 contest. While a drop was expected after the height of the pandemic, Georgia had a far greater decrease than any other state with competitive statewide races, according to a New York Times analysis.” Ever since 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court blocked full enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the GOP is making voting easier for rural and suburban white people and harder for urban Black people. Particularly in Georgia. This is voter suppression at a world-class level, worthy of Putin or Orbán.