2023 Archives

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 25, 2023

How to De-throne the Self-Appointed Kings & Queens of America

I’m proposing Congress change the rules of how the Court operates around decisions in which they invoke the Constitution to change or strike down laws. America was never intended to have kings or queens, unaccountable to the people, ruling for life. But that’s what we have, because Congress and the White House never seriously pushed back against a power grab executed by the Supreme Court itself. It’s time to reduce the Court’s power in a way that agrees with the Constitution. We’ll almost certainly have to wait until the next time Democrats control the House, Senate, and White House, but that could happen in another 20 months, so we need to start planning now. I’m proposing Congress change the rules of how the Court operates around decisions in which they invoke the Constitution to change or strike down laws. Instead of operating along partisan majority lines, I’m suggesting they must have an absolute consensus — a unanimous decision — on any decisions involving the US Constitution.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 24, 2023

Do Billionaires Really Give a Rat's Ass about "Woke" Issues?

So, why do people like this give a damn about whether a trans girl wants to compete in high school sports? Or whether a 10-year-old in Ohio, raped by her uncle, can get an abortion? Billionaires are funding the GOP, and many Americans wonder why. Do we really believe, for example, that a fossil fuel billionaire gives a rat’s ass about whether a high school in Florida teaches students about gay people or that African Americans were once enslaved in Tennessee? Why would they care?

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 23, 2023

The Hidden History of Guns and the 2nd Amendment: Chapters 6-8

The winter of 1610 in Jamestown, Virginia, is simply known as the “starving time.” Many settlers fled to join the Powhatan Indians to keep from starving. When summer arrived, the colonial governor sent a message to the Indians asking for the English settlers to be returned. It’s unclear exactly how the Powhatan tribe responded, but the colony reported to the English that they received “noe other than prowde and disdaynefull answers.” The Powhatan people most likely fed the refugee settlers and gave them shelter and hospitality, but the Virginia governor nonetheless dispatched soldiers to get “revenge.”

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 22, 2023

Saturday Report 4/22/23 - On Earth Day researchers have found that Greenland's ice melt is in hyperdrive

The Best of the Rest of the News. — It’s Earth Day - and the Earth’s ice is melting faster than anybody expected. — Did Fox “News” shoot Ralph Yarl? — Republicans are terrified by Gen-Z and have a plan to stop young people from voting — Trump judge Matthew Kacsmaryk didn’t just hide an anti-abortion rant he wrote for a law journal from the Senate, he also hid interviews he did with rightwing radio — Rightwing Billionaire-funded think tank is planning to put 20,000 Kacsmaryk’s in the administration of the next Republican president. — Tennessee Republicans want students, parents, and random rightwing nuts to “report” to the state for punishment teachers who dare discuss “divisive concepts” like Black or queer people having rights. — Senator Ron Wyden: Nothing unites Republicans more than “helping rich people cheat on their taxes.” — NATO chief says Ukraine’s “rightful place” is in the alliance. — In Good News: Washington state passed a semi-automatic rifle ban. — Geeky Science: The importance of small random acts of kindness

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 21, 2023

The Heroin-Like Power of Fox “News” Nearly Killed Ralph Yarl

There’s still time to help the rest of America break those bonds by explaining how profitable hate and fear are for these media and social media empires… What’s the difference between heroin and Fox “News”? Starting in 1898, the Bayer company of Germany marketed diamorphine as an over-the-counter cough remedy and pain reliever under the brand name Heroin, taken from the German word for “heroic”; it took a generation to discover how addictive it was, leading to it being banned in the US in 1924 and around the world in the 1930s. Heroin’s power comes from its ability to reach below our level of conscious control and stimulate the body’s natural opiate system, producing a sensation of pleasure and fulfillment that sweeps away everyday concerns, seemingly answering all of life’s questions and problems.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 20, 2023

The "Party of Life" GOP is OK with 700,000+ Dying of Poverty

The so-called “party of life” doesn’t, it turns out, give a damn about actual human life unless it has a net worth over a half-billion dollars... Kevin McCarthy has a keen new idea about what he thinks he can get out of Democrats in Congress in exchange for Republicans authorizing the government to pay the trillions in debt that Donald Trump racked up in his four years in office. In exchange for lifting the so-called debt ceiling, McCarthy wants Biden and congressional Democrats to throw millions of families off food stamps (SNAP) and end even the possibility of any help to low-income young people unable to pay off student loans.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 19, 2023

Does Fox “News” Owe Accountability to a Hell of a Lot More People than Just Dominion?

The vast majority of politically-inspired violence and murders in America over the past two decades have been committed by rightwing extremists. How many are watching Fox News? Fox “News” has settled with Dominion, paying them about three-quarter-billion dollars and admitting that they lied. But nobody died at Dominion. Nobody’s life and family were turned upside-down at Dominion by being thrown into prison for sedition and insurrection. Nobody at Dominion was hospitalized or committed suicide because of the injuries they received at the hands of an angry mob Fox helped incite. While Dominion had a strong legal case against Fox for lying on the air and harming their business, the families of Ashli Babbitt, Anthony Antonio, three dead and over 140 injured police officers, and patriotic Americans across the country have an even stronger moral case.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 18, 2023

It's Time for American Business to Stop Subsidizing the World's Largest Dictatorship

Rebuilding American manufacturing not only returns jobs to our country, but also keeps profits here in America. Instead of strengthening China, we'd be rebuilding our own nation... Why are we using tax policy to subsidize giant American corporations in their dependency relationship with the Communist Chinese dictatorship? For 30 years, American corporations have been helping build China into a massive industrial empire while collapsing manufacturing capacity here in the United States. That country now has a stranglehold on things essential to America, from pharmaceuticals to electronics to consumer goods, all because of a neoliberal fantasy that if we helped them become wealthy through trade they would become more democratic.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 17, 2023

What’s Behind the GOP’s War Against Democracy?

And are rightwing billionaires who want more, more, more money willing to make common cause with bigots, fascists, and wannabee killers to get it? ..."Transatlantic" is a gripping drama about a group of Jewish refugees — including Hannah Arendt and Marc Chagall — who are trapped in Marseilles trying to flee the Nazis as they sweep across France in late 1940. Complicating their flight, the American envoy and the head of the local French police are both in agreement with the Nazis that the Jewish refugees are “degenerates” and “animals” who should appropriately end up in the Nazi camps. The parallels to today’s America are startling. The Republican rhetoric about the queer and Black communities — and, often, about Jews (usually coded as “George Soros”) — is startlingly similar to that of the Nazis and the Vichy French about Jews. Donald Trump, for example, is openly calling Alvin Bragg an “animal.” But how do things get this far? How and why did it happen in Germany, and how and why is it happening here today?

Posted at Hartmann Report on Apr. 16, 2023

The Hidden History of Guns and the 2nd Amendment: Chapters 4 & 5

From Columbus to Jamestown. "They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear." —President Andrew Jackson, in his fifth State of the Union address to Congress, December 3, 1833