2024 Archives

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 5, 2024

Are We All Bozos On this Giant Experimental Bus?

This fall may well be the first big national test of this "new internet," and, like the Internet Research Agency's interventions in 2016, could well lead to disaster... In one of the great and thought-provoking albums of all time, I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus (1971), my dear old buddy Phil Proctor and his three brilliant colleagues in The Firesign Theatre envisioned a world constructed largely of holograms — including one that's the President of the United States, directly interacting with average voters — run by a giant AI. Today, this is no longer unthinkable, and it might help Trump into office this year. Artificial Intelligence systems are pushing Moore's Law to warp speed, and the most sophisticated of them are already indistinguishable from real humans in every dimension except in-person interactions.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 4, 2024

America Is Under Assault by a Cancerous Mind Virus the Founders Warned Against

Religious evangelism can be a deadly thought virus. It explicitly posits that, "There is only one right way to live and we know what it is" along with, "There is only one true God." Twenty-eight states, nearly all Republican-controlled, are now spending billions of taxpayer dollars to support indoctrinating children in religion through voucher programs that can be used for mostly Christian schools. Five Republican-controlled states are in the process of letting vouchers ghettoize their entire public-school systems. As The Washington Post noted yesterday: "Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades." Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, flies an "Appeal to Heaven" flag outside his official congressional office that, since 2013, has been the semi-official logo of a militant arm of charismatic Christianity involved with January 6th. Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito flew a similar flag outside his summer home.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 3, 2024

How Fascist Leaders are Using "Irregular Warfare" Against America

Irregular warfare involves the use of propaganda, proxies, or people willing to betray their own country... Trump lies that the guilty verdict against him — by a jury of his peers that his own attorneys picked — is an illegitimate, politically motivated show trial. Trying to help Trump destroy Americans' faith in our democracy and its justice system, Russian president Vladimir Putin's spokesman today said of Trump's trial: "If we speak about Trump, the fact that there is simply the elimination, in effect, of political rivals by all possible means, legal and illegal, is obvious." Hungary's dictator Viktor Orbàn and Italy's neofascist Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, both also argued that Trump is the victim of political persecution. Right wing media commentators and Republicans in Congress have leaped at the opportunity to echo Putin and Orbàn. This sort of propaganda is called "irregular warfare" (IW) — warfare by means outside of troops, bombs, navies, etc. — and the US used to be an expert at it. Typically, irregular warfare involves the use of propaganda, proxies, or people willing to betray their own country.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 2, 2024

Political change flows out of public dialogue: The Hidden History of Monopolies

The American Revolution would probably never have gotten off the ground were it not for meeting places available to the public—the most famous being Sam Adams’s tavern. Similarly, churches open to the public (although privately owned but regulated on a nonprofit basis) were the core of the 20th century’s civil rights movement. Facebook has, for millions, replaced these public places as a nexus for social, cultural, and political interaction. As such, it resembles a part of the natural commons. When radio achieved the equivalent of four hours of “screen time” a day for the average American, in 1927 and 1934 we passed comprehensive regulation of the industry to prevent the spread of disinformation and mandate responsible broadcasting practices.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jun. 1, 2024

Saturday Report 6/1/24 - Trump is the first Prez in history convicted of a felony...

The Best of the Rest of the News. — First Prez convicted of a Felony in history... — Chief Justice John Roberts — whose wife has taken over $10 million from law firms doing business with the Supreme Court — has told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin to go screw himself and his questions of members of the Supreme Court being on the take. — Why are Republicans fighting to keep America defenseless against the next pandemic? — Biden will allow Ukraine to use weapons for strikes in Russia! — Trump repeatedly used the N-word when filming the Apprentice show. — Hunter in a Farmer's Alert! ADHD: Our Culture is Increasingly Intolerant of "Different" People — Wisdom School Alert! Costa Rica: A Haven for Social Democracy and a Blue Zone

Posted at Hartmann Report on May. 31, 2024

Guilty: Is Trumpism a Movement or a Cult?

A movement, being about ideas, has specific, achievable goals. A cult, on the other hand, is mainly about devotion and faithfulness to one person… Donald Trump is now a felon, busted for and convicted of stealing the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton and the American people. Our criminal justice system has worked, and there will almost certainly be some political fallout to both Trump and the GOP. Nonetheless, odds are he won't see a day in jail or even a particularly punishing fine and will probably be long dead before his lawyers finish with his inevitable years, perhaps decades, of appeals. But what will this mean for America? How will it affect our political system and the Republican Party, which he has so thoroughly corrupted?

Posted at Hartmann Report on May. 30, 2024

Is the Loss of Insects a Desperate Cry for Help From a Planet Under Assault?

It’s already too late for millions of insect, plant, and animal species that have gone extinct; it may soon be too late for us if we don’t wake the hell up and take decisive action... It’s early summer here in the Pacific Northwest and the flowers are blooming; above is a photo Louise took with her iPhone yesterday morning as we were walking along the Columbia River. The hillside is ablaze with wildflowers. But it was also eerily silent. Look carefully: No matter how much you enlarge the photo you’ll not see a single insect. Thirty years ago this hillside was swarmed with bees, flies, and dozens of other winged bugs. Today, although pretty, walking by it felt like I was passing a graveyard. I’ll never forget the day the trucker called into my radio show from southern Illinois. It was about seventeen years ago, and he was a long-haul driver who regularly ran a coast-to-coast route from the southeast to the Pacific Northwest a few dozen times a year.

Posted at Hartmann Report on May. 29, 2024

Medicare Advantage: Why Are We Paying for "Sham" Insurance?

So, here we are, handing billions of dollars a month to insurance industry executives so they can buy new Swiss chalets, private jets, and luxury yachts... They're competing unfairly with Medicare, and you and I are paying for it. It's obscene. When George W. Bush and congressional Republicans (and a handful of bought-off Democrats) created Medicare Advantage in 2003, it was the fulfillment of half of Bush's goal of privatizing Social Security and Medicare, dating all the way back to his unsuccessful run for Congress in 1978 and a main theme of his second term in office. Medicare Advantage is not Medicare. These plans are private health insurance provided by private corporations, who are then fully reimbursed by the Medicare trust fund regardless of how much their customers use their insurance. Thus, the more they can screw their customers and us taxpayers by withholding healthcare, the more money they make.

Posted at Hartmann Report on May. 28, 2024

The Press: What Has Happened to the Lifeblood of our Democracy?

How did America reach this point where about half our country thinks up is down, black is white, and Republicans are best trusted with our money and national security? The fifteen or twenty percent of Americans who follow actual news reporting are dumbfounded.

Posted at Hartmann Report on May. 27, 2024

What Will Be Trump's "October Surprise"?

Such an action could swing our election toward Trump, but also risks provoking a third world war... Donald Trump has overtly taken the side of dictators including Putin, Xi, Orbán, and Kim over the past eight years, most likely because he admires the way each has crushed efforts toward democracy and ruled their respective nations with an iron fist. Now US intelligence agencies say their big worry is that one or more of these nations will reciprocate Trump's love by launching some sort of October Surprise to push voters closer to Trump in time for this fall's election. Such an action could swing our election toward Trump, but also risks provoking a third world war.