Author: Thom Hartmann

Profit from lies: How Big Oil’s acceleration of global warming has made winter cold more extreme

William Clay did not realize that the intentionally selfish actions by fossil fuel billionaires would lead to his death on a weekend in late December, but that was what happened. He died in Buffalo on his 56th birthday, Christmas Eve, and was found frozen to death about a mile from his house, attempting to walk home from the store. While Buffalo is famous for the intensity of its winter storms, the December blizzard was worse than anything in recorded history – both there and across much of the rest of the nation. It seemed Biblical: in Texas, bats were...

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Why the conservative base of Republican voters has yet to wake up to its oppression by Republican politicians

When will Republican voters figure out how badly they are getting screwed by Republican politicians? Desperate workers struggle with soaring rents (courtesy of Republican-donor hedge funds);  lack of healthcare (12 GOP-controlled states still refuse to expand Medicaid for under-$15,000/year workers) is literally killing Americans; wages have flatlined since Reagan declared war on workers in 1981 while the merely rich have become the morbidly rich; Americans pay 10 times as much as Canadians for some drugs because Republicans block any effort to bring competition to that marketplace; at the same time Trump and his GOP buddies in the House and Senate borrowed $1.7 trillion to fund a tax giveaway to...

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Evidence suggest that “Anti-McCarthy Crowd” are aligned with Vladimir Putin’s mission to ruin America

Amazingly, it is the second anniversary of January 6th and we are still talking about an ongoing attempt to sabotage the American government. I have argued that the Freedom Caucus members, and their handful of compatriots voting against Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House, may have been doing so because the rightwing billionaires who back them want to roll back FDR’s “big government” in America. Now comes investigative journalist Dave Troy noting that America’s rightwing billionaires are not the only ones who want the U.S. government to fail. So does Vladimir Putin. And most of those voting against McCarthy not only appear...

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Two Santas strategy: Why Republicans use Saint Nicholas then Scrooge to shift economic messages

“The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus.” — Jude Wanniski, March 6, 1976 The recent headline from Politico says it all: White House’s hopes for a lame-duck debt ceiling deal are fading fast. It is no accident or coincidence that this never once happened during the presidencies of Reagan, Bush, Bush, or Trump. Or that it did happen during the presidencies of Clinton and Obama…and, now, Biden. You could even call it a conspiracy: there’s an amazing backstory — with a unique name— here. Here’s how it works, laid it out in...

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The media’s blind spot: Why blatant efforts to suppress voter participation has been mostly ignored

“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.” – The New York Times, “Turnout Was Strong in Georgia, but Mail Voting Plummets After New Law” Ever since 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court blocked full enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the GOP is making voting...

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President Zelenskyy’s visit is a reminder of America’s moral and legal obligation to defend Ukraine

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting the United States today and speaking to a joint session of Congress. He will be pushing back against those on both the extreme left and right who keep whining that in 1991 President George HW Bush said NATO would not expand toward Russia (a comment that was never reduced to writing and never part of any agreement) and the Minsk cease-fire Agreements, which President Putin declared on February 22 “no longer exist.” Hopefully President Zelenskyy will remind Congress that America is party to an actual contractual agreement to protect the integrity of Ukraine’s...

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