Author: Thom Hartmann

Stealing Elections: How Republicans use illegal maps in defiance of the courts to hold onto their power

Republican election theft used to be covert and was almost never covered by the press. Now they are doing it out in the open and defying federal courts to stop them, while ignoring press coverage that outs what they are up to. As Alexander Hamilton pointed out in the Federalist Papers, the courts have neither sword nor purse: they don’t have any mechanism to force compliance with their rulings. So it appears that multiple Republican states have chosen to simply ignore their own courts, as well as the federal courts and the Supreme Court. This is a big step...

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Playing with fire: Why MAGA Republicans insecurity and fear of everything could bring a new age of darkness

Senate Republicans refused to even allow that body to debate whether or not America should continue funding our commitment to the Ukrainian European democracy that is now under a brutal, violent, and sustained attack by Donald Trump’s friend, Russian President Putin. The nations of the world are aligning themselves into alliances reminiscent of the 1930s. The dangers associated with this are radically compounded by the Senate Republicans’ intentional decision to play politics and suck up to Vladimir Putin’s protégé, Donald Trump, who is now demanding we throw the millions of people in Ukraine into the arms of a Russian...

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Free Market Lies: How Reaganomics expanded inequality and crushed stability for working families

Forty-two years ago, Ronald Reagan launched America into a great social, economic, and political experiment. It was based on the 1940s utopian thinking of a handful of conservative economists and promised to bring peace and prosperity to the entire world through a magical thing they dubbed the “free market.” Reagan and his Vice President GHW Bush, who initially called it “Voodoo Economics,” became true believers, as did Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. And, it turns out, it was based on a lie and has produced an utter disaster for America. This experiment — called neoliberalism, but...

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How America could slide first into Oligarchy and then Fascism without the infrastructure of Democracy

For far too many years, Americans have made the mistake of assuming that our republican democracy will be safe as long as we elect competent and well-intentioned politicians as leaders. Sadly, that is like thinking your surgeon, who is very good at what she does, will do a wonderful job even though the hospital can no longer provide her with sterile instruments or running water. The reality is that democracies depend on a particular type of infrastructure to function properly. Without that infrastructure, they rapidly slide first into oligarchy and then into fascism. The two most recent examples are...

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Without a home: How American society is failing to protect one of the primary essentials of life

San Diego recently banned tent camping in the city; the homeless just moved to a riverbed just outside town. West Palm Beach Florida has banned feeding homeless people; the penalty is a $500 fine and 60 days in the town jail. In Maryland, some school districts are trying to get around federal law that requires educating the children of homeless people. Nashville is making a good-faith effort to help some of their homeless, but the need is overwhelming them. Denver mayor Mike Johnson is trying to create micro-communities for homeless people, but getting pushback from residents. The same thing is happening here in Portland. Forty-two...

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A Confidence Man: Why millions of Americas are vulnerable to seductive charlatans like Trump

Donald Trump is a confidence man, a charlatan, an unrepentant liar whose deceits have cost at least a half-million Americans their lives. When Dustin Thompson was hauled before U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton for assaulting the Capitol police on January 6th, his defense lawyer, Samuel Shamansky, argued about Trump: “You had, frankly, a gangster who was in power. The vulnerable are seduced by the strong. That’s what happened.” The jury didn’t buy the argument and sent Thompson to prison, as US District Judge Reggie Walton, who was overseeing the case, said: “I think our democracy is in trouble because, unfortunately, we have...

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