Author: Thom Hartmann

The 9/11 memory hole: Why future generations must not forget the lies that drove a failed War on Terror

Today is 9/11, the event that first brought America together and then was cynically exploited by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to have a war against Iraq, followed by their illegal invasion of Afghanistan just a bit more than a year earlier. Yet the media today is curiously silent about Bush and Cheney’s lies. Given the costs of both these wars — and the current possibility of our being drawn deeper into conflict in both Ukraine and Taiwan — it is an important moment to discuss our history of wars, both illegal and unnecessary, and those that are...

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A rebuttal to the GOP debate’s trash talk of President Biden’s record of improving America for Americans

The first Republican debate of the 2024 election cycle took place in Milwaukee on August 23. While all the drama seemed focused on whether or not anybody beyond Chris Christie would take a serious swing at Trump, much of the evening’s time was devoted to trashing President Joe Biden. So, for anyone still clinging to their sanity after enduring all the lies, here is a quick summary of the things that Biden has accomplished with a little help from Democrats in Congress in his first two-and-a-half years in office. First of all, Joe Biden has restored trust, confidence, and...

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Channel of Lies: Why rightwing media outlets continue to push deceptions by Trump for their own profit

Dear Trump-loving Friends, Donald Trump and the fascist-supporting, billionaire-funded rightwing have been lying to you about these indictments, particularly the federal one that charges Trump with trying to overturn the 2020 election in defiance of the Constitution and federal law. His lawyer has been all over TV telling anybody who will listen that Joe Biden ordered this prosecution and that it’s all about “denying Trump’s free speech right to question an election.” Both are lies, being spun to try to justify a criminal conspiracy of shocking proportions that nearly ended the American Experiment after 247 years. First off, Joe...

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Red Scare tactics: Why Republicans label all who oppose their agenda as Communists

In June of 1954, Robert Oppenheimer lost his security clearance because his ex-wife had been a member of the Communist Party and he had described himself as a “New Deal Democrat,” which, to his inquisitors, meant “communist.” The Soviet Union had brought down the iron curtain on their people, after all, and millions of Russians lived behind it. The USSR also had the world’s second-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and Americans lived in fear of nuclear war: I still remember the “duck and cover” drills from elementary school in the 1950s. Now the GOP is reprising their infamous McCarthyite...

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Make America Russia: The ongoing efforts by MAGA Republicans to uphold a Christo-fascist movement

The GOP is increasingly clear about their goal: Make America Russia, or at least Russia’s mini-me, Hungary. They are openly embracing a modern, westernized, Christian white supremacy-based version of classic fascism. And the Trump-MAGA Republicans have a three-step process to bring it about that they are already putting into place. They are willing to put enormous time and resources into the project, because they know that once fascism fully seizes a nation it is extremely difficult to dislodge it. In 19th century America, it took a Civil War to defeat the Southern fascist movement we call the Confederacy, as I...

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Dystopian Rhetoric: Why billionaire funders of GOP politicians worship monsters as if they were heroes

Republicans are promoting death again, this time with DeSantis signing into law a bill that eliminates legal liability for doctors and other medical professionals if they choose to let you die at the scene or on the operating table, or simply turn you away to let you die alone, because of their “moral, ethical, and religious convictions.” The law says: “[T]hat health care providers and health care payors have the right to opt out of participation in or payment for certain health care services on the basis of conscience-based objections” and “prohibits discrimination or adverse action against health care providers...

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