Author: Thom Hartmann

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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Greed is good: How American society replaced patriotism and faith with an unhealthy love of money

As recently as 25 years ago, most of us valued patriotism and religion first and foremost, 70 and 62 percent respectively. Today only 38 percent of Americans cite patriotism as a core value and religion has collapsed to 39 percent. According to a new Wall Street Journal poll – that they have been compiling since 1998, what has replaced love of nation and spirit, tragically, is the desire for money. It shouldn’t surprise us. Patriotism and religion are essentially luxuries. When you can’t pay the rent or feed your family, when you’re pestered daily by bill collectors and can’t afford your medications,...

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Red State witch hunts: From burning women at the stake to killing them with political ideology

Jaci Statton wanted her baby, but the fetus was not developing properly and was dying inside her. If it was not removed from her uterus it might kill her, too. She was experiencing vaginal bleeding, high blood pressure, debilitating cramps, and “intense nausea.” As reporter Ben Felder wrote for The Oklahoman: “The longer the fetus remained inside her, the higher risk she would be for internal bleeding, kidney and liver failure, and even a stroke.” She and her husband first went to a nearby hospital, but — like one-in-six hospital beds in America — it was run to earn money for the Catholic Church...

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