Author: Thom Hartmann

Freeway Congestion: Billions went into expanding highway capacities only to increase traffic delays

Most people would think that if their freeway was clogged up every rush hour, adding an extra lane would reduce the congestion. They would be wrong. And an uprising against Oregon state government plans to widen the I-5 freeway here in Portland may end up changing how cities around the country decide to use the hundreds of billions of dollars in highway funds coming to them from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. A recent study of 100 US cities found that — between 1993 and 2017 — billions were spent to expand highway systems’ capacities by 42 percent,...

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Failure of Budapest Memorandum could push South Korea and Taiwan to seek their own nuclear deterrent

Nuclear non-proliferation and preventing war, stopping or even reversing the spread of nuclear weapons across the world and preventing the invasion of one country by another, is right up there with doing something about climate change in terms of guaranteeing a future that includes safety and security for the people of our planet. Right now we are engaged in negotiations with Iran, for example. Since Trump stupidly and single-handedly pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal, we and the other countries negotiating the deal – Britain, France, China, Germany, Russia, and the U.S., are trying to...

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Price of gas: How Trump’s manipulation of oil policies reaped profits for Putin and fossil-fuel benefactors

It was a double-whammy for two of then-President Donald Trump’s biggest patrons, Vladimir Putin and American fossil-fuel billionaires and their industry: the price of oil was too low. Between the pandemic-induced collapse in demand for oil and the price war Saudi Arabia was then fighting with Russia — two of the world’s largest producers — Putin was being pinched badly. And in America, from Pennsylvania to Texas, oil producers were outright losing money on the oil they pumped. Gas prices were at record lows, gutting the profits even of refiners. So, Trump acted. It seemed inexplicable at the time,...

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What is the point of saying “never again” if the world stays silent when bombs drop on the site of Babyn Yar?

As Russian President Putin tries his version of Hitler’s September 1939 “defensive” attack on Poland, we have reached the apex, the hinge, of American history’s Fourth Great Turning. And everybody sees it. Americans who were preoccupied with false claims of voter fraud and the “tyranny” of having to wear a mask or get vaccinated are seeing with their own eyes what actual tyranny looks like. Putin has miscalculated terribly. His entire career has been, much like Donald Trump’s, one of pushing moral and legal boundaries while getting off scot-free or even being celebrated for his “victories.” And, like Donald...

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A betrayal of Ukraine: Republican Senators obstruct vital humanitarian aid while seeking profits for Big Oil

Much needed financial aid for Ukraine to fight back Putin’s brutal invasion has been delayed while special interests in America demand greater profits for Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Gas. If such a thing happened in any other developed country in the world, many of these U.S. Senators would be in prison, or at least barred from office and paying huge fines. Sabotage Ukraine aid because your donors paid you to? Sabotage your own country’s energy and environmental policies because your donors promise you millions of dollars? In every other advanced democracy in the world, that is called...

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Ukraine under siege: Why a war against one is a war against all

Cities across Ukraine are under siege as you read these words. Families gathering their most precious goods, trying to calm their terrified children, desperate to flee but unsure where to go. Americans have no memory of what it is like to have their own towns shelled, to have their homes blown apart, to see family members die and bodies in the streets as brutal men in uniform spread terror, death, and destruction. The last time an American city was under bombardment from a foreign power was the War of 1812. On August 22, 1814, President James Madison, “the father of...

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