Author: Thom Hartmann

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,...

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...

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...

Unsurprisingly, alleged career criminal Donald Trump has come out in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I went in yesterday and there was a television screen,” Trump told a rightwing talk show, “and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper.” Donald Trump, you will remember, was first impeached because the very day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy turned down his request to manufacture dirt on candidate Joe...