Author: Thom Hartmann

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson It could have been a coincidence and nothing more. On December 1, 2003 Louise and I were watching the Chris Matthews Show on MSNBC; Chris was interviewing Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who’d recently appeared on the front cover of Time magazine as the front-runner...

For Democrats, there are tons of issues on the ballot. Climate change, free college, expanding Medicare, family leave after giving birth, Pre-K education, middle-class tax cut, child tax credit, the minimum wage, the right to unionize, and literally dozens of other less high-profile ways to expand democracy and rebuild our middle class after 40 years of assault by neoliberal Reaganomics. For Republicans there is really only one issue: race. Or, more specifically, maintaining the dominance of white people over every other racial group in America, and the survival of political and economic white supremacy. Forty years ago, Republicans pretended...

Senator Joe Manchin, echoing the rightwing billionaire’s think-tanks’ PR and every Republican in Congress, recently said his objection to free college for students and eyeglasses for seniors was that such things created an “entitlement society,” a slur that means “a nation of welfare recipients.” In that, he displays a fundamental ignorance about what governments do and how societies work, as well as the difference between what we usually call the “social safety net” and things people should expect simply as a “right of citizenship” in a first-world country. He also misunderstands the difference between expenses and investments. A “social...

If President Biden’s Build Back Better plan goes down in flames, you can blame the U.S. Supreme Court. Their Citizens United decision, in fact, is destroying both American politics and the planet. Case in point: Oil industry executives testified before Congress this week, suffering a barrage of questions, including particularly intense ones from Reps. Ro Khanna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Katie Porter. The CEOs exhibited the same sort of arrogant insolence Mark Zuckerberg displayed in July of last year when he was hauled before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. It was, basically, a smug,...

Congressman Steve Scalise, the #2 Republican in the House of Representatives and the guy who ran for office from Louisiana as “David Duke without the baggage,” has announced he was whipping Republican votes to block a criminal contempt referral to the DOJ from the January 6 Select Committee against Steve Bannon. My father’s Republican Party is now the modern-day Confederacy, and Republicans’ defense of Steve Bannon defying subpoenas this week pretty much proves it. If it keeps moving in the same direction, our American republic may soon be fully transformed into a racist, strongman oligarchy. The racist and big-money...