Saturday Report from Thom Hartmann

 

Russia’s main goal for years has been to cripple NATO by getting US troops out of Germany. Putin called Trump this week (we wouldn’t have known except Russian media bragged about it) and apparently gave him his instructions; yesterday the Pentagon announced we’re pulling 5,000 troops out of Germany and putting massive tariffs on EU goods to further weaken NATO member nations. They’re toasting their success with champagne in the Kremlin and planning their strategy to take the Baltic states once the war against Ukraine is over.

Thanks to six corrupt bought-off Republicans on the Supreme Court, Louisiana Republicans are colluding in broad daylight to rig this fall’s election and silence the voices of Black voters. Jeff Landry is one of the most corrupt governors in America, having been accused of accepting free flights and gifts, illegal use of campaign funds, and giving government jobs to top donors, among other things. Now he’s suspending the upcoming primaries (voting was already underway) so he and his cronies in the legislature can re-gerrymander the state to make sure the state will never again send a Black representative to Washington DC. 

Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias noted, “What is happening in Louisiana right now is both a redistricting power grab and a dry run for authoritarian election subversion this fall.” And this is just the beginning; with the six Republicans on the Court okaying new maps that shatter majority-Black districts, the Congressional Black Caucus is bracing for a major loss of members this fall and in 2028. John Roberts and his buddies on the Court claim that they’re not “seeing race” and that the problem of minority voters being victimized by Republican policies is long in the past; in fact it’s very, very real now and their and Landry’s actions prove it. Hypocrites and racist liars…

The Trump regime is the most lawless in America’s history. The War Powers Act of 1973 requires two things: If the United States has come under attack or an attack is imminent, the president may order an immediate commencement of war-making against the attacker; when that happens, he then has 60 days to try to resolve the situation, but after that must seek approval from Congress to continue kinetic action. Trump has already broken that law: Iran represented no immediate threat to the US at all but he bombed them anyway.

And now, as Democrats are joining Republicans in pretending he didn’t commit that crime and so are asking for the 60-day request for war authorization from Congress, Whiskey Pete Hegseth told senators yesterday that because our military isn’t currently shooting or bombing, “the clock is paused” and they don’t need to go to Congress. The law requires a cessation of hostilities within 60 days, and if blockading the Strait of Hormuz isn’t a hostile action then apparently the next step is for the Pentagon to declare that gravity is optional and wars only count when someone bothers to keep score. 

Meanwhile, ICE murders American citizens and ignores the 4th and 5th Amendments, the DOJ ignores court orders, Trump criminally impounds funds Congress had appropriated for Blue states, and the entire regime is in open and blatant violation of the Epstein Transparency Act. Hopefully, Democrats will find their spines and voices and hold these criminals to account once they acquire the power to do so and begin shadow hearings in the meantime to inform the American people of Trump’s and his people’s lawlessness.

Americans of all stripes and political affiliations agree: Data Centers are a plague. Big AI have been buying off politicians across the country, often even getting tax deferrals and free land as they burden local electric and water resources, all to increase the profits of a handful of morbidly rich AI oligarchs. Residents in the areas the tech bro oligarchs are eyeing are getting active, although a few well-placed “contributions” and “tips” to politicians often frustrate their efforts. Maine’s legislature, for example, passed a moratorium on the centers last month by a wide margin but then Governor Janet Mills, apparently feathering her nest for her upcoming retirement, vetoed the legislation. In other states it’s less obviously corrupt, but people are genuinely freaked out as AI transforms not just the physical landscape of America but the employment landscape as well.

In Michigan, The New York Times reports: “In towns across the state, suspicions are still rife, sometimes far-fetched. Residents in different towns expressed worries about effects on fertility. Others worried the centers could end up as military targets, pointing to Iran’s strikes on data center infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. People in Michigan also pointed to two contracts between a data center project in Saline Township and the state’s main electric utility that were so heavily redacted that the state’s attorney general is challenging them in court. A special fast-track process was used to bypass public hearings. Even the signatures are blacked out.”

AI is here and not going away, and Moore’s Law suggests many of these monster data centers will soon be scaled back, perhaps even bursting the AI bubble that keeps driving the stock market regardless of the Iran conflict. Keep an eye on this; it’s going to change the world our kids are inheriting in ways that are still unclear.

The Trump grift is multigenerational. Uday and Qusay…er…Don Jr and Eric just jumped into the defense contracting business, hooking up with three new drone companies. Suspiciously, the companies all are bidding for or just got massive multi-million-dollar contracts with the Pentagon, with more to come. Remember when Republicans screamed about Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy “cashing in on the presidency” by licensing his name to a brand of beer? Or when Republicans held endless hearings, press conferences, and years of Fox “News” reports about Biden’s son making $5 million for sitting on the board of an energy company? They were pikers. The Trump Crime Family is the most corrupt first family in American history and hopefully their reign will be short-lived when Democrats get the power of impeachment back.

Democracy around the world is under assault by right-wingers who get themselves elected and then flip their nations into autocracy and oligarchy. An estimated half of all the world’s democracies are under such an assault — including the United States — and Uganda is the most recent to go all in. President Yoweri Museveni says he wants to sign legislation that’s working its way through the Ugandan legislature that would criminalize opposition politicians, most types of reporting and opinion writing, and any group affiliated with foreign organizations. Russia, through diplomatic outreach and via their massive social media influence operations, has been pushing this sort of thing across the free world, and this bill is a virtual clone of Russian legislation that lets Putin imprison or even execute dissidents and reporters. And Trump, trying to help out his mentor and owner, has shut down Voice of America to make Putin’s job even easier.

Joe Walsh UNLEASHES Tea Party smear machine on a Democrat fighting for us working people. Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh went on his podcast and spewed a vitriolic tirade against Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, calling him “despicable,” a “bullshitter,” even throwing around accusations like “anti-Semitic,” and then said he wouldn’t support him even if it helps keep a Republican in power. This from Joe Walsh, a former Tea Party bomb-thrower who built his career on outrage, division, and some of the ugliest rhetoric of the last decade.

And let’s not rewrite history here: this is a guy who helped normalize the very politics that damaged our democracy. Yet when he decided to rebrand himself, Democrats and progressives said fine, come on in, we believe in a big tent. We gave him grace; I’ve even invited him onto my program several times. And now? Now he turns that same scorched-earth, character-assassination playbook on a real progressive who’s actually connecting with voters on the number one issue in this country, affordability. That’s not principle, that’s hypocrisy dripping with arrogance. Walsh doesn’t want a “big tent,” he wants a tent where he gets to decide who’s worthy.

And when someone comes along with a message that resonates with working people, he panics and goes for the jugular. It’s the same old Tea Party venom, just dressed up in a different jersey. You don’t strengthen democracy by trashing candidates fighting for economic justice, you weaken it. And if that’s where Joe Walsh is going to stand, then he hasn’t changed nearly as much as he wants people to believe and will not be welcome on my show again until he publicly apology.

-Thom Hartmann, The Hartmann Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.