Imagine if the U.S. Constitution barred the EPA and Department of Education from existing. All union protections are dead, there are no more federal workplace safety standards, and even child-labor laws are struck down, along with a national minimum wage.

Imagine that the Constitution makes it illegal for the federal government to protect you from big polluters, big banks and even big food and pharma - all are free to rip you off or poison you all they want, and your only remedy is in state courts and legislatures, because the Constitution prevents Congress from doing anything about any of it. The federal government can't even enforce voting or civil rights laws.

To add injury to insult, the federal government has to shut down Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, because all of these programs (along with food stamps, housing supports and any programs that help the middle class, the less fortunate or disabled) are "beyond the reach" of what the federal government can do.

A few years ago, it would have been a thought experiment; now it's nearly reality. Billionaires and the groups they fund are working to rewrite our Constitution to provide corporations and the rich with more and more protections and benefits, and chop away at anything smelling of "socialism" like Social Security or child labor laws.

The fact is that they're just a few states away from meeting their goal, and have already held dress rehearsals in Washington D.C. - with representatives from all 50 states - for a Constitutional Convention that would change America forever.

Read more here

-Thom

(What do you think? Tell us here.)

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10:30pm... The Values of the South Have Risen Again (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

Monday's Daily Stack

Hour One: Has the Modern Republican Party Morphed Into a Con Game as a Result of Billionaires?
- David Frum, The Atlantic

Article: "How to Build an Autocracy" by David Frum.

Article: "The Powell Memo or Powell Manifesto".

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

Case: "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" (2010)

Article: "Viktor Orbán" by Wikipedia.

Article: "U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara Says He Was Fired After Refusing to Quit" by Maggie Haberman And Charlie Savage.

Article: "Twitter U-turns over banning white nationalist" by Alex Hern.

Article: "‘I’m Here to Help,’ Trump Tells Tech Executives at Meeting" by David Streitfeld.

Article: "2 of a Farmer’s 3 Children Overdosed. What of the Third — and the Land?" by Jack Healy.

Article: "Nikolai Berdyaev" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Jean-Jacques Rousseau" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Southern strategy" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Ku Klux Klan" by Wikipedia.

Article: "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.

Article: "Right-Wing Billionaires Have a Project to Rewrite Our Constitution, and They Are Shockingly Close to Pulling It Off" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Groups brace for meeting with Congressman Hunter" by Maureen Robertson.

Article: "Rep. Duncan Hunter holds standing-room-only meeting in Ramona" by CBS News 8.

Article: "Americans for Prosperity" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Profitable Companies, No Taxes: Here’s How They Did It" by Patricia Cohen.

Site: The Convention of States (COS) Project.

Article: "13th Amendment", December 6, 1865. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Article: "14th Amendment, July 9, 1868 (citizenship, representatives, public debt)

Site: Move to Amend

Article: "Citizens for Self-Governance" by SourceWatch.

Article: "Profitable Companies, No Taxes: Here’s How They Did It" by Patricia Cohen.

Site: Indivisible.

Twitter: "Indivisible Ohio 8".

Site: Beauregard for Congress.

Article: "Constituents will choose location of congressman’s town hall meeting" by Pierre Beauregard.

Article: "Wealthy Would Get Billions in Tax Cuts Under Obamacare Repeal Plan" by Jesse Drucker.

Article: "Rep. Steve King’s racist tweet shows how global the far right has become" by Zack Beauchamp.

Article: "The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (Continued)" (Federalist 10) by James Madison.

Book: The American Revolution of 1800: How Jefferson Rescued Democracy from Tyranny and Faction - and What This Means Today by Dan Sisson with Thom Hartmann

Book: Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill.

Article: "Instant-runoff voting" by Wikipedia.

Talk Media News Segment:
- Victoria Jones

Article: "Northeast Snowstorm: How Much Are We Getting?" by Erin McCann, Marc Santora and Jess Bidgood.

Article: "Trump steps up ObamaCare repeal push, meets with law's 'victims'" by Fox News.

Article: "Trump: Republicans Putting Themselves In "Very Bad Position" By Repealing Obamacare, Let It Implode" by Ian Schwartz.

Article: "24 million would lose health insurance coverage by 2026 under GOP's Obamacare replacement, new estimate says" by Dan Mangan.

Article: "CBO: 14M more Americans won't have health insurance next year if GOP plan adopted" by Meghan Keneally, Justin Fishel, Ben Siegel.

Article: "Dems warn against border wall in shutdown fight" by Burgess Everett.

Article: "Meteorologists refute EPA head on climate change" by Timothy Cama.

Article: "Dems back body cameras for ICE agents" by Rafael Bernal.

Article: "House Dems urge Trump to prevent a default on US debts" by Naomi Jagoda.

Article: "Conway walks back microwave remark" by TMN.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Hour Three: The Trump Effect on the Intel Community
- General Michael V. Hayden, Playing To the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror

Article: "Extraordinary rendition" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Black site" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Trump blasts intel officials: 'Are we living in Nazi Germany?'" by Donovan Slack.

Article: "Congressional deadline arrives for DOJ evidence on Trump wiretap claims" by Theodore Schleifer and Manu Raju.

Article: "Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Fred Grandy" by Wikipedia.

Article: "GOP lawmaker: 'We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies'" by Paulina Firozi.

Article: "Steve King Wants to Protect the Border from Cantaloupe-Sized Calves" by Elspeth Reeve.

Documentary: The Brainwashing Of My Dad.

Article: "Health savings account" by Wikipedia.

Article: "This 32-Year-Old Florida Woman Is Dead Because Her State Refused To Expand Medicaid" by Tara Culp-Ressler.

Tweet: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" by Donald J Trump.

Tweet: "Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!" by Donald J Trump.

Tweet: "How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" by Donald J Trump.

Article: "Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama’s ‘Silent Coup’ vs. Trump" by Joel B. Pollak.

Article: "Republican elders call for new national carbon tax to replace federal regulations" by Oliver Milman.

Article: "Trump Says The Real Unemployment Rate Is 42%. Is He Right?" by Joshua Yasmeh.

Article: "Trump budget chief Mick Mulvaney says Obama administration was “manipulating” jobs report, unemployment figures" by Matthew Rozsa.

Article: "Definition of Democracy" by Merriam-Webster.

Article: "Definition of Idiot" by Merriam-Webster.

Tuesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET

We'll have the latest news and information...everything you need to know to win the water cooler wars...

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...

Is Trump's Infrastructure Plan More Welfare For Giant Corporations Or A Great Stimulus?

Vote here!

Is The CIA Spying On Civilians w/IPhones & TVs? Wikileaks P1

How Do Civilians Avoid Getting Hacked? Wikileaks P2

What The Wikileaks Dump Tells Us

On tonight’s Big Picture, Thom talks to former CIA analyst and whistleblower John Kiriakou and journalist James Bamford about the recent Wikileaks dump, known as “Vault 7” and what it reveals about hacking and surveillance techniques used by the CIA.

Has the Republican Party Morphed Into a Con Game Run by Billionaires? (w/Guest David Frum)

Republicans Want to Destroy the Constitution, We Need to Stop Them!

Could You Sue for Damage from Fracking Earthquakes? (w/Guest Dr. Anthony Ingraffea)

Is Japan's Rejected Radioactive Food Ending Up at Your Grocery Store? (w/Guest Kevin Kamps)

What Kind of Anti-Nuclear Protests Are Happening In Your Area?

Will China Launch Nukes and Start WWIII Because of Trump??