The sales pitch that David Koch was running on in 1980 on the Libertarian ticket was that government is bad, corporations are good. You can trust corporations.

But the reality is that the government that we have, which perhaps millions of Americans have literally fought and died to create and protect - George Washington had three horses shot out from underneath him trying to create this government - should be of, by, and for we the people, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln.

Corporations are never of, by, and for we the people, corporations are always of, by, and for the profit. And there's nothing wrong with that intrinsically unless it is absolutely unregulated, which is the direction that we've moving since Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1983.

What the Koch brothers are basically saying is: the government is terrible, you can't trust yourself to govern yourself, so we will govern for you by controlling the economy. It's the economy is more important than democracy. The marketplace is more important than democracy.

That's BS. It is a lie that the billionaires have frankly and sadly got a lot of Americans to believe. And once you go down that road, if you get rid of our government and you replace it with a bunch of monopolistic corporations, then you have lost all your freedom.

Read more here.

-Thom

(What do you think? Tell us here.)

Thursday's Daily Stack

Article: "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen.

Article: "Sen. Orrin Hatch calls Donald Trump ‘one of the best’ presidents he’s seen in office" by Courtney Tanner.

Book: Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff.

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

Site: Need to Impeach.

Article: "Lawmakers briefed by Yale psychiatrist on Trump's mental health: report" by Brett Samuels.

Article: "25th Amendment" (presidential succession)

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

Book: The Emperor Wears No Clothes: Hemp and the Marijuana Conspiracy by Jack Herer.

Article: "Trust, but verify" by Wikipedia.

Site: Move to Amend

Article: "Cambridge Analytica" by Wikipedia.

Quote: "It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being at the essence of getting the nominations for president or elected president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and Congress members. So now we've just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election's over'." - President Jimmy Carter on unlimited money in politics on the Thom Hartmann Program, 28 July 2015.

Article: "Coal mining deaths double in 2017" by Timothy Cama.

Article: "Trump has instructed the White House cleaning staff not to touch his things" by Eliza Relman.

Can We Bring Net Neutrality Back from the Dead?
- Evan Greer, Fight for the Future

Article: "'Bomb cyclone' brings travel chaos and deaths to US north-east" by BBC.

Article: "Net neutrality supporters launch 2018 campaign to oust lawmakers who don’t vote for CRA to overturn FCC decision" by Fight for the Future.

Article: "Ajit Pai is going to lose. Net neutrality activists will win Congressional Resolution of Disapproval to overturn FCC repeal" by Fight for the Future.

Article: "FCC Votes to End Net Neutrality Rules" by Todd Shields and Ben Brody.

Article: "Congressional Review Act" by Wikipedia.

Article: "US Senate votes to let internet providers share your web browsing history without permission" by Jacob Kastrenakes.

Article: "DSM-5" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Paul Manafort Sues Mueller and Asks a Judge to Narrow the Russia Investigation" by Matt Apuzzo.

Law: "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act", 1970 (RICO).

Article: "Back to the Future writer: bad guy Biff was based on Donald Trump" by Benjamin Lee.

Article: "North Korea calls hotline to South Korea in diplomatic breakthrough" by Taehoon Lee, Hilary Whiteman and Lauren Said-Moorhouse.

Site: FairVote Washington State.

Hour Two: Say Goodbye to the United States...We're Now the Corporate States of America
- Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Democracy At Work/Capitalism's Crisis Deepens Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown

Article: "The Fed says it could speed up rate hikes because of Trump's tax cuts" by Akin Oyedele.

Article: "A tax cut designed for economic contraction, not growth" by Ron Insana.

Article: "Federal Reserve System" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Quantitative easing" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Impeachment of Bill Clinton" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Stanley A. McChrystal" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Behind the scenes at the Trump White House: Uglier, meaner, and simply dumber than you can imagine" by Mark Sumner.

Article: "Trump will undergo a physical and release details early next year" by Jeremy Diamond.

Article: "Donald Trump’s Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet" by Steve Eder and Dave Philipps.

Talk Media News Segment:
- Bob Ney

Book: The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff.

Book: Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency by Corey R. Lewandowski and David N. Bossie.

Article: "Trump Tower meeting with Russians 'treasonous', Bannon says in explosive book" by David Smith.

Article: "Trump attorneys try to block publication of Wolff book" by TMN.

Site: "Goats for the old Goat".

Book: Loving What You Do: The Elements of a Great Working Life by Ellen Ratner.

Hour Three: Monopoly is a Form of Lawlessness
- Matt Stoller, Open Markets Institute

Article: "Matt Stoller: “Monopoly is a Form of Lawlessness”" by Yves Smith.

Article: "Are Tech Giants Like Amazon, Facebook And Google Monopolies?" by Meghna Chakrabarti.

Article: "Worldwide desktop market share of leading search engines from January 2010 to October 2017" by Statista.

Article: "Citizens Against Monopoly" by Matt Stoller.

Law: "Glass-Steagall Act", 1933.

Article: "Justice Department Sues to Block AT&T-Time Warner Merger" by Cecilia Kang and Michael J. de la Merced.

Article: "Keith Ellison and the New ‘Antitrust Caucus’ Want to Know Exactly How Bad Mergers Have Been for the American Public" by Tess Townsend.

Article: "Trump Angrily Throws Steve Bannon’s Signed Copy of “Mein Kampf” in Trash" by Andy Borowitz.

Article: "Trump picks Giuliani law partner to replace Preet Bharara in NY" by Brett Samuels.

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

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Is Trump's Button Bigger than Kim's Button?

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At What Point Will Republicans Stand Up To Trump (w/Guest Mark Pocan)

Is There Corporation Large Enough To Make Libertarians Fear Monopolies (w/Guest Charles Sauer)

Renewable Energy Pays But You Won't Save a Penny or the Earth Because Of Money In Politics