The latest Republican scam to screw working class people and help out their billionaire buddies has to do with "open the state" orders and Trump's executive order about meatpacking plants. The simple fact is that when governors and employers both say that the workplace is or can be open, workers no longer qualify for unemployment or other benefits if they are afraid to go to work.

Because Trump's incompetence has left the nation without adequate testing, workers are forced to choose between possibly killing themselves or vulnerable members of their families on the one hand, or losing all their benefits, going hungry, and ending up homeless on the other hand.

The final middle finger that Republicans are giving workers and American consumers is a legislative attempt to outlaw the right of workers to sue employers or businesses for putting them in a situation where they might get sick and die. Seriously.

Republicans want workers to have all the responsibility and liability for deciding whether to go to work or to starve, without any good information from testing, at the same time the GOP wants to make sure that their fat-cat billionaire buddies and big corporations will never be held accountable and will be able to make even bigger profits by not having to pay unemployment benefits. It's time for a political revolution.

-Thom

Wednesday's Daily Stack

Hour One: Mid-day with Mark
- Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI, 2nd District)

Article: "Trump threatened to withhold coronavirus aid from states unless they change their sanctuary-city policies" by Tom Porter.

Article: "Iowa tells workers to return to their jobs or lose unemployment benefits, despite warnings that reopening could lead to a second wave of infections" by Juliana Kaplan.

Article: "Florida medical examiners were releasing coronavirus death data. The state made them stop" by Kethleen McGrory And Rebecca Woolington.

Article: "'A great success story': Kushner says Trump team is 'doing a lot of things right' as COVID-19 cases pass one million" by David Badash.

Article: "Here Are The House Members Who Voted Against The New $484 Billion Coronavirus Phase 3.5 Package" by Henry Rodgers.

Article: "Trump's Suggestion That Disinfectants Could Be Used to Treat Coronavirus Prompts Aggressive Pushback" by Katie Rogers, Christine Hauser, Alan Yuhas and Maggie Haberman.

Article: "No face mask for Vice President Mike Pence as he tours Mayo's COVID-19 testing labs in Rochester" by Briana Bierschbach and Jeremy Olson.

Article: "The U.S. has a quarter of the world's confirmed coronavirus deaths despite having less than 5 percent of its population" by Kathryn Krawczyk.

Article: "Coronavirus Testing: Criteria and Numbers by Country" by worldometer.

Article: "VP Mike Pence doesn't wear mask during tour of Mayo Clinic COVID-19 research, treatment facilities" by Theo Keith.

Article: "Trump Declares Meat Supply 'Critical,' Aiming to Reopen Plants" by Ana Swanson and David Yaffe-Bellany.

Article: "Trump Orders Meat Plants To Stay Open Even As They Emerge As Virus Hot Spots" by KHN.

Article: "List of sovereign states in Europe by unemployment rate" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Wisconsin Special Election for Congress Will Be May 12" by AP.

Article: "Wisconsin Elections Commission urges absentee voting for Special Election May 12" by WSAW.

Article: "Wisconsin Supreme Court blocks order by governor suspending in-person voting, putting Tuesday's election back on track" by Kendall Karson.

Article: "Federal Student Loan Payments Are on Pause Through September. Here's What You Should Do" by Sevanny Campos.

Article: "USDA let millions of pounds of food rot while food-bank demand soared" by Helena Bottemiller Evich.

Article: "$2.2 Trillion CARES Act Provides A Lifeline To Small Businesses" by Rohit Arora.

Article: "'Deliberately Cruel': Millions of US Citizens Blocked From Stimulus Payments Because They Married Immigrants" by Andrea Germanos.

Article: "Trump encourages governors to 'seriously consider' reopening schools" by Katherine Faulders and Ben Gittleson.

Article: "As covid-19 deaths mount, Md. Gov. Hogan promises caution as he looks to reopen the economy" by Hannah Natanson, Erin Cox and Justin Jouvenal.

Article: "Ohio's GOP Governor Mike DeWine splits from President Trump — and rises in popularity" by Trip Gabriel.

Article: "Coronavirus stimulus checks: Trump signature scramble could delay first batch" by Denitsa Tsekova.

Article: "Recall of West Point cadets for Trump address creates logistics hurdles and health concerns" by Missy Ryan, Alex Horton and Robert Costa.

Article: "Pelosi to Trump: Ice cream in freezer is 'better than having Lysol in somebody's lungs'" by Caitlin Oprysko.

Article: "The New Stimulus Bill Gives Unemployed Workers an Extra $600 per Week. That's Huge." by Jordan Weissmann.

Article: "Donald Trump orders meat processing plants to stay open" by Lauren Fedor.

Article: "Trump says he might use pandemic relief funding to extort so-called sanctuary cities" by Gabe Ortiz.

Tweet: "We cannot allow the Trump administration to exploit a public health crisis to further their anti-immigrant agenda. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1255224509247954944" by ACLU.

Article: "Mitch McConnell Says Senate Won't Pass Further Coronavirus Relief Unless Businesses Protected From Lawsuits" by James Walker.

Article: "Corporate shield leaves workers exposed" by Judd Legum.

Tweet: "The old childhood phrase "dumber than dogshit" comes to mind... https://twitter.com/HowardMortman/status/1255190214152200199" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Hoarding disorder" by Mayo Clinic.

Article: "Kushner: COVID-19: "A Great Success Story”" by American Bridge.

Article: "Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US, August 6, 2001.

Article: "'Screaming red siren': Trump's replacement of spy chief after Russia briefing stirs outcry" by David Jackson and Nicholas Wu.

Article: "Colorado, Nevada join Pacific states in reopening pact" by Jean Lotus.

Article: "The US states uniting to combat coronavirus amid leadership vacuum" by Daniel Strauss.

Article: "95 Environmental Rules Being Rolled Back Under Trump" by Nadja Popovich, Livia Albeck-Ripka And Kendra Pierre-Louis.

Article: "Five ways that Trump is undermining environmental protections under the cover of coronavirus" by Jeff Tollefson.

Article: "COVID-19 Draining The Highway Trust Fund" by FreightWaves.

Article: "Who's Profiting From the Coronavirus Crisis?" by William D. Cohan.

Article: "Pompeo hits back after China claims US is lying about COVID-19: 'Classic communist disinformation'" by Talia Kaplan.

Article: "The Coronavirus May Linger On Plastic And Stainless Steel For Days, A Preliminary Study Found" by Stephanie M. Lee.

Article: "Coronavirus truthers prey on the anxiety of the moment" by David Knowles.

Article: "Many people won't return to normal no matter what politicians say. I'm one of them." by Kathleen Parker.

Article: "Remdesivir" by Wikipedia.

Article: "'White House' Shop Sells the Gift No One Asked for: $100 COVID-19 Commemorative Coins" by Rachel Olding.

Article: "Electoral College" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention of 1787: July 20, 1787" by James Madison.

Book: The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote and How to Get It Back by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "The Federalist Papers : No. 68: The Mode of Electing the President" by Alexander Hamilton.

Article: "NYC emergency doctor dies by suicide, underscoring a secondary danger of the pandemic" by Marisa Iati and Kim Bellware.

Hour Three: How to "Resist From Home"
- Ezra Levin, Co-Founder & Co-Executive Director - Indivisible

Article: "How Europe manages to keep a lid on coronavirus unemployment while it spikes in the U.S." by Michael Birnbaum.

Article: "Following Latest Unemployment Numbers, Support Grows For Jayapal's Paycheck Guarantee Act" by Pramila Jayapal.

Article: "Rep. Ro Khanna Co-Authors 'Essential Workers' Bill of Rights" by Grace Hase.

Article: "Justin Amash Moves Toward a Third-Party Bid for President" by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

Article: "Joe Walsh: You can't win, Justin Amash. You can only help Trump get reelected." by Joe Walsh.

Site: "Bill Weld - Official Campaign Website".

Article: "New York Board of Elections strikes Sanders from ballot, cancels Democratic presidential primary" by Yelena Dzhanova, Brian Schwartz, Jacob Pramuk.

Article: "Andrew Yang sues New York Board of Elections over canceled primary" by Nicole Sganga.

Article: "Analysis: Did NY Democrats just tank Biden's nomination?" by Ed Condon.

Article: "Iran Hostage Crisis" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Rush Limbaugh on coronavirus: 'The common cold' that's being 'weaponized' against Trump" by Allyson Chiu.

Article: "Trump Obsesses Over Flu Deaths, Attacks Cuomo in Softball Fox News Chat" by Justin Baragona, Hunter Woodall.

Article: "In the 'epicenter of the epicenter,' were early heart attacks a missed coronavirus warning?" by Aaron Katersky, Sasha Pezenik, Eden David and Dr. L. Nedda Dastmalchi.

Documentary: Where to Invade Next - Michael Moore.

Article: "Colourism: Why even black people have a problem with dark skin" by Elizabeth Pears.

Article: "Brown Paper Bag Test" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Stacey Abrams" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Oklahoma spent $2 million on malaria drug touted by Trump" by Brady McCombs and Lindsay Whitehurst.

Article: "U.S. coronavirus cases top 1 million as projected death toll rises" by Lisa Shumaker.

Article: "U.S. coronavirus deaths surpass Vietnam War toll as Florida readies reopening plan" by Jeff Mason, Maria Caspani.

Article: "Photos show how people around the world are disinfecting schools, mosques, and streets to stop the coronavirus from spreading" by Holly Secon.

Case: "Hedges v. Obama".

Article: "John Maynard Keynes" by Wikipedia.

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

How Did Trump Waste the Best Tool He Had to Fight the Coronavirus? I'll ask Richard Clarke, National Security & Crisis Management expert / former Chief Counter Terrorism Advisor-National Security Council (Clinton Admin) & the person Pres. Clinton tasked with building the stockpile / Author of 9 books including his latest, The Fifth Domain

Plus, regular guest Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Democracy At Work / Understanding Marxism / Understanding Socialism

And, Science Revolution: "Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink" with Dr. Jay Famiglietti, Professor, School of Environment and Sustainability / Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing / Executive Director, Global Institute for Water Security and Senior Water Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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...

Does Trump Still Have A Chance in November?

Three Things The United States Can Learn From Oregon's Vote By Mail (w/ Jefferson Smith)