When politics are based on lies, fascism thrives

• Republicans and their media are lying right now about why people are dying from the cold in Texas.
• The GOP has been embracing lies instead of policy since the Reagan Revolution.
• It's become a way of life for Republican politicians.
• As a consequence, Republican voters are among the most misinformed people in America.
• When the electorate believes lies, democracy doesn't work.
• The Libertarian billionaires who own the Republican Party don't believe in democracy, so this is working out exactly the way they want.
• This is a formula for the destruction of democracy and the rise of fascism.

Read more here.

-Thom

Was his tweet a call to "take out" Pence?

What if Donald Trump actually hoped that his mob would murder Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi?

What if he believed such a crime would create a crisis big enough to let him declare a state of emergency, shut down the government for a transition period through that emergency, and retain his position as President moving into the new year?

Senator Tommy Tuberville told Politico that he told Trump, "Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I've got to go," but there's no indication on the current public record that Trump understood that "they just took the vice president out" meant that Pence had been taken to safety.

"They…just took [him] out" could have been taken by Trump to mean the mob had taken Pence, just as easily as it could mean the Capitol Police had saved Pence from the mob.

Read more here.

-Thom

Thursday's Daily Stack

Article: "As Texas Shows, the GOP Big Lie Strategy has Already Destroyed Much of America" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" by Thom Hartmann..

Article: "Senator Ted Cruz left Texas for Cancún as the state was battered by a brutal winter storm." by Shane Goldmacher and Nicholas Fandos.

Article: "Ted Cruz asks Houston cops to help him get out of airport as Texans rage over Cancun trip: report" by Brad Reed.

Article: "Ted Cruz flies economy back to Texas after Cancun vacation goes viral: flight records" by David Edwards.

Article: "The Stormy Daniels Hush-Money Case May Be Dead, But Trump Still Faces Legal Peril" by Russ Choma.

Article: "Frozen Wind Farms Are Just a Small Piece of Texas's Power Woes" by Will Wade, Naureen S. Malik and Brian Eckhouse.

Article: "Has privatization failed Texas utility customers?" by Eric L. Prentis.

Article: "Intense Cold Wave of February 2011" by Mike Hardiman.

Article: "Texas Was Warned a Decade Ago Its Grid Was Unready for Cold" by Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy.

Article: "Texas Interconnection" (grid) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Portland police officers 'guarding' Fred Meyer dumpsters as residents seek discarded food" by Jayati Ramakrishnan.

Article: "How and why a nuclear reactor shut down in Texas cold snap when energy was needed most" by Josh Siegel.

Article: "Trump Gives Deranged Interview On Fox & Claims He Won Election" by Caleb Newton.

Article: "Woodward book: Trump says he knew coronavirus was 'deadly' and worse than the flu while intentionally misleading Americans" by Robert Costa and Philip Rucker.

Article: "Sen. Ron Johnson plays down Capitol riots: 'This didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me'" by Tim Elfrink.

Site: Media Matters for America

Site: "The Righting.com".

Tweet: "Statement from Director of Communications for Sen. Ted Cruz" by blaire erskine.

Tweet: "What could @tedcruz do if he were here in Texas? I'm hard-pressed to say. If he's in Cancun, that means he's not using up valuable resources of energy, food and water that can now be used by someone else. This is probably the best thing he could do for the state right now" by Dinesh D'Souza.

Article: "Ted Cruz Asked Houston Cops to Escort Him to Cancun Flight as They Dealt With Storm Crisis" by Pilar Melendez.

Article: "ERCOT is in charge of Texas' power, but one-third of its board lives out of state" by Madlin Mekelburg.

Article: "How Does Bill Gates Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis?" by Bill McKibben.

Book: "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late" by Thom Hartmann

Article: "Newton, Iowa" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Bracket creep" by Wikipedia.

Hour Two: Is there any legitimacy to the Republican's complaint that Biden's Covid relief plan will bring inflation?
- Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Democracy At Work / Author of numerous books - his latest is The Sickness is the System

Article: "Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan up for a vote in the House next week." by Chris Sommerfeldt.

Article: "The risks of going too big on stimulus are real — but going too small could be riskier" by Emily Stewart.

Article: "Inflation" by Wikipedia.

Article: "1973 oil crisis" by Wikipedia.

Bill: "H.R.1 - For the People Act of 2021" by Rep. Sarbanes, John P. [D-MD-3].

Article: "You Paid Taxes. These Corporations Didn't" by Kathryn Kranhold.

Article: "Iowa winter weather: More record low temperatures in Des Moines" by Philip Joens.

Article: "Despite deep freeze, Iowa's largest utility is having no gas & electric supply trouble" by Radio Iowa.

Article: "Third World" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Second World" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Hookworm, a disease of extreme poverty, is thriving in the US south. Why?" by Ed Pilkington.

Article: "Why Does Louisiana Consistently Lead the Nation in Murders?" by Jeff Asher, Ben Horwitz and Toni Monkovic.

Article: "Bretton Woods system" by Wikipedia.

Article: "The Powell Memo or Powell Manifesto".

Article: "A Timeline Of Texas Chemical Plant Explosions And Legal Ramifications" by Laws 101.

Article: "Block grant (United States)" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Election technology company Dominion sues Giuliani for $1.3 billion over 'Big Lie' about election fraud" by Katelyn Polantz.

Article: "Dominion Voting sues Trump lawyer Powell for defamation, seeking $1.3 billion in damages" by Katelyn Polantz.

Article: "What's Really Killing Birds?" by Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder.

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

Article: "Silvio Berlusconi" by Wikipedia.

Hour Three: Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods
- Amelia Pang, Journalist of Uyghur descent. Author of Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America's Cheap Goods

Article: "It Took a Genocide for Me to Remember My Uighur Roots" by Amelia Pang.

Article: "How a handwritten SOS letter found inside a box of American Halloween decorations exposed China's re-education camps" by Tariq Tahir.

Article: "Falun Gong" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Gulag" by Wikipedia.

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."

Book: American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer.

Article: "War on Drugs" by Wikipedia.

Article: "The Countries With The Most Billionaires In 2020" by Jonathan Ponciano.

Article: "Foxconn suicides" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Han Chinese" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Uyghurs" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Uighurs: 'Credible case' China carrying out genocide" by James Landale.

Article: "Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act" by Wikipedia.

Article: "U.S. House revives bill to ban goods from China's Xinjiang" by Reuters.

Article: "Apple lobbying against Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Report" by Spencer Neale.

Article: "China: 83 major brands implicated in report on forced labour of ethnic minorities from Xinjiang assigned to factories across provinces; Includes company responses" by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.

Article: "The 1619 Project" by Wikipedia.

Article: "China–United States trade war" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Addressing Forced Labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Toward a Shared Agenda" by Amy K. Lehr.

Article: "Visualizing China's Trading Partners" by Irena.

Article: "Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi" by Wikipedia.

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

It's Anything Goes Friday!

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...

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

Price Gauging Power Companies Profit Off Storm (w/Adrian Shelley)

How Everything Went Wrong (w/Adrian Shelley)

Why Do Liberals Get Less Representation in Congress?

Did You Miss Democrats $3,600 Tax Credit? (w/ Markos Moulitsas)

Is Climate Change Bigger In Texas? (w/ Michael Mann)