Saturday Report 9/21/24 - Norway does what we could’ve done if we’d listened to scientists instead of the lies from the fossil fuel industry and the politicians it purchased...
The Best of the Rest of the News
— Caution: We are entering the desperation phase of the Trump campaign. Trump and Vance have moved into their carrot/stick phase, offering both wild tax cut gifts to working class people (tips, Social Security, overtime) and also threatening people if he doesn’t win. Most recently, Trump claimed this week (at a workshop on antisemitism, no less) that if he wasn’t elected this fall it’ll be the fault of American Jews who are “disloyal” to both him and Israel. Add that to his and Vance’s attempt to get people killed in Springfield, Ohio, and you have naked desperation on display. And it’ll only get worse as we get closer to the election; there’s still about six weeks go to and it’s hard to imagine them getting any more racist and hyperbolic, but it’s an easy prediction. Who will be the next target of their slanders and blood libels? I’m betting on Hispanics, now that they’ve managed to threaten both Black immigrants and Jews. On top of that, the government will shut down on October 1 if funding legislation isn’t passed; as I wrote Thursday, Trump and Mike Johnson tried to attach a bill that would have prevented millions of married women from voting, but Democrats defeated it. What’s next and who’s next? What do you think?
— Why didn’t the Teamsters union endorse Kamala? Could it be racism? Teamster’s Union President Sean O’Brien had a featured speaking slot at the Republican convention, so it’s possible all that adoration simply went to his head. Or maybe it has to do with a Black woman running for president. Or it could be that truckers — many teamsters are truckers (their original cohort) — listen to a lot of talk radio while they’re driving and in most parts of America, without SiriusXM, the only talk radio fare is hate talk radio. There’s virtually no place in America where you can’t easily find a strong signal with hate talk on it; the billionaires who own our major radio station chains have seen to that, and their efforts during the 1980s and 1990s were particularly focused on flipping low-population states red. State Teamsters units in Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, and New York bucked O’Brien’s diktat and endorsed the Harris/Walz ticket rather than going with Trump, who recently praised Elon Musk for firing workers who try to unionize. Any union endorsing any Republican is a bizarre thing; Republicans have been fighting unions ever since they were legalized with the Wagner Act in 1935.
— GOP claiming they never heard of North Carolina Lt. Governor and gubenatorial candidate Mark Robinson? Say what?! This is how Republicans deal with losers, and they know that Robinson — after word came out that he calls himself a “Black Nazi,” wants to “buy a few slaves,” and loves porn — is going to lose. While Democrats are posting pictures of Republicans embracing Robinson (Trump compared him to MLK), Republicans are busy repudiating him. For example, Jesse Waters, who’d hosted Robinson for a nice tongue-bath on his Fox show, said, “Never heard of him.” This is, as I wrote yesterday, exactly how I suspect Republicans will be treating Trump if he loses in a big way this fall. So, we all need to get to work to make that happen!
— How Georgia is laying the groundwork for chaos on election day. The Georgia state elections board just authorized a hand-count of every ballot in the state, a process that could take days or even weeks, in an effort to throw a monkey wrench into this fall’s election. On top of that, the vote vigilantes are running on hyperdrive, as Greg Palst points out in his new film. I strongly encourage you to take 80 minutes to watch this dramatic, shocking, horrifying, and enlightening film, Vigilantes, Inc. It’s produced by Martin Sheen and George DiCaprio.You can find it at https://saveyourvote.org. It’ll only be free for a few weeks…
— A report finds the US healthcare system ranks dead last compared with peer nations. The Commonwealth Fund did a survey of the world’s top ten nations and their ability to deliver healthcare to their citizens. Looking at the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, Sweden and Switzerland, the Fund discovered that even though we spend twice as much as any other country on healthcare, almost all of that extra money is going to enrich industry executives and investors. As a result, America is dead last in four out of five dimensions of healthcare (access to care, health equity, care process, administrative efficiency and outcomes). As I detailed at length in The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich, Americans have the worst outcomes, the highest death and disease rates, and the worst infant and maternal mortality in the developed world. And racism and profit-seeking (greed) account for almost all of it. We need a law defining healthcare as a right rather than a privilege, and a Supreme Court that will back it up.
— Geeky Science! Norway does what we could’ve done if we had listened to scientists instead of the lies from the fossil fuel industry and the politicians it purchased. The Scandinavian nation is the first in the world to have more electric vehicles on its roads than gas-powered cars, in large part because the country invested heavily in a network of charging stations and provides substantial tax cuts and other subsidies to purchasers of EVs. We could (and should) have done the same thing here in America fifty years ago when our biggest oil companies’ scientists warned them that their product was causing disastrous global warming. Instead, though, those companies invested billions in lying to us and buying Republican judges and politicians. It’s a crime that will hit our grandchildren hardest, and for which the industry’s executives should pay. Will they? Not likely; we rarely hold rich white men to account in America. But one can dream…
— Errata: yesterday‘s newsletter said Joe Manchin had authored a piece of legislation to hurt voting rights. He did not, and I have removed that sentence from the article. Apologies for that. He did, however, refuse to go along with breaking the GOP filibuster that was preventing passage of legislation that would’ve guaranteed voting rights.
— Hunters in a Farmer’s World Alert: Distracted by Design: The ADHD Brain in a Modern Maze. How primitive instincts clash with modern demands—and three people who reclaimed focus and success.
— Wisdom School Alert: Unlock Your Inner Superhero: The Life-Changing Power of Lucid Dreaming. Discover how to take control of your dreams, heal trauma, and unleash limitless creativity while you sleep.
I would love a network of EV charging stations like Norway. Why is it that the Scandinavian countries are usually ahead of the game in terms of societal development and design! If nationality were a free agency game, I think I’d choose one of them. But also committed to staying here and supporting this nation with equal and sometimes greater potential for human achievement and development!
Cool article on the lucid dreaming. I’ve also taken to more intentionally sleeping on my side after learning about the brain’s washing machine called the glymphatic system. Naturally find myself waking up on my right side, so there is probably some unconscious beneficial reason for that:
https://mccormickmd.substack.com/p/is-there-a-better-head-position-for
Hartmann Saturday Report is the BEST weekly there is. If I could only read one, this would absolutely be it. Hoping more people share and spread the news - we need it now more than ever.