The Hartmann Report: The Supreme Court Sets Up American Oligarchy

[Joinfortmill]

https://hartmannreport.com/p/sunday-excerpt-the-hidden-history-1d4?


The Supreme Court Sets Up American Oligarchy
If you were looking for a date when our modern American oligarchy started, it would be January 30, 1976. It was a clear day in Washington, DC, the temperature well above freezing with a light wind.

When the Supreme Court handed down their decision in the case of Buckley v. Valeo, the New York Times noted in a front page article, “Campaign finance law in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and 32 other states will require drastic revision in the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court decision that struck down nearly all limits on campaign spending by candidates for Federal office.”

It was the first of a cascade of decisions that reached their peak in 2010 with Citizens United v. FEC.

[FreepFryer]

1. Russian intelligence, who supported Hartmann for years, also bears responsibility (Nt)

[flying_wahini]

3. Not really.

[gab13by13]

5. If Russian intelligence supported Thom Hartmann

he would be on prime time TV. Why do you think the oligarchs black ball him?

I disagree with almost nothing that Hartmann says.

[Budi]

9. He wasn't blackballed.

Ru State TV which is RT, made a profit with every viewer Hartmann's show brought them.

It was a Win Win for all in that contract.
Thanks for funding Vladimer Putin's RU State Media.
Cha-fking-ching $

[Manfred Arcane]

4. Why do you say that Russian intelligence...

supported Thom Hartmann? If true, that would be disappointing. Anyway, can you point me to a decent source? Thanks!

[Joinfortmill]

6. Who knew? So I found the connection to RT and Thom Hartmann

https://zims-en.kiwix.campusafrica.gos.orange.com/wikipedia_en_all_nopic/A/The_Big_Picture_with_Thom_Hartmann#:~:text=The%20Big%20Picture%20started%20in,exclusively%20on%20Free%20Speech%20TV.&text=While%20the%20show%20is%20licensed,editorial%20control%20over%20the%20program.

Trying to locate more info on this. I really like this guy, so this is a bit disappointing.

[Budi]

8. "Money & Media". What a gig, huh!

Snip
Over the next few years, more community TV stations and cable systems picked it up, and Hartmann moved to Washington, DC, taking both his radio show and The Big Picture with him.
With that move, he expanded the show to an hour, and also licensed the show to RT, partially in exchange for use of their television studios and facilities.
While the show is licensed to RT, it is entirely owned by Hartmann's company, which has contractual editorial control over the program. The editorial staff of the show are employees of Hartmann's company, while the TV production staff work for RT.

Snip
Until September 2011, RT personality Lucy Kafanov filled in for Hartmann when he was unavailable.

Snip
After hosting the program for seven years, Hartmann announced his departure as host on September 29, 2017. He introduced and interviewed the new host of the program, Holland Cooke.
*****

[appalachiablue]

12. Larry King also had a show on RT, and others. So...??

[Budi]

15. Yup, Larry King, Big Ed,..RU State Media made a killing on American viewers

Why DID they all sign on to the Big RU Global Media anyhow?
What was in it for them to trade air time for RU profits.

I'd like to see their contracts. Was messaging to a targeted audience part of that viewer draw for RU State Media?

All roads lead to Putin. And the lucrative contract they all signed was just too much to pass up in the name of integrity.

"Money & Media"

[mzmolly]

20. Totally

agree.

[Tommymac]

23. Thom is a member here. Why not message him to get his side.?

On edit: Thom speaks to this right here on DU.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017180466

"No one at RT has in any way influenced the content of this show."

Thom is a true American Patriot. I've met him and talked to him and he is the real deal.

I like these cornflakes.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

29. Used to listen to him

He would answer calls.
I got through twice. It was an honor to talk to
Thom directly.

He would dispatch rightwingers with thier own stupidity and if they tried to bully him,talk over him,or gaslight him..he warned them then hung up on them.

Our journalists need to stop letting wingnuts .bully the conversation.

warn them once then if they keep up that behavior,cut the mic,hang up or shut off thier feed.

Nobody should have to tolerate a bully.

[Tommymac]

30. OMG yes. Some of the best memories of his show I have are him hanging up on callers.

He did it so elegantly.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

31. Elegantly

Yeah he did,no excuses,or bullshit.

Warned once,than click,next.

[Timewas]

2. I believe

And may be in error but congress could pass other laws in order to negate these decisions... But they won't because they love the power and money this makes possible

[Budi]

7. Yet when Candidate Clinton warned us of the SC, & vowed to end CU & install the Fainess Doctrine,

....where were you Mr Hartmann? Bottom lines would seriously be affected across the spectrum of Big Billion $$$ Global Corporate Media.
Which Hartmann himself signed a big contract with.

Now the bloggers of then are 'concerned'?
Wasn't even a mention when it was all on the line, was it.

Hollow words at this point. 👎

[appalachiablue]

10. Related,

Corporate Sedition Is More Damaging To America Than The Capitol Attack, Robert Reich, Jan. 16, 2022.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016311212

[Budi]

17. Its not one or the other, Mr Reich. It is the same damned thing.

You'd think multimillionare Mr Reich would know this, rather than inventing a new word to seperate the fact that Corporate WAS J6.

Don't fking diminish the act of J6 by drawing the blame to a new made up word.

They are the same thing

[JohnnyRingo]

13. Damn Hartmann put up a paywall near the very end.

Teased me with most of the article then ripped it from me with a demand for cash. I figure "why not?" and clicked subscribe. Eighty bucks a year! To read one man's blog? Who is he, Netflix? I subscribe to Daily Beast and all the authors there for half that.
This new ala carte method of bleeding the public on a monthly basis has to be limited. It's getting to where there's a toll booth on every mile of the Information Superhighway. And when will they start shipping TVs with card readers on the side so I can just swipe for every show I want to watch?

Tom Hartmann can rant, so can I.

[Budi]

18. Thank you. What was his Russian State Media Contract worth?

Dashed off to DC to set up shop on RT before the ink was dry.
Cha-Ching$$

[Grasswire2]

22. you expect people to work for free?

I pay $4 a month to WaPo. And $4 a month to NYT. And something -- don't even know the amount -- to Seth Abramson. And more. And whatever it is that Hartmann charges. And Esquire for Charlie Pierce. This is their work. Why should they work for free?

[JohnnyRingo]

27. My overall point was I can't afford to pay for every click I make

And he's way overpriced or I would have paid it. I do like him so I did click the subscribe button to see what he wanted, but when I saw how much, it wasn't affordable by any measure of accounting.

I'm a star member here so I obviously pay for some things, but if I have to pay for each and every opinion on the internet that I can afford, I'd be done surfing in about an hour. I pay half as much for Daily Beast but I get a lot more for my money than one guy's 2 cents. In his case it's his $80.

When does this ala carte money grab end? Do you also pay for dozens of cable TV channels, one at a time? Peacock, HBO Plus, Motor Trend +, Disney, Paramount, Hulu, Netflix, DIY Plus. Why can't they settle for payment from my $200 a month Spectrum bill?

Work for free?! Are we headed toward paying each individual artist who plays music on Pandora? "Do you want to add Springsteen or The Rolling Stones to your Sirius package for an extra $50 each per year?". Where is the line?

[Grasswire2]

28. to each his own

I don't have much of any of the services you mention, so I guess a few subscriptions to print are a lot cheaper. I appreciate you sharing your point of view.

Sirius? All the music I want (and I want a lot) is on youtube.

Cable? I use a firestick and share the fees for netflix or whatever with another family member. I can watch MSNBC streaming on the Internet, if I choose to (much less now with Brian gone).

My subscriptions are WaPo, NYT, Esquire for Charlie Pierce, Seth Abramson, Thom, David Corn at Mother Jones, and Atlantic for David Frum. Oh, and I have a print subscription to Harper's.

So I guess I can't relate.

[marble falls]

32. Just a bit nasty? Not everybody is you.

[Kid Berwyn]

14. He is correct.

“Money trumps peace.” — George w Bush, installed President of the United States by 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2000.

[KS Toronado]

16. Could Biden issue an executive order that could chip away at this problem?

I realize executive orders can't be used for everything, but could it require all donated money must have
a donors name attached? FailedCoupGuy used a lot of executive orders, why can't we?

[certainot]

19. nope. democracy can regulate money in politics but every time democrats try to regulate it we

get undone by a few hundred racist liars on 1500 corporate think-tank-coordinated radio stations. not onlly do we let at least 87 major universities endorse their fascism with the hard work of their student athletes, we don't even fucking poll for it so we continue to analyze american politics as if studying fish without water

we also let limbaugh and sons attack anita hill and christine blasey ford and their families for weeks to get those twa ssacks of shit on the court. and all the other cons on the court today owe their seats to 30 years of unchallenged lying.

and hartmann is radio, but the fatalism of going back to 1976 as if it was inevitable is a big mistake and the kind of thing that russian trolls do to get people depressed

with limbaugh rotting and artificial intelligence making all that talk easily digitizable and identifyable with it's advertisers it's very vulnerable and democrats can easily stop this astounding stupidity, incompetence, and irresponsibility of ignoring the very thing kicking our ass for 3 decades.

[Grasswire2]

21. Thom is a DU member.

Some here sound very much like Thom's crowd of RW harassers.

I've encountered the RW-ers as they respond to his twitter feed. Bitter, nasty RIGHT WINGERS.

They hate him because he speaks truth to power. And continues to do so.

Gotta wonder what's going on when abusive, disgusting RW nuts are part of the same protest as some DUers.

Someone(s) spend a lot of energy deflecting the message.

[Tommymac]

24. Here is Thom's Response to RT - from 2014 right here.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017180466

[Grasswire2]

25. thanks for that -- I had not seen it. nt

[Tommymac]

26. Very Welcome.