Virtually every developed country in the world is running an economic stimulus program right now for small businesses. In almost every one of them, 100% or close to all of the money the government gives the companies must be given directly to employees.

The giant exception? The United States. Here, some of the largest recipients of government aid are politically connected to either the Trump family or the GOP, or have massive lobbying operations, and most of the money is administered by banks who are giving it to their best customers.

No other developed country in the world has the equivalent of the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that makes corporations into people and lets corporations and rich people buy politicians. Thus, we get headlines like in today's edition of Judd Legume's popular.info newsletter: "Multi-millionaire Trump donor is top recipient of funds intended for struggling small businesses."

Meanwhile, New Zealand announced today that they have "eliminated" the virus in their country through rapid and aggressive testing and contact tracing. Here in the United States, of course, we have the highest rate of infections and deaths in the world; we have 4.5% of the worlds population and about a quarter of the world's infections and deaths. Our Republican controlled Supreme Court has succeeded in turning America into the most corrupt major western country in the world, and every time our Republican-controlled Senate meets, they throw another few hundred billion dollars to their rich buddies. It's time for a political revolution.

-Thom

Donald Trump is rapidly becoming Herbert Hoover, the president in the 1920s who famously ignored the great depression and was replaced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

His campaign team thinks he has lost Michigan, and is worried about their ability to suppress the vote in Wisconsin and Florida.

Do you think Trump still has a chance to win in November? And what is this going to do to the broader Republican possibilities at both the federal and state level?

-Thom

Monday's Daily Stack

Article: "Black Death" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Spanish flu" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Fed Cut Back on Helicopter Money for Wall Street & the Wealthy" by Wolf Richter.

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

Article: "Multi-millionaire Trump donor is top recipient of funds intended for struggling small businesses" by Judd Legum.

Article: "New Zealand claims 'elimination' of coronavirus with new cases in single digits" by Anna Kam and Emma Reynolds.

Article: "World Leaders Launch Plan to Speed COVID-19 Drugs, Vaccine; U.S. Stays Away" by Reuters.

Article: "Coronavirus News: Pepcid being used in new coronavirus drug trial with anti-malaria drug" by Eyewitness News.

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

Book: "Unequal Protection: The Battle to Save Democracy" by Thom Hartmann (read online)

Book: "Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" - And How You Can Fight Back" by Thom Hartmann

Article: "Traditionalist School" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Sebastian Gorka" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Trump's Tea Party: Are right-wing "open the country" protests an AstroTurf operation?" by Sophia Tesfaye.

TV: "The Plot Against America" by HBO.

Article: "Trump campaign pessimistic about winning Michigan again" by Alex Isenstadt.

Article: "Electoral College" by Wikipedia.

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

Bill: "H.R.6407 - Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act" by Rep. Davis, Tom [R-VA-11].

Article: "'The Postal Service's financial losses result from "a 2006 law that drains $5 billion a year from post office revenue, while the Postal Service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts.'" by PolitiFact.

Article: "The Hayes-Tilden Electoral Commission" by James Monroe.

Book: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess the President by Dr. Bandy Lee.

Article: "Papoon for President" by Firesign Theatre.

Tweet: "Biden: He won't inject you with bleach" by W^JE^OB^EB.

Video: Bush: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job".

Article: "Michael D. Brown" by Wikipedia.

Article: "HHS chief Alex Azar chose a former labradoodle breeder with minimal public health experience to lead the department's coronavirus response" by Mia Jankowicz.

Book: Deep State: Trump, the FBI, and the Rule of Law by James B. Stewart.

Hour Two: Issues of the Day
- Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA, 17th District)

Article: "House Democrats propose $2,000 monthly payments to Americans" by Cristina Marcos.

Article: "Stock market just 16% off its high while a pandemic costs 26 million jobs" by Michael Santoli.

Site: National Popular Vote.

Article: "Virus relief bill would let Steve Mnuchin hand out $500 billion 'slush fund' to secret recipients: report" by David Edwards.

Article: "25th Amendment Section 4" "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President..."

Article: "Trump orders US troops out of Syria, declares victory over ISIS; senators slam action as mistake" by Tom Vanden Brook and David Jackson.

Article: "He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump's Failure on the Virus" by Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mazzetti and Julian E. Barnes.

Article: "Republic" by Plato.

Quote: "Enlightened Statesmen will Not Always be at the Helm" - James Madison.

Article: "Democracy dollars' can give every voter a real voice in American politics" by Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres.

Article: "Here's A Campaign Finance Law That Would Take Democracy Back From The 1 Percent" by Ro Khanna and Bruce Ackerman.

Article: "Double-Dip Recession" by Clay Halton.

Article: "The risk of a US double-dip depression is real" by Edward Luce.

Article: "Great Depression" by Wikipedia.

Article: "New Deal" by History.com.

Article: "CBO projects 39.6 percent quarterly GDP drop, $3.7T deficit" by Niv Elis.

Article: "Smithfield Foods" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Family separations at US border plagued by problems, watchdog finds".

Article: "The US is swiftly removing migrant children due to new coronavirus restrictions" by Priscilla Alvarez.

Article: "Three migrant children in US government custody test positive for coronavirus" by Priscilla Alvarez.

Article: "Judge orders release of migrant children" by Dennis Romero.

Article: "New York Becomes First State To Outright Cancel Presidential Primary" by Kate Riga.

Article: "Trump desperately tries to gaslight America as he faces humiliation from Lysol-gate" by Amanda Marcotte.

Article: "Trump says briefings not worth his time after disinfectant gaffe" by AFP.

Article: "White House press secretary backtracks and says Trump will hold Monday coronavirus briefing" by David Edwards.

Article: "California's More Than Dreamin' about Public Banks" by Oscar Perry Abello.

Article: "Bank of North Dakota" by Wikipedia.

Article: "3 Reasons You May Not Get a Stimulus Check -- No Matter What You Do" by Maurie Backman.

Article: "Fact-checking how many Trump relatives and friends are in the White House, administration" by Bill McCarthy.

Article: "President Trump is Legally Barred from Appointing His Family Members" by Rachel Stockman (or is he?).

Article: "Google claimed quantum supremacy in 2019 — and sparked controversy" by Emily Conover.

Article: "15th Amendment", February 3, 1870 "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"

Article: "19th Amendment "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Hour Three: How Oregon's Vote By Mail Could Be a Model For the National Effort
former OR State legislator & host/owner progressive radio XRAY-FM, Portland, OR

Article: "Vote-by-mail in Oregon" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Bus Project" by Wikipedia.

Book: Democracy In Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean.

Article: "U.S. coronavirus deaths: Tracking cases, deaths by state" by Joe Fox, Brittany Renee Mayes, Kevin Schaul and Leslie Shapiro.

Event: April 29. 5:30 - 6:30pm: "Thom Hartmann and XRAY".

Article: "To save our democracy, we must expand the Supreme Court" by Mondaire Jones.

Article: "2020 Dems warm to expanding Supreme Court" by Burgess Everett, Marianne Levine.

Site: Tracking COVID-19 - Johns Hopkins University.

Article: "Why Is COVID-19 Coronavirus Causing Strokes In Young And Middle-Aged People?" by Robert Glatter, MD.

Article: "Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics" by National Archives.

Article: "On 31 December 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City" by WHO.

Article: "'We Alerted The World' To Coronavirus On Jan. 5, WHO Says In Response To U.S." by Bill Chappell.

Article: "CDC: More than 9,000 health workers have tested positive for coronavirus" by Jessie Hellmann.

Article: "Coronavirus 'currently eliminated' in New Zealand" by BBC.

Article: "House lawmakers scramble back to Washington to vote on $484B relief bill" by Mariam Khan.

Article: "The Tax-Break Bonanza Inside the Economic Rescue Package" by Jesse Drucker.

Article: "How gyms lobbied their way into Phase One of Trump's reopening plan" by Michael Warren, Ellie Kaufman, Jasmine Wright and Caroline Kenny.

Article: "Reagan's Man For Education" (William Bennett) by Edward B. Fiske, December 22, 1985.

Article: "James G. Watt" by Wikipedia.

Video: Bush: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job".

Article: "Michael D. Brown" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Kushner Companies offloads troubled 666 Fifth Avenue flagship" by Julia Horowitz and Cristina Alesci.

Article: "Sonny Perdue" by Wikipedia.

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

Site: Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Federal Constitutional Court).

Article: "Bundesverfassungsgericht" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Joe Biden Accuser Says Time's Up 'Betrayed' Her: 'In That Hallway, He Was a Man Assaulting a Woman'" by Colin Kalmbacher.

Article: "Everything Is Awful. So Why Is the Stock Market Booming?" by Neil Irwin.

Article: "Fed to Buy Junk Bonds, Lend to States in Fresh Virus Support" by Christopher Condon, Rich Miller, and Craig Torres.

Book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

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

I'll be talking with Sylvia Albert, Director of Voting and Elections - Common Cause about Vote By Mail

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...

How Trump Stole 2020 (w/ Greg Palast)

Is This The End Of The Post Office? (w/ Mark Dimondstein)

Is The US Heading For Deflation or Depression? (w/ Richard Wolff)

Steve Bannon's New War For Eternity (w/ Benjamin Teitelbaum)