Donald Trump says, "The people of our country should think of themselves as warriors. Our country has to open."

So, first he ignored the coronavirus for months and didn't do any planning or preparation. Then he threw responsibility for dealing with it to the individual states and told them they're on their own. Now he tells you and me that we're supposed to be the soldiers who are willing to die in a battle that he doesn't want to fight.

All of Trump's efforts now are being directed toward turning the money machine of the economy back on for his billionaire buddies and the stock market, because he thinks that's what will get him reelected. He's willing to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of us to accomplish that. And he is betting that we will be willing to go along with being involuntarily drafted for his war to help his billionaire buddies.

Did you volunteer for this draft? Are you willing to die to get Donald Trump reelected?

-Thom

Wednesday's Daily Stack

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

Article: "Pelosi floats almost $1T for states in next relief package" by Mike Lillis.

Article: "Democrats scrap plans to vote this week on historic rule change to allow remote voting" by Jennifer Haberkorn.

Article: "Trump says it's safe to reopen states, while Birx finds protesters with no masks or distancing 'devastatingly worrisome'" by Marisa Iati, Meryl Kornfield, Siobhán O'Grady, Hannah Knowles, Ruby Mellen, Candace Buckner and Samantha Pell.

Law: "Taft-Hartley Labor Act", 1947.

Article: "31% Can't Pay the Rent: 'It's Only Going to Get Worse'" by Conor Dougherty.

Article: "Underfunded, understaffed and under siege: Unemployment offices nationwide are struggling to do their jobs" by Tony Romm.

Article: "U.S. companies cut thousands of workers while continuing to reward shareholders during pandemic" by Peter Whoriskey.

Article: "National Nurses Day - May 6".

Article: "How contact tracing can help the U.S. get control over coronavirus" by Laura Santhanam.

Article: "State hiring people to do contact tracing for coronavirus" (WI) by FOX 11 News.

Article: "American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC) by SourceWatch.

Article: "Meet Mark Pocan, the Original ALEC Spy" by Molly Redden.

Article: "Coronavirus relief: USDA to buy $470 million in surplus food for donation" by Janine Puhak.

Article: "Why haven't I gotten my stimulus check? 6 reasons your payment might be a no-show" by Andrew Keshner.

Article: "Venezuela: captured US mercenary claims he planned to abduct Maduro" by Tom Phillips and Julian Borger.

Article: "GOP lawsuit to block Tony Evers' order to stay home in hands of Supreme Court" by Molly Beck.

Article: "Gov. Evers announces steps to make Wisconsin a leader in COVID-19 testing per capita" by Logan Rude.

Hour Two: A Mental Health Professional on #Cult45
- Steven "Steve" Hassan. M.Ed, LMHC, NCC Expert on undue influence, brainwashing & unethical hypnosis / Author of 3 books...latest is, The Cult of Trump (his 2 previous books: Combating Cult Mind Control, Freedom of Mind)

Article: "Cult expert Steven Hassan: Trump's "mind control cult" now faces an existential crisis" by Chauncey Devega.

Article: "Doomsday cults using coronavirus pandemic as recruiting tool, expert says" by Morgan Loew.

Article: "The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions" by George Packer.

Article: "Mike Pence" by Wikipedia.

Book: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet.

Book: C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy by Jeff Sharlet.

TV: "The Family".

Article: "Opus Dei" by Wikipedia.

Article: "New Apostolic Reformation" by Wikipedia.

Facebook: "Many in the left-leaning media want to project the worse-case scenarios relating to COVID-19..." by Franklin Graham.

Article: "Trump Falsely Claims He Inherited 'Empty' Stockpile" by D'Angelo Gore.

Article: "Exclusive: U.S. slashed CDC staff inside China prior to coronavirus outbreak" by Marisa Taylor.

Article: "A new investigation reveals Trump ignored experts on Covid-19 for months" by Aja Romano.

Article: "Trump looks to wind down coronavirus task force as early as this month, Pence says" by David Jackson, John Fritze and Michael Collins.

Article: "Manchurian Candidate" by Dictionary.com.

Article: "John Ratcliffe, Trump's Pick for Intelligence Chief, Follows a Slew of QAnon Accounts" by Spencer Ackerman, Will Sommer.

Article: "Trolls and bots are flooding social media with disinformation encouraging states to end quarantine" by Thor Benson.

Article: "Death toll could hit 350,000 by end of June if all states lift lockdown restrictions, new COVID-19 model predicts" by Emily Crane.

Article: "Coronavirus Latest: New University Of Penn Model Predicts 350,000 Deaths By End Of June If All States Fully Reopen" by Matt Petrillo.

Article: "Cuomo: Data shows most new COVID-19 patients in New York are at home and not working" by Sarah Lynch Baldwin.

Article: "Arizona officials tell university researchers to 'pause' COVID-19 modeling - just as governor lifts lockdown" by Matthew Chapman.

Article: "Arizona state health department tells modeling team to stop work" by Melissa Blasius.

Article: "Trump calls Americans 'warriors' in fight to open the economy" by Chris Megerian.

Documentary: The Brainwashing Of My Dad by Jen Senko.

Article: "Nanking Massacre" (Rape of Nanking) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Comfort women" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp" by Wikipedia.

Article: "U.S. Personal Debt - Statistics & Facts" by M. Szmigiera.

Article: "40% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency expense" by Anna Bahney.

Article: "Eerie Emptiness Of ERs Worries Doctors: Where Are The Heart Attacks And Strokes?" by Will Stone, Elly Yu.

Article: "Affluenza" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Retiring as a Judge, Trump's Sister Ends Court Inquiry Into Her Role in Tax Dodges" by Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.

Article: "US Supreme Court to hear Trump taxes case in May" by PTI.

Article: "The Supreme Court hears the biggest presidential immunity cases since Nixon" by Ian Millhiser.

Article: "Inflation" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Deflation" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Dr. Rand Paul: National Right to Work Act Stands Up for All American Workers" by Rand Paul.

Article: "A return to 1970s stagflation is only a broken supply chain away" by Stephen Roach.

Book: "The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America--and What We Can Do to Stop It" by Thom Hartmann

Article: "Superdelegate" by Wikipedia.

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.

Hour Three: Who Should be the Dem's Vice President?
Bill Press, Host - The Bill Press Pod (wherever you get your podcasts) / Find his weekly column at The Hill / Author of 10 books, including most recently "Trump Must Go"

Article: "Brokered convention" by Wikipedia.

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

Article: "Bernie Sanders endorses Joe Biden for president" by Lauren Gambino.

Article: "Elizabeth Warren endorses Joe Biden for president as Democrats unite" by Lauren Gambino.

Article: "Warren calls Biden's denial of sexual assault claim 'credible' and 'convincing,' says she proudly supports him" by Alexander Bolton.

Article: "Elizabeth Warren" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Kamala Harris" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Amy Klobuchar" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Stacey Abrams" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Thomas Eagleton" by Wikipedia.

Article: "'Mission Accomplished': Report of White House Considering 'Winding Down' Coronavirus Task Force Ignites Fury" by Josh Feldman.

Quote: "And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done" - Donald J. Trump.

Quote: "It's going to disappear. One day - it's like a miracle - it will disappear" - Donald J. Trump.

Quote: "They tried the impeachment hoax... And this is their new hoax" - Donald J. Trump.

Article: "US alerted Israel, NATO to disease outbreak in China in November - TV report" by Times of Israel.

Site: Tracking COVID-19 - Johns Hopkins University.

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

Article: "Shadow (psychology)" by Carl Jung.

Article: "12th Amendment"

Article: "Could Trump Use the Virus to Stay in Power?" by David A. Super.

Article: "The ugly truth" by Judd Legum.

Tweet: "The USA will not recover from the Trump admin, the COVID-19 outbreak & its reverberating disasters. What emerges after is not certain but anyone thinking that there will be a "return to normal" is not grasping the magnitude of this situation." by Bree Newsome Bass.

Article: "Fed Chair Powell Has Upwards of $11.6 Million Invested with BlackRock, the Firm that Will Manage a $750 Billion Corporate Bond Bailout Program for the Fed" by Pam Martens and Russ Martens.

Article: "Trump inauguration: President vows to end 'American carnage'" by BBC.

Article: "President Trump Says Next Stimulus Package Must Have Payroll Tax Cut" by Jim Wang.

Tweet: "... The elimination of Sanctuary Cities, Payroll Taxes, and perhaps Capital Gains Taxes, must be put on the table. Also lawsuit indemnification & business deductions for restaurants & ent." by Donald J. Trump.

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

Book: The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "America is an oligarchy, not a democracy or republic, university study finds" by Cheryl K. Chumley.

Article: "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page.

Article: "Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva" by Wikipedia.

Case: "Brown v. Board Of Education", 1954 (Segregation in public schools) (overturned Plessy v. Ferguson).

Article: "William Barber II" by Wikipedia.

Site: Rising Up with Sonali.

Quote: "A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic" - attributed to Joseph Stalin.

Article: "Trump's covid-19 inaction killed Americans. Here's a counter that shows how many." by Eugene Jarecki

Site: Trump Death Clock.

Article: "'Live and Let Die' blasted out as Trump toured a coronavirus mask factory without covering his face" by Mia Jankowicz.

Article: "Defense Production Act" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Kushner coronavirus effort said to be hampered by inexperienced volunteers" by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Ashley Parker.

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

I'll be talking with Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Co-founder, Democracy At Work / Author of numerous books including Understanding Marxism and his latest, Understanding Socialism.

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 Nuclear Lobbing Almost Lost Us Our Democracy (w/ Kevin Kamps)