America needs to talk about Trump-proofing democracy for 2024 and beyond.

The billionaires with strong fascistic tendencies are carefully watching Trump and his administration to see what works and what doesn't as he pushes to tear apart our institutions of governance and divide America as a political strategy.

He has already revealed a number of areas where our rule of law is sadly deficient, including the ability to hold a president to account for crimes he has committed while in office and how much damage a president can do by putting lobbyists in charge of almost every federal agency.

Read more here.

-Thom

Wednesday's Daily Stack

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

Article: "How Jared Kushner's Secret Testing Plan "Went Poof Into Thin Air"" by Katherine Eban.

Article: "PPP failed to get money where it was most needed" by Dion Rabouin.

Article: "Postal Workers Say Wednesday Is the Last Day Portlanders Can Mail in Their Ballots With Confidence They'll Be Counted" by Tess Riski.

Bill: "S.2733 - TRUST Act" by Sen. Romney, Mitt [R-UT] .

Letter: "To Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy about TRUST Act" by National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Alliance for Retired Americans, Social Security Works.

Article: "McConnell's COVID Response: Cut Social Security" by Social Security Works.

Article: "Problem Solvers Caucus" by Wikipedia.

Video: Trump's Committee To Unleash Poverty Attacks Social Security (w/ Stephen Moore).

Article: "Pocan Launches Bipartisan Rural Broadband Caucus" by Mark Pocan.

Article: "Clyburn, Rural Broadband Task Force And House Democrats Introduce Accessible, Affordable Internet For All Act" by James E. Clyburn.

Article: "Trump encounters broad pushback to his suggestion to delay the Nov. 3 election" by Amy Gardner, Josh Dawsey and John Wagner.

Quote: "I think we can be optimistic, perhaps, that we're going to have probably a less significant flu season than we anticipated. Flu isn't epidemic in the Southern Hemisphere, and maybe we've found a happy medium between strict lockdowns and just letting this spread unfettered. And we have found sort of the middle ground that will keep this at bay. When you look at certain states like Connecticut and some others as well, I just happen to be familiar with Connecticut, where they've taken a mix of options to keep this at bay, targeted mitigation with universal masking." - Scott Gottlieb.

Article: "House Defeats Amendment To Cut Defense Spending Levels by 10%" by Eric Garris.

Article: "An Economic Survival Package, Not a Stimulus Package" by Dean Baker.

Article: "Mitch McConnell's corporate immunity demand condemned as 'license to turn storefronts and factories and offices into death traps'" by Jake Johnson.

Article: "GOP tucks $8 billion for military weaponry in coronavirus bill" by AP.

Article: "Why Offer Food Stamps When People Can Have The 3-Martini Lunch?" by Erik Sherman.

Book: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy by Stephanie Kelton.

Article: "Drain the swamp? Trump has named more lobbyists to Cabinet than Bush or Obama did in 8 years" by Igor Derysh.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

Case: "First National Bank Of Boston V. Bellotti", 1978

Law: "Patriot Act", 2001.

Article: "The Powell Memo or Powell Manifesto".

Article: "Guantanamo Bay detention camp" by Wikipedia.

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

Article: "Coronavirus: Trump suspends travel from Europe to US" by BBC.

Article: "Americans returning from abroad face hours-long lines at US airports for coronavirus screening" by Leslie Josephs.

Article: "Trump never actually banned flights from China or Europe. Why?" by Ethan Epstein.

Article: "Entire second-grade class in Georgia school forced into COVID quarantine after just one day" by Brad Reed.

Article: "Trump says schools should reopen because children are 'virtually immune'" by David Jackson.

Tweet: "OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!!" by Donald J. Trump.

Article: "Clergy and Religious Leaders Gather to Support Black Lives Matter Protesters and Moms United for Black Lives" by Portland Interfaith Clergy Resistance.

Article: "NEW: According to a groundbreaking report, boy wonder Jared Kushner advised Trump to let coronavirus ravage our country because he thought it would only kill people in Blue States. Jared and Donald wanted to use the pandemic to unleash mass death on their political enemies and then use it as an election talking point. Make no mistake, this is a criminal act and the Trump family needs to be prosecuted for mass murder." by The Other 98%.

Article: "How Jared Kushner's Secret Testing Plan "Went Poof Into Thin Air"" by Katherine Eban.

Article: "Public Citizen, Scientists: Gilead and Federal Scientists Have Neglected a Potentially Promising COVID-19 Antiviral Drug" by Public Citizen.

Article: "Deep red Missouri becomes 38th state to approve Medicaid expansion under Obamacare" by Summer Ballentine.

Article: "Cori Bush Defeats William Lacy Clay in a Show of Progressive Might" by Nicholas Fandos.

Article: "Rashida Tlaib Cruises to Victory in a Primary Rematch" by Luke Broadwater.

Tweet: "In advance of the classified briefing I'll hear later today, I reviewed classified documents this morning. They are chilling. Declassify this information. Americans deserve & need to know about ongoing foreign interference (even sabotage) in our election system." by Richard Blumenthal.

Article: "State Department's Acting Watchdog Abruptly Resigns Months After Predecessor's Ouster" by Matthew Lee.

Article: "Trump fires TVA chair, cites hiring of foreign workers" by Zeke Miller.

Article: "TVA: From the New Deal to a New Century" by Tennessee Valley Authority.

Article: "TVA defies Trump, votes to shut down two aging coal-fired power plants" by Steven Mufson.

Article: "Trump Tweet Fails To Save Kentucky Coal-Fired Power Plant" by Jeff Brady.

Site: IRS.

Site: Congress.gov.

Hour Three: New Progressive Campaign to "Vote Trump Out" in Swing States
- Jeff Cohen, Founder - Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting and co-founder - Roots Action / Media critic & Lecturer / founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College where he is an associate professor of journalism /author, most recently, of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media / former senior producer-MSNBC's Phil Donahue program

Article: "Vote Trump Out - National Endorsers".

Twitter: "#votetrumpout".

Site: Vote Trump Out.

Video: A message to the swing states from Noam Chomsky.

Article: "Gerrymandering" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Michelle Obama says she's dealing with 'low-grade depression' because of COVID-19, racial strife, and the Trump administration" by John Haltiwanger.

Article: "Russia Says 'We Will Do What We Want' If U.S. Moves Troops Closer to Border" by Tom O'Connor.

Article: "Chicago Boys" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Florida Health Authorities Often Fail To Do Contact Tracing" by CBSMiami/CNN.

Article: "Trump Says Surging Virus 'Will Go Away Like Things Go Away'" by Bloomberg.

Article: "Gold prices pass $2,000 and Bank of America sees $3,000 on the horizon" by Dion Rabouin.

Article: "Fed's Main Street lending inches up as balance sheet holds above $7 trillion" by Reuters.

Article: "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" by Saul McLeod.

Article: "Drive-thru voting" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Jesus and the Pharisees" by Bible History.

Article: "Liberty University student unloads on Jerry Falwell Jr's hypocrisy after bizarre yacht party photos emerge" by Sky Palma.

Article: "The Saga of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Bizarre Relationship With a Miami Beach Pool Boy, Explained" by Ryan Bort.

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

Video: Residents using drive-thru voting option for Primary Election.

Article: "Benson: Take Michigan ballot to clerk or drop box so it's counted" by AP.

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

Science Revolution: Electric utilities' corruption problem is much bigger than what's going on in Ohio - Professor Leah Stokes Assistant Professor-Department of Political Science | Bren School of Environmental Science & Management | Environmental Studies Department-University of California Santa Barbara

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

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Tue, Aug 25, 5pm PT: Powell's virtual bookstore event
- Thom Hartmann in Conversation With David Korten.

Get Tickets here for the Livestream event