As I pointed out in my book "The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment," the reason the Second Amendment was written and passed was to protect the slave patrols of Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia.

In most cases, the slave patrols were volunteer vigilante groups, drawing from the population of local farmers and other white people whose economic survival depended on the larger plantations.

In other words, they were civilian vigilantes, whose main job was to suppress any possibility of Black uprisings.

That same Second Amendment did his work yesterday in Kenosha, Wisconsin when a white vigilante shot and killed two people just after police had given him a bottle of water and thanked him for showing up.

Read more here.

-Thom

Wednesday's Daily Stack

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

Article: "What Is The Hatch Act? Trump's Campaign Accused Of Breaking Federal Law" by Nicole Massabrook.

Law: "Hatch Act of 1939" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Shooting of Jacob Blake" by Wikipedia.

Article: "2 shot dead, 1 injured in Kenosha: Police looking for man with long gun after third night of Jacob Blake protests" by N'dea Yancey-Bragg, Patrick Marley and Sarah Volpenhein.

Article: "RNC 2020 Day 2: Melania Trump headlines from Rose Garden, Pompeo spoke from overseas trip" by Libby Cathey and Lauren King.

Article: "Katie Porter Reveals Just How Little Louis DeJoy Knows About the Mail" by Abigail Weinberg.

Article: "Former top Postal Service official testifies Mnuchin and White House were involved in slowing mail" by Kathryn Watson.

Article: "Mark Pocan leads call from House Dems to oust postmaster general Louis DeJoy over mail delays" by Oren Oppenheim.

Article: "After video shows Wisconsin police shooting a Black man multiple times, National Guard is called to Kenosha" by Jaclyn Peiser, Mark Berman, Mark Guarino, Paulina Firozi and Griff Witte.

Article: "We need to plan now in case Trump loses in November - but refuses to leave the White House" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "12th Amendment"

Article: "The Camden solution" by John Fund.

Article: "Rand Paul stalls bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime" by David Smith.

Bill: "H.R.35 - Emmett Till Antilynching Act" by Rep. Rush, Bobby L. [D-IL-1].

Article: "The state of the U.S. Postal Service in 8 charts" by Drew Desilver, Katherine Schaeffer.

Article: "Trump's payroll tax cut would 'terminate' Social Security, critics say" by Lorie Konish.

Bill: "H.R.860 - Social Security 2100 Act" by Rep. Larson, John B. [D-CT-1].

Article: "National debt of the United States" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory" by Jude Wanniski.

Article: "How the Republican Party Has Conned America for Over 30 Years" (two Santa Claus theory) by Thom Hartmann.

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

Video: The Yuge Republican Lie About the Deficit | Robert Reich.

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

Article: "Joe Kennedy III" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Ed Markey" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Edward Markey" by BallotPedia.

Article: "Joseph Kennedy III" by BallotPedia.

Article: "Wildly overdrawn': Kennedy-Markey race becomes referendum on who is the real progressive" by Victoria McGrane.

Article: "Ocasio-Cortez Plans Bill to Boost Top Individual Tax Rate to 59%" by Bloomberg News.

Article: "The Republican tax bill got worse: now the top 1% gets 83% of the gains" by Dylan Matthews.

Site: Progressive Caucus.

Book: The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "The Second Amendment Was Ratified to Preserve Slavery" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "3 Shot, 2 Fatally, In Kenosha, Wis., As Protests Continue Over Police Shooting" by Brakkton Booker.

Article: "Kenosha Shooting Video Shows Gunman Open Fire On Protesters, Then Walk Calmly Past Police" by Khaleda Rahman.

Article: "Armed locals keep shooting at Black activists marching from Milwaukee to DC" by Travis Gettys.

Article: "CDC was pressured 'from the top down' to change coronavirus testing guidance, official says" by Nick Valencia, Sara Murray and Kristen Holmes.

Article: "Fannie Lou Hamer" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Medgar Evers" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Martin Luther King Jr." by Wikipedia.

Article: "Here's a list of Trump's ex-associates who have faced charges" by Kevin Breuninger.

Article: "The Lincoln Project" by Wikipedia.

Tweet: "I really don't care what the green-card trophy wife who married the president for his money, recoils at his touch, never smiles in his presence, refuses to share his bedroom and fully expected she'd be a widow by now has to say, do u" by Jeff Tiedrich.

Tweet: "Swing state polls on August 25th:
Pennsylvania
• 2016: Hillary +9.2
• 2020: Biden +5.7
Michigan
• 2016: Hillary +9.0
• 2020: Biden +6.7
Wisconsin
• 2016: Hillary +11.5
• 2020: Biden +6.5
Florida
• 2016: Hillary +2.9
• 2020: Biden +4.8
[link]" by Frank Luntz.

Article: "Asteroid that will zip past earth on November 2 a sign of apocalypse, claims Biblical preacher" by Nirmal Narayanan.

Article: "Kenosha gunman Kyle Rittenhouse arrested for murder after cops let him flee out of state" by Travis Gettys.

Article: "The Trump campaign offered actors $50 each to cheer him on at his 2015 presidential-campaign announcement." by Bethania Palma.

Article: "Hundreds of thousands of seniors may not be able to vote in November - here's why" by Pro Publica.

Article: "House Democrats Propose Widespread Student Loan Forgiveness Due To Coronavirus" by Adam S. Minsky, Esq.

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

Article: "14th Amendment, July 9, 1868 (citizenship, representatives, public debt, Equal Protection Clause)

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

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

Article: "Jacob Blake paralyzed by police shooting, father says" by Bill Hutchinson and Sabina Ghebremedhin.

Article: "Constitution of the United States" Article 2 section 1. "The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." (domestic emoluments clause).

Article: "Trump Must Turn Over Tax Returns to D.A., Judge Rules" by Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum.

Article: "The Trump DC hotel's possibly illegal lease and massive ethical problems, explained" by Libby Nelson.

Article: "Taxpayers Spent $1.5 Million on President Obama's Personal and Political Use of Air Force One Over Labor Day Weekend" by Samuel Smith.

Article: "COINTELPRO" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Sturmabteilung" (Brownshirts).

Article: "Sturmabteilung" (SA, Storm Troopers, Brownshirts) by Shoah Resource Center.

Article: "In the Brazilian Amazon, a sharp drop in coronavirus sparks questions over collective immunity" by Terrence McCoy and Heloísa Traiano.

Article: "Drop in Brazilian coronavirus cases prompts herd immunity questions" by Julia Musto.

Article: "Herd immunity" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Live updates: CDC says not all close contacts need to get tested after coronavirus exposure, alarming experts" by Antonia Noori Farzan, Jennifer Hassan, Rick Noack, Miriam Berger, Brittany Shammas, Kim Bellware and Hannah Denham.

Article: "Coronavirus update: Health experts express alarm at CDC change in testing guidelines that exclude asymptomatic patients" by Ciara Linnane.

Article: "US surpasses 170,000 COVID-19 deaths, could reach 200,000 by Labor Day weekend" by Kyle Hicks.

Article: "Poll: 57% Of Republicans Find Coronavirus Death Toll, Now Over 176,000, 'Acceptable'" by Nicholas Reimann.

Article: "Chamber of Commerce crows about its role in the logjam in COVID-19 relief negotiations" by Joan McCarter.

Article: "'My husband likes to watch and he's wearing a Speedo': Falwell 'pool boy' recalls meeting the couple in 2012" by Sarah K. Burris.

Article: "Jerry Falwell Jr. will get $10.5M severance from Liberty U in wake of sex scandal" by Leonardo Blair.

Video: Bush: "You work three jobs? Uniquely American!" .

Article: "Covid-19 Is Creating a Wave of Heart Disease" by Haider Warraich.

Article: "Sean Hannity Has Trump's Direct Phone Line And They Talk Multiple Times A Day: Report" by Jessica Kwong.

Article: "Ex-DHS official: Trump wanted us to tune in to Lou Dobbs's show 'every night'" by Kaelan Deese.

Article: "Barr asked Rupert Murdoch to 'muzzle' Fox News commentator Napolitano, book claims" by Marina Pitofsky.

Book: Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth by Brian Stelter.

Documentary: The Brainwashing Of My Dad by Jen Senko.

Article: "How Old Is the Average Fox News Viewer in America?" by Eric Schaal.

Article: "Who Are The Boogaloo Bois? These Hawaiian Shirt-Wearing, Gun-Toting Americans Want War" by Sarah Midkiff.

Site: US Mail not for Sale.

Event: 25 August US Mail not for Sale Day of Action.

Virtual Event: Fri, Sep 4, 6pm PT: "Town Hall Seattle".

Book: The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "New Deal" (1933 - 1939) by Wikipedia.

Twitter: "Lifelong Democrat".

Article: "The Platform the GOP Is Too Scared to Publish" by David Frum.

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.

Plus, Science Revolution: I'll be talking with Dr. Michael Mann, Professor of Meteorology & Director, Earth System Science Center-Penn State University AND recipient of this year's 'Nobel Prize for the Environment', the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement / author of several books including The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy

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...

Can These Three Steps Stop Police Racism?

Inside the Grifter's Club: Trump & Democracy For Sale! (w/ Sarah Blaskey)

New Film Proves Donald Trump Unfit For Office (w/ Dan Partland)

Fri, Sep 4, 6pm PT: Town Hall Seattle virtual event.

Get Tickets here for the Livestream event