Billionaires & their companies now own politicians -- and the Supreme Court set it all up with their poisonous Citizens United decision.

If President Biden's Build Back Better plan goes down in flames, you can blame the US Supreme Court. Their Citizens United decision, in fact, is destroying both American politics and the planet.

Case in point: Oil industry executives testified before Congress this week, suffering a barrage of questions, including particularly intense ones from Reps. Ro Khanna, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Katie Porter.

The CEOs exhibited the same sort of arrogant insolence Mark Zuckerberg displayed in July of last year when he was hauled before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. It was, basically, a smug, "Screw you, Congressperson."

Why were the representatives of Big Oil and Big Tech unafraid of the power of Congress?

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

Friday's Daily Stack

Article: "Exposed: The Insidious Cancer at the Core of Democracy that Could Take Down Biden" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Testimony of Mark Zuckerberg Facebook, Inc." by Committee On The Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, July 29, 2020.

Article: "Time to End the Medicare Advantage Scam" by Thom Hartmann.

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

Article: "Climate change: Major US oil companies face grilling by Congress" by BBC.

Article: "'Weasel words' flood a congressional hearing on fossil fuel company disinformation" by Brandi Buchman.

Article: "Why Citizens United Is a Fraud: A Guide for Non-Lawyers" by Mark Green.

Article: "Tom Hartmann on the USPS"(sic) by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "House Report on Big Oil Lobbying October 28, 2021".

Video: Rep. Katie Porter Grills Big Oil Execs.

Article: "'Hell No': House Progressives Resist Push For Quick Infrastructure Vote" by Arthur Delaney.

Article: "Prescription drug cost relief nixed from Democrats' plan" by Devin Dwyer, Erica Y King And Trish Turner.

Article: "Josh Gottheimer" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Problem Solvers Caucus" by Wikipedia.

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

Article: "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006" by Wikipedia.

Site: "Congressional Progressive Caucus".

Article: "Donald Trump made one shockingly insightful comment during the first GOP debate" by Andrew Prokop.

Article: "Donald Trump Will Take Campaign Donations–but Not from Lobbyists or Special Interests" by Alex Swoyer.

Article: "Kinzinger Announces He's Leaving Congress, Says 'This Is Not the End of My Political Career But the Beginning'" by Jackson Richman.

Quote: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" - Charles Dickens.

Article: "Green New Deal" (GND) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Sarah Huckabee Sanders raises $9.1m for Arkansas governor's race " by Alastair Talbot.

Article: "The meaning and origin of the expression: The chickens come home to roost" by Gary Martin.

Article: "Joseph McCarthy" by Wikipedia.

Article: "A federal judge just told the DOJ what we're all thinking on Jan. 6 prosecutions" by Ja'han Jones.

Article: "Oil's Topsy-Turvy Moment" by Jinjoo Lee.

Book: "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late" by Thom Hartmann

Article: "OPEC" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Federalist" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Federalist Party" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Federalist Society" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Whig Party (United States)" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Ulysses S. Grant" by History.com.

Book: The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (Volumes I and II) by U. S. Grant.

Article: "Supreme Court takes up dispute between Ted Cruz and FEC over campaign loans" by Melissa Quinn.

Article: "John Hinckley Jr." by Wikipedia.

Article: "Rittenhouse judge in spotlight after disallowing word 'victims' in courtroom " by Erik Ortiz.

Article: "McConnell Cancels August Senate Recess To Push Through More Trump Appointees" by Cameron Joseph.

Article: "Arbery Trial: Juror selection spilling into third week " by Sean Evans.

Article: "Bush Son Had Dinner Plans With Hinckley Brother Before Shooting" by AP.

Article: "'How Many More People Need To Die?' ADL Head Writes Letter to Lachlan Murdoch Slamming Tucker Carlson's 'Conspiracy Theory' 1/6 Special" by Michael Luciano.

Article: "Donald Trump and Fox News Promote the Great Replacement Theory" by Nancy LeTourneau.

Article: "Tucker Carlson gives passionate defense of "white replacement theory"" by Media Matters.

Article: "The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)" by State Dept.

Article: "McCarthy-Welch Exchange: "Have You Left No Sense of Decency?"", 9 June 1954.

Article: "People's Park (Berkeley)" by Wikipedia.

Site: Fair Fight.

Article: "Stacey Abrams" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Study shows that memories pass through many transformation stages as they are encoded" by Ingrid Fadelli.

Article: "Facebook adds 'love,' 'haha,' 'wow,' 'sad' and 'angry' to its 'like' button" by Hope King.

Article: "Five points for anger, one for a 'like': How Facebook's formula fostered rage and misinformation" by Jeremy B. Merrill and Will Oremus.

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

Article: "New York elections, 2021" by Ballotpedia.

Article: "2021 Statewide Ballot Proposals" by NY State.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

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

Video: Are Stephen And Jon Batiste In The Facebook Metaverse Right Now? (Stephen Colbert).

Article: "White House won't say Manchin and Sinema are behind $1.75T framework" by Geoff Earle.

Article: "Joe Manchin" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Jimmy Panetta" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Streetcar demonstration opens to the public in Watsonville, Santa Cruz" by Melissa Hartman.

Video: Coast Futura inter-city transit demonstration.

Site: Doctors and Patients of Courage.

Article: "Poll: Youngkin, McAuliffe deadlocked in Virginia governor's race" by Nick Niedzwiadek.

Article: "Madison Cawthorn Is Openly Talking About Civil War at This Point" by Eric Lutz.

Article: "DPVA Launches Virginia Turnout Project Ahead of 2021 Elections" by Democratic Party of Virginia.

Article: "Gov. Terry McAuliffe's First Veto Is Against Gun Owners" by AWR Hawkins.

Article: "Stacey Abrams PAC Wipes Out $212 Million in Medical Debt for 108,000 People in 5 States " by Jon Jackson.

Site: Postcards to Swing States.

Site: Our Revolution

Speech: "Farewell Address", by Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961 (transcript). "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex."

Article: "Money and misinformation: how Turning Point USA became a formidable pro-Trump force" by Peter Stone.

Article: "The history of the GI Bill" by Ryan Katz.

Law: "G.I. Bill" (Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Top 10 U.S. Government Investments in 20th Century American Competitiveness" by Jennifer Erickson.

Article: "GI Bill of Rights: A Profitable Investment for the United States" by Labor Party.

Article: "America's food safety system failed to stop a salmonella epidemic that's still making people sick" by Bernice Yeung, Michael Grabell, Irena Hwang and Mollie Simon.

Article: "Lewis F. Powell Jr." by Wikipedia.

Case: "McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission", 2014

Article: "Rupert Murdoch" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Lachlan Murdoch" by Wikipedia.

Law: "Telecommunications Act of 1996" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Strategic Petroleum Reserve (United States)" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Inside the campaign that defeated Claire McCaskill" by Lindsay Wise and Bryan Lowry.

Quote: "Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time" - Harry S Truman.

Article: "Conspiracy theory" by Wikipedia.

Article: "COVID Killed Her Dad: 'His Only Preexisting Condition Was Trusting Donald Trump'" by Cameron Joseph.

Site: "University of Oxford COVID-19 treatment trials".

Article: "Vaccines and the Immunosuppressed" by ZOE COVID Study.

Article: "What is chlorinated chicken?" by Rosalind Ryan.

Article: "Democrats' Betrayals Are Jeopardizing American Democracy" by David Sirota & Alex Gibney.

Quote: "We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer" - Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Article: "India Walton Beat the Buffalo Mayor in a Primary. He Won't Give Up" by Jesse McKinley.

Site: India Walton.

Site: Terry McAuliffe.

Site: Free Speech TV

Article: "Seattle City Attorney" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Ann Davison pulling away from rival Nicole Thomas-Kennedy in Seattle City Attorney race" by Andrew Villeneuve.

Article: "The establishment versus the abolitionist" (Seattle City Attorney race) by Paul Queary.

Coming up Monday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET

I'll be talking with Richard Wiles, Executive Director - Climate Integrity Project: "Big Oil Execs Refuse to Stop Funding Climate Disinformation at Historic Congressional Hearing"

Plus, Bill Press, Host - Bill Press Pods, will be dropping by

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"

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