The filibuster is the world's largest fig leaf, big enough to hide dozens of cowardly or bought-off senators of both parties, all at one time.

If the American republic is to die in the next few years, it'll have the filibuster's fingerprints all over it.

Republican legislatures around the country are passing laws that will let them — rather than their states' voters — decide which presidential candidate gets their state's electoral college votes in 2024. If such laws were in effect in 2020, Donald Trump would still be president.

The only way to block these state laws that overturn democracy is through a federal law deeming their scheme illegal, using the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution to overrule these states' new voter-replacement and voter-suppression laws.

And there are several bills in Congress right now to do just that. They include the For The People Act, to The John Lewis Voting Rights Act to the watered-down Freedom To Vote Act currently championed by Joe Manchin that just got a full 50 votes.

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

Thursday's Daily Stack

Article: "U.S. Billionaires Wealth Surged by 70%, or $2.1 Trilion, During Pandemic; They Are Now Worth a Combined $5 Trillion" by Americans for Tax Fairness, Institute for Policy Studies.

Article: "Biden announces revamped $1.75 trillion social spending plan" by BBC.

Article: "Biden departs for Rome after unveiling Build Back Better plan: President will meet the Pope and G20 leaders where he'll try to heal relations with Macron" by Nikki Schwab.

Article: "Big Banks Are Funding Fossil Fuel Projects — Let's Hold Them Accountable" by Katie Eder and Shannon Carlson.

Event: October 29: "Climate Strike".

Site: Future Coalition.

Site: Sunrise Movement.

Site: Youth Vs. Apocalypse.

Article: "Filibuster Fingerprints Are All Over Our Dying Democracy" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "The Constitutional Option To Change Senate Rules And Procedures: A Majoritarian Means To Over Come The Filibuster" by Martin B. Gold & Dimple Gupta.

Article: "Budget Reconciliation: The Basics" by House Committee on the Budget.

Article: "The Budget Reconciliation Process: The Senate's "Byrd Rule"" by CRS.

Article: "Could Vice President Harris Follow Richard Nixon & Challenge the Filibuster?" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974" by Office of the Historian.

Article: "Arizona GOP bill would let lawmakers overturn presidential election results" by Jonathan J. Cooper.

Article: "Senate Republicans block Joe Manchin's voting rights bill" by Peter Weber.

Article: "Sinema confronted in airport for second time this month, 'Don't touch me'" by Edmund DeMarche.

Article: "Joe Manchin slammed in hometown paper: He 'wins' -- we 'lose'" by Tom Boggioni.

Article: "Senate Democrats fail to advance voting and elections bill over GOP opposition" by CBS/AFP.

Article: "19 states passed this year laws to restrict voting, new tally finds" by Fredreka Schouten.

Article: "The Mongol Horde: An Unstoppable Force" by National Geographic.

Article: "Cloture Motions" by US Senate.

Article: "Letter to Senate Legislature April 7, 2016" by Susan Collons et al.

Article: "An Open Letter in Defense of Democracy" by Todd Gitlin, Jeffrey C. Isaac, and William Kristol.

Article: "39 senators who now support changing or eliminating the filibuster previously opposed doing so" by JM Rieger.

Article: "" by Charles Jay.

Article: "Business Plot" (1933, Smedley Butler) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Smedley Butler" by Wikipedia.

Speech: "Madison Square Garden Speech", President Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 31, 1936. "They are unanimous in their hate for me-and I welcome their hatred"

Article: "Great Depression (1929 - 1930s) by Wikipedia.

Video: Greta Thunberg Has Given Up on Politicians.

Book: Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Quote: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell.

Article: "Congressional baseball shooting" by Wikipedia.

Article: "New Deal" by Wikipedia.

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

Bill: "H.R.1 - For the People Act of 2021" by Rep. Sarbanes, John P. [D-MD-3].

Bill: "S.1 - For the People Act of 2021" by Sen. Merkley, Jeff [D-OR].

Site: "Convention of States".

Article: "Joe Lieberman" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Josh Gottheimer" by Wikipedia.

Article: "No Labels and the 'Problem Solvers' are Wolves of Wall Street in Sheep's Clothing" by Porter McConnell, Rion Dennis.

Article: "Problem Solvers Caucus" by Wikipedia.

Article: "No Labels" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Jimmy Carter calls for return to publicly financed elections" by Marilyn W. Thompson.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

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

Article: "Death is Their Election Strategy" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Donald and Melania Trump quietly got Covid vaccines last month, reports say" by Gabrielle Canon.

Article: "Nearly all Fox staffers vaccinated for Covid even as hosts cast doubt on vaccine" by Samira Sadeque.

Article: "Fauci Says It's 'Horrifying' To See CPAC Crowd Cheering Anti-Vaccine Remarks" by Josephine Harvey.

Article: "Biden's 'door to door' vaccine campaign slammed as invasion of privacy by GOP lawmakers" by Kerry Picket.

Article: "Gov. Kristi Noem Brags About Infecting The Great Plains And Midwest With COVID" by Jason Easley.

Article: "This Is How Many People Have Died From COVID-19 in South Dakota" by Samuel Stebbins.

Article: "U.S. COVID-19 death rate by state" by Statista.

Article: "U.S. economic growth lagged in the third quarter, but hopeful signs abound for the rest of 2021" by Rachel Siegel and Andrew Van Dam.

Article: "Supremacy Clause" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Brazil Senate committee calls for Bolsonaro charges" by Reuters.

Article: "Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States" by John Eligon, Audra D. S. Burch, Dionne Searcey and Richard A. Oppel Jr.

Article: "White House abandoned plan to send 650 million face masks across the U.S. in April, report says" by Hannah Miao.

Article: "Rush Limbaugh slams news coverage of coronavirus racial disparity: "This is how they stop criticism"" by Media Matters.

Article: "America Must Never Forget what Trump & the GOP Did On April 7th, 2020" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Trump's White House ignored advice on COVID-19 that could've saved over 130,000 lives, Birx said" by John Haltiwanger.

Article: "Trump Adviser Scott Atlas Pushing For 'Herd Immunity' Strategy For COVID-19" by uPolitics.com.

Article: "Scott Atlas pushes herd immunity on Fox after denying he pushes herd immunity on Fox" by Madeline Peltz.

Video: Mitch McConnell: Top Priority, Make Obama a One Term President.

Article: "German Renewable Energy Sources Act" by Wikipedia.

Article: "John Lewis Voting Rights Bill Passes House With Zero Republican Votes" by Sharon Zhang.

Bill: "S.4263 - John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act" by Sen. Leahy, Patrick J. [D-VT].

Article: "Most Republicans Want 2020 Election Overturned" by Taegan Goddard.

Article: "Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote" by Ford Fessenden and John M. Broder, November 12, 2001.

Quote: "As a matter of fact, in interviews in 1999 with respected journalist, and long time Bush family friend, David Herskowitz, then Governor George Bush stated: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade... if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." - My Testimony for the Downing Street Memo Hearings" by Cindy Sheehan, June 16 2005.

Article: "Embrace high fossil fuel prices because they are here to stay" by Amrita Sen.

Article: "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (Obamacare) by Wikipedia.

Law: "Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010".

Article: "Rand Paul: Natural Immunity to COVID Offers Better Protection than Vaccine" by aeditor.

Bill: "H.R.1996 - SAFE Banking Act of 2021" by Rep. Perlmutter, Ed [D-CO-7].

Article: "Sens. Booker, Schumer, and Wyden will advance cannabis legislation" by Kim Lyons.

Article: "MORE ACT Repealing Cannabis Prohibition Passes the House Judiciary Committee Again" by Dan Ulloa.

Hour Three: David Sirota on Meltdown
- David Sirota, Narrator & Executive Producer of Meltdown (the new podcast available on Audible) / Founder - The Daily Poster

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

Article: "Sen. Bernie Sanders says 'the very fabric of American democracy is in danger' if progressive priorities are left out of Biden's social-spending bill" by Bryan Metzger.

Article: "Manchin, Sinema sidestep saying if they support Biden framework" by Jordain Carney.

Movie: "Don't Look Up".

Article: "One death every 80 seconds: The grim new toll of COVID-19 in America" by Joe Murphy and Corky Siemaszko.

Article: "Some fast-food items contain plastics linked to serious health problems, new report shows" by Laura Reiley.

Article: "Phthalate and novel plasticizer concentrations in food items from U.S. fast food chains: a preliminary analysis" by Lariah Edwards, Nathan L. McCray, Brianna N. VanNoy, Alice Yau, Ruth J. Geller, Gary Adamkiewicz & Ami R. Zota.

Article: "Precautionary Principle" by Wikipedia.

Tweet: "@Thom_Hartmann I'm listening as we speak from the SiriusXM app and can't call in. I live in Tampa and Florida IS NOT, I repeat IS NOT reporting accurate COVID numbers! They also hired a new Surgeon general to sew lies to the public and black community. [link]" by Marc (Down To Skate Krew).

Article: "Florida reported 'artificial decline' in COVID-19 deaths as cases were surging" by Mychael Schnell.

Article: "Revealed: Facebook hate speech exploded in Myanmar during Rohingya crisis" by Libby Hogan and Michael Safi.

Article: "In Poland's politics, a 'social civil war' brewed as Facebook rewarded online anger" by Loveday Morris.

Article: "Portland school board meeting temporarily shut down by unmasked anti-vax protesters" by Eder Campuzano.

Article: "Supermajority" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Witness (TV series)" by Wikipedia.

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

It's Anything Goes Friday!

We'll have the latest news and information...everything you need to know to win the water cooler wars...

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...

Democrats' Betrayals Are Jeopardizing American Democracy (w/ David Sirota)

Why Isn't Trump Being Held Responsible for Mass Murder?

Shocking January 6th Evidence Investigative Reporter Discovered (w/ Greg Palast)

Jurors Have You Ever Listened To The Thom Hartmann Program?

Can Schiff Bring Justice To Trump & Equality For All? (w/ Chairman Adam Schiff)