According to the Framers of the Constitution themselves, the real reason for the Electoral College was to prevent a foreign power from placing their stooge in the White House...

So Donald Trump is now telling us that having Mike Pence overturn the electoral college result would have been "perfectly legal."

He's dead wrong, both factually and conceptually, and his admission should lead him straight to a jail cell.

The electoral college wasn't put in place so that a president and vice president could randomly choose to extend their own power forever. If anything, it was the opposite.

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

How humans are hitting the thresholds of our environmental, cultural and psychological limits...and what we can do to rescue ourselves and life on our planet.

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

The Best of the Rest of the News.

— Get ready for lots of media attention to crime, probably starting in a big way this summer.
— The rightwing cancer on American Democracy
— Voter suppression works.
— When cops are criminals
— The gun industry targets our children
— Privacy lost: When people call into crisis or suicide hotlines, they assume privacy and confidentiality.
— The beginning of the end of the pandemic?
— Crazy Alert! "Female problems" at Fox "News"?
— Biden is cleaning up poisons.

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

Monday's Daily Stack

Article: "Trump's Confession Shows Why We Must Abolish the Electoral College and Throw Him in Jail" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Famous British Historian Claims Benjamin Franklin Was A British Spy" by Richard Deacon.

Book: A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic by John Ferling.

Article: "Federalist 68: The Mode of Electing the President" by Alexander Hamilton.

Tweet: "Lots of renewed attention to the so-called "alternate" pro-Trump elector slates. I think it's important to point out that the conservatives who backed this plan at the time didn't make the same "just in case" justification we're hearing today." [broken link] by Christian Vanderbrouk.

Article: "'Lock and load': Trump-backed candidate tells Michigan voters to 'show up armed' at the polls" by Bob Brigham.

Article: "Trump pardon promise for Capitol rioters 'stuff of dictators' – Nixon aide" by Martin Pengelly.

Article: "Trump calls for 'the biggest protest we have ever had' in DC and other cities if prosecutors investigating him 'do anything illegal'" by Alia Shoaib.

Tweet: "The answer is: The Twelfth Amendment and the Electoral Count Act of 1887 already make it entirely clear that the Vice President merely opens the envelopes. But sometimes we want to make laws even clearer so that even semiliterate psychopaths have a chance at understanding them." by George Conway.

Article: "Violence erupts at Trump rally as thousands protest election in DC" by Mary Kay Linge.

Article: "Irish fishermen defeat the Russian Navy" by Shane O'Brien.

Article: "Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation" by Wikipedia.

Article: "War in Donbass" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Vladimir Putin To Attend Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony And Meet With Xi Jinping" by Aparna Shandilya.

Article: "Lee Jae-myung" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Unification Church" (Moonies) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Consensus decision-making at NATO" by NATO.

Hour Two: How America Moves Forward to a More Diverse Society?
- Ben Jealous, President - People For the American Way (PFAW) & PFAW Foundation / Visiting Scholar-Annenberg School @Penn / Former President-NAACP & former candidate for Gov of Maryland

Article: "Biden must honor his commitment to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court" by Ben Jealous.

Article: "Supreme Court Nominations: Senate Floor Procedure and Practice, 1789-2009" by CRS.

Article: "Constance Baker Motley: Judiciary's Unsung Rights Hero" by Judiciary News.

Article: "Foreign relations of Ukraine" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Fascism: Trump vows pardons for Jan. 6 seditionists, calls for nationwide protests if indicted" by Hunter.

Article: "Trump pardons Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner" by BBC.

Quote: "Such is the restless and aspiring Nature of the human Mind, that a Man entrusted with Power, seldom contents himself with his due Proportion"" - attributed to Gouvernor Morris.

Article: "Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention of 1787: July 18, 1787" by James Madison.

Article: "Biden to nominate first Black woman to sit on supreme court by end of February" by Ed Pilkington.

Article: "List of African-American firsts" by Wikipedia.

Article: "John F. Kennedy: The First Catholic President" by Gary Scott Smith.

Book: How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev.

Article: "Nuclear weapons and Ukraine" by Wikipedia.

Site: National Popular Vote.

Article: "Constitutional Amendment Process" by National Archives.

Article: "Strong job candidates with foreign names miss out on job interviews, study shows" by Jane Burnett.

Law: "Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965".

Article: "With surgical precision, Republicans draw two congressional districts that dilute power of Hispanic and Asian voters" by Alexa Ura and Mandi Cai.

Article: "Georgia county purges Democrats from election board and cancels Sunday voting" by Justin Glawe.

Article: "Chief Justice John Roberts created the legal landscape that doomed the voting rights bill, author says" by John Blake.

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

Article: "Same-sex penguins succeed as foster parents in first for New York zoo" by AP.

Article: "A Supreme Court confirmation battle adds to busy stretch for Congress" by Sahil Kapur.

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

Article: "Raimondo: Manchin 'gettable' on revised Build Back Better plan" by Mackenzie Wilkes.

Law: "Telecommunications Act of 1996" by Wikipedia.

Book: The New Media Monopoly: A Completely Revised and Updated Edition With Seven New Chapters 20th ed. by Ben H. Bagdikian.

Article: "Fulton County district attorney asks for FBI's help with security as Trump investigation continues" by Greg Clary, Jason Morris and Sara Murray.

Article: "Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories" (birtherism) by Wikipedia.

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

"What We Can Learn From How the 1918 Pandemic Ended? - John M. Barry, Distinguished scholar - Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine / Writer of numerous articles & books including, The Great Influenza: the Story of the Deadliest Pandemic In History (originally published in 2004) / His work has appeared in scientific journals Nature, Journal of Infectious Disease as well as lay publications such as Sports Illustrated, Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, Time, Newsweek, and Esquire

Plus, Adam McKay, Writer/director/producer - his latest film is Don't Look Up (in collaboration w/David Sirota) starring Leo DiCaprio & Jennifer Lawrence / HBO series, Succession (Some of his other successful films are The Big Short, Vice, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and more)

And, Conversations w/Great Minds - Dignity In a Digital Age: Congressman Ro Khanna, U.S. Congressman (D-CA, 17th District) / Author of 2 books, his latest Dignity In A Digital Age: Making Tech Work For All Of Us

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...

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Are Videogames During Quarantine Dangerous?

Tucker Carlson's Racist Reasoning To Hate Biden SCOTUS Nominee