So much money is sloshing around in our political system that honest politicians are buried and actual criminals are stepping up.

Leonard Leo, head of The Federalist Society so famous for providing Trump and McConnell with rightwing judges to pack federal courts and the Supreme Court, recently received a $1.6 billion contribution, tax-free.

So much money is sloshing around in our political system — both what we know of and the billions in truly dark money that we know nothing about — that honest politicians are buried and actual criminals are stepping up.

Donald Trump's phone call to Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was probably the clearest illustration of this recent incarnation of his lifelong criminality. Although it's rapidly being eclipsed by his theft and probable sale to foreign dictators of classified documents.

Over the last 40 years, career criminals like Trump have increasingly moved out of the business world and the streets and into politics, something for which we can thank the Supreme Court.

Read more at HartmannReport.com.

-Thom

Friday's Daily Stack

Article: "How the Supreme Court Set Up the Criminal Takeover of America" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: “The Truly Scary Part of the $1.6 Billion Conservative Donation“ by Richard L. Hasen and Dahlia Lithwick.

Book: "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" by Thom Hartmann.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976.

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

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

Article: "Autumn Equinox 2022: Five things you didn't know about the first day of fall" by Serina Sandhu.

Tweet: "Why isn't the media treating Brett Favre the same way they did Michael Vick? What's different? Isn't stealing over a million dollars from hungry human children worse than mistreating animals? What am I missing here?" by Thom Hartmann.

Bumper sticker: "Papoon for president" by Phil Proctor.

Article: "Pat Paulsen" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative" by Glenn Scherer.

Article: "UNICEF renews Pakistan flood appeal as 17 more people die" by Munir Ahmed.

Article: "Floods kill over 300 in Nigeria this year, and could worsen -emergency agency" by Reuters.

Article: "Record flooding, drought part of range of weather extremes in US this summer" by Daniel Amarante.

Article: "Movers and Shakers: Whitman says her son was target of Trump's strong-arm tactic in '97" by Charles Stile.

Article: "Governor Ducey Signs Most Expansive School Choice Legislation in Recent Memory" by Doug Ducey.

Case: "Brown v. Board", 1954 (integrated schools).

Article: "Libertarian Party National Platform 1980"

Article: "Federal Reserve hikes key interest rate 0.75 percentage point, projects economic slowdown" by Irina Ivanova.

Article: "Federal Reserve Board of Governors" by Wikipedia.

Article: "What is the windfall tax on oil and gas companies and how does it work?"(UK) by BBC.

Quote: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." - Abraham Maslow.

Article: "Montgomery cleans up underpass, helps homeless veteran" by WSFA.

Site: Vote Now Or Never!.

Site: End The Bribe System.

Article: "What Is "Stochastic Terrorism," And Why Is It Trending?" by dictionary.com.

Book: "Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" - And How You Can Fight Back" by Thom Hartmann.

Article: "Citizens United V. Federal Election Comm'n: Justice Stevens' dissent".

Article: "Monsanto Forced Fox TV to Censor Coverage of Dangerous Milk Drug" by Jeffrey Smith.

Article: "Fairness Doctrine" by Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum.

Article: "Bad Bunny" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Bad Bunny Makes Powerful TV Debut on ‘Fallon,' Dedicates ‘Estamos Bien' to Hurricane Maria Victims" by Suzy Exposito.

Song: "sharpening the knives" by Bad Bunny, Residente and iLe.

Article: "Bad Bunny Dons Full Drag For His Wild "Yo Perreo Sola" Video & Twitter Is Loving It" by Liz Bautista.

Videos: "Bad Bunny".

Video: Bad Bunny - El Apagón - Aquí Vive Gente (Official Video) | Un Verano Sin Ti.

Video: Bad Bunny: How a Bag Boy Became the World's Biggest Star.

Video: Bad Bunny - Estamos Bien | X100PRE (Official Video).

Hour Two: Will the Iranian Regime Survive the Death of Mahsa By the Morality Police?
- Jamal Abdi, President - NIAC (National Iranian American Council)

Article: "NIAC Calls on Biden to Allow Greater Internet Access for Iranians Amidst Protests by Revising Outdated Sanctions License" by NIAC.

Article: "22 Year-Old Mahsa Amini Killed by Morality Police in Tehran" by NIAC.

Article: "Iran protests rage as Mahsa Amini's father says authorities lied about her death" by Jessie Yeung, Jomana Karadsheh, Ramin Mostaghim and Sahar Akbarzai.

Article: "Iranian state-organised marchers call for execution of protesters" by Reuters.

Article: "Iran in new internet crackdown to thwart protesters" by AFP.

Article: "Iran nuclear deal framework" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Iran's president back home from New York trip" by IRNA.

Article: "Syria" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Watch: Trump Tells Stunned Hannity FBI Were Looking for Hillary's Deleted Emails in Mar-a-Lago Raid" by Colby Hall.

Article: "Donald Trump Indictment Will Cause Country to 'Run Out of Beer': Mary Trump" by Fatma Khaled.

Article: "What is Medicaid expansion?" by Healthinsurance.org.

Speech: "Great Society" by Wikipedia.

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

Site: Paradisos del Sol Winery and Organic Vineyard.

Article: "Russian state TV tells viewers nuclear war is likely - 'Everyone dies'" by James Cheng-Morris.

Article: "Putin's ‘incredibly dangerous' nuclear threats raise the risk of an unprecedented disaster" by Sam Meredith.

Article: "Putin hastily readying ‘flying Chernobyl' nuke missile with UNLIMITED range, sinister satellite pics suggest" by Anthony Blair.

Article: "'Isolated' Putin likely to be 'killed' by own generals if he tries to use nuclear weapon" by Matthew Dooley.

Article: "US has privately warned Russia of consequences of using a nuclear weapon" by Chloe Folmar.

Article: "Traffic jams and desperation at the border as Russians flee Putin's ‘partial mobilization'" by Ivan Watson, Masho Lomashvili, Simone McCarthy, Tim Lister and Uliana Pavlova.

Article: "‘An Army of Zombies Is Leading Us to Hell'" by Anna Nemtsova.

Article: "Occupied Ukraine holds Kremlin-staged vote on joining Russia" by Hanna Arhirova.

Article: "Russia Mobilizes Quarter-Million Men, Ukraine Shrugs, Fights On" by Thomas Grove.

Article: "A Fear Of Women" by Jard & Roberta DeVille.

Article: "Johnny Appleseed" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Jigonhsasee" by Wikipedia.

Site: PEN America.

Article: "The Five Stages of Trumpism" by NanceGreggs.

Article: "Billionaire Monopolist Jeff Bezos Is Buying Up Single-Family Homes to Rent-Trap Humanity Forever" by Jared A. Brock.

Article: "Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Estimate Rises to $45.6 Billion" by Niraj Chokshi.

Article: "New laws extend statute of limitations to 10 years in PPP, EIDL fraud cases" by Dan Ennis.

Article: "Bernie Madoff" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Lawrence Summers" by Wikipedia.

Article: "How the Fight or Flight Response Works" by Kendra Cherry.

Series: "The Good Fight".

Article: "Speciesism" by Wikipedia.

Article: "New PBS Ken Burns' series 'The US and the Holocaust' examines the US' role in the tragedy" by City Lights.

Article: "Panama Papers" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Pandora Papers" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Vladimir Putin sent Donald Trump a mystery letter in a black lacquered box couriered by oligarch's daughter to the Miss Universe office, new book reveals" by Geoff Earle.

Article: "Robert Mueller Tracks Mysterious Black Lacquer Box With Letter Putin Sent To Trump In 2013" by Brent Lambert.

Article: "Rick Scott just laid out a Republican agenda. He has done his party no favors." by Jennifer Rubin.

Article: "What We Learned From The Reagan Tax Cuts Of 1981" by Michael Taggart.

Article: "Border arrests top ‘21 record, on pace for 2 million by end of September" by Mark Moore.

Article: "Report: Trump Happily Employing Undocumented Workers While ICE Rounds Them Up" by Bess Levin.

Article: "The wealthiest 1% has taken $50 trillion from working Americans and redistributed it, a new study finds. Here's what that mean." by Paul Constant.

Article: "Transcript: Jerome Powell's Postmeeting Press Conference".

Article: "Crude Oil Prices - 70 Year Historical Chart" by Macrotrends.

Article: "Tesla Gross Profit 2010-2022 " by Macrotrends.

Article: "Several progress at the 2nd Summit for Information and Democracy" by Forum on Information & Democracy.

Article: "Joseph Stiglitz" by Wikipedia.

Article: "RSF's 2022 World Press Freedom Index : a new era of polarisation" by RSF.

Article: "Major Democratic Accomplishments in US Government" by Civics Nation.

Article: "Abby Martin" by Wikipedia.

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

I'll be talking with Amanda Marcotte, Senior Politics Writer at Salon & author of "Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself"

Plus, David Corn, Washington bureau chief - Mother Jones Magazine & on-air analyst for MSNBC / Writer-weekly newsletter, Our Land, available by subscription at DavidCorn.com / Author of several books including his latest, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went 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...

Is Putin a Nuclear Threat? Featuring Ali Velshi

Biden's Fiery Speech, Trump Indictment & The Future Of America