Download or read book Summary of Thom Hartmann s The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-05-18T22:59:00Z with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The idea of balance and democracy in nature was argued by John Locke in the 1600s, who believed that humans could live in the then-modern world without submitting to some dear leader. #2 The Iroquois had a court system that was similar to our Supreme Court. Jefferson knew the Indians of Virginia well, and he defended them against those who argued that they were uncivilized brutes. #3 Until 1803, the Supreme Court was only the final court of appeals. The arguments against a Supreme Court were that it could make laws and strike down laws, which was dangerously similar to the European monarchies that the colonists had just fought a revolutionary war against. #4 The Supreme Court ruled that the penalty for not having insurance is indeed a tax, and thus the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. However, they also ruled that states can’t be forced to expand Medicaid.
Download or read book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Hartmann delivers a full-throated indictment of the U.S. Supreme Court in this punchy polemic." —Publishers Weekly Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, explains how the Supreme Court has spilled beyond its Constitutional powers and how we the people should take that power back. Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks, What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison. Hartmann argues it is not the role of the Supreme Court to decide what the law is but rather the duty of the people themselves. He lays out the history of the Supreme Court of the United States, since Alexander Hamilton's defense to modern-day debates, with key examples of cases where the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional powers. The ultimate remedy to the Supreme Court's abuse of power is with the people--the ultimate arbiter of the law--using the ballot box. America does not belong to the kings and queens; it belongs to the people.
Download or read book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America written by Thom Hartmann and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hartmann delivers a full-throated indictment of the U.S. Supreme Court in this punchy polemic." --Publishers Weekly Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, lays out a sweeping and largely unknown history of the Supreme Court of the United States, from Alexander Hamilton's arguments against judicial review to modern-day debates, with key examples of cases where the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional powers using the excuse of judicial review, and possible solutions. Hartmann explains how the Supreme Court has spilled beyond its Constitutional powers in a series of rulings, including how it turned our elections over to American and foreign oligarchs with twin decisions in the 1970s, setting the stage for the very richest of that day to bring Ronald Reagan to power. You'll hear the story of a series of Republican presidents who used fraud and treason to secure their elections, and how the GOP knew it but looked the other way because "the Court is hanging in the balance." A court that then went on to gut hundreds of pieces of progressive legislation, as Republicans had hoped. Ironically, Hartmann points out, John Roberts (now the Court's Chief Justice), when he worked for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, came up with a novel theory about how Congress could go around the Supreme Court. His goal was to effectively reverse Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board, but in the process provides us with an elegant legal argument and legislative solution that could, in an emergency, be used by a progressive Congress and president to clean up much of the damage the Court has done in past decades. Thomas Jefferson argued it is not the role of the Supreme Court to decide what the Constitution means, but rather the duty of the people themselves (and how they can do it). America may soon be forced to decide if it's going to continue to be governed as a constitutional monarchy, with nine unelected royals who have final say on everything, or if we are to revert to being a democratic republic as was largely the case before the late 1800s when America's first industrial era oligarchs corrupted the Court.
Download or read book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, explains how the Supreme Court has spilled beyond its Constitutional powers and how we the people should take that power back. Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks, What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison. Hartmann argues it is not the role of the Supreme Court to decide what the law is but rather the duty of the people themselves. He lays out the history of the Supreme Court of the United States, since Alexander Hamilton's defense to modern-day debates, with key examples of cases where the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional powers. The ultimate remedy to the Supreme Court's abuse of power is with the people--the ultimate arbiter of the law--using the ballot box. America does not belong to the kings and queens; it belongs to the people.
Download or read book The Hidden History of the War on Voting written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hartmann's history of voter suppression in America is necessary information given current news about voter registration purges and redistricting...a particularly timely topic for an election year, and anyone who is seriously concerned about the survival of American democracy will want to read this book and apply its lessons."—Booklist America's #1 progressive radio host looks at how elites have long tried to disenfranchise citizens—particularly people of color, women, and the poor—and shows what we can do to ensure everyone has a voice in this democracy. In today's America, only a slim majority of people register to vote, and a large percentage of registered voters don't bother to show up: Donald Trump was elected by only 26 percent of eligible voters. Unfortunately, this is not a bug in our system, it's a feature. Thom Hartmann unveils the strategies and tactics that conservative elites in this country have used, from the foundation of the Electoral College to the latest voter ID laws, to protect their interests by preventing “the wrong people”—such as the poor, women, and people of color—from voting while making it more convenient for the wealthy and white. But he also lays out a wide variety of simple, commonsense ways that we the people can fight back and reclaim our right to rule through the ballot box.
Download or read book The Hidden History of American Oligarchy written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the history of the battle against oligarchy in America—and how we can win the latest round. Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they're nearly there thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny. The United States was born in a struggle against the oligarchs of the British aristocracy, and ever since then the history of America has been one of dynamic tension between democracy and oligarchy. And much like the shock of the 1929 crash woke America up to glaring inequality and the ongoing theft of democracy by that generation's oligarchs, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has laid bare how extensively oligarchs have looted our nation's economic system, gutted governmental institutions, and stolen the wealth of the former middle class. Thom Hartmann traces the history of this struggle against oligarchy from America's founding to the United States' war with the feudal Confederacy to President Franklin Roosevelt's struggle against “economic royalists,” who wanted to block the New Deal. In each of those cases, the oligarchs lost the battle. But with increasing right-wing control of the media, unlimited campaign contributions, and a conservative takeover of the judicial system, we're at a crisis point. Now is the time for action, before we flip into tyranny. We've beaten the oligarchs before, and we can do it again. Hartmann lays out practical measures we can take to break up media monopolies, limit the influence of money in politics, reclaim the wealth stolen over decades by the oligarchy, and build a movement that will return control of America to We the People.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the real history of guns in America and what we can do to limit both their lethal impact and the power of the gun lobby. Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann examines the brutal role guns have played in American history, from the genocide of the Native Americans to the enforcement of slavery (Slave Patrols are in fact the Second Amendment's “well-regulated militias”) and the racist post–Civil War social order. He shows how the NRA and conservative Supreme Court justices used specious logic to invent a virtually unlimited individual right to own guns, which has enabled the ever-growing number of mass shootings in the United States. But Hartmann also identifies a handful of powerful, commonsense solutions that would break the power of the gun lobby and restore the understanding of the Second Amendment that the Framers of the Constitution intended. This is the kind of brief, brilliant analysis for which Hartmann is justly renowned.
Download or read book The Hidden History of American Healthcare written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality. "For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people—one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says Thom Hartmann. Other countries have shown us that affordable universal healthcare is not only possible but also effective and efficient. Taiwan's single-payer system saved the country a fortune as well as saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down the economy. This resulted in just ten deaths, while more than 500,000 people have died in the United States. Hartmann offers a deep dive into the shameful history of American healthcare, showing how greed, racism, and oligarchic corruption led to the current “sickness for profit” system. Modern attempts to create versions of government healthcare have been hobbled at every turn, including Obamacare. There is a simple solution: Medicare for all. Hartmann outlines the extraordinary benefits this system would provide the American people and economy and the steps we need to take to make it a reality. It's time for America to join every industrialized country in the world and make health a right, not a privilege.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Big Brother in America written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how the government and corporate America misuse our personal data and shows how we can reclaim our privacy. Most Americans are worried about how companies like Facebook invade their privacy and harvest their data, but many people don't fully understand the details of how their information is being adapted and misused. In this thought-provoking and accessible book, Thom Hartmann reveals exactly how the government and corporations are tracking our every online move and using our data to buy elections, employ social control, and monetize our lives. Hartmann uses extensive, vivid examples to highlight the consequences of Big Data on all aspects of our lives. He traces the history of surveillance and social control, looking back to how Big Brother invented whiteness to keep order and how surveillance began to be employed as a way to modify behavior. As he states, “The goal of those who violate privacy and use surveillance is almost always social control and behavior modification.” Along with covering the history, Hartmann shows how we got to where we are today, how China—with its new Social Credit System—serves as a warning, and how we can and must avoid a similarly dystopian future. By delving into the Constitutional right to privacy, Hartmann reminds us of our civil right and shows how we can restore it.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Monopolies written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is the most important, dynamic book on the cancers of monopoly by giant corporations written in our generation.”—from the foreword by Ralph Nader American monopolies dominate, control, and consume most of the energy of our entire economic system; they function the same as cancer does in a body, and, like cancer, they weaken our systems while threatening to crash the entire body economic. American monopolies have also seized massive political power and use it to maintain their obscene profits and CEO salaries while crushing small competitors. But Thom Hartmann, America's #1 progressive radio host, shows we've broken the control of behemoths like these before, and we can do it again. Hartmann takes us from the birth of America as a revolt against monopoly (remember the Boston Tea Party?), to the largely successful efforts of both Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and other like-minded leaders to restrain corporations' monopolistic urges, to the massive changes in the rules of business starting during the “Reagan Revolution” that have brought us to the cancer stage of capitalism. He shows the damage monopolies have done to so many industries: agriculture, healthcare, the media, and more. Individuals have taken a hit as well: the average American family pays a $5,000 a year “monopoly tax” in the form of higher prices for everything from pharmaceuticals to airfare to household goods and food. But Hartmann also describes commonsense, historically rooted measures we can take—such as revitalizing antitrust regulation, taxing great wealth, and getting money out of politics—to pry control of our country from the tentacles of the monopolists.
Download or read book The Second written by Carol Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, an unflinching, critical new look at the Second Amendment and how it has been engineered to deny the rights of African Americans since its inception. In The Second, historian and award-winning, bestselling author of White Rage Carol Anderson powerfully illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, how it was designed, and how it has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable. The Second is neither a “pro-gun” nor an “anti-gun” book; the lens is the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans. From the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry, or use a firearm whatsoever, until today, with measures to expand and curtail gun ownership aimed disproportionately at the African American population, the right to bear arms has been consistently used as a weapon to keep African Americans powerless--revealing that armed or unarmed, Blackness, it would seem, is the threat that must be neutralized and punished. Throughout American history to the twenty-first century, regardless of the laws, court decisions, and changing political environment, the Second has consistently meant this: That the second a Black person exercises this right, the second they pick up a gun to protect themselves (or the second that they don't), their life--as surely as Philando Castile's, Tamir Rice's, Alton Sterling's--may be snatched away in that single, fatal second. Through compelling historical narrative merging into the unfolding events of today, Anderson's penetrating investigation shows that the Second Amendment is not about guns but about anti-Blackness, shedding shocking new light on another dimension of racism in America.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Neoliberalism written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why neoliberalism became so prevalent in the United States and why it's time for us to turn our backs to it. With four decades of neoliberal rule coming to an end, America is at a crossroads. In this powerful and accessible book, Thom Hartmann demystifies neoliberalism and explains how we can use this pivotal point in time to create a more positive future. This book traces the history of neoliberalism-a set of capitalistic philosophies favoring free trade, low taxes on the rich, financial austerity, and deregulation of big business-up to the present day. Hartmann explains how neoliberalism was sold as a cure for wars and the Great Depression. He outlines the destructive impact that it has had on America, looking at how it has increased poverty, damaged the middle class, and corrupted our nation's politics. America is standing on the edge of a new progressive era. We can continue down the road to a neoliberal oligarchy, as supported by many of the nation's billionaires and giant corporations. Or we can choose to return to Keynesian economics and Alexander Hamilton's American Plan by raising taxes on the rich, reversing free trade, and building a society that works for all.
Download or read book Justice Deferred written by Orville Vernon Burton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first comprehensive accounting of the U.S. Supreme CourtÕs race-related jurisprudence, a distinguished historian and renowned civil rights lawyer scrutinize a legacy too often blighted by racial injustice. The Supreme Court is usually seen as protector of our liberties: it ended segregation, was a guarantor of fair trials, and safeguarded free speech and the vote. But this narrative derives mostly from a short period, from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Before then, the Court spent a century largely ignoring or suppressing basic rights, while the fifty years since 1970 have witnessed a mostly accelerating retreat from racial justice. From the Cherokee Trail of Tears to Brown v. Board of Education to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, historian Orville Vernon Burton and civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner shine a powerful light on the CourtÕs race recordÑa legacy at times uplifting, but more often distressing and sometimes disgraceful. For nearly a century, the Court ensured that the nineteenth-century Reconstruction amendments would not truly free and enfranchise African Americans. And the twenty-first century has seen a steady erosion of commitments to enforcing hard-won rights. Justice Deferred is the first book that comprehensively charts the CourtÕs race jurisprudence. Addressing nearly two hundred cases involving AmericaÕs racial minorities, the authors probe the parties involved, the justicesÕ reasoning, and the impact of individual rulings. We learn of heroes such as Thurgood Marshall; villains, including Roger Taney; and enigmas like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Hugo Black. Much of the fragility of civil rights in America is due to the Supreme Court, but as this sweeping history also reminds us, the justices still have the power to make good on the countryÕs promise of equal rights for all.
Download or read book Our Time Is Now written by Stacey Abrams and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author of Lead From The Outside and political leader Stacey Abrams, a blueprint to end voter suppression, empower our citizens, and take back our country. "With each page, she inspires and empowers us to create systems that reflect a world in which all voices are heard and all people believe and feel that they matter." —Kerry Washington A recognized expert on fair voting and civic engagement, Abrams chronicles a chilling account of how the right to vote and the principle of democracy have been and continue to be under attack. Abrams would have been the first African American woman governor, but experienced these effects firsthand, despite running the most innovative race in modern politics as the Democratic nominee in Georgia. Abrams didn’t win, but she has not conceded. The book compellingly argues for the importance of robust voter protections, an elevation of identity politics, engagement in the census, and a return to moral international leadership. Our Time Is Now draws on extensive research from national organizations and renowned scholars, as well as anecdotes from her life and others’ who have fought throughout our country’s history for the power to be heard. The stakes could not be higher. Here are concrete solutions and inspiration to stand up for who we are?now. "This is a narrative that describes the urgency that compels me and millions more to push for a different American story than the one being told today. It's a story that is one part danger, one part action, and all true. It's a story about how and why we fight for our democracy and win." - Stacey Abrams
Download or read book The American Revolution of 1800 written by Dan Sisson and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful assessment of Jefferson’s defeat of Adams in the 1800 election, and how it represented a blow against elitism and authoritarianism. In this brilliant historical classic, Dan Sisson provides the definitive window into key concepts that have formed the backdrop of our democracy: the nature of revolution, stewardship of power, liberty, and the ever-present danger of factions and tyranny. Most contemporary historians celebrate Jefferson’s victory over Adams in 1800 as the beginning of the two-party system, but Sisson believes this reasoning is entirely the wrong lesson. Jefferson saw his election as a peaceful revolution by the American people overturning an elitist faction that was stamping out cherished constitutional rights and trying to transform our young democracy into an authoritarian state. If anything, our current two-party system is a repudiation of Jefferson’s theory of revolution and his earnest desire that the people as a whole, not any faction or clique, would triumph in government. Sisson’s book makes clear that key ideas of the American Revolution did not reach their full fruition until the “Revolution of 1800,” to which we owe the preservation of many of our key rights. With contributions by Thom Hartmann that bring out the book’s contemporary relevance, this fortieth anniversary edition contains new insights and reflections on how Jefferson’s vision can help us in our own era of polarization, corruption, government overreach, and gridlock
Download or read book The Supreme Court written by Tony Mauro and published by Union Square + ORM. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise, informative guide to the twenty most momentous Court rulings in American history, including excerpts from the written decisions and dissents. The legislative branch of government creates laws, and the executive branch signs and enforces them. But how does America make sure these laws don’t run afoul of the Constitution? That responsibility lies with the final arbiters: the nine justices of the Supreme Court. Every year, thousands of contentious cases are submitted to the court; only about eighty of them are heard. Out of those cases, many are remembered only by the people directly involved. But over the years, many cases heard by the Supreme Court have gone on to affect the lives of many, or even all, American citizens. In The Supreme Court: Landmark Decisions, veteran court reporter Tony Mauro picks out the twenty most momentous Supreme Court cases in United States history. In his reviews, from Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 case that first affirmed the Supreme Court’s status as the country’s final legal arbiter, to Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that legalized same-sex marriage, Mauro summarizes each case and includes cogent summaries of the justices’ decisions, as well as notable dissents. From a journalist noted by the New York Times for “explaining complex legal issues to laymen without sacrificing accuracy and subtlety,” The Supreme Court: Landmark Decisions serves as your quick, concise, and informative guide to one of the most important, and sometimes least-understood, institutions in the nation.
Download or read book The Violence Inside Us written by Chris Murphy and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An engrossing, moving, and utterly motivating account of the human stakes of gun violence in America.”—Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Education of an Idealist Is America destined to always be a violent nation? This sweeping history by U.S. senator Chris Murphy explores the origins of our violent impulses, the roots of our obsession with firearms, and the mythologies that prevent us from confronting our national crisis. In many ways, the United States sets the pace for other nations to follow. Yet on the most important human concern—the need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from physical harm—America isn’t a leader. We are disturbingly laggard. To confront this problem, we must first understand it. In this carefully researched and deeply emotional book, Senator Chris Murphy dissects our country’s violence-filled history and the role that our unique obsession with firearms plays in this national epidemic. Murphy tells the story of his profound personal transformation in the wake of the mass murder at Newtown, and his subsequent immersion in the complicated web of influences that drive American violence. Murphy comes to the conclusion that while America’s relationship to violence is indeed unique, America is not inescapably violent. Even as he details the reasons we’ve tolerated so much bloodshed for so long, he explains that we have the power to change. Murphy takes on the familiar arguments, obliterates the stale talking points, and charts the way to a fresh, less polarized conversation about violence and the weapons that enable it—a conversation we urgently need in order to transform the national dialogue and save lives.
