Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 22, 2026
Chapter 13: The Empathy Deficit: The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink
"The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence, were we callous to the touches of affection." —Thomas Paine
In January, as another brutal Maine winter gripped the Northeast, Dwayne LaBrecque faced an impossible choice. The diabetic father of five, who’d lost several toes and part of his foot to infection, stared at his most recent heating bill with a growing dread. After losing his job as a shipping manager, Dwayne’s income had collapsed.
For years, he’d relied on LIHEAP—the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program created by Congress in 1981—to keep his family warm through Maine’s harsh winters. But soon after his inauguration, Trump and congressional Republicans had put LIHEAP on the chopping block.
