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Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 13, 2026

A Vote for Republicans Is a Vote Against Democracy

Can we reject the politics of concentration camps, election denial, and oligarchy by showing up in numbers too large to ignore? Forget about "left or right," there's only one thing on the ballot this fall: democracy (Democrats), or oligarchy that leads to tyranny (Republicans). Trump, the GOP, the 13 billionaires in his cabinet, and the ~150 billionaires who made him president again are all on the side of oligarchy. And we're already most of the way there, thanks to five corrupt, on-the-take Republicans on the Supreme Court.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 12, 2026

What Happens When the World Decides It Can’t Trust America Anymore?

From France to Germany to Canada, governments are recalibrating their security, technology, and defense policies around one unspoken reality: America can't be counted on… Donald Trump is doing something to America that no foreign adversary has ever managed, something Putin's been dreaming about for decades: he's convincing our oldest and closest allies — countries we fought wars to defend and liberate, and with whom we share a democratic system of government — that the United States can't be trusted. For example, France's government just announced it's ripping U.S. videoconferencing platforms — Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and others — out of its government offices nationwide and replacing them with a new French-created system called "Visio." That's roughly 2.5 million French public employees who'll no longer be using American digital products because the French have concluded that U.S. tech — and the Silicon Valley billionaires' pathetic fealty to Trump, bringing him bribes and gifts and groveling in front of him — is a national security risk.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 11, 2026

Is “Voter Fraud” the Most Dangerous Political Lie in American History?

Why does a lie that has never been proven, never worked, and never been real still hold the power to undermine an entire democracy? Get ready. At yesterday's hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Arizona Republican Congressman Eli Crane lied through his teeth, saying of Democrats' opposition to the SAVE Act: "They let millions of illegal aliens into the country. They set up sanctuary cities so you can't enforce these federal laws that are on the books that Congress has passed. "Now they won't vote to stop these illegals from voting in our elections. If the American people don't understand what this is about, it's about one word. It always has been. That is power. "They want power and they need illegals to vote in our elections. That's why they don't care about fraud either. They need those votes as well." And it's not just a lone crackpot congressman from Arizona.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 10, 2026

Have Human Hunt Clubs Come to America, This Time Wearing Badges and Body Armor?

If this feels uncomfortable to read, that's good. It should. From Colombia's death squads to America's detention camps, this is how societies relearn the cost of calling some lives disposable… Donald Trump's presidency now has a human body count. "We really feel like we're being hunted, we're being hunted like animals," an undocumented farm worker in Ventura county, California, told a reporter for The Guardian. I've seen this movie before. Or at least where it leads.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 9, 2026

The NFL Is “Socialist” on Purpose, and It Exposes Republican Economic Stupidity

The NFL proves that rules, referees, and "redistribution" are the only way any game, including the American economy, actually works… Last night's NFL Super Bowl game was great. The guys wearing blue beat the guys wearing red, and Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga made MAGA snowflakes cry. But the NFL can also teach Americans a huge lesson about economics, "socialism," and the differences between Republican "free market" nuts and FDR's re-regulation of the American economy that created the largest middle class in history and the first in the world to include more than half of a nation's citizens.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 8, 2026

Part IV: The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". —Edmund Burke. "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness." —Desmond Tutu. May 2, 2025, was a bad day for the news. Trump proudly announced his executive order kneecapping NPR and PBS, both trusted sources of independent journalism, in a brutal rhetorical attack.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 7, 2026

Saturday Report 2/7/26 — Surprise Surprise?! TrumpRX is a fake. Read the fine print...

The Best of the Rest of the News. — These people are monsters. — Trump's racist attack on the Obamas highlights his alleged lifelong racism. — Senator Gallego calls for a national strike when Trump tries to steal this November's election. — Non-citizen voting is a GOP scam the NY Times just busted wide open. — Let's not forget the Epstein files! — Trump killed the Voice of America, our messenger to the world, and is replacing it with US taxpayer money for racist rightwing think tanks in Europe. — Incompetence Alert! — Surprise, Surprise?! TrumpRX is a fake: read the fine print. — Crazy Alert! 'Mortifying': Fury as Trump demands Dulles and Penn Station renamed after himself.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 6, 2026

Trump’s Racist Attack on the Obamas Shows the Moral Collapse of His Presidency

This wasn't a joke or a mistake but a warning about how racism, silence, and abuse of power are eating away at democracy… I've been talking into microphones since I did the morning news on WITL in Lansing Michigan in the late 1960s, and I've seen a lot of ugly moments in American politics. But every so often something happens that still takes your breath away, not because it's surprising, but because it's so painfully revealing. This latest racist stunt by Donald Trump — reposting a meme on his Nazi-infested social media site in which the Obamas' faces are superimposed onto the bodies of primates in the jungle set to the 1961 song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by The Tokens — is one of those moments. That a popular pro-Trump account on X created this video and it has lived on that platform without consequence is disgusting in and of itself. But Trump — as our president, speaking in our voice — made it infinitely worse last night by promoting it to millions around the world.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 5, 2026

Dear Trump Administration Official: History Is Full of Loyal Men Who Thought They’d Be Protected

A historical warning about how presidents escape, aides go to prison, and "just following orders" has never saved anyone... Dear Trump Administration Official, I'm writing to you not as a political opponent, but as a historian who's spent a lifetime studying what happens when democracies flirt with strongmen and otherwise decent people convince themselves that loyalty to Dear Leader today will be rewarded by safety and protection tomorrow. It almost never is. You're out there defending Donald Trump's lawbreaking, cheering his attacks on judges, prosecutors, immigrants, journalists, and even the Constitution itself. You defend his bribe-taking, the jet from Qatar, the violence of ICE, and his hotel and crypto grifts. You say it's necessary for him to abuse power to "get things done," that the other side is worse, that he's strong and that's what the American people need.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Feb. 4, 2026

Over 70,000 People Detained in 225 Concentration Camps, With Plans to Double Them: Why Isn't This a National Emergency?

ICE's nationwide detention system continues to expand under plans that would double its size while shielding it from meaningful accountability… As people testified before Congress yesterday about the brutality and violence they'd suffered at the hands of ICE, that massive paramilitary organization was shopping for giant warehouse-style facilities they can retrofit into what they euphemistically call "detention centers." Cable news people call them "prison camps" or "Trump prison camps," but look in any dictionary: prisons are where people convicted of crimes are held. As Merriam-Webster notes, a prison is: "[A]n institution for confinement of persons convicted of serious crimes." Jails are where people accused of crimes but still waiting for their day in court are held, as Merriam-Webster notes: "[S]uch a place under the jurisdiction of a local government for the confinement of persons awaiting trial or those convicted of minor crimes." But what do you call a place where people who've committed no criminal offense (immigration violations are civil, not criminal, infractions)? The fine dictionary people at Merriam-Webster note the proper term is "concentration camp":