Hartmann Report

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. —Thomas Paine In the stark offices of Kyiv’s Center for Civil Liberties, Oleksandra Matviichuk and her team meticulously document war crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By early 2025, they’ve documented over 68,000 cases since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. This Nobel Peace Prize–winning organization has tracked Russia’s crimes against Ukrainian civilians since the 2014 annexation of Crimea. I remember watching Louise’s face as we saw news reports of mass graves in Bucha: the shock, horror, and tears. “This is Putin’s work,” she whispered. “But Trump helped make it possible.”

The Best of the Rest of the News. — So much for the "anti-big-government right" in America. — It was the third or fourth shot that killed Renee Good. — Trump's war on the First Amendment threatens to change America forever. — How did America get to the point where a five-year-old hostage is an acceptable tool of law enforcement? — House passes bill funding ICE with help from seven turncoat Democrats: the bill provides more billions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement with no meaningful constraints on its violent tactics in Minnesota or elsewhere. — The Trump administration goes after protesters that stormed a church but they're entirely fine with the protesters who stormed the capitol, killed and harmed police, and smeared poop on the wall of the capitol. — Trump is using our money to target states that didn't vote for him. Surprise. — King of the World bully uses "board of Peace" just like he uses Tariffs. It's all about bullying and loyalty to Emperor Trump.

M. Scott Peck warned decades ago that social systems built on lies eventually lose the capacity to distinguish reality from fantasy, loyalty from morality, or raw power from truth.. Jack Smith's testimony before Congress yesterday was a master class at demonstrating how elected Republicans have become what psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck termed "People of the Lie" with his 1986 bestseller. It was the perfect example for this week being the sixteenth anniversary of the corrupt Citizens United decision. For most of American history, lying in politics carried a real and immediate cost. Get caught and you'd lose credibility, maybe get voted out of office, and sometimes — like with the roughly 40 people around Richard Nixon who went to prison — even face criminal consequences.

How a fake "Board of Peace," billion-dollar tribute payments, and hereditary succession could replace the United Nations with a Trump dynasty… This isn't merely scandalous or unethical: it's impeachable on its face and dangerous to the survival of democracy worldwide. Donald Trump is trying to use a United Nations resolution to justify making himself King of the World via a new "Board of Peace" that Trump says "might" replace the UN, with the ability to pass the title along to his son, Don Jr., if he continues to please his father. No, this isn't an exaggeration.

When future historians ask what Putin wanted from Trump, the answer may be painfully simple: "Everything America once stood for." Trump went to Davos this morning and gave the speech that Vladimir Putin wanted him to, lying and pissing off Europe and shaking the North Atlantic alliance to its core. Our president has refused to help out Ukraine in any meaningful way for a year now, giving Russia the room to destroy much of that country's electric and heat infrastructure so badly that President Zelenskyy had to cancel his trip to Davos to deal with the crisis. Trump's now invaded Venezuela and is threatening the same with Greenland, legitimizing Putin's land-grabs in Georgia and Ukraine. Trump's ICE goons are destroying the rule of law in America, running amok in Minneapolis, punishing — and killing — the residents of that city for having elected politicians who'd dare advocate democracy over autocracy.

How the Language of Morality Became a Cover for Fear and Power For decades, Americans have been told that "conservative values" stood for restraint, responsibility, and respect for the rule of law. The rise of Donald Trump forces an unavoidable question: were those values abandoned, or were they a generational lie that made his authoritarian takeover possible? The billionaires and CEOs funding Trump and the Republicans in Congress believe they're invincible. They believe the GOP's abandonment of the principles that animated John McCain and Mitt Romney in favor of authoritarianism and oligarchy will keep them fat and happy. They're wrong. Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh said something on my radio program yesterday that would have been shocking just a few years ago but now is becoming increasingly self-evident to anybody with a conscience and an honest view of American politics and history.

This isn't alarmism: it's the historical pattern, repeated across dozens of countries and thousands of years. I've seen it, repeatedly, with my own eyes… Nebraska mom Jamie Bonkiewicz filmed her interaction with Secret Service agents and police who came to her door because of a tweet. "The Secret Service came to my door today because of a tweet. No threats. No violence. Just words. That's where we are now." Meanwhile, the Justice Department is going after multiple Democratic members of the House and Senate, the governors of two states, and the mayor of Minneapolis. And any Republican who speaks against Trump or his lickspittles: Jerome Powell, Lisa Cook, Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Chris Christie, Jack Smith, Christopher Krebs, James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, Tim Walz, Jacob Frey, Miles Taylor… Are we really losing our fundamental freedoms under Donald Trump?

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity". —W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” On a blistering April morning in 2025, Elizabeth Aniskevich stood outside a community center in Washington, DC, filling out yet another job application. Just two months previously, she was an attorney at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with what she thought would be a lifetime career in public service. Now, at thirty-nine, she’s watching her emergency savings dwindle as she struggles to make mortgage payments on her DC apartment. “I was completely shocked,” she told a reporter for CNBC, describing the day she received her termination notice. “I didn’t expect it to unfold this way. There’s no information about what’s going on with my benefits, or what I need to do with unemployment.”

The Best of the Rest of the News. — While Putin attacks Europe from the outside, Trump dismantles NATO from within. — Renee Good's death sparks MAGA deplorables' wrath: small Minneapolis charter school under siege. — Trump offers a phony "healthcare plan" that does nothing to fix our healthcare system and has virtually no details, but Fox and rightwing media lap it up as if it were real. — Trump has suggested multiple times in the past few weeks that we shouldn't have an election this November, and now it's becoming clear why. — The Minneapolis battlefield continues: an infant needed CPR after ICE flash-banged and then tear gassed the family van with 6 kids inside. — Big baby Trump steals a Nobel like a toddler grabbing a trophy. — Crazy Alert! Man trains crows to steal MAGA hats.

For working families, recessions mean job loss and debt; for billionaires, they mean discounted assets and record wealth gains… Get ready. Something truly awful may be happening to our economy — at least for average Americans — as the result of Trump's billions in tax breaks for billionaires, looting of our treasury and economy, $38 trillion national debt, and his corrupt embrace and promotion of foreign autocracies and digital currencies. If it happens, it's going to hurt many of us, all while making Trump's billionaire buddies massively richer. I remember the look on Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's face when the economy crashed in 2008. The former Goldman Sachs CEO's hands trembled as he stood at a podium and confessed that the GOP's banking deregulation had blown up the American financial system and very nearly the global economy.