Hartmann Report

How power, money, and ideology converged to reshape American democracy into something darker and more dangerous… People feel like there’s a darkness that’s spread across America in the 15 months since Trump took office a second time. It’s being noticed all over the world, from the Pope to the leaders of our (formerly) allied nations, and is being embraced by dictators like Putin and MBS. The most corrupt Supreme Court justice in history, Clarence Thomas, who’s taken millions from billionaires and then voted to promote their interests, inadvertently helped us all see clearly the source of this depravity that’s permeated so much of our government at all levels. Last week he gave a speech at the University of Texas, Austin, and blamed the ills of the world (and America) on the rise of “progressivism.”

In his final days, I realized how completely unprepared we are for death—and how much that unpreparedness costs us... Note: Yesterday, I accidentally sent out today’s book excerpt, so today I’m sharing with you a post that I posted on my non-politics site, WisdomSchool.com. I hope you find it useful/interesting. —Thom My father died in stages, the way most people do, and the four of us boys — me and my three brothers, our wives beside us — didn’t know what we were watching.

"The nation is, at this time, so strong and united in its sentiments, that it cannot be shaken at this moment. But suppose a series of untoward events should occur, sufficient to bring into doubt the competency of a republican government to meet a crisis of great danger, or to unhinge the confidence of the people in the public functionaries; an institution like this, penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx, may, in a critical moment, upset the government." – President Thomas Jefferson Neoliberalism has a few primary tenets that are easily identified and make it unique from libertarianism, objectivism and the “conservative” economic policies of the United States in the years prior to the neoliberal Reagan Revolution of 1981.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Trump Moves Toward $20 Billion Iran Deal After Blasting Obama for Far Less. — Is Cuba next? — Trump Eyes Billions From IRS in Stunning Cash Grab. — Is the Grocery Aisle the New Front Line of Economic Crisis? — Did a Trump Megadonor Just Prove ‘America First’ Was Always Optional? — When an 85-Year-Old Gets Detained, What Does It Say About ICE?

How stripping lawmakers of experience hands power straight to lobbyists and billionaires… Yesterday, I came home from the studio and turned on the TV to see an MSNOW host and her guest agree on how important it is that Democrats “unite around the issue of term limits” for members of Congress. Last week, the Democratic governor of a swing state said on my program that he was pushing for term limits. In just the past 48 hours I’ve heard three different commentators on MSNOW and CNN speak of them as if term limits are the “solution” to “elderly” legislators or to the naked corruption that’s so rampant in DC. This is the wrong issue for Democrats to be promoting now: term limits actually do more damage than good, which is why Republicans and the Heritage Foundation have been pushing them for decades.

If you’re ready to move beyond Trump and tackle what’s actually broken, let’s have the real conversation… Dear Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thank you for standing up against unnecessary war, advocating for Epstein’s victims, and for defending the spiritual side of Christianity against Trump’s recent blasphemy. Our mutual friend Congressman Ro Khanna (who you worked with on the Epstein legislation) reached out to you a few months ago about dropping by on my radio/TV program to have a friendly conversation; I haven’t heard back, but figured I’d reach out this way to suggest some things we could discuss. You’re one of the few high-profile Republicans who’s not only disagreed with Trump on policy but has also clearly seen through his con-man façade of competence and, frankly, sanity. Well done! But let’s go a bit farther and talk policy, including a few areas where we may even agree…

From Hungary to Ukraine to America, one message wins: expose the rigged system and mobilize voters to defeat it… Péter Magyar defeated Viktor Orbán in last weekend’s Hungarian elections because he ran a Navalny-style playbook, calling Orbán’s and his billionaire buddies’ capture of the media and most other aspects of Hungarian life a “state capture system“ grounded in good old-fashioned corruption. From Orban’s son-in-law pulling a Jared and using his government position to become one of the richest men in the country, to his billionaire cronies buying up the media like the billionaire Ellisons are doing here now, corruption was Magyar’s singular through-line message. And it worked, producing an overwhelming turnout and undeniable victory. It will work here, too!

Sunday night, on Orthodox Easter, Donald Trump posted to his failing, Nazi-infested social media site an AI image of himself as Jesus, healing a man who looked suspiciously like Jeffrey Epstein as a woman who looked a lot like a young Ghislaine Maxwell looked on, with a horned demon overhead.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis could be following the same path that led to World War I… Saturday’s back-to-back headlines on The Washington Post were: “‘They Have Chosen Not To Accept Our Terms,’ Vance Says“ and “U.S. Intelligence Shows China Taking A More Active Role In Iran War.” They echo headlines from a century ago that reported on the early days of what quickly became World War I. In 2021, China and Iran became military allies, signing a “broad strategic partnership encompassing economic, diplomatic, and security dimensions.” Russia signed a similar comprehensive military/security agreement with Iran in January of last year. The three countries are now military allies and formally assisting each other. Hold that thought.

"The great innovation of Hayek and Mises was to create a defense of the free market using the language of freedom and revolutionary change. … Even as the welfare state and the mixed economy were coming into existence, Hayek and Mises set as their political imperative tearing them down."— Kim Phillips-Fein. The American among the Three Musketeers of neoliberalism was Milton Friedman, who taught for years at the Chicago School of Economics and has become a figure of cult worship on the economic and political right in America. He was a speechwriter for Barry Goldwater’s 1960 campaign for president, and a formal advisor to, among others, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Donald Rumsfeld (who he pushed Reagan to take on as his VP instead of GHW Bush in 1980).[xli] Friedman was the functional theologian among the three; he absolutely believed that there was a near-mystical power to unregulated markets and that virtually any sort of governmental intervention in or regulation of the marketplace produced economic distortions that prevented capitalism from working its magic.