Hartmann Report

Science proves that daily appreciation can dismantle stress, amplify joy, and create lasting mental wealth... Practicing daily gratitude is a habit I picked up from my spiritual mentor, Gottfried Müller; when Louise and I took a long hike through the trails of Forest Park here in Portland yesterday, for example, we stopped a few times to look around at the forest and just notice what an amazing world we live in and then to say "thank you" to all the life around us. Every day, when we take our daily walk, we do this. Sometimes it's our amazement at the clouds or the geese or the river or just the fact that we're alive. I think of what my parents or my deceased brother would give for just a few minutes of what I'm experiencing and it fills me with awe and appreciation. And I'm so grateful to you for reading and sharing my writings. You've helped built a real and meaningful community both here on Substack and on the radio/TV. Thank you! I always suspected that this daily practice of gratitude helped keep me sane in these insane times, but now I've discovered there's actual science behind the mental health impacts of it.

When this bubble bursts, the collapse won't hit Google's coders — it'll hit the electricians, nurses, teachers, retirees, renters, and low-income families who never got a penny from the boom… The number one most-read story in the Financial Times yesterday was headlined, "Nvidia shares fall on signs Google gaining upper hand in AI." It turns out that Google's AI software/product is doing about as well as its competitors but isn't using Nvidia's "must have" AI super-chips, shocking the market. But even with that, we ain't seen nothing yet: get ready for the Moores' Law shock and a few others that seem increasingly inevitable.

How a small nation's pragmatic, humane approach exposes the lie behind America's manufactured "crisis" and offers a roadmap for defeating the racist strongmen weaponizing immigration for power… Razor wire in the sunrise, shadows waitin' at the gate, Families walk from fire only to meet another state. Little hands on chain-link fences, tired eyes that plead for grace, A journey made for freedom ends in fear they shouldn't face. 'Cause the cruelty ain't a bug—it's the whole damn plan, Turning hope into a weapon in the heart of this land. But we can guard our borders without losing dignity; We can choose the road of mercy over cold strategy. The most gruesome feature of the Trump/Vance/Miller regime is their glee in brutalizing nonwhite people and terrorizing anybody who objects or tries to hold them to account. Their entire rationale is that the barbarity and savagery are "necessary" to deal with millions of "illegals." Denmark is onto something that could blow up their entire excuse for this violence against both people and our Constitution, and Democrats need to pay attention.

Trump has attacked the American Way and Congress MUST proceed with investigations and impeachment; rightwingers on SCOTUS notwithstanding, no one is above the law in a functioning democracy... I’ve been feeling something unusual these past few weeks: optimism. Not naïve optimism or the kind that ignores danger, but the real kind that arrives when you see people waking up, standing up, and refusing to bow before a lawless president who believes rules are for suckers and the Constitution is a mere suggestion rather than the foundation of our republic. We’re now governed by a man who treats legal limits as personal insults. Donald Trump doesn’t just violate our nation’s norms and laws: like every wannabe third-world tinpot dictator before him, he despises the idea that any law can constrain him at all. Trump and the spineless sycophants in his administration have rejected the entire idea of a rules-based society. He and his lickspittles are turning the presidency into a throne, trying to transform you and me into its subjects, and painting as enemies anyone who insists soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen (and others in government) should follow the law.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. — Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night What if the most powerful man in the world built his empire not on success, but on pretending he had it? I remember September 11, 2023. It wasn’t just the anniversary of 9/11; there was also a grim (but, frankly, satisfying) show going on in Manhattan that had the nation (and Louise, me, and the listeners to my radio program) glued to their TV screens. In a crowded federal courthouse in New York City, former president Donald Trump sat stone-faced as his former accountant testified under oath about the Trump Organization’s financial statements. For decades, Allen Weisselberg explained, the company routinely inflated Trump’s assets—sometimes by billions of dollars—to secure loans, insurance, and business opportunities. Properties were suddenly worth double on paper. Apartment buildings grew fictional floors. Golf courses sprouted imaginary mansions ready for sale.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Marjorie Taylor Greene, after being attacked by the man-child in the White House, pulls the plug on her congressional career saying she refuses to be a "battered wife." — After Trump called for the death of military and CIA veterans now serving in Congress who defended the Constitution in a video, they're predictably getting death threats. — Shocking Gallup Poll: 80% of Americans want what Democrats are working for. — A rightwing billionaire reportedly considering buying CNN was reportedly in discussions with Trump's people about firing Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar. — Hegseth hearts the swastika? — Another Texas woman has died because of that state's abortion ban; this is becoming shockingly routine in Republican-controlled formerly Confederate Red States. — Trump is preparing to give Putin everything he wants in Ukraine; is it because Putin has the Epstein files, as we learned from the recent email release? Or just because he hates democracy? Or is he still hoping for a billion-dollar Trump hotel in Moscow? — Crazy Alert! Who's "Piggy?"

If Trump wants veterans in Congress killed for affirming U.S. law, doesn't that make him the very danger the Founders warned would destroy the republic, the kind impeachment was designed for? Trump just called for the execution of American veterans — all of them also elected members of Congress — because they reminded our active duty soldiers that it's a violation of both American and international law to commit war crimes. If that's not impeachable, what is?

But the roar was never for her, it was for Trump.. And when he turned it against her, she learned the eternal rule: demagogue's followers don't choose enemies, their leader does... Marjorie Taylor Greene has been dissed and ridiculed by the Left for years. Progressives mocked her lies, shredded her conspiracies, exposed her QAnon nonsense, and denounced her cruelty. And through it all she never once feared for her life. She fundraised. She smirked. She gave speeches, traveled the country, and strutted through Congress like she owned the place. But the second she angered the Republican base, barely forty-eight hours after she resisted Donald Trump's demands and broke from the MAGA line, she suddenly feared for her life and needed private security.

Neuroscience gives us one more warning. Losing power can feel like withdrawal. We're seeing this now as Donald Trump thrashes about, losing his grip on his party and his followers... In a comment to my recent article here about how much Trump-like corruption the American people will tolerate, Sabrina Haake (who writes the "Haake Take") wrote: "I really want to see a deep dive on how power affects the brain. A strong addiction, as you say. but it deserves a special study in the age of Trump, given its complete takeover…" It's a great question, and the revelations of the Epstein connection to Trump and numerous — perhaps hundreds — of rich and powerful men and their abuse of powerless children again highlights how this addiction warps behavior, destroys lives, and kneecaps democracies.

How a single predator exposed a centuries-old system built to shield wealthy white men from accountability and forced the country to confront a truth its institutions have long concealed... The Jeffrey Epstein scandal stripped away the polite fiction that wealthy white men in America are held to the same standards as everyone else. Epstein wasn't an exception. He was the rule, laid bare.