Hartmann Report

And here we are. This is one of those hinge points in history, a moment people remember other events in the context of “before” and “after” that moment. Cities across Ukraine are under siege as you read these words. Families gathering their most precious goods, trying to calm their terrified children, desperate to flee but unsure where to go. Americans have no memory of what it’s like to have their own towns shelled, to have their homes blown apart, to see family members die and bodies in the streets as brutal men in uniform spread terror, death and destruction. The last time an American city was under bombardment from a foreign power was the War of 1812.

The situation in Ukraine is complex and the outcome is unknowable, but potentially world-changing for free nations and the world itself... Unsurprisingly, alleged serial rapist and career criminal Donald Trump has come out in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I went in yesterday and there was a television screen,” Trump told a rightwing talk show, “and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful. I said, 'How smart is that?' And he's going to go in and be a peacekeeper.” Donald Trump, you’ll remember, was first impeached because the very day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy turned down his demand to manufacture dirt on candidate Joe Biden, the White House Office of Management and Budget moved to block hundreds of millions in defensive military aid to Ukraine.

They offer nothing to improve schools, support families, help small businesses, lower drug prices, rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure, or heal the racial divide - just performance art. Today’s Republican Party has stopped even pretending to have “ideas.” Instead, they’ve become the party of performance art, and it’s hurting America.

America’s in deep trouble: Congress hijacked by billionaires while Fox & social media sow hate & division for profit. Toxic masculinity drives hate crimes, murders, and air rage… The Supreme Court turned our lives over to billionaires and giant corporations, leaving Americans feeling powerless and angry. The GOP stepped in to tell us the real culprits are Democrats, women and minorities. We must re-take our government and recover our lost sense of agency. Here’s why and how: “Agency” is the ability to control yourself and your own life. “Loss of agency” is the psychological term for people no longer being able to influence the course of their own life or the world around them.

How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer's World.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Does Trump Continue to Pose an 'Unprecedented' Threat to Democracy? — Fear Is the Point for the GOP. — Why the Supreme Court Needs to be Expanded to be Saved. — Voter Suppression on Steroids - Did You Know 40% of Most Ballots are Being Rejected in Houston? — Why Canceling Student Debt is the Key to Reviving America. — A Wake-Up Call on Sea Level Rise. — In Good News, the U.S. is now only running around 140,000 new COVID cases per day. — In more good news, students in Missouri are suing their school district for banning books. — In What We All Know is Absolutely True News, we now know why we all hate it so much when somebody rides our bumper: it kills. — Geeky Science! Will Exercise Help You Retain Your Memory?

This is a symptom of the much deeper problem: Donald Trump has planted authoritarianism across America and only his humiliation and conviction will pull it out by the roots. Violent behavior on airplanes has reached such epidemic proportions that the President of Delta Airlines last week asked the Department of Homeland security to allow the airlines to submit passengers who have terrified or otherwise abused flight crews for placement on the government’s no-fly list. This is a symptom of the much deeper problem: Donald Trump has planted authoritarianism across America like some kind of bizarre Johnny Appleseed, and only his humiliation and conviction will pull it out by the roots.

The easiest and most efficient way to clean up our elections and make them open and transparent is for Congress to create an “Elections USA” agency as soon as possible. The United States needs a national elections system run by professionals with complete transparency and not vulnerable to politics: Canada did this 102 years ago and we should take a lesson from their successes to create an Americanized version. With almost 40 percent of all the mail-in ballot requests coming out of heavily-Democratic Houston being rejected because of the GOP’s latest anti-voter law — and over a dozen other Republican-controlled states following suit with the newest thing in election suppression — by the end of this year’s election it should be obvious to all Americans that we need to change our elections systems.

White supremacy promoted as pseudo-science is a lie, and the racist politics that flow from it are poison in the bloodstream of our republic. In the 2020 election, the Republican Party chose not to even publish a party platform. They literally had no list of things they’d like to accomplish or do for the American people. As Axios recently reported after attending a meeting between Mitch McConnell and wealthy donors: “Republicans should be 100% focused on Democrats and all the ‘terrible’ things they're doing to the country, McConnell said.” We’ll find out what Republicans support, we’re told, only after they regain power. In a bizarre parody of Seinfeld, the GOP appears to have become the Party of Nothing.

Militias don’t exist in any meaningful way in any developed country other than the United States. It’s time for Congress to step up and restore law and order to America. Another week, another militia-affiliated murderer in court, this time over the drive-by shooting of Federal Protection Services officer Pat Underwood in California by a member of the Boogaloo movement. “Cowards like you fear true bravery,” the officer’s wife told the killer as he was sentenced. “(Pat) will live on through his family and friends. … You no longer deserve your freedom.”