Hartmann Report

Voting is mandatory in Australia and Belgium—so why not here? Many people would loudly proclaim that compulsory voting is an anti-democratic idea, but it seems unlikely that anyone would argue that Australia and Belgium are dictatorships because they fine people who don’t vote. The $20 fine is high enough to make it worthwhile for voters to participate but low enough that it is unlikely to bankrupt someone or be burdensome to enforce. Australia implemented compulsory voting in 1924; the voter turnout in Australia has never been lower than 91 percent.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Trump Admin: Hand Over the Data or Say Goodbye to Social Security — Lock Them Up? Trump Officials Face Jail Time for Stonewalling. — One of the nation's largest Democratic-aligned law firms caves in to Trump threats and pressure. — Trump's Budget: Robbing the Poor to Enrich the Wealthy?. — Trump Wants Tesla Vandals Locked in El Salvador's Notorious Mega-Prison. — is Trump going to declare martial law? — Furry Alert! Don't think the GOP are doing enough? Well it's just not true: They are now tackling the furry crisis in our schools. Isn't that more important than protecting social security or minimum wage? — Wisdom School: Challenging Reality: The Mind-Matter Connection — Hunter in a Farmer's World: ADHD Chaos Hack: Mastering Your Time Before It Masters You

Trump, Musk, and their tech-bro overlords are engineering America's authoritarian future... The future of American democracy isn't being dismantled by accident; it's being systematically replaced to prepare the way for something entirely new. A radical ideology known as the Dark Enlightenment is fueling a billionaire-led movement to gut our government, erase democratic norms, and install a technocratic elite in their place.

If Trump can destroy America's biggest law firms, who will be left to stand against him? Donald Trump and his henchmen have set out to break the legs of American democracy by making it difficult for people he hates to hire an attorney to defend themselves or sue the Trump administration. He and Musk are also, with their public statements, apparently trying to terrify federal and state judges into submission with threats that their followers will employ violence. This could very well herald the end of our republic, transforming America into something that more closely resembles Russia or 1930s Germany than anything Hamilton or Franklin would have endorsed. First, some background.

First, they came for the immigrants. Now, they're coming for legal residents, tourists, and even citizens. Are you paying attention now? Imagine stepping off a plane in the United States, fully expecting to enter the country without issue, only to be surrounded by armed agents, handcuffed, and thrown into a freezing detention center. No trial. No lawyer. No contact with the outside world. In Trump's America, you are no longer guaranteed your rights or freedom—because now, it takes nothing more than an ICE agent's "suspicion" to make you disappear. This isn't a mistake. It's part of an expanding system of cruelty, where ICE—once an agency tasked with immigration enforcement—is now operating like an unchecked police force, targeting legal residents, visitors, and even US citizens with impunity.

History warns us: Once the government starts rounding people up, it doesn't stop... When a president declares an "invasion" to justify shredding the Constitution, he's not defending the nation—he's declaring war on democracy itself. The United States of America has long been defined by its commitment to the rule of law. For over 240 years, this nation has stood as a beacon of justice, due process, and constitutional order. Yet today, we are witnessing a grotesque and unprecedented assault on those very principles.

History will remember him as the man who let fascism rise without a fight… Chuck Schumer had one job: to stand between Donald Trump and the complete dismantling of American democracy. Instead, he caved — again — handing Trump the power he craved without a fight, without a demand, without even a moment of real resistance. With every cowardly compromise, Schumer isn't just failing Democrats — he's enabling an autocrat in real-time. The question most Democrats want to ask of Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate appears to be, "How's that 'keeping the government open to hold Trump accountable' thing working out for you?" Everything Trump does now going forward, when people or the press complain, he will say was authorized by "bipartisan legislation" with "the full support of the Senate Democrats." In fact, just hours after Schumer and a handful of timid Senate Democrats voted to pass Trump's Enabling Acts of 2025 legislation, the president issued an executive order gifting Vladimir Putin with the gutting of the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.

In United States elections, even if we abolished the Electoral College (or functionally abolished it), we would still likely have partisan gridlock. This is because the United States operates under a “first past the post, winner takes all” electoral system. This almost always produces a two-party system, where even basic governmental functions like passing a budget become partisan gauntlets. It’s as close to a law in political science as there is—Duverger’s law, which says simply that systems that use first-past-the-post elections will end up with two parties, either because smaller parties lose support and “die” until only two remain or because smaller parties converge into larger parties until only two remain.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Well, that was a TS Elliott ending: Not with a bang but a whimper. — These Democrats have a plan and it's a GREAT one! — Musk's Trojan hounds: DOGE operatives penetrate Social Security & USPS in shocking power grab. — Women are NOW, TODAY having trouble registering to vote in NH because they've done the SAVE Act on a a state level...Where are the Democrats on this!? — Musk's Hitler post sparks public-sector union fury: Billionaire blames public workers for the Nazi genocide! — Consumer confidence crashes to lowest point in over two years. — Hunter in a Farmer's World: ADHD: What the Heck is Time? — Wisdom School: Everyone "Sees" (or "Hears" or "Feels") the World Differently: Why It Matters...

Donald Trump has never been known for originality, but his latest act is his most dangerous yet — a desperate imitation of history’s most aggressive land-grabbers and strongmen. From James Polk’s expansionist conquest to William McKinley’s imperialist scheming to Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian crackdowns, Trump isn’t just following in their footsteps — he’s trying to outdo them all. Nobody has, to the best of my knowledge, ever argued that Trump is a particularly creative individual or an out-of-the-box thinker. He’s spent much of his life trying to imitate his late father’s real estate success, his former attorney Roy Cohn’s toughness (see the movie The Apprentice), and his personal life role model Jeffrey Epstein.