Hartmann Report

Is this the beginning of the end for property taxes? One state could change the game… North Dakota may shake this country up in two weeks by ending one of the oldest taxes in America. Here's the backstory and what it may mean to all of us. When I was 14 years old I bought a single-house-lot of raw land outside of White Cloud, Michigan for, as I recall, $25. The area had been a small town in the 19th century but had vanished, turned into a scrub field surrounded by forest, by the early 20th century; locals told me they weren't sure if the town had burned to the ground or was washed away in a flood (the land overlooked a creek). I was able to buy that lot for such a low price because the county had put it up for auction after the previous owner failed to pay their property taxes. I was the only bidder, so I got it at the initial bid price. For two decades I paid the property tax on it (typically around $20/year), until a local resident offered me $500 for it, and I sold it. The point of this story is that, unless you're a church or other nonprofit, it's not possible to actually own land in the United States. Every state, county, and municipality in the country lays first claim to all of the land within its jurisdiction, and we merely rent the land under our homes; that rent is called property tax.

...and instead make the transition from a white-controlled economic and political system to a truly multiracial, multi-religious pluralistic democracy with a stable middle class? “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” —Voltaire There’s little doubt that if Donald Trump thought starting a civil war to seize and hold power in America would work, he’d do it. As would the majority of his cult members. But could they pull it off? Could America be on the edge of a possible second Civil War? And, if so, why and how did it get this far?

While preventing people from voting has a long and sordid history in the United States (and, frankly, around the world), the modern-day Republican Party’s reliance on voter suppression as a primary tool to win elections kicked off in a big way in 1993. That was the year when 27 Democrats and one Republican cosponsored HR2, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), sometimes called the Motor Voter Act. In the House, it got 238 Democratic votes and 20 from Republicans; in the Senate, every Republican but two voted against it, while every present Democrat voted for it (Jay Rockefeller missed the vote).

The Best of the Rest of the News. — What's in Jack Smith's evidence released yesterday? — Russia is looking to ban "propaganda" promoting child-free lifestyles: Is Putin teaching JD Vance how to do it, or do they just think alike? — Trump has repeatedly threatened to deploy the military inside major cities run by Democrats: Would he do it? — It's getting really bad out there: Are Government workers being hunted? — Dirty tricks? Trump Super-PAC sent out a bogus Medicare cancellation notice to scare voters about Kamala Harris. — Crazy Alert! Fully 42% of Americans would rather live in a haunted house than next door to outspoken Republicans. — Hunter in a Farmer's World Alert:Does ADHD Fuel Creativity? The Surprising Link You Need to Know... — Wisdom School Alert: Unlock the Secret to Mental Longevity: How Finding Your Life's Purpose Can Ward Off Dementia

Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, "With freedom comes responsibility." That includes the responsibility of media outlets that use the word "news" to present factual information… We all saw it on Wednesday night. Bret Baier, the multimillionaire supposed "real news" guy at Fox, angrily and rudely lied to the face of the Vice President of the United States and his millions of viewers, presenting an edited version of Trump's most fascistic remarks that turned truth on its head. This is just the most recent example of the deadly toxants Fox "News" has been spreading across the American media and political landscape for decades. The soil in which a democracy grows and flourishes is truthful information held as common knowledge by the majority of the population. Lies, when presented as news or as truth-based information, become a poison that severely injures and can even kill a democracy. Particularly when those lies are packaged and sold just to make a buck. Or, in the case of the Murdoch empire, billions of bucks.

From internment camps to abolishing free press—how Trump could make his worst threats real… Given that we're in the midst of a vote that will determine the fate and future of democracy in America, let's review what Donald Trump has already said he will do if he gets back into the White House. In theory many of these things would also require a compliant House and Senate, but with the recent Supreme Court rulings about presidential power he may be able to do many or even most of them by executive order or simply by fiat.

When language becomes a political weapon, democracy becomes the victim… Have you noticed how elected Republicans and hate-radio and -TV hosts are so committed to mispronouncing Vice President Kamala Harris' name? Or how incapable they are of saying "Democratic Party"? These are symptoms of a political party that's devolved into a pathetic (but deadly) mobocracy, lacking any moral or policy core, devoted instead to pursuing the singular goal of obtaining, holding, and wielding great wealth and ultimate, unchecked power. Way back in the spring of 1956, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke to a group of Republican women about the need for the GOP to remain "soundly based" in "moral" values.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice for our democracy to rise or fall is in our hands... The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the American predecessor to the CIA and was formed during World War II. They hired a psychoanalyst, Dr. Walter C. Langer, to undertake an exhaustive, nearly-year-long analysis of the personality of Adolf Hitler, from his earliest influences through his later years as then-Führer and mass murderer. Langer's profile of Hitler wasn't declassified until 1972, when much of it was published in a book titled The Mind of Adolf Hitler. As The New York Times explained that year: "[Langer] saw Hitler as a weakling who masqueraded as a bully, Hitler the failure casting himself in the role, unconsciously for reasons of mental self-preservation, as Hitler the Fuehrer the superman.

Will Trump manipulate the Constitution and the courts to take the presidency without winning the vote? Sometimes I hate being right. Donald Trump is campaigning in Blue states right now, including California, Colorado, and New York. It has pundits scratching their heads: is it just all about his ego? Is he crazy? Or crazy like a fox? I'd argue the latter: that this is part of a strategy to legally seize the White House after he's lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, much like Republican Rutherford B. Hayes did in the election of 1876.

For years it worked like a charm, at least from the 1980s until around 2016. Even when Democrats did win elections, they had to eschew labels like “liberal” and take positions like Bill Clinton’s infamous “the era of big government is over,” as was “welfare as we know it.” President Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, added billions to the coffers of big insurance and drug companies and continued to legally prevent Americans who were under 65 (and not disabled) from accessing Medicare. And then, in 2015, a real estate mogul and reality TV star burst onto the scene, blowing up the carefully crafted Potemkin village that his fellow billionaires had built over two generations.