Hartmann Report

Don't be fooled: The crocodile tears of those like Bill Barr & the "ex-Republicans" longing for a return of their "Grand Old Party" are still the con of Iran-Contra, Bush v Gore & Citizens United… With nepo-daughter-in-law Lara Trump taking over the GOP, Donald Trump has essentially declared the "old Republican Party" — the party of Reagan and Bill Barr — dead, arguing that it no longer exists in the form it's taken since the 1970s. At a Virginia rally a week ago Saturday, Trump said his neofascist MAGA movement has taken over the Republican Party, that it "represents 96%, and maybe 100%" of Republicans, and that, "We're getting rid of the Romneys of the world. We want to get Romneys and those out." While many in the GOP love the nativist, authoritarian turn the party's taken, others — like former Attorney General Bill Barr — are mourning the loss of the old guard, calling Trump's actions "despicable" and "nauseating." But what is — or was — the old GOP that Bill Barr so loved?

The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream In 1923, the patent for insulin was sold for $1 to the University of Toronto. Less than 100 years later, a 26-year-old Minneapolis man named Alec Raeshawn Smith died of diabetic ketoacidosis. Alec died three days before payday, his insulin injector empty and his blood sugar at a lethal level. How did this happen?

The Best of the Rest of the News. — State of the Union: Dark Brandon shows up & proves he's still capable of kicking Republican ass. — Russians are intervening in the election! — When there's money to be made, Republicans don't care how many people die. — Republicans are helping Mexicans smuggle fentanyl into the United States. — It was disgusting enough when Tommy Tuberville kneecapped our military because he wanted raped service members to be forced to carry their fetuses to term, but now a Republican senator is blocking an Air Force colonel's promotion to brigadier general because in 2020 he wrote an op-ed for Stars and Stripes asking his "fellow white colonels" to engage in conversations about racism. — Hunter in a Farmer's Alert! ADHD: Study the Lives of Other Unique People — Crazy Alert! Hannity says President Biden was too "jacked up" at his State of the Union speech. — Geeky Science/Health Alert: Oscar Mayer is getting serious about plant-based foods.

The GOP have been trying to gut or privatize Social Security ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt put it into place in 1935. They refer to it alternatively as a Ponzi scheme, or as socialism… Want to end Social Security? Just vote for Donald Trump or pretty much any Republican this fall. Every year that Donald Trump was president he proposed budgets that would have cut Social Security funding and benefits; in 2020 he even campaigned on ending the payroll tax — that funds it and Medicare — altogether.

If you want to see Trump's and the GOP's vision of America's future, just visit Hungary… Tomorrow, Donald Trump is hosting Hungarian fascist leader Viktor Orbán for a strategy session at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has repeatedly praised Orbán and suggested he may model his presidency, should he get re-elected this fall or be able to overturn the election on January 6, 2025, on Orbán's rule of that benighted nation. Orbán's influence over both Trump and the GOP is substantial: he's addressed CPAC in Texas, hosted a CPAC meeting in Budapest, and been repeatedly interviewed by Tucker Carlson, who did his Fox show from that country for a full week. He's regularly quoted and praised on Fox "News" and by rightwing hate radio across the US. He's close to Putin, and the only European leader who openly argues that there should be no further military aid to Ukraine.

Using arcane laws & loopholes, GOP affiliated groups are challenging the right to vote of thousands of democratic voters across the states most likely to determine the outcome of the 2024 election... Other than last Sunday's revelation that Saudi Arabia and Russia have begun manipulating oil availability to create high gas prices to kneecap Biden this fall, the most under-reported story of the week was also posted to The New York Times the same day. Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti wrote for last Sunday's Times: "A network of right-wing activists and allies of Donald J. Trump is quietly challenging thousands of voter registrations in critical presidential battleground states, an all-but-unnoticed effort that could have an impact in a close or contentious election." Noting that there's virtually no evidence of voter fraud in any of the states targeted by this new group, which is run by "former Trump lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, and True the Vote, a vote-monitoring group with a long history of spreading misinformation," the Times article notes that their targets are quite specific.

So, get ready: it's coming this fall. And unless the administration acts quickly, there will be nothing they can do about it. Gas at $6 a gallon could easily throw the election to Trump… Have you noticed gas prices are rising? Get ready: you ain't seen nothing yet. The bloodthirsty leader of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia loves his dictatorial soul-mate Donald Trump and is today setting the stage to intervene in November's election in a big way, much like he did with a smaller test run during the fall of 2022 when he drove US gas prices up above $5, forcing President Biden to release oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve. As Stanley Reed reported for the Business pages of The New York Times three days ago: "Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said Sunday that it would extend [their one-million-barrels-a-day] cuts in oil production through June, noting that it was acting 'in coordination with some' other states." That "other state" would be their OPEC+ partner Russia, which also announced last weekend a simultaneous production cut of 471,000 barrels a day. Putin wants Trump back in the White House, too. This time, though, because Trump refused to block the sale of America's largest gasoline refinery to Saudi Arabia in 2017 (completed in 2019 with Trump's blessing), no matter how much oil Biden releases from the reserves will be irrelevant: if the Saudis shut down their Port Arthur, Texas refinery this October "for maintenance," US gasoline prices will explode.

Will this generation of treason-weasel Republicans drag us into another world war by ignoring Putin's fascist land-grab? "Our enemies, the Administration keeps telling the people, are Germany, Italy, and Japan, naming them. Not one off them has made a gesture toward us. For all we think and feel about Hitler, he has not attacked us. But the American government has attacked Hitler first by words, then by measures short of war, then by giving pledge to his enemies to assist them by all physical means to the utmost." — Tennessee Republican Representative John Jennings, July 14, 1940 "I know of no Member of this House, Mr. Speaker, who possess the remotest idea that any of Hitler's panzer divisions are to strike in the desert of Arizona or in the sand stretches of the Mojave. How long are the American people to be fed this stuff?" Michigan Republican Representative Paul Shafer, May 16, 1941 In the two years leading up to Pearl Harbor, roughly a hundred Republican members of Congress stood up to publicly defend Hitler and condemn Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for "war mongering" and "promoting socialism." Last week Marjorie Taylor Greene echoed their comments — almost to the word — in condemning President Biden's efforts to aid Ukraine against this generation's fascist menace, Vladimir Putin.

The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream. The popular mind is agitated with problems that may disturb social order, and among them all none is more threatening than the inequality of condition, of wealth, and opportunity that has grown within a single generation out of the concentration of capital into vast combinations to control production and trade and to break down competition. —Senator John Sherman, 1890, speaking of his Sherman Antitrust Act

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Moscow Mike Johnson postpones a government shutdown this week. — Biden and Trump both visited the US southern border on Thursday. — Hunter Biden outfoxes James Comer and the GOP. — Putin is helping flood Europe with brown-skinned immigrants to disrupt their democracies and assist rightwing politicians. — Wisdom School Alert! Is There a Magic Formula That Slows Down Aging? — Crazy Alert! Trump is trying to pawn off the false claim that Roe v Wade allowed women to kill their babies after birth. — Geeky Science! How ultra-processed foods are linked to bad health. — Hunter in a Farmer’s World Alert! ADHD: How to Train Your Attention Span with Meditation — Israeli troops slaughter starving Gazans. — In the Russia that Tucker Carlson