Hartmann Report

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Today is No Kings Day — Federal District Judge Charles Breyer (the brother of former SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer) just ruled Trump's deployment of the National Guard to LA illegal. — Trump's border czar says, "We'll flood liberal cities with ICE raids." — The FBI took down Senator Padilla when he tried to ask a question of Cosplay Kristi, but the FBI had escorted him into the room with her in the first place. — Speaking of the press, it appears that police in LA are intentionally targeting reporters with "non-lethal" rounds that can cause severe and permanent damage. — Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman reports on the new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) evaluation of the GOP's "Big Beautiful" tax cut for billionaires and it's shocking. — California Governor Gavin Newsom takes down Trump. — Hegseth has apparently come up with a plan to invade Greenland

Senator Alex Padilla asked a question. The regime answered with fists, lies, and a chilling promise: "We're not going away." We're now living in an early-stage police state. After California Senator Alex Padilla was assaulted for saying, "I'm Senator Alex Padilla and I have question for the Secretary," DHS Secretary and notorious puppy murderer Kristi Noem went on Fox "News" and lied to the American people, saying that he hadn't identified himself, she didn't know who he was, and that he was "lunging into the room." The violence inflicted on Padilla was the point. And it's being celebrated in real time by MAGA, Fox, and the Trump administration.

By rewriting history, staging propaganda events, and testing the military's loyalty, is Trump laying the groundwork for a future coup attempt? Robert E. Lee killed more Americans than Hitler. More than Khrushchev. More than King George III, Ho Chi Minh, or Kim Il Sung. He killed more Americans than we've lost in every war since the American Revolution, combined. He was the largest mass murderer of Americans in our nation's history. General Lee was not a good man: he was a morbidly rich oligarch who not only bought and sold enslaved human beings but delighted in whipping and torturing them.

Step by Step, MAGA Is normalizing repression and setting America up for tyranny. Will we wait, like so many before us, until the knock comes to our own door? "The fog crept in on little cat feet." — Carl Sandburg, Fog (1916) Eventually, people in countries that are in the process of flipping from democracy to fascism figure out that they're now living in a dictatorship; by then, however, it's usually too late. For people in Hungary, it was May, 2020 when Orbán started arresting people for their Facebook posts. For folks in Russia it was when Navalny and his supporters were first assaulted in public and then arrested and sent to brutal gulags in Siberia. For Germans, it was July 14, 1933 — six months after he became chancellor — when Hitler outlawed all political parties except his own.

Helicopters, uniforms, and flags used like weapons. Now Marines are prowling American streets. This is how democracies die — in prime time… Trump wants blood. The spectacle is the point. The helicopters. The uniforms. The rumble of armored personnel carriers down the boulevards of Los Angeles. The former president of the United States — now reinstalled in the White House through a judicial (Citizens United) and electoral (Musk's money and X) sleight-of-hand that would make Orbán proud — is sending U.S. Marines into an American city. Marines who are trained in killing people. Quickly, efficiently, ruthlessly. Not crowd control, not defending the Constitutional right to protest, not arresting and Mirandizing: just shedding blood. Blowing things up and killing people is what this most lethal fighting force in the world does so well. And Trump just sent them into our civilian streets.

If you think this ends with L.A., you haven't been paying attention. This is Portland 2.0 — but scaled up, and aimed at the soul of American democracy… Trump: Well, we're going to have troops everywhere. Reporter: What's the bar for sending in the Marines? Trump: The bar is what I think it is. The 2026 and 2028 elections may have just gotten a lot more distant. First, the backstory. It was around 2 a.m. on July 15, 2020, when Mark Pettibone, then 29, was walking home from a relatively calm Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Portland. He hadn't done anything more provocative than wearing a black shirt; no slogans, no mask, no glimmers of violence. Yet moments later, an unmarked minivan pulled up alongside him. Out jumped several armed men in camouflage, with no insignia, slipped a bag over his head and kidnapped him.

The founders of our nation well understood the importance of universal quality public education. The first law mandating public schools paid for with taxpayer dollars was passed in Massachusetts in 1647: to this day, that state is notable for its historic emphasis on education. As Thomas Jefferson, who founded America’s first tuition-free public college (the University of Virginia), noted in a letter to Colonel Charles Yancey on January 6, 1816: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Everybody hates both Trump and Musk! — There's a "Dark MAGA/Dark Enlightenment" conspiracy theory going around where Musk destroys Trump and he and his tech bro buddies take over our democracy. — It's shocking how uninterested the media is in Musk's claim that Trump's in the Epstein files. — Will Trump force our military officers to sign an oath swearing allegiance to him above the Constitution or the nation? — Trump bows down to Putin again, this time in front of the German Chancellor while in the Oval Office. — Bob Kennedy's deadly war on science rolls on. — As Trump ramps up his war on Blue states, are Americans getting over revenge politics? — Geeky Science! Speaking of revenge, a new study finds that revenge can be as addictive as opiates, and that forgiveness can work like detox.

A Supreme Court justice handed the keys of our democracy to billionaires — and now they're crashing it in public… The alpha-male dick-measuring contest between Trump and Musk isn't entertainment: it's the inevitable outcome of America's complete surrender to oligarchy. After centuries of democratic progress, we're watching the World's Richest Man® and the World's Most Powerful Man® battle for supremacy on social media like feuding warlords. How did the land of Lincoln and Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Kennedy, become a playground for billionaire sociopaths? The answer has a name: John Roberts.

Stay with me, and I’ll explain these weird, weird facts:•Trump’s tariffs on foreign steel increased the amount of steel imported. Despite Trump’s tariffs, total steel imports are up 3.6% year to date compared to 2024 according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. •Trump’s tariffs have reduced American steel production. Adjusted year-to-date output through May 24 was 36,287,000 net tons, down 0.5 percent from the same period last year. •Trump’s tariffs on steel have raised prices on American goods from cars to computer mainframes. NUCOR, America’s largest steelmaker, raised its prices a stunning 38.5%, from $675/ton to $935/ton in the past year to March 2025. As steel is central to US production in all industries, these hikes are a big factor in inflation, adding 1.7% to prices throughout the economy, according to a Yale University study. This will cost the average American family $2,800 if the tariffs continue through the year. •And the biggest shocker: Trump’s tariffs are costing American steel jobs. Despite Trump’s punitive tariffs, steel employment in the USA has flatlined and massive layoffs have been announced. In March, with Trump imposing the highest tariffs in a century, Cleveland-Cliffs, one of America’s largest steel producers, announced over 1,200 steelworkers will be laid off in Michigan and Minnesota. - Greg Palast