Hartmann Report

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.

Their diabolical and racist plan, for purely political purposes, to intentionally allow a half-million Americans to die has been largely ignored by the American mainstream media… Today, March 13th, through April 7th next month, commemorate the anniversary of what could only be called the start of an intentional, racially-based plan for the mass death of American citizens, put together by Donald Trump and Jared Kushner for purely political purposes, and virtually ignored by the American mainstream media. If that sounds extreme, read on: all details are hotlinked to credible, mainstream sources. And, as these anniversaries over the next 3 weeks are noted in the press, hopefully some in the media will report on this now-well-documented history.

While working families struggle, Trump and his billionaire cronies are cashing in big time… When the stock market crashes and working families lose everything, the morbidly rich don’t panic — they pour a drink. For them, a financial meltdown isn’t a crisis, it’s Happy Hour; a golden opportunity to buy up the world at fire-sale prices while the rest of us struggle to survive. Recessions are also great opportunities for neoNazi recruiters, Russian social media trolls, and people who want to destroy our country. Billionaire lovers of neofascist strongman government are licking their lips and rubbing their hands in Bond-villain glee. For them, it’s a great time to be alive. Here’s why.

Who’s next? Trump’s ICE is snatching student protesters off the streets! Trump and his police-state goons are trying to frighten people who dare even come close to people protesting his or Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies. This is how dictators intimidate citizens, how freedom dies, and is a clear violation of our Constitution. And, in all probability, this is just the beginning of what historians will someday define as a very ugly episode in American history.

Wall Street landlords, foreign buyers, and the GOP’s war on affordable housing... Trump ordered Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser to evict homeless people from various parts of Washington DC. He then cut millions of dollars in federal support to house poor people. He didn’t make any suggestions about solving homelessness, mind you; he simply wants the problem moved out of sight. It’s a classic Republican strategy, and will work about as well as putting a Band-Aid over cancer. It wasn’t always this way in America.

WTF, America?! The country where kids with birth defects must beg for help… Welcome to America’s sickest reality show — where families turn to crowdfunding for cancer treatments while billionaires hoard obscene wealth. In no other developed nation do sick children depend on charity to survive, but here, it’s just another episode of our rigged system. Regular readers might have noticed that our monthly Zoom meeting has been moved back to March 15; it’s because Louise and I were with our family from Michigan on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Yesterday afternoon (our last day), the ship was running a program where they were selling T-shirts to benefit St. Jude’s Hospital, a fine charity that’s doing great work. Weirdly, though, America is the only country in the world where children with cancer have to depend on the charity of others for research and treatment. Somehow, this doesn’t seem abnormal to Americans. In fact, we are marinated in constant reminders — that we ignore because they have just come to see normal — of how unique America is in this regard. Consider the ubiquitous ad for the company that buys life insurance policies. The senior citizen in the ad says something to the effect of, “We learned that we could sell our policy when a friend did so to pay their medical bills.”

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Donald Trump continues to ignore and violate multiple court orders regarding the funding of various congressionally mandated programs, while Elon Musk‘s DOGE teenagers continue to invade federal agencies, sometimes with armed muscle who appear to be pretending to be federal marshals. — Is Trump seriously trying to seize Canada as our 51st state? — Trump is seriously trying to screw Ukraine on behalf of Putin, and ‘Liddle Marco and the terrified Republicans in Congress are being forced to go along with it. — Want to send a few bucks to Texas Congressman Al Green by way of supporting his defiance of Trump‘s lies at the State of the Union? — Supreme Court Associate Justice Sam Alito is at it again, lying in a dissenting opinion while laying out a road map for Donald Trump to violate our Constitution. — Elon Musk sure does know how to manipulate Donald Trump: just spend a million bucks on TV advertisements flattering him and he’ll roll over like a dog wanting his tummy scratched. — Crazy Alert! Is the Pentagon really going to decide that they can’t mention the name of the Air Force plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima? — Wisdom School: The Pervasive Universal Consciousness Model: A New Frontier in Understanding Reality — Hunter in a Farmer’s World: ADHD: Learn to Postpone Gratification