Hartmann Report

The dismantling of American democracy isn't a secret conspiracy. It's a public spectacle—and it's accelerating… When Harvard, one of America's oldest and most revered institutions of higher learning, stands defiant as the federal government freezes billions in funding simply because it refuses to knuckle under to authoritarian demands — like gutting DEI programs and turning faculty into immigration informants — we're no longer playing the usual game of politics. This is the open throttling of academic freedom, part of a larger, deliberate campaign to silence dissent, centralize power, and erase democratic norms.

Although both presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan quoted Puritan leader John Winthrop’s 1630 “city on a hill” speech (Reagan added the word “shining”) when referencing our land of opportunity, the expression “American Dream” originates with historian James Truslow Adams and his 1931 book The Epic of America.[xix] He describes “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” He was expressing a sentiment held by most of the Founders of this country and the Framers of the Constitution, as well as foreign observers and leading American philosophers throughout history. Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s called it “the charm of anticipated success.” Henry David Thoreau, in Walden, wrote in 1854: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Just a reminder that today there will be protests all across the country themed around “No Kings!” — Is Trump Helping Putin Defeat Ukraine? — Our government used to keep track of lies and disinformation coming from Russia. Marco Rubio just shut that agency down. — Can Trump really fire Fed chair Jerome Powell as he claimed yesterday? — Idaho Republicans gave families $50M for private schools — and scrapped $30M used for public education..say what?!? — JD Vance says if Brits can’t use the N-word and slurs against gays in public venues, they can’t cut a trade deal with America. — Did your miscarriage tissue have a dignified funeral at a state approved facility? If not, get ready for jail if Republicans have their way. — Crazy Alert! The GOP has adopted new family values: you can now DM offering to inseminate women you don’t know! — Wisdom School: Nature's Medicine: Can Forests Calm Inflammatory Conditions? — Hunter in a Farmer’s World: ADHD: What One Anonymous Good Deed Does Every Day — Geeky Science: Why the position you sleep in could shorten your life?

Every bribe has a receipt. Every payoff leaves a trail. Is the cult finally cracking? Want to take down Trump? Demonstrate how corrupt he and his oligarch buddies are. I've spent a good chunk of my adult life doing international relief work for a nonprofit based out of Europe. From the mass slaughter in Darfur to the famine following the Civil War in Uganda to deeply impoverished rural Russia and Southeast Asia to hunt clubs in Colombia where young men shoot "feral" children for sport, I've seen horrors few can even imagine, much less would want to live through. The one consistent and defining characteristic of the countries where I've lived and worked is the corruption.

A virus needs its host: The Republican Party has provided the platform, the protection, and the power that allowed Trump’s assault on democracy to flourish... We’ve spent years watching Donald Trump attack our democratic institutions, inflame divisions, and corrupt the public discourse. But focusing solely on Trump misses the larger, more disturbing reality: Trump isn’t acting alone. He’s a dangerous pathogen that found the perfect host in today’s Republican Party, an organism already compromised and eager to be infected. The evidence of this dangerous symbiosis is alarming and immediate. Just days ago, America crossed a threshold that should chill every citizen who still believes in the rule of law.

Musk. Trump. Putin. Labor spies. Stolen data. This isn't a thriller. It's what's happening inside your government — right now… America is under siege, but not by foreign armies or rogue terrorists. Instead, the threat is coming from inside the house: unelected billionaires who are quietly hijacking our democratic institutions from within. Although it's entirely possible that they are collaborating with foreign autocrats, including Vladimir Putin, who are also billionaires and thus share their unique authoritarian worldview. And thanks to the bravery of a whistleblower named Daniel Berulis, we now have a window into what may well be one of the most brazen and dangerous power grabs in American history.

Trump defied the Supreme Court and had a lawful U.S. resident deported into a foreign prison. The next one could be you... What distinguishes [a concentration camp] from a prison (in the modern sense) is that incarceration in a concentration camp is independent of any judicial sentence or even indictment, and is not subject to judicial review. —United States Holocaust Museum Yesterday was the day democracy in our nation officially died. We no longer live in the America we grew up in: "The land of the free and the home of the brave." The country the rest of the world looked up to and depended on. The country that claimed to follow the rule of law, and valued compassion and the protection of its most vulnerable people. We are now in the midst of a outright coup against the Constitution, against the United States, and against our founding ideals: Donald Trump proclaimed it yesterday when he openly defied the Supreme Court and our founding documents with a sneer, and his neofascist sycophants chuckled and giggled in the Oval Office.

History warns us: every major economic crash has led to a world war. Trump's corruption, debt, and tariffs may be lighting the fuse… In three weeks, on my birthday May 7th, it'll be exactly 80 years since Germany signed terms of surrender at the headquarters of US General Dwight D. Eisenhower in Reims, France. That year, 1945, also signaled the official end of the Republican Great Depression. And May 7 of this year may well signal the beginning of the Second Republican Great Depression, the fourth major economic crash in our history. Troublingly, every one of the prior three financial crises also tripped off a major war.

Back in the 1980s a lot of us worked like hell to try to stop the Reagan Revolution. We failed. Which is why the next few years may be our last chance to save American democracy, our environment, and what’s left of the American Dream. When my Boomer generation was the same average age as the Millennial generation is today, back in 1990, our generation held 21.3% of the nation’s wealth.[i] Louise and I shared in that wealth; although we were still in our 30s, in 1990 we owned a profitable small business (our fourth) and a nice home in suburban Atlanta. Our own locally owned business, a home of our own, and the knowledge that our kids would have more opportunities than we did: that was, in fact, one common way of defining the “American dream.” It was normal then.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Trump's legal serfs: when law firms bow to the Don. — The Empire shudders: how Trump's trade tantrum could trigger America's fall. — Was there a "lack of urgency" in the Supreme Court deportation ruling about the Maryland father wrongly deported to El Salvador's most notorious prison? You Betcha... Will the Republican justices keep sucking up to Trump? Is a frog's ass watertight? — Seniors are first in the line of fire as Trump's tariff bomb explodes. — Authoritarian Alert! There's a new dress code in Trump's Washington, and it's straight out of a dictator's playbook. — The SAVE Act: What could possibly go wrong with the House-passed bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote — Hillary sends out a warning about it — I've been warning about this for months! — Crazy Alert! The next market crash or maybe even a war may be engineered by a robot — and nobody will be accountable. — Hunter in a Farmer's World: ADHD: Budget in "Blow-Out" Time — Wisdom School: Imprinting Reality: The Mystery of Mental Influence — Disgraced wanna-be dictator quits presidential palace in shame: Could we take some lessons here in America?