2025 Archives

Conservatives call Anderson's film "irresponsible" because it dares to show what happens when power turns its guns on the powerless... This week has felt like one battle after another. We all watched video after video of ICE agents dropping from helicopters onto a Chicago apartment, kicking in doors and terrorizing Black and Hispanic American and immigrant families, then trashing and stealing their possessions without ever presenting a warrant signed by a judge. The GOP pushed the country to the brink again with another government shutdown threat while right-wing legislatures redrew districts to erase the votes of millions. We heard more talk of arresting journalists for doing their jobs, and watched as the military rolled through American cities as if people here are the enemy. Each day has felt like a slow-motion assault on democracy itself. Louise and I went to see Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie One Battle After Another last weekend, and I was stunned. It's a film of rare courage and artistry. From the first scene to the last, Paul Thomas Anderson reminds us that cinema can still tell the truth about power and conscience. It's a film that demands attention, not permission.

Raids without warrants, kids in zip-ties, and officials who say "F** the children": this is the moral collapse of the American state. It's time for state authorities to start making arrests... Remember the old TV crime/drama shows? A cop would bang on a suspect’s door and the suspect would say, through the door, “Do you have a warrant?” The officer would then walk away, promising to come back later with the requisite paper signed by a judge. No more. Now they’re kicking in doors, shooting pepper-gas balls into the open windows of cars driven by reporters, smashing windows and furniture, and concealing their faces and identities like the Klan did in days of old. In Chicago, they’ve shot two unarmed people, killing one. And there wasn’t a warrant signed by a judge to be seen anywhere.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Swing district voters are increasingly upset with Trump and the GOP about exploding grocery prices. — Over the past decade Republicans have voted at least 70 times to repeal Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act or ACA), and they took a major whack at it again with the Big Billionaires’ Bill this year; most Americans agree with Democrats that its worth shutting down the government to force them to repeal the cuts. — Speaking of the shutdown, Congressional Progressive Caucus Vice Chairman and California Congressman Ro Khanna, a twice-monthly regular on my radio/TV program, echoed the point yesterday on Fox News that I made here on Hartmann Report a few days ago and have been discussing on the air: Republicans in the Senate don’t need a single Democratic vote to re-open the government. Not one! And they could do it tomorrow. — As the wealth of the top 1% of Americans hit a record $52 trillion last month (up 6% over the previous quarter), young people’s support for the Trump administration is in free-fall. — Portlanders laying flowers in front of the ICE building, planning a naked bike ride as a protest, and Portland’s bicycle police arresting a rightwing influencer (and two others) for trying to get into a fight with anti-ICE protesters are apparently getting to the White House. Now they’re threatening to cutting federal funds to Portland. — Elon speaks, the FBI leaps. — “Whiskey Pete” Hegseth orders our military to kill four more Venezuelan civilians in defiance of both US and international law, and the naval airmen comply. — Hunter in a Farmer’s World: The Superpower Hidden in ADHD: Hypercuriosity — Thom TV: Sue's Daily Stack, Monday, 29 September, 2025 — Wisdom School: The Hidden Power of Gratitude and Forgiveness

When lies become policy and propaganda becomes identity, democracy itself is put at risk… Recently, I mentioned that when I was 13 years old I went door-to-door with my dad for Barry Goldwater. Three years later I was living on my own in East Lansing getting tear gassed and beaten for demonstrating against the Vietnam War and continuing segregation in the South. In other words, I’ve seen — and participated deeply — in both the right and left sides of American politics. Although his position against the Civil Rights Act was reprehensible, I took Goldwater at his word that it was based on his concern about federal overreach and the 10th Amendment; having read both his books, I came to deeply respect his principled stands, even though I also deeply disagreed with most of them. As most historians will confirm, Barry Goldwater believed what he said, and never, so far as I can find, knowingly lied to the American people. That was my dad’s Republican Party. They’d spin or shade the truth, but rarely told what they knew were naked lies. And many among them deeply believed in the principles they espoused. That party is dead.