2025 Archives

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 14, 2025

America on the Brink: Trump’s Roadmap to Recession, Fascism, and World War III

We must call this what it is: a full-scale assault on our economy, our democracy, and the peaceful world order that's prevented a third world war for nearly 80 years… The headlines this week are wild: Trump is threatening nutso tariffs against America's traditional trading partners (although none for Russia, of course), demanding that our allies proclaim their willingness to go to war with China, and — along with his billionaire buddies — looting our government while immiserating small business and the American middle class. As a result, America stands today at an extraordinarily dangerous crossroads economically, politically, and geopolitically. We're talking a second Republican Great Depression, fascism, and the very real possibility of a third world war

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 13, 2025

Paid Sick Leave and Low-Cost Child Care to Revive the American Dream: The Hidden History of the American Dream

Most of America’s labor and childcare policies were established or find their foundation in FDR’s New Deal and the work of his Labor Secretary, Francis Perkins. At the time, women had few rights and little economic or political power. Their opportunities in the workplace were strictly circumscribed (I still remember, in the 1970s, The Lansing State Journal requiring me to place a “Help Wanted: Secretary” classified ad in the “Women Wanted” section), pay was correspondingly low, and benefits were non-existent.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 12, 2025

Saturday Report 7/12/25 — Plow Fields or Lose Benefits? Trump Admin Says Medicaid Recipients Should Become Farm Laborers...

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Killing them softly with criminal negligence — Trump's IRS now says that churches, contrary to Jesus's teachings and the law, can openly advocate political positions and hustle on behalf of politicians. — Democrats need to take a lesson from Republicans, like those who run the Lincoln project, about how to "take names and kick ass." — There are an estimated half million white undocumented immigrants in the US, most from Europe, particularly Ireland and the rest of the UK, but to date very few have been arrested or incarcerated at Alligator Alcatraz or any other ICE facilities. — Texas Governor Greg Abbott is trying to "fix" the midterms? — Work in the fields for $5/hour or lose your healthcare? — Red state Republicans won't discover how badly screwed they are until after the next years' midterm elections. — Billionaire wannabe dictators who try to loot their nations gotta stick together, or at least so says Trump. — Got a wacky conspiracy-nut theory? Trump's administration and the GOP is here to help!

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 11, 2025

The Kool-Aid Presidency: How Donald Trump Created America’s Jonestown

He didn't need a jungle. With lies, fear, and blind loyalty, Trump built his Jonestown in the heart of our republic — and millions are still drinking… Former FBI agent Michael Fienberg has gone public, pointing out that the agency, under the leadership of Bongino and Patel, is purging itself of people who are not members of the Trump cult (my phrase, not his). Similar cult-like behavior is on vivid display with the White House press secretary, the head of DHS, and the head of the Department of Justice — among numerous other administration officials and elected Republicans — regularly spouting lies and half-truths that target women, immigrants, and Democrats.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 10, 2025

Is Delusion the Right's New "Weapon of Mass Destruction"?

Militia attacks on weather radars aren't just crimes: they're symptoms of a deeper sickness that rightwing media, foreign trolls, and the GOP are using to devastate our democracy via lies and hate... In Oklahoma, a domestic militia calling itself "Veterans on Patrol" is systematically targeting weather radars. Their leader, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, claims the military is controlling the weather through Doppler radar systems and that these machines are part of a divine affront—a "weather weapon" — that is "mocking God Himself." He's encouraging his followers to sabotage these radars under an operation he calls "Leaning Tower." This isn't just fringe paranoia: it's part of a growing anti-reality insurgency that threatens our democracy itself. Let's be blunt: this is insanity. Not just in its content, but in its consequences. And yet, it's not isolated. It's one of many conspiracy-fueled campaigns that now animate parts of American life, often backed by violence or intimidation. From QAnon to flat-earth nonsense to vaccine "skeptics" now within the FDA, we're watching a dangerous erosion of truth, a collapse of shared facts, and an outright assault on the institutions that protect life and liberty. What's happening here isn't just about weather radars: it's about reality itself.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 9, 2025

This Isn’t About Pocketbook Politics — It’s About the Survival of the American Ideal

Every failed democracy has one thing in common: the people assumed someone else would save it... Donald Trump didn't just try to overturn an election. He's trying to overturn the very ideal — and reality— of what has historically made America great. While the media fixates on trade, Epstein, and floods, we're all missing the real story: Trump's "waste, fraud, and abuse" campaign is a direct assault on everything that once made this country a global leader and a moral force. His goal isn't to restore American greatness: it's to dismantle it, to trade it away to strongmen like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and to drag the United States into the emerging authoritarian axis that now includes Hungary, India, Turkey and others abandoning democratic norms.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 8, 2025

If the Truth Is a Crime, Then We Are All Criminals, Because Silence Is What Tyranny Depends On

If the Truth Is a Crime, Then We Are All Criminals, Because Silence Is What Tyranny Depends On Thom plus logo Now that Trump has threatened to prosecute CNN, what happens next will define the role of the press and the soul of this nation… History rarely announces itself. It creeps in quietly, cloaked in the language of "law and order," "national security," and "patriotism." But every now and then, it screams. Last week, it screamed.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 7, 2025

What If This is the Last Generation that Gets to Ask "What If"?

The Iroquois planned for seven generations. Our leaders can't plan past the next corporate quarterly report — and we're paying the ultimate price... We are the generation that broke the Earth, and now we're out of time to pretend otherwise. I know you don't want to hear this. Nobody does. Just like nobody wanted to hear that 9-year-old girl's screams echoing through the Texas Hill Country last week as floodwaters ripped through her summer camp. She was washed away before rescuers could reach her. Her story is heartbreaking, and emblematic. Trump cynically dismissed it as "a hundred year flood" and added, "Nobody saw it; nobody expected it." He lied.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 6, 2025

The American Dream requires a healthy populace who aren’t crushed by medical costs: The Hidden History of the American Dream

The United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn’t define healthcare as an absolute right for all of its citizens. That’s it. We’re the only one left. We’re the only country in the developed world where somebody getting sick can leave a family bankrupt, destitute, and homeless. A half-million American families are wiped out every year so completely that they must lose everything and declare bankruptcy just because somebody got sick. The number of health-expense-related bankruptcies in all the other developed countries in the world combined is zero. Yet the United States spends more on “healthcare” than any other country in the world: about 17% of GDP.

Posted at Hartmann Report on Jul. 5, 2025

Saturday Report 7/5/25 — Wild Killer Whales are More Empathetic than Trump & MAGA

The Best of the Rest of the News. — The toadies's Trump has installed to run our federal agencies, in this case Social Security, are apparently just as good at lying as is Trump himself. — Republicans are suing to stop American citizens from voting — Trump and DOGE/Musk gutted the National Weather Service and now people in Texas — including children camping — are dead and missing. — Never forget that this is that most catastrophic bill passed in our lifetimes: no Republican who voted for it should get reelected or forgiven. — Trump continues his regular phone calls with Putin, who's obviously now giving him instructions. — CBS/Paramount paid an extortionate bribe to Trump to seal a billion-dollar merger deal and Senator Ron Wyden wants them prosecuted for bribery. — The Six Republicans on the US Supreme Court are now officially complicit in Trump's corruption and destruction of American democracy. — Pam Bondi's Department of Justice is looking at prosecuting local and state election officials if they think too many Democrats are getting elected. — "Kill them!" A convicted (and pardoned) January 6th rioter is now helping the DOJ investigate Democrats who Trump alleges tried to "weaponize" the Justice Department when they prosecuted him. — Challenging the idea of free speech and the distribution of publicly-available information, Trump and his minions are investigating Joshua Aaron, the young man who created the ICEBlock app for smartphones that crowdsources details on ICE raids. — Wild Killer Whales are more empathetic than Trump and MAGA. — Hunter in a Farmer's World: Neurodivergence and the Climate Crisis: Are ADHD Brains Wired to Save the Planet? — Wisdom School: The Lost Gospel of the Kingdom: Why Jesus Was a Revolutionary, Not a Mascot