Sociopathic Trump Delivers Absurd—and Terrifying—Address to the Nation

Trump's latest efforts to end democracy

Robert Reich for Inequality Media

The real message to be drawn from Trump’s address to the nation is that he will call into question the votes of every state and city that chooses a Democratic senator or representative in the 2026 midterm elections. He’ll push Republican governors and mayors not to certify the results. He’ll demand recounts and audits.

We’ve been here before, but this time he’s even less restrained than he was in 2020 and is surrounded by people who will do his bidding.

His address to the nation was absurd. It was riddled with so many lies that I’m reluctant to dignify them with rebuttals, but you should have them.

He mentioned a newly-declassified investigation into a voter registration group in Muskegon, Michigan that apparently had invited fraudulent registrations in 2020—but Trump didn’t mention that the applications had been caught and none of them had resulted in any ballots being sent out incorrectly. 

The FBI closed the investigation, stating “the investigation to date did not identify a criminal violation or a priority threat to national security.”

He alleged, once again, that foreign powers have hijacked votes, or that federal or state officials plotted to rig either the 2020 election. But no evidence has ever emerged showing that vote counts have been manipulated or corrupted. Intelligence reports, state audits of vote tallies and lawsuits have repeatedly affirmed official results in 2020 and other years. 

Nothing suggests China manipulated votes. Instead, US intelligence assessment says China “probably also continued longstanding efforts” to gather information on US voters and public opinion and to use that information to influence US policy “as it has during all election cycles since at least 2008.”

The most significant foreign influence operations occurred in the 2016 presidential election and were conducted by Russia, in favor of Trump, according to the Mueller report. To the extent that this and other reports appeared to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Trump’s victory, they have had the effect of fueling his distrust of US intelligence agencies.

Despite his repeated assertions that US elections are not secure, Trump during his second term has significantly cut the budget of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, including its election work. That’s because Trump grew contemptuous of the agency, and the government’s election security work generally, after it validated the integrity of the 2020 election.

So the entire performance was fake—an extension of his Big Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.

One reason why Trump hated Mueller

Disgraced former Rhode Island general Mike Flynn just ripped you off for $1.25 million

DOJ payout to Mike Flynn has J6-ers lining up at the trough

Liz Dye

The Department of Justice announced that it was “settling” a malicious prosecution case with Michael Flynn for $1.25 million.

Flynn’s claims were entirely without merit, and a federal judge had already dismissed them once. But the Justice Department decided to pay him anyway, calling it a righteous vindication of Trump’s constant whining that he was illegally targeted by the FBI and Robert Mueller.

"Those who instigated the Russia Collusion Hoax and Crossfire Hurricane abused their power to mislead the American people and tarnish the reputations of President Trump and his supporters,” a DOJ spokesperson told ABC. “Today’s settlement, secured by this Justice Department, is an important step in redressing that historic injustice."

Encouraged by this blatant corruption, Trump’s most ardent supporters are demanding their own cut. This week, a group of January 6 rioters filed a class action lawsuit demanding recompense for the injuries they suffered when they attempted to overturn the election.

The stage is set for the wholesale looting of the federal coffers by Trump and his MAGA allies.

Thank you for your attention to this very important message from the President of the United States. Sigh.

Read his own words: Trump's brain is gone

The guy with the nuclear launch codes

Stephen Robinson

Donald Trump’s recent interviews with Time and The Atlantic revealed a president who is completely unhinged and incoherent. Sadly, that’s not news. 

But what stood out is that Trump is consistently confused and disconnected from reality even on issues that are supposedly in his wheelhouse.

Trump has always been an ignoramus who masks his intellectual shortcomings with bombast and declarations of his own brilliance, but his rambling nonsensical responses in these latest interviews should set off alarms — especially in light of all the media attention and scrutiny Joe Biden received after his disastrous debate performance or when Special Counsel Robert Hur described him as “a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”

Trump, who turns 79 in June, is the oldest person ever elected president. His repetitive speech patterns, frequent use of empty phrases, and overall rambling discourse are too often graded on a curve.

White House officials and pandering Republicans might boast about Trump’s boundless energy in a manner that would shame North Korean state media, but the Time and Atlantic interviews tell a very different story.

Who's next?

For more cartoons by Jen Sorenson, CLICK HERE.

5 years after the Mueller report into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election on behalf of Trump

Mueller did a poor job of putting the facts about Russia's election interference before the public

Howard Manly, The Conversation

In the long list of Donald Trump’s legal woes, the Mueller report – which was released in redacted form on April 18, 2019 – appears all but forgotten.

But the nearly two-year investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election dominated headlines – and revealed what has become Trump’s trademark denial of any wrongdoing. For Trump, the Russia investigation was the first “ridiculous hoax” and “witch hunt.”

Mueller didn’t help matters. “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the special counsel stated.

Trump Claims He Is 'Not Going to Partake' in Special Counsel Probes

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says he has no say in the matter.

JESSICA CORBETT For Common Dreams

By Monte Wolverton

Former President Donald Trump on Friday told Fox News Digital that he won't "partake" after U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith to serve as special counsel for two ongoing criminal investigations involving the GOP leader, who recently announced his 2024 campaign.

"I have been going through this for six years—for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore," said Trump, who faces various legal issues at the state and federal level. "And I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this."

"I have been proven innocent for six years on everything—from fake impeachments to [former Special Counsel Robert] Mueller who found no collusion, and now I have to do it more?" he continued. "It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political."

The first investigation Smith will oversee focuses on the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump incited with his "Big Lie" that the 2020 election was stolen from him—which led to his unprecedented second impeachment. The second probe focuses on classified documents and other presidential records.

The ex-president insisted Friday that "I am not going to partake in it... I'm not going to partake in this."

Trump Intelligence Chiefs Hid Evidence Of Russian Election Interference

 Internal Intelligence Community Report Names Grenell and Ratcliffe for ‘Politicalization’ of Analysts’ Findings

By Alison Greene

Even in his re-election campaign, Trump's ties to Russia
stood out

Lost in the news on the day of Trump’s Insurrection was a devastating new watchdog report to Congress on the politicizing and distorting of intelligence during Donald Trump’s time in office.

The analytic ombudsman, career intelligence community veteran Barry A. Zulauf, determined that under Trump national intelligence reports had become highly politicized. 

Important findings were suppressed to appease Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Russian interference in American elections.

Zulauf’s unclassified report paints a frightening picture of just how much the Trump administration skewed intelligence to suppress knowledge of interference by Russia in our 2020 elections.

From March 2020, in the critical months leading up to the elections, Zulauf “identified a long story arc of—at the very least—perceived politicization of intelligence.”

Paintings of Trump painted by his supporters

 Really.

Pardon me?

An ethicist's guide to what is proper when it comes to presidential pardons 

Scott Davidson, West Virginia University

Who else will Trump save from the chop before leaving office? 
AP Photo/Evan Vucci 

Questions surrounding President Trump’s use of the pardon power began almost as soon as he entered office in 2017 and will continue undoubtedly through his final days in power. 

To date, Trump has issued 29 pardons during his presidency – compared to 212 pardons issued by Barack Obama – and speculation swirls around whom he might pardon before leaving office: his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, associates convicted under the Mueller investigation, members of the Trump family and even Trump himself.

But should the pardon power be solely up to the president’s discretion? Or should there be restrictions on who can be granted a pardon?

As a scholar of ethics and political philosophy, I find that much of the public debate around pardons needs to be framed within a more fundamental question: Should there be a presidential pardon power at all in a democracy governed by the rule of law? What, after all, is the purpose of a pardon?

Russia-Gate, Trump collusion real, concludes Republican-led Senate report

GOP led Senate Intelligence report a stunning indictment of Trump collusion with Russia

Kerry Eleveld, Daily Kos Staff

A new 966-page report released Tuesday by the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee reads like the bestselling spy thriller that the Special Counsel's Russia investigation failed to deliver.

The new details are a simply stunning indictment of the Trump campaign's ties to Russian government officials and intelligence operations suggesting that, at best, Trump campaign officials worked in close coordination with Russian operatives throughout much of the election. 

At worst, the document could be viewed as evidence that the Trump campaign ultimately became a front for a Russian influence operation.  

Of the many revelatory details included in Volume 5 of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Russia report, the new information related to Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are among the most damning of all.

Manafort's central role in the campaign and proximity to Trump "created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign," writes the committee. 

In fact, the panel went a step further than Special Counsel Robert Mueller did in defining Manafort's longtime associate and close ally Konstantin Kilimnik as a Russian intelligence operative. 

Better buzz Barr

For more cartoons by Ruben Bolling, CLICK HERE.

Here are 9 things we still don’t know about Trump

Taxes, kids' clearances, bank loans, bone spurs, what is said on all those Trump-Putin calls and more

By Sarah K. Burris

What do they say on those calls (Voice of America)

At the end of January, President Donald Trump begins his fourth year in the Office of the Presidency. Despite promises to be the most transparent president in history, there’s still a hefty list of things he is hiding from the American people.

“We have been — I have been the most transparent president and administration in the history of our country by far,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn in April 2019.

“We just went through the Mueller witch hunt, where you had really 18 angry Democrats that hate President Trump. They hate him with a passion. They were contributors in many cases to Hillary Clinton. Hate him with a passion. How they picked this panel, I don’t know.”

If that claim was true, Americans would have answers about the many open questions about Trump’s life, businesses, finances, White House and more.

Here is the list of things Americans still don’t know:

The tactics of denial

5 ways Trump and his supporters are using the same strategies as science deniers
Lee McIntyre, Boston University

Trump, during a meeting in the cabinet room
at the White House, Washington, Nov. 22, 2019. AP/Susan Walsh

While watching the House impeachment hearings, I realized my two decades of research into why people ignore, reject or deny science had a political parallel.

From anti-evolutionists to anti-vaccine advocates, known as “anti-vaxxers,” climate change deniers to Flat Earthers, science deniers all follow a common pattern of faulty reasoning that allows them to reject what they don’t want to believe – and accept what they favor – based on a misunderstanding of how science deals with evidence.

As I’ve been watching the hearings, I’ve noticed that a number of characteristics of this type of reasoning are now being embraced by President Donald Trump and his congressional supporters.

Characteristic acts

There are five common tactics used by science deniers.

In 1998, brothers Mark and Chris Hoofnagle (a lawyer and a physiologist) wrote an early blog post about science denialism. 

That was followed by further work by econometrician Pascal Diethelm and public health scholar Martin McKee and cognitive scientists John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. 

All identified the following factors as characteristic acts of science deniers:

• Believing in conspiracy theories;
• Relying on cherry-picked evidence;
• Relying on fake experts (and dismissal of actual experts);
• Committing logical errors;
• Setting impossible standards for what science should be able to deliver.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Right before Veteran’s Day weekend, Trump admits to stealing more than $2 million from veterans for his own personal use.

Trump used money raised for vets as campaign slush fund. That alone should end his political career

Ian Reifowitz for Daily Kos

Not a real check - Trump STOLE the money for himself. He admitted
it in a court settlement with the New York State Attorney General.
This was part of $2.8 million raised by Trump's Foundation for veterans'
charities but used instead to fund Trump's 2016 campaign and to buy
Trump portraits that hung in his properties. (ProPublica)

In 2016, the two major party candidates for president both had a charitable foundation that bore their name. One of them—the Clinton Foundation—received a tremendous and, yes, unfair amount of media coverage regarding supposed corruption and misdeeds, even though every charge leveled during the campaign has turned out to be baseless. You might remember in particular the explosive yet absurdly false charge about uranium—and wasn’t it great to watch Joy Reid absolutely pick that one apart, simply destroying one of its main purveyors on live TV.

In the end it was the other one, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, that turned out to be corrupt—rotten to the core, in fact. 

This week The Man Who Lost The Popular Vote was forced to admit it thanks to the work done by New York State Attorney General Letitia James and her office, as well as that of her predecessor, Barbara Underwood. Crooked Hillary? It’s always been Crooked Fucking Donald.

The details are even worse.

A state judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million in damages to nonprofit groups on Thursday after Trump admitted misusing money raised by the Donald J. Trump Foundation to promote his presidential bid, pay off business debts and purchase a portrait of himself for one of his hotels.

Among Mr. Trump’s admissions in court papers: The charity gave his campaign complete control over disbursing the $2.8 million that the foundation had raised at a fund-raiser for veterans in Iowa in January 2016, only days before the state’s presidential nominating caucuses. The fund-raiser, he acknowledged, was in fact a campaign event.

As seen on TV

Donald Trump, international mobster

Trump is Selling out America in Syria and beyond

By Robert Reich

The most xenophobic and isolationist American president in modern history has been selling America to foreign powers for his personal benefit. That’s an impeachable offense.

President Donald Trump says he withdrew American troops from the Syrian-Turkish border—leaving our Kurdish allies to be slaughtered and opening the way for a resurgent ISIS—because it was time to bring American soldiers home.

A more likely explanation is that the Trump Towers Istanbul is the Trump Organization’s first and only office and residential building in Europe. Businesses linked to the Turkish government are also major patrons of the Trump Organization. 

Hence, Trump has repeatedly sided with Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been intent on eliminating Kurds.

"The Russians are coming!"