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!"

He has Article 2

For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERE.

Nukes for Saudi Arabia?

Trump Adviser Tom Barrack Pushed for Saudi Nuclear Deal — and Planned to Profit From It

By Isaac Arnsdorf for ProPublica

President Donald Trump’s inauguration chairman, Tom Barrack, lobbied the new administration to share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia while, at the same time, making plans to team up with the Saudis to buy a company that would benefit from the policy change, according to documents obtained by a House committee.

During the campaign, Barrack advised Trump on the Middle East, where he has long-standing business relationships. 

As Trump clinched the Republican nomination in 2016, Barrack shared a draft of a policy speech with a businessman from the United Arab Emirates, according to text messages quoted in the committee’s report. 

The businessman then consulted with unspecified others and suggested adding a paragraph praising the powerful princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the text messages show.

Barrack incorporated the suggested language and sent a new draft to campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to the report. 

In an email, Barrack seemed to suggest he knew he was entering an ethical or legal gray area: “This is probably as close as I can get without crossing a lot of lines,” he said.

On the day of the speech, Manafort sent Barrack a final draft, saying, “It has the language you want.”

“Moscow Mitch” sets the stage for Russia to hack the 2020 elections

Blocks debate on election security legislation passed by Democratic House

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell earned the nickname "Moscow Mitch" Friday after blocking lawmakers from taking action to prevent foreign interference in U.S. elections just as the legislature he leads concluded that Russians meddled in the 2016 elections in all 50 states.

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" anchor, Joe Scarborough, coined the name on his show Friday morning, condemning the Kentucky Republican for refusing to defend the country's electoral system when McConnell blocked the Senate from considering a House bill.

That bill would invest nearly $800 billion in strengthening election systems across the country, mandate the use of paper ballots to prevent election results from being hacked, and require all campaigns to notify authorities if they are offered assistance from a foreign country.

The nickname took off on social media.

Send him back, continued

Trump, Go Back Where You Came From

By Michael Winship for Common Dreams

Every presidential election year, Frontline, the superb investigative TV series on PBS, produces an in-depth look at the Democratic and Republican candidates. It’s called “The Choice,” and invariably offers some insights that likely you won’t see anywhere else.

When I first watched the 2016 edition, three things struck me as revelatory—aside from that now-infamous Omarosa Manigault soundbite from the program that began, “Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump.” Yikes.

Today, after two and a half years of a Trump White House, these three remembered moments seem more pertinent than ever. 

First up was journalist Marie Brenner, who recalled Trump’s brother Robert telling her, “Donald was always the kid in the family who would start throwing birthday cake at all the parties, that you would build up a tower of blocks, he would come knock your blocks down.”

Second were the memories of fellow cadets at New York Military Academy, where young Donald was sent to deal with his behavior issues. One said that as a teenager, Trump “had a very Hugh Hefner Playboy magazine view of success.” 

Another agreed: “Our lives came from Playboy magazine. That’s how we learned about women. That was all of my adolescence. And that’s why getting out of military school was difficult. You had to realize that you couldn’t just follow the Playboy philosophy.”

He added, “The things that we talked about at that time in 1964 really are very close to the kind of way [Trump] talks now.”

But the third thing, the one that especially stuck in my head, is something Frontline reported Trump had learned from nature’s own Nazi, his martinet of a father Fred. It was a theory, according to the narration, Donald “especially liked.”