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.

Buy American!

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.

Russia’s Most Dangerous Weapon is Donald Trump’s Mind

How did the United States Come to Back a Vicious Dictator against All Its Allies?

Dr. Bandy X. Lee

The disintegration of Donald Trump’s mind—now obvious for everyone to see—is metaphorical of the disintegration of our society. Unfitness means that there is no one in charge of the government; there is no one home. Rather, the appearance of someone being home makes him a prime target for nefarious forces to do their mischief.

I warned in The Psychology of Trump Contagion, published before the 2024 presidential election:

Sometimes the greatest threat to national security is someone who can be leveraged and compromised—so as to parrot our enemies’ propaganda, to destroy American democracy from within, and to assist their rise in global dominance.

One of these enemies is Vladimir Putin. Russian forces launched 704 total missiles and drones against Ukraine overnight on December 5 to 6, 2025, heavily targeting railway and energy infrastructure in this proxy U.S.-Russia war. The goal is to freeze our fellow pro-democracy Europeans, so as to force them into submission as winter approaches.

So, how did the U.S. come to aid and comfort a hostile opponent bent on reestablishing the Soviet Union? Astute political commentator Thom Hartmann makes a critical observation from the Epstein emails:

The child victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes are apparently not the only ones who’ve paid the price for Donald Trump’s long relationship with that notorious pedophile.

Epstein’s “partying” with Trump has apparently also led to thousands of civilian deaths abroad, the collapse of America’s credibility around the world, and a serious threat to the future of democracy in Europe….

In Epstein’s emails, he boasts of offering to advise Russia’s senior-most officials about how to manipulate Trump: “I think you might suggest to putin that [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] lavrov can get insight on [Trump by] talking to me…”

Consider Trump’s secretive and beta-submissive behavior toward Vladimir Putin, especially in Helsinki when he trashed our intelligence agencies and sucked up to Putin, and more recently with his red carpet in Alaska, and it’s impossible to ignore what this newest Epstein revelation implies.

If Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine is a direct or indirect result of things Trump did with Epstein, it’s naked treachery. Consider the pattern:… the Russian military targets … are not accidents of war. They’re the deliberate targeting of civilians, children, doctors, classrooms, apartment buildings, homes, and hospitals….

And all of this—the horror of what’s happening in plain sight that’s the clear result of Trump’s repeated and pathetic kowtowing to Putin—appears, from the Epstein emails, that it may be getting so much worse over the past 10 months because Putin took Epstein’s advice and threatened Donald Trump with exposure.

We still don’t know what was said in that room in Helsinki because Trump covered it up, making sure we’d never know. He ordered his American interpreter to move away from his private conversation with Putin, and afterward seized and destroyed her notes.

Similarly and more recently, in Alaska, Trump dismissed his aides and rode with Putin privately in his car where they engaged in another lengthy, secretive conversation.

That’s the behavior of a man with something to hide, who’s terrified by some horrible secret….

Trump issues new official National Security Strategy that is Russia-friendly and anti-Europe

Russia applauds new strategy saying it is in line with Kremlin goals

Brad Reed

BBC headline

The Trump administration on Thursday released its official National Security Strategy, and many critics noted that it was loaded with rhetoric frequently used by white nationalists.

Some of the most inflammatory rhetoric in the document is aimed at US-allied European countries that supposedly face “the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure” within the next 20 years.

In particular, the document accuses the European Union of enacting policies “that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

The document goes on to claim that “should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” while emphasizing that US policy is to help “Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

How Trump Has Exploited Pardons and Clemency to Reward Allies and Supporters

With Trump, everything is for sale (or barter)

By Jeremy Kohler for ProPublica

The beneficiaries of Donald Trump’s mercy in his second term have mostly been people with access to the president or his inner circle. Those who have followed the rules set out by the Department of Justice, meanwhile, are still waiting.

Trump has granted clemency to allies, donors and culture-war figures — as well as felons who, like him, were convicted of financial wrongdoing. On Friday, he granted pardons to 77 people, including Rudy Giuliani and other allies tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, though they are mostly symbolic because federal pardons do not apply to ongoing or possible state prosecutions, which many of the grantees face. 

Those clemencies came on top of the commutation awarded last month to George Santos, the disgraced former New York congressman found guilty of defrauding donors and lying to the House of Representatives. Trump cut short Santos’ seven-year sentence after less than three months.

For those who followed the standard protocol set out by the Department of Justice, the sense is growing that the process no longer matters; they’ve watched the public database of applicants swell with thousands of pending cases, while Trump grants pardons to people who never entered the system at all.

In just over nine months back in office, roughly 10,000 people have filed petitions for pardons or commutations, about two-thirds the total of the 14,867 applications submitted during the entire Biden presidency.

Under Justice Department standards and requirements, people seeking pardons generally must wait five years after their release from incarceration, demonstrate good conduct and remorse, and file petitions through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. But Trump’s actions in his second term show he has largely abandoned that process.

Buy American! And he'll give you Alaska for free!

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.

I'm not surprised at all

Small

Putin pawn

MAGAs, how do you respond?

Russian stooge Trump helped save his pal Vladimir Putin's life at the expense of American lives

Putin's creature

Make Russia Great Again

Vlad-bot

That's how it worked in "1984"

Why America Needs to Know about Trump Getting Spanked in Silk Pajamas

He's not just a career criminal, he's also an "orange turd" with no taste

By Thom Hartmann for the Independent Media Institute 

The most powerful elected Republican in America declared war on the rule of law.

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Congress, on behalf of wannabee “day one” dictator Donald Trump, is going to use every power available to him and his colleagues to nullify America’s court system.

“President Trump has done nothing wrong here and he continues to be the target of endless lawfare. It has to stop. And you’re gonna see the United States Congress address this in every possible way that we can, because we need accountability. … All these cases need to be dropped, because they are a threat to our system.”

“All these cases” and potential future cases include Trump:

• Sharing secrets with Russia that burned US and US ally spies.
• Inciting rebellion against the United States on January 6th.
• Running his businesses from the White House while multiple foreign governments poured cash into his properties in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
• Stealing national defense secrets from the White House, transporting them to Florida and New Jersey, and then lying to the FBI about them.
• Raping and then threatening and defaming E. Jean Carroll.
• Criminally obstructing investigations into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
• Conspiring with Republicans in multiple states to defraud the American people with forged Electoral College certificates.
• Threatening Georgia’s Secretary of State with criminal prosecution if he wouldn’t “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”
• Violating campaign finance laws on multiple occasions.
• Committing tax and insurance fraud.
• Extorting a foreign leader to manufacture dirt on his political opponent.

And those are just Trump’s commonly known crimes; we haven’t yet begun to dig into other consequential crimes Trump committed to become president in 2016 and during his four years in office.

From his teenage years violating fair housing laws by marking rental applications for his father’s properties with a “C” for “colored” when Black people applied, to decades of business crimes including a fraudulent “university” and fake charity, to stealing money from thousands of employees and contractors, Trump has been a one-man crime wave his entire life.

And now, given the choice between throwing in with a career criminal or defending America’s criminal justice system, separation of powers, and the rule of law, today’s Republicans have chosen to throw in with the crook. Barry Goldwater and Everett Dirksen are rolling over in their graves.

Congress Passes Magaziner Provision to Protect Airports from Cyber Attacks

The legislation now heads to President Biden for his signature 

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives gave final passage of Representative Seth Magaziner’s (RI-02) provision to strengthen airport cybersecurity as part of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act. Magaziner’s provision, adopted as an amendment to the bill with bipartisan support, now heads to President Biden to be signed into law. 

“The most fundamental role of our government is to keep Americans safe, and that’s exactly what this provision does – protecting travelers from cyber attacks by criminals, terrorists, rogue states and other bad actors,” said Rep. Seth Magaziner, Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism. 

“I’m pleased that this crucial and potentially life-saving provision was included in the final version of the FAA bill, and I will continue working to secure our homeland and protect our national security.” 

Airports are part of the United States’ critical infrastructure, and cyber attacks can carry widespread consequences for the economy and national security. The exposure of sensitive data, including customers’ personally identifiable information (PII), biometrics, and travel routes can put the safety of travelers at risk. 

Rep. Magaziner’s legislation addresses vulnerabilities that were revealed after cyber attacks on some of our nation’s largest airports. In 2022, over a dozen airport websites were targeted in a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks by a Russian-affiliated hacking group. 

The amendment will unlock $4 billion in annual funding from the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program to help airports, including Rhode Island’s T.F. Green International Airport, meet 21st century cybersecurity standards. 

A copy of the amendment can be found HERE.

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