DDT: Week 81 – On Vacation While Others Work

Congress is scattered across the nation on vacation, and Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) is watching TV, playing golf, and having dinner with other wealthy people at his resort at Bedminster (NJ). Robert Mueller continues his investigation, and witnesses testify to damning information about Paul Manafort. For example, he offered the position of Army secretary to Federal Savings Bank CEO, Stephen Calk, in trying to get a personal loan from the bank. Long-time friend and colleague Rick Gates reported Manafort shifting money through his offshore accounts.

DDT has bragged about how much more money black people make in wages since he was inaugurated, but he didn’t celebrate Black Women’s Equal Pay Day on August 7, the day representing how long into 2018 a black woman must work to be paid the same wages white males were paid just last year. Black women workers get 66 cents for the dollar that white men make after controlling for education, years of experience, and geographic location.

If DDT had talked about wages for black women, he probably would have lied, just as he did when he bragged that the U.S. is overflowing with “prosperity” despite “exaggerated” claims of widespread poverty. After a U.N. report that 18 million people live in “extreme poverty” in the United States, made worse by DDT’s tax cuts for the wealthy, DDT ignored his own economic analysts in exchange for a report from the far-right Heritage Foundation. One DDT economic adviser recommended that DDT say nothing about poverty because the steady economic growth, “inherited” from President Obama, “will end prob[ably] in 1-2 years.”

People in Missouri understood the importance of fair wages when they struck down a “right-to-work” law earlier passed by the legislature. The 2-1 margin of success for workers came from both urban and rural counties.

Agreeing with Supreme Court justice nominee that the president is above the law and the constitution, AG Jeff Sessions plans to ignore a court ruling to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and completely repeal and rescind DACA on his own prerogative. Sessions called the repeal one of the “lawful directives of Congress”—although that legislative body has passed no law regarding DACA. The judge had said that the government has no justification to stop DACA.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) irritated both congressional GOP members and DDT during his visit to Russia. Once against Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Ukraine and Crimea, Paul is now a full-blown Russia supporter. During his recent trip, he took a letter to Putin, but opinions differ on its contents. Paul explained that the letter highlighted how the U.S. wants to work with Russia on “countering terrorism, enhancing legislative dialogue and resuming cultural exchanges.” White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said that DDT provided only “a letter of introduction” because Paul had requested it. Before Paul came home, he invited Russian lawmakers to visit the U.S. Capitol, but GOP congressional leaders squashed the idea. Spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said:

“Neither Congress nor the leader have invited any delegation from Russia to the Capitol. Senator Paul is the only one that I know who is discussing it.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) followed that up with “That’s not something we’ve discussed.” Both McConnell and Ryan earlier said that Putin would not be welcome at the Capitol if DDT invited him to Washington.

Russia and DDT are also upset about the State Department’s new sanctions on Russia after the Kremlin’s poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer and his daughter living in England. U.S. company are prevented from exporting items such as gas turbine engines, electronics, and integrated circuits without legitimate purposes, similar to President Obama’s ban on any exports to Russia that might have military purposes. DDT objected, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited a 1991 law that mandated the sanctions. Russia has 90 days to agree to stop all use of chemical weapons and permit inspections before Pompeo exerts further measures such as withdrawal of U.S. bank loans and support for international loans, landing rights for Russian airlines, and diplomatic relations. DDT already stalled for over a month regarding congressional deadlines for other sanctions.

Sanctions against Russia will decrease U.S. exports, adding to the stress caused by DDT’s tariffs. Grifter and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross claimed that “all this hysteria is a lot to do about nothing,” yet BMW told Ross that the tariffs could endanger 45,000 jobs in South Carolina. A ship with $20 million worth of soybeans has circled the waters off the coast of China since July 6 after it failed to beat the new tariff deadline by mere hours, placed in response to DDT’s tariffs. The ship’s $12,500 daily cost comes to over $450,000 by now, and the contents make up a small part of the $12.7 billion in soybeans sent from the U.S. to China last year. In Washington, 6,000 tons of copper are stuck at the port of Vancouver as the ship scheduled to pick it up left after China announced a 25-percent duty on the product. Estimates indicate almost one million jobs in the state could be at risk because of suppliers, port income, and wages.

The North Korea deal becomes more like fish that smells after three days. DDT never had any agreement with denuclearization, and Kim Jung-Un now insists that he will take no action until the U.S. ends the Korean War. Pompeo promises progress but won’t say what, and National Security Adviser John Bolton indicated no steps had been taken. The estimate of North Korean nuclear weapons is growing.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was secretly taped at a fundraiser for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) giving his plan for impeaching DOJ Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein immediately after the 2018 general election. Most Republicans said that they weren’t going to impeach Rosenstein, but Nunes tells this story to woo donors and voters. DDT may not like some of Nunes’ comments on the tapes such as “sometimes we cringe on the president’s tweets.” Nunes also called releasing stolen emails, like WikiLeaks did with DNC emails, “criminal.” Rodgers won the Washington election to pick the top two candidates by only one percent, warning a serious challenge in the general election.

DDT’s lawyers are running a TV campaign in opposition to Mueller’s investigation by smearing it, claiming that DDT will be forced to lie if he goes into court, and declaring questions that are off limits—such as why he fired James Comey (check with DDT’s interview with Lester Holt) and whether he obstructed justice (check DDT’s tweets). Rudy Giuliani’s craziness continues with his invented DOJ “60-day rule” preventing Mueller from DDT’s investigation in the two months preceding the election and announcing that Mueller must finish by September. DDT is not a candidate in November 2018, and the “60-day-rule” failed to apply to Hillary Clinton when Comey announced an investigation ten days before her election. “Fair and unbalanced” Sean Hannity, as he calls himself on “fair and unbalanced Fox,” turned his three-hour radio show over to DDT’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow on Friday.

Tomorrow represents the first anniversary of Unite the Right in Charlottesville (VA) with a march near the White House. This image represents what white supremacists are celebrating in front of the White House and what DDT refused to condemn.

DDT’s diversions of the week:

• His calls to “suspend” protesting athletes without pay although he is not their employer.
• Removal legal-resident status from those who use Medicaid and other social safety nets. (Fortunately for his in-laws, they just became U.S. citizens so they’re safe—unless he finds some dirt on them.)
• A new space force, possibly to conduct space warfare. (Stephen Colbert asked if DDT plans to build a wall to keep “illegal aliens” from coming into the United States.)

The dozen Trumpiest members of Congress: Chris Collins (NY),  indicted for insider trading;  David Perdue (GA), cousin to Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue; Orrin Hatch (UT), retiring; Tom Cotton (AR), hawk aiming for Oval Office; Rand Paul (KY), sycophant flip-flopper; Mitch McConnell (KY) majority leader owned by DDT; Matt Gaetz (FL) deep state conspiracist/Alex Jones supporter; Devin Nunes (CA), DDT’s leaker from the House Intelligence Committee; Ron DeSantis (FL), Fox defender; Kevin McCarthy (CA), DDT’s “my Kevin” who sorts candy to give DDT only “reds and pinks”; Mark Meadows (NC), conservative Freedom Caucus leader trying to impeach deputy AG Rod Rosenstein; and Paul Ryan (WI), determined to “normalize” DDT.

Inflation rose 2.9 percent in the last year while wages gained only 2.7 percent. U.S. “real wage” fell to $10.76 an hour last month, 2 cents down from a year ago. To many of us, 2 cents is very little, but over a year, it amounts to $41.60—important to people who make under $23,000 a year. Gas prices increased 23 percent this year, and housing, health care and automobile insurance have all gone up. Now we wait for price increases from DDT’s tariffs. 

Donald Trump Jr. manufactured this visual lie when he Photoshopped “50” over DDT’s actual 40 percent approval rating. In his desperation, he failed to cover up the 40 percent. By now, Jr. removed his “fake news” from Instagram, but the internet never forgets!

Stereotyping Republicans

Conservatives are fond of using one person as a “poster child” of everything wrong with laws and policies that they hate. The anecdotal myth of the “welfare queen” came from one person who supposedly saw food stamps used to purchase lobster. In her rant against “illegals” on her show, Laura Ingraham played a clip from “Travis from Nevada” who reported that her brother was hit and killed on his bicycle by an “illegal alien” who was “doing 60 miles an hour on a side street.” Ingraham responded with appropriate shock and said, “I didn’t see any news coverage of this story and track all of these stories.” When the caller said the news did not cover the story, Ingraham agreed. “He’s right,” she said.” She then played a clip from Dictator Donald Trump (DDT):

“The media doesn’t talk about the American families permanently separated from their loved ones because Democrat policies release violent criminals into our communities.”

Like DDT, Ingraham uses this report to push her ideology that all undocumented immigrants are horrifying, vile people who must be ejected from the United States. The man driving the car was drunk, but Ingraham said nothing  about the problem of drunk drivers. She needed Travis’s claim about the man to support her narrow position.

In accord with this system of vilifying a large group of people by using one example, I choose Steve West, GOP primary winner for the Clay County seat in the Missouri House by almost 25 points, as an example of all Republicans. Hosting a show on KCXL, he raves about “Jewish cabals” that he says are “harvesting baby parts” through Planned Parenthood and other wacko conspiracy theories. On his YouTube channel, he wears a wig and fake beard to become “Jack Justice.” Front-page articles on West’s website include “The Coming Battle with Islam,” and his links to archives of his radio show promote anti-Semitism, anti-vaxxing, the “assassination” of Antonin Scalia, and pedophilia in liberal circles.

“Looking back in history, unfortunately, Hitler was right about what was taking place in Germany. And who was behind it,” West said on his January 23, 2017 show. Asked about this statement, he first denied it and then claimed it had been taken out of context. West stated that he believes all men are created equal, but not all ideologies are equal. He specifically criticized Islam and Judaism, accusing Islam of trying to create an autocratic theocracy in the U.S. West wants Islam stripped of all benefits and rights given religion by the law and the U.S. Constitution.

More of West’s quotes:

“Islam is a problem for America. … It is a political movement masquerading as religion and should not receive the benefits we provide religious institutions as well as access to our prisons.”

“Many parents and students don’t want to have to deal with alternative sex ed, and the LGBT clubs and staff at all the public high schools today.”

The Missouri Republican Party has disavowed connection with West, but he got 1,485 votes, almost as many as the three runner-ups combined. West refused to be interviewed by the Kansas City Star, but he did explain that “Jews today are a remnant of the tribe of Judah that rejected Christ.” Asked about Jewish people in Missouri, West said, “Well, maybe they shouldn’t vote for me.”

West’s platform can be found on his election website.

If just one person isn’t enough to prove an anecdotal perspective on Republicans, I’ve provided a few more examples of GOP candidates on this year’s ballots:

Arthur “Art” Jones, U.S. representative—Illinois: White supremacist, Holocaust denier, founding member with his wife of the neo-Nazi America First Committee.

John Fitzgerald, U.S. representative—California: Anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, defender of Holocaust deniers, anti-Israel, believer in chem trails poisoning people and FEMA internment camps for U.S. citizens, supporter of falsehood that Planned Parenthood is working in concert with the United Nations to “sexualize” the nation’s public school children.

Joe Arpaio, U.S. Senate—Arizona: convicted of criminal contempt, refused to investigate child abuse while county sheriff, operator of brutal detention camps for undocumented immigrants, interviewed with white supremacist Holocaust denier, birther.

Paul Nehlen, U.S. House of Representatives—Wisconsin: white supremacist, anti-Semite, candidate for House Speaker Paul Ryan’s district.

Corey Stewart, U.S. Senate—Virginia): Admirer of Paul Nehlen (above) for anti-Semitic and white supremacist positions and of Ian MacDonald, supporter of American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell.

Seth Grossman, U.S. House of Representatives—New Jersey: White Supremacists with these quotes: “Diversity leads to Muslims killing Christians,” and “Kwanzaa is a fake holiday made by black racists to divide America.” Other positions: faithful Muslims cannot be good Americans; Islam is a cancer; and gay men with HIV should have been quarantined in the 1980s. [His local GOP chairman said, “The man doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.”

Russell Walker, North Carolina State House of Representatives: There is “no such thing as equality” because of the “superiority” of white people. Jews are descendants of Satan.

Bryan Feste, Hawaii State House of Representatives: Expelled by the GOP, Feste stays on the ballot after his racist language.

To “prove” with anecdotal evidence that all Republicans are non-patriotic Communist supporters, I provide this photograph of DDT’s rally audience.

[Note: Rationally, I believe that one or a few crazies cannot be used to tar an entire group. Now I would ask that conservatives espouse a rational perspective and look at statistics rather than using a few people to denigrate everyone who fails to fit their ideal sense of humanity.]

Lack of Transparency in Agency Control

Although the Senate has blocked very few of nominees by Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), some of his appointments don’t require confirmation. Such is the case of actor Steven Seagal, the new special envoy to Russia, an unpaid position with the goal of working with “humanitarian issues” and improving ties between the two countries. Seagal admires Vladimir Putin, calling him “one of the great living world leaders,” and defends Russia from statements that it interfered in U.S. elections. Several women including Portia di Rossi, Julianna Margulies, and Jenny McCarthy have accused Seagal of sexual misconduct. Two other women claimed that Seagal had sexually assaulted them when they were teenagers.

Robert Wilkie, former aide to late GOP Jesse Helms (R-NC), has recently been confirmed as head of Veterans Affairs. In his work for Helms, Wilkie supported the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Confederate flag while belonging to Sons of Confederate Veterans. Wilkie also opposed equal pay for women when he worked for Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) and suggested that women graduate from high school before they receive welfare. As executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party in 1996-1997, the anti-LGBTQ Wilkie played a part in developing DDT’s transgender ban. Wilkie’s confirmation vote of 86-9 was the first time that any VA Secretary had received opposition votes. One of his goals is to privatize health care for veterans.

Wilkie’s confirmation may not run the VA, however, because three DDT friends and Mar-a-Lago members are actually calling the shots in the agency, according to information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Bruce Moskowitz, a Palm Beach doctor who runs “concierge” medical care; Ike Perlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment; and Marc Sherman, lawyer, steer policies at the VA, make personnel decisions, and tell its officials what to do although none of them has served in the U.S. military or government—or been nominated and/or confirmed. The secret Mar-a-Lago Crowd, as they are known, have neither accountability nor oversight but push their pet causes and demand that they run everything. One proposal is to have private health care executive tell the VA what services should be outsourced to the private health care providers. Before David Shulkin, the former VA director, left, he communicated with the triumvirate on his private cellphone and with his private email address, breaking federal records laws as people have constantly told Hillary Clinton. The “Crowd” decided to get rid of Shulkin because of differences in opinion regarding how to improve the VA’s electronic record-keeping software. Wilkie is currently the pet of the threesome, but they can always decide to get rid of him too.

Scott Hutchins, the pesticide executive appointed as the chief scientist for the USDA, could be the third person to switch from Dow Chemical’s pesticide/seed division to make high-level federal decisions. Of the first two, one leads USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service, and the other, a lobbyist for Dow, has been confirmed as undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs. As pesticide promoter, Hutchins would control the USDA’s $2.9 billion research budget. Dow Chemical donated $1 million to DDT’s inaugural committee, leading to a variety of governmental favors for the company. DDT’s last nominee for Hutchins’ position, Sam Clovis, had to withdraw his name after publicity about his involvement in the Russia scandal.

Scott Pruitt’s scandals may no longer be a focus of the EPA, but its new acting secretary, Andrew Wheeler, faces his first lawsuit and call for an ethics probe from repeated concerns about conflicts of interest. The former coal lobbyist had at least three meetings with previous clients during his first month and participated in events including the head of a company that he was prohibited from working with. Wheeler’s next lawsuit may come from DDT’s insistence that he roll back California’s waiver to control greenhouse emissions. Seth Meyers has provided an update on Wheeler’s EPA leadership—rolling back coal industry regulations so that companies can more easily “dispose” of toxic coal ash waste. A member of the EPA board of science advisers, Robert Phalen, thinks that our air is too clean.

In the past four months, DDT has named 69 new appointees, some of them awful and the rest worse. Check here for an overview.

Wilbur Ross, Secretary of the Commerce Department, may have replaced Scott Pruitt as the biggest creature among DDT’s swamp pets. In justifying Ross’ appointment, DDT explained, “In these positions, I just don’t want a poor person.” The conservative publication Forbes has explained why Ross is so wealthy: he’s a “grifter.” A former Ross employee settled a $4 million lawsuit against his old boss two weeks before the trial, in which he alleged that “Ross stole his interests in a private equity fund, transferred them to himself, then tried to cover it up with bogus paperwork.” Other allegations against Ross go from refusal to pay workers to a pattern in which he typically stole a few million from a number of people that totaled up to $120 million. Dan Alexander reported:

“Those who’ve done business with Ross generally tell a consistent story, of a man obsessed with money and untethered to facts. ‘He’ll push the edge of truthfulness and use whatever power he has to grab assets,’ says New York financier Asher Edelman. One of Ross’ former colleagues is more direct: ‘He’s a pathological liar.’”

Ross’ company lost money in a rising stock market and got into trouble by overcharging investors on underperforming funds. A lawsuit claims that he illegally charges management fees from current and former company executives as well as outside clients. He also kept the portion of fees for serving on the boards of his firm’s portfolio companies instead of rebates to investors as required. When he sold part of the company, Ross managed to bolster it up and reap an undeserved price through higher evaluation. Ross also falsified his situation on a sworn document almost nine months, asserting he had divested all the assets as promised but still owned between $10 million and $50 million worth of stock in WL Ross’ parent company, Invesco. He waited to sell his shares to make more than $1.2 million.

Forbes claims that Ross lies about how much money he has, sometimes inflating the sum into the billions. A fair guess could be $700, although he cheats on what should be small amounts to him such as the $73,000 stake in Air Lease. He sold the shares a year after he promised to carry out the transaction. Investors claims that heads of private equity firms always know what they own, but Ross always claims ignorance.

Jake Johnson wrote:

“Wilbur Ross is a cartoon stereotype of a Wall Street fat cat with no interest in anyone but himself. He has shady ties to Russia and China, serious business conflicts, and a history of cheating people out of their homes.”

Ross maintains significant financial conflicts of interest, according to the Forbes investigation, and shorted stock on a Putin-related shipping company before share prices dropped because of an imminent negative story about his personal connection with the company. His investment conflicts also include companies co-owned by the Chinese government and a Cypriot bank in the Mueller investigation and in the industry Ross is investigating. Forbes reported that Ross has a history of lying and dodge questions about assets and holdings by claiming that he has divested when he actually set up trusts and handed assets to his family. Ross’ connection with the Cypriot bank gives him strong ties to Russian oligarchs, including Viktor Vekselberg who gave Michael Cohen’s consulting business over $500,000.

As co-founder of the Bank of Cyprus, a mail drop for moving Russian money to real estate “purchases” in the U.S., Ross may appear in Robert Mueller’s investigations. His partner, Dmitry Rybolovlev gave DDT $100 million for a $40 million property in Florida. Paul Manafort used Ross’ bank for funds funneled from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska with the pretense of a “loan.”

Firings:

Reagan Hedlund, Melania Trump’s policy aide, has been fired, but no one is explaining why. She was in charge of such programs as the “Be Best” anti-bullying initiative. The departure further shrinks the First Lady’s office of ten staff members.

The Future:

Hope Hicks, ex-girlfriend of and White House defense author for DDT’s fired aide Rob Porter for domestic abuse, left the White House soon after that debacle closed, but she was seen boarding Air Force One to travel with DDT to his Ohio campaign rally. Hicks resigned the day after she told the House Intelligence Committee that she told “white lies” on her job. DDT’s encounter with Hicks might be considered witness tampering because she testified about helping to draft DDT’s original statement on his son’s Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 at a time when DDT is frequently tweeting about the meeting. Hicks said that she is willing to become DDT’s chief of staff although John Kelly said that he is staying until the end of DDT’s four-year term.

It’s the summer doldrums while the Senate tries to put together enough Republicans to push through DDT’s judicial nominees. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) slowed down the process when he left Washington. His temporary departure left the Judiciary Committee at a 10-10 contest between Dems and the GOP. As for moving Brett Kavanaugh toward the Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) requested his records from the National Archives. When it couldn’t meet McConnell’s August 15 deadline, he said “never mind” to getting three years of records on him while he was White House staff secretary. The Dems is trying a different route, filing a Freedom of Information Act, something that has never happened before.

Polling on Kavanaugh becoming a justice doesn’t bode well.

Q-Anon: Prank or Created by the Right-wing

Anyone watching clips of the Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) campaign rally in Florida last week may have seen the highly visible presence of “Q” cutouts of the U.S. flag on signs, wearing apparel, etc. In less than one week, the new conspiracy group became famous for its wacky—and dangerous—ideas. Supposedly created by an anonymous online persona claiming to be a government insider to expose the “deep state,” Q-Anon has been adopted by DDT supporters who look upon him as a savior from evil forces.

A popular belief is that the person responsible for Q is someone with the Q security clearance required for high-level government information. The blog posts on 4chan began last fall, but DDT’s recent rallies have given traction among the media to something that believers hope is a growing movement. Q seems to have no exact message, but it purports that after all other presidents have conspired with evil groups, including pedophile rings, the military persuaded DDT to campaign for president to stop this involvement. According to Q-Anon, DDT pretends to collude with Russia so that he can hire Robert Mueller and work with him to bring down the evil ones such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Soros. The brave supporters of DDT will stop the evildoing insiders of the U.S. government by publishing the “truth.”

Q-Anon followers search for mystical pieces of a puzzle for their proof, for example the lights turning off at a White House meeting when DDT said he had “full faith” in the U.S. intelligence agencies. (Chief of Staff John Kelly had accidentally flipped the switch.) DDT supporters Roseanne Barr and former baseball player Curt Schilling post Q-Anon links on their social media.

Thus far, Q-Anon hasn’t caused the same kind of violence like Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building that killed at least 168 people. Yet the Pizzagate conspiracy myth, still perpetuated by Q-Anon, led a believer to shoot up a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C. with an AR-15 in the mistaken belief that Hillary Clinton ran a child trafficking ring out of the back of the place. The conspiracy theory came from the use of “pizza” in John Podesta’s hacked emails that were released before the presidential election. Conspiracy theorists manufactured the idea that the word pizza was code for pedophilia.

Only two known Q-Anon members have thus far been arrested. In June, an Arizona man used an armored vehicle to block a highway near Hoover Dam with the demand, “Release the OIG report.” That government report about Hillary Clinton and the FBI had already been released, but conspiracy theorists maintain that the “deep state” is hiding another report, far more damning. Another Arizona man occupied a cement plant in Tucson for nine days because he believed it was connected to an international child sex-trafficking ring.

DDT has been quiet about Q-Anon, but he has repeatedly propagated such conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s “missing” birth certificate and Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s “mysterious” death. During his campaign, DDT often repeated the false story that Gen. John Pershing maintained control in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century when he “took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood” and shot 49 Muslim rebels. DDT also falsely maintained that Ted Cruz’s father “was with Lee Harvey Oswald” before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and that he “watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering” as the World Trade Center collapsed. Bitter because California heavily voted for Clinton, DDT claimed that over three million undocumented immigrants voted for her and even set up a failed task force to prove his theory.

Conservatives try to erase tragedies that they think might benefit progressive causes by accusing people of being paid actors. Alex Jones made this tactic popular after the shooting at Sandy Hook that killed over a score of small children, and others opposed to gun safety laws used the same false accusation against high school activists after the mass shooting in Parkland (FL). In June, DDT falsely repeated Ann Coulter’s claim that asylum-seekers are child actors coached to say “passwords” to enter the U.S.  He dropped this claim after mass protests against his illegally separating migrant children from adults in their families.

Conspiracy theories receive wide fringe media attention by people like Alex Jones who has now been banned on several outlets because of his hate speech. By legitimizing these conspiracy theories and paranoid peddlers like Jones, DDT gives credibility to Q-Anon. Some of these conspiracy theories:

• J. Pierpont Morgan sank the Titanic to assassinate Jacob Astor, Isidor Straus, and Benjamin Guggenheim, his supposed rival millionaires. According to the plot, Morgan ensured that the ship had the wrong signal flares and made the decks electromagnetically sealed to trap passengers because he owned the company that built and operated the ship.
• The Jewish Rothschild dynasty funds an evil global plot through its banking houses in Europe during the 1800s. They plotted to kill Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, bankrolled Adolf Hitler, founded Israel, funded ISIS, and now disturbs with the weather.
• Violent criminal John McCain (Arizona’s seriously ill GOP senator) must wear an ankle bracelet and be tracked at all times.
• Tom Hanks has a harem of child sex slaves.
• The DNC arranged the murder of its employee Seth Rich. Or former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz ordered the MS-13 gang to kill Seth Rich. (Despite the pain that he gave Rich’s family, Sean Hannity pushed the murder conspiracy theory for months until a lawsuit and Fox made him stop.)
• The CIA put North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in power.
• John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn Bessette faked their own plane crash deaths in 1999 to work undercover with DDT. (According to Q-Anon, JFK Jr. may be Q. Some claim that the Q on the memorial site above is proof.)
• And many more!

After Q-Anon gained massive media attention, however, the information began to fracture the movement. DDT supporters don’t want to believe that he is working with Mueller so they call Q-Anon “BS” or “frivolous nonsense.” Former Q-Anon supporters who had pushed conspiracy theories are backing away, and 4chan and 8chan suffer from trolling and mocking while believers blame the left. Hacktivist group Anonymous has promised to “wreck” Q-Anon because of its threat of violence. Q-Anon was created for younger people, and the baby boomer supporters have caused an inter-generational disagreement.

Some people claim that Q-Anon is actually a prank by progressives or anarchists to make the far-right look crazy. According to Wu Ming Foundation, a progressive activist Italian collective, Q, a book written under the pseudonym Luther Blissett and published in 1999, has a plot similar to Q-Anon’s premise. Authors described it as a manifesto for activists looking to disrupt society, “an ‘operations manual’ for cultural disruption.” Italian leftists, anarchists, and troublemakers used the name Blissett in the 1990s to stage pranks. The name as been changed to Wu Ming, or No Name.

Conspiracy theories are an attempt to create order out of chaos, and they continue because people want to believe them. Q-Anon followers like the idea that someone is in charge and that DDT is completely in control and actually doing everything right. That belief protects them from feeling like fools. Conspiracists want to believe that horrible things cannot happen and that they alone are special because only they know the truth. Trying to debunk theories only cements them into believers’ minds because these attempts become more conspiracy theories.

I just hope that hacktivist Anonymous succeeds!

Feds on the Losing Side in Court

Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) is desperately trying to put himself above all laws, even appointing a nominee for the Supreme Court who believes a Republican president doesn’t have to go to court, but some of the recent lawsuits go against DDT’s wishes.

A huge win is a federal judge’s ruling that a lawsuit can move forward to determine whether DDT has broken the law against officials accepting emoluments from domestic and foreign governments. AGs from Maryland and Washington, D.C. maintain that DDT’s profit from his businesses such as his hotel and restaurant violates the constitutional clause that prevents any business transactions giving DDT a “profit, gain or advantage.” The judge agreed.

According to law professor John Mikhail, dictionaries published from 1604 to 1806 use a “broad definition” for emoluments, including “profit,” “advantage,” “gain,” or benefit.” Mikhail added, “Over 92 percent of these dictionaries define ’emolument’ . . . with no reference to ‘office’ or ’employment.’” Thus the emoluments clause stops any benefit or profit to a president from any government whether in his capacity as president or in any other role, such as the owner of a hotel like the Trump International Hotel in Washington. DDT wants the emoluments clause to narrowly refer to compensation for official services, making it a bribery clause.

DDT desperately wants to stop the case because the legal discovery in the lawsuit allows extensive knowledge of his business and financial records, possibly his tax returns which he has kept secret.

A federal judge ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program must be fully restored. The judge wrote that DDT’s administration had again failed to justify closing down the program but delayed his ruling for 20 days for an appeal. The opinion stated that DDT’s decision “was arbitrary and capricious” with legal judgment that was “inadequately explained.” His full ruling shows more of his irritation with the government’s arguments. The judge appointed by George W. Bush is the third federal judge to reject DDT’s excuse for closing the program.

The 9^th Circuit Court gave DDT a tiny win when it ruled that a judge can’t overrule DDT’s withholding federal funding for sanctuary regions for the entire nation and sent the case back to the lower court. The circuit court did declare that the order is unconstitutional for its nine states because it exceeded DDT’s authority because Congress is in charge of spending. In his order, DDT attempted to require local law enforcement to carry out federal responsibilities.

A federal judge invalidated the Federal Election Commission regulation permitting donors to “dark-money” groups, including 501(c)4 non-profits, to remain anonymous. The ruling may lead to requirements forcing nonprofits to disclose people who donate $200 or more toward influencing federal elections. The suit began when Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS didn’t disclose sources for the $6 million used to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2012. The FEC has 45 days to issue interim regulations or appeal, but an appeal would require a unanimous vote from commissions—probably impossible.

In another donor issue, Montana’s Gov. Steve Bullock is suing the IRS because of its new policy that politically active nonprofit groups don’t need to tell the IRS or other government entities about their major donors. Bullock maintains that the new guideline undermines nonprofit regulations and policing of illegal spending in political campaigns. According to the lawsuit, the government failed to follow the Administrative Procedure Act, the same law used for other suits regarding DDT’s executive orders. It evades the public comment mandate and rewrites policy by calling it a “revenue procedure.”

A judge refused a request from Michael Cohen’s lawyer to put a gag order on Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, to stop him from making public comments about Cohen. Avenatti has said that honoring that request could mean a judge might put a gag order on DDT. In connection with his lawsuit about DDT’s allegedly paying Stormy Daniels “hush money” before the 2016 presidential election, Avenatti said that he now represents three more women with the same claim.

A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit against DDT’s question about citizenship in the 2020 census can go forward because of evidence that the decision was driven by discrimination. He allowed DDT’s negative tweets and statements about immigrants, including the one about “shithole” countries. Plaintiffs from 28 states and a coalition of immigration rights groups allege that the question is designed to drive down census responses in immigrant communities.

A federal judge blocked Defense Distributed from releasing 3D printed gun plans online, and the case goes back to court on August 10. The 3D guns have no background checks or serial numbers and are illegal in the U.S. because they evade metal detection.

The 9^th Circuit Court ruled that new California gun safety laws are constitutional. One requires new models of semi-automatic handguns to have identifying information stamped on bullet casings. Another is a requirement to prevent accidental discharges of handguns, and a third bans concealed carry on school grounds.

An Iowa judge issued a temporary injunction on the state’s new voting law and returns the absentee early voting period to 40 days from the new law’s 29 days. The injunction also blocks some ID requirements on absentee ballots. Secretary of State Paul Pate, who is up for re-election, plans to immediately appeal the decision on legislation that he promoted.

A federal judge ruled that Florida’s college campuses can be used for early voting sites because the state’s ban is unconstitutional.

The 7^th Circuit Court has ruled that a transgender woman denied hormone therapy while in custody may pursue her lawsuit, overturning a lower court decision that dismissed her case. Lisa Mitchell wasn’t assessed by Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections for over a year; clinicians then recommended the hormone therapy. Without any policy justification, she was still denied treatment because she was due to be released within a month, and parole officers, after her release, stopped her from any hormone therapy and forced her to dress and present like a man.

Four cities—Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Baltimore—filed a lawsuit against DDT and his cabinet for “waging a relentless campaign to sabotage and, ultimately, to nullify” the Affordable Care Act. The tipping point for the suit was DHHS’ decision to keep substandard health insurance plans for up to three years instead of three months. DDT earlier expanded association health plans not required to cover basic health benefits, eliminated the individual mandate, vastly reduced funds to advertise the ACA, and refused to defend the ACA in court, arguing that pre-existing conditions protection are unconstitutional. Part of the lawsuit’s justification are DDT’s claims that he will get “rid of Obamacare” by destroying it. Without the ACA, cities are forced to pay more for uninsured people. The “take care” clause of the ACA requires the president to ensure that the ACA is faithfully executed.

Last year, 18 states filed a lawsuit opposing DDT’s attempt to block federal cost-sharing subsidies to make the ACA affordable for low- and middle-income people. The case was dismissed, but 12 states filed a lawsuit last week against DDT’s expansion of association health plans. Yale University law professor Abbe Gluck said:

“No scholar or court has ever said the president can use his discretion to implement a statute to purposely destroy it. If there’s ever going to be a violation of the ‘take care’ clause, this is it.”

Nineteen attorneys general have joined California AG Xavier Becerra opposing DDT’s plans to freeze fuel-efficiency requirements for cars and trucks through 2026, refuting the need to improve public health, combat climate change, and save consumers money. DDT will also try to revoke California’s legal waiver to set its own tailpipe restrictions granted under the 1970 Clean Air Act and restrict the dozen states from following California’s lead. His own administration refutes DDT’s “fake” information: an analysis from the National Highway Traffic Safety and the EPA estimates a savings of $500 billion “societal costs,” thousands of fewer highway fatalities, and $2,340 lower cost on each new car. Officials at an internal EPA presentation warned that DDT’s proposal contained “a wide range of errors, use of outdated data, and unsupported assumptions.” Enthusiasm for DDT’s proposal, meant to bring the Koch brothers back onto his team, came only from the oil and gas industry.

Brock Turner, the former Stanford swimmer who received an extremely light sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in 2016, is back in court asking for his conviction overturned. A lawyer claim to a panel of three judges that Turner only wanted “outercourse” and cannot be convicted of rape because it was a “version of safe sex” with no “penile contact.” Justice Franklin D. Elia said, “I absolutely don’t understand what you are talking about.” Witness reported that the victim’s dress was pulled up over her waist and she was not moving. At the time, Turner admitted to digitally penetrating her.

On the same day that Washington State AG Bob Ferguson joined other AGs to block posting 3D gun blueprint on the computer, he and three other AGs warned DDT against defunding Planned Parenthood. Ferguson’s 10-0 record of wins with only three that can be appealed. He called DDT’s administration “sloppy in how they do their work” and that it typically breaks federal laws. State AGs have worked together to file about 56 multistate lawsuits against DDT, almost as many as the 60 filed against President Obama in all eight years.

DDT’s rush to overturn every move by President Obama has been delayed not only by lack of quality but also by his bombastic public comments.  His incompetence may save the nation.

Religion: Violence, Killing

Pope Francis has changed Catholic Church teaching to fully reject the death penalty, but Texas allows the bible to sentence someone to death. After a juror showed that his religious source recommends death for a person who kills someone with an instrument of iron, Khristian Oliver was sentenced to death and executed. Despite First Amendment separation of church and state, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Thirty-five other offenses qualify for the death penalty in the bible including these:

• Cursing Parents
• Striking Parents
• Not Obeying Parents by Boys
• Premarital Sex by Girls
• Rebellion against Law
• Worshipping Any God but Yahweh
• Being a Witch
• Loose Daughters of Clergy
• Girls Raped within the City Limits
• Blasphemers
• Anyone Trying to Deconvert Yahweh Worshipers
• Working on the Sabbath
• Kidnapping
• Men Lying with Men
• Adulterers
• Men Lying with Beasts and Beasts Lying with Men

Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) has surely committed at least five offenses that could lead to the biblical death penalty.

Former CIA intelligence official, Michael Scheuer, is best-selling author, historian, essayist, public speaker, TV commentator, Ron Paul’s adviser, secessionist advocate, Christian nationalist, Vladimir Putin apologist, and terrorism expert. He is also married to a senior intelligence official, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky who was referenced as “Queen of Torture” in 2014, and frequently appears on a radio program with close ties to DDT, his family, and his administration, a show directing people to Scheuer’s blog that calls for “well-armed citizens who voted for Trump” to “kill those seeking to impose tyranny.” That classification includes journalists, activists, pundits, abortion providers, Republican and Democratic elected officials, federal judges, law professors, FBI agents, intelligence officials and Justice Department officials, and “all who support them.” Scheuer calls them all “expendables.” To “end the tyranny of their elected representatives,” people should “eliminate” them by stockpiling guns and ammunition.

Scheuer appears often on John Fredericks Radio as either commentator or host—more than 25 times in 18 months– spreading the ultra far-right messages of justifying Putin’s seizure of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, conspiracy theories about Robert Mueller’s investigation, the illegitimacy of the U.S. government, and NATO and Israel as “cancers.” John Fredericks, also CNN commentator and member of DDT’s 2020 presidential advisory board, has interviewed DDT eight times on his program, and many of DDT’s inner circle have done the same, one at least 23 times. DDT paid Fredericks’ company $34,000 for “placed media.”

From his home, Scheuer Skypes with the Russian state TV outlet RT and disparages the CIA as corrupt, incompetent and bloated with too many “immigrants, Hispanics, transgender people, and homosexuals.” In his view, too many members of the Jewish community support Israel. He shocked even Glenn Beck by calling for a “civil war” and the glorification of assassins, listing President Obama and then-British Prime Minister David Cameron as tyrants, ostensibly to be assassinated. Scheuer said, “At some point, when push comes to shove, you kill people and get them out of the way.” Georgetown University decided to not renew Scheuer’s two classes, despite his protests.

Designated for “elimination” on Scheuer’s list are TV journalists Shepard Smith, Jake Tapper, Jim Acosta, and Rachel Maddow and commentators Bill Kristol and Joe Scarborough. Other names are Attorneys General Jeff Sessions, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch; former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; special counsel Robert Mueller and prosecutors on his team; former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Former NSA Director Michael Hayden, current and former and current FBI directors James Comey and Christopher Wray; former CIA Director John Brennan; former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell; former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and other “work-a-day FBI agents,” as well as the staff of the U.S. Department of Justice. The list goes on with elected officials, former presidential aides, and various billionaires. It seems to be endless and he called on DDT to “slay the republic’s domestic enemies now.” Recently he wrote about the “sheer, nay, utter joy and satisfaction to be derived from beholding great piles of dead U.S.-citizen tyrants.”

Close associates of the U.S. president and senior members of his administration support and promote a man who call for mass murder by armed rebels. And white supremacists are planning a rally in Washington, D.C. on August 11-12 to celebrate the violence a year earlier at Charlottesville (VA).

Religious people like to claim that people require religion—preferably Christianity—to be moral. The world of DDT, however, is constantly proving this belief to be wrong. Fundamentalist Christians, dismayed by DDT’s immorality, say that they have to rationalize away some of his behavior and keep the parts that they want. The same is true with the contents of the bible.

Fundamentalists reject fantasy, calling it morally wrong. They often keeping their children from reading books about magic, but the bible is filled with magical occurrences. Most fundamentalists following the biblical interpretations of their clergy instead of reading the document themselves. Religious policies come from church leaders; i.e., not eating meat on Friday isn’t found in the bible. Instead it was developed as a political ploy by the church.

According to research, people have their personal moral compass and then find biblical passages that match their beliefs. If they change their mind about issues, they still claim that God agrees with them—like their acceptance of DDT’s adultery and sexual abuse. A study indicates that the part of a person’s brain activated by personal beliefs is the same as thinking about their perception of God’s beliefs. Thinking about other people’s beliefs activates another part of the brain.

The source of individual morals is complicated, probably a blend of genetics and acculturalization. Atheists get their morals from the same place as Christians—heredity and cultural influence. That’s why atheists don’t score differently than religious people in solving moral dilemmas. Religion is a system of faith and worship of a supernatural power, separate from the moral difference between right and wrong. Christians can easily murder, operate in a corrupt fashion, beat their wives, or commit other crimes. If they don’t break the law themselves, they justify others who do.

Professors Rodney Hessinger and Kristen Toby have an explanation of why fundamentalist Christians support DDT. The preservation of patriarchy that he exhibits has its background in biblical male dominance and superiority that was rooted in the South. Evangelicals have long overlooked the crossing of moral lines as women were forced to ignore their culture’s adultery and acceptance of slavery. Even now, fundamentalist women justify slavery by claiming that slaves were fed, housed, and given health care. With their persecution complex, fundamentalists identify with DDT because he is the “outcast,” the “outsider,” as they believe themselves to be. They believe that all criticisms of DDT are also criticisms of themselves. Fundamentalist religious leaders continually commit adultery, but followers accept this as part of their religion with many leaders keeping their positions.

Thus evangelicals will continue to follow DDT with their violence and patriarchy, believing in the cry to “Make America Great Again,” working for that mythical white nation of centuries ago when immigrants from Europe openly committed genocide.

Reunification: Government Fails

The U.S. government claimed it met the July 26 deadline to return migrant children to their parents by declaring that over 700 of them were “ineligible” out of the approximately 2,500 separated children. The judge who ordered reunification didn’t swallow the excuse. He ordered the feds to provide “detailed information” about each one and weekly status reports with telephonic conferences until resolutions.

Then DOJ decided it wouldn’t take responsibility for the crisis it caused. Instead, it wanted to dump their problems onto the ACLU who had sued the government for reunification. Last Thursday, the DOJ told a federal judge that they are not responsible for finding the 400+ parents who they deported and can’t be bothered to find. Instead, the DOJ claims, the court should require the ACLU to “fulfill their obligations to their clients.” And the DOJ wants the ACLU to tell them all information about the located parents. The ACLU had already found 12 deported parents but discovered that they were in contact with the government, which had not shared this information with the ACLU.

Yesterday, a judge called DDT’s plan to turn the work over to the ACLU “unacceptable.” The inability “to track and unite … is 100 percent the responsibility of the administration.” He gave the government an August 10 deadline to provide information on separated families to the ACLU. The judge also clearly stated that parents with minor criminal charges cannot be permanently ineligible for reunification. In addition, the judge ordered the government to “identify an individual or a team” to create and implement a procedure for those kids to be reunified with their families because it appears that the government has no plan for the remaining families.

Government officials in charge of the children are so cavalier or ignorant about the miserable conditions in their prisons that one of them, Matthew Albence, claimed that the centers were like “summer camps. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) asked, “You would send your child to these centers?” Jennifer Higgins, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, stammered, “I—I—it’s—that’s a—that’s a difficult question to answer.” It should be difficult to answer when one considers that the migrant children separated from their parents are physically, emotionally, and sexually abused; starved; dehydrated; underclothed in bitterly cold temperatures; drugged against their will; restrained; and lacking even the toys and other personal belongs that they had brought to the border. When Hirono asked Albence the same question, he sputtered “Again, I think we’re—we’re missing the point.”

At Albence’s “summer camps” in Arizona, two youth care workers were charged with sexually assaulting immigrant teenagers in the most recent claims of abuse at the privatized “shelters” for children taken from their parents at the Mexico border. One of the ex-workers, who is HIV positive, tried to get boys to anally penetrate him. Both centers are operated by the Texas company Southwest Key Programs that received almost $1 billion in taxpayer money to provide services to immigrant children. Allegations against the worker were first reported to Mesa Police Department over a year ago. The other man charged worked at a migrant center that Melania Trump visited.

Another federal contractor kept children in a Phoenix vacant office building until a neighbor reported that she saw ICE taking children into the building. The state failed to take any action about the children being kept in substandard conditions, claiming that the contractor MVM didn’t need a day care license, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. The contractor canceled its lease after city inspectors tried to visit the building five times in one week. MVM, which does not contract for providing shelters, eventually admitted that it lied about not keeping children in the building as a short-term shelter but stated that it “provided notice to both ICE and Arizona officials about the use of this building” and that “ICE approved such use.”

A federal judge has ordered the federal government not to give psychotropic medication to migrant children at Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel (TX) without parents’ or guardians’ consent except in dire emergencies. She also ordered all children moved out of the facility except for those diagnosed as “risk of harm” to themselves or others by a licensed professional. Government officials denied that medications were only on “an emergency basis,” but children gave testimony that they were given pills “every morning and every night.” Some were forcibly injected with drugs. They suffered nausea, dizziness, depression, and weight gain. The doctor prescribing the drugs lacked board certification for child and adolescent treatment for almost ten years. Shiloh also has a history of other child abuse.

The families designated for reunification faced chaotic situations. Some children in New York were driven from one airport to another to find lights. Mayor Bill de Blasio said that about 100 children remain in New York, “with no end in sight.” Some parents defined as “released” stayed in custody for up to a week with no access to showers, phones, or religious services. Some returned children are sick and beaten, and one child even died soon after she was returned. Others were taken places with no one waiting because parents were deported. Volunteer groups frantically raised funds to help children and parents who were just dropped off with no food or ways to communicate with anyone. Families are afraid to line up for help because the separation happened after promises of assistance to them. Some parents waived rights to be reunified because they could not read the consent form and were told that they could see their children if they signed the form. Even with reunification, some children don’t recognize their parents because they were separated for so long, and others are terrified that the government will take them from their parents again.

The biggest dodge to claim “mission accomplished” for a federal judge were the parents who DHS regarded as “either not eligible, or not yet known to be eligible, for reunification.” Of these, 64 were considered criminals, an overly broad classification because some of them had not been convicted of a crime. Crimes might be a DUI or simply “wanted in El Salvador.” Another 463 parents were “not in the U.S.,” with 411 probably deported. As for the 260 parents requiring “further evaluation,” the government lawyer tried to explain that among those 260 parents, some had already been released from immigration detention and couldn’t be found. Others are children already released to non-parent families in the U.S.

Conservatives praised U.S. agencies for how hard they worked to reunify families. The only reason that they had to manually go through 12,000 records instead of “at the stroke of keystrokes … within seconds,” as HHS Secretary Alex Azar bragged about his ability to “find any child within our care for any parent,” is that not one of the three agencies in charge had any system for returning children to the parents. Azar made that statement in June; he’s been very quiet since then. DDT’s administration never intended to reunify families, and the court ruling requiring them to put migrant children back with their parents came as a shock to them. This article describes the problems and the processes.

Scott Lloyd, a DDT appointment to lead the Office of Refugee Resettlement, set up a roadblock to reunification with his demand that he personally review each request to release migrant children. He made that decision without any agency review and changed it only after the policy was stopped by an injunction last month after a lawsuit challenged Lloyd’s policy. Children are incarcerated for months waiting for him to personally sign releases. In one case, he claimed a 17-year-old boy was a gang member with no proof; the boy lacked the tattoos that Lloyd claimed he saw. He became infamous when he unconstitutionally blocked an abortion for a raped teenage girl and other undocumented teenage girls. His experience for the current job was as a policy worker with the Knights of Columbus that involved research and advocacy for Christians persecuted in Iraq.

To permanently conceal ICE crimes, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) approved ICE’s request to destroy its records related to in-custody deaths, sexual assault, and solitary confinement. ICE also lists only 112 facilities although 203 have been identified. Since January, ICE stripped away due process, privatized detention services to deadly companies, collaborated with local law enforcement to racially target people, gone after domestic abuse victims, doctored documents to detain protected immigrants, and used children as bait to arrest their parents.

Many conservatives, led by the Fox network, consistently minimize the pain of immigrants. Pundits such as Laura Ingraham talk about the “phony concern for the children” by the left. Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends, said, “These aren’t our kids…. It’s not like [DDT] is doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas.” According to a recent study, people watching Fox and/or reading Breitbart are more likely to support child/family separation. On The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, Ann Coulter accused separated migrant children of being “child actors weeping and crying …  being coached, … given scripts to read by liberals.” The same accusation was given for gun safety activists from Parkland (FL).

Conservatives are accused of having “no heart.” It’s not true: conservatives have heart but just for a highly limited number of people within their own small tribe that looks exactly like them—namely white for U.S. conservatives. That’s why they can subscribe to genocide. We’re up past Step 8 (above) in the United States.

 

 

 

 

DDT: Week 80 – Lies, Disagreements, Attacks

As Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) becomes more unhinged, his administration disagrees with him:

• DDT promotes a government shutdown this coming fall if he doesn’t get his border wall. Both congressional leaders, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), say there will be no shutdown.
• DDT says he’ll talk to Iranian leaders any time with no conditions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out the conditions for any talks with Iran.
• DDT says he’s doing fine with Kim Jong-Un, but Pompeo says North Korea is far from denuclearization and still violates UN Security Council resolutions. GOP congressional members doubt that DDT made a good deal with North Korea. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) pointed out that “these guys cheated on every single agreement,” and the nation is building at one or two intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) from his classified materials. Satellite images show North Korean construction of missiles.
• DDT upped his trade war on China, increasing tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of goods because China wouldn’t do what he wanted. In order to impose tariffs, DDT must prove that they concern national security, according to a 1962 law because the U.S. Constitution put Congress in charges of tariffs. Some of the products in the tariff are dog food and furniture. A bipartisan group of senators led by Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced legislation to restrict presidential power to impose tariffs.
• White House officials announced that Russian meddling in U.S. elections is serious and ongoing, DDT said it’s all a “witch hunt” and “hoax,” and GOP congressional members are trying to ignore the whole issue by refusing to provide funding to stop it. House members are gone for five weeks, and McConnell is fixated on approving Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court justice.

While Paul Manafort’s trial for money laundering and fraud finished its fourth day this week, Roger Stone’s longtime former aide Andrew Miller will be required to testify before Robert Mueller’s grand jury after losing his appeal and produce subpoenaed documents. DDT’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani gives DDT illogical arguing points to add to his ranting about witch hunts. He contends that obstruction of justice must be secret because no one would obstruct justice out in the open and that collusion is not a crime because the law doesn’t use that word. “Conspiracy to defraud the United States” and “Contributions and donations by foreign nationals” are crimes. This week, Giuliani obsessed between the words “should” and “must,” that DDT didn’t order AG Jeff Sessions to end Mueller’s investigation because DDT’s tweet said “should.”

DDT started waging war on the Koch brothers, maintaining “I never sought their support because I don’t need their money….” At the same time, he considers making them wealthier with his unilateral plan to cut $100 billion in taxes mostly for the rich by allowing people to figure their capital gains by adjusting the original price to inflation. The Koch brothers won’t support anyone who supports DDT. Two reasons: either they don’t like the possibility of a recession from DDT’s tariffs or they think that Democrats will win in the fall and are hedging their bets. Or both. In the last tax cut, no one got DDT’s promised $4,000 raise in wages, and his tariffs are destroying the economy for farmers.

During the last couple of week, DDT accelerated his war on the media, perhaps because of his new hire and confidante Bill Shine. Last week, Shine banned CNN Kaitlan Collins from a press conference because she asked questions—a reporter’s job—and then said that he had only “disinvited” her.

Fox network president, Jay Wallace, stated:

“We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.”

DDT’s attacked the New York Times after he misrepresented a July 20 conversation its publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, after the White House told the publisher not to tell anyone about the meeting. Sulzberger set the record straight about the conversation in this article, and DDT became furious.

This week, CNN’s Jim Costa appeared to be threatened at one of DDT’s rallies where he added a few “fakes” to his statement about “fake media.” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended DDT’s treatment of the media, although she claimed it wasn’t violent, and lied about their reporting regarding Osama bin Laden. DDT also retweeted his “like” for a video showing Acosta’s mistreatment.

DDT hates CNN so much that he was furious at Melania Trump turning the television on Air Force One to the network. He ordered two additional televisions on the airplane with a streaming device that will permit himself and the first lady to watch TV in their separate hotel rooms when they travel. DDT’s television must be automatically turned to Fox; the first lady watches “any channel she wants,” according to her spokesperson.

Requests using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal past cracks in DDT’s administration. Last fall then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke that DDT’s cancelation of Temporary Protected Status for 300,000 Central American immigrants would “likely drive increased illegal migration to the United States and the growth of MS-13 and similar gangs.

Other newly released emails from FOIA expose Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ lies when she said that DDT had told the Pentagon about his red line for Syria last summer. He failed to communicate with the Pentagon before it issued a statement about a possible Syrian chemical attack.

A FOIA filing followed by a lawsuit disclosed that DDT lied to the public in an official speech to Congress in February 2017 when he claimed that the DOJ provided data that “the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.” The DOJ has no corroborating data.

DDT’s rallies are rapidly adding his daily average of lies, now up to 7.6. The increase of 978 in the past two months brought the total for his 558 days to 4,229 as of July 31, 2018. Immigration and trade top the subjects of lies, followed by taxes and NATO spending.

Despite media complaints, the White House failed for nine days to correct its “official record” of the Helsinki press conference to include the part in which Putin answered “yes” to questions about whether he directed officials to support DDT in his campaign. At least, the media nagged the White House into the correction; the Russian version left that part out.

Finished being a tool for right-wing union busters, Mark Janus, the central figure in a Supreme Court case, quit his job days after the decision was announced in late June that all workers receive union support whether or not they pay fees. Janus falsely claimed that his fees to the union, that protected his rights, would go to political activism. The ruling overturned the 1977 SCOTUS decision Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. 

The White House will no longer keep any record of DDT’s phone calls to foreign leaders.

The next time you hear that 80 or 90 percent of the Republicans support something—like DDT—remember that Republicans comprise only 24 percent of the nation, down almost 10 percent in a year. Ninety percent of the Republicans means under 22 percent of the nation. “Three-fourths” of Republicans means only 18 percent of the people in the U.S. Of the 42 percent independents in the U.S., only 36 percent approve of DDT, down seven points from June. The independents also prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress by over 20 points, 48 to 26 percent. This article gives a number of charts showing the increase of disapproval for DDT and the GOP by the large voting block of independents. The GOP may like the idea of $1 trillion deficit this year with only 21 percent disapproving, but 56 percent of people disapprove the handling of budget deficit—81 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents.

The one piece of good news for DDT is the job market. Although July’s job increase was only 157,000, which was 37,000 under predictions, the Labor Department upgraded job additions for May and June to make the three-month average at 224,000. Wage growth, however, is still at 2.7 percent, and most of the jobs added are in low-wage sectors.

Good news for others is that the National Rifle Association has been unable to renew its media liability insurance which could force the group to close its TV network, NRATV, and a number of print publications. Lack of insurance would also mean that it “cannot maintain its physical premises” or “convene off-site meetings and events.” The NRA blames New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo for pressuring insurers. The state levied over $8 million in fines against the insurance companies supporting the NRA’s “Carry Guard” self-defense program in New York State by insuring participants for legal fees and liabilities caused by self-defense shootings. The NRA ended 2016 with a $43 million debt and an additional 40 million in pension liabilities because people are no longer afraid of federal gun control, and the NRA counted on “Carry Guard” to bail them out of their fiscal problems.

Best DDT quote of last week: “Just remember: what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Best quote of this week: In a GOP senators’ press conference whining about Democrats wanting to see paperwork on Brett Kavanaugh, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said, “Frankly, we didn’t treat their candidates for these positions the way [Democrats are] treating ours.” In one way, he’s right: Democrats are willing to talk with DDT’s nominee for Supreme Court justice; Republicans wouldn’t even speak to President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, let alone consider him for a hearing.

I Have No Words

Jon McNaughton’s painting, “Cross the Swamp”:

Left to right: Nikki Haley, James Mattis, Ben Carson, President Trump, Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence, Melania Trump, Mike Pompeo, Sarah Sanders, Ivanka Trump, John Bolton, Kellyanne Conway, John Kelly

You can actually buy this. Or if you want more, here’s McNaughton’s “Expose the Truth.”

 

DDT: Week 79 – Attacks Fail to Divert Attention

Tweets from Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) got crazier this week in his attacks on Iran, FISA judges, U.S. citizens, China, the Russia “hoax,” foreign trade, the Washington Post, DOJ, FBI, the media, and other targets. DDT’s raging statements, sometimes in all caps, repeat Fox network and try to distract people from the negative news such as former campaign manager Paul Manafort heading to trial, Russian spy Mariia Butina in jail without bail, DDT’s fixer Michael Cohen dribbling out information, and continuing negative information about DDT’s relationship with Vladimir Putin.

Declared “weak” in his interactions with Putin, DDT tried to prove his strength—by threatening to attack Iran.

DDT set up a black list of six former top officials, threatening to revoke their security clearances—even ones who don’t have them—because they criticized his foreign policy. expressed alarm about Russian interference in U.S. elections. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused at least six of them for profiting off their public service (ironic because of the millions of dollars that DDT is making from his current position) and making “baseless accusations” against DDT. Sen. Paul Rand (R-KY) takes credit for DDT’s threat. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) chuckled about DDT’s threat and said that he was “just trolling people.” DDT has said no more about the clearances after the original threat: the negative backlash to DDT’s threat may have caused him to back down.

Another backlash may have led DDT to play nice (sort of) with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in a short-term arrangement. EU would buy more soybeans and LNG from the U.S. while DDT puts existing tariff plans on hold—except for cars, aluminum, and steel. DDT bragged to farmers about how he “opened up Europe,” but the U.S. sold $1.6 billion in soybeans last year to Europeans. Buying more LNG will take years because new facilities will have to be built.  DDT has called this plan a “deal,” but it is only a truce—not a peace treaty—vaguely suggesting future talks that return to the President Obama’s proposal that DDT earlier rejected.

In an attempt to buy off farmers hurt by his tariffs, DDT promised them $12 billion in socialist welfare, but conservatives are not satisfied. Over 2.5 billion pounds of red meat and poultry languish in warehouses because of no buyers, U.S. producers are scaling back, and pork producers face massive financial losses with some of them possibly going out of business. Farmers say they want stability, not compensation. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) called the idea “a Soviet-type of economy here,” and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) described it as a “gold-plated crutch.”

Chinese tariffs helped cause the GDP’s rise to 4.1 percent for this year’s second quarter as farmers desperately exported soybeans in May before the foreign tariff took effect. Increases for that month were 50 percent to 90 percent over last year, a factor that temporarily dropped the trade deficit by $50 billion. Another temporary jolt to the economy was congressional approval of increased federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars over two years that increases the deficit. DDT gave credit for the higher GDP to the GOP tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, but businesses are putting tax windfalls into stock buybacks and dividends with no long-term benefit. Lack of increases in wages and investments are growing the income inequality.

More damage to DDT comes from Cohen’s turning on him. In the first of at least 100 Cohen tapes to be released, DDT agreed to pay $150,000 to quiet the story about his year-long affair with Karen McDougal during his early marriage with Melania. The voices on the tape may provide more witnesses for Robert Mueller’s investigation, and the tape proves that DDT lied to his voters about his affair and buying her off. It also suggests that DDT had affairs with several women, not just one, and Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has information about some of these women. DDT’s lies connected to the tape—and the bonus of the video in which a bald eagle frightens DDT.

Following the tape’s release, Cohen’s claimed that he witnessed Donald Trump Jr. tell his father about the June 9, 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others at Trump Tower before it took place. Both Jr. and DDT have long denied that DDT knew about the meeting for over a year after it happened, but Cohen stated that DDT gave an approval for the meeting. In the meeting were four Russians, Jr., Jared Kushner, and DDT’s campaign director Paul Manafort. Two days before the meeting, DDT had widely announced plans for a “major speech” about Hillary Clinton’s scandals but never delivered.

The Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, hinting that DDT’s business was involved in the Karen McDougal payoff to keep her story out of the National Enquirer. No one may know more about DDT’s financial affairs that Weisselberg. He worked for both DDT and DDT’s father, both for the business and DDT’s foundation that is being sued for violating state and federal laws, set up DDT’s trust, done DDT’s personal tax returns for many years, and reportedly organized the payment to Stormy Daniels.

Microsoft thwarted the hackers who broke into the DNC server during Clinton’s campaign when they targeted Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) last August at the same time that DDT told Missouri audiences to “vote her out of office.” Two other unnamed Democratic candidates were also the hackers’ targets. With no evidence, DDT claimed that Russia is working to elect Democrats in the upcoming election, but he is doing nothing to stop any hacking.

DDT and Republicans may not have any concern about Russians electing more Republicans, but they should be concerned about Russians hacking into the U.S. utility grid. According to the Wall Street Journal, Russian hackers broke into the networks of key U.S. power companies throughout last year, possibly causing blackouts. Companies may not be aware of the program because the hackers used employee identities to enter the networks.

Two Senate committees are investigating the meeting between DDT and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified before the Foreign Relations panel, and the Banking Committee will consider legislation to strengthen existing sanctions. Pompeo refused to tell senators about the content of DDT and Putin’s private discussion, perhaps he didn’t know anything. Under questioning, he admitted that North Korea is still producing fissile material for nuclear bombs despite DDT’s guarantee that Kim Jung-Un had stopped. Pompeo’s most reassuring comment was “Fear not.”

Kim Jong-Un refuses to proceed with North Korea’s denuclearization until DDT gives him a permanent peace treaty, an agreement requiring two-thirds acceptance by Congress. Last week, DDT changed his message about North Korea about complete safety for the U.S. to “no rush” and “no time limit” on the denuclearization negotiations. The U.S. has received the remains of only 55 bodies from North Korea despite DDT’s earlier claim that the number was 200. The remains are in Hawaii for identification. About 5,300 U.S. soldiers are missing from the war between North and South Korea in the early 1950s.

The WaPo reported about the aftermath of DDT’s meeting with Kim:

“Diplomats say the North Koreans have canceled follow-up meetings, demanded more money and failed to maintain basic communications, even as the once-isolated regime’s engagements with China and South Korea flourish. Meanwhile, a missile-engine testing facility that Trump said would be destroyed remains intact, and U.S. intelligence officials say Pyongyang is working to conceal key aspects of its nuclear program.”

The interesting term in this reporting is “more money” because no information about payment to North Korea was released.

In another walk-back, DDT said that Putin isn’t invited to the White House until next year, according to John Bolton, because DDT is waiting for the “witch hunt” to be over. Putin had never officially accepted an invitation to Washington, but when he said that DDT is welcome in Russia, DDT jumped at the chance. DDT and Putin may get together at the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires in late November.

As DDT gets excited about seeing his BFF Putin, a majority of people in the U.S. are displeased about DDT’s pandering to Russia, according to this week’s Quinnipiac and NPR/Marist polls:

• 68 percent are “very/somewhat concerned” about DDT’s relationship with Russia.
• 54 percent say that DDT was not acting in the best interest of the U.S. in Helsinki.
• 63 percent trust U.S. intelligence to tell them the truth over 25 percent for DDT.
• 51 percent believe Russia has “compromising information” on DDT.
• 64 percent say DDT is “not tough enough” on Russia.
• 58 percent of independents “strongly/somewhat” disapprove of DDT in an NBC/WSJ poll.
• 73% think the Helsinki summit was a success for Russia.
• 56% agreed in a Navigator survey that DDT’s foreign policy doesn’t put “America first.”

Much more in the next part about DDT’s busy week.