Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) had another hard week. His press briefings are failing, and his tweets, such as delaying the election, have turned off GOP legislative leadership. Back on the campaign trail in Tampa (FL), he can’t even put together a crowd. Only 80 miles from the biggest retirement community in the U.S., the highly conservative Villages, this photo shows the best he can do on the campaign trail.
In his continued effort to destroy the U.S., DDT wants to block the US post office from delivering ballots. He appointed friend and megadonor donor Louis DeJoy as postmaster general to 
delay the ballots. Congress allotted the USPS $10 billion in its COVID-19 stimulus bill, but Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin holds the money hostage in return for proprietary information about USPS top ten lucrative private-sector contracts. DDT threatens to withhold the funding if the USPS doesn’t immediately hike its prices. Earlier Mnuchin tried to extort sweeping USPS operation control—approval of personal, contracts, and collective bargaining–in exchange for congressionally allotted monies.
The pandemic made vote-by-mail far more popular so DDT wants to block receiving ballots and sending them back in a timely fashion. In 34 states, completed ballots not received by Election day are not counted; in other states, ballots without postmarks aren’t counted. DDT’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany calls the New York primary voting an “absolute catastrophe” because ballots are still being counted, and DDT calls it “RIGGED.” Yet the delay is partially DDT’s fault.
At least one state postmaster, Maine’s James Thornton, told his workers to prioritize Amazon packages and delay first-class and priority mail, perhaps to curry DeJoy’s favor. Willfully delaying the mail is a criminal offense, but several 4’ X 5’ bins filled with first-class mail have been left overnight, undelivered, in the five Portland (ME) units multiple days per week. Delivery problems have been reported by voters and postal workers in key battleground states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
The Senate also confirmed Bill Zollars for the U.S. Postal Service board despite the federal government suing him for defrauding the Pentagon while he was CEO of YRC Worldwide. Mnuchin used a $17 billion slush fund supporting businesses concerned vital to national security to loan $700 million to YRC, valued at $70 million. YRC owes another $825 million to multiple creditors. Zollars replaces Deputy Postmaster General Ron Stroman, forced out by DDT in his plan to privatize the USPS while trying to destroy mail-in ballots.
DDT contends “mail-in voting” and “absentee voting” are different, rejecting the first but “totally” supporting the latter. His personal lawyers disagreed in a lawsuit described on DDT’s website: “the terms ‘mail-in’ and ‘absentee’ are used interchangeably to discuss the use of the United States Postal Service to deliver ballots to and from electors.” As for claims of fraud, of over 250 million ballots cast by mail in the past 20 years, only 143 prosecutions have been connected to fraud—a rate of 0.00006 percent. DDT also accused states of sending out “hundreds of millions of universal mail-in ballots.” The U.S. has only 153 million registered voters, and only California plans to send absentee ballots to all their registered voters. No state sends ballots or applications for mail-in voting to any non-registered voters. Republicans, such as Oregon’s Secretary of State Bev Clarno, refuted baseless conspiracy theories from DDT and AG Bill Barr about forged ballots. As for complaints about delayed elections, Oregon, the first state to provide mail-in voting, announces almost all results by midnight of Election Day.
Although he won’t fight COVID-19, DDT declared war on the social platform TikTok and plans to ban the Chinese-owned app in the U.S. Concerns might be legitimate because Chinese may be using TikTok to spy on people in the U.S. or interfere in U.S. elections, but DDT is upset only because teens faked a huge audience at DDT’s Tulsa (OR) campaign rally by using the app to order tickets.
DDT’s conservative Supreme Court will allow him to defy Congress by continuing to spend over $6 billion diverted from military funds to pay for his border wall in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. Judges in California and Texas ruled against the unconstitutional transfer of these funds, and the 9th Circuit Court concurred. Yet five justices ruled he could continue until possibly considering the litigation which wouldn’t be taken up until October at the earliest. SCOTUS’ minority recommended the court allow the government to finalize the construction contracts while stopping Pentagon fund expenditures and beginning construction. The conservative majority rejected the compromise, in effect providing a final judgment before hearing the case.
Taxpayers are also building a multi-million dollar 13-foot “anti-climb” fence around the White House which blocks the view of the building.
After refusing to follow both the Supreme Court and a lower court ruling that he accept DACA applications, DHS announced it will “reject all” first time DACA applications and cut protections for current beneficiaries from two to one year while it takes action “to thoughtfully consider the future of the DACA policy.”
The Pentagon’s new mandatory training course for all personnel to prevent leaks calls protesters and journalists “adversaries.” A former Pentagon press secretary and CIA spokesman, George Little, compared the term to Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s use of “battlespace” when talking about city streets in the U.S. Since a backlash, the Pentagon has dropped the term “adversaries” for residents of the U.S.
The COVID-19 epidemic has reached such dire proportions in South Texas that Starr County apppointed an ethics committee and a triage committee to determine who will receive life-saving help or be sent home without help, possibly to die.
Furthering DDT’s quackery, VP Mike Pence met with two hydroxychloroquine-touting doctors whose video was removed from both Twitter and Facebook for false and dangerous information. Pence then met with Ohio’s GOP governor, Mike DeWine, who, two days later, told the state pharmacy board to stop a rule banning the drug for COVID-19 patients in Ohio. One of the “doctors” is a non-practicing ophthalmologist who co-founded an investment fund, and the other one frequently contributes to the Fox network and other right-wing media. FDA’s head, Steven Hahn, called it “a decision between a doctor and a patient,” something DDT and many other Republicans deny to women requesting an abortion. Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-parasitic medication, is prescribed for malaria; COVID-19 is a virus, not a parasite.
Issue One, a bipartisan political reform group, reported on money laundering schemes illegally funneling foreign money into super PACs through shell companies, thanks to the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United (2010) permitting dark money donations for super PACs. Their analysis shows how this is happening.
A complaint accuses DDT’s presidential campaign of laundering $170 million to avoid revealing what vendors are being paid for services by feeding money through companies controlled by campaign officials. In 2018, then-campaign manager Brad Parscale and other campaign officials created the company, American Made Media, which has been paid over $106 million. Spending reports don’t reveal payments to companies actually doing the work for the campaign. Parscale’s private company, Parscale Strategy, has funneled campaign money to pay $180,000 each to Eric Trump’s wife, Lara, and Donald Trump Jr’s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle.
In testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee, Adam D. DeMarco, an Iraq veteran who serves as a major in the D.C. Army National Guard officer, described protesters forcibly removed from Lafayette Square last month and refuting claims from DDT, AG Bill Barr, and acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan. DeMarco stated “demonstrators were behaving peacefully” and deployment of tear gas was an “excessive use of force.” He also said fencing didn’t arrive until 9:00 that evening although Monahan said the area was cleared after it arrived. Although Monahan claimed protesters were warned, DeMarco said that they could not hear the announcement for a hand-held megaphone 50 yards away. Protesters were attacked 40 minutes before curfew, and a perimeter wasn’t set up until almost three hours later. Monahan also testified about the debacle, blaming peaceful protesters for “sustained” violent incidents and violent confrontations with law enforcement.
Norman Eisen’s new book, A Case for the American People: The United States v. Donald J. Trump about DDT’s impeachment, gives more information about the Roger Stone’s coverup to hide DDT’s wrongdoing. Barr protected Stone with a lesser sentence which DDT commuted. Eisen also gives more information about DDT’s illegally lying to special counsel Robert Mueller during the Russia investigation.
Some clueless media people have praised DDT for his change in “tone” about the seriousness of COVID-19 within the past couple of weeks. As usual, they twist themselves into knots in their attempt to find something positive to report on DDT. His only reason for briefly stating the problem of the virus comes after his aides gave him enough maps of the surging virus to convince him his GOP voters face a crisis. It was a political decision. Yet on the first press briefing of the week, he started his insistence on reopening states. Meanwhile, a new poll indicates 80 percent of people in the U.S. believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction. His dropping polls in the past few weeks have caused him to attack the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Fox network.
August 1: U.S. COVID-19 infections in U.S. – 4,764,318; deaths – 157,898.
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