DDT after Conviction

The events this week will be in the history books as long as U.S. remains a democracy. They began with Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) being loudly booed at his Libertarian Party conference, although he lied about his being its candidate if he had filed his paperwork. The week ended with non-stop commentary about DDT’s unanimous May 30 conviction by a jury on 34 criminal charges in a New York court. The conviction turned states-rights conservatives into federalists as House Republicans attacked the people who brought the case and prosecuted it as well as the sitting judge in their unrelenting campaign to get DDT elected.

Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson (R-LA) went further when he comfortingly said he would see that Supreme Court justices would “step in” to overturn the guilty ruling because he knows them “personally.” Technically DDT’s appeals go only to state courts because the decision was a state one, not federal, but the high court might intervene on the possibility of federal election law violations. DDT’s complaints were all about the judge:

“He wouldn’t allow us to have witnesses, he wouldn’t allow us to talk, he wouldn’t allow us to do anything. The judge was a tyrant.”

From the conviction came a collection of conspiracy theories initiated by “false flag” Alex Jones and promoted by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Jones owes over a billion dollars for his lies about how the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre of elementary was staged with “crisis actors” portraying families and first responders. About the conviction, he lied that the judge told jurors to convict DDT even if they believe he’s innocent and the anonymous “they” want him convicted although “it will be overturned.” Jones faults drag queens, and Greene posted, “Listen to Alex.”

Klaus Marre compared the GOP trauma to a beehive that loses its queen. The other bees buzz loudly, called a “queenless roar” by experts. Or maybe chickens with their heads cut off. Conditioning has made them instinctively defend DDT without rhyme or reason. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once a virulent DDT critic, assured the world that he would not lose his voting rights because he chairs the Florida Clemency Board.

Many people expected a hung jury with at least one juror opposing conviction. Even DDT had believed this to happen, calling that person “my juror” in private conversations. He and his lawyers knew the jurors’ identities, and two of them followed Truth Social and watched Fox.  

The European Union expressed respect for the U.S. judicial process but didn’t comment on DDT’s guilt. Many Europeans see DDT as the negative stereotype of Americans—smug, arrogant, and unaware of his own ignorance. DDT has created a vacuum in leadership, leaving it open to Russia, Iran, and China. Larry Hogan, former GOP Maryland governor, stated he respected the law, leading Chris LaCivita, DDT campaign presidential campaign adviser and RNC CEO to post that Hogan had just “ended” his campaign. DDT has again resorted to quoting mobster and brutal murderer Al Capone as a role model.

Among the best headlines this week is “Trump in 2016: ‘Drain the swamp!’ Trump in 2024: ‘Fill ‘er up.’” DDT’s promise to destroy corruption in Washington, D.C. has led to his being the most openly corrupt former White House occupant and current presidential candidate in modern history. The stories about his asking for bribes in exchange for future actions if he’s elected:

• A businessman offered him $1 million for campaign donations, but DDT said, “You’ve got to make it $25 million.
• Paying DDT $1 million will give attendees at a private luncheon the chance to speak to the group.
• DDT threatened taxes would increase under Joe Biden before asking for donations.
• Fossil fuel executives could expect the erasure of regulations and reversal of climate laws in return for $1 billion, according to DDT at a Mar-a-Lago dinner.
• DDT promised oil executives he will fast-track their mergers and acquisitions by easing the Federal Trade Commission’s scrutiny.
• Later, DDT promised the industry uncontrolled drill leases for massive donations.

DDT’s new mantra: “Be generous.”

In another private meeting, billionaires including Elon Musk and investor David Sacks strategized how to defeat Biden. Musk has increased his anti-Biden lying rants to 184 million followers on X while consistently supporting DDT as a victim of the media and prosecutorial bias. X posts have gained Musk benefits in other countries, lower import tariffs for Tesla vehicles in India, access to lithium for his batteries in Argentina, and a new market for his Starlink in Brazil. Former staunch DDT critic, Musk may have an advisory role in the government if DDT is elected.

Peter Thiel paid $15 million to elect J.D. Vance as the senator from Ohio. Jamie Dimon praised DDT for his economy that lost $2.9 million jobs, but DDT might reduce taxes for Dimon and his corporation JPMorgan Chase. DDT’s last tax cut added part of the $7.4 trillion national debt during his term.

DDT may be running short on money after hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees. In March, he sold his $10 million jet to MAGA megadonor Mehrdad Moayedi. DDT still owns his Boeing 757 emblazoned with his name, along with a small fleet of helicopters.

While DDT and the MAGA world spread the lie about Biden’s dementia, he has exhibited a “shocking decline in verbal fluency” since he opened his campaign in 2015, according to Dr. John Gardner. Gartner stated that he used to speak “in polished paragraphs with a sophisticated vocabulary” and now “often can’t finish a sentence or even a word”:

“Typical of dementia patients, he repeats himself and overuses superlatives and filler words. Based on his current accelerating rate of decline, it seems very unlikely that Trump could see out a second term without falling off the cliff and becoming totally incapacitated.”

Gartner also pointed out DDT’s failing memory, “disordered speech,” use of “non-words in place of real words,” and poor “motor performance.” DDT sometimes “swings his right leg in a semi-circle as if it were dragging a dead weight” and has “difficulty drinking a bottle or a glass of water without two hands, according to the doctor.

The November presidential election will determine whether the U.S. returns to being a world power or a puppet of “strongmen,” Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. A “normal” U.S. foreign policy would guide the planet to a more “normal” world. The opposite, an “American First” approach, would destroy countries subject to autocratic aggression and release disorder. World War II caused the U.S. to reject the America First philosophy for almost a half century, forging alliances and creating a free world economy and democracy. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the decades between the two world wars. America First is leading the GOP’s destructive philosophy of one’s self-interest first instead of the belief in “responsibility” that expanded growth and living standards through cooperation. An ultimate situation of global order collapse would be the U.S. abandonment of isolationism and authoritarianism in a highly worsened position like the 1920s. 

E. Jean Carroll – Sexual Assault/Defamation:

DDT apparently wants to lose more money to E. Jean Carroll for defamation after losing $91 million in two court cases. His Memorial Day rant on Truth Social repeated the same lies about Carroll and why she should have lost the cases before attacking the judge who consistently rejects hid appeals for the judgments to delay its enforcement.

New York – Criminal Business Fraud/Hush Money to Stormy Daniels to Interfere with 2016 Election:

Seven weeks from April 15 to May 30. Verdict: guilty on 34 counts by a jury of seven men and five women. Now comes the appeals. DDT is “ROR’d,” “release on recognizance.” No, he is a “political prisoner,” as he claims. Sentencing on July 11 at 10:00 am.

Florida – DDT’s Taking Classified Documents:  

Trying to protect FBI agents from violence by DDT’s supporters, special counsel Jack Smith submitted a second filing for a narrow gag order to keep DDT from putting law enforcement in danger. DDT’s pet judge Aileen Cannon refused the first one; the second one is pending.

Attorney George Conway declared that Cannon appears to not understand the basics of a criminal rule after she refuted the Pinkerton rule that “all members of a conspiracy can be held accountable for any crimes committed by their co-conspirators.” Conway said that the rule applies to DDT’s dealings with his two co-defendants in the case.

In delaying the trial, Cannon also gave DDT’s lawyers 12 days to argue their case that special counsels such as Smith are unlawfully appointed and funded because he wasn’t confirmed by the Senate. She also accepted 82-year-old Michael Mukasey, George W. Bush’s AG, as an amicus curiae to dismiss DDT’s Espionage Act case, joining Ronald Reagan’s AG Ed Meese, 92.

Supreme Court:

A poll shows that Republicans oppose the idea of presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions unless it applies to DDT. Only 29 percent want immunity for a generic former president whereas 61 percent want immunity for DDT. GOP senators such as Tom Tillis (NC) and Bill Cassidy (LA), however, think DDT should not have complete immunity.

GQP ‘Spiritual Leader’ Demands Followers “Kiss the Ring’

President Joe Biden is making decisions for the United States, but Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), declaring on conservative media that the presidential election was stolen from him, waits at Mar-a-Lago for followers to come pay obeisance to him.

Sycophant Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who calls DDT almost every day, is again going to Mar-a-Lago to golf—and get him to build up the Republican party, now badly split after the impeachment and House Minority Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) attack on DDT. Last Tuesday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) visited DDT. Brad Parscale, fired from being campaign manager and responsible for questionable expenditures of millions of campaign dollars, went to Mar-a-Lago for a long meeting. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) held a fundraiser on Saturday night.

Absent from DDT’s side for a few years, Steve Bannon is back. During the first few years of DDT in the White House, Bannon played him like a fiddle to accomplish his ends but got forced out. Once gone, Bannon stole almost a million dollars from a GoFundMe website ostensibly to build a tiny portion of DDT’s southern border wall, but DDT pardoned him for that offense shortly before Biden was inaugurated.

Now Bannon has another plan: run DDT for the House, become the Speaker because he believes Congress will turn Republican, and impeach Biden. His accusation is that Biden “stole” the election.

Top DDTers also have other plans such as making DDT’s first White House press secretary Reince Priebus the Wisconsin governor although Tony Evers has the position for another three years. In Pennsylvania, GOP Sen. Pat Toomey isn’t running in 2022, and the Republican party has its eye on a QAnon candidate. Toomey voted for DDT’s conviction in the impeachment, and furious Republicans announced they don’t elect people “to do the right thing.” The current criterion is to follow whatever corruption DDT wants. Bannon said, “Any candidate who wants to win in Pennsylvania in 2022 must be full Trump MAGA.”

Flush with what DDT sees as a strong following, he plans to put his extremist loyalists into primaries. They may win against other Republicans, but moderate Republicans and independents could elect Democrats. For example, Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward might lose a general election against incumbent Mark Kelly in 2022 for supporting conspiracy theories and leading her party in censuring Cindy McCain, former Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) wife, for supporting Biden. In Georgia, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an outspoken QAnon conspiracy theorist removed from her committee assignments, could run against former Sen. David Perdue in the primary, reducing the possibility of the Republicans defeating Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock. DDT has clashed with Republicans who might defeat Democrats for Congress, like former Sen. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire.

The question is how long DDT will trust Bannon. Touting his new memoir Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes in an interview, former 60 Minutes producer Ira Rosen talked about Bannon’s attempt to remove DDT from the White House by using the 25th Amendment because of DDT’s early stage dementia. Bannon told DDT’s major rightwing donor Rebekah Mercer about his concerns, including DDT’s repetition of the same stories, and quoted a David Brooks column from October 2017:  

“And the polls show that if you want to win a Republican primary these days, you have to embrace the Trump narrative…  The Republican senators greeted Trump on Capitol Hill and saw a president so repetitive and rambling, some thought he might be suffering from early Alzheimer’s. But they know which way the wind is blowing. They gave him a standing ovation.”

One sycophant couldn’t go to Mar-a-Lago. Rush Limbaugh died February 17, 2021, leaving 15 million listeners without his consistent diet of racial prejudice, misogyny, hate, and lies.

DDT also lost “my Kevin,” as he called House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), after McCarthy told people about his frantic January 6 telephone call for help when DDT refused to send assistance for congressional members under attack in the U.S. Capitol. McCarthy tried to cover up the problem, but DDT found him lacking in deferential attitude. Following that event, DDT lambasted McCarthy for not removing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from House leadership because she voted for DDT’s impeachment. Fox reports DDT looks at McCarthy “with disdain.”

McCarthy tried to crawl back into DDT’s favor in late January at a trip to Mar-a-Lago after he agreed DDT “bears responsibility” for the riot. Aides reported the meeting was “good and cordial,” and McCarthy he does not “believe he provoked [the attack].” DDT, however, never forgives a slight. 

Next weekend, DDT will collect the faithful at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando (FL). Usually located in Washington, CPAC chose the new venue because of its lax coronavirus guidelines producing its third-highest COVID-19 death toll last week. Sponsors include Fox, Washington Times, Epoch Times, Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA, and conservative video platform Rumble. The senators typically voting against Biden’s appointees—Martha Blackburn (TN), Tom Cotton (AR), Ted Cruz (TX), Josh Hawley (MO), James Lankford (OK), and Rick Scott (FL)—will attend along with loyalist House members Mo Brooks (AL), Madison Cawthorn (NC), Matt Gaetz (FL), Jim Jordan (OH), Devin Nunes (CA), and Steve Scalise (LA). Deposed people such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, former DOJ AG Matt Whitaker, former DDT lawyer Pam Bondi, and former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be there. It’s a place for the ambitious to aim at a better job, perhaps president, like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.

One person missing from the event is former VP Mike Pence. Sources have said Pence will stay out of the public for the rest of the year after DDT looked willing to kill Pence at the January 6 insurrection. Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short said he and Pence now accept Biden as “the duly elected president of the United States.” Although absent from DDT’s farewell, Pence attended Biden’s inauguration.

Others may not actually show up, and sponsors are insecure because of uncertain guest bookings. The theme “America Uncanceled” is about “cancel culture,” and organizers sent a letter to Politico accused it of this practice, a form of not providing support, after journalists asked questions about the event. Organizers whined about attempts to “cancel our votes, our voices, and our values” while trying to erase all non-white people in the U.S. DDT’s repetition about a rigged election in his CPAC speech as well as his smears of Biden’s actions will be an example of “cancel culture.”

Opposing DDT’s control of the GOP, House Minority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ignores DDT, especially after McConnell’s vitriolic attack against DDT following McConnell’s vote against an impeachment conviction based on a mythical technicality. The speech scorched DDT about his faults, how he should have been convicted and how he can be criminally indicted. Three days later, DDT’s rebuttal rained lies and blistering attacks on the man who forced over 200 highly conservative and largely incompetent judges onto federal benches. A part of DDT’s statement:

“Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.”

Advisers talked DDT out of stating McConnell had too many chins and not enough smarts, according to one source.

Because a large QAnon following thinks DDT will be inaugurated on March 4, 2021, 5,000 National Guard troops will stay in Washington for at least another three weeks out of concern for violence. If that date doesn’t work out for them, QAnon followers picked May 20, 120 days after January 20 based on an economic recovery plan proposed over 20 years to forgive the national debt. Conspiracy theorists claim the military will take Biden from the White House on May 20 and install DDT in his former Washington home. Robert Guffey, who tracks the QAnon movement, explained more conspiracy beliefs:

“Then all the debt goes away and the IRS is abolished. And then, at that point, Trump starts releasing all these hidden patents for free energy. It’s going to be utopia and all the Democrats will be in Gitmo.”

Conservative media feeds these lies to the tens of millions of their audience:

• The Biden’s marriage and romance is “part of a slick PR campaign devised by cynical consultants determined to hide the president’s senility by misdirection.”—Tucker Carlson, Fox 
• The Bidens 12-year-old German Shepherd, Champ, “needs a bath and a comb and all kinds of love and care. [He] looks like … from the junkyard.”—Greg Kelly, Newsmax
• About cutting off the video of the insurrection at the Capitol during the impeachment trial: “This is all emotional, political theater.”—Greg Gutfeld, cohost of Fox The Five
• “[There] was no physical evidence that George Floyd was murdered…  The autopsy showed that George Floyd almost certainly died of a drug overdose, fentanyl.”—Tucker Carlson, Fox
• About fighting domestic terrorists: “They’re creating extremists, just as we did in Iraq… And dramatically elevating the chance that something really awful is going to happen.”—Tucker Carlson, Fox
• “If the [COVID-19] vaccine was so great, why were all these people lying about it.”—Tucker Carlson, Fox (before Biden was inaugurated)
• “[I don’t know] a single conservative or single Republican who frankly even knows what QAnon.”—Sean Hannity, Fox

Much has been said from conservative leaders telling Democrats about “moving on,” but DDT will never let that happen as long as he stays the face and voice of the GQP.

DDT’s Financial Affairs Prove Him Liar, Cheat, Bully

In the past, weekends were fairly peaceful in the news—just a few Friday dumps from politicians wanting to minimize a disaster. Not with Dictator Donald Trump (DDT). Today was a prime example when the New York Times released extensive information about his fraud in income tax filings. He constantly lied about not being able to release the returns while he’s being audited, but this lengthy newspaper article reveals how DDT has freeloaded on the U.S. public and used his position in the White House to make money. During over two decades: 

In 2016 and 2017, DDT, who claims to be unbelievably wealthy, paid only $750 each year in federal income taxes. (The NYT did not obtain his personal tax returns for 2018 and 2019.) Yet he paid $15,598 to Panama, $145,000 to India, and $156,824 to the Philippines.

In ten of the previous 15 years he paid zero taxes by claiming he lost more money than he made. While DDT campaigned on his statement he was “really rich” and had “built a great company,” he paid zero tax for 2014—for the fourth year.

A decade ago, he took a $72.9 million tax refund that could cost him over $100 million if it is found fraudulent. (Check the article for details.)

DDT makes more and more of his money from conflicts of interest with his position in the Oval Office.

A lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, denied DDT didn’t pay taxes but used the term “personal taxes,” which could be taxes paid for his household employees such as Social Security and Medicare. Garten also stated DDT uses “tax credits” to pay for what he is owed, which isn’t money paid to the U.S.

The tax data shows write-offs of over $2 million in 2016 and 2017 for a criminal defense lawyer to defend DDT from the Russian investigation and problems with his fraudulent charitable foundation now determined illegal. Another tax scam deducted a mansion used as a family retreat. With no explanation, general and administrative expenses at DDT’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey went up five times from 2016 to 2017. Other write-offs include hair stylists ($70,000), photographer ($210,000), table linens ($109,433)—anything he uses for “promotion.” He also wrote off Ivanka Trump’s $95,464 for a hair and makeup artist. The IRS requires deducted expense be “ordinary and necessary.

DDT claims that his annual financial disclosures tell the entire story about his finances, but they report only revenue, not profit. Most of his main enterprises such as his golf courses and the Washington hotel, lose tens of millions every year. Money from The Apprentice and licensing deals is disappearing, and he sold almost all his stocks. Within the next four years, over $300 million in loans come due.

DDT uses his properties to collect money from lobbyists, foreign officials, and anyone else who wants to curry favor with him. Mar-a-Lago brought him an additional $5 million a year starting in 2015, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association paid at least $397,602 to him for an event at the Washington hotel.

Although DDT said he would pursue no new foreign deals after he was inaugurated, he made $73 million from abroad in his first two years, several from licensing deals in authoritarian countries or places with dicey geopolitics such as Philippines, India, Turkey, and Philippines.

DDT made $2.3 million from the Moscow Miss Universe in 2016 after the Agalarov family, who helped set up the 2016 meeting seeking dirt on Hillary Clinton, underwrote the event.

In 1995, DDT declared a loss of almost $1 billion, allowing him to avoid federal income taxes for almost two decades, but in 1995 he gained $427.4 million from The Apprentice. He made another $176.5 million in profit from two office buildings. Taxes for the year should have been over $100 million.

During The Apprentice, DDT bought 13 golf courses and transformed Washington’s Old Post Office building into a hotel, losing more money. For example, Miami’s Trump National Doral was purchased for $150 million in 2012 and lost $162.3 million in the next six years. Tax records show DDT spent $213 million and has a $125 mortgage due in three years. He reported losing over $315.6 million on his golf courses, including a loss of $63.6 for the two in Scotland and one in Ireland. The Washington hotel shows a loss of $55.5 million, and another loss of $134 million came from his real estate services company.

DDT’s supposed taxable income in 2016 and 2017 included profits from “celebrity status” ($24.8 million) and the loans he didn’t repay ($56.4 million), giving him a tax of $1 million for 2016 and $4.2 million for 2017—amounts disappearing by the time he filed his taxes because he used $9.7 million in business investment credits partly for the hotel renovation. The result was payment of $750 in taxes per year.

Between 2010 and 2018, DDT wrote off $26 million in unidentified consultants’ fees, some of them matched to payments to Ivanka Trump. The amounts were about one-fifth of his income; i.e., $1.1 million for $5 million on a failed hotel deal in Azerbaijan. The recipient was identified through Ivanka’s financial disclosures from 2017. Some businesses have paid IRS penalties for schemes avoid taxes through exorbitant fees to people who are not actually independent contractors. DDT’s father used this scheme to avoid gift taxes on millions he transferred to his children. About the Azerbaijan deal, a Trump Organization lawyer said, “We did not pay any money to anyone.” A person connected to developing two Trump towers in Tukey said it had no consultant, but tax records show consultant fees for $2 million. Ivanka Trump’s website described her role not as consultant but as a senior executive.

The NYT exposé describing DDT’s fraudulent tax practices and his incompetent business abilities follows news about Mary Trump’s lawsuit against him. People voted for DDT because they thought he was a good businessman, but his history shows him as a bully and a cheat as well as a failure. In 1990, he faced personal bankruptcy from creditors and a possible billion-dollar bill in divorcing his first wife, Ivana. DDT failed with his casino empire and the Trump Shuttle airline but got a $100 million line of credit and other money from bankers so they wouldn’t go down with him. As DDT’s debts mounted, Sr funneled $3.35 million into one of DDT’s casinos by paying for 670 gambling chips worth $5,000, but DDT still faced six corporate bankruptcies.

To salvage his financial problems, DDT sent two of his father’s trusted associates, an accountant and lawyer, to force Fred Trump, Sr, into immediately signing a codicil to his will putting DDT completely in charge. At 85, Trump Sr had hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate but faced cognitive issues. The charge is confirmed by a tape recording of DDT’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry, outraged about DDT’s efforts for a will change while his father was “in dementia.” Barry’s husband, a lawyer, said the codicil gave everything to DDT, and she persuaded her father not to follow DDT’s wishes. Mary Trump wrote the change would put his siblings “at Donald’s financial mercy, dependent on his approval for the smallest transaction.” An expert on New York estate law agreed. The codicil to the will would also protect all of DDT’s inheritance from seizure by Ivana and creditors.

The lawsuit by Mary L. Trump, Trump Sr’s granddaughter and DDT’s niece, against Sr’s estate executors DDT, Barry, and the estate of their deceased brother Robert Trump is about their lies concerning the “true value” of what she should have inherited from her grandfather. She and her brother, Fred III, went to court in 2000 to argue their grandfather was not of sound mind when he disinherited them in September 1991, alleging the will was “the product of undue influence and coercion” by DDT and his siblings. A physician wrote Sr had “significant memory impairment” and “early signs of dementia” only a month later. In another four months, a neuropsychological evaluation showed Sr’s mental state to be much worse—below the 15^th percentile for a person in his age group. Yet DDT insisted in a deposition he have never seen or heard any evidence of his father’s decline throughout this time.

DDT and Robert threatened to withdraw medical care provided by the Trump Organization for the infant son of Fred III and Mary Trump’s nephew, William, who had cerebral palsy. DDT and his siblings told Fred III he should take a CPR course from the Red Cross and care for William because nursing care for the badly disabled newborn was “expensive babysitting.” Mary and Fred III settled the lawsuit with confidentiality agreements.

Mary said she is no longer bound by secrecy because she learned the estate was worth closer to $1 billion instead of the $30 million claimed by the executors. She only learned about the fraud in October 2018 when the NYT published an investigative report into DDT’s “suspect tax schemes.” New York statute of limitations requires a lawsuit within two years of discovery, making the lawsuit timely.

As Mary Trump’s lawsuit states, fraud for Donald Trump is “a way of life.”

DDT: Week 118 – Dementia from Stress?

Many people think the wandering speeches and tweets from Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) are used to provide diversion for the many lawsuits and investigations in all facets of his life. Yet his mental problems seem to be growing. His demented paranoia was on full display when Sean Hannity allowed him to host the Fox show last night—raving about the “coup” of the Mueller report to “overthrow the United States government,” the corrupt “top people” at the FBI, and the ways that Hillary Clinton “destroyed the lives” of people on DDT’s campaign. He proved himself an authoritarian, a dictator, operating outside the law, the Constitution, and the government. “I could have fired everybody. I could have fired Mueller. I could have fired anybody that I wanted to fire,” DDT said. He may even believe that about elected members of Congress.

Wednesday he gave a 40-minute speech at the Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit that meandered into praise about dogs as one of two acceptable pets, Melania Trump’s dress on the day he announced his campaign, the “rigged system,” and his traditional diatribe about immigration.

This last week, Mexico described the actions it was taking in its commitment to immigration control of the border; the next day DDT said, despite no communication with the Mexican government, he was closing the southern border if they don’t do more. He also threatened to send “ARMED soldiers” to the border—despite his already sending soldiers there. The Pentagon resolved the situation in which Mexican soldiers stopped ICE agents and U.S. soldiers south of the border fence—that the Mexicans thought they were on Mexico land—but DDT won’t accept the decision. Attacks on Mexican soldiers would violate the Posse Comitatus law and be an act of war which only Congress can declare. DDT also told reporters that only he is in charge of immigration after asked if the neo-Nazi White House aide Stephen Miller would be the new DHS director.

For over two years, DDT has been desperate for a state visit to Britain despite disapproval from over 70 percent of the country’s population. This week he got his wish for an invite in June—the day before he retweeted the same type of message that lost him an earlier visit accusing “United Kingdom Intelligence of helping Obama Administration Spy on the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign.” The conspiracy theory came from DDT watching an interview with Larry Johnson on One America News Network, more extremely right-wing than the Fox network. DDT’s tweet caused George Conway, husband of White House official Kellyanne Conway, to use his hashtag #DerangedDonald” in response to DDT’s conspiracy theory.

DDT insisted that people always obey his orders at the White House Easter Roll, the same time that he explained to small children that he got more funding for the military, the economy is good, and DACA is bad. Yet people are fully aware that he was rescued from stronger cases of obstruction of justice because his officials refused his commands to kill Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, attack the Mueller probe, and other times his officials ignored DDT.

In a “secret” meeting with Twitter CEO, DDT protested the loss of Twitter buddies after the company shut down over 5,000 accounts connected to bots denouncing Robert Mueller’s investigation and lauding Saudi Arabia. Targeted to the U.S. audience, the fake accounts focused on hashtags such as #RussiaGate used by Sean Hannity and other far-right DDT supporters. DDT wants more followers because he has less than 60 percent of President Obama’s 100 million. Before the meeting, DDT tweeted an accusation that Twitter was playing “political games” with his follower count and called for congressional intervention against the company. DDT is fortunate that Twitter doesn’t ban white supremacist content the way it does most ISIS propaganda. Twitter cannot control this content because some of it comes from GOP politicians.

On Easter morning, DDT tweeted about the people killed in the Sri Lanka bombings and referred to the terrorist attacks “that have killed at least 138 million people.” That number is almost ten times the entire population of Sri Lanka and far more than the 207 people killed in the disaster.

In just 90 minutes last Tuesday, he tweeted at least eight angry insults at Nobel-prize winning Paul Krugman, New York Times, Democrats, CNN, Joe Scarborough, tariffs on Harley-Davidson, and Twitter itself. The night before, he retweeted 24 items from 15 people in 30 minutes.

DDT ordered his officials to boycott the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, scheduled for April 27. He is the first president to command officials to not attend the dinner and the first person to not attend since his inauguration except for Ronald Reagan who missed the event in 1981 while he recovered from an assassination attempt. DDT will be rallying his troops in Green Bay (WI) during the dinner. After DDT was upset about Michelle Wolff’s comedy last year, the press organization decided to use biographer Ron Chernow for a blander featured speaker in an effort to pander to DDT.

 (Photo credit should read ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/AFP/Getty Images)

DDT has a lot to upset him:

Deutsche Bank is sending its financial records about loans made to DDT and his business to New York state’s attorney general. That probe started after DDT’s former fixer Michael Cohen testified that DDT inflated his assets and gave copies of financial states provided to Deutsche Bank.

DDT’s best friends Kim Jong-Un and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin are meeting in Russia without DDT at a time when the North Korean president has cooled off on DDT. (They look happy together.) Another accusation against DDT comes from a $2 million bill that the U.S. received for the healthcare of Otto Warmbier, the captive who died soon after his release, who was unconscious for 15 of the 17 months of his imprisonment. Warmbier’s father said that the charge might be a ransom.

The House Judiciary and Oversight committees is investigating DDT’s purge of the DHS to determine if DDT’s neo-Nazi aide Stephen Miller orchestrated it. Former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen offended Miller and DDT by pointing out legal barriers to the continuing family separation plan. House Democrats are asked acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan to give them communications about the officials’ departures and with Miller. DDT has already told Miller not to testify before a House hearing.

The news about the White House blocking former DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen from organizing cabinet secretaries for a strategy combating election interference in 2020 hit the headlines this week. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told her not to talk about the situation around DDT because it makes him feel bad although he denied doing so later. John Bolton’s reorganization of the National Security Council dropped the position of U.S. cyber-security czar.

Recently de-classified documents show that 32 years ago Australia turned down DDT’s bid to build a casino there because of his connections to “organized crime,” according to recently de-classified papers. The bid was also rejected for being “not financially viable.”

A federal court invalidated unconstitutionally partisan districts in Michigan and gave the legislature until August 1 to redraw the maps that must be used in the 2020 election.

A federal judge, who said that “lies went on for months,” told Flint (MI) residents they can sue the EPA for waiting too long to do something about the city’s water crisis.

A federal judge ruled DDT’s Interior Department acted illegally in trying to life a coal mining moratorium on public lands. Former Secretary Ryan Zinke failed to provide adequate environmental effects of mining in 2017. Within the coming months, the judge will issue another legal decision about reinstating the mining ban. The judge’s decision followed other rulings giving the EPA 90 days to decide whether to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage and overturning DDT’s executive order to life oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast.

DDT continues to babble about “no collusion” and “no obstruction,” but Congress doesn’t need crimes and demeanors to impeach him. He pretends he is innocent because Robert Mueller did not indict him, but the report states that he was not indicted only because of current DOJ guidelines for not indicting presidents.

DDT bragged about his 3.2 percent growth in GDP for the first quarter of 2019, he ignored February’s addition to the national debt of $234 million, the largest one-month deficit in history.

Joe Biden’s candidacy announcement featuring the neo-Nazi protest at Charlottesville (VA) in 2017 caused DDT to again defend white supremacists by claiming that they were just Civil War enthusiasts who “felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general.” Lee was indicted for treason after he led a war against the United States. DDT did defend the white supremacists although he denied doing so. Biden didn’t get a lot of points from Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer who was killed by a neo-Nazi at the protest; he didn’t bother to tell Bro that he was using her daughter in his launch video. Bro said, “I don’t think we’ve seen him in town. It was just sort of a feeling of, ‘Well, here we go again.’”

[Note: Those who wish to read more about the news above and/or factcheck the material may wish to use the links.]

DDT: Week Eighteen, More GOP Losses

Good news for investors, albeit temporary, is the announcement from U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta that President Obama’s order, the fiduciary rule, will go into effect on June 9 instead of another postponement from Dictator Donald Trump (DDT). Stock companies and brokers hate the rule that requires them to act in the best interest of their customers. Acosta’s decision caused several stocks to drop because of the industry’s disappointment in not being able to push more expensive products to benefit themselves.

Another failure for DDT: The 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate its nation-wide Muslim ban, ruling 10-3  that DDT’s executive order “speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.” The Maryland court order blocking the ban remains in place.

The Supreme Court has determined that two North Carolina GOP lawmakers used racial demographics to design two congressional districts. Elena Kagan, author of the majority opinion, described District 12 (below) as “snakelike.” The vote of 5-3 was opposed by John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, and Alito.

AG Jeff Sessions also had to pull back on his official definition of “sanctuary cities” and acknowledged that the federal government has very limited ability to revoke funding. As a judge had earlier ruled, the law only requires governments to share information about immigrants’ citizenship or legal status—nothing else.

Another fight that DDT may lose is a request from the Office of Government Ethics to release all the waivers DDT has provided to former lobbyists hired in the White House or federal agencies so that they can work with former issues they had been involved with or clients. DDT’s executive order stated that he would follow President Obama’s practices to prohibit lobbyists from representing their former clients and issues without waivers, but he told Walter Shaub, the head of the Ethics section, that he won’t sent copies of the waivers. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has refused to provide the waivers.

Mulvaney also has a money problem because taxes are coming in “slower than expected,” meaning that the government could have fewer months before running out of cash. The current projection is October 2, even if some payments are suspended. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged a House committee to raise the debt limit before summer recess. The House Freedom Caucus opposed any increase in the debt limit without further cuts to the budget, meaning that Ryan may have to turn to Democrats.

DDT was elected partly because he promised jobs and used Carrier as one of his examples, saying it was a “100 percent chance” he would save the jobs that might move if he were elected. Carrier just announced that it was cutting 622 workers from its Indianapolis factory.

Loose lips sink ships—or in some cases, submarines. Pentagon officials are extremely upset because DDT told Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on April 29 that two nuclear submarines had been moved towards North Korea. Aircraft carriers don’t need to hide because the U.S. uses them as a show of force, but submarines are hidden as a means of strategic deterrence. According to the Philippine transcript of the call, DDT also told Duterte he was doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem” and “keep up [the] good work; you are doing an amazing job.” Duterte has supported the extrajudicial killing of 9,000 people in less than a year, wants to “slaughter” millions of drug addicts just like Adolf Hitler “massacred” millions of Jewish people, and put his country under martial law. Today Duterte “joked” about his soldiers raping women.

Another leak keeping the U.S. out of the intelligence loop is the naming of Salman Abedi as the recent bomber in Manchester by “U.S. officials.” The UK press kept the name secret because the UK government and Greater Manchester police wanted to make their investigation more effective, but the U.S. ruined the investigators’ plans. Police briefly stopped sharing information about the investigation with anyone in the U.S. until Secretary of State Rex Tillerson apologized. UK Prime Minister announced that she will “make clear” that leaking of sensitive information must stop. That’s at least three big intelligence mistakes in less than a month.

Last week Turkish security guards attacked protesters standing across the street from the country’s embassy in Washington, D.C. while President Recep Erdogan watched from his car. Local police reported that Turkish guards savagely attacked protesters with Erdogan guards shown on video kicking and choking protesters. Yet Turkey criticized “the inability of U.S. authorities to take sufficient precautions at every stage of the official program” and demanded that the U.S. conduct a “full investigation of this diplomatic incident and provide the necessary explanation.” Turkey is also furious with the U.S. over DDT’s decision to arm Kurds to fight ISIS in Syria, maintaining that they are an affiliate of a terrorist organization.

Erdogan has indefinitely extended his dictated “state of emergency,” mandated after last year’s failed coup, until the country achieves “welfare and peace.” The decree permits him to make law without the Parliament of the courts.

DDT’s need to hire a private lawyer reflects the seriousness of the Russian investigation. His choice, New Yorker Marc Kasowitz, is known as a litigator and not a criminal defense lawyer with no background in constitutional cases. His experience with DDT is in civil cases, several of which he has lost—for example, DDT suing an author who claimed that DDT isn’t a billionaire, women accusing him of sexual misconduct, and students at Trump University. Kasowitz also represents Russia’s largest state-owned bank, OJSC Sberbank, which is currently in an open U.S. federal court case.

In other Russia news:

Former CIA Director John Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee that he believes Russia “brazenly” interfered in last year’s presidential election and that he knew of contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials. The interactions were enough for the FBI to investigate a possibility a collusion between the campaign and Moscow. Brennan informed eight senior congressional members last summer–long before the election–that Russia was working to elect DDT as present. He also briefed both President Obama and DDT in January that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered an “influence campaign” targeting the presidential election.

Another revelation is that DDT asked both the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to publicly deny any collusion between his campaign and Russia. Both refused DDT’s requests. In their failure to understand the independence of intelligence agencies, senior White House officials asked if they could ask Comey to stop his investigation of Michael Flynn, DDT’s former national security adviser.

After refusing to submit subpoenaed materials and pleading the Fifth Amendment, former national security adviser Michael Flynn was found to have lied in his interview for a 2016 security clearance renewal, according to a letter from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD). Flynn told investigators that he was paid by “U.S. companies” when a Russian media propaganda arm, RT, paid him to travel to Russia. The Fifth Amendment, however, does not protect Flynn from incriminatory documents; he could be convicted of criminal charges for withholding any documents. Flynn had discussed a back channel of communication with Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in order to skip the U.S. national security bureaucracy—like DDT meeting Russian officials in the Oval Office with only Russian media present. During the presidential race, Russian officials bragged that they could use Flynn to influence DDT, causing intelligence officials to try to curb information given Flynn after DDT’s election.

AG Jeff Sessions also failed to disclose his meetings with the Russians when he applied for his security clearance. His excuse was that he was a senator at the time, but a legal expert differs with that opinion. During his confirmation hearing, Sessions testified that he “did not have communication” with the Russians during the campaign and asserted the same lie in an official questionnaire. Later Republicans let him cover himself by amending his testimony. Sessions canceled appearances before two congressional committees this week. Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) is now spreading lies about the Sessions’ stories being wrong. In advising DDT to fire James Comey, Sessions also violated two oaths to recuse himself from issues dealing with Hillary Clinton’s emails and with the Russian investigation.

Also under investigation for deliberately manipulating the election through hacking or distributing hacked materials are Republican operative and DDT adviser Roger Stone.

DDT’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is the latest to be caught up in the FBI investigation about Russian collusion. He has been declared a “person of interest” in his relationship with Flynn and his contacts with the Russians. One of his past meetings, not reported on his security clearance forms, was with Sergey Gorkov, the head of Russian-owned development bank Vnesheconombank that is sanctioned by the United States for Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. DDT put Kushner in charge of an extensive number of presidential duties including peace in the Middle East, the opioid solution, a $1 trillion infrastructure plans, recreation of government IT, and the reform of Veterans Affairs. Kushner left DDT’s world visit to return with his wife, Ivanka, to Washington yesterday when the news about his status broke.

 

Earlier, it was reported that Flynn discussed a back channel of communication with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. The world now knows that in December Kushner may have been with Flynn in suggesting that DDT’s transition team and the Russian government use Russia’s diplomatic facilities in this secret communication. Kushner also had far more meetings with Russia officials than earlier reported. (The above graphic is a few weeks old; people may have been added since then.)

In another Kushner “oops,” Jared and his wife, Ivanka Trump, failed to disclose their multimillion-dollar art collection in public financial disclosures. By now, however, that seems like a minor problem for them.

If you question that DDT could be suffering from dementia, you need to read this article.

Does DDT Have Dementia?

DDT’s racism, misogyny, narcissism, paranoia, and lack of ethics have been obvious for several decades, but his current behavior shows an extreme version of past personality—a shift that could be connected to cognitive decline and dementia. Only after Ronald Reagan left the presidency was he diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and his wife, Nancy, protected him from any general awareness of his disease while he was in office. Researchers examining Reagan’s speeches found substantial declines in his language with a large reduction in unique words and a great increase in non-specific nouns, filler words such as “basically,” and low-image verbs such as “get” and “do.”

In his book about his father, Ron Reagan wrote about his Ronald Reagan’s presidential debate with Walter Mondale in 1984:

“My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered.”

Reagan’s brother, Michael, disputes this opinion, but scholars are more likely to side with Ron Reagan.

DDT’s parallels to Reagan are obvious from his fourth-grade language that often makes no sense to his lengthy comments that use no specifics and express nothing. He relies on generalities such as “great” and “tremendous” while failing to know the names of people, even House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), demonstrated by his reference to “this gentleman” or as “Ron” in a speech in Ryan’s district. Alex Leo (Daily Beast) transcribed one statement during a campaign stop in South Carolina:

“Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my, like, credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger, fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

Journalists have noted DDT’s mental problems for over a year. In April 2016, DDT said in Pittsburgh, “How’s Joe Paterno? We gonna bring that back? Right? How about that—how about that whole deal?” Paterno was head coach of Penn State’s football team and forced to resign for covering up a child-molestation scandal involving one of his coaches. Trump was probably the only person in the room who didn’t remember Paterno died in 2012. DDT said that the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center occurred on 7/11. He even walked out of the Oval Office, forgetting to sign the executive order at an event for that purpose and failed to locate Rudy Giuliani sitting across from him at a media briefing.

DDT has made thousands of puzzling statements in the almost two years since he started his campaign, including insinuating that Frederick Douglass, who died in the 19^th century, might still be alive; talking about how President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War, might have prevented it, and calling Pavarotti, who died a decade earlier, a great friend. His wife had to remind him to put his hand on his heart for the national anthem; he forgot which country he had just bombed; and he confused Kim Jong-Un with his father when complaining about Bill Clinton.

In speeches, DDT frequently asks people, time and again, if they know common facts, for example marveling that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican—as if he had just discovered this fact each time he repeats it. At a women’s empowerment meeting last March, he said, “I’m shocked that you’ve heard of [Susan B. Anthony]!” He also referenced a Nigerian proverb as Irish when he greeted Ireland’s prime minister Enda Kenny on St. Patrick’s Day.

DDT’s tweets are notorious not only for misspelling, bad grammar, confusing quotation marks, and general confusion but also for misinformation. For example, he ranted against the 9^th Circuit Court about blocking his attempts to deny federal funding to what he calls “sanctuary cities” when the ruling judge is not on that court.

In his interview with Lester Holt last week, Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) told the journalists that he invented the term “prime the pump” and never heard it before although he has used it several times in the past. The metaphor was first used at least 200 years ago, and President Franklin Roosevelt may have been the first to describe economics in 1933. DDT’s speeches are filled with repetitions, frequently within the same sentence, and he seems to be extremely forgetful.

His positions veer from one direction to another; he said he might break up the banks, establish a gas tax, and be “honored” to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un right before he said that the country’s nuclear weapons make nobody safe. One day he says that he’s pulling the U.S. out of NAFTA; the next day, he’s changed his mind.

Concerns about DDT’s mental situation have circulated for a long time. In the beginning, many professionals have declared that they could not have an opinion without examining him, but his increasingly erratic behavior has changed that. Five top psychiatrists at a Yale conference agreed that DDT has “a dangerous mental illness.”

Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive degenerative disorder, results loss of memory, thinking, and language skills. In its early stages, people forget words and what they have said, repeat things, and cannot remember names and dates. People know nothing about his personal medical history and little about that of his family. DDT’s father was diagnosed with Alzeimer’s, and the disease can be hereditary. Like Reagan, DDT appears normal when he keeps to his prepared speech, and the warning signs appear when he ad-libs. Most people suffering from the disease show signs at 65; DDT is 70.

Behavioral changes are other symptoms of Alzheimer’s. DDT’s moodiness, paranoia, belligerence, and erratic behavior lend to highly inappropriate tweets, the belief that his phones are tapped and that James Comey may release his “tapes,” and his uncontrollable anger, for example when he was talking to the Australian prime minister whose name he also couldn’t remember during a recent press conference in New York City. DDT’s anger and jealousy led to his blocking a prestigious award for Jimmy Carter from Argentina for Carter’s promotion of human rights during Argentina’s last military dictatorship. The award was cancelled after the U.S. government asked the nation to “delay” it.

The daily blog of White House activities illustrate how “low energy” DDT is: he speaks to a few people or occasionally has a dinner while he has assigned all the normal presidential duties to others such as son-in-law Jared Kushner. White supremacist Steve Bannon is probably still writing all his orders and other statements—except the awkward letter firing James Comey—unless other aides have taken over these duties. The Pentagon is fully in charge of all military actions without DDT input. Although a golfer, DDT is anti-exercising, believing that people are like batteries with a finite amount of energy.

Other people are more polite about DDT’s mental issues: E.J. Dionne used the term “ineptitude,” others have referred to him as “out of control,” and the Washington Post provided an official’s phrase, “in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion” as well as angry, impulsive, and directionless. People might want to be careful, however, when he asks who stole the strawberries.