After He's Out Of The White House, Will Trump Plead Ignorance About The Illegality Of Taking Foreign Bribes?

I admit I watch a lot of Maddow and pretty much embrace all the Russian conspiracy stuff she's constantly peddling. But I never needed her to tell me that Trump's is the swampiest presidency since Warren G. Harding's. Maybe Ulysses S. Grant's? Except in Trump's case, it's clearly the man at the top who's the most corrupt of all. And one thing that I never doubted for a second is that Trump takes bribes-- from any and all sources... including from abroad, a major no-no. He's been taking money from Russia, Ukraine, various pieces of the former Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, China... anywhere he could get them from. Friday, The Guardian published a piece by Jon Swaine, Trump inauguration took money from shell companies tied to foreigners, that lays out some of the evidence regarding just the Inauguration aspect.



Short version of Swaine's exhaustive report: Shell companies were created to mask foreign bribes that poured into the pockets of Trump and his corrupt family. "The Guardian," he wrote, "has identified the creators of three obscure firms that contributed money to Trump’s inaugural committee, which collected a record $107 million as he entered the White House in 2017. There was a lot more foreign money than the 3 instances Swaine dug into.

The three companies each gave $25,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. At least one of the contributions was made for a foreign national who appears ineligible to make political donations in the U.S.

A spokesman for Thomas Barrack, the chairman of Trump’s inauguration committee, declined to comment. The contributors denied wrongdoing.

Federal prosecutors in New York and the attorney generals of New Jersey and Washington DC have in recent weeks issued subpoenas to the committee, demanding records and information on its contributors and spending.

U.S. election law prohibits non-resident foreigners from contributing to political campaigns, including inaugurations. Donors or campaigns who “knowingly and willfully” breach this rule may be fined or prosecuted.

One of the $25,000 donations to Trump’s inauguration was made through a Delaware shell company for a wealthy Indian financier based in London, who appears to not hold US citizenship or residency.

Another was made by a company formed in Georgia by a lobbyist with connections to the Taiwanese government. His wife said the firm was funded by Chinese investors. One of their daughters was later given an internship in Trump’s White House, which they said was unrelated to the donation.

A third $25,000 contribution was made through a company formed anonymously in New York by an Israeli real estate developer who has helped other foreign developers with legal issues in the U.S. The Israeli developer said he held U.S. residency, commonly known as a “green card,” which permitted him to contribute legally.

Ann Ravel, a former commissioner at the federal election commission (FEC), said the use of anonymous companies was the biggest problem for authorities trying to ensure transparency and legality in political donations.

“We need stronger regulation,” said Ravel. “But our campaign finance system is structured to not let us find out who is behind these contributions.”

Authorities including Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US election, are looking into issues around foreign money in American politics and possible attempts to buy influence with Trump’s administration.

A Washington-based lobbyist, Sam Patten, admitted last year that he illegally funnelled $50,000 to Trump’s inauguration from a Ukrainian oligarch. Patten, a former colleague of the convicted ex-Trump aide Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and failing to register as a foreign agent.

One $25,000 contribution to Trump’s inaugural fund came from a shell company tied to Cyrus Vandrevala, a Mumbai-born financier based in London. Vandrevala has said he funds property developments in India, where Trump owns luxury towers.

Vandrevala’s father-in-law, Niranjan Hiranandani, is one of the wealthiest figures in Indian real estate. He currently serves as president of an influential real estate industry lobby group in the country.

In an interview published days after Trump’s inauguration, Hiranandani said he hoped the new president would not hinder India’s real estate industry by restricting US visas. He suggested it was unlikely Trump would “want to do something that can have a negative impact on his ongoing projects in India.”

Vandrevala, 46, has an Indian passport and declares his nationality as Indian, according to business records obtained from authorities in Delhi. A source familiar with his arrangements said he did not hold U.S. citizenship or a “green card.”

The contribution appears to have paid for two VIP tickets to Trump’s inauguration. He and his wife, Priya, attended the event in Washington and also enjoyed a “private breakfast” with Trump, according to an article in the UK’s Asian Lite newspaper, which was written by a veteran Indian reporter who knows the Vandrevalas.

Another British-Asian newspaper, Eastern Eye, reported Vandrevala was “friendly with Trump’s daughter Ivanka.” Editors did not respond to questions about the source of that information. The White House did not respond to an inquiry.

The link between the contribution and Vandrevala is hidden in the public record. FEC filings list a $25,000 donation from a limited liability company (LLC) calling itself Sierra Vista. Its stated address is a suburban office park in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Vandrevala’s U.S. investment company, Intrepid Capital Partners, has an office at the same complex in Wayne. Separately, an LLC named Sierra Vista 1 has also cited the office park as its address in business records.

Sierra Vista 1 was formed in Delaware, a state renowned for its low-tax and high-secrecy regime, in which companies are not required to disclose the names of officers, directors or owners.

The only person named in paperwork filed to Delaware when Sierra Vista 1 was set up in 2014 was John Teaford, a businessman who has worked on several Vandrevala ventures since the 1990s.

An executive at Intrepid Capital Partners, who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said Sierra Vista 1 was an investment vehicle funded with Vandrevala’s money.

Vandrevala did not respond to emails and messages left at his office in London. Reached by telephone and asked whether he handled Sierra Vista’s payment to the inauguration for Vandrevala, Teaford said: “I probably did.”

Intrepid Capital Partners has a property arm, ICP Real Estate, which was created to finance developments in India. It claimed to be amassing a $7bn investment fund for building homes and has targeted the cities of Mumbai and Pune, both of which are home to Trump-branded towers.

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, has described India as “the biggest push for our organisation.” The Trump company lists four Indian developments in its portfolio. A visit to the country last year by Trump Jr incurred almost $98,000 in publicly funded security costs.

Two months before election day in 2016, a new shell company was registered in Georgia. The company, Jan Castle LLC, was formed by a man named David Sean, who paid the $100 fee and signed the simple one-page form required by the state.

Sean listed his office address as a numbered “suite” on a street that runs past a country club in Sandy Springs, one of the country’s wealthiest suburbs.

The state’s paperwork said explicitly that a physical address was required-- a mailbox was not acceptable. But Sean’s address was, in fact, a mailbox inside a shipping store on a strip mall. Sean, a Taiwanese-American businessman, is based more than 2,000 miles away in southern California and is also known as Pong Hsiang.

Shortly before Christmas in 2016, Jan Castle LLC contributed $25,000 to Trump’s inauguration fund.

Sean, 59, said he was a US citizen. He declined to discuss the activity of Jan Castle or the status of any other people involved in the company, and the Guardian was unable to locate records on either.

But Sean’s wife, Joann, said in a brief telephone interview in late January that Sean created Jan Castle for three Chinese investors. Sean later denied his wife had said this. The company’s original filing to Georgia identified someone named Jianning He as its “organizer,” but gave only the same mailbox address as contact information.

Sean rejected requests over several weeks to discuss the contribution to Trump’s inauguration. Eventually he agreed to a meeting in person, but then changed his mind. Finally, in a series of text messages, Sean said: “I refuse to collude with Chinese communists and insist [on] investment with no condition attached.”

He went on to say: “My company objective is to take back stolen trillion dollar from communist China and put into manufacturing sector in United States. And I will work hard to achieve this mission objective til the day I am perished from the earth.”

Sean, who describes himself as an enthusiastic Trump supporter, also provided copies of complaint letters he said he had sent to the FBI, the CIA, the FEC and the IRS, requesting that each agency investigate the author of this article.

One of Sean’s daughters carried out a White House internship last year. She posted photographs to social media, including one of her class of interns posing with Trump. Sean said the internship had no link to the contribution.

During the 1990s, Sean worked in Taiwan as a consultant for the Hsinchu Science Park, according to his résumé. The park was developed by the Taiwanese ministry of science and technology from the 1980s as its answer to Silicon Valley.

Later, according to the résumé, Sean became a “US federal government relations consultant.” Records filed to Congress say that from 2012-14, he registered as a lobbyist in Washington, representing his own financial advisory firm.

In some lobbying filings, Sean registered jointly with an associate named Johnny Lu, who was said to be an “international trade consultant.”

Lu, who is also known as Lu Zhongying, is an adviser to Taiwan’s overseas community affairs council, according to a Taiwanese government spokeswoman in California. Lu did not respond to messages left with his family. A cellphone registered in his name did not accept incoming calls.

The Swamp Revisited by Nancy Ohanian

The pair told an ethics watchdog they were lobbying on issues such as international trade and foreign investment in the US. They reported lobbying the White House, Congress, and government agencies including the bureau of export administration and the federal trade commission. They did not list any foreign clients.

Records obtained from state authorities across the US show Sean has used at least 10 mailboxes around California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Wyoming to open many other companies over the past two decades. The purpose of some of the companies was unclear. One named Johnny Lu as president.

In 2015, Sean created a company named Global Prosperity Foundation Corp from the mailbox near Atlanta. He told regulators it would “facilitate communication with US major trading partner’s trading organizations and promote the investment advantages of United States” [sic]. It was closed shortly before the donation to Trump’s inaugural fund was made.

Another $25,000 came into Trump’s inaugural fund three days before the president’s swearing-in from a company named New York State Property Management Corporation. The company gave as its address a house in the Long Island town of Hewlett, close to John F Kennedy airport.

A company with that name is registered with New York authorities at a small office building elsewhere in the region. The Guardian traced the firm back to Elon Lebouvich, an Israeli businessman in his mid-40s, who is involved in New York real estate.

According to court records, Lebouvich has also gone by other names, including “Allen Lebo”, and has served as a representative for a family of wealthy Moroccan investors in US legal disputes. A member of the family declined to discuss their relationship.

Lebouvich is currently developing a $5m retail property in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, according to sources familiar with his work. According to city records, the building is owned by an LLC controlled by the 74-year-old mother of Lebouvich’s attorney. The attorney and his mother declined to comment.

In a brief telephone interview, Lebouvich said his $25,000 contribution paid for two tickets to the inauguration for “me and somebody else.” He would not say who used the second ticket. When asked if he was entitled to contribute, he said: “I don’t have the time to talk about it” and ended the call.

In a subsequent email, Lebouvich said he had held permanent US residency for about five years, which would mean he was entitled to contribute. He declined to discuss the contribution and threatened legal action.

The FEC has seemed unwilling to actively guard against foreign contributions in US politics. In 2017, two dissenting commissioners said the FEC had failed to properly investigate a complaint alleging foreigners donated $55,000 through LLCs to a campaign group supporting a congressman.

The commission is understaffed. All four current commissioners have served well beyond their six-year term limits. For the past year, the FEC has operated with four commissioners instead of six because Trump has not filled two vacant seats.

Ellen Weintraub, the FEC chairwoman and the only sitting Democratic commissioner, has frequently criticised her colleagues for what she views as an unwillingness to adequately regulate campaign finance, including the threat of foreign money.

In a letter to Congress sent last September, Weintraub said the FEC was “naively and dangerously” ignoring the reality of foreign interference and had no plan to counter it.

“This situation will not improve until this commission has at least four members who are willing to enforce existing law barring foreign-national political involvement and address dark money,” Weintraub wrote.

A National Calamity: There's A Family Of Grifters In The White House

Closing In by Nancy Ohanian

Within moments of Elizabeth Warren's inspiring speech in Lawrence yesterday, announcing her 2020 presidential campaign, a Trump spokesperson was on the attack with the name-calling and negativity, calling her a fraud and claiming "the American people will reject her dishonest campaign and socialist ideas like the Green New Deal, that will raise taxes, kill jobs and crush America's middle class." Anything to get people away from thinking about the news that has virtually buried him alive this week. Can anyone still down that Trump is the Grifter-in-Chief?

Yesterday Jonathan Chait laid it out for anyone who has been too busy to follow the news this week: Trump’s Inaugural Grift Reportedly Lined His Own Pockets. That's illegal and under intense investigation. Chait points out that enough pieces have already come together that we know where the story is going. It all started with a March 14 radio broadcast on WNYC:



9 months later WNYC and ProPublica reported that mind-boggling overpayments to Trump were laundered, criminally, through his Washington Hotel. And, as Chait noted, "fees to Trump’s hotel go straight into the pockets of Donald Trump and his family. So these apparent tax law violations-- which amount to embezzling funds from the inaugural committee through self-dealing-- were carried out for their personal benefit.

Another thing we know about Trump is that he takes a very close interest in his own money, and nothing infuriates him more than the idea that somebody is making money off of him. Chris Hayes told one story of Trump attempting to wring a commission out of a Tower Records store located in one of his buildings:

A more chronologically relevant account comes from Michael Lewis, who has reported about Trump’s lack of interest in planning for his presidential transition during the campaign. Trump could not let go of the idea that the money for the transition was somehow coming at his personal expense:

The first time Trump paid attention to any of this was when he read about it in the newspaper. The story revealed that Trump’s very own transition team had raised several million dollars to pay the staff. The moment he saw it, Trump called Steve Bannon, the chief executive of his campaign, from his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and told him to come immediately to his residence, many floors above. Bannon stepped off the elevator to find Christie seated on a sofa, being hollered at. Trump was apoplectic, yelling: You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?

Seeing Bannon, Trump turned on him and screamed: Why are you letting him steal my fucking money? Bannon and Christie together set out to explain to Trump federal law. Months before the election, the law said, the nominees of the two major parties were expected to prepare to take control of the government. The government supplied them with office space in downtown DC, along with computers and rubbish bins and so on, but the campaigns paid their people. To which Trump replied: Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money.

2019 version: "Fuck la loi! Je veux mon argent!"

Did Donald Trump personally direct the apparently illegal scheme to divert inaugural funds to enrich the Trump Organization? That remains to be proven, but the odds would seem to be fairly high that he did.

A new Netflix show by Agitprop.us

Behind The Scenes And In Plain View: Mental Case, Criminal, Both?

Reporting for Vanity Fair this week, Emily Jane Fox, wrote that "Stephanie Winston Wolkoff was the mastermind event producer behind Trump’s inaugural celebration, which has since come under S.D.N.Y. investigation. Now, taped conversations reveal Wolkoff’s concerns with how money was being spent, the general chaos of the process, the involvement of the Trump family, and the people in charge, namely Rick Gates and Tom Barrack." If you haven't been watching Maddow with any kind of regularity over the past couple of years, you may be unaware that Trump's inaugural committee was a piggy bank for bribes from criminals-- both domestic and foreign-- to Trump and his contemptible spawn.

Last February, the New York Times published an article centered on WIS, headlined “Trump’s Inaugural Committee Paid $26 million to Firm of First Lady’s Adviser.” The inaugural committee had raised a stunning $107 million-- about twice what Barack Obama had hauled in 2009-- from donors such as Sheldon Adelson and corporations like AT&T. But as the Times reported, the tax form revealed profligate spending-- nearly $10 million on travel; $4.6 million on salaries and benefits; and $100,000 to Rick Gates, the former campaign aide and deputy chairman of the inauguration who, about a week later, became one of Robert Mueller’s first major cooperating witnesses. Some $40 million was publicly unaccounted for. Wolkoff, as the event planner in charge, became the face of the disarray. The Times story quoted an official from a government watchdog group accusing her of “fiscal mismanagement at its worst.” ... Sarah Huckabee Sanders would later say, “The president was focused on the transition during that time, and not on any of the planning for the inauguration.”

...Wolkoff had made a career in the events business, but she knew from the outset the inauguration would be a unique, and uniquely Trumpian, experience. First, she was a political novice who knew little about what an inauguration entailed. Then, there was Trump’s controversial reputation. Upon accepting the post on the Friday after his election, Wolkoff quickly reached out to her network of vendors. Most of them, according to people familiar with these conversations, resisted the opportunity to work with Trump. Even Burnett, who Trump enlisted to conjure up reality-show-like gimmicks (such as flying a gaggle of drones over the crowd), wanted to keep his involvement private.

Moreover, and perhaps not surprisingly, Trump’s family wanted to be involved in certain aspects of the coordination... [Wolkoff made] regular presentations to Trump, Melania, and the Trump family about various decisions, so that they could weigh in. (White House spokespeople have previously denied that the Trumps were involved in any planning, and said they knew little about the events.)

Trump was focused on the big-picture theatrics. He wanted to arrive on the Mall in a military plane with a military escort, much as he had arrived for tapings of The Apprentice on Trump Organization helicopters. He also wanted to have a full military parade, as well as tanks and helicopters on the ground...

In large part, Wolkoff worried about potential ethical issues surrounding the First Family-elect and their businesses. After all, Gates had been staying in a suite at the Trump Hotel for most of the inaugural planning. More than a dozen inaugural staffers had also been staying there. The Times reported last month that WIS alone had charged $31,000 for hotel rooms in the span of less than two months, including almost $18,000 at the Trump International Hotel. That did not include what was charged for room service, meals, and travel. In all, the Trump International Hotel was paid more than $1.5 million in inaugural funds, according to the Times. (Wolkoff’s contract states that the inaugural committee would reimburse WIS for travel, long-distance phone calls, mail-delivery services, and expenses connected to the performance of its work. WIS stands for “Who Is She,” Wolkoff’s play on her own anonymity.)

During the course of planning, Wolkoff had corresponded with Ivanka about the cost of using the Trump Hotel for events leading up to the swearing-in ceremony. On December 10, 2016, a Trump Organization employee sent an estimate for a ballroom rental and food and beverage minimum to use the Trump Hotel space for eight days. The price she quoted was $3.6 million, according to an e-mail. A week later, Gates e-mailed Ivanka about the cost. In this exchange, first published this past December by ProPublica and WNYC, Wolkoff flagged her concern. “These events are in PE’s [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote. (Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Ivanka’s counsel Abbe Lowell, said in a statement: “When contacted by someone working on the inauguration, Ms. Trump passed the inquiry on to a hotel official and said only that any resulting discussions should be at a ‘fair market rate.’ Ms. Trump was not involved in any additional discussions.”)

For an event producer used to detailed lists and punctilious itemization, Wolkoff was often caught off guard by the ad-hoc nature of the committee. According to the two people familiar with the matter, Gates approached a couple individuals working on the inauguration and asked if they would be willing to be paid directly for their work by a donor, rather than by the inaugural committee. They had received more donations than they’d initially anticipated, Gates told these people. Skirting the usual payment route could allow the inaugural committee to avoid reporting the full amount raised from donors.

Wolkoff frequently told Melania about her concerns regarding Gates, these people said. She relayed her concern about the high access level of his security pass within Trump Tower and his closeness with the Trump family. In her view, these people said, he exacerbated a situation already fraught with potential conflicts of interest. Members of the inaugural committee talked about how he frequently worked out of Donald Trump Jr.’s office. He was in constant communication with the adult children in order to keep them in the loop about decisions surrounding the inauguration.

Wolkoff also questioned Gates and Barrack about pricing and budgets across the board, according to the people familiar with the conversations. She started to grow concerned about being left out of meetings, particularly as she raised more red flags. Because part of her responsibilities included reviewing all budgets from her vendors and presenting them to other members of the inaugural committee, she studied the line items in order to be able to explain them. At points, she could not justify the numbers coming in. After circulation of a quote from one of their largest event-production vendors, Hargrove LLC, Wolkoff was shocked that no one in the organization appeared willing to question the figures. She suggested that the quote seemed far beyond what the Obama inaugural committee would have been charged in 2009. She sent an e-mail to her team and Barrack on December 31, 2016. “I am DISGUSTED by [Hargrove’s] lack of transparency and entitlement to [the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s] funding,” she wrote. “I can not approve any budget line items because I do not have a clue what these numbers represent!!”

One of the most concerning aspects to Wolkoff’s team, according to the people familiar with the situation, was the amount of money and attention being spent on Barrack’s chairman dinner, which he hosted on an evening before the swearing-in. A draft guest list for the event from days before the dinner included the likes of retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, G.O.P. fund-raiser Elliott Broidy, Michael Cohen, and key officials in the incoming administration. Among the list marked as confirmed were seven people described as “foreign ministers” for Saudi Arabia, one foreign minister from Qatar, and one from the United Arab Emirates. They were the only people on the list who were unnamed. (On Tuesday, ProPublica published a memo that showed Barrack’s investment firm planned to profit from its connections to the Trump administration. A spokesperson called it “an outline of a proposed potential business plan which was never acted upon or implemented.”)

...Much has been made of the various problems with the inauguration, from the lackluster crowd size to the president’s own “American carnage” speech, which struck a tone so dark that George W. Bush was reportedly heard calling it “some weird shit.” But Wolkoff’s part, the event itself, went off without a hitch, and the family was pleased. The day after the swearing-in ceremony was Wolkoff’s birthday. The Trumps sent flowers to the Trump Hotel room where she had been staying. She flew back to New York on a military plane with Melania, her stylist, hairdresser, makeup artist, and the rest of the Trump family, apart from the president, Ivanka, and Jared Kushner, who remained in Washington.

Much is still unknown about how inaugural funds were managed, or if the unaccounted for $40-odd million will ever be publicly explained. It’s unclear whether there was foreign influence, or illicit attempts to profit off of proceedings. What Gates has offered investigators—about anything, really, but about the inauguration, in particular—is also unclear. How deep the Southern District’s investigation into all of this is yet unknown. But much like some of Cohen’s other taped conversations, the discussions with Wolkoff about the inauguration may have turned out to be consequential. On the witness stand during Paul Manafort’s trial in Virginia last summer, prosecutors asked Gates if he charged personal expenses to the committee. “It’s possible,” he responded.

As investigators continue to pursue the matter, they may find themselves in a familiar situation: seeking out former Trump allies-turned-adversaries who saw it all go down firsthand. One of the most inexplicable plot points in the whirling Trump drama has been the president’s public treatment of his former lawyer. Trump was aware that Cohen possessed all manner of damaging information about him, and yet he wasted few opportunities to disparage him publicly. Ultimately, Cohen implicated Trump in federal campaign-finance violations as he pleaded guilty. He spent more than 70 hours cooperating with federal investigators, opening his book to tell them what he knew about the president, his business, and the campaign. While Wolkoff’s treatment has been gentler, she’s been similarly isolated and publicly disparaged. And now, what she knows could be of interest to investigators, too.

Yesterday, ProPublica updated their reporting with an article by Justin Elliott about how the Trump family was able to enrich themselves illegally, over-charging massively for the use of Trump International Hotel and pocketing the extra cash without reporting it or paying taxes on it. A truly corrupt scumbag and his well-trained family were taking over the executive branch of government and turning it into a criminal enterprise-- an organized crime family... right from Day One. Trump's life long penchant for felony coexists with increasing mental illness, something that is almost always left out of news reporting, as author and journalist Amanda Ripley reported this week, asserting, correctly, that Trump Is a Mental Health Story.

I tried an experiment the other day. To make sense of Trump’s behavior, I did not call foreign policy experts or pundits. That would be like calling an astrologer to explain a flu pandemic. Instead, I called Wendy Behary, who wrote the book Disarming the Narcissist and has treated hundreds of narcissistic clients, including surgeons, Wall Street executives, and other powerful people, in her private practice in New Jersey. It was one of the most useful conversations I’ve had about Trump in months.

Unlike the Washington Post or the New York Times, Behary has never once been surprised by Trump’s behavior. “His behavior is not remarkable. It’s predictable. It’s exactly what we’d expect,” she says. “He just continues to be a consistent version of who he appears to be.”



So far, most of the mainstream stories about Trump’s narcissism have been about whether mental health professionals should diagnose him from afar. That’s a worthy debate. But journalists are not psychiatrists. We are not bound by the rules of the American Psychiatric Association. We are bound by a duty to inform the public, without fear, drawing upon any source that may prove useful.

At this point, it’s not biased to acknowledge that Trump behaves in ways that most mental health professionals recognize as symptomatic of a larger problem. It’s not unreasonable to ask them to help explain and even predict his behavior. In fact, it may be more biased not to do so.

What if we got new sources to help us through this “remarkable” time? This doesn’t mean bashing Trump. To the contrary. In order to treat her narcissistic clients, Behary has learned to empathize with them. This isn’t easy to do, she admits, but it is essential--  so that she doesn’t mistake them for being strategic or simply evil. “Narcissists don’t set out to harm people,” she says. “They will harm you--  but it’s to protect themselves. It’s not personal.” Taking narcissists personally is a very common waste of time and energy.

Narcissists, for example, need admiration the way addicts need substances. They believe they are truly special and yet not appreciated for their gifts, which can lead them to act entitled, as if the rules do not apply to them. In their quest for recognition, they sometimes exploit others, contradict what they’ve said, and break their promises --  all the while arguing (and often truly believing) in their new, alternative facts. Once we know this, Trump’s tendency to revise history becomes unsurprising and explicable.

It’s a painful way to live, because no amount of adoration will ever be enough. After every victory, feelings of envy, anger, and frustration squirm back to the surface. Now, Behary says, Trump is “unraveling.” This, too, is predictable, which is why we need to talk about it, out in the open. As the bad news stacks up for Trump, including Republican losses in the midterms, a divided Congress, and continuing legal investigations, he is likely experiencing profound mental agony.

In this agitated state, narcissists are notoriously bad at negotiating, as it turns out. (They are good at bullying, which is not the same thing.) Catherine Conner, a family law attorney and mediator in Northern California, understands this better than political scientists, because she has helped hundreds of people craft child custody agreements and divorce settlements. A crisis, such as a divorce, may intensify narcissistic tendencies and make negotiation impossible, she says.

“The only way to create an agreement is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and come up with a package that might appeal to both of you,” Conner says. “If they are incapable of seeing the world through anyone else’s eyes, they won’t be able to do this. They will just remain stuck on their vision of what should be, convinced that everyone will see it their way.”



This would explain why Trump was reportedly shocked that the Democrats did not agree to his border-wall terms. He was unable to see the situation from their point of view. When this kind of intransigence takes hold in Conner’s cases, the parties are sometimes forced to rely on judges to make the decision.

In Trump’s case, if he is unable to compromise before the government shuts down again in two weeks, the courts might have to get involved. Or Trump might just turn the government back on in order to be the hero. “Narcissists are so good at showing up as Messiahs,” Behary says. If he’s at risk of losing the support of his fan base, which he needs in order to stop the pain, he will swoop in to save the day. Because that’s what narcissists do.

Typically, when all else fails and narcissists are unable to get the attention and affirmation they need, they play the victim. If the investigations continue to intensify, and if Trump begins to lose the affection of his base, Fox News pundits, and Republican leaders, he may resign, Behary predicts, based on all the narcissists she has treated for decades. “He’ll point the finger and say, ‘I was making America great again, and the Democrats stopped me.’”

Trump may not behave this way. Human behavior is complicated. But isn’t it useful to know how other people like him tend to behave, generally speaking? So let’s stop living in the past, under the old rules of journalism and politics. Let’s start talking about mental health with the directness and care that our readers deserve. If journalists want to help the public understand the world in which we live, it is time to find new pundits--  the kind who have seen this all before, who can empathize with the president and his opponents, and who do not benefit from perpetuating the chaos.

And by the way, real presidents have real inaugurations with real entertainment and no one from the family or entourage pockets millions of dollars:

Revisiting Trump's Pay-For-Play Inauguration

Foreign governments aren't allowed to pay off Trump... but-- surprise, surprise-- Trump and the bevy of crooks around him found ways to skirt the law and enrich Individual One and his family. We don't know if Mueller has been investigating these-- but we do know the Wall Street Journal and investigative journalists for ProPublica have been. And so are federal prosecutors in New York. The inaugural committee raised over $100 million, for a small inauguration ceremony that shockingly few people went to. So where did the money go? In what is absolutely a pay-to-play scheme, right into Trump's personal coffers.

The inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company’s Washington hotel, according to interviews as well as internal emails and receipts reviewed by WNYC and ProPublica.

During the planning, Ivanka Trump, the president-elect’s eldest daughter and a senior executive with the Trump Organization, was involved in negotiating the price the hotel charged the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee for venue rentals. A top inaugural planner emailed Ivanka and others at the company to “express my concern” that the hotel was overcharging for its event spaces, worrying of what would happen “when this is audited.”

If the Trump hotel charged more than the going rate for the venues, it could violate tax law. The inaugural committee’s payments to the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump’s role have not been previously reported or disclosed in public filings.

“The fact that the inaugural committee did business with the Trump Organization raises huge ethical questions about the potential for undue enrichment,” said Marcus Owens, the former head of the division of the Internal Revenue Service that oversees nonprofits.

Inaugural workers had other misgivings. Rick Gates, then the deputy to the chairman of the inaugural, asked some vendors to take payments directly from donors, rather than through the committee, according to two people with direct knowledge. The vendors felt the request was unusual and concerning, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they signed confidentiality agreements. It is not clear whether any vendors took him up on his request.

The revelations about the inauguration’s finances show how Trump blurred the lines between his political and business lives, as the real estate mogul ascended to the presidency.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors in New York have opened a criminal investigation into whether the inaugural committee misspent money and whether donors gave in return for political favors, citing people familiar with the matter. In addition, the New York Times reported that prosecutors are examining whether foreigners illegally funnelled money to the inauguration.

...If the Trump hotel charged the inaugural committee above-market rates, it could violate tax rules, according to Owens, the nonprofit tax expert who is now a partner at the law firm Loeb & Loeb.

If a person with “substantial influence” over a nonprofit group charges the group above-market rates in a transaction with their outside business, the IRS can impose steep fines. In this case, Donald Trump could qualify as a person with such influence. Should the tax agency find that a violation occurred, the Trump Organization would have to refund any overcharge and the inaugural committee would be hit with a 25 percent tax on the money, Owens said.

Owens added that IRS audits of nonprofits are increasingly rare. Since the inaugural committee was incorporated in Virginia, the state attorney general there could also have standing to investigate its operations.

A spokeswoman for the inaugural committee said its finances “were fully audited internally and independently and are fully accounted... These were funds raised from private individuals and were then spent in accordance with the law and the expectations of the donors.”

Which countries sought to buy influence with Trump by slipping him cash through the inaugural committee? Ukraine, Russia (millions through Alexander Shustorovich and other Putin-controled oligarchs, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar for sure but it is suspected that many other nations were solicited for money-- and paid it, as did prominent executives looking for special interest favors from the incoming regime, including NFL owners. Open Secrets pointed out that "Trump pulled in inaugural funds from, among others, corporations and wealthy individuals who hadn't given to his campaign or supported the Republican convention in Cleveland but were subsequently eager to clamber aboard... Another difference [between Obama's committee and Trump's]? The menu of choices offered to donors, where specific dollar values were attached to different levels of access. Admission to a "leadership luncheon" with members of Trump's cabinet and GOP congressional leaders was on offer for a cool $1 million, for example."

Las Vegas mobster Sheldon Adelson, now for funneling money from both China and Israel into American political campaigns, was the biggest single conttibutor to Trump's inauguration-- $5 million. Why isn't he being questioned about what he was buying and for whom? Phil Ruffin, another gambling mobster and Trump crony gave a cool million dollars. As Reuters pointed out in April of 2017, "Many of the companies that donated to Trump... have significant matters pending before the U.S. government or have been invited to White House events.

Money donated to the Trump inaugural committee falls into two categories, said Larry Sabato, political analyst at the University of Virginia.

“It’s either make-up money or it’s a continuation of support by people who are invested in Trump. You don’t give this kind of money to get a few tickets to inaugural balls,” he said.

...Financial services companies and executives were among the $1-million donors to Trump’s big festivities, including Charles Schwab, Bank of America, financier Henry Kravis and Cantor Fitzgerald Chairman Howard Lutnick. Their industry is eager for Trump to roll back regulatory reforms put in place after the 2008 financial crisis.

Coal and oil companies were also prominent donors. Clifford Forrest, owner of the Rosebud Mining, gave $1 million.

Other big donors included Dow Chemical, Boeing, billionaire investor Paul Singer, Patriots owner Bob Kraft, Christopher Cline, billionaire coal magnate who owns Foresight Energy Partners, far right Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren (whose company is building the Dakota Access Pipeline), Qualcomm and Pfizer (each of which shelled out $1 million), Amgen, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Boeing, Aetna, Anthem, MetLife Group, hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, CVS Health, Monsanto, Walmart, UPS, Coca-Cola, Altria, Microsoft, Casino mogul Steve Wynn, AT&T and sugar company Florida Crystals. New York Jets’ Woody Johnson, another million dollar contributor, seems to have been in the market for an embassy-- and he got... London!

How Dangerous Is Trump's Mental Illness For The Country?

First everyone was mocking the size of his small... hands. Now they're mocking the size of the small turnout for his bleak inauguration. And this morning, on day two of the Age of Trump, Meet The Press viewers sat around pondering the relationship between "alternative facts" and lies. Trump and his sad-sack paid propagandists can claim there were a million or a million and a half people at his inauguration all they want but that won't make the pictures go away. Glaslighting generally doesn't work as well on people with 3 digit IQs as it does on Trump voters. And, as David Frum put it this morning, "the alt-right administration brings you the alt-fact."

At least Kellyanne Con-Man admitted on ABC's This Week this morning that presidents are not judged by "the crowd sizes at their inauguration; they're judged by their accomplishments." Trump's very first accomplishment, as we noted in real time, was to go immediately from reading Bannon's nice little phrase how "Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families" to signing an order to cancel a fee cut on mortgage costs for first-time and low-income home buyers, a move the National Association of Realtors predicted would result in pricing 40,000 would-be homebuyers out of the market in 2017 alone-- 40,000 families that won't be buying furniture made in North Carolina, carpets made Pennsylvania, refrigerators made in Ohio or the grills, toasters, griddles, popcorn makers and convection ovens made by Star Manufacturing mad in Missouri. All those Trumpanzee voters...

Made in Missouri

This morning's NY Times tried helping its readers decals with the fact that the White House is now the country's biggest source of Fake News. Four more years to go.

President Trump used his first full day in office on Saturday to unleash a remarkably bitter attack on the news media, falsely accusing journalists of both inventing a rift between him and intelligence agencies and deliberately understating the size of his inauguration crowd.

In a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency intended to showcase his support for the intelligence community, Mr. Trump ignored his own repeated public statements criticizing the intelligence community, a group he compared to Nazis just over a week ago.

He also called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” and he said that up to 1.5 million people had attended his inauguration, a claim that photographs disproved.

Later, at the White House, he dispatched Sean Spicer, the press secretary, to the briefing room in the West Wing, where Mr. Spicer scolded reporters and made a series of false statements.

He said news organizations had deliberately misstated the size of the crowd at Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Friday in an attempt to sow divisions at a time when Mr. Trump was trying to unify the country, warning that the new administration would hold them to account.

The statements from the new president and his spokesman came as hundreds of thousands of people protested against Mr. Trump, a crowd that appeared to dwarf the one that gathered the day before when he was sworn in. It was a striking display of invective and grievance at the dawn of a presidency, usually a time when the White House works to set a tone of national unity and to build confidence in a new leader.

Instead, the president and his team appeared embattled and defensive, signaling that the pugnacious style Mr. Trump employed as a candidate will persist now that he has ascended to the nation’s highest office.

...Trump also took issue with news reports about the number of people who attended his inauguration, complaining that the news media used photographs of “an empty field” to make it seem as if his inauguration did not draw many people.

“We caught them in a beauty,” Mr. Trump said of the news media, “and I think they’re going to pay a big price.”

Mr. Spicer said that Mr. Trump had drawn “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration,” a statement that photographs clearly show to be false. Mr. Spicer said photographs of the inaugural ceremonies were deliberately framed “to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall,” although he provided no proof of either assertion.

Photographs of Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and of Mr. Trump’s plainly showed that the crowd on Friday was significantly smaller, but Mr. Spicer attributed that disparity to new white ground coverings he said had caused empty areas to stand out and to security measures that had blocked people from entering the Mall.

...And he incorrectly claimed that ridership on Washington’s subway system was higher than on Inauguration Day in 2013. In reality, there were 782,000 riders that year, compared with 571,000 riders this year, according to figures from the Washington-area transit authority.

Mr. Spicer also said that security measures had been extended farther down the National Mall this year, preventing “hundreds of thousands of people” from viewing the ceremony. But the Secret Service said the measures were largely unchanged this year, and there were few reports of long lines or delays.

Commentary about the size of his inauguration crowd made Mr. Trump increasingly angry on Friday, according to several people familiar with his thinking.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump told his advisers that he wanted to push back hard on “dishonest media” coverage-- mostly referring to a Twitter post from a New York Times reporter showing side-by-side frames of Mr. Trump’s crowd and Mr. Obama’s in 2009. But most of Mr. Trump’s advisers urged him to focus on the responsibilities of his office during his first full day as president.

However, in his remarks at the C.I.A., he wandered off topic several times, at various points telling the crowd he felt no older than 39 (he is 70); reassuring anyone who questioned his intelligence by saying, “I’m, like, a smart person”; and musing out loud about how many intelligence workers backed his candidacy.

...“He has left the strong impression that he doesn’t trust the intelligence community and that he doesn’t have tremendous regard for their work,” Mark M. Lowenthal, a retired C.I.A. analyst, said of Mr. Trump. “The obvious thing to do is to counter that by saying, ‘I value you. I look forward to working with you.’”

“He called them Nazis,” Mr. Lowenthal added, referring to Mr. Trump’s characterization of the intelligence community. Mr. Lowenthal said Saturday’s visit should have been “a stroking expedition.”

TrumpWorld shows its true military colors: Let them eat (copycat) styrofoam cake

Or, when is what looks like a cake not a cake?


WaPo caption: President Trump, left, and Vice President Pence are helped by Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew Babot as they cut a cake at the armed services ball. A slightly more accurate caption: This poor petty officer has been suckered into pretending to help cut a cake that isn't a cake, for the greater glory of a pair of raging sociopaths who may never in their entire miserable existences have told the truth about anything.

by Ken

This is such a grubby story that you know it must have to do with the brand-new Trump administration, which even as it's birthing is radiating out waves of grubbiness -- Making America Great Trump-style seems to require folks to soil themselves.

Given the particular electoral math of the 2016 presidential election, it's possible to look at a dozen or more contributing factors and declare any one of them "the one" that (circle one) hoisted-The-Donald-over-the-top-slash-sank-Hillary. And one of those, surely, is the attitude of the American military community,, which has gotten it into its collective head that Obama was anti-military and Trump is a military person's wet dream. In this story, though, a segment of the Trump "brain" trust unwittingly provided a far truer perspective on the new administration's likely attitude toward the military. (The "unwittingly" part may not be so accidental. By and large the only way we find out what's really on these people's minds is when they're being "unwitting.")

Which brings us to the story of "The Rip-Off of Duff's Cake."



Now Duff subsequently walked his pique back (see below), but in my book he was right (and then some) the first time: He should have been seriously ticked off by the blithe rip-off of his 2013 cake -- and maybe all the more so considering that the alleged Trumpcake isn't in fact a cake. As you can see from the photo up top, the inaugural fraudsters were pretending it was a cake, even suckering that poor Coast Guard petty officer into playing "cake"-cutter with our new president and vice president, two princes of phonyworld.

At this point, let's let the Washington Post's Amy B Wang and Tim Carman tell the story.

Amid the glitz of President Trump’s inaugural festivities, one item stood out in particular late Friday night: a spectacular nine-tier cake that the new president and Vice President Pence cut into with a sword.

To pastry chef Duff Goldman, the cake seemed a little too familiar — because it looked almost exactly like one he had made years earlier for Barack Obama’s second inauguration as president.

Just after midnight, the Food Network personality posted a side-by-side comparison of two cakes on his Twitter account.

On the left, Goldman wrote in the caption, was the cake he had created for the “Commander-in-Chief” inaugural ball in 2013. The one on the right was the cake that had just appeared at Trump’s “Salute to Our Armed Services” ball.

It appeared nearly identical to Goldman’s cake from four years ago, right down to the colors, the patriotic bunting, and the placement of several small silver stars and seals.

“I didn’t make it,” Goldman wrote about Trump’s cake, adding a suspicious thinking-face emoji at the end.

This is followed by a journalistically obligatory note: "Neither Goldman nor representatives from Trump’s transition and inauguration teams responded to requests for comment Saturday morning."

However, someone else was available for comment.

Tiffany MacIsaac, owner of Washington’s Buttercream Bakeshop, stepped forward to say she had been the one to create the much-talked-about cake.

She said that the order came in while she was out of town, and that the client had brought in a photo of the cake from Obama’s inauguration asking her to re-create it.

“They came to us a couple of weeks ago, which is pretty last minute, and said ‘We have a photo that we would like to replicate,’ ” MacIsaac told The Washington Post by phone. Her bakery tried to encourage the client to use the photo as “inspiration,” as they do with many others, she said.

“They said, ‘Nope, they want this exact cake. It’s perfect.’ And we said, great,” MacIsaac said. Neither she nor her spokeswoman revealed who placed the order. The “Salute to Our Troops” ball was one of three official presidential inaugural balls held Friday and open by invitation only to members of the military, veterans, first responders and their families.

Now you or I might wonder about the propriety of a cake-maker replicating somebody else's cake -- a cake that has been declared so "perfect" that the cake being asked for must be an "exact" replica. We'll come back to this in a moment. Let's note first that Tiffany MacIsaac views herself here as a businessperson of principle.

MacIsaac did not want to state her political affiliation, but said her bakery began planning how it would donate its proceeds from the Trump inaugural cake to charity. The baker and her staff chose the Human Rights Campaign, a nonprofit group that advocates for equal treatment of the LGBT community — and that has declared Trump “unfit for the presidency.”

“I’m a small-business owner and one of the things I’m very, very proud about is that I don’t discriminate,” MacIsaac said. “I would never turn someone away based on their age, their sex, their sexual orientation, their political views. It’s just not the way we operate.”

Well sure, why should the political affiliation of the cake-ripper-offers affect one's willingness to perform this commercial transaction? If, that is, one is a truly equal-opportunity fraudster.

Now comes the wrinkle, though:

MacIsaac said the attention caught her by surprise partly because, per the order, the Trump cake was intended to be more of a prop: All but a three-inch slice at the bottom was inedible. [Emphasis added. -- Ed.]

“It’s just a Stryofoam cake. It’s not for eating,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it to be seen on TV.”

Ooh, oh my. Well, I suppose this explains why Ms. MacIsaac was willing to replicate somebody else's cake. She was thinking, I guess, that it's not really a cake. So it's not really cake theft, I guess. And it's above Ms. MacIsaac's pay grade, I guess, to worry about whether the replica cake is going to be properly identified as what it is: an inedible replica of a cake designed and created as an actual cake by Duff Goldman and Charm City Cakes for the 2013 Obama inaugural festivities. No, she's just sticking to her principle of "never turn[ing] someone away based on their age, their sex, their sexual orientation, their political views." Because that's "just not the way we operate."

“Obviously, my intention was definitely not to upset him in any way,” MacIsaac said of Goldman, whom she does not know personally. “I just wish that it had not been presented the way that it was.”

At this point, for the benefit of readers who may not be familiar with Duff, let's continue with the Post-ies' gloss:

Goldman, who founded Charm City Cakes in Baltimore and Los Angeles, is known for his showstopping cake creations. From 2006 to 2011, the Food Network reality show “Ace of Cakes” followed Goldman as he ran his bakery and pulled out all the stops to construct elaborate cakes. These days, the celebrity pastry chef is better known to pint-size bakers as “Chef Duff” as one of the judges on the network’s “Kids Baking Championship.”

Now, as noted above, Duff subsequently walked his pique back, presumably once he realized that the ripped-off cake wasn't actually a cake.



Except, again, that while Duff's cake was appreciated enough to be required to be duplicated exactly, except for, you know, the cake aspect, it wasn't appreciated enough to be credited as what it was: a photo-op rip-off of his cake created for an administration that showed a good deal more respect for the military than these new fraudsters.

Happily, the journalistic ethos of the Post-ies prompts them to dig into the archives, a dig that's made easier by the fact that half of our 2017 Post team was on the job in 2013.

In 2013, Goldman told The Post’s Tim Carman he wanted Obama’s inaugural cake to be perfect.

“When you’re doing a cake like this, you know that everybody is going to be looking at it,” Goldman said. “It’s a lot of pressure. The more recognition you get for something that you do, the greater the pressure becomes, because more people are looking for a mistake. So you really gotta make sure your work is top-notch.”

Goldman described his cake for Obama to The Post in great detail then: The 5-foot-tall, 50-pound cake was meant to pay special homage to the nation’s armed forces, with seals of the five branches military. The different tiers would each be of different flavors, from red velvet to pumpkin-chocolate chip.

Though he expressed some anxiety about pulling off the cake in 2013, Goldman ultimately delivered on his vision.

“It was our honor to create this cake for last night’s Commander-in-Chief Ball — an experience we will never forget,” the Charm City Cakes Facebook page noted with a picture of the cake the day after Obama’s 2013 inauguration. (For the record, Obama has said he is more of a pie person.)

The 2017 Post-ies proceed with a riff on the theme: "Allegations of plagiarism are not new in Trump's nascent administration." No indeed, and if you're not instantly filling in the blank for yourself, by all means take this stroll down Recent Memory Lane with Amy and Tim.

However, it occurs to me that "plagiarism" isn't the operation being performed by the Trumpsters. In TrumpUniverse, after all, everything in the universe exists above all for its potential to contribute to The Donald's (a) enrichment and (b) glorification. Why, therefore, shouldn't Duff's 2013 cake be pressed into service? There's probably some extra chuckleworthiness in the fact that the actual cake was actually ordered and created to carry the message of the Obama administration's solidarity with our armed forces.

Hey, fuck those fuckers!

And I expect that the military people who imagine that the new president is their guy are also on the long list of fuckers to be fucked. Oh, it's looking like they're going to get their military buildup, meaning that while our scam-fighting, cutting-costs-to-the-bone president will actually target some unlucky recipients of U.S. military graft, in the process of making the country not one whit safer, lots of money will be pouring from taxpayers' pockets into fat-cat contractor coffers, it will be done POTUS's way -- with money flowing to the right people, the ones who know how to play this business president's game.

#

Stock Tip: Buy Shares In Fact Checking Companies-- Outlook Is Very Bullish For The Next 4 Years

Hours before Trump's sparsely-attended inauguration, Fox News-- which Señor Trumpanzee doesn't call Fake News (but which usually is) released a new poll showing that 37% of Americans approve of the new president, while 54% do not. It's not likely the bleak inaugural address neo-Nazi Steve Bannon wrote for Trump to read, bolstered those numbers. The speech wasn't just dark and-- sorry Kellyanne-- inelegant; it was filled with distortions and outright lies. It was, predictably, more Trump gaslighting. PolitiFact bore witness to Trump/Bannon's serial lies in real time and Glenn Kessler fact-checked the speech for Washington Post readers. It was filled with lies, lies that immediately became... Fake News. Overall, Bannon's dystopian vision, delivered by Trump, presented "a portrait of the United States that often was at variance with reality." It was exactly what Russia would have liked to see presented.

“You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

No matter how you measure it, the “movement” was not as historic as Trump proclaims it to be.

Trump is a minority president, in terms of the popular vote. He lost the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes to Hillary Clinton. Clinton had the largest popular vote margin of any losing presidential candidate, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.

Trump’s electoral college win, meanwhile, was a squeaker. Trump had narrow victories in three key states (and narrow losses in two others). He won Michigan by 10,704 votes, Wisconsin by 22,177 votes and Pennsylvania by 46,435 votes. So if 39,659 voters in those states had switched their votes, 46 electoral votes would have flipped to Clinton-- and she would have won 278-260.

Overall, according to a tally by John Pitney of Claremont McKenna College, Trump ranks 46th out of 58 electoral college results.

“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities … and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

Trump repeats a problematic talking point about crime and poverty in “inner cities.” It’s unclear what he means by “inner cities,” which is not a category by which crime or poverty is measured.

In 2015, 13 percent of people lived below poverty level inside metropolitan statistical areas, according to census data. That is on par with the national poverty rate in 2015, which was 13.5 percent. Overall, the poverty rate has remained relatively flat under Obama.

As we have repeatedly pointed out, violent and property crimes overall have been declining for about two decades, and are far below rates seen one or two decades ago. Homicides have spiked in major cities in 2015 and 2016, but the rates remain far below their peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries, while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.”

Trump mixes up several things here. He seems to be referring to free-trade agreements in the first part of his sentence, though he ignores the fact that many U.S. industries also benefit and grow when they are able to sell products overseas.

As for subsidizing the armies of other countries, Trump appears to be referring to military bases that the United States has overseas. A 2013 Senate report found that the United States spent $10 billion a year on bases abroad, with 70 percent focused on three countries-- Germany, South Korea and Japan. Germany is the center of European defense obligations, while the troops in Japan are the core of U.S. projection of power in Asia. The troops in Korea deter an attack by North Korea. Given a defense budget of more than $500 billion, the cost of maintaining these bases is a mere pittance.

The United States doles out about $6 billion a year in foreign military financing, with most of it going to just two countries: Israel and Egypt. But this money comes with a catch-- most of it must be spent on U.S. hardware, creating jobs for Americans.

As for the “very sad depletion” of the U.S. military, this is hyper-exaggeration. One can argue about whether the military budget should be boosted, but there is no question that the U.S. military is stronger and more capable than any other nation’s. The website Globalfirepower.com ranks countries based on 45 factors, and the United States tops the charts. Here’s one small statistic: The United States has 19 aircraft carriers, as of the end of last year; no other country has more than four.

“[We’ve] spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich, while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon.”

Trump appears to be referring to U.S. involvement in military adventures, such as the 2003 Iraq invasion he supported, and possibly foreign aid.

Foreign aid amounts to less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget, with about $18 billion going to economic and development aid and $8 billion for security assistance. Even the Marshall Plan advanced by President Harry S. Truman, designed to stabilize Europe after World War II, was only a little over $100 billion in today’s dollars.

So Trump only gets to “trillions and trillions of dollars” by including wars. The Iraq war is estimated to have cost $1.7 trillion through 2013, though one estimate says that the cost will rise to $6 trillion through 2053, primarily from paying the interest on the debt incurred to wage the war because the Bush administration chose not to raise the taxes to pay for it. But we doubt Iraqis would say the war made the country “rich.”

Contrary to Trump’s rhetoric, the United States is far wealthier than other nations. According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States has a gross domestic product of $18 trillion, one-third larger than that of China, the nearest rival and a frequent target of Trump’s attacks.

A Pew Research Center analysis found that the vast majority of Americans are either upper-middle income or high income; many Americans who are classified as “poor” by the U.S. government would be middle income globally.

“One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.”

Trump again engages in hyperbole, attributing all of the decline in manufacturing to foreign trade.

The number of U.S. workers engaged in manufacturing is now about 12.3 million, up from 11.5 million in 2010, after the Great Recession hurt many manufacturers. But that’s still a decline from about 17 million in the 1990s.

Some analysts calculate that between 1 million and 2 million U.S. jobs were lost after China was admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2000. But economists believe the biggest factor in the decline in manufacturing is automation, not jobs going overseas. Another factor is decreased consumer spending on manufactured goods. A new report by the Congressional Research Service notes that “employment in manufacturing has fallen in most major manufacturing countries over the past quarter-century,” so the U.S. experience is not unusual.

Meanwhile, the official unemployment rate is 4.7 percent, down from a high of 10 percent in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Jobs have been added for a record 75 months.

“We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.”

Trump continues to attack companies that ship jobs overseas, and has promised to keep jobs in the United States. But Trump has had a long history of outsourcing a variety of his products as a businessman, and he has acknowledged doing so.

We know of at least 12 countries where Trump products were manufactured. Further, Trump products transited other countries through the packaging and shipping process-- meaning that workers in more than 12 countries contributed to getting many of Trump’s products made, packaged and delivered to the United States.

Here’s our inventory of Trump’s products made overseas.

“We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.”

“Welfare” is a broad term and can apply to people who are working but receiving some government assistance. If someone is receiving means-tested assistance, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are not working.

Not all people eligible for welfare collect benefits. When they do, many of the benefits are contingent on the recipients working or actively searching for jobs, as a result of an overhaul of welfare signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. And even low-income families receive some level of public assistance.

According to the 2012 U.S. Census, about 23 percent of U.S. households with at least one person with a job received means-tested benefits.

Meanwhile, Trump is apparently unaware that participation has declined in means-tested programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps).

Caseloads in the TANF program have declined over the past 15 years, from about 2.4 million families to 1.6 million families. After its post-recession peak in 2013, the number of people receiving food stamps has declined. In October 2016, there were 43.2 million people participating in the program, compared to 47 million in October 2013.

Señor Trumpanzee claims the sad and worst-attended inauguration ever, had a million and a half people, part of his gaslighting strategy to drive America insane

Meanwhile, "the Interior Department was ordered Friday to shut down its official Twitter accounts-- indefinitely-- after the National Park Service shared two unsympathetic tweets during President Trump’s inauguration. The first noted the new president’s relatively small inaugural crowd compared to the number of people former president Barack Obama drew to the National Mall when he was sworn into office in 2009. The second tweet noted several omissions of policy areas on the new White House website. A Park Service employee retweeted both missives on Friday."

“All bureaus and the department have been directed by incoming administration to shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice,” said an email circulated to Park Service employees Friday afternoon.

No news, but Fake News, is tolerated by a tyranny. Recently a movie company contacted me about a song my small indie label, 415 Records, released in 1981, "Teenage Underground" by the Red Rockers, from the New Orleans based band's debut album, Condition Red. Films and TV shows have used some of the band's later, more commercial songs, especially their big hit China, as well as Good As Gold, Blood From A Stone and their cover of the classic :Eve of Destruction" (embedded up top). But this film, Pitching Tents, which should be out in the next few months, was looking for a different sound and a different message, one that fits the newly Trumpified America. Take a listen to what they chose (first film use of the 26-year old song ever):




UPDATE: New York Times Weighs In On Trumpanzee Lies

The women’s march in Washington was roughly three times the size of the audience at President Trump’s inauguration, crowd counting experts said Saturday.

Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still, crowd scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, analyzed photographs and video taken of the National Mall and vicinity and estimated that there were about 160,000 people in those areas in the hour leading up to Mr. Trump’s speech Friday.

They estimated that at least 470,000 people were at the women’s march in Washington in the areas on and near the mall at about 2 p.m. Saturday.

The two images below show the crowds when they were at their peak density at the two events.