Should he stay or should he go?

...if he goes, there will be trouble. If he stays, it will be double.
(with apologies to The Clash)

Bill Bramhall

What you can ignore:

• 45's screams of "No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION"
Robert Mueller's report is scathing. Though he did not find not enough evidence for prosecutable conspiracy charges, Mueller outlined plenty of evidence for obstruction of justice, gave a stomach-churning account of the corruption that oozes from 45's pores, and clearly intended to punt the matter to the United States Congress to take the next steps.

• Everything that Attorney General William Barr has spouted.
He really has no say in the matter. He may be acting as if he is SCROTUS's personal lawyer, which somehow SCROTUS perceives the A.G. to be, but he doesn't have a dog in this fight. It is between us (via the U.S. Congress) and 45. Not only that, but he's lost all cachet. He has no credibility left. He has revealed himself to be just another SCROTUS lackey.

Where do we go from here? We need to do something about the Toddler-in-Chief. When? How?

The evidence for obstruction of justice is plenty. In his report, Mueller's report laid out each suspected act of obstruction and presented the evidence that points to criminal obstruction in a number of cases. Here is a nice chart that lays it out. There are eight obstructive acts that meet all three tests.

And here is that chart maker's further analysis and heat map of each act of obstruction. It helps us to understand each charge and the nuances of evidence.

Because of a Department of Justice rule that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, Mueller declined to make a prosecutorial judgment based on that rule. The Special Counsel is part of the DOJ, so therefore he can't make a prosecutorial judgment. But he clearly states multiple times that 45 cannot be exonerated. We have a criminal in the Whitewash House. That's plain. It's clear that Congress is the body that would be the one to take the helm to impeach and bring charges.

What should Congress do?

Democrats are divided on the question.

There are plenty of people calling for impeachment. Of the major 2020 Presidential candidates, Sen. Liz Warren (D-MA) was the first to call for impeachment. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and former Rep. Beto O'Roarke (D-TX) agree with her.

On the immediate impeachment side, the argument could be made that it is simply Congress's duty to remove a criminal from office. Each Member of Congress has been sworn to defend the Constitution, and it is their Constitutional job to provide oversight and checks and balances. It's their duty. Pure and simple. But nothing in these days (now Backward Day # 826) is pure or simple. Initially, I was of the mind that impeachment should be pursued immediately because it is the right thing to do, whether politically expedient or not. The President* is a criminal, and no one is above the law. Removing him from office is right. And because leaving him there will embolden him and cause more damage to the country. As Sen. Warren said, “There is no political inconvenience exception to the United States Constitution."

Others called for more investigation, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), urges caution and more investigation before starting impeachment proceedings, saying "He's just not worth it." I'm not too fond of her reasoning, which seems to be politics first and foremost, but I respect the thought that more investigations and increased public support is perhaps needed before impeachment goes forward. She also feels that the issue will be too divisive. We certainly don't need more division, especially within the Democratic Party. I've gained so much respect for her and her political savvy since the 115th Congress has been sworn in, so I must give her views some props. Joe Lockhart, President Clinton's press secretary, writing in the New York Times, pushes the political motivation further: leaving SCROTUS in office will work to destroy the Republican party altogether. Intriguing thought, but I hate the part that is political, because it cheapens the righteousness of what we need to do.

Bernie has concerns that Congress would not be able to do legislative work if impeachment proceedings go forward, saying:

...if for the next year, year-and-a-half, going right into the heart of the election, all that the Congress is talking about is impeaching Trump and Trump, Trump, Trump, and Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, and we're not talking about health care, we're not talking about raising the minimum wage to a living wage, we're not talking about combating climate change, we're not talking about sexism and racism and homophobia, and all of the issues that concern ordinary Americans, what I worry about is that works to Trump's advantage.

I personally think that argument is hogwash. Our representatives are intelligent and talented. They can multi-task. His view that, as CNN summarizes, "the way you beat Trump is on policy, not on personality," doesn't hold water either. President Pence would put forth the same conservative policies, and it is very much TЯUMP's "personality" that is the problem. He is a dictator-in-the-making, a dangerous force. If it were as simple as arguing healthcare policy and debating minimum wage or racism, we wouldn't be in the pickle we're in. If it were simply about policy, I wouldn't be writing this blog, there wouldn't be protests in the streets, we wouldn't be using the courts to fight against various other questionable acts that 45 has committed. He may be committing new crimes of obstruction and witness intimidation today as he continues his Tweet Attacks. Our very constitutional government is at risk with Individual-1 in office.

Another argument for waiting is that an impeachment by the House is doomed to fail in the Senate, and Baby Man would just have more all-cap cries of "TOTAL EXONERATION!" and become a martyr to his base. If we take our time to fully develop the charges outlined in the report, perhaps we gan garner more bipartisan support for impeachment. Further, the Mueller report outlines only one crime: obstruction of justice. There are plenty of other investigations that are underway, both in the House and in NY state, and those should be allowed to flourish.

Then yesterday, the Washington Post published an elegantly written op/ed by Hillary Clinton. Her arguments for waiting make much sense to me. She looks to our history dealing with Watergate, the 1998 impeachment, and the nation's response after 9/11 in deciding what course of action we should take today. She calls for "being deliberate, fair and fearless" -- all sacrosanct American ideals. She says, "We have to get this right." Truer words have never been written. Rushing to a conclusion may be damaging. Perhaps waiting and investigating further is the right thing to do. It's not purely political to go forward deliberately. Please read her piece.

Hillary calls us all to action:

Of all the lessons from our history, the one that’s most important may be that each of us has a vital role to play as citizens. A crime was committed against all Americans, and all Americans should demand action and accountability. Our founders envisioned the danger we face today and designed a system to meet it. Now it’s up to us to prove the wisdom of our Constitution, the resilience of our democracy and the strength of our nation.

And so, I also entreat you. This is an important debate; we're at a crossroads for our Democracy. You have good thoughts about our next course of action. Please tell your Members of Congress your thoughts and what you would like them to do. They work for you. Here is where to find the contact information for your representatives. Or better yet, enroll with Resistbot. It's easy -- and free -- to send a fax or letter to your MoCs by interacting with Resistbot via text, Twitter, or Facebook Messenger. Do it!

RESIST!



Volume I of Mueller's report, outlining the Russian interference in our 2016 election, was sobering. Stay tuned for LSR's investigation into what steps have been taken so far to ensure that there is no meddling in 2020 and beyond.

It's heeeeere....

 "Would your family welcome a serious investigation of these disturbances by someone who can make firsthand observations?" -- Dr. Lesh, Poltergeist 

....And like a ghost, the Mueller investigation will be haunting SCROTUS for years to come.


A redacted version of the Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election by Robert S. Mueller III, in two volumes, was released to the public on Thursday, April 18. Little Sister Resister wanted to read it with an empty mind and learn firsthand what the report had to say. It was hard for a media junkie to avoid news articles and satire comedy monologues! But after waiting two years, I wanted to gift myself the unspoiler-ed version.

Armed with a cup of strong tea in my new Rising Sun Earthworks custom mug and a fresh ream of printer paper, I got to work.  I read it! Cover to cover! The whole darn thing!

It's worth the read. I encourage my readers to download the PDF, print it out, or buy a copy. There is information you should know, and you get some well-explained law lessons on the way. Mr. Mueller knew his audience. It's us, the American people. Don't be daunted. It's your right and privilege to take part and be informed.

My initial reactions to the volumes on the investigation into Russian election interference and the investigation into Presidential* obstruction of justice: Holy Cow! and Holy Guacamole!


Volume I surrounds the Russian interference itself. Holy Cow! It goes deep and it goes wide. My brief notes on the first reading:

 • The hacking and social media disruption was massive. Russian operatives were highly organized, thorough, and relentless. From stealing many terabytes of DNC data and Democratic emails to duping hundreds of thousands -- possibly more than a million -- of Americans (including TЯUMP associates) by feeding propaganda, they undoubtedly influenced the election.

• The only thing that saved TЯUMP affiliates of conspiracy charges is their pure dumbness. From the bottom of page one:

Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities (due to dumbness)." (parentheses mine)

• Paul Manafort is pure scum. His saving grace in Mueller not finding conspiracy charges against him was his massive greed. He didn't care about the election of the Boychurian Candidate. He only cared about lining his pockets. Not that a different motivation would have been justified, but wow. Greedygreedygreedy.

• Julian Assange is pure scum. I had been on the fence about Assange and WikiLeaks. Whistleblowers have their place and their importance, but after reading this report, I am more cemented in the Assange is Scum category. He's not a whistleblower; he's just another conservative hack. A technologically sophisticated, probably mentally ill conservative hack, but a hack nonetheless. All he wanted was to bring down Hillary. He was behind the Seth Rich rumor, and that's sick.

• Who is he writing about on page 176ff? Mysteriously redacted, we might speculate that it's all about Donny Junior, as there is very little written about him in the rest of the document.

• School is in on page 180, where we are lectured pointedly on the term "collusion" and the word's relation to the legal term "conspiracy." Perhaps if SCROTUS ever does what I have done (read the full report), he may learn a thing or two about the law.

• The end result of the Russian election interference? It's plain on page 149: "Putin has won."


Volume II, concerning the obstruction of justice question. Holy Guacamole! It reads like a thriller. If the bad guy was an impetuous toddler. And if his henchmen were at-their-wits-end babysitters.

• The man just couldn't shut up. Or keep his Twitter thumbs still. He dug his own Hole o' Obstructionist Behaviors with a big honkin' obstruction shovel. What a maroon!

• Mueller plainly stated that the presumptive defenses against the investigation don't hold water, concluding "that none of those legal defenses provided a basis for declining to investigate the facts."

• There is more evidence that 45 is just an overgrown toddler. My favorite: his first draft of the Comey termination letter.

While I greatly appreciate you informing me that I am not under investigation concerning what I have often stated is a fabricated story on a Trump-Russia relationship - pertaining to the 2016 presidential election, please be informed that I, and I believe the American public - including Ds and Rs - have lost faith in you as Director of the FBI.

He was insistent that Comey's statements about the fact that 45 was not under FBI investigation be included in the termination letter.

• Many of the grown-ups in the administration simply did not comply with his requests. Messages weren't delivered, errands weren't completed, lies weren't told. This was his --and the country's--saving grace.

• For example, in order to attempt to curtail the Special Counsel investigation, the 72-Year-Old Toddler dictated a speech that he wanted Jeff Sessions to give publicly (the notes were never delivered to Sessions):

I know that I recused myself from certain things having to do with specific areas. But our POTUS ... is being treated very unfairly. He shouldn’t have a Special Prosecutor/Counsel b/c he hasn’t done anything wrong. I was on the campaign w/ him for nine months, there were no Russians involved with him. I know it for a fact b/c I was there. He didn’t do anything wrong except he ran the greatest campaign in American history.

• Vice President Pence is rarely mentioned in the document, with nothing substantial written about him. Redacted, maybe? Or maybe he's just been that good at blending in with the furniture over the last two and a half years.

• I noted "LIES!" multiple times in the margins. So many lies by so many people. Shameful.

• There is plain evidence of obstruction from many areas. Mueller very elegantly laid out each instance of questionable obstruction, and described the elements of each potential obstruction charge: the obstructive act, its nexus to a legal proceeding, and his intent. Though some of the acts did not rise to the level of legal obstruction, some of them did meet all three tests, to my reading, including:

• The multiple attempts to end the special counsel investigation
• Attempts to influence Attorney General Jeff Sessions by asking him to "unrecuse himself" (obsessively)
• Witness tampering, specifically Paul Manafort (hinting at a pardon) and Michael Cohen (intimidation)

• SCROTUS was obsessed with Sessions reversing his recusal, repeatedly comparing him to past attorneys general Robert Kennedy and Eric Holder, who "protected" their presidents, and invoking the name of his former attorney, mobster lawyer Roy Cohn, saying "he wished he was his attorney."

• Not only did Chicken Donald decline to be interviewed, he incompletely answered or declined answering the Special Counsel's written questions. Appendix D contains the questions and his answers.

• Page 156 and beyond, Overarching Factual Issues, is a sobering read. Mueller outlines the assertions that the theme of 45's conduct has been for self-preservation and intimidation. He states plainly:

But proof of such a crime is not an element of an obstruction offense. ... Obstruction of justice can be motivated by a desire to protect non-criminal personal interests, to protect against investigations where underlying criminal liability falls into a gray area, or to avoid personal embarrassment. The injury to the integrity of the justice system is the same regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong. ... the President’s power to influence actions, persons, and events is enhanced by his unique ability to attract attention through use of mass communications. And no principle of law excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statutes. If the likely effect of the acts is to intimidate witnesses or alter their testimony, the justice system’s integrity is equally threatened.

• There was a lot written about Constitutional power,  Executive Branch privilege, division of power, checks and balances, and corruption. The writing on corruption in the last section, III. LEGAL DEFENSES TO THE APPLICATION OF OBSTRUCTION-OF-JUSTICE STATUTES TO THE PRESIDENT,  is especially poignant in our troubled times and lends itself to a judgment that though perhaps Mueller wasn't able to conclude or exonerate the President's* criminality, Hair Furor is very much corrupt. This fact is undeniable from reading the whole report. We should not have a corrupt leader, whether his corruption rises to chargeable offenses or not.

• More than once Mueller stated:

...if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

He lays out in the first pages of Volume II why bringing charges against a president is tricky business and why he did not make charging decisions regarding the President* - most pointedly in the Introduction to Volume II. The president is not a normal citizen, but he is not above the law. On page one of Volume II he writes:

First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in violation of the constitutional separation of powers.” Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515; 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC’s legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC’s constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.

On page eight he concludes:

Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.

and

...the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President’s constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President’s conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

The whole introduction is worth the read and explains why he deferred bringing charges.

• Further, in his multi-page conclusion--another good read-- he says quite pointedly: "Congress can validly regulate the President’s exercise of official duties to prohibit actions motivated by a corrupt intent to obstruct justice." There is a lot of important stuff packed into the conclusions.

• He also writes that the President's removing principal officers (i.e., his cabinet) is his right and duty, but removing inferior officers (e.g., the FBI Director or Special Counsel) can have Congressional limitations placed.

• To my reading, I'm of the opinion that Mr. Mueller concluded that this lofty decision was not his to make, but that the Congress of the United States should take up the heavy decision of interpreting the evidence as presented and moving forward with impeachment or criminal charges. Or both. It's definitely not the Attorney General's place, despite what William Barr wants to assert.

• He quotes United States vs. Lee (1882) in the final conclusion, which brought tears to my eyes: "And the protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person—including the President—accords with the fundamental principle of our government that 'no [person] in this country is so high that he is above the law.'"


So let it be written. So let it be done.




Now, LSR gets to go read and digest others' interpretations. I'll be back soon with a post outlining my synthesis of smart people's analyses!

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

"In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker." - Plutarch


If you are a new reader, I am a Speech-Language Pathologist. I just celebrated my 30th anniversary of professional life! The vast majority of my experience has been with the adult populations with neurological disorders. I work with stroke patients, folks with dementia, Parkinson's disease, brain tumors. I've worked with someone with neurosyphilis. I've worked with myasthenia gravis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease), hypoxic brain injury, gunshot wound to the head, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury. I've worked with folks with unusual conditions that caused cognitive-communication problems, like calcium overdose and  anaphylaxis. You name it, I've probably seen it.

The "pathologist" in my title is not by accident. We are diagnosticians, and because we are so well-versed in neurology and speech, language, and cognition, sometimes we are the first ones to notice symptoms and start the down the path of a diagnosis. I'm a little bit qualified to make judgments on a person's speech and language behaviors.

We have this man in Washington DC with a plethora of well-documented speech and language samples, recorded for us with high-quality audio and video, preserved for eternity, and easily accessed. And as a political and news junkie, you gotta know, I access it!                                                                                                                  

I've written several posts about 45's cognitive-communication and speech symptoms. If you'd like to revisit them, they are under the labels dementia and speech disorders (I've also looked at his speech in the context of speeches and as rhetoric, which is also damaged, or rather damaging).


Time for another look.

45's speech, language, and cognitive symptoms seem to be getting worse. We should be becoming more concerned about it.

Dave Whamond

In the last few weeks there have been:

The Rambling Lie-Fest

In early March, some enjoyed a two-hour rambling speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. You remember that one, don't you? The one where he humped Old Glory? The speech clocked in at over two hours, described as the longest Presidential speech in history, and probably the most incoherent and bizarre.

Would you like to watch it? Didn't think so. But just in case, for history's sake:




Within the two-hour ramble, there were multiple bizarro moments. Here are just a few.

The wack-o put-downs of the Green New Deal, that illustrate his poor grasp of reality:

No planes. No energy. When the wind stops blowing, that is the end of your electric. Let’s hurry up. “Darling, darling, is the wind blowing today? I would like to watch television, darling” ... Their plan would remove every gas-powered car from American roads. Oh, that’s not so bad. They want you to have one car instead of two. And it should be electric. Okay. So tell people, no more cars, no more cars ... It would end air travel. But you’ll get on a train, don’t worry about it. You just have to cross off about 95 percent of the world. And it would force the destruction or renovation of virtually every existing structure in the United States. New York City would have to rip down buildings and rebuild ’em again. I don’t think so. This is the craziest plan. And yet I see senators that are there for 20 years, white hair. See, I don’t have white hair. I don’t have white hair. 

Ok. The end of civilization as we know it. And he doesn't have white hair? Whew! Thank Gawd for that. I really thought we were goners there for a bit.

About the Meuller investigation. If you can make sense of what he's trying to say, you're ahead of me! This just plain doesn't make sense.

Robert Mueller put 13 of the angriest Democrats in the history of our country on the commission. How do you do that? These are angry, angry people. You take a look at them. One of them was involved with the Hillary Clinton foundation, running it. Another one has perhaps the worst reputation of any human being I’ve ever seen. All killers. In fact it would have been actually better for them if they put half and half, and Mueller can do whatever he wants anyway, which he’ll probably. But we have conflicts. I had a nasty business transaction with Robert Mueller a number of years ago. I said, why wasn’t that mentioned? He wanted the job as FBI director. I did not give it to him. Why isn’t that mentioned? Jim Comey, Lyin’ James Comey, is his best friend. James Comey is his best friend. And those are a few of the conflicts. Other than that it’s wonderful.

Still with the election and the inauguration size!  Not pathological language/speech but pathological personality.

How many times did you hear, for months and months, "There is no way to 270"? You know what that means, right? "There is no way to 270." They couldn't get me there. We might as well have just given up. But there wasn't any way to 270.
In fact, I actually went up to Maine to get one, and I did win the one. But we didn't need the one. We didn't need it. We won Maine. We won our half of Maine, remember? You have Nebraska. We won both in Nebraska. We won the half we had to win in Maine. So we got the one, but we didn't need the one, because we didn't get 270; we got 306 to 223. 223-306.

It was raining. And it was wet, and the grass was wet. And women and men, and I consider them totally equal so I’m not going to say it’s harder—in fact it’s probably, with the men I know, it’s actually easier for the women to make the walk. But they had to walk all the way down. They had to walk in high heels in many cases. They had to walk all the way down to the Washington Monument and then back. And I looked and I made a speech, and I said, before I got on, I said to the people that were sitting next to me, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Look at that crowd.” And it was wide! Wide! We had a crowd—I’ve never seen a thing like it. And I have to live—I have to live with “crowd size.” It is all a phony deal, folks. But I saw a picture just the other night of practically no people. It was taken hours before our great day. That was a great day for us. That was a great, great day. People came from all over. People came from all over. So, “Sir, it doesn’t matter. Nobody cares.” I said, “But I care. And people care. People care.”

And the weary, odious claim,

"Right now, we have people in Congress that hate our country. And you know that, and we can name every one of them if we want. They hate our country."

Claiming that his request to Russia for Clinton's email was a joke, saying sarcastically in a bad self-impersonation:

“I’ve learned, because with the fake news, if you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience. If you say something like ‘Russia, please if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails, please, Russia, please, please get us the emails.’” 

And on. And on. And on.


Some of his discourse is just plain disorganized, "empty," non-sensical. Like his remarks at a different Republican event about Joe Biden:

“We’re going into the war with some socialist. It looks like the only non, sort of, heavy socialist is being taken care of pretty well by the socialists, they got to him, our former vice president. I was going to call him, I don’t know him well, I was going to say ‘Welcome to the world Joe, you having a good time?' ...Now you look at that [presidential announcement] speech and you see what’s happening and that speech was so tame compared to what is happening now, that trek up is one of the great treacherous treks anywhere, and Mexico has now, because they don’t want the border closed.”

In past posts I've portrayed some of his bizarre claims as confabulation. Confabulation is the disordered brain's way of filtering reality through distortions of perception and faulty memory. Confabulations sound like lies. Confabulations aren't reality, but the speaker thinks they are reality, and in true confabulation, there is no intent to deceive. Many times, confabulations are about really small stuff that doesn't matter. But here now, we have the ultimate con man's con man. He's had a lifetime of lying, conning, deceiving. Now his brain is disordered. Lies, confabulation, confusion...It's a recipe for disaster and quite concerning.        


The Saving of a Syllable

A few days after the CPAC speech last month, Dishonest Don had the slip of the tongue when he called Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, "Tim Apple." He could've just let it slide. Hey, the wrong word came out. It happens to us all. The words "Tim Cook" and "Apple" are real close in his wee brain's file cabinet. He just hastily picked the wrong word.

That wasn't the problem. The problem was, he just couldn't let it go. He dug in. At first, he lied or confabulated that he really said, "Tim Cook Apple" but that he said the "Cook" so fast that it got lost. Sir, do you realize there are 1,000 cameras (with mics!) on you at all times? When that didn't work, he lied or confabulated that he intentionally cut out the "Cook" to save time. That's our SCROTUS!  Always looking to save a little time when he's talking! 

It's just bizarre. It only makes sense if you consider that his brain is impaired. A normal person wouldn't make such claims, especially in the face of video and audio proof, and that this kind of lie just. does. not. matter.


Do you know where your dad was born?

Of course you do! Because you have an intact brain!

Another confabulatory-type false claim came last week when he said his father had been born in Germany. Well, this is simply not true, can easily be verified, and was not a lie that was furthering any agenda. His grandfather, not his father, was born in Germany, and in fact, Donny and his father often intentionally lied that his family came from Sweden rather than Germany in order to further the family business in post-war America. This week's false statement, an autobiographical false statement, is one that is easily verified and doesn't really matter, is a perfect illustration of confabulation.


The Origin of Oranges



This is a puzzling error, and I'm pegging it as a speech error rather than a language error. It really seemed like he was groping a bit for the right sound sequence, and I could see the wheels turning when he erred on the word "origins," then he substituted with the word "beginnings," knowing he didn't say "origins" correctly. But still he tried again and again. Four attempts at "origins" and they all came out sounding like "oranges," though the third one was close to the correct pronunciation. His errors look like apraxic errors to me. Apraxia is a motor programming disorder. He had the word; he sounds of the word were all there, but the order was wrong (the /n/ at the end of the word "origin" came in too early). Apraxia is a neurological disorder.


Not Necessarily Thish Week

I don't have any samples of slurred speech (aka dysarthria, another neurological disorder) this week, but there are plenty of past examples. I outlined some in my post God Bless the United Shashe.


Windmill Cancer

And a couple of really bizarre false statements about wind power. One, that home values near wind turbines plummet 75%, and more bizarrely, "and they say the noise causes cancer.” Oh, the ubiquitous "they" -- those little men that occupy his head. This is not an example of confabulation, but probably more just an outright lie to throw dirt on sustainable energy sources. Any energy source that isn't "beautiful clean coal" or oil from his murderous friends in Saudi Arabia, gets slimed.

Milt Priggee

The Little Things Don't Matter

Another long-term patten of his, which is sort of a lie, or at least an attempt at deception, is that he often mispronounces a word, or mistakes one word for another, but goes on to pretend that he "meant to do that," by saying "or" or "and" in in correction. Why??

Here's is but one compilation from NBC News.




What is he smocking?

I won't even touch on his Twitter misspellings. That's another crazy twist on his tenuous grasp on the English language. Here is an analysis from The Week.

There are many other gaffes, like calling Venezuela a "company" or calling on the "president" of the U.S. Virgin Islands (ahem, that would be you, Mr. SCROTUS. I think you meant "governor"), or calling fire-ravaged Paradise, California, "Pleasure." These kinds of word substitutions (along with "Tim Apple") are semantic paraphasias, where the brain grabs a word similar in meaning to the intended word. Paraphasias are another common neuro-linguistic feature of a brain that is having difficulty with language. Each of these small mistakes should concern us. Normal people don't make so many of them!


The Sum of the Parts

We have a President* who has disorganized discourse, empty at times, incoherent much of the time, with confabulations, intermittent dysarthria, occasional apraxic errors, paraphasias, and whose behaviors are paranoid, apathetic, without inhibition, and inappropriate.

I'm more and more convinced that our President* has some sort of dementia, possibly frontotemporal dementia.

To remind you, dementias have both cognitive-communication traits as well as behavioral traits. Frontotemporal dementia is characterized by:

Behaviors (from the Mayo Clinic)

• Increasingly inappropriate actions
• Loss of empathy and other interpersonal skills
• Lack of judgment and inhibition
• Apathy
• Repetitive compulsive behavior
• A decline in personal hygiene
• Changes in eating habits, predominantly overeating
• Oral exploration and consumption of inedible objects
• Lack of awareness of thinking or behavioral changes

Impaired language traits in frontotemporal dementia typically arise from one of two types of Primary Progressive Aphasia (from the University of California, San Francisco):

• Nonfluent Varient PPA, when the patient has "complaints about pronouncing words or increasing trouble getting words out. Their speech may sound slurred, or their voice may change. As time goes on, people with nfvPPA have more trouble putting sentences together, and they eventually begin to speak slower and slower" or
• Semantic Variant PPA, when patients "have increasing trouble understanding the meaning of words, finding words or naming people and objects. As time goes on, people with svPPA begin to use more general names for specific things. For example, they might say “animal” instead of “dog.” As their word comprehension gets worse, they may eventually have a hard time understanding conversations."

It could be another type of dementia. Another strong contender is multi-infarct dementia (aka vascular dementia). This type of dementia is cause my multiple "mini strokes" all over the brain, most of them unnoticed. I'd put money on this kind of dementia, given the wide variety and the sudden clustering of symptoms that seem to be expressed, for example, his on-and-off dysarthria (slurred speech) and his off-and-on motor symptoms (the way he holds his water; his occasional tics and tremors).

There are many types of dementia, and all can have both behavioral and cognitive-communication components. He needs a neurologist to sort it out.


So, we have a man who is a life-long pathological liar, and now his brain is becoming pathological. As of  March 17, 2019, TRUMP has made 9,170 lies or misleading statements in 787 days. That's an average of almost 12 lies PER DAY of his Presidency, but the rate is accelerating, from 5.9 lies per day the first year of his tenure, to an average of 22 per day in 2019. The Washington Post keeps an on-going tally. You can also see PolitiFact's list.

Pathological liar. Neuropathology. A combination of a compulsive liar / sociopath and a serious neurological decline. Normal people do not act this way. Normal people do not make this quantity of mistakes, nor of this quality, nor do normal people defend or dig in to their errors. This is crazy nuts. He is not fit for the office. This person has access to 4,018 nuclear weapons. It's becoming dangerous!


And so, again, I entreat you. Resist. Call on your Members of Congress. Tell them your concerns. Ask them to do all they can to investigate and remove this person from office. If that doesn't work before next year, then get ready to mobilize for the election of 2020.


Thanks for reading.





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