BREAKING: Donald Trump humiliates himself in an Oval Office meeting with the President of Finland by ranting about his “perfect score” on a pathetic cognitive exam — and this time he dragged Barack Obama into his rotted brain rambling.
Dementia Don has struck again on the world stage…
“But I also did a cognitive exam, which is always very risky, because if I didn’t do well, you’d be the first to be blurring it,” said Trump, slurring the word “blurring” which didn’t even make sense in this context.
Alexander Stubb, the President of the Republic of Finland, was sitting right beside him and looked visibly uncomfortable throughout.
“And I had a perfect score. And one of the doctors said he’s almost never seen a perfect score. I had a perfect score. I got the highest score,” Trump continued, sounding like an eight-year-old bragging about a gold star on his report card. “And, uh… That made me feel good.”
“When they asked, would I like to do one, I said, ‘yeah.’ I said, did Obama do it? No. Did Bush do it? No. Did Biden do it? I definitely did… He… Biden wouldn’t have gotten the first three questions right,” Trump went on, stumbling over his words. “No, Biden didn’t do it.”
“Biden should have done it. I’m actually a person that believes that if you’re president, you should do a cognitive exam,” he went on. “But last time I took a cognitive exam and it was a perfect score.”
“The doctors announced it uh… And by the way, not the easiest test. The first few questions are pretty easy,” said Trump. “Once you get into the middle, it gets a little trickier. And there aren’t a lot of people in this room that would get every single question right. I can guarantee you.”
“You’re putting me in a difficult spot now,” Stubb interjected into the bizarre rant. “Next question.”
Trump then dropped the issue. As has been repeatedly explained by experts, there is nothing impressive about passing the cognitive exam in question despite Trump’s strange fixation on it. It involves remembering simple words and identifying animal shapes. Unless an individual is in a state of profound cognitive decline, it should pose them no trouble.
According to neurologist Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, the man who designed the Montreal Cognitive Assessment that Trump bragged about acing back in 2020, it’s supposed to “be easy for someone who has no cognitive impairment.” He has stated that is is “not an IQ test or the level of how a person is extremely skilled or not.”
Ironically, by going on and on about this cognitive test Trump succeeded only in further fueling the speculation that he is in fact in cognitive decline. A person with a strong, working mind doesn’t go on long, incoherent tangents about how mentally fit they are.
The war on the United States Constitution is now on full display. President Donald Trump is the leader of the war. Being no fool, Trump is chipping away rather than a full declaration that the Constitution is obsolete. Why doing his plan this way he appears to believe he can accomplish his goal without an uprising of most people. He is succeeding!
Trump’s attack on the free press began as he was running for his second term. The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times owners nixed their editorial boards endorsements of Kamala Harris. The Times went even further than the Post when it canceled its editorial board. Why did they block the endorsements? They feared the attacks that Trump would bring to their businesses if he was elected that they were anticipating.
Now that Trump has been elected that same fear is being felt among the communication corporations. ABC, NBC, CBS are Trump’s targets and they too have decided that it is better to accede to Trump’s demands.
From todays news:
President Donald Trump suggested that the federal government might revoke the licenses of broadcast television networks that are “against” him.
Trump’s comment came a day after ABC suspended airing the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show because of comments its host made linking the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk to Trump’s MAGA movement.
Trump said it would be up to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to decide whether to cancel networks’ licenses.
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
WE ARE NOW IN A FASCIST DICTATORSHIP, BUT THERE IS YET HOPE
Edited For Brevity
By Raul Maseda
“In 1933, German conservatives thought they could control Hitler. Two years later, they were being executed in their own homes. I spent weeks researching this question, desperately looking for counter-examples, for hope, for any time in history where people successfully stopped fascists after they started winning elections.
The pattern is so consistent it’s almost funny if it weren’t so terrifying. Every single time it goes like this: Conservatives panic about socialism or progressives or whatever. They ally with fascists as the ‘lesser evil.’ Fascists take power. Fascists immediately purge the conservatives who helped them. Then it’s 30-50 years of dictatorship. This happened in Germany, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Romania, and Hungary.
Want to know how many times conservatives successfully ‘controlled’ the fascists they allied with? Zero. Want to know how many times fascists purged the conservatives after taking power? All of them. Every single time.
And here’s the part that breaks your heart. Violence works. For them. Fascists use violence while claiming to be victims. They create chaos that ‘requires’ their authoritarian solution. Then they purge anyone who opposes them. Meanwhile, democrats keep insisting on following rules that fascists completely ignore. They file lawsuits. They write editorials. They vote on resolutions. And fascists just laugh and keep consolidating power.
The Supreme Court declared Trump above the law. He’s threatening to arrest political opponents. He’s already sent the FBI after elected officials when they haven’t committed crimes. Congress is his. Most state governments are his. Billionaire oligarchs openly coordinate with him.
So let’s start talking about what you do when fascists already control the institutions but haven’t fully consolidated power yet. Because historically, nobody’s been here before, not like this.
But that also means the old rules about what’s possible might not apply.
Option 1: The Blue State Coalition
California’s economy is bigger than the UK’s. New York controls global finance. The blue states collectively represent over 60% of America’s GDP. They could, theoretically, make the federal government irrelevant.
Imagine if California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, and others started coordinating directly. Ignoring federal mandates. Creating their own interstate compacts for everything from climate policy to civil rights. They already started this with climate agreements when Trump pulled out of Paris. But I’m talking about going much further.
State-level cryptocurrency to avoid federal monetary control. State-funded healthcare systems that ignore federal restrictions. State-level immigration policies that simply refuse to cooperate with ICE. Make the federal government have to physically enforce every single policy, stretching their resources to breaking.
The precedent? The way Northern states nullified fugitive slave laws in the 1850s. The way states are currently ignoring federal marijuana prohibition. But coordinated and comprehensive.
Option 2: Selective Compliance and Irish Democracy
The Irish called it ‘Irish Democracy’ when they were under British rule, the silent, dogged resistance of millions who simply ignored laws they found illegitimate. Don’t protest. Don’t riot. Just don’t comply.
Red states need blue state money. Blue state taxes fund red state governments. What if millions of people in blue states simultaneously decided to claim exempt on their W-4s and simply… stopped paying federal taxes? Not as protest but as a coordinated ‘forgetting.’ Overwhelm the IRS. Make enforcement impossible.
Doctors in blue states could ignore abortion restrictions. Teachers could ignore curriculum mandates. State police could refuse to enforce federal laws. Not dramatically, just… incompetently. ‘Sorry, we couldn’t find them.’ ‘The paperwork got lost.’ ‘Our systems are down.’
Make every single act of authoritarian control require physical enforcement, then make that enforcement impossibly expensive and difficult.
Option 3: Secession
We already have two incompatible visions of what America should be. One side wants a multi-ethnic democracy with a social safety net. The other wants a white Christian ethnostate with unlimited corporate power. These cannot coexist indefinitely.
What if blue states started seriously discussing secession? Not threatened as political theater but actually planned. Constitutional conventions. Referendums. Negotiations for national debt division. Military base transfers. Currency agreements.
Yes, the last time states tried to leave it caused a civil war. But that was over slavery, with clearly defined geographic boundaries and two relatively equal economic systems. This would be the economic powerhouses leaving the welfare states. What would the red states do, invade California? With what money?
The mere serious threat might be enough to force structural changes. Quebec nearly left Canada twice and got massive concessions both times just from credible threats.
We’re past normal. The fascists already won round one. They control the institutions. They have their judges. They have their media ecosystem. They have their army of true believers who will excuse anything.
But they don’t have the money. They don’t have the cities. They don’t have the educated workforce. They don’t have the young. And most importantly, they don’t have legitimacy in the eyes of the majority.
The historical record says once fascists gain power, they stay for 30-50 years. But the historical record doesn’t have examples of fascists taking over a country where their opposition controls most of the economy, technology, and cultural production. We’re in uncharted territory, which means we need unprecedented responses.
The German conservatives who said ‘we can control him’ were all dead or fled within two years. We’re just months into our version of this story. The question is: are we going to be the first generation that finds a new way out, or are we going to be another cautionary tale future historians write about?
At least we’re finally asking the right questions.”
This farmer lost half his workforce. Now he’s losing his crop too
By
David Culver, Norma Galeana, Evelio Contreras and Rachel Clarke, CNN reporters
Updated Aug 7, 2025
The Dalles, Oregon —
The cherries are rotting on the trees in Ian Chandler’s orchards. Branch after branch hang heavy with fruit the Oregon farmer calls “mummified” — dark, shriveled and unappetizing.
They should have been picked a couple of weeks ago to tempt shoppers at markets and stores, or processed to garnish Shirley Temple mocktails, shiny and fat, promising bursts of sweetness.
The lost harvest has hit almost a quarter of Chandler’s 125 acres of cherry trees — not because of bad weather, disease or blight, just because there was no one to pick the fruit.
“What you’re going to see is a bunch of fat, happy raccoons this winter,” Chandler said ruefully, standing amid his still burdened trees. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to harvest these.”
He said he’s built up a loyal seasonal workforce for his Wasco County operation called CE Farm Management, about 90 minutes from Portland, with the same people coming year after year and staying in touch with birth announcements and Christmas cards in between. But this year half of them did not arrive, and many of his neighbors were scrambling for pickers too. All told, Chandler said he will lose $250,000-$300,000 of revenue, left to rot on the trees.
“It’s lost revenue for the operation, which is one thing, but it’s also lost revenue for the workers that would have been able to pick them had they been here,” he said.
“The beginning of the season, it coincided, unfortunately, with a lot of really strong immigration enforcement down in southern California, where our workforce comes from, and that had a chilling effect on people wanting to move.”
Chandler’s pickers are mostly Latinos who follow the harvests in the west and northwest. But with raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on cities and workplaces and detentions and even deportations ensnaring many with no criminal records, he has seen a dramatic drop-off in labor this year.
It’s a situation that’s being repeated across the nation as crops ripen for harvest. The US Department of Agriculture estimates 42% of hired crop farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, with no authorization to work. Another 26% are immigrants who have become citizens or permanent residents.
Since April, 1.4 million people have dropped out of the US labor force — 802,000 of whom were foreign-born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Farmworkers are not tracked in the official monthly jobs reports, but analysts agree immigration policy is having an impact generally across the nation.
The issue has come to the attention of President Donald Trump, who promised help for the agricultural sector in a Tuesday morning phone interview with CNBC. “I take care of the farmers. I love the farmers. They’re a very important part of this country, and we don’t want to do anything to hurt the farmers,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance has said his preferred solution is automation. But Chandler’s farm won’t be mechanized — he believes cherries are best harvested by hand, preferably an experienced one to not rip off next year’s crop that’s already showing as buds. He does hire locally, but he says Oregonians, whether they are students on summer break or adults looking for full-time employment, only last in non-picking positions, like scanning buckets of produce or driving a tractor.
“I worked in high school in the cherry industry back in the 90s and then got back into this industry back in 2011 until current. You do not find people who are normally born here in the United States, unless they’re children of immigrants who are already doing this work, who want to work in this kind of industry,” he said. “It just doesn’t exist.”
Nevertheless, everyone hired by Chandler provides identification and work authorization so he does not know who may be in the country illegally.
“We’ve had relationships with these workers for years,” he said. “You talk to a family, you get a good relationship with them, they recommend more family members, and that’s how you build up your workforce. You could have all the children born in the United States, but if mom’s still trying to work through the immigration system, and has an issue, the whole family might say, ‘Look, we’re not going to risk it, because we don’t want mom to get picked up, so we’re going to stay down in California.’ So, then we lose our workforce.”
One of those absent from Oregon farms this year is a woman who told us to call her Lisa. She has permission to work through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but asked her actual name not be used for fear it might hamper her DACA renewal. Her three young children are all US citizens, but she worries about her mother and stepfather who have lived in the US for decades as undocumented workers and so she stayed in California.
“My parents are agriculture workers and seasonal workers, so every summer they will migrate to the state of Oregon to work the cherry season,” she said, adding that she and the children would often join them. “But this year, we decided to stay home just to be safe.”
While Chandler pointed out the financial loss he and his workers will suffer this season, Lisa highlighted the impact on small farmers like Chandler. And both said the federal government will also lose out.
“There is no shady under-the-table stuff. It’s all above board,” Chandler said, noting the deductions he made from each worker’s check to pay federal and local taxes and make contributions to Medicare and Social Security. “There seems to be a big disconnect when (opponents say,) ‘There’s this shadow economy of undocumented people being paid in certain ways.’ No, everything is above board. Everybody shows documentation to work.”
Lisa said about $150 was automatically deducted from her paycheck of some $900, and she thought the same was true for her parents even though they cannot file for a tax refund or use Medicare or Social Security, both of which they pay into.
The tax argument was raised by Trump too in his CNBC interview. “We’re going to be coming out with rules and regulations. I mean, you’ll see a farmer with the same person working for him for 20 years. The person’s even paying taxes and other things,” Trump said, drawing a distinction between hard-working undocumented immigrants who work on farms and those who commit violent crimes.
–President Donald Trump on Friday removed the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.
When Trump does not like government reporting he fires the people involved even if the reports are accurate.
–The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Friday that it will wind down its operations due to the successful Republican effort to defund local PBS and NPR stations across the country.
-In March, the president issued an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” that it said was meant to address “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”
He singled out the Smithsonian Institution and said the administration would seek “to remove improper ideology from such properties.”
In an email to NPR, White House Spokesperson Davis Ingle wrote: “Unfortunately for far too long the Smithsonian museums have highlighted divisive, DEI exhibits which are out of touch with mainstream America.”
“We are fully supportive of updating displays to highlight American greatness. The Trump administration will continue working to ensure that the Smithsonian removes all improper ideology and once again unites and instills pride in all Americans regarding our great history,” he said.
President Theodore Roosevelt said “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
In merely four months Donald Trump has turned the United States from a functioning democracy into a country on the edge of a fascist dictatorship.
The following reports I found on the internet from reliable news sources confirm what my beliefs.
The courts including the Supreme Court have given the power for Donald Trump to do as he wishes. The Supreme Court has ruled that President Trump is at least presumptively immune from criminal liability for his official acts, and is absolutely immune for some “core” of them — including his attempts to use the Justice Department to obstruct the results of an election.
Since late February, President Trump has used the power of the presidency to punish law firms that he accuses of weaponizing the justice system and undermining the national interest, part of his promised campaign of vengeance against his perceived political enemies.
Donald Trump expanded on his threats to the media suggesting actions of the press should be deemed illegal and subject to investigation.
“I believe that CNN and MS-DNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat [sic] party and in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what do they do is illegal,” the president said during a contentious speech at the Department of Justice.
The Trump administration is seeking to exert extraordinary influence over American universities by withholding the kind of federal financial support that has flowed to campuses for decades. His claim it’s all about anti-semitism. His initial attack is on Harvard, a private university. But it has been expanded.
So far, seven universities have been singled out for punitive funding cuts or have been explicitly notified that their funding is in serious jeopardy. They are:
Columbia, which is hoping to regain about $400 million in canceled grants and contracts after it bowed to a list of demands from the federal government.
Northwestern, which Trump administration officials said would be stripped of $790 million.
The University of Pennsylvania, which saw $175 million in federal funding suspended in response to its approach to a transgender athlete’s sports participation in 2022.
Opinion by Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor.
If the Trump regime can dictate what the universities of America teach or research or publish, or what students can learn or say, no university is safe.
Not even the truth is safe.
If the Trump regime can revoke student visas because students exercise their freedom of speech on a university campus, freedom of speech is not secure for any of us.
If the Trump regime can abduct a permanent resident of the United States and send him to a torture prison in El Salvador, without any criminal charges, no American is safe.
What do we do about this?
We stand up to it. We resist it. We denounce it. We boldly and fearlessly reject it —regardless of the cost, regardless of the threats.
As columnist David Brooks writes in his column yesterday (I’m hardly in the habit of quoting David Brooks):
It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.
But what does a national civic uprising look like?
It may look like a general strike — a strike in which tens of millions of Americans refuse to work, refuse to buy, refuse to engage in anything other than a mass demonstration against the regime.
And not just one general strike, but a repeating general strike — a strike whose numbers continue to grow and whose outrage, resistance, and solidarity continue to spread across the land.
I urge all of you to start preparing now for such a series of general strikes. I will inform you of what I learn about who is doing what. (One possible place to begin is here.)
In the meantime: This evening, Friday, April 18, bells will be sounded in Boston’s Old North Church (the one-if-by-land church where lanterns signaled Paul Revere to warn the Minutemen of the approaching troops) and in churches across the country, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolution. I urge you to have your place of worship join in the ringing. (More information can be found here.)
Tomorrow, Saturday, April 19, protests are being organized around the country by 50501. See here.
My friends, what the Trump regime has unleashed on America is intolerable. It is time — beyond time — for a national civic uprising. We must take action.
Should you be interested, here’s what I said yesterday at a rally on Berkeley’s famed Sproul Plaza, the site of the beginning of the Free Speech Movement, a little over 60 years ago.
—
This is not going to happen in the near term because a majority of Americans today support Trump.
Having launched a historic global trade war that set the stock market on rollercoaster week, Trump’s approval ratings were bound to change. His presidential approval rating remained steady over the first two months and even reached his all time highest rating in either of his terms.
However, his third month in office is showing that the American public’s opinion has soured amid the onslaught of tariffs and trade wars and the mounting fears of a possible recession.
According to the HarrisX polls, Trump’s approval rating has dropped since he took office, but still above water with an overall job approval rating of 48% versus 46% that disapprove.
Amid last week’s tariff turmoil, the Quinnipiac University Poll shows 72% of voters think tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the short-term while only 53% think the tariffs will hurt in the long-run and 41% think it will help the economy in the long-run.
According to Rasmussen Reports daily polling, Trump has enjoyed over a steady job approval rating over over 50% on any given day since his inauguration — until April 3 — the day after the sweeping tariff announcement. His rating has since slipped lower every day to a current 47% approval and 51% disapproval.
The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in March 2025, the highest level since November and slightly above market expectations of 4.1%.
The Port of Los Angeles alone supports 136,000 jobs in the city. The combined Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach support 186,000 jobs in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced a lawsuit contesting President Trump’s executive authority to enact international tariffs without congressional support, which he likened to the commander-in-chief taking a “wrecking ball” to America’s global reputation.
The legal action argues that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump cited to impose tariffs does not grant the president the ability to unilaterally adopt tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. The suit from California is the first challenge from any state against Trump’s trade policy.
California’s legal case rests on an argument that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which specifies the actions the president can take if he declares a national emergency in response to a foreign national security, foreign policy or economic threat, does not give Trump the authority to enact tariffs.
“The reality is the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse,” Bonta said. “It’s Congress’ responsibility to set and collect taxes, duties and excises, including, yes, tariffs, not the president’s. Congress hasn’t authorized these tariffs, much less authorized imposing tariffs only to increase them, then pause them, then imminently reinstate them on a whim, causing our nation and the global economy whiplash. Trump is attempting to override Congress and steamroll the separation of powers.”
The tariffs appear to be on weak legal ground, given the president’s decision to rely on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, said Stratos Pahis, associate professor of law and co-director of Block Center for the Study of International Business Law at Brooklyn Law School.
Donald Trump, an unsuccessful business man, with a high approval rating by the public, is destroying America’s economy and the G.O.P. is bowing to his wishes.
The question is where the people needed for all those manufacturing jobs come from?
Since his reelection in November, Trump has upended the typically friendly relationship between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. He has mocked Canada by calling it America’s “51st state” and repeatedly referred to former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor.” And he has threatened to use “economic force” to annex the country, whose population of 40 million is about the same as California’s.
Trump in February invoked emergency powers to justify stiff new tariffs on Canadian imports, arguing in an executive order that the trafficking of illegal drugs — namely, fentanyl — across the northern border constituted a dire threat to American security.
After Trump’s separate 25% tariff on imported automobiles went into effect last week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who called the levies a “direct attack” on his country, slapped a 25% retaliatory levy on vehicles imported from the United States.
In Palm Springs, the snowbirds who were already here before Trump took office are leaving for the season. The question is: Will they return?
Two Canadian airlines this spring ended their seasonal service to and from Palm Springs International Airport earlier than initially planned, airport spokesman Jake Ingrassia said in a statement to The Times.
“Flair Airlines and WestJet have slightly shortened their seasonal service to Vancouver and Winnipeg, respectively,” Ingrassia said. “The airlines have advised the airport that these adjustments are in response to the current operating environment and shifts in demand.”
Kenny Cassady, director of business development for Acme House Co., which manages vacation rental properties in Palm Springs, said Canadians often book stays of one to three months a full year in advance, returning to the same properties annually.
“But when it comes to rebooking for next year? They’re just declining,” said Cassady, who also is a board member for Visit Greater Palm Springs, a tourism marketing agency for the Coachella Valley.
Financial markets around the world are reeling Thursday following President Donald Trump’s latest and most severe set of tariffs, and the U.S. stock market is taking the worst of it so far.
The S&P 500 was down 4% in midday trading, more than other major stock markets, and at its bottom in the morning was on track for its worst day since COVID struck in 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1,412 points, or 3.3%, as of 11:50 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 5.1% lower.
In President Donald Trump’s first term, apparel and footwear makers shifted manufacturing out of China to avoid tariffs. Now they’re being pummeled as Trump targets the same nations they moved to.
A tariff of 46% on goods from Vietnam is particularly painful for companies such as Nike Inc., Adidas AG and Lululemon Athletica Inc., which produce significant amounts of merchandise in the country. Levies of 49% on Cambodia and more than 30% on Indonesia and Thailand are also problematic. Trump says the tariffs will push companies to relocate manufacturing to the US.
America’s biggest trading partners promised retaliation for President Donald Trump’s massive tariff announcement. The first major response has come in — from Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Canada will levy a 25% counter-tariff on vehicles imported from the United States that are not compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in response to US tariffs on Canadian vehicles and auto parts that went into effect today.
“As I told President Trump during our call last week, Canada will respond to the US auto tariffs, and today, I’m announcing that the Government of Canada will be responding by matching the US approach with 25% tariffs on all vehicles imported from the United States that are not compliant with CUSMA, our North American Free Trade Agreement,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa, using the Canadian acronym for the USMCA.
The prime minister said there were no talks scheduled between him and Trump, but he would talk to the US president again “if appropriate.” Carney also said Canada’s counter-tariffs would not affect auto parts.
Though Carney said Canada still considers the US an ally in defense and security, his country “must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy and to protect our sovereignty.”
Where will all this end? Look for a World Wide RECESSION.
Coast Contact 