Raw Story

Trump mocked for midnight brag about dementia test he says proves 'extreme intelligence'

16 hours agoFar Left

Donald Trump posted to Truth Social in the middle of the night Saturday to boast about scoring a perfect 30 out of 30 on a cognitive screening test, calling it evidence of "extreme intelligence" and claiming no other president has taken such a test — and by morning, critics were lining up to explain why nearly every part of that claim was wrong.Trump wrote that he had now taken the test four times, accumulating "120 correct answers out of 120 questions asked," and demanded to know if "the Dumocrats" were "really surprised."The problem, multiple experts and commentators noted, is that the Montreal Cognitive Assessment is not an intelligence test. It is a screening tool for dementia."Trump's '30 out of 30' score was a Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is a screening test for dementia," wrote Bad Fox Graphics. "It is not an IQ test. Repeating it at short intervals would indicate a physician is concerned about rapidly developing cognitive impairment."Project management and finance professional Laurence Boorstein went further, noting that a score of 26 to 30 is categorized as "normal cognitive performance" — not extreme intelligence. "A 'perfect' score of 30 does not imply 'extreme intelligence' because the 10-minute MoCA assessment is not an IQ test," he wrote, adding that there is no record of Trump ever having taken an actual IQ test. He also noted that Michael Cohen has reported threatening to sue Trump's schools if they revealed his grades or SAT scores.Former CNN mainstayJim Acosta highlighted what the test actually involves. According to Decoding Fox News, which cited Acosta's breakdown, the questions include: "What day is it? Where are you right now? Repeat this phrase." The post concluded: "That's it. That's the test."Political analyst Seth Abramson delivered the sharpest line. "In the decades-long history of extremely rudimentary, comically easy dementia tests, no dementia patient has bragged so frequently and with such quiveringly indignant jowls about taking them," he wrote.Others questioned why Trump keeps bringing it up at all. "If Trump is really as healthy as he claims, why would he and his propaganda team have to keep telling us so many times?" asked the Kentucky Statesman account.Host Chris Marcus kept it simpler: "Does he realize he sounds like a complete toolbox every time he writes a message bragging about something stupid?"

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Trump makes serious gaffe while bragging about his intelligence

Alternet.org

27 minutes ago

Trump makes serious gaffe while bragging about his intelligence

President Donald Trump bragged about his intelligence shortly after midnight on Sunday — but, in the process of doing so, made a fundamental mistake in explaining just how intelligence is measured.“I’m glad the president did well on the MOCA exam, but it’s a dementia screening tool, not an IQ test, so a score of 26 or higher represents normal cognitive performance, not extreme intelligence,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Professor of Medicine and Surgery Interventional Cardiologist at GW School of Medicine, posted on Sunday. “None of the questions are high difficulty.”Reiner was responding to a post the president posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, earlier on Sunday."The results of my Physical Examination, taken at Walter Reed Military Medical Center, and just released, were extremely good,” Trump wrote. “Unlike other U.S. Presidents, none of whom have ever taken an approved, high difficulty, Cognitive Test, I scored a perfect 30 out of 30, considered ‘extreme intelligence.’”He added, “Are the Dumocrats really surprised? In fact, this is my fourth such test, all PERFECT or, 120 correct answers out of 120 questions asked! It is very rare that anyone gets a Perfect Score, especially when achieved four times in a row. All people running for President and Vice President should be forced to take high difficulty Cognitive Tests. Congress, and the Dumocrats, should demand it! President DONALD J. TRUMP"Earlier this month, psychiatrist Dr. Henry Abraham — who formerly taught psychiatry at Tufts University — told AlterNet that he views much of Trump’s recent behavior as indicate of cognitive decline.“It’s a red flag,” Dr. Abraham told AlterNet. “People perseverate because they can’t think of anything else to say, because they’re cognitively impaired, or they perseverate because their emotional motor is stuck in high gear. In the last five to 10 years, he has planted red flags of concern again and again and again, and they’ve clustered.”Dr. Abraham added that, while Trump used to modulate his rhetoric for public opinion, his recent verbiage suggests that he struggles to “internalize certain control over his language.” For example, Trump at one point repeatedly mixed up Iceland and Greenland in a recent speech.“Not only did he have these kinds of linguistic failings, but he began to exhibit more and more signs of really rage and poor impulse control, and at night, what appeared to be manic kinds of episodes where he would tweet, you know, 100, 200 times a night,” Abraham explained.Speaking to this journalist for Salon in 2020, when there were widespread concerns about both Trump’s and future President Joe Biden’s cognitive fitness, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe broke down why Americans have a right to be familiar with their elected officials’ mental fitness for duty."The so-called 'concerns' that Trump, his family, and his acolytes are raising about the former Vice President aren't worthy of response," Tribe told Salon at the time. "I've known Biden for years and detect no loss of intellectual acumen. His slips of the tongue are legendary and, even if slightly more frequent these days, are nothing compared to the constant truly idiotic slips of the brain that characterize Trump. Had we not grown sadly accustomed to Trump's mangling of language, logic, syntax, and sense, we'd all be running for the exits."

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Here's what created Trump — and why we'll keep getting more of him

Raw Story

47 minutes ago

Here's what created Trump — and why we'll keep getting more of him

Friends,It’s impossible to understand American politics without also understanding the American economy (and vice versa). Politics and economics may be different disciplines but they’re two sides of the same coin.This came home to me again when I saw Thursday’s report on the U.S. gross domestic product.Numbers can be pretty boring but bear with me. Worker compensation—wages and benefits — grew 0.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026. Corporate profits grew 2.7 percent.When you adjust for inflation, hourly wages have risen 3 percent since the end of 2019. Corporate profits have risen 50 percent.Worker’s share of the nation’s income has now dropped to the lowest it’s been since records began in 1947. Profits’ share is the highest since 1950.Most people who depend on wages for a living are struggling, while a small minority at the top who own most shares of stock and private equity — that is, people who rely on capital gains — have never had it as good.The trend toward lower wages and higher profits began in the 1980s, increased in the 2000s, picked up speed after the pandemic, and is about to explode as Artificial Intelligence takes over.In coming months three companies centered on AI will go public — Space X, OpenAI, and Anthropic — with expected valuations of around $1 trillion each (reflecting the gargantuan profits investors expect). But what about workers?This is not just morally wrong. “Income from capital risks replacing income from labor,” Pope Leo wrote in Magnifica Humanitas, his encyclical letter devoted to the effects of AI, released this week.It also threatens the future stability of our economic and political system.What accounts for the increasing shift of the American economy from wages to profits, even before AI?One big reason is monopolization. The economy has become concentrated in a few giant corporations with the power both to raise prices and keep wages down.Sure, there are still lots of small businesses and mom-and-pop operations. But the gravitational center of the U.S. economy is now Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Kroger, United Health, Cigna, CVS, AT&T, Verizon, ExxonMobil, Chevron, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Vanguard, Fidelity, Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR.These giants control large swathes of the economy. They also exert significant political power. They’re like black holes in space, sucking in vast sums of money.Their political power makes it impossible to know whether government policy is based on the public interest or private gain.Consider Trump’s war in Iran and its resulting surge in energy prices. The energy-price rise has caused after-tax disposable income to drop and the profits of energy companies to soar. Did Trump decide to go to war because he thought it necessary, or because Big Oil nudged him into it?Workers, meanwhile, no longer have any countervailing power. In the 1950s, over a third of workers in the private sector were unionized. That gave them enough bargaining power to claim a significant share of the total economy. Now, only 6 percent of workers are unionized. Their bargaining power has been further eroded by their easy replacement by lower-wage workers in Asia and by software. AI will further erode it.This trend is not sustainable. It feeds growing anger at the system, which demagogues like Trump exploit for their own ends.What should be done? Let me list five steps (I’ll go into each in greater detail in coming months).1. For one thing, we’re going to need a new era of antitrust. Giant corporations will have to be busted up.2. We’ll also need to tax those at the top, especially on the value of their ownership of capital. (California voters will likely be asked to vote on a billionaire tax in November.)3. We’ll need regulate AI and simultaneously provide a universal basic income to cushion those who lose their jobs because of it.4. Universal health care will be a necessity (perhaps via Medicare for all) along with subsidized childcare and eldercare.5. Finally, we’ll need to distribute capital far more widely, so that the broad American public has a palpable stake in the rip-roaring stock market and the AI tsunami.None of these fixes will be easy. Even if all are implemented, they may still be insufficient.But, my friends, we have no choice but to try. We’ve already witnessed what mass anger can do to America, in the form of Trump. Unless we act soon, we’re likely to have Trumps, or worse, as far as the eye can see.

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Sen. Chris Murphy says Platner ‘made mistakes’ after explicit texts revealed

Washington Examiner

54 minutes ago

Sen. Chris Murphy says Platner ‘made mistakes’ after explicit texts revealed

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) on Sunday said Democratic candidate in Maine’s Senate race Graham Platner “made mistakes” after reports that his wife found sexually explicit texts with several women on his phone and brought it to his campaign’s attention. Speaking with CBS News’s Face the Nation, Murphy was asked if Platner passed the “character test” […]

Center Right

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Lindsey Graham pushes Trump toward ‘poison pill’ critics say will sink Iran deal

Raw Story

1 hour ago

Lindsey Graham pushes Trump toward ‘poison pill’ critics say will sink Iran deal

Following a recent conversation with President Donald Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham pressed the president Sunday to ditch a key demand of Tehran amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran peace negotiations, a proposal that has been described as a "poison pill” and a non-starter for Iranian officials.“In a recent conversation with President Trump, I affirmed my support for a deal with Iran that accepts President Trump’s demand to open up the Strait of Hormuz and start negotiations about forever ending their nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism,” Graham wrote in a social media post on X.“On a separate front, it is my belief that we must allow Israel to neutralize the threats the country faces from constant Hezbollah attacks emanating from Lebanon. It would be unconscionable to ask Israel to accept a ceasefire with Hezbollah given Hezbollah’s stated desire to destroy Israel and their constant attacks.”Iran has demanded that Israel halt its bombardment of Lebanon as a key condition in its negotiations with the Trump administration, an ask that Israel has largely ignored, despite Trump himself demanding as much last month. More than 3,100 Lebanese have been killed by Israeli air strikes since early March and nearly 10,000 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.Hezbollah has launched strikes into Israel in response to its military siege on Gaza, which countless human rights groups have labeled a genocide, strikes designed to divert Israel’s military away from Gaza and toward the Israel-Lebanon border to the north.And yet, despite Israel's halt of its invasion and bombardment of Lebanon being a non-negotiable demand of Iran's – and an explicit demand by Trump – Israel has expanded its military siege of its northern neighbor, most recently being accused of using white phosphorus bombs, an incendiary and waxy chemical that ignites when exposed to oxygen and burns at extreme temperatures, a potential war crime.“Any ceasefire with Hezbollah would allow them to re-arm and become stronger,” Graham continued. “In my view, there must not be any linkage between an Iran deal and Israel’s ability to fight back against Hezbollah’s unceasing aggression in Lebanon. Any deal with Iran that restricts Israel’s ability to fight back against Hamas and Hezbollah would be unwise.”In a recent conversation with President Trump, I affirmed my support for a deal with Iran that accepts President Trump’s demand to open up the Strait of Hormuz and start negotiations about forever ending their nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism. I have confidence that at… https://t.co/t9Ht9GS6qZ— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 31, 2026

Far Left

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Behind the shady people applying for Trump slush fund benefits

Alternet.org

2 hours ago

Behind the shady people applying for Trump slush fund benefits

Ever since President Donald Trump created a $1.8 billion slush fund for those among his supporters who claim to have been persecuted by the government, a host of controversial characters have applied for benefits.“The $1.8 billion fund was created by the Justice Department in a settlement with Trump in his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns,” wrote Forbes journalist Sara Dorn on Sunday. “Trump dropped the case in return and also agreed to drop two separate civil claims related to the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago and investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The money would come from a pool of taxpayer funds Congress established in 1956 to pay people who won lawsuits against the federal government.”Dorn added, “Trump has repeatedly claimed he wasn’t involved in creating the fund and that his lawyers negotiated it. He defended it in a post on Truth Social last week, claiming he ‘gave up a lot of money’ in allowing it to move forward, but instead he is ‘helping others, who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt, and weaponized Biden Administration, receive, at long last, JUSTICE!’”The list of Trump supporters seeking payouts include former Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Michael Caputo, former Rep. George Santos (R-NY), political consultant Roger Stone, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, lawyer Mark McCloskey, former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Jan. 6th rioter Adam Johnson, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D-IL), former Trump campaign aid Sam Nunberg, anti-abortion activists, Moms for Liberty, Michigan fake electors and numerous additional Jan. 6th insurrectionists.The large list of applicants are there for a number of reasons. Lindell, Peters, Tarrio, Johnson, the Michigan fake electors and the Jan. 6th insurrectionists all tried to help Trump overturn his democratic loss in the 2020 presidential election. Caputo and Nunberg claim to have been wronged during the investigation into Trump’s ties to the Russian government. Santos and Blagojevich are elected officials who resigned in disgrace due to corruption scandals unrelated to Trump. McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges after he and his wife waved guns at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters. Still others on the list have various claims of being persecuted by the federal government for their beliefs.In the end, all of them may be disappointed. On Friday a federal judge in Virginia has temporarily blocked disbursement of the $1.8 billion fund on the grounds that the fund may be illegal. On June 12 the Trump administration will need to appear before the court to prove that the $1.8 billion fund does not constitute a form of self-dealing."Because full briefing of the issue will enhance the ability of the Court to make a sound decision, plaintiffs Expedited Motion, is DENIED and defendants' request for additional time is GRANTED; however, to ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed from the Anti-Weaponziation,” Brinkema wrote. “Fund while plaintiffs' Motion is pending it is hereby ORDERED that defendants be and are ENJOINED from taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the dispersing of any funds from the Fund…’ the order says.”The judge added in a footnote, ‘It is important that the status quo be maintained until plaintiffs' pending Motion has been resolved, especially as plaintiffs allege in their Expedited Motion that defense counsel 'was unable to provide assurances of how long [the] status quo would last' and declined plaintiffs' 'request that the government commit to not transferring money to the Fund or processing or paying claims until at least June 19 to allow for less compressed briefing in this case.’”

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