Something is wrong. Trump was a bit quiet this week.

Donald Trump is claiming he cannot be sued now that he has won the White House — a defense in a lawsuit that alleges Trump incited rally-goers to violence when they allegedly assaulted protesters during the 2016 campaign. The lawsuit also names Trump for allegedly inciting the men’s actions, pointing to Trump telling the crowd, “Get them out of here” with regard to protesters during the rally. Trump’s lawyers contended that Trump was speaking to security and not the crowd. The judge said no. But in Clinton v. Jones, judges ruled that Bill Clinton’s “actions” against Paula Jones occurred before he was president. We’ll see who foots the bill for the legal stuff…. Ya. The taxpayer I’m sure.

Trump had no intention of making his public. Democrats have seized on that decision, uniting around a pledge not to cooperate on any rewriting of the tax code unless they know specifically how that revision would benefit the billionaire president and his family. The Trump administration’s tax plan, promised in February, has yet to materialize. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the administration’s goal of getting a tax plan signed by August was “not realistic at this point.” The potential repeal of the estate tax or elimination of the alternative minimum tax as provisions would enrich Trump. More than a dozen Republicans have agreed that Mr. Trump should release his returns.

Allan Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University, has stated there are 8 reasons why Trump could be impeached. On top of the list is if Trump knew about or participated in Russia’s role in the elections last year. Second on the list is if Trump has received any foreign money or gifts while being president. The latter is because of his supposedly dealings in Russia and elsewhere. “Donald Trump is the president most vulnerable to impeachment among all first-time elected American presidents.”

Trump will sign an executive order that will stop short of the one- to two-year moratorium on new skilled worker visas that Trump called for during the campaign. It comes too late to have a direct effect on this year’s visa season, which opened April 3. Trump has accused mostly information technology companies of “importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young college-trained Americans” except few companies give H-1B visa employees “low-wage” salaries for them.

At an executive order signing this week, Trump went after the Canadian dairy industry saying Canada’s supply-managed dairy industry is “very unfair” to U.S. farmers and “another typical one-sided deal against the United States.” Once again he doesn’t know the facts. United States “heavily subsidizes” their agricultural sector. Imports of U.S. milk products have increased since 199, and now account for three-quarters of milk products in Canada. U.S. farmers have claimed they are losing up the US$150 million per year because of heavy import tariffs on ultra-filtered milk used to produce cheese. Obviously not from Canada.

In a special election to replace new Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in Georgia’s 6th District — long a reliable Republican stronghold Trump tweeted “The super Liberal Democrat in the Georgia Congressioal [it is how Trump typed it] race tomorrow wants to protect criminals, allow illegal immigration and raise taxes!” Standard propaganda from the right. Meanwhile he urged Republicans to vote for any Republican. But that would split the vote instead of selecting a single candidate. Expect Trump to take credit if the Republicans win the seat claiming it is the voters who are approving his policies.

In the end, in the special election, in a conservative stronghold, the Democrat ultimately fell just short of the percent needed to avoid a runoff. There will be a June 20th runoff between the Democrat and a Republican. The Democrat fell 1.9% short. Combined with the votes of the four other Democrats that ran [assuming roughly the same number of people vote and vote by party], the Democrats could pull off a big victory. Mitt Romney won by 23 points in 2012. Tom Price won 62% of the vote in 2016 before being named health and human services secretary.

Laughingly Trump tweeted after “Dems failed in Kansas and are now failing in Georgia. Great job Karen Handel!” Doesn’t he know there is a runoff? Doesn’t he know how many voters the GOP lost in just 5 months?

He also tweeted “Despite major outside money, FAKE media support & eleven Republican candidates, BIG “R” win with runoff in Georgia. Glad to be of help!” Yup. He helped in almost costing the GOP the election.

Karen Handel will make residency the central issue of the runoff since the Democrat contender doesn’t live in the district. He use to and said he’d move back there. That’s the only thing she could think of?

Residency? Federal laws says Members of Congress only need to live in the state they represent but he doesn’t represent them…. Yet. The law says nothing about living in the district.

The US government could shut down at the end of April [or early/mid-May if an extension] if the parties don’t agree on spending issues. Already Trump’s wall, Obamacare, military spending, research and other aspects could affect things. On top of that the GOP’s Freedom Caucus is against any extra spending. So Trump’s people may have to try and get some Democrats on their side. Good luck. You know who Trump will blame if there is a shut down – and it won’t be the Freedom Caucus.

Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, was hammered recently during a town hall while defending President Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns.

Funny how Trump called China a currency manipulator during the election campaign and now doesn’t because China is supposedly helping in trying to straighten out North Korea. So when you help Trump, everything Trump previously said about you goes out the door.

A new Gallup poll shows that only 45% of people surveyed trust President Trump to keep his promises, a 17% decrease from February.

Trump has become the first Western leader to congratulate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for winning a controversial referendum that grants him far-reaching, largely unchecked powers. So one dictator-wanna-be congratulates the latest dictator. No western governments have congratulated Erdpgan in is power grab.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he was not disrespecting Hawaii or a judge in the state when he said he was “amazed” that the official was able to block President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban halting immigration from several majority Muslim countries. I guess Sessions doesn’t believe in democracy.

Trump had Kid Rock, Sarah “There’s Russia” Palin and Ted “Motor City Madman” [a.k.a. nut ball] Nugent over for dinner [see here]. What a motley crew. Palin and the others also were in the Oval office. I guess Palin finally got to go in there. The background picture is a portrait of Hillary Clinton, which hangs in the White House basement along with paintings of other first ladies. The basement? [Palin recently said that the women in former Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly scandal should of resigned. Why should they resign when he is guilty.]

Ivanka Trump’s company won provisional approval from the Chinese government for three new trademarks, giving it monopoly rights to sell Ivanka brand jewelry, bags and spa services in the world’s second-largest economy. That night, the first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, sat next to the president of China and his wife for a steak and Dover sole dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Coincidence? Meanwhile, even with some boycotting [and her father’s Twitter tirades about them], U.S. imports, almost all of them from China, shot up an estimated 166 per cent last year, while sales hit record levels in 2017. Ivanka Trump Marks LLC applied for at least nine new trademarks in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Canada and the U.S. after the election.

Super Bowl winners, the New England Patriots, visited the White House. Absent were at least 7 members including Tom Brady who cited “family matters”. Trump is supposedly a big fan and friend of Brady, Patriots owner Bob Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick. During the election Brady never publicly endorsed Trump even though Trump claimed [hmmm] that he did.

Emirates, the Middle East’s biggest airline, said that it is cutting flights to the United States because of a drop in demand caused by heightened U.S. security measures and Trump administration attempts to ban travelers from Muslim-majority nations.

Interesting to note that at this time into the first term for George W. Bush, he visited roughly have the states in America. Barack Obama had visited a bunch of states plus 3 visits elsewhere. Trump? He has visited his Mar-a-Lago compound/resort more times than the number of states he visited [seven] and visits elsewhere [none] during the same period as the other two. Trump does seem to like receiving dignitaries [sounds like something a king would do].

Out of control US election spending

Maybe it’s just me or the spending in US politics is out of control.

Here is a perfect example. Sarah Palin, who was the running mate to John McCain in the 2008 elections has her own PAC [political action committee -a group formed to raise and contribute money to the campaigns of candidates likely to advance the group’s interests].

In 2014, her PC received $3.1 million in donations but only 7% went to candidates her PAC was supporting. About the same amount went to administrative travel and lodging, while the bulk went to fundraising. HSP Direct of Ashburn, Virginia received a big chunk of the PAC’s money. The company handles direct-mail appeals and the company’s web site even has Palin’s endorsement.

Of course something like $220,000 given to supporters is a bad return on investors. So about $1.8 million for administrative expenses and to generate donations.

Doesn’t look good this current cycle. Only $25,000 was give out to supporters, $394,000 on fundraising, and about $72,000 for administrative costs [lawyers, accountants, travel, web site upkeep, etc.]. Also paid were three consultants for logistics, fundraising consultant and three [!] speech writers.

If you use the current data above, $460,000 used for administrative purposes, $1.35 million to HSP Direct. So sent HSP Direct $1.35 million to get back $220,000 in donations. Great ratio of return. Not.

As an unelected citizen, accountable to nobody, Palin owes the public no explanation for how she raises and spends her money. In theory, she could pocket the rest. You can therefore say that really anyone can create a PAC.

Of course in the last Presidential election in 2012, the Democratic Party raised $1.072 billion and spend $0.985 billion. The Republican Party raised $0.992 billion and spent just about the same. This excludes the money spent in the primaries and other which lasted a while. Some talk that the last election cost over $4 billion.

In Canada, there is a limit of what a candidate can spend. For example, in the 2011 elections, the Conservative Party received [just] $23 million in individual contributions. [Yes, the US has about 11 times the population of Canada.]

Even with charities in Canada, a small percentage [maybe at most 25%] must be used for administrative expenses with the remainder going to the organization [the reason why there are donations made].

Mitt Roney’s Hotmail and Dropbox accounts hacked

The Hotmail and Dropbox accounts of US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney appear to have been hacked. This will follow a hack of Sarah Palin’s account on Yahoo almost four years ago.

So far there is no confirmation of the hack from the Romney camp, which was first reported by a news site Gawker, but a statement made by a communication director saying it is under investigation.

Gawker said they were contacted by someone who said that Romney’s Hotmail account was hack. Allegedly, the account hasn’t been used since 2006 and yet was kept alive for the last six years. [Hotmail will generally kill accounts that haven’t been activated for 90 (or maybe 180) days].

The hacker is said to have bypassed Hotmail security by correctly answering the security reset question ‘what is your favourite pet?’  It turns out that is also the password for Romney’s Dropbox account.

When the address was published in a story by the Wall Street Journal recently, the hacker checked to see if it was hackable.

The hacker didn’t leak any contents unlike the contents of Sarah Palin’s yahoo.com account which were leaked in 2008.

One has to wonder why Romney has a Dropbox. Using a public cloud site for possible sensitive information isn’t a good idea. Neither is using [from what it looks like is] a simple password.