Showing posts with label George Santos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Santos. Show all posts

May 12, 2023

Some thoughts about Tucker Carlson, Joe and Hunter Biden, George Santos, and Kaitlan Collins

 



On Tucker Carlson trying to build an audience on Twitter

I just don't think this will make much of a splash, more of a ripple. Fox is the only venue that could give him the kind of audience he wants. Not only this, but he needs to be on television not on a computer screen. Even if Newsmax payed him more than Fox did, thus enabling him to get on a TV screen, I doubt people will break their Fox News habit to tune into another station. A lot depends on Fox's programming during whatever time Tucker is on Newsmax.  

Bottom line, Musk needs Tucker more than Tucker needs Musk. I think Tucker is toast, stale, burnt toast and Musk is a moldy melon. Both will end up in a compost heap.

On the GOP quest to implicate President Biden in some kind of criminal activity involving his supposed consiglieri master spy Hunter Biden:

Hmmm... who are you going to believe really bad things about? Donald Trump who lived all his adult, or I should put this is George Santos fashion as his "adultish" life, as a sadistic sociopath out only for himself, or Joe Biden who possibly once transgressed by wearing mismatched socks.

While on George Santos:

While as someone with actual expertise in making psychiatric diagnoses I've concluded at Donald Trump is a malignant (sociopathic) sadistic grandiose narcissist and Hershel Walker most likely still suffers from dissociative identity disorder. I can't come up with what, if any, psychiatric disorder George Santos suffers from. He has managed to put the word "fabulist" associated with his lying into discussions about him. Thus I do give him credit for improving the vocabulary of lots of people.

Fabulist: a liar, especially a person who invents elaborate, dishonest storiesa born fabulist, with an imagination unfettered by the laws of logic and probability.

On CNN's Kaitlan Collins, dice, and the Mafia

As someone who watches MSNBC and doesn't ever tune into CNN I wasn't familiar with this so-called rising CNN star. I was talking about her with my partner and said that she could have made her bones if she'd managed to hold Trump's feet to the fire when she interviewed him. I had to explain where the idiom "make your bones" came from. For those who aren't fans of The Godfather and the Sopranos where the phase is used to describe establishing one's reputation by killing someone. 

If Collins had killed it by nailing Trump she would have made her bones. There are so many gotcha follow-up questions she could have insisted he answer. I would have liked him to explain exactly what he meant when he said E. Jean Carroll was a wack job this this often means someone is mentally ill.

While the bones derivation might come from establishing one's bona fides, I think it comes from the game of craps.Dice were originally made from actual bones. Thus making your bones would mean winning at a game once played with bones.



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May 10, 2023

Maybe George Soros had his Jewish space laser scrambling the brains of the E. Jean Carroll jurors., Plus George Santos

 By Hal Brown, trying to think of something remotely original to write about the verdict of the E. Jean Carroll trial

Trump rants about the evil corrupt Democrat judge failing of course to address the fact that it was a jury of nine New Yorkers who found him liable and decided how much he had to pay.

Republicans with the rare exception of Mitt Romney either refuse to comment or give mealy mouth answers when asked their opinions about this.

Some are defining the phrase doubling down in expressing how their support of Donald Tump has increased since the verdict. Case in point, Sen. Tommy Tuberville who said it made him want to vote for him twice.


Pence wins the Academy of Lame Irrelevancy Award for his saying that in all his years of knowing Trump he never heard or witnessed behavior of that nature. Talk about a lame way to try to avoid giving his opinion about whether Trump was fit to be president. As if Trump would disabuse his holier than thou vice president of his belief that the most righteous one is actually a crude decidedly unchristian misogynist who has a history os sexual assaulting women. How lame is Pence's comment? This lame:



Across the country there are two basic group of Trump worshippers reacting to this verdict. One group is composed of those who agree with Trump's claim that it never happened and he didn't even know who E. Jean Carroll was (despite this photographic evidence to the contrary). They believe in one or another, or perhaps all, of the possible conspiracies which led to this outcome.

Then there's another group who may or may not think the charges are bullshit. In a way these people, mostly men but some women, think that Trump was entitled to sexually assault E. Jean Carroll because he's some sort of testosterone fueled god. I have no doubt that there are men who envy Trump for having gotten away with sexually assaulting so many women. The more the merrier could be their motto.

These sexual predator wannabes wish they were famous enough so they could roam the aisle of high end women's clothing stores and target women they found attractive and have their way with them in convenient dressing rooms.

As for the hopefully small group of Trump supporters who suffer from delusional psychiatric disorders I suppose it is possible a few believe in far-out, literally far far out explanations for the verdict. After all, George Soros supposedly has powers few if any other mortals possess and lasers are amazing. It wouldn't take a leap of their imagination for these pathetic people to be convinced he had his orbiting mythical machine zapping the brains of the E. Jean Carroll jurors into finding Trump guilty.

Among the GOP professional political prognosticators there are many who know that while Trump may cruise to victory in the primary he is likely to lose in the general election. A good example of this comes from the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal.

I expect that at some time an entrepreneur in New York City will start a MAGA bus tour where Trump cult members can hop on a bus and gawk at the various sites significant in Trump's life.

Lower right, Trump visited this German restaurant in 2007 because his head of security at the time was friends with the owners. He autographed a photo of himself. Later the owners took the photo off the wall when patrons complained.

Revealed on "Morning Joe" this morning: "He did it and you know it" is what E. Jean Carroll told Joe Tapocina when they saw each other and shook hands after the trial. She said she looked him right in the eyes.

I think it is fitting that she decided to go on "Morning Joe" today.  She appeared with one of her lawyers, Roberta Kaplan. This is a show that Trump is known to watch at least occasionally.

“Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski mocked former President Trump for sending a statement attacking the MSNBC show. 

“From: 

‘Morning Joe’ hosts mock Trump

From Trump: Will ‘Morning Joe’ be canceled? He and Mika’s ratings are very low—they are having an extremely hard time finding an audience to listen to the Fake News they spurn,” Trump said in his statement. “Losing them would be very sad—hope it doesn’t happen!”


“A couple things here,” Scarborough said, grinning, as he sipped his iced coffee. “I’ve never heard him talk about spurn. Using that as a word. I don’t use the word.” 

“Secondly,” Scarborough said of Trump, “he can’t quit us.” 

“Even had to say, ‘It’d be a shame.’ I’m surprised, we’ve been talking football for two hours,” he added. 

The panel on the show laughed as they read a chyron displayed on the screen during the segment that read: “Morning Joe thanks faithful viewer: Florida retiree sends thoughts on show.” 

I am glad to have been able to see E. Jean Carroll on TV this morning. I found her to be both engaging and forthright. I can see how the jury ruled in her favor. Comparing someone testifying with sincerity and genuine feeling in person, and being cross-examined in an unempathic way, with the video deposition of Trump it had to be a simple task for the jury to decide who to believe. The short deliberation which came as a surprise to legal observers attests to this.

Just a bit of snark:

Trump posted this on Truth Social:

"I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE - A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!"

My take on this:

Trump with his mother, click image to enlarge

On another subject:


This is unrelated to the Carroll-Trump case but very much related to justice. We have the arrest of George Santos on federal charges which if convicted could land him in prison. There are several elements to the Santos case in addition to what will be his fate. One of course is that he has been a big time embarrassment to Republicans. The other, more significantly, is that Kevin McCarthy is hamstrung in being able to pressure him to resign since he needs his vote on the dept ceiling.

Note how this morning the Santos story was top of the website in The Washington Post, inflation number two, and the Trump verdict number three:

The verdict story was even lower down The New York Times website:

On another subject

Comer fails to link president in Biden family probe

The Oversight chair revealed Wednesday that Biden family members, business associates or related companies received more than $10 million from companies run by foreign nationals. He showed no connection to Joe Biden.




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January 27, 2023

Trump's secret plan for easily ending the war in Ukraine, Santos, and other schadenfreude tidbits

 Trump's secret plan for easily ending the war in Ukraine, Santos, and other schadenfreude tidbits
By Hal Brown


A link to this was in my email this morning:

Click above to read article
The article leads with these points:

  • Donald Trump appeared to criticize a decision by the US and Germany to provide tanks to Ukraine.
  • "FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES," Trump said on his social media platform.
  • Trump also suggested ending the war in Ukraine would be "easy," without elaborating.

    At first blush on reading this I wondered what easy plan the man with the biggest brain had for ending the war which he was withholding, perhaps figuring he could sell it to President Zelensky or his pal Putin or even the fake president, Joe Biden.

    Then it occurred to me. What a dummy I was. Of course the easy way to end the war would be for Ukraine to unconditionally surrender.

    This would no doubt make Marjorie Taylor Greene happy:
    Her tweet led to these replies:

    In case you read my blog about Greene's aspirations before I tweaked my original illustration which just depicted her inside of the presidential seal, here's the new improved photoshop.

    Back to Trump:

    I wrote a few days ago that Trump's having Truth Social is a gift to prosecutors. I wrote that Trump behaves like a child who has problems with impulse control who is having a temper tantrum when he doesn't get his way. Once a tantrum starts there's a point of no return where the child, or adult in people like Trump, is no longer considering the negative consequences. 

    Trump can't restrain himself and perhaps with no-one around to vent to or make ridiculous self-aggrandizing claims to he takes to Truth Social where what he expresses can't be erased. From journalists tasked to monitor Truth Social to ordinary citizens there are many people making screen grabs of whatever he posts there.

    Here's an example. He posted this on Truth Social:

     “Does Coco Chow have anything to do with Joe Biden’s Classified Documents being sent and stored in Chinatown?” Trump wrote. “Her husband, the Old Broken Crow, is VERY close to Biden, the Democrats, and, of course, China.”

    Excerpt:

    Former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao fired back at former President Donald Trump for his racist remarks about her — insisting his attacks reveal “a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.” 

    Chao, 69 — who has frequently been referred to by the former president as “Coco Chow” — issued the rare rebuke on Tuesday.


    Yesterday's National Review article referencing Truth Social was just reported on again on Morning Joe:


    And then there's George, or whatever his name is:

    This offers a lot of schadenfreude: 

    Kevin McCarthy "stands by" George Santos: Now the MAGA caucus owns his lies

    The Republican Party's illicit affair with a con man has already gone south. But Kevin McCarthy can't let go

    It is unusual, if not unprecedented, for a freshman member of Congress to make the top of the Washington Post website the way Santos has.
    Here's another story from the Post:

    This is breaking news Friday evening - I did add something to the photo:





    I thought it was interesting that website of The New York Times (see image) didn't have a single article about Santos.

    I blogged about George Santos yesterday and by this morning couldn't keep up with the new revelations about him to add to that story.


    Click above to read article
    Excerpt:

    The Wiki entry, last edited in 2011, appears to match up with biographical information currently provided by Santos, including his birth date and being born to a Brazilian family with a European background, Politico reported Friday.


    It also claims “Devolder” acted in a movie starring Uma Thurman and appeared in the TV series “Hanna Montana,” an apparent misspelled reference to a Disney show that starred Miley Cyrus, noted The New York Post.


    Any appearances as a drag queen by Santos could cause a meltdown within the Republican Party, whose members have very specifically attacked drag performances as part of their anti-LGBTQ hate campaign.

    On Jan. 11th I wrote Santos leads the GOP in eliciting Schadenfreude, no doubt more to come. No doubt, indeed, here it is Jan. 27th and he has been a gift that keeps on giving me pleasure, or schadenfreude if you prefer: 


    Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another. It is a borrowed word from German, with no direct translation, that originated in the 18th century. . Wikipedia

    There's more schadenfreude eliciting news. 


    While the report that John Eastman seems likely to get disbarred, and that Marjorie Taylor Greene had an amendment about releasing oil from the reserves defeated in the House 418 to 14


    The most promising pleasure I am hesitant to let reach the level of schadenfreude is the news reported here:

    Click above to read article




    Also read: 


    Bill Barr asked Italian officials to discredit Russia probe — they responded with evidence linking Trump to crimes


    I am hesitant to let myself feel too optimistic about this. It could lead once and for all to proving that the dots are clearly connected proving Putin attempted to get Trump reelected. Ideally we may learn that the attempt to prove that the there was no effort by Putin to influence the election could prove the very opposite.


    I just don't want to get my hopes up since Trump seems to have the most tenacious Teflon in the world. Not only that, whenever I indulge in schadenfreude in excess I come across articles like this: 

    The quiet takeover of the Tea Party: GOP establishment is now full MAGA

    Click above to read
    Excerpt:

    Meanwhile, the MAGA movement, under Trump, took up what was once the undercurrent of the Tea Party movement, the culture war, and brought it to center stage. No longer did anyone have to pretend that all they cared about was spending cuts. They could hate on immigrants and Black people and gays and liberals right out in the open and could do it in the crudest terms possible. Conspiracy theories were encouraged to flourish and loyalty to Trump was the only "issue" they needed to care about.

    This new Congress finally brings it all to the fore. It's all come together. The anti-tax, government-slashing extremists are one with the revolutionary MAGA culture warriors. Today Speaker Kevin McCarthy embraces Freedom Caucus member and MAGA heroine Marjorie Taylor Greene while Freedom Caucus founder and MAGA leader Jim Jordan leads a crusade to "take down the deep state" and Freedom Caucus member and MAGA superstar Matt Gaetz plots ways to destroy the economy if they don't get their way. They are all one. These former gadflies and bomb throwers are the establishment now. They are the Republican Party. The metamorphosis is finally complete.

    File these under semi-schadenfreude:

    Trump slapped down by judge in bid to avoid Jan. 6 Capitol cop trial


    McCarthy allies scrambling after leadership fight eroded his power: report


     

    January 26, 2023

    Medical Mysteries: Diagnose Trump and Santos

     Medical Mysteries: Diagnose Trump and Santos
    By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist and mental health center director

    I subscribe to a medical newsletter which regularly has a "medical mystery" article which has a quiz of sorts where a patient is described with a list of presenting problems and symptoms. Then the reader goes through a number of pages which asks questions as to what the reader thinks the diagnosis is. The New Yorker may not be publishing these anymore, but they used to have articles about medical mysteries where a  patient presented with unusual symptoms and the quest to determine the rare disorder was described.

    Now we have two politicians who present a psychiatric diagnostic conundrum. 

    Trump was the easiest until recently. Numerous mental health professionals went public explaining how he fit the (unofficial) diagnostic criteria for being a malignant narcissist. By now I should have the link to this Wikipedia entry memorized having posted it so often in my articles.

    Today we have two Raw Story articles related to Trump's mental health:

    Click above to read

    George Conway isn't a mental health professional and may or may not be using the reference to losing touch with reality colloquially or clinically. Perhaps he means them both way since he has demonstrated that he's psychologically very well informed. Not being in touch with reality, that is being able to differentiate what is real from what isn't real (called "reality testing") is a hallmark of someone who is on the verge of having a psychotic episode or already being psychotic. 

    This summarized an article in the conservative National Review:

    Click above to read

    Consider this excerpt:

    National Review columnist Charles C.W. Cooke believes that former President Donald Trump has been more unhinged than usual, and his latest essay examines what he describes as Trump's "deterioration" as observed through his Truth Social posts.

    Cooke describes Trump as "ranting like a deranged hobo in a dilapidated public park" and he notes that his Truth Social posts are loaded with esoteric references that only his diehard fans can even begin to understand.

    Note the words unhinged and deranged both of which are slang for someone who is be psychotic. The message being conveyed here is that his behavior has worsened to the point he may be veering into psychosis.

    HUFFPOST had this article about the Cooke piece in The Wall Street Journal and offered this excerpt:

    “There was a point in time at which Trump’s unusual verbal affect and singular nose for underutilized wedge issues gave him a competitive edge. Now? Now, he’s morphing into one of the three witches from Macbeth. To peruse Trump’s account on Truth Social is to meet a cast of characters about whom nobody who lives beyond the Trump Extended Universe could possibly care one whit.”

    I used up my last free Wall Street Journal click to read the article and noted the first sentence: "The former president’s deterioration is on full display in the Truth Social asylum he built for himself." The word deterioration is often used in psychiatry and in the same sentence with asylum it seems the writer is making the case that Trump is ready for the rubber room.

    Here's how the WSJ article ends:

    Throughout his public career, Trump has resembled nothing so much as a drunken talk-radio caller from Queens, and, on Truth Social, readers get the treat of watching him at the zenith of his rhetorical powers. Nobody — and I mean nobody — can shift gears as fast as Donald J. Trump. One moment he’s proposing that the solution to the Supreme Court leak is to “arrest the reporter, publisher, editor—you’ll get your answer fast,” or, if that fails, “put whoever in jail.” The next, he’s describing the prosecution of his business associate, Allen Weisselberg, as “the greatest Witch Hunt of all time.” His repertoire is unmatched — and unmatchable. He can do edgy insult comedy for the people listening in at the bar: “The reporter was a shaky & unattractive wack job, known as ‘tough’ but dumb as a rock.” He can make numbers up off the top of his head: “The change in the Election was Complete & Total, with Millions of votes switched, at least 17%.” He can use hyperbolic analogies: “Our Country is SICK inside, very much like a person dying of Cancer.” He can even do angry: “May he Rot In Hell!” He can do anything.

    Anything, that is, except focus on the world outside — where the problems that Donald Trump once used to propel himself into the White House remain real and pressing, whether or not he chooses to engage with them.

    Several times a week it seems there are news reports of Trump lying with no regard for, or not caring about, the bad publicity it will generate. For example: 

    Click above for MSNBC story.

    We know Trump is impulsive. We don't know if he has an impulse control disorder, or whether his impulsivity is part of another disorder.

    In this age of QAnon and election denial there are so many people who believe things that are both irrational and false that researchers have looked into and discovered that the rates of people suffering from mental illness are much higher. than previously thought. Consider this article in The Conversation: 

    Many QAnon followers report having mental health diagnoses

    Back in 2020 I wrote 

    What psychotherapists can't tell us about Donald Trump. Why does he lie? Will be become psychotic?

    Hardly a day goes by that one or more Trump Truth Social posts make the news. Many of them are rants that come close to or cross the border between rationality and irrationality. 






    As far as George Santos goes, just this morning there are the following articles on Raw Story:

    Clockwise from left by first words in title: Bizarre, Complete Chaos, Man Listed, Critics rip.

    Since putting together this story collage another Santos story went up on Raw Story:
    Click above to read
    Updates: 

    George Santos made 'offensive' past joke about Hitler and 'The Jews': report




    Posted Fri. Jan. 27:

    George Santos appears to admit drag queen past in Wiki post

    A user with the name Anthony Devolder wrote in 2011 that they won several drag pageants. Anthony Devolder is a Santos alias.


    All of these articles paint a somewhat different picture of Santos but what they have in common is that they describe someone who, to be trite, just isn't normal.

    Over my 40 years as a psychotherapist diagnosing uncountable patients I find Santos to be presenting a medical, or psychiatric if you prefer, mystery. Diagnostically the question about Trump and his diagnosis is easier because he has, probably since early adulthood, been a malignant narcissist. 

    Currently the question, the mystery, is whether or not he is either becoming irrational because he is having narcissistic rage episodes (read article) or is becoming psychotic.

    Santos may just be a stupid sociopath (now called anti-social personality):

    Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental disorder in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder tend to antagonize, manipulate or treat others harshly or with callous indifference. They show no guilt or remorse for their behavior. Reference
    Most addressing this in the general media seem to believe this is the case and don't go deeper by delving into other possible explanations for his behavior.

    There are other possibilities. 

    The first that comes to mind may be the least plausible but I think of it because of Hershel Walker. Walker wrote a book (probably ghost written) about how he overcame having a dissociative identity disorder, commonly called multiple personality disorder. I am skeptical about the truth of this but it does explain some of Walker's behavior. It also could explain some of Santos's behavior. While most common in women who were sexually abused as children, it conceivable that Santos actually has different personalities (called alters) some of who have amnesia for that the others do.

    We do know that Santos, on the surface at least, is a serial liar since it isn't telling a lie if you don't remember doing something you really did. There's no official psychiatric diagnosis for being a serial liar. Like Trump, Santos has lied many times and paid no heed to the fact that his lies could easily be exposed as such. Of course if it was a horse race Trump would cross the finish line while Santos was just leaving the starting gate.

    Santos could have a borderline personality disorder, also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder. This is a personality disorder characterized by a long-term pattern of unstable interpersonal relationships, distorted sense of self, and strong emotional reactions.Wikipedia

    My sense is that there is evidence he has histrionic personality disorder. It is defined as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive attention-seeking behaviors, usually beginning in early childhood, including inappropriate seduction and an excessive desire for approval.Wikipedia

    No matter what one might deign to diagnose either of these individuals as having Trump is exponentially more dangerous since his cult doesn't care whether he's batshit crazy or not.  Santos is a gift to Democrats. Read  Santos leads the GOP in eliciting Schadenfreude, no doubt more to come.

     Watch satire of supporters of George Santos from his home district explain why they support him:

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