Whether they're dim bulbs or bright lights, does it really matter?

 

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By Hal Brown

Heather "Digby" Parton wrote this about Sen. Tommy Tuberville:

"Whether he's dim or whether he's calculated, it really doesn't matter."

It is from her Salon article: 

Senate Republicans grow more radical in the minority

Mitch McConnell may soon have a Freedom Caucus of his own to contend with

In context:

After the media went into a frenzy on Tuesday, he did finally relent and admit that that white nationalism is racist but it's pretty clear that he doesn't believe that. Like his brethren in the House Freedom Caucus, Tommy Tuberville is a MAGA performance artist and he put on quite a show. Whether he's dim or whether he's calculated, it really doesn't matter.

In one respect she's correct, although in another she's not. It does matter. This doesn't apply just to Tommy Tuberville, but to all the ultra-MAGA group from those making the news to the clownish crowds at Trump rallies and others who make up both the Trump cult MAGAs the no longer Trump worshipping MAGA world.

Consider, just in the news, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo and her newsest conspiracy theory (here) 

Ask whether it matters whether or not she believes this. If she does she's not only a dim bulb but a demented bulb who needs psychiatric intervention. After all, what Philip Bump is describing as unmoored means unmoorred from reality and this is a sign of severe mental illness.

Then there's Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) who suggested "penguins" were to blame when scientists testified that Covid-19 was created in nature (story here). She was questioning scientists testifying about the origins of Covid at a House Oversight Committee meeting:

"The scientific literature, you know, the publication of the pangolin genomic sequence showed that there was a receptor binding domain," Garry said. "And it was a very important piece of data because it showed that a lot of the theories about, you know, the virus having been engineered or put together in a laboratory were not true because here was a virus in nature that had a receptor binding domain with exactly the same structure."

Malliotakis confused the research on pangolins, which resembles an anteater, with penguins.

"I just find it all interesting based on what my other colleague here, the chairman of the committee, said in reply to the issue of the penguins," she said.

To give her the benefit of the doubt I'd say her bulb is rather dim when it comes to science, nature, and even common sense considering the fact that penguins live in Antartica. Perhaps it was just a slip of the tongue since lots of people don't know what pangolins are.

Then we come to the more notorious well-known purveyors of conspiracy hokuum from the once mighty Tucker Carlson to Marjorie Taylor Greene and  those who mouth the nonsense promoted by QAnon. 

Those with a brand to sell, whether politicians or pundits on the far-right, have a motive to spit the silly and stupid to the gullible. At the worst they pander hate and fear to their audience. Case in point, yet another timely example comes from Fox News host Jesse Watters who is heir apparent to Tucker Carlson:

'People told me' I have 'done more for women’s sports than Meg Rapinoe'

Excerpt:

Watters then declared, without citing any sources, that "some people have told me that I have actually done more for women's sports than Meg Rapinoe has done, that maybe she's a traitor in the war on women and I have fought valiantly in that war, obviously on the women's side. And that's not me saying that, and I actually disagree with that. I'm just saying it's something that's being said."

Watters also asserted of Rapinoe that "women have also told me because — she's a lesbian, I believe. Is that true? — that she may have a different feeling about the trans issue than straight women, that she feels an allyship. Am I using allyship correctly?" Watters wondered.

 

We just don't know whether he believes this or whether he is only hyping homophobia for his far-right audience. My hunch he is engaging in brand building. He knows this is the kind of hateful rhetoric that will increase his viewership. He knows he has big bigot boots to fill if he's ever to top Tucker. 

Getting to the title question as to whether these people are mentally dim bulbs or bright lights, I view this through the lens of a retired therapist trying to have some empathy (not easy to do) for the small army of influencers who spew their hateful propaganda to so many susceptible people. If they do do this with deliberation they should all be exiled to an inaccessible and inhospitable island where they can sustain themselves by devouring each other's flesh.

If they are clinically delusional they need and should receive psychiatric treatment.

If they are dim bulbs who were born with impaired mental capacity they ought to have remedial education. 

How's this for empathy?

Disquis comment section on bottom of page. 

It's redundant to say crazy cuckoo MAGA people but it also insults Sonny the cuckoo bird

By Hal Brown, MSW,  Retired psychotherapist. More about me.

Fair Use, General Mills

Maybe I needed a second cup of coffee to clear the cobwebs out of my mind this morning but the first thing that caught my attention in the title of the following article was the first four words:

Reading this made me think of the original crazy cuckoo.

In context below these words were used by Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella explaining how Biden outmaneuvered McCarthy on the debt ceiling deal as follows:

So if this goes down because Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or any of those crazy cuckoo MAGA people decide to tank the US economy, it is one hundred percent going to be at the feet of the Republican Party and not the president."

Cocoa Puffs is a classic American cereal known for being marketed to children and for its sugar content. It was introduced in 1956. 

While the name "Sonny" may be the answer to a trivia question, the bird's catchphrase, "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" has become iconic. How deeply impeded in American culture it is can be demonstrated by the 2011 story about  a sword-swinging samurai declaring himself 'Cuckoo For Cocoa Puffs' when he was arrested. In another case a man was arrested for indecent exposure when he was walking naked down a street in Tulsa and he claimed it was due to eating Cocoa Puffs.

Here's Sonny's "bio" from Wikipedia:

The mascot of Cocoa Puffs, Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, was introduced in 1962. In television commercials, Sonny attempts to concentrate on a normal task but ends up coming across some reference to Cocoa Puffs themselves (usually described by the adjectives "munchy, crunchy, chocolatey") and bursts with enthusiasm, exclaiming his catchphrase "I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"^[5] Sonny was voiced by Chuck McCann from 1962 to 1978, and has been voiced by Larry Kenney since 1978.^[6]

The line "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs" has entered the vernacular as a term for somebody who is irrational.^[7]

Sonny's name comes from the original format of the commercials, in which he was paired with his grandfather (also voiced by McCann). Rather than proper names, they always referred to each other as "Gramps" and "Sonny." When the grandfather was dropped from the ads, "Sonny" remained as the character's name. In 2010, Gramps returned to the Cocoa Puffs ads, with McCann reprising his role as Gramps and Kenney continuing to voice Sonny.

Sonny was designed by Gene Cleaves. Animation pioneer "Grim" Natwick (of Fleischers' Betty Boop team) also contributed to the early images of Sonny and Gramps, according to then-contemporaries who collaborated with Natwick.^[8]

Sonny was originally depicted as wearing a pink-and-white striped shirt, then in 1995 was redesigned, this time wearing 1990s "extreme" clothes and being given a more Disney-esque appearance. In 2004, he was redesigned in a more simplistic fashion, this time without clothing.

Sonny, of course, was the original crazy cuckoo. He wasn't crazy in the sense of being mentally ill, he was crazy in sense of being extremely enthusiastic.

As far as being a cuckoo bird he didn't look anything like real cuckoos.

Here's something I didn't know until I read about cuckoos in Wikipedia:

Cuckoos have played a role in human culture for thousands of years, appearing in Greek mythology as sacred to the goddess Hera. In Europe, the cuckoo is associated with spring, and with cuckoldry, for example in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. In India, cuckoos are sacred to Kamadeva, the god of desire and longing, whereas in Japan, the cuckoo symbolises unrequited love.

Not to get too serious, oh crap, this all is very serious... but between having Donald Trump who was merely a malignant narcissist who expressed delusional beliefs to having legislators influencing policy who very well may be clinically delusional, and having so many people in MAGA world being unmoored from reality, this country really does need some intensive psychotherapy.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's most famous lunacy was suggesting that California wildfires were caused by George Soro and his space laser. I wish it was possible that the ghost of Sigmund Freud, another famous Jew, could tell NASA and the NIMH how to make mental health space lasers.

Addendum: 

Freud didn't really say this, but he might have....

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Boebert promoting anti-trans hate and assault rifles at same time is proof our country has made Satan smile and many are standing at the Gates of Hell

 By Hal Brown

All of these self-righteous Christians who believe they are the godly ones and progressives like us are satanic heathens would, if there really was an all loving all-powerful god inclined to mete out Old Testament justice, would be about to enter through the Gates of Hell where, if they were deemed really worthy of Satan's smile, might actually be greeted by the horned one himself grinning like all get out.

Above: Rodin's Gates of Hell (see enlarged image here) and illustration of the Devil on folio 290 recto of the Codex Gigas, dating to the early thirteenth century (enlarged image here), both public domain. 

I read and was inspired to make the comment (image of my comment here) and copied below:

Greg Abbott Says Focus Is ‘Mental Health Problems,’ Not Gun Reform, After Texas Shooting

How about doing two things? Address mental health problems by 1) increasing MH services and 2) stop politicians and right-wing media from using inflammatory rhetoric and demonizing minorities with hate speech, encouraging violence (this means you Donald Trump), and glorifying assault rifles. That's you Greene and Boebert...

After this is done of course it would be too much to ask Abbott and politicians pandering to the gun fanatics to pass firearm legislation which tiresome as it is to call it is common sense and which most of the county thinks is needed.

Click to enlarge image. HUFFPOST allows pictures in the comments. 
This is what I included in mine.

The most incendiary image above is Boebert holding the t-shirt. Here's a version in black with the direction of the gun reversed from Etsy. Not enough to have an assault rifle, this adds eight bullets. It is pictured with a pair of jeans and significantly with white Converse sneakers. I wonder what Converse thinks about this. 

This is supposedly as normal as American pie... right? No, make that far-right.

The t-shirt being available on Etsy and elsewhere is another matter since it is actually hate speech suggesting, perhaps obscurely, that shooting trans people is fair game.

This slogan has become popular enough for it to be sold by different companies. Click the images below to enlarge them.

Not all pro-gun merchandise targets the LGBTQ+ community... one exception below:

Click image to enlarge

I have no way of knowing how many of the people who buy the pronoun shirts know that the "redefining" part refers to the hate for the LGBTQ+ community and not just support of their view of the 2nd Amendment and it being a pro-gun statement.

There is no doubt that the slogan is anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ in general. It is part of what is called the war on pronouns. For example:

Click above to read article.

Click above to read article

Excerpt:

Florida Republicans on Wednesday approved bills to ban diversity programs in colleges and prevent students and teachers from being required to use pronouns that don’t correspond to someone’s biological sex, building on top priorities of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

If this was merely lunacy calculated to gin up support among the far-right base whose vote is needed for Republicans like DeSantis to win it would be bad enough. It is far worse. It is dangerous fear-mongering that can lead to violence, and not to mince words, to death.

Related:

Click above to read column

Excerpt:

It was another bloody weekend in America's sick and twisted shooting gallery. This time, a man dressed in full tactical gear and carrying an assault rifle got out of his car at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, and started randomly shooting people on the sidewalk. A police officer who was coincidentally on the scene for another call took down the shooter after he had shot 16 people, killing at least 8 and possibly more. (Several people are reportedly still in critical condition.) This is seen as a huge success story among gun fetishists because it shows that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun — with only a dozen and a half casualties. It's what we call "good news" these days.

From the column, listen to Rep. Keith Reid's idiotic and delusional solution:

Addendum: You have to subscribe to The Washington Post to read these articles but from the titles and illustrations you get the idea:

Click above to enlarge image

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He's a Republican, a vet who was a flight surgeon, is the chair of the House Security Committee and he shot Marjorie Taylor Greene down.

 By Hal Brown

This is a blog with my opinions on politics, psychology, and other subjects. My posts are sometimes serious and sometimes snarky. I'm a retired MSW clinical social worker/psychotherapist and mental health center director who was also a cranberry farmer. Scroll archives on bottom of page to see previous blog stories. There are new ones added almost every day, although if I don't have anything original to say I try not to say anything at all.

If this is difficult to read on your device because of margins click here to read.

Former Flight Surgeon Cut Marjorie Tayler Greene Off

I thought it fitting that Raw Story used a photo of Marjorie Taylor Green holding a big gun to illustrate the article 

GOP enraged over Marjorie Taylor Greene's committee outburst — and are threatening to boot her: report 

I added the subtitle and the airplane going down in flames.

The article describes how the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, a West Point Graduate, war vet, and former flight surgeon, shot her down.

Excerpt:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) blew up a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday when she called Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a "liar" and blaming him for fentanyl deaths around the country — an outburst that violates House rules about impugning the character of a witness. The tirade forced Chairman Mark Green, a Republican of Tennessee, to shut down her questioning and bar her from speaking for the rest of the hearing.

According to CNN reporter Melanie Zanona, Republicans behind the scenes are furious with her, and are considering punishments — even including a threat of booting her off the committee for future disruptions.

"GOP tensions flaring over MTG's committee hearing outburst today," tweeted Zanona. "Source close to Chairman Mark Green said he was furious w/ MTG's behavior and planned to privately reprimand her, and also said he'd encourage McCarthy to remove her from the committee if she did that again. But MTG doubled down on her rhetoric, accusing her GOP colleagues of 'doing the bidding' of Dems. She told me went to [House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy’s office to talk about it & said to him: 'I don’t know how we’re ever going to accomplish anything when we can’t call people a liar when they’re lying.

You may not have heard of Mark Green prior to this incident. I hadn't. Unlike the politicians who get lots of media coverage, my bet is that most news junkies couldn't pick him out of a lineup.

I knew nothing about him until now. He's no shining light for liberals. For one example, this is what a brief web search of his name came up with from 2017 when Trump floated his name to be Secretary of the Army: 

Excerpt: Army secretary nominee Mark Green's past statements and legislative record make him "a danger to every LGBTQ soldier," human rights groups claim.

LGBT advocates decried President Trump's Friday announcement floating the Army surgeon turned Tennessee state senator — who has called being transgender a "disease" and supported what critics branded a "license to discriminate" bill — to succeed the country's first openly gay Army secretary, Eric Fanning.

Green is "one of most extreme anti-LGBT politicians in the country," Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Stephen Peters, a former Marine discharged under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law, told reporters in a call on Monday.

His politics are about as far-right as those of Rep. Greene's (from Wikipedia):

Abortion

Green opposes abortion. In a 2019 op-ed, he wrote, "modern science has revealed that mother and baby are, in fact, two separate persons—long before the baby is born" and argued that "a child becomes a child at conception".

Climate change

Green rejects the scientific consensus that human activity plays a key role in climate change.

Creationism

Green rejects the theory of evolution, which is consensus in biology; in a 2015 lecture he used creationist reasoning such as "irreducible complexity".

2020 election

In December 2019, Green voted against the articles of impeachment in the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

In December 2020, Green was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Vaccines

In 2018, as a congressman-elect, Green said at a constituent meeting, "there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines", a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by scientific studies and rejected by medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I can imagine that someone who was an Army major who graduated from West Point and was a flight surgeon would be a stickler for following the rules and wouldn't tolerate the behavior demonstrated by Marjorie Taylor Greene coming from one of the soldiers under him.

Considering his politics, I think it is particularly significant that he shot Marjorie Taylor Greene down. In the military you could describe this as an officer dressing someone down. If she was a soldier such behavior could get her demoted. 

It is typical of Greene that she doesn't care and is doubling down. That someone would dare to diss her obviously was beyond the pale for her. She apparently hustled off to complain her House husband, Kevin McCarthy, about not being able to call a liar a liar when she thinks they're lying.

It represents cockeyed optimism to think that Kevin's House honey is going to face any consequences for this behavior.

Update: This moved up to be the No. 1 trending story on Raw Story.

 

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Click above to enlarge image

Chauncey DeVega's quote should be terrifying and mind-boggling

 By Hal Brown

Click above to enlarge image

Pictured above, would be Queen of the New Confederacy Marjorie Taylor Greene holding a $2400 Honey Badger firearm, because inquiring minds probably don't want to know. I am not an expert on firearms. I used Google Image search (here) to find out about the weapon.

The following paragraph is from Chauncey DeVega's article in Salon. 

Stop mocking Marjorie Taylor Greene

It's not just trolling. Republican threats of civil war should be taken seriously

We have just experienced a nightmare here in America (and the world) where what many "centrists" and "mainstream" political thinkers and voices said was impossible came true. If someone in 2015 or 2016 had told you that a professional wrestling heel, fake billionaire, willful ignoramus, white supremacist cult leader and TV host, a man credibly accused of rape many times, a failed casino owner and real estate developer, con artist would become president of the United States, make choices in response to a pandemic that would kill at least a million Americans, bring the country and its democracy to a breaking point, attempt a coup, surrender America's interests to its enemies such as Russia, commit an endless number of serious crimes while in office, be impeached twice and almost win reelection, and then announce a second presidential candidacy all the while not being held responsible for his crimes many people would – and did — mock any person willing to say such a thing. They labeled it "Trump derangement" syndrome. We all know what happened next.

Fo those who mercifully have forgotten:

Click above to enlarge

It should be as terrifying as it is mind-boggling that the things described above actually occurred. That there is a significant minority of the entire population of the United States who are happy about this is is beyond the pale, that is, outside the bounds of morality, good behavior or judgement in civilized society.

The reasons how and why the things DeVega describes in chilling words happened have been addressed by political and social scientists and by mental health experts. I don't feel like delving into these when others have done a thorough job.* I really am devoting this blog about it to share DeVega's description.

The portion of the DeVega article that Salon highlighted, the concluding sentence, follows:

Marjorie Taylor Greene and the other Republican fascists and the larger white right and their allies are very dangerous. Your laughter does not change that fact. Your laughter will not save you from them or the new American nightmare they are forcing into being. He who laughs last laughs loudest. The laughter of Marjorie Taylor Greene and the other American fascists will be very deafening indeed.

About DeSantis from: 

Introducing the first-ever, sort-of-annual Bulls**t Awards: Not just for Republicans! by Brian Karem in Salon

A Mini-Me Bullshit award goes to Ron DeSantis, who while proving to be smarter than Trump (at least in some ways) has the charisma of roadkill and the smell of a dead skunk in the middle of the road. (That's a reference to an obscure song lyric — actually, DeSantis is so far to the right he's off the road). He mimics Trump's fascism in every move he makes, but takes it even further as he tries to turn the state of Florida into a Disney version of Germany in 1937. 

Here's Loudon Wainwright III singing Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road:

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* Footnote:

 DeVega regularly addresses these topics. For example just in the past week:

The science behind why conservatives are so easily triggered

The media's biggest addiction: Trump voters

UFOs and CRT: Republicans are in a constant state of panic about the "other"

Addendum:

I wanted to use the sign I made to use to illustrate yesterday's blog, DeSantis's great Florida fascist experiment, with a new background. I changed the background and also added five new elements.

\

Thanks to Chauncey DeVega for his retweet: