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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I hate to say "big whoop" but when the criminal foot soldiers do time and the general walks free what else is there to say?

 By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist

Four proud boys, aka known as Proud Boys, having been convicted of seditious conspiracy, will be going to prison. Article on Salon.

Click above to enlarge image

Donald Trump should be exceedingly nervous today, so said Mathew Dowd on MSNBC (top of page lower right). 

Should be (or should-be, who knew?), yeah right... what the hell does this mean in this context?

In a perfectly just world the general leading these soldiers into battle, in this case the five star general, General of the Army Donald Trump, would, not should, be held as accountable as the grunts in his army who committed crimes. More so, in fairness to those who followed his orders and ended up being convicted General Trump should suffer a sentence computed by adding all of the time they were sentenced to. This would determine his sentence. Methinks that this would come out as life in prison.

If this appears harsh consider that he attempted a coup to negate a fair election. We can look to history to learn the fate other leaders who tried and failed to do the same thing in certain other countries. 

I'm not likely to appear on MSNBC to weigh in on my psychologically informed analysis of how Donald Trump is probably reacting to this news. I would hedge my comments by modifying them with phrases like "if Donald Trump was psychologically normal" when I was divining how Trump is feeling today.

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DeSantis tries out a tv and movie bully trope and it backfires big time

 

Hal Brown's Blog

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.

Click this and other images to enlarge

If DeSantis wants to run for president he has one rival in the GOP primary, a formidable foe, who he can only attack for being too old. This might not sit well in the state which is second only to California in the number of senior citizens.

He's also boxed in when it comes to going after Trump because he can't alienate hard-core Trump supporters by running as the younger and smarter version of the greatest president in American history. All he can say is "vote for me I'm the second best" which is hardly a good idea when the best is running against him.

DeSantis, like Trump, is a grievance obsessed person who thrives on hate and resentment so it isn't any surprise that he campaigns on what and who he's against, not what he's for. All he is saying is that he's for what he's against.

He, not Trump, demonized the group of beliefs in social justice called woke. This is a term added to the Merriam-Websters dictionary in September of 2017 though the word was used back in the 1930's. DeSantis wanted to puff out his barrel chest and plaster an anti-woke label on it to wear on his version of Trump's Superman outfit. 

I asked ChatGPT to make an image of him wearing an anti-woke Superman style costume and this is the result:

I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I cannot create visual images. However, I can provide you with a written description of Ron DeSantis wearing an anti-woke Superman-style costume.

Ron DeSantis stands tall, clad in a bright blue and red costume reminiscent of the iconic superhero Superman. The costume is emblazoned with the phrase "Anti-Woke" in bold white letters across his chest. The suit is form-fitting and muscular, accentuating DeSantis' physique.

The blue material of the costume is covered in stars, representing the American flag, and the red cape flowing behind him in the breeze. DeSantis wears a pair of blue tights and red boots that reach up to his knees. His face is stern and focused, with a determined expression.

As he stands with his fists on his hips, a symbol of strength and confidence, the people around him look on in awe. With his Anti-Woke Superman-style costume, DeSantis is ready to fight against the forces of political correctness and cultural Marxism that threaten the values of the American people.

Trump and other Republicans pay lip service to being anti-woke but aren't obsessed with ranting about it.

You've seen the television shows and movies about fighting bullies. There are two versions. In the first, a kid moves and has to start gong to a new school where right off he's picked on by a bully. His father or someone else explains that the way to handle this is to take out the bully in no uncertain terms.

From Ranker: Wherever there's a young outsider or a bumbling protagonist, there's a bully. Bullies help our downtrodden teen/pre-teen become a hero; help them make the speech or the punch that inspires the slow clap from their peers, and forces them to learn to kick standing on one leg like a crane. There are a lot of memorable movies and TV shows that feature some of the most memorable bullies in pop culture. Those who have seen any of the Back to the Future movies can attest that anyone from the Tannen family, Biff, Griff or Buford "Mad Dog," are great examples of memorable bullies. 

Bullies can come in any size or form. Wayne Arnold from The Wonder Years and Eddie Haskell from Leave it to Beaver are two very different, yet menacing bullies who at one point were considered the biggest bullies on TV.

  See Ranker for who are the favorite bullies on TV and in the movies.

The other example involves the tired old story about someone being sent to prison for the first time. You know how that one goes. He or she figures out who the biggest and baddest bully is and they take them out quick and dirty.

Now we have the malignantly narcissistic Ron DeSantis who rather that trying to take out a bully - bear with me the metaphor isn't perfect - he goes after the largest and most powerful corporation in Florida. 

His first mistake was trying to make them evil incarnate because he wants them to represent a lifestyle he supposedly - who knows what he really believes - thinks is dangerous to the sweet children of Florida. He wants Floridians to think Disney endorses a perverted lifestyle which will turn the children of Florida into wicked heathen members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Of course Disney isn't a bully, but Disney is big, and beloved by the woke community, so they have a bullseye on them as far as DeDSantis is concerned.

What better way to prove his mettle than kick them in the cojones?

This just backfired big time. Here's my version of yesterday's lead story illustration from HUFFPOST which explains what I mean:

Click above to enlarge

As my top illustration shows, guess who got kicked in the cojones by the most famous and adored mouse in the entire world.

 Move over Mighty Mouse...

Wikipedia Commons

... there's a new superhero in town.

----------Addendum----------

I made the illustrations and wrote most of this last night. This morning when I made my coffee and turned on MSNBC as I always do to watch "Morning Joe" as I work on my blog the discussion was about the DeSantis war against Disney.

Joe Scarbough said Mickey Mouse has brass knuckles and made DeSantis look like a fool — again which I would put as that Mickey has been doing well well with his white gloved fist and might answer "I need brass knuckles, thank you very much."

Click above and below to enlarge

Updates:

You have to scroll down the liberal Raw Story website passing at least 15 stories about Donald Trump to get to the first one about Ron DeSantis:

Excerpt:

"Look, I mean, this is really emblematic of the way Ron DeSantis appears to have decided to run for president," said (political analyst Ron) Brownstein. "You know, the video, God made me a fighter, he'll fight every fight that Donald Trump does but he will not bring all of the baggage that he has. I am Trumpism without Trump. And that is his pitch to Republican voters. There is an audience for it in the Republican Party. But you have to ask yourself, is he kind of losing sight of the bigger picture here?"

My speech bubble added. Click above to read article.

CLICK ABOVE TO READ

Excerpt:

“Maybe the governor knows better than to get between voters and their beer,” said another top Republican, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “Or perhaps he’s realizing that these retaliatory and vindictive acts by a supposedly free market Republican government isn’t making Florida look very free. Pro-business Republicans and members of the legislature are already grumbling privately.”

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Toxically masculine men boycotting Bud Lite fear the Babadook, as so do many women...

Hal Brown's Blog

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.

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If it's a word or if it's in a look you can't get rid of the Babadook. Movie poster above in center.

The monster design for the Babadook movie poster was inspired by The Man in the Beaver Hat in
 London After Midnight (1927) above. Public domain 
"For some, trans people represent just the latest
 Babadook, a complex fear they cannot tolerate." Wash. Post essay

Glass on right added by Hal Click to read article (subscription

I knew there was a controversy involving Bud Lite somehow endorsing through their recent advertising the dreaded acceptance of members of the LQBTQ+ community as just being plain regular folks. Bud Lite became a target of the frothing at the mouth rabid woke warriors.

I wasn't following the story until I saw and read the opinion essay by Brian Broone, an author I wasn't familiar with, in this morning's Washington Post about toxic masculinity. The article focuses on men. There are, of course, many women, perhaps just as many as men, who buy into the woke fear mongering.

Here's an excerpt: 

Dylan Mulvaney, a trans influencer with more than 10 million followers, documented her transition over the course of a year. To celebrate Day 365 of her journey, Bud Light sent her some personalized cans of beer. She unveiled them on TikTok in a partnership with Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch.

This attempt on Bud Light’s part to be forward-thinking about how its customers live and love has been met with a backlash by one group of people who seem to believe that another group of people should not exist. Kid Rock used his gun to shoot several cases of the beer; another guy destroyed a can of Bud Light with a baseball bat in a typical digital tantrum.

For some, trans people represent just the latest Babadook, a complex fear they cannot tolerate.

A note to those folks who are upset that Anheuser-Busch relied on a trans woman as a quasi-spokesperson: Whether you like it or not, queer people have been drinking “your beer” for decades. In fact, as long as there’s been beer, queer people have been drinking it.

Mulvaney’s celebration for some reason threatened the very existence of a whole bunch of guys who aren’t ready for that reality. This will surprise no one who has ever been a small boy. Every boy knows the sting of being called a sissy. Boys are raised to believe that so-called feminine traits represent a danger they must avoid. Boys learn early that they can expect to be punished if they stray in any way into risky, weakening feminine behaviors. These lessons take root deep in our psyches as youngsters, and they stay there forever.

This is from Fox Business News:

We can thank one far-right extremist for what has come to be called the culture war and it, perhaps amazingly, isn't Donald Trump. 

When you come right down to it, the fact that Ron DeSantis, a deadly dull Florida stocky stick in the mud man, managed to demonize all things LGBTQ+ is dumbfounding.

I also like to depict the governor who thought it would prove how ballsy he was by going after Disney because of their LGBTQ+ supportive position this way:

I adapted an image posted by someone else.

Of course his floating the nudnik notion of building a prison next to Disney World or trying to find a corporation willing to invest in opening a competing amusement park when the Orlando Universal Resort is already nearby reeked of hot Floridian flop sweat.

He also has done after everything related to historic American racism as a dire and imminent threat to the very existence to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of everyone who really matters.

While Donald Trump makes fleeting references to how bad being woke is I doubt all that many of his supporters think he gives 1 ½ shits about this.

Yet across the country there are enough people who used to drink Bud Lite to heed the call to stop doing so and cause a decrease in sales. In fact, calling this a bloodbath as Fox Business News does, isn't far off if the plummeting orders in the bars they surveyed reflect a national trend.

The anti-woke movement has had incredible success in lumping together a group of fears many people have into one Babadock.

Who knew? 

This is from Wikipedia:

 LGBT community

In October 2016, a Tumblr user joked that the Babadook is openly gay; in December 2016, another Tumblr user posted a viral screenshot showing the movie classified by Netflix as an LGBT film.^[62][31] Despite the absence of overt references to LGBT culture in the film, fans and journalists generated interpretations of queer subtext in the film (dubbed "Babadiscourse"^[62]) that were often tongue-in-cheek, but occasionally more serious, highlighting the character's dramatic persona, grotesque costume, and chaotic effect within a traditional family structure. In June 2017, The Babadook trended on Twitter and was displayed as a symbol during that year's Pride Month.^[63][64] The social media response became so strong that theatres in Los Angeles took the opportunity to hold screenings of the film for charity.^[65] Michael Bronski said to the Los Angeles Times: "In this moment, who better than the Babadook to represent not only queer desire, but queer antagonism, queer in-your-faceness, queer queerness?", and drew comparisons to historic connections between queerness and horror fiction such as Frankenstein and Dracula.^[66]

Jennifer Kent said that she "loved" the meme, saying that "I think it's crazy and [the meme] just kept him alive. I thought ah, you bastard. He doesn't want to die so he's finding ways to become relevant."^[67]

Donald Trump legitimized the bigotry of a large swath of white Americans against people of color. He allowed people who kept their racism secret to be open about it. 

Trump may or may not be kicking himself for allowing DeSantis for  taking advantage of the homophobia in so many people and adding his turning the teaching about American racism into a war against the new Confederacy.

The good news, reported in a 2019 article, is that Americans Are Becoming Less Racist and Homophobic (link).

Excerpt:

The resurgence of openly racist attitudes in the Trump era has led many observers to question whether the apparent reduction in prejudice in recent years was an illusion. New research provides a reassuring answer.

Researchers find that both conscious and unconscious bias regarding race and sexual orientation declined significantly between 2007 and 2016. For racial attitudes, this change was largely generational, whereas the more relaxed attitudes toward sexuality were found in the population as a whole.

What this tells us is that Americans are less racist and homophobic than they used to be. Because of this, that only having a few policies like being Latino anti-immigration and enacting voter fraud laws to run on, far-right politicians like Trump and DeSantis are taking advantage of cultural issues, gut issues. They want to scare the bejesus out of their base telling them to be terrified of the Babadook.

Addendum:

A poem by DAMETRIAS, 2014

The Babadook

If it's in a word, or if it's in a book you can't get rid of the Babadook. He wears a hat he's tall and black but that's how they describe him in his book. A rumbling sound, than three sharp knocks you better run, or he'll hold you in his locks. ba-ba-ba-dook-dook-dook... Your closet opens and your honestly hopin' that he won't hear a sound but that's when you know that he's around. The book close you have an itch under your nose and that's just how the story goes. So close your eyes and count to ten better hope you don't wake up again. 'Cause if it's in a word, or if it's in a book you can't get rid of the Babadook .... you'll see him if you look

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