According to Marjorie Taylor Greene President Biden is a senile criminal mastermind

 By Hal Brown

The Business Insider article's title, below, is correct although they define mutually exclusive incorrectly in part of their article:

Someone needs to tell MTG that Biden can't be both a criminal mastermind and completely senile

• "The two accusations — often trotted out by the right — appear to be mutually exclusive."
• Excerpt:

Someone, please tell Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that President Joe Biden can't be mentally sound enough to run an international cabal of insidious elites while also being completely senile. 

Speaking to Kimberly Guilfoyle — a former TV anchor who's now engaged to Donald Trump Jr. — Greene claimed without substantiation that Biden is the puppet master behind a global criminal empire.

"The true crimes are linked to Joe Biden himself. And he is the mastermind of the Biden criminal enterprise," Greene told Guilfoyle on Wednesday. "This is an international operation that has guided and steered the policy of the United States of America."

• Let's be clear. Mutually exclusive always means that if one thing is true the other cannot be true.  Not to be overly picky but in the context used regarding Joe Biden, he's either completely senile or he's a criminal mastermind. He cannot be both. Therefore when Business Insider says he appears to be they should be saying simply that they are mutually exclusive.
• He can't even be slightly senile and a criminal mastermind. Consider the very definition of mastermind as being a person with an outstanding intellect who is someone who plans and directs an ingenious and complex scheme or enterprise.
• It should be noted that in January 2022 Greene called Biden a "mentally incompetent, feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap." Now she wants everyone to think he's also a puppet master pulling the strings for "an international operation that has guided and steered the policy of the United States of America."

• She can call him a piece of crap, which coming from her is like a cesspool disparaging a lily pond, but this is still merely a subjective opinion. Everything else she says doesn't hold up to what in Biden's behavior is readily observable.

  
  

  There is no evidence that even hints at Biden being a criminal despite the desperate attempts on the right to characterize Hunter Biden as one who was in some sort of feverish spy fantasy manner working for his father. See: Rudy and GOP MAGA maniacs in the House want to turn Hunter Biden into a master spy.

  

  
  

  By all evidence Biden is another kind of mastermind. He is a political mastermind. He has managed against tough odds to achieve a great deal since becoming president (here's a list). 

  
  

  Of course right-wing critics of Joe Biden won't be watching MSNBC this morning and thus probably won't learn about this jobs report:

  
  

  
  
  

  If Biden was a criminal he could be compared to this guy:

  
  

  
  
  

  
  

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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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Tucker Carlson's unredacted text reveals a surprising side of him: Does he have a better angel?

 By Hal Brown. MSW, retired psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist

Scroll down for May 7 update.

Click above to enlarge image

Below is the section of the previously redacted (above with my image added) portion of the message which contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr. Carlson’s firing that is described in this NY Times article:

Carlson’s Text That Alarmed Fox Leaders: ‘It’s Not How White Men Fight’

It is being discussed on "Morning Joe" as I write this blog:

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

The line in the text, it's not how white men fight, that apparently alarmed Fox News executives expresses Carlson's racism. I wonder if Carlson was thinking of how Mike Tyson bit off a chuck of Evander Holyfield's ear when Holyfield. an underdog, was winning in their 1997 heavyweight championship boxing match.

It was the rest of the text that I think is surprising. Breaking it down:

* Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously.

This shows that Carlson can differentiate between what is honorable and dishonorable.

* I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it.

This demonstrates an ability to engage in self-reflection, to express how he feels about something. It also shows he can admit his own murderous impulses.

* Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be.

Crucially, this shows that he is cognizant of when his thoughts deviate from an ego ideal. In Freudian psychoanalysis this is the inner image of oneself as one wants to become. In the id-ego-superego (or conscience) Freudian model the ego ideal is part of the superego, that is "the individual's conscious and unconscious images of what he would like to be, patterned after certain people whom ... he regards as ideal."

* The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

The entire section above comes across as if it he has a better angel, his conscience, sitting on his shoulder whispering in his ear.

I don't view empathy as an either you have it or you don't characteristic. Some people, malignant narcissists for example, are incapable of experiencing empathy, period, full stop. Donald Trump fits all the indices of being a malignant narcissist. I do not think Trump has empathy for anybody.

I don't know if this is true of Carlson. He may have empathy for family members and his friends. 

There are people who are sociopaths who aren't at all narcissistic. I think of depictions of Mafiosi in fiction. They can kill or order a hit on someone and still feel deep love and empathy for their family. This doesn't mean family members and girlfriends can rest easy. Uncle Junior ordered a hit on Tony Soprano, Christopher regretfully ordered Sylvio  to kill his girlfriend Adriana.

Hitler, a psychopath who wasn't a grandiose narcissist like Trump, probably truly loved and had empathy for Eva Braun. He was extremely fond of his German Shepherd, Blondi, and even let her sleep in his bed in his bunker. Apparently Trump has never has a pet in his life.

I've digressed, so I ought to conclude with my clinical assessment of Tucker Carlson. 

I think he has many characteristics of malignant narcissism. He shares these with Donald Trump: extreme narcissism, antisocial behavior or sociopathy, sadism, being a bully, grandiosity, liking to raise hostility levels, and dehumanizing people and groups of people.

He is different from Trump in one respect, aside from being much more intelligent. He has an awareness that he is incapable of empathy and that to at least some degree knows he'd be a better person if he felt it.

Update: 

Scoop: Tucker Carlson ready to torch Fox News

My response:

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