If Menendez was savng cash and gold bars for the apocalypse he'd have done better with canned goods and .22 cal. bullets

 

By Hal Brown

Sorta Satire

For reasons yet unknown Senator Menendez and his wife felt they needed to keep about $500,000 in cash and a number of gold bars at home.

Occam's razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one, i.e., he was taking bribes from Egypt and wanted to hide this from the authorities.

While those ready to jump to morally disreputable, and illegal, reasons the couple wanted to keep so much cash and gold on hand there may be a benign explanation.

It occurred to me that another reason they did this might that they  wanted to be prepared in case of an apocalypse, zombie or another kind  event causing a breakdown of civilized society. 

Living in Western Oregon where experts predict a major earthquake, known as The Big One, at some unknown time in the future, I keep more canned goods than I normally would (shown above).

In real life, if there was a total breakdown of society cash would be worthless and even gold bars wouldn't be useful to barter with for essentials.

I'd always considered the cheap .22 caliber bullets to be the easiest and most valuable to hoard for the end of the world as we know it since small caliber weapons would be best for small game hunting and good to barter with.

I figure those people who want to protect themselves against other people already have plenty of larger caliber ammunition. You could stockpile the .223 cal. high velocity bullets used in AR-15's but these cost more than 10 times the cost of .22 cal. bullets.

Of course, if you wanted to trade with people afraid of zombies larger caliber ammunition would be necessary, probably shotgun shells. 

Throwing a gold bar at anyone, human or zombie, wouldn't be the weapon of choice. If you had good aim you might be able to nail a rabbit with one.

As with just about any subject I end up writing about there are websites about what items would be best to stock up on to use in the place of cash. For example this article which is meant to be funny, but maybe not:

Everyone needs money. And we use everything from cash to crypto to NFTs as modern currency. 

But what if society goes to hell and you wind up in an apocalypse? You're going to need a new kind of money, and here are just a few of the things you can use.

Bullets are number four on this list and gold at 25 is the last.

Here's another article: 

12 Things That Will Skyrocket In Value Once The Apocalypse Hits

Contents

1. Sugar
2. Candles
3. Books
4. Footwear
5. Salt and Other Spices
6. Honey
7. Alcohol
8. Cigarettes
9. Guns and Ammo
10. Knives and Hatchets
11.  Gasoline
12. Seeds

If Senator and Mrs. Menendez are reading this, I'll happily save them a trip to the supermarket and send them my stock of canned goods for a mere $1000. Of course, being a law abiding citizen I would report this as income on my taxes.

MAGA World loves that Trump's a malginant narcissist, will they care that he's become cognitively impaired?

 

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired psychotherapist

Few residents of MAGA World read HUFFPOST. I can tell this from from the few trolls who comment of their articles. I doubt many will read this article: 

Befuddled Trump Can't Figure Out Which Bush Did What In Bizarre Rant

I won't even excerpt the article since this wouldn't do it justise. Vox associate editor sums it up in his post on X: 

if Joe Biden confused Jeb and George W. Bush, Hannity would anchor special coverage that would last until the 2024 election

Here's another article:

'Terribly confused' Trump's rant about whales could be sign of cognitive decline: Morning Joe

If you do a search on Google with the words Trump malignant narcissism (here) you find numerious articles. Scroll down to the 32rd and you'll find one of mine.

Here's what I posted on Daily Kos.

Click above to read

For this blog I've changed the illustration.

The HUFFPOST article decribes the most recent example of cognitive confusion that any objective clinician would see as alarming indications that their patient might be suffering from early dementia. The only other explanation that I can see is that Trump's confusion about which Bush was which is due to his being under extreme stress. Of couse one explanation doesn't preclude the other.

I am not a medical clinician but I have been trained to know when a patient has symptoms that require a referral to a neurologist for an assessment. If Trump was my patient this is what I would have done when I was in practice. A neurologist would do more than administer the MOCA.

I am not even sure that if Trump took the MOCA test (above) now he would be given a clean bill of health as far as signs of early dementia.

The question as to whether his hard-core MAGA cult would care about this is something to consider. The typical member of the Trump cult is White and poorly educated. Part of the - love is not too strong a word - for him comes from his being a grandiose narcissist who rants about vegeance against his enemies. They vicarously enjoy how he relishes expressing how he'd destroy his enemies if he become president again. They not only care about him wanting to also destroy democracy but practically drool over the idea he'd become a dictator who whould empower them and push policies that express their bigotted beliefs.

Trump has built a cult of personality. It is difficult to imagine MAGA World with anyone else as its ruler. Unlike Trump's good pal Kim Jung Un he wasn't groomed to be successor to a dynasty.

There's no way Donald Jr. and certainly not Eric, could out-Trump or eve come close to equal-Trumping the original.

The salient question for Trump's reelection is whether his cult wants someone who is the embodiment of the mad king from The Game of Thrones as their leader but who is also becoming senile.

Click to read article

I can't see any of the other GOP presidential candiates coming close to having the kind of charisma Trump exudes for his cult. Trump's madness is his brand.

If you add senility, or fast developing dementia, to his madness it will be fascinating to see if he can keep a grip on the hold he exerts over his cult.

Addendum:

The only GOP candidate who actually has their own kind of charisma is Chris Christi. I think this is why Trump fears him the most. While he can never be a cult leader, and I doubt he aspires to be one, there's no doubt that the man is a commanding pressense.

Christi can equal or better the bloviating of Trump, and he does so with a razor sharp wit using fresh rather than stale retorts and talking points the way Trump does.

If it comes down to Republicans wanting a Trump-lite candidate who promises a renewal of Trump's policies only from someone who has full command of their mental faculties they will go with DeSantis or Ramaswamy. They could want someone more in the middle like Nikki Haley. They won't want Christi who is more of a Republican like John McCain was or Mitt Romney is today. Christi doesn't represent today's  MAGA Republican Party.

If I was a small government Republican rather than a big and effective government liberal Democrat I'd favor Chris Christi. He doesn't believe in America First nationalism and he doesn't want to dismantle democracy and replace it with autocracy. He is also very, very smart.

Since the GOP has done an effective job of demonizing President Biden I actually think Christi would stand a good chance of becoming the next president if he pulled a rabbit out of the hat and won the GOP nomination.

It is possible if Trump's cognitive decline contiunes to the point that it is impossible to deny unless one is a totally brainwashed member of his cult. This will leave the GOP candidates to battle it out among thmselves and Christi will then have an opportunity, to use the Mafia term popularized in The Godfather, to make his bones, and take out the other candidates.

.

I have an idea for Morning Joe: The red TRUMPLINE phone for him to call in live

 

By Hal Brown

I just read the following:

'They are a true threat': Trump threatens to go after NBC News if re-elected

Excerpt (my bold):

They are almost all dishonest and corrupt, but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its 'Country Threatening Treason,'" Trump wrote on Sunday. (Another excerpt here)

In October Trump said that it is ‘disgusting’ that press was able to write whatever it wants. He also threatened to pull NBC’s broadcasting license over a story he said was false. Reference 

This gave me the idea for this blog. While there was no real red phone connecting the leader of the United States with the leader of Russia the myth persists that there was. There was and is, however, a Moscow - Washington hotline.

Could Trump resist calling in to the show when they are talking about him? He'd know this would boost their ratings but since he'd take credit for this he might not care, especially when this is balanced against the chance to rant at its 1.2 million weekly viewers. While Fox and Friends has about 1.38 million viewers (and sometimes Morning Joe has beat them) he knows he'd preaching to the choir if he called them as he did in 2020. (See

"Trump says weekly calls on ‘Fox & Friends’ are returning; Fox says maybe not")

Trump relishes a good fight. In fact, this charateristic is baked into his diagnosis as a malignant narcissist (my bold): 

Malignant narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial behavior, aggression, and sadism. Grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines families and organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate. Wikipedia

Besides this Trump is currently on the outs with Fox News. I think he has a begrudging respect for Joe and may have the hots for Mika.

The TRUMPLINE phone wouldn't be on the desk all the time, in fact it could be put there as a dramatic gesture and as a challenge for him to call in at particular times. Even if Trump never called this would represent him in abstentia. His not calling would be symbolic of his talking a tough game but being a big orange chicken.

Now, before you suggest that this would just give Trump another chance to bloviate with his self-aggrandizing lies and insults and pull what we could call another Wack-a-Welker (named forwhat he did to Kristin Welker on her 60 MInutes deput interview) I'd see major differences.

For one thing, any call-in wouldn't be an interview. Joe and Mika would be in total control. They could also have a one minute limit for him to speak with a count-down clock on the screen. They could also have a buzzer to cut him off when they had to challenge any lie. The could mute him at any time they thought was approrpriate.

I'd also like to see him called by his proper title, Mr. Trump, instead of Mr. President, as Kristin Welker did in her interview with him. I think being called "MISTER Trump" with an emphasis on ""Mister" would get to him.