I was going to write about the MAGA uproar and ICE threats about Bad Bunny and the Superbowl, but then I saw Melania Trump's AI post on X, By Hal M. Brown

 

I looked at HUFFPOST this morning and saw the articles above about Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl.

I decided that I’d take a break from writing about Trump’s “take as few prisioners as possible” blitzkrieg, or his unhingedness, and address how ridiculous their bothering with the culture war is. I mean, I never heard of Bad Bunny and I was curious enough to find some YouTubes of him. I am sure I am not alone.

Here’s his YouTube channel: 

Then, also looking at HUFFPOST I saw this:

This prompted me to go to Perchance AI and ask for images of Melania Trump crying and then I used them in this reply to her post on X.

I even posted it as a comment to the HUFFPOST article:

I also used AI to make the top illustration for this Substack.

I admit that I’d like it if one of my posts on X or Bluesky was picked up and amplified on one or another the websites which features social media posts in one of their articles. Both HUFFPOST and RawStory do this. Not that I am starving for recognition beyond my miniscule pressence on Substack (insert humility emoji)… 

Getting serious, I wondered whether Project 2025 addresed woke and the culture war so I asked AI. This is the answer I got:

Yes, Project 2025 includes proposals that address issues related to the culture war, emphasizing a conservative agenda that opposes “woke” policies. It advocates for a broader implementation of conservative values across various sectors of government, reflecting a focus on cultural issues.

I found this in this long article about Project 2025:

In calling for a return to the “biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family” (page 481), an end to all forms of “woke propaganda” (page 9) and the jailing of pornographers (page 5), Project 2025 is clear in its intention to make the federal government a combatant in the culture war.

I also found this is in  “Voters Are Tired of the “War on Woke” from June 2024.

Of course Biden dropped out, Kamala ran and was, if anything, even more woke than him, and she lost. Between June of 2024 Trump added anti-trans to his campaign train of grievances and this may actually have swayed a few votes. He created some delusional demon called DEI. He went anti-woke bigly. 

He’s president/dictator, possibly for the rest of his life, so the question remains as to why he and his minions are bothering with the woke war.

I will venture an answer. I think it is for a similar reason as mine for using AI to make the images of Melania. I think it is because it is fun to be malicious at times. For me it is a way to express my sense of helplessness through mockery. For them I think it is because they get pleasure out of kicking those they feel are already down.

Related:

I didn’t know the following:

I was looking up top Spotify streams and number one is Taylor Swift. Number two is Bad Bunny.

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This is my go-to website for breaking political news.

Leave it to my friend Sabrina Haake to write the best article about what Trump is doing to my city of Portland. This also led me to register on the local Sinclair station so I could post a link to her Substack there.

 

I won’t even try to write about what Trump is doing to my city of Portland since Sabrina Haake, who I count as one of my “met online but yet to meet in person” friends, did it (here) instead. She did it far better than I could. 

She begins to address the Portland “problem” as follows:

Oregon, home of the imaginary ‘Antifa,’ mocks Trump’s false narrative

Pursuing these directives, Trump threatened to invade Portland, Oregon, where green hair and Kombucha kiosks scream “Antifa” to the MAGA faithful. Incensed by the spectacle of nose rings and flannel, Trump posted that he had authorized federal troops to protect “War ravaged Portland” with “Full Force, if necessary,” because Oregon’s ICE Facilities are “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

What I do want to share is my comment to her, fleshed out with the images I couldn’t post because Substack won’t allow this in comments.

Hal Brown commented to Sabrina:

Thanks for highlighting Portland, Sabrina. As you know I live just outside downtown in a suburb. For your readers who want to follow our local news here are the three local Portland news websites I look at every day: 

https://www.koin.com

https://www.kgw.com

and 

https://www.opb.org

... I don’t look at 

https://katu.com

because it is the Sinclair station and unlike the other three it’s main story is “At least 4 arrested by federal officers outside Portland’s ICE facility as tensions flare” obviously meant to support Trump’s false narrative. As featured article the other stations have “‘Oregon has no choice’: New SNAP requirements will impact over 313K residents”, “Oregon braces for government shutdown after deadline passes without a deal: ‘Many people will be harmed’ as top stories,” and on OPB “Portland troop deployment expected to cost at least $3.8 million.”

You can read the KATU story about the ICE headquarters arrests here: https://katu.com/news/local/arrests-by-federal-officers-outside-portlands-ice-facility-president-donald-trump-authorization-oregon-national-guard

You can watch the six minute broadcast video here:

Most of the comments are supportive of Trump which is no surprise since this is a Sinclair station but I suggest you check out the comment by HMStressline (which is me). I took the time to open an account there just so I could post a comment suggesting people read this Substack with an active link. You can see what I posted without going to KATU by clicking my BlueSky post here (it looks cool): 

This is how my comment looks:

Here are some of the other comments:

I will give KATU credit for at least having a comment section. This fact alone may lead me to checking it out. I may want to add my liberal two cents to their articles. I may even come out of hiding behind PDXStressline and reveal who I really am by posting links to some of my own Substacks from an enemy camp.

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Trump: "I love my signature, actually everybody loves my signature." By Hal M. Brown

 

In his address to generals and admirals Trump bragged about using the most expensive high quality paper with real gold on it for the documents promoting generals and admirals. Then we went on blasting Biden for using an auto-pen, though it is not clear whether he ever did this with these particular documents. Trump said “I love my signature, everybody loves my signature.”

Holy crap! He’s bragging about his signature and how everyone, everyone, like each and every person on earth, loves his signature.

We are so used to Trump’s braggaccio sprinkled with lies and exaggerations that it is easy to dismiss that this is a clinical manifestaiton of psychopatholgy. 

This goes beyond grandiose narcissism. Trump used to call it “the weave” when he was criticized for it. He said it was genius. 

In fact this is coming close to what are called loose associations. It is also called derailment (see Wikpedia). This refers to a thought disorder where a person jumps between ideas with little or no logical connection. At it’s worts it results in speech so disorganized it is impossible to follow. This phenomenon is often seen in mental health conditions like schizophrenia. 

There was a lot to unpack in what he said today so far as he is still speaking while I write this. 

Here are two examples from Wiki:

• “The next day when I’d be going out you know, I took control, like uh, I put bleach on my hair in California.”—given by Nancy C. Andreasen^[7]

• “I think someone’s infiltrated my copies of the cases. We’ve got to case the joint. I don’t believe in joints, but they do hold your body together.”—given by Elyn Saks.^[8]

In talking about the use of nuclear weapons, for example, said the prospect was so horrible he calls it the n-word, and went on to say that there are two n-words, neither of which you can say. I doubt this was in his prepared remarks. This shows him weaving all over his mental space. This is not psycholgically normal.

Then Trump went on to say how he didn’t name the latest fighter jet. He said Boeing told him they where going to name it the F-47 after him. (Snarky aside: I wonder if someone at Boeing thought a more appropriate name was the F-Trump.) 

As I write this Trump is calling CNN fake news. He is going on and on in the same vein between talking about the military and bragging about himself and attacking Biden and “radical left lunatics.”

It’s a pipe dream that someone besides me and dozens of other mental health professionals could say it so it sinks in to people who can make a difference that “this man is not well.” 

He just added the lie that Portland (my city) looks like a war zone and is burning down… but I want to post this so I will stop now and make another cup of coffee since he shows no sign of concluding. 

(Just after posting this CNN and MSNBC cut away after an hour. Fox News was still airing it.)

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When it comes to stopping the Trump dictatorship am I an alarmist or realist? By Hal M. Brown

Tue, Aug 26 at 5:23 AM

 Ths morning I read Thom Hartmann’s Substack about impeaching Trump being the last hope: Impeach or Perish: Why Republicans Must Choose Between Trump and the Constitution.

This was the comment I posted:

I doubt that Trump federalizing our (Thom and my) National Guard to put on his show in Portland will prompt a move by Republicans to bring impeachment proceedings. I assume he’s being encouraged to invoke the insurrection act, not just by random politicians like this guy https://www.rawstory.com/don-brown-civil-war/ but by Stephen Miller and others in his inner circle too. I think Trump can declare martial law and get away with this. He can wrap himself in the law. It will take much more to stop him. We can say Republicans taking “enough is enough” action is the only hope for democracy. However these are just our own words of optimism. This hope assumes that Trump isn’t able to harden his dictatorship to the point that he will either ignore Congress or just disolve it.

Thom Hartmann and I both live in Portland, though neither of us lives downtown. We are well aware of what Trump plans to do here. 

Trump has declared war on us. 

His ordering 200 members of our (our!) National Guard to put on a show around ICE headquarters may just be the beginning. 

I can see the showboating Trump and Hegseth deciding that a show of force in the air will reinforce the don’t mess with the monarch message they want to send. How soon before we see our National Guard helecopters in the air over downtown Portland? We know how Trump loves his fighter jet flyovers. I wonder what he’d do if he was told that we (meaning us, Oregon) now have these death dealing airborne weapons (read article):

Yesterday we drove by a nearby Oregon National Guard base. Here are some photos Ann took.

One of their old fighter jets had been in a less pominent location when we drove by on a previous trip. 

Now it has been moved to an easily seen position.

Now that I’d established that I am not an optimist, I don’t know if I can objectively determine whether I am being a dispassionate realist or an alarmist. I try my best to be realistic about any hopes for doing more than slowing down Trump’s ascension to complete dictatorial control. I view him as about to be unaccountable to both the rule of law and public opinion. 

Maybe there is a slim hope that the military will do something to derail his blitzkreig. If they did this it could put us in a third world or banana republic coup d’état territory. 

I am trying to be realistic here. I don’t want to be an alarmist because I do want to be taken seriously. Besides, being an alarmist wears me out.

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