June 18, 2022

What's Weirder?

One thing stood out for me in Trump’s rambling word salad vomit-inducing hate-filled speech on Friday at a Faith and Freedom event in Nashville, Tennessee (watch video here). What may have stood out to those of you who saw it replayed (I saw it in RawStory article) his characterization of Rep. Adam Shift as “watermelon head” This is how he put it: “I watched this Adam Schiff the other day. Shifty Schiff, this guy is nothing. He's nothing -- we call him watermelon head."

Hmmm, now we know Trump may be watching stations like MSNBC which air interviews with Rep. Schiff. I doubt Fox News interviews him.

His all but promising he’d pardon those who stormed the Capital if he’s reelected is also making headlines, on HUFFPOST for example:

Trump uses projection all the time accusing Democrats of doing what he’s doing. This is the line which came near the beginning of the series of disjointed diatribes which jumped out at me:

“that is why this month we’re going to stand up to the left-wing fascism...”

Not only is this sheer projection but it defies the very definition of the word fascism. This is how my online dictionary defines fascism (my emphasis):

fas·cism| ˈfaSHˌiz(ə)m | (also Fascism) noun an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. • derogatory extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or oppressive ideas or behavior: an outright ban is just fascism. • [with modifier] very intolerant or domineering views or practices in a particular area: this is yet another example of health fascism in action. The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922–43); the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.

The website World Population Review his this definition:

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political philosophy. Fascist governments traditionally take the form of a one-party dictatorship led by a single person. Fascism stands in contrast to the principles of democracy, in which the government should work to benefit all of its citizens, and instead views the nation's wealth and success as far more important than the welfare of its citizens. As a result, there are very few individual human rights, if any, at all, under a fascist regime. Fascist regimes often create stark divisions between classes in both society and the economy and use force to suppress opposition and keep the masses under control. Some extreme fascist regimes can also be classified as totalitarian countries.

The ignorance of a man whose own Secretary of State called a moron about the meaning of various political terms is not surprising. For the man who not only lies like a rug and is also a font of misinformation and ignorance personified, this one struck me as particularly weird.

In a completely different way than my reaction to the segment of Trump’s speech that I watched did, it struck me as weird how the far-right militias have expanded their enemy’s list to include members of the LGBTQ+ community and target, literally, Pride parades. Did some group have a meeting and decide to do this or was there some secret national strategy meeting and they decided to enter the culture wars? Regardless, it’s like these people, mostly young men, have to have something to vent their collective spleens over and they decided, what the hell, we hate gay people and they’re having parades, and there are no political events making the news this week so lets head to Idaho and if we don’t get to do some gay bashing at least we’ll make the news. Guess what? They did the later:

Screenshot2022-06-18at4.38.24AM.png — www.cnn.com/...

At least in the appalling event that if Trump becomes president again, he can’t pardon them because if convicted it will be for breaking state laws. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these men are so stupid that they think Trump has the authority even now to pardon them.

The competition for the weirdest political news of the day or week is always tough. I’d have to call this one as a toss-up between the two I thought were pretty damn weird.

Here’s a three minute segment of Trump’s hour long speech if you can stand to watch it. I think it ranks up there with his most unhinged and incoherent speeches.

He also said that these extremists (on the left) are “consumed by rage against nature” among other off-the-wall things.

Having watched this video I have my doubts whether he even wrote the coherent parts, few as they were, of the speech. I suspect someone gives him bullet points which end up on his teleprompter and he riffs with his disgusting sure to get laughs in a friendly crowd (as some of these did) ad libs.

Addendum:

Some comments below.

June 17, 2022

Far-right militias

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First, I want to be absolutely clear about my position. I think the insurrectionists must be vigorously prosecuted.

In watching the J6 hearing yesterday, especially where they showed how close the Proud Boys and other insurrectionists bent on killing Mike Pence came to achieving their goal, two very disturbing things occurred to me. One is that this revelation could be a good recruiting tool for the far-right militias, and the other is that it they can learn strategic and tactical lessons from the mistakes they made in achieving their goal.

From the point of view of those who were in the mob who came 40 feet from Vice President Pence, his aides, and the Secret Service detail can lead to the “we came so damn close” reaction. The likelihood that some of them probably would have died won’t be sobering for many of them. Few if any of them would have thought it would have been them who took a Secret Service bullet, and second they’d believe that such a martyrdom would have made them heroes of their movement.

I have little doubt that there are many people who have resisted doing this before would respond to calls to join far-right militias. One of the unavoidable results of the publicity generated by the televised hearing is that there are people across the country for whom this will make being a member of a far right militia seem glamourous.

I can see that the leaders of these groups who have avoided prison called an “Apalachin meeting” of sorts. This is when, in 1957, leaders of the Mafia met to coordinate their criminal activities. (Fortunately, 60 underworld bosses were detained and indicted following the raid.)

The incarceration of leaders like Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection to the Capitol assault, and others will only be a temporary setback. These people will become martyrs to the insurrectionist cause and the more well known leader’s images can easily end up as great recruiting tools for them. While the hearings show how close Trump’s mob came to undermining democracy their interpretation come from Trump himself that the goals was to preserve the Constitution. As long as he continues to send this message he is really their chief recruiter.

One of the messages coming out of the J6 Committee can be used as a slogan for far-right militias: “we almost succeeded last time, next time we will succeed”.

From their perspective one of the lessons from their failed attempt to be the tip of the spear for Trump’s coup is that if they try something similar again their planning and preparation must be far better. I have little doubt that if they tried this again they'd be armed with firearms. The leaders, some probably with a military background, would have to indoctrinate their troops in a kind of jihadist mentality so they’d be prepared to sacrifice their lives.

All I can hope for is that the Department of Justice and FBI are considering all these factors and looking back to their successes, and failures, in fighting organized crime as a template or roadmap for how they will dismantle and destroy these organized bad boys and their deadly toys.

As for the Capital Police, I think it won’t be long before we see them wearing body armor and carrying military assault weapons which are even more deadly that the civilian versions like the AR-15. Unfortunately, Americans will have to accept that access to the Capital will feel more like going through a TSA screening at an airport and that the police there look like members of a SWAT team.

On January 15, 2021 Newsweek published “Far-Right Militias Pose Greatest Threat to US National Security, Experts Say.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Far-right militias pose the greatest threat to the national security of the United States, experts tell Newsweek.
In stark language, they warned of the increasingly grave risk posed by these organized armed extremist movements, as they seek to capitalize on unprecedented political instability to wage war on their own country.
"The threat posed by domestic groups is real," Richard Fontaine, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security think tank, told Newsweek.

This is the world Trump ushered in for us. He remains the leader of each and every American far-right militia. If he died tomorrow he’d no longer be able to issue orders through thinly disguised tweets, or even directly through others, however in some ways he’d be stronger in death than in life.

June 16, 2022

Trump 2024 sh*tshow says advisor

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Trump advisor on 2024 run "another fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants sh*t show". Is he the best for Democrats to beat?

I was struck by this paragraph in “Trump's inner circle is keeping their distance from his 2024 presidential plans: report” by Tom Boggionii in RawStory:

As one advisor admitted, “I don’t think the lack of planning means he’s not actually serious about running. It just means it’s going to be another fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants sh*t show if he does.”

My sense is that for the Democrats Trump would be the best candidate to run against rather than any other in the group of comparatively sane Republicans who have presidential aspirations. This is because I see that Trump’s mental deterioration and connection with reality is in an ever steeper decline. I say this as a retired psychotherapist who spent his 40 year career working with a variety of psychotically impaired patients. Contributing to Trump’s impairment is that he is surrounding himself with a cadre of advisors as unmoored from reality as he is. It is like the inmates are running the asylum.

Can you imagine the likes of Steve Bannon, if he’s not in prison, flat earth believer Lin Wood, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Peter Navarro, John Eastman (if he’s not in jail too) and Mr. Pillow running his campaign? Hell, maybe he’d hire Ginni Thomas.

Call Trump running a shit show or a heep of garbage of a campaign, you say tomato and I say tomatoe. This is from Salon:

"Garbage in. Garbage out”: Trump's former chief of staff trashes Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell --Trump's inner circle at the end was … [Rudy] Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Peter Navarro," said Mick Mulvaney.

Donald Trump's former White House Staff White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney on Monday called members of the former president's inner circle "garbage" during the January 6 hearings.
"Trump's inner circle at the end was … [Rudy] Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Peter Navarro," Mulvaney tweeted. "Garbage in. Garbage out."

He cannot win an election with a base composed of largely of believers in QAnon conspiracies, White supremacists, neo-fascists who want a dictatorship, and gullible low information dim bulb voters. He needs the disaffected blue collar middle class voters who led to his being elected in 2020.

Would enough of these sane voters vote for a raving lunatic to swing an election his way? I don’t think so.

Consider how you think Trump would fare running for president compared to DeSantis, Pence, and others (in no particular order) Senators Ted Cruz, Tim Scott and Tom Cotton; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, Mike Pompeo, and I’ll throw in Tucker Carlson, who might give DeSantis, Pence, or any of the others a run for their money. Some of them will pull in the culture warriors and history revisionists, the anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion single issue voters, the outright racist bigots, and other similar groups, though there might not be enough of them to swing the election.

June 15, 2022

Vancouver, WA: New walkway and flood.

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Trip to Vancouver

This was the Flood Warning for the Columbia River in Vancouver where we are headed for lunch on the waterfront today.

...FLOOD WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL THURSDAY EVENING... * WHAT...Minor flooding is occurring. * WHERE...Columbia River at Vancouver. * WHEN...Until Thursday evening. * IMPACTS...Above 16.0 feet, expect continued flooding of some islands and low areas, with minor impacts for parks and trails along the river. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 3:36 PM PDT Tuesday the stage was 16.0 feet. - Recent Activity...The maximum river stage in the 24 hours ending at 3:36 PM PDT Tuesday was 16.3 feet. - Forecast...The river will oscillate between 16.0 and 16.3 feet through Wednesday and then range from 15.7 to 16.2 feet through Thursday morning. - Flood stage is 16.0 feet. - ]

The extension of waterfront walkway has finally opened. Vancouver aspires to make their waterfront a world class tourist attraction and they are well on their way to doing so. We are lucky because we can drive there in less than a half hour.

Click to read TV story and watch video.

In no particular order here are some of the photos from today. Scroll down to the remainder. Click them to enlarge.

ABOVE: The water level under this was about 16 ft. higher than usual due to the recent rain.

WildFin is is where we usually eat, here's their website..

Twigs website.

The is a new place above Twigs. While we were there workers were putting up the sign.

Below: Click for article and video

In no particular order here are more of the photos from today:

Above is part of the new section.

Above and below, at the end of the new walk-way.

Here's where the big dinner-boats and other large boats dock.

Who knew? The Prune Capital of the World.

Above: Dosales, the second floor Latin restaurant (their website) where we plan to eat the next time we're in Vancouver.

Read article:

June 13, 2022

Is Trump really crazy?

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For those of you who watched the hearing this morning I pose a question which I and others have asked before: is Trump crazy or is he crazy like a fox.

This morning if you watched the J6 hearing you saw a video of Williams Barr saying Trump was not a rational person.

He said that if Trump truly believed the things he was saying then he was “detached from reality."

Not being able to tell what is real from what isn’t is a hallmark of several severe mental disorders or conditions.

Today Rep. Jamie Raskin said Trump either knew he was lying or was mentally incapacitated. (Read article)

There has been a lot of debate about whether Trump is crazy or crazy like a fox. I think there is fairly uniform agreement that early in childhood her developed into a malignant narcissist. It would fit that if he had so much, really just about all, of his identity tied up in his grandiose self-identity that when he lost the election he suffer something he’d never experienced. This is called a narcissistic injury. This is how Wikipedia describes it:

A narcissistic injury is also known as "narcissistic wound" or "wounded ego" are emotional traumas that overwhelm an individual's defense mechanisms and devastate their pride and self worth. In some cases the shame or disgrace is so significant that the individual can never again truly feel good about who they are and this is sometimes referred to as a "narcissistic scar".

This was published in The Week in 2017: Is Trump crazy or crazy like a fox?

You're not taking crazy pills. The president and a distressingly large number of people around him regularly say things that sound quite literally insane.
I don't mean neurotic. The president and his advisers don't appear to suffer from anxiety disorder or depression. I'm not even talking about the severe narcissism that every commentator and armchair psychotherapist discerns in Trump's self-absorbed, needy, vindictive tweets and other public pronouncements. I'm talking about something far more serious: clinical psychosis — an incapacity to distinguish between fact and fiction, reality and illusion.

In The New York Times in their regular Conversation column on Dec. 15, 2017 Gail Collins and Bret Stephens discussed the question: Is Trump Crazy Like a Fox or Plain Old Crazy?

They begin:

Gail Collins: Bret, I’ve had a lot of these conversations over the years, but I cannot remember ever starting one by asking whether you think the president is off his rocker. In the real, mentally ill sense.
Bret Stephens: Um, was he ever on his rocker, Gail?
Look, I’ve gone back and forth on this question. If you look up old interviews he conducted 20 or 30 years ago (check out this video of his testimony to a congressional committee in 1991), what you find is a much more coherent thinker and verbally acute speaker than the man he is today. I’m not expert enough to say at what point mental decline slides into senility or dementia, but there’s clearly been a decline.

I posted this in June of 2018:

Here’s my diary from Dec. 15, 2020:

I wrote this almost exactly a year ago:

The question of whether Trump is crazy or crazy like a fox is not new. What is new is that since his election loss there is evidence that he actually now meets the criteria for having a psychiatric disorder or at least a condition where delusions are a prominent feature.

Is Trump crazy, i.e. Marjorie Taylor Greene QAnon or Lin Wood (who believes the earth is flat — see story) crazy or is he crazy like a fox who is a master manipulator? Or, is he something in between?

June 11, 2022

Ivanka betrays father

About my career and about the Mason Mental Health Center ||||| My 1400+ Daily Kos political stories are here || Open just this story

His Truth Social post suggests how much Trump felt betrayed by his lap dance Lolita

I posted this on Daily Kos (here) where over 2,600 people read it and there were more than 100 comments.

Only an enraged malignant narcissist would refer to his daughter by her first and last names in the public way Donald Trump did. Some parents do this in private when they are mad at their children. For example: “Margaret Jones, stop talking on your cellphone and do your homework!” They don’t do this to an entire country.

He posted this Friday morning on his Truth Social:

It's interesting to me how his anger must have been building over the night during which time he made only one post to Truth Social saying “A one sided, totally partisan, POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” In addition to other posts (see HUFFPost article) trying to spin the story his way, most notable to me is that he chose to focus it on Friday morning by attacking his daughter, the one who I think he has to feel the most betrayed by. His tone in his post is that she was remiss, or worse, in her dutiful daughter responsibility by not being involved in “looking at, or studying the election results.” In fact, he says she had “long since checked out.” “Checked out” is a fairly strong condemnation.

It was far worse than that. His princess, his lap dance Lolita, called him a liar to the entire nation and he couldn't stand it.

It’s like Delores, aka Lolita, decided to report Humbert Humbert to Protective Services.

“Lolita” ended with Humbert Humbert being arrested for shooting and killing Clare Quilty who was his rival for Lolita’s affection, and dying in prison. Hmmm… it’s probably too much to hope for that Trump could suffer the same fate for trying to kill democracy.

June 10, 2022

J6 Cmte hearings

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Blame for J6 is simple according to Fox News: it was all Pelosi's fault. Will it work?

My friend, who tries to monitor what Fox News is saying, was over to watch the hearing with me last night and convinced me to switch from MSNBC and tune into Fox News for a few minutes after the hearing ended. This is what I learned on The Ingraham Angle where the host was interviewing two GOP members of Congress during the couple of minutes we watched.

One of the guests, Rep. Bryon Donalds (R-FL) said he watched the entire hearing. As he and the other member of Congress smiled and nodded in agreement, the total blame was laid on Nancy Pelosi.

It was revealed in the first portion of the hearing that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were conspiring to attack the Capital, Steve Bannon was predicting it, and Trump himself was encouraging it by telling his followers to fight like hell to take back their country, we now know that there were indications that something really bad, or in Trump’s words, something wild, was going to happen in Washington on January 6th.

What then does Fox News and the Trump bootlickers think Nancy Pelosi should have done?

Of course they hate her with a passion but they think she has a crystal ball and can predict dangerous events before they happen.

With this pre-knowledge she should have made sure that the Capital Police were prepared in advanced to protect the building from being overrun by a mob of insurrectionists.

Nobody brought up that the Capital Police could not have done this alone. This would have taken the kind of protection that thousands of members of law enforcement and 26,000 National Guard troops, plus the physical barriers, used at President Biden’s inauguration provided to assure there was no violence.

The fact that we now know is that the success of the attack on the Capital was predicated on a lot of luck. A few hundred members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers didn’t go to the Trump rally. They headed straight to the Capital. Their plan was to breach the building and stop certification of the election. They had no way of knowing for sure that Trump would have been able to send a few thousand frothing at the mouth minions to help them storm the Capital.

Of course, according to Fox News, Nancy Pelosi with her crystal ball should have been able to see this in advance.

I think we have had a sample of the narrative Fox News and the GOP will be pursuing as the hearings progress. They will point to all the examples of how far-right pro-Trump supporters had worked to organize the attack on pro-Trump on far-right social media websites and they will say that those entrusted to protect the Capital and members of Congress working there should have prevented it. This will be tricky for them. In order to make the blame stick to Democrats they will have to figure out a way to absolve Donald Trump. He incited his minions at the rally to go to the Capital. He did nothing to stop the attack while he gleefully watched it in the Oval Office dinning room. He called the mob peaceful with unbelievable love unlike anything he’d ever seen.

The answer for them is a simple two-parter.

Blame it all on The Proud Boys and The Oath Keepers. What the Hell, they are disposable and have no significant constituency.
Say Nancy Pelosi should have known in advance and made sure the Capital was protected.

They might just manage to pull it off with those who refuse to open their minds to the truth.

The rabbit in the hat that may emerge in the coming weeks is hard evidence of contacts in advance of January 6th between leaders of The Proud Bays and The Oath Keepers with either Donald Trump and/or his close associates showing that Trump knew in advance that they would be the point of the insurrection spear on January 6th and all Trump had to do was make sure they would have an army to back them up marching from his rally. This could come from the J6 Committee of the Department of Justice. This would be compelling evidence of a conspiracy.

Addendum:

Some, like Ted Cruz, will say it is all theater:

Salon article: Ted Cruz calls Jan. 6 hearings "theater"

Ramping up to the start of the Jan. 6 hearings, Ted Cruz made several comments that seem to downplay it all

"And this is theater. It's designed to be theater, right down to they brought in a Hollywood producer. This is – it's not unlike watching the Democratic National Convention, which is a slick, propaganda machine. You know, I don't want the DNC convention because I don't believe in the ideas they're pushing," Cruz continued. "That's what this hearing is going to be and it is sadly going to have the warm and enthusiastic embrace of the corrupt corporate media. You know, The New York Times just observed that this hearing 'is a chance for Democrats to change the midterm narrative.' Well, for once, The New York Times accidentally reported the truth, cuz they admitted this is all about politics. This is a campaign ad."

This is already what Fox News is saying.

The problem for this is that

it isn’t theater, it is all true and backed by powerful evidence.
if it is theater, it is damn convincing theater.

Call it theater if you must right-wingers running scared, but it was Tony Award winning theater. I give credit to who put this all together and for featuring both the never seen before video and deciding to have U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards be the police officer chosen among the police who were there to be the one to testify. She came across as the daughter any sensible person would like to call their own.

The only thing I would have done differently is to have the chair of the committee chair, Bernie Thompson, make his opening shorter even though it was very good since Liz Cheney repeated much of what he said and I think did it more effectively and she is, after all a Republican and the daughter of Dick Cheney. She has star power.

This would have left more time for videos.

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Hal Brown's Blog - changed to Hal Brown's Stressline

June 18, 2022

What's Weirder?

“that is why this month we’re going to stand up to the left-wing fascism...”

June 17, 2022

Far-right militias

June 16, 2022

Trump 2024 sh*tshow says advisor

Trump advisor on 2024 run "another fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants sh*t show". Is he the best for Democrats to beat?

June 15, 2022

Vancouver, WA: New walkway and flood.

June 13, 2022

Is Trump really crazy?

June 11, 2022

Ivanka betrays father

About my career and about the Mason Mental Health Center ||||| My 1400+ Daily Kos political stories are here || Open just this story

June 10, 2022

J6 Cmte hearings

About my career and about the Mason Mental Health Center ||||| My 1400+ Daily Kos political stories are here ||

Salon article: Ted Cruz calls Jan. 6 hearings "theater"

Ramping up to the start of the Jan. 6 hearings, Ted Cruz made several comments that seem to downplay it all

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