DAVE MATHEWS AND DONALD TRUMP

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This is a little story about two stars. One is Donald Trump and the other is Dave Mathews, founder and lead singer of The Dave Mathews Band.

If you're a fan you know all of the following about Dave Mathews. If not here's an excerpt from his Wikipedia page:

He is best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band (DMB). Matthews was born in Johannesburg,^[2][3] and moved frequently among South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States while growing up. Matthews started playing acoustic guitar at the age of nine.

From 1991 to 2003, Matthews predominantly focused on songwriting and performing with the Dave Matthews Band, which he started in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1991. He also has done various solo performances and produced other records. During the period from 2000 to 2010, his band sold more tickets and earned more money than any other act in North America.^[4] The band's 2012 album Away from the Worldmade them the only group to have six consecutive studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard charts. This record was extended to seven consecutive number one albums with the 2018 release, Come Tomorrow.

In addition to music, Matthews has had multiple acting roles.^[5] He has also won two Grammy Awards: one with the Dave Matthews Band in 1997 for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group ("So Much to Say") and one in 2004 for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance ("Gravedigger") from his solo album.

One could argue convincingly that Trump was once literally a star since he had the lead in a television series:

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I can't find a photo of his dressing room door and I tried, but I wouldn't be surprised it it had a big star on it and looked like this:

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Donald Trump has been compared to a number of animals. I likened him to a scorpion (here). I won't go into this here since it is beyond the scope of my scientific analogy.

I want to suggest that he may be like a starfish. Here, appropriately, is an orange one.

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This is Asterias rubens, known as the common sea star. It is capable of extensive arm regeneration, but will perish if the central disk suffers serious damage.

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As children who pay attention in grade school science class learn starfish have the ability to regenerate lost arms. This is from Wikipedia.

Starfish, or sea stars, are radially symmetrical, star-shaped organisms of the phylum Echinodermata and the class Asteroidea. Aside from their distinguished shape, starfish are most recognized for their remarkable ability to regenerate, or regrow, arms and, in some cases, entire bodies. While most species require the central body to be intact in order to regenerate arms, a few tropical species can grow an entirely new starfish from just a portion of a severed limb. Starfish regeneration across species follows a common three-phase model and can take up to a year or longer to complete.^[2] Though regeneration is used to recover limbs eaten or removed by predators, starfish are also capable of autotomizing and regenerating limbs to evade predators and reproduce.

Due to their wide range of regenerative capabilities, starfish have become model organisms for studying how the regenerative process has evolved and diversified over time. While the overall morphological processes have been well documented in many starfish, little is known regarding the underlying molecular mechanisms that mediate their regeneration. Moreover, some researchers hope starfish may one day serve as inspiration for therapeutics aiming to expand the extent to which humans can repair and replace damaged cells or tissues.

I wrote a story which I posted here and on Daily Kos titled "With three legal investigations into Trump there could be a different kind we don't yet know about."

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Trump's star is dimming and his perils have increased in other ways in addition to the legal jeopardy he is in. Primarily I see that as he becomes more and more extreme and unhinged he loses support among those who see him as too unstable to carry the banner for the GOP. Rational Republicans if reports are to be believed are looking to someone like DeSantis who is on their side in the culture war but doesn't espouse QAnon conspiracy nonsense and doesn't look like he's ready to be carted off to a psychiatric hospital in a strait jacket. These are people who see snippets of his long rambling rally rants and have don’t want anything to do with him. They see that his Pennsylvania rally was held for two candidates that have been considered likely losers, Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz. 

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They also see coverage like this (not that many of them read Salon or RawStory): 

Trump handed Democrats a "major gift" in Pennsylvania: former Republican lawmaker — "I am not so sure that the former president Trump did anyone any good with that speech," Charlie Dent says. Salon 

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 Why did Trump choose to showcase a Nazi sympathizer as Jan. 6 prisoner at Pennsylvania rally: CNN reporter asks. (RawStory)

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Do non-MAGA cult Republicans want to be associated with people that look like this?

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It is also an accidental gift to us that “rally rant” happens to be a catchy and descriptive alliteration for his speeches. Preface it with “rambling and raging” and it’s even better. 

And then there’s Dave Mathews who isn’t running for anything:

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I have friends who are at a Dave Mathews concert this Labor Day weekend for their traditional  extravganza at the beautiful Gorge Ampitheatre along the Columbia River south of Seattle where fans appreciate two hour sets by the band. It doesn't matter to fans that they play a selection of their new and old songs. I would venture a guess that you won't see a single MAGA hat among the crowd who spend the long weekend there camping out, socializing, and enjoying the music of the Dave Mathews Band and other acts. By just about every measure aside (a couple of photos here) from being members of the human race, as diverse and colorful group that Dave Mathews fans are one could say they are more highly evolved than the typical MAGA cultist. They are far removed from the throngs we see in photos and videos of those at a Trump rally. 

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At his rally in Pennsylvania Trump went on for nearly two hours reprising his old crowd pleasing favorites and adding attacks at the FBI and the DOJ for searching his house at Mar-a-Lago and seizing documents. "It was not just my home that was raided… it was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I've been fighting for since the moment I came down the golden escalator in 2015, wanting to represent the people," he said to boos from the crowd. Of course there no mention of what was reported in HuffPost that  "Actors Reportedly (were) Hired To Cheer Trump's 2015 Campaign Launch" and covered elsewhere.

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My point, if you haven't figured it our by now, is that if each investigation into Trump's criminal behavior and everything he does to loose a significant number of his supporters can be said to represent an arm of Trump the Starfish. He can only lose a limited number of them before the central disc, that is, the core of the corpulent one, is damaged beyond regeneration.

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If this happens he becomes a like a fish in prison.  In prison slang: in men’s facilities, this is the term used for new prisoners. A fish is new to prison politics and the reality of how facilities are managed.

Addendum:

You’ve suffered through videos of Trump ranting at his rallies. Here’s a 2009 video of a solo:

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This is quite contrast with Donald Trump. Hell, without knowing anything about his political acumen I’d say he make a better president than Trump six ways from Sunday. According to this he’s “a liberal, a Democrat and he's not afraid to say it.”

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This is an except from this 2017 Hollywood Reporter article: 

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14 Hollywood Stars Who Immigrated to the U.S. and Became Citizens — Many actors and musicians who came to America from other countries are voicing their concerns over President Trump's latest travel ban.

Dave Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. At age 2, Matthews moved with his family to Westchester County, N.Y., where his physicist father took a job at IBM. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1980. 

While the singer-songwriter has said he doesn't affiliate with one particular political party — though he called Republicans "disconnected" and "nonsensical," he supported Barack Obama during his two presidential campaigns. He initially supported Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders but later helped campaign for Hillary Clinton after she became the Democratic nominee.

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Here’s a 12 minute video of the entire band performing in New York’s Central Park in 2018:

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Could there be an unknown totally different Trump investigation?

 

Not counting the Jan. 6th Committee which can’t issue indictments but is still of major importance as an investigative body, Trump is facing three investigations which could result in legal charges being brought against him:

• Merrick Garland’s DOJ investigation into the mishandling of top-secret government documents
• Fani T. Willis, Fulton County, Ga. DA’s investigation into election tampering
• New York Attorney General  Letitia James’ investigative probe into the Trump Organization

There is yet another investigation that may be underway that the public is not aware of, and that I think Trump ,if he’s not totally delusional, ought to be very, very worried about. You know what this could be from my illustration. Of course that Washington Post edition was preceded by one of the most historic Washington Post front pages ever with this article:

Here’s how I put my thought about this in a tweet before I decided to expand on my speculation and write this diary.

Newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times have some of the best investigative reporters in the world. Some are veterans and some are eager young dogged reporters like these two were 50 years ago:

“Watergate at 50” article

These are the first paragraphs of story above:

One of the five men arrested early Saturday in the attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters is the salaried security coordinator for President Nixon’s reelection committee.

The suspect, former CIA employee James W. McCord Jr., 53, also holds a separate contract to provide security services to the Republican National Committee, GOP national chairman Bob Dole said yesterday.

Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, head of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, said yesterday McCord was employed to help install that committee’s own security system.

My hunch is that if journalists are investigating some yet to be revealed crime committed by Trump, or new damning evidence for which “they have the receipts”* proving crimes already in the news, there won’t be an article like this one alerting the Trump legal team that these hound dogs are on the scent and closing in on him.

I’ll go out on a limb here and add another speculation just for bragging rights if it happens. We all know that Rachel Maddow just stepped down from hosting her show five nights a week to only do a show on Mondays “to work on other projects.” She had a large staff of investigative journalists working on her show. She may still have them working for her.

What if one of the so called “other projects” involves tracking down leads that came to her about Trump that could lead to his ultimate downfall. She said she wanted to focus on podcasts and a film directed by Ben Stiller. No matter what she’s said these project are they could be a diversionary smoke screen.

If this was true I have no doubt that MSNBC would provide her with all the resources she needed. Who knows whether or not Rashida Jones, the current president of MSNBC who succeeded Phil Griffin, is playing the role the legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradleeplayed with Woodward and Bernstein.

If there is an investigation by a newspaper or a television network, I only hope that one of these is fruitful.

Maybe this is all wishful thinking on my part, As the saying goes…

chose your ending.

Take the poll and let us know how likely you think it is that one of these days Trump will be hoist by the petard of the news he calls fake whenever it reports a truth he doesn’t like.

Stay tuned...

* I don’t recall the saying “they have the receipts” or “I” or “we” have them being used so frequently in the news, or even at all, until the Jan. 6 Committee hearings.

The strange (legal) case of psychiatrist Bandy Lee

Note the blog archives are in the right column. The most recent stories are all political. They are:

• Trump like Scrooge McDuck swimming in document loot
• Watch His Waistline: Measuring Trump's stress level
• Trump wants his supporters to die for him.
• Scroll down further and you'll find stories like this one about bathroom art a a nearby restaurant. 

The strange (legal) case of psychiatrist Bandy Lee

This story was also published (here) on Daily Kos where it hopefully will prompt some comments.

Bandy X. Lee, MD, MDiv is well known among those who follow books, articles, and television coverage of how Donald Trump's psychopathology makes him, as the book she edited proclaims him, a dangerous case.

She is currently in the news.

Click above to enlarge image

This all began with her with a legal case which began with the following precipitated by the media hog par excellence and thin skinned Alan Dershowitz :

CANCEL CULTURE New York Magazine  DEC. 30, 2021

She Tweeted That Alan Dershowitz Might Be Acting Crazy. So Yale Fired Her.

 

The strange free-speech case of Bandy Lee.

Now some 10 months later the case has been adjudicated. This is the legal result as reported in The Yale Daily News:

Bandy Lee attempted to contest her being dismissed from this voluntary but important position at Yale University but a federal judge ruled against her.

Bandy Lee complaint dismissed by federal judge; Lee says she will appeal

“I won’t stop,” said the psychiatrist, who had alleged wrongful firing over tweets about Alan Dershowitz and tied her case to broader issues of academic freedom.

This was reported, I suspect with some satisfaction, on Rupert Murdoch's NY Post as follows:

Click above for article. Note that the paper misspelled her first name.

One aspect of her association with Yale which has been reported I wasn't aware of. I thought she was a regular paid member of their faculty working at least as an adjunct professor not on the tenure track. I don't know if she had a formal teaching role but this was reported: The reason the school said she was eventually let go was due to lack of a formal teaching role, the New Haven Register reported. Importantly, Lee responded to this in this tweet:

(a) 80-90% medical faculty are voluntary; and (b) “no teaching role” was decided on after firing, not before.

I was disabused of my assumption about her role at Yale being more active after reading several articles about this. It was reported in The Hartford Courant (subscription required) but referenced by the NY Post:

While Lee wasn’t paid, she claimed the Yale gig was worth potentially tens of thousands of dollars in perks and exposure that allowed her to consult globally, the Courant reported.

It took one day for Wikipedia to update their entry on her:

In 2020, Yale University did not renew Lee's volunteer position for breaking the Goldwater rule in her evaluations of Trump.^[13] Lee sued Yale for violating her academic freedom,^[14] but the suit was dismissed in August 2022

Bandy Lee often referenced her association with Yale and this, in my opinion, gave her a great deal of credibility. Here's a 2020 article about her from The Yale Daily News:

PROFILE: Dr. Bandy Lee and the psychiatric case against Donald Trump

 In fact, Dr, Lee was the driving force behind a conference back in 2017  where mental health professionals presented on subjected related to why Trump represented a danger to democracy. See article:

Click above to article

Other prominent mental health professionals in the media include clinical psychologist John D. Gartner who (according to his Wikipedia page) was a part-time professor, until 2015, for 28 years at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Another is psychiatrist Lance Dodes, a training and supervising analyst emeritus of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

These credentials certainly lent substantial bonafides to their opinions especially compared to other mental health professionals like me who have published opinions whose educational backgrounds are more pedestrian. For example, I was a clinical social worker and the director of a small mental health center who received my MSW degree from Michigan State University.

Bandy Lee's website  which has many informative links doesn't have any abut this ruling (at least not that I can find):

As of this writing the news coverage section of her website hasn't been updated with this latest unfortunate development. However Dr. Lee has tweeted her response:

Click above

I don't know how much of a chance an appeal of this decision will have. I'll leave that to those with a modicum of legal expertise. My own off-the-cuff opinion is that the law favors the right of a university to fire any non-tenured member of the faculty whether an unpaid volunteer or a paid instructor or non-tenured assistant professor without cause. I wish it could be a free speech case and then I think she'd have a good chance of winning on appeal but I am afraid it isn't.

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