Words that jumped out to me in Jennifer Rubin's column
by Hal Brown
Stories breaking through the day that piqued my interest are on the bottom of the page.
This has been a blog with my opinions on politics, psychology, and pop culture using the Google Blogger platform with the address halbrown.org. As of Oct. 10, 2023 it has been renamed Hal Brown's Stressline and moved to the WordPress platform with the new address Stressline.org - Posts are sometimes serious and sometimes snarky.
Words that jumped out to me in Jennifer Rubin's column
by Hal Brown
Stories breaking through the day that piqued my interest are on the bottom of the page.
QAnon lunacy about harvesting live children for fictional super-powerful psychedelic, adrenochrome which came from Hunter S. Thompson, plus the world of the wacky incels.
Comment on stories from the bottom of this page, or you can make them on Facebook here, or re-Tweet or reply with your opinions on Twitter here. Click to enlarge images that aren't links to stories. Archives are in right column.
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Photograph credited to "Cashman Photo Enterprises, Inc." Published by Random House. - Originally published on the back of the dust jacket for the 1972 first edition of Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published by Random House. |
We now know where a belief central to the QAnon list of certifiably insane claims comes from.
Thom Hartmann, American radio personality, author, former psychotherapist, businessman, and progressive political commentator took a deep dive into the "dangerous mental illness" of Donald Trump and how he has spread it to his followers. In doing this he reveals where one of the most bizarre claims coming from QAnon originated.
It came from the mind of American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement, none other than Hunter S. Thomspon.
The following is the portion of this long Thom Hartmann article which explains this.
When I was young my favorite writers were Ernest Hemmingway and Hunter S. Thompson, and my favorite Thompson novel was his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Which is why a caller last year who started on a rant about Democrats harvesting “adrenochrome” from children caused me to both cut him off the air and go back to my copy of the novel to see if my memory was right.
Sure enough, there it was. Thompson was bemoaning running out of hashish and being almost out of opium when his “fat Samoan” sidekick offered an alternative:
“As your attorney,” he said, “I advise you not worry.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “Take a hit out of that little brown bottle in my shaving kit.”
“What is it?” “QAnon lunacy about harvesting live children came from Hunter S. Thompson,” he said. “You won’t need much. Just a little tiny taste.”
I got the bottle and dipped the head of a paper match into it.
“That’s about right,” he said. “That stuff makes pure mescaline seem like ginger beer. You’ll go completely crazy if you take too much.”
I licked the end of the match. “Where’d you get this?” I asked. “You can’t buy it.”
“Never mind,” he said. “It’s absolutely pure.”
I shook my head sadly. “Jesus! What kind of monster client have you picked up this time? There’s only one source for this stuff…”He nodded.
“The adrenaline glands from a living human body,” I said. “It’s no good if you get it out of a corpse.”When Thompson pushes his “attorney” about where the adrenochrome came from, the fictional character tells the fictional tale of having once been hired to represent a child molester/murderer who’d presumably extracted it from one of his victims:
“Christ, what could I say?” Thompson’s sidekick told him. “Even a goddamn werewolf is entitled to legal counsel. I didn’t dare turn the creep down. He might have picked up a letter opener and gone after my pineal gland.”That little seed, entirely fictional, planted in the national subconscious back in the early ‘70s, has now blossomed into a full-blown flower of a belief held by literally millions of Americans.
As Rightwing Watch documents, uber-Trump cultist and “journalist” Liz Crokin explains in one of her many videos:
“Adrenochrome is a drug that the elites love. It comes from children. The drug is extracted from the pituitary gland of tortured children. It’s sold on the black market. It’s the drug of the elites. It is their favorite drug. It is beyond evil. It is demonic. It is so sick.”People who have been ensnared by the
QAnon cult and are gullible enough to believe this kind of thing are the explicit targets now in Trump’s crosshairs....
There is another group being courted by Trump which is every bit as weird as the QAnan cray-cray. These are young men who consider themselves to be proud and superior Incels.
You probably heard this term and know it has something to do with attitudes towards women and may even know that the letters stand for involuntarily celibate. This article explains that at least many of these men aren't involuntarily celibate. Rather, they embrace their celibacy and eschew any intimate relationship with women.
This is explained in this Salon article:
Excerpts:The affidavit blandly describes America First, an ardently pro-Trump group, as motivated by "a belief that they are defending against the demographic and cultural changes in America." The deeper truth is this group — whose members call themselves "groypers" — is among the most shamelessly fascist of the many far-right gangs that invaded the Capitol that day. Their leader, Nick Fuentes, has declared that "Trump was awesome because he was racist," engaged in Holocaust denialism and heaped praise on various historical dictators, including like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Indeed, he did the latter at a conference attended by Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, signaling how far Fuentes' fascist worldview has crept into the Republican Party.
.....
It's not just that Fuentes and other groypers identify as "incels," a nickname for the virulently misogynist online movement of "involuntary celibates." Fuentes has tried to reinvent "incel" as an aspirational identity, telling his followers that pursuing sex with women is degrading and will only distract groypers from their true calling as warriors for the brand of white nationalism (mixed with far-right "trad" Catholicism) he's peddling. As Tess Owen at Vice reported in July, "Fuentes has called himself a 'proud incel,' urged his supporters to abstain from sex, and made bizarre assertions like 'all sex is gay.'"
No, seriously, this is his argument for why heterosexual sex is "gay": "Think about it this way: What's gayer than being like 'I need cuddles. I need kisses … I need to spend time with a woman.' That's a little sus."
Wikipedia hasn't been able to copyright the term Wiki so it isn't surprising that there are lots of websites using the word, and there's even this one:
Vector Stock royalty free |
Two from the BBC:
By Jim Taylor
BBC Radio 5 Live
I do not know where members of this group stand on male masturbation. If they are adamantly against it. For all the material about healthy masturbation there is a cottage industry of books giving advice on how to stop this supposedly terrible addiction:
Instead what will inevitably happen is that almost all of the men in the group of incels will eventually go stark raving mad with pent up sexual frustration unless they decide to pursue healthy sexuality whether it is with solo sex or with a partner.
Rioting on January 6th might have been a temporary sexual release, but how many of these men went to bed that might and had a wet dream about storming the Capitol and experienced an orgasm when they marched like maniacs carrying their stupid Trump flags?
Click above to enlarge |
Ann Telnaes got it right in her cartoon, Trump is a fat flying declassification fairy
By Hal Brown
I hadn't even considered making Trump into a fairy when wrote my story yesterday. I am thankful someone with a far, far greater readership than I have on my teeny-weeny blog gets.
I'm not a cartoonist, but here's my crude version of the Ann Telnaes version of Trump as a fairy using his magic wand to declassify top secret documents. Mine has him as a svelte mythical being, albeit with the fat head I added.
Fairy from Wiki Commons |
I got it wrong yesterday when I compared Trump declassification of top secret documents using his mind to Mr. Spock and Carnac the Magnificent.
Cartoonist Ann Telnaes from The Washington ton Post nailed him by depicting his as an orange faced fat fairy with pink wings and a magic wandssaying "If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by says it's declassified, even by thinking about it." This was featured in the Opinion section of The Washington Post today and on Twitter:
I really like the characterization of Trump as a flying fat fatuous fantasy flailing fairy because if by chance he should see it this might really get under his thin skin.
I suggested Trump had mastered Mr. Spock's Vulcan Mind Meld to use it to declassify top secret documents.
There's no way Trump could have done this. Even using Trump and Mr. Spock in the same sentence is an insult to the valiant Vulcan.
I also likened him to Carnac the Magnificent.
I wonder what Johnny would be saying about Trump if he still was hosting The Tonight Show. Consider this:
I am sure, like today's late night TV show hosts, he would in his own inimitable gentle humor be ripping Trump a new one.This is what Trump posted about Carson when he was still on Twitter:
It is not true that Carson never discussed politics. For example here's what he said about Trump:
“Don’t worry about Gennifer Flowers, she got a new job — she got fired, you know — she was a receptionist at an unemployment agency, she got canned, but she got a new job today as a Donald Trump backup mistress,” Carson quipped, to roaring laughter from the audience. "If for any reason Marla Maples is unable to fulfill her duties, Gennifer steps in."
Vintage Trump magical mind quote reported here:
"The former president doesn't have any moves left, and you can also see, across the spectrum, that he is running out of moves and running out of lies," D'Antonio said. "That comment about how he could declassify things in his mind is the same lie that he told when he was deposed around 15 years ago when he said, 'Well, the value of my company is based on how I feel inside.' So this is a person who has never expected concrete reality, but he is running out of people who will listen to him when he offers his delusions."
Did Trump use Vulcan Mind Meld to declassify?
Written and illustrated by Hal Brown
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You've no doubt read or heard about how trump said he had the ability to declassify top secret documents with his mind.
Before you break a gut rolling on the floor with laughter, consider this possibility.
Trump may have mastered a version of the Vulcan Mind Meld which is effective on top secret documents!
Not that anyone could have missed these make-your-eye-bug-out reports:
"There doesn't have to be a process, as I understand it. You know, there's different people, say different things," Trump told Sean Hannity. "If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, 'it's declassified' — even by thinking about it."
Attorney and former FBI Agent Asha Rangappa joked, "he’s actually invoking the Secret Telepathic Unilateral Preemptive Irreversible Declassification (S.T.U.P.I.D.) defense."
More:
Watch video here:Let's back up here. What do legal experts and former FBI agents know about the actual powers residing in the deep recesses of the Trump mind?
Those of you who are old enough probably remember Johnny Carson as Carnac the Magnificent.
Top secret stamp added |
Longtime sidekick Ed McMahon ritualistically and bombastically introduced the Carnac routines. The announcement implied Carnac was responsible for some scandal or disaster currently in the news, as "And now, the great seer, soothsayer, and sage, Carnac the Magnificent." After Carnac entered and stumbled, Ed would continue as follows:
"I hold in my hand the envelopes. As a child of four can plainly see, these envelopes have been hermetically sealed. They've been kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls' porch since noon today. NO ONE [at this shout, Carnac always acts startled] knows the contents of these envelopes – but you, in your mystical and borderline divine way, will ascertain the answers having never before heard the questions."
"Sis boom bah." "Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes."
—Ed McMahon's favorite Carnac the Magnificentpunchline[5]
The act involved a variation of the magician's billet reading trick: divining the answer to a question written on a card sealed inside one of the envelopes, announcing it to the audience, then tearing open the envelope to reveal the question.
Oh ye of little faith!
It may have been an act with Johnny but there are many people who say Trump is, if not the Second Coming, at least Jesus quite literally shared the Oval Office with him and even guided his Sharpie when he signed executive orders.
Trump has managed magical feats hitherto thought impossible. Had he not possessed, if not magical, perhaps divine powers, he'd long ago either be residing in prison or living in a cardboard box on his beloved New York City's Skid Row.
Who then is to conclude that Trump, who has succeeded in leading a cult composed not only of pinheads but a sprinkling of actual college graduates, doesn't have supernatural powers?
Yesterday was, to understate the gravity of the news for Trump, a worrisome Wednesday for Trump, or in his delusional "what me worry" state at least it was for his lawyers and Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric.
By most counts there are at least six things in the legal arena Trump ought to be losing sleep over or gorging on Big Macs, chocolate malteds, and KFC to the point of becoming a Mr. Creosote.
The number six prompted me to make this illustration:
"Racist A.G. Letitia 'Peekaboo' James, the failed Gubernatorial candidate, is now running second to strong crime fighter MICHAEL HENRY," Trump posted. "This could be a big upset because she has been a terrible A.G. when it comes to protecting the people of New York State. Murder, Rape, and Drugs are totally out of control-There has never been a more dangerous time than this. She is grossly incompetent, her staff knows it, and so does everyone else. MAKE NEW YORK SAFE AGAIN!!!"
"Trump's new nickname for NY Attorney General Leticia James is 'Peekaboo,'" added progressive commentator Thom Hartmann. "Is this his code word for the word you get when you replace "peek" with "Jig"? Sure looks like it..."
Click to enlarge my comment
This is long but well worth readingRemember the days when used car lots were simply called used car or second-hand car lots because the cars they sold were used? Then it caught on that a better marketing ploy was to de-emphasize the fact that the cars were “used” or second-hand and call them pre-owned as if the people who drove them before didn’t actually use them. When I thought of the idea of a title for my diary today I wanted to find a free image to use of a used car lot sign for my illustration and found the perfect one considering that it had a rocket on it. This image was on the Wikipedia page for “used car” and is from a Library of Congress collection. It is a sign for a used car dealership in Utah in 1981. I added the caricatures of Putin and Trump.
Assuming Trump runs for president again, what are low-information Americans who are not totally brainwashed members of the Trump cult voters going to believe?
Come the run-up to the 2024 election will they believe Trump and those supporting him when they accuse candidate Joe Biden of being owned by the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party? After all they want you to believe they are dastardly socialists or communists in the mold of Che Guevara, that they are out to confiscate your guns, corrupt our youth with perverted ideas about gender, and teach children that slavery was bad. On the other hand, will they believe the Democrats who will hopefully convey a persuasive argument that Trump was a candidate used and very much owned by Vladimir Putin?
Trump himself is mired in his own delusional malignant narcissism where he has continued to show incredibly poor judgment by praising Putin and refusing to condemn him in no uncertain terms. See: Trump praises Putin for his move into Ukraine, calling it 'genius (YaHoo News)' and Trump defends praise of Putin even as he calls Ukrainian President 'brave' (CNN Feb. 27).
Now with Putin showing himself to be a modern day Hitler it is not too early for the Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans and former Republicans, including of course those in The Lincoln Project, to start a campaign to remind the public of stories like this which include numerous photoshopped images:
… also in the Daily Mail:
… and from The Guardian:
… and this from the Daily Mirror:
And then there are all the inimitable DonkeyHotey (pronounced Don Quixote) and his caricatures of Trump and Putin which can be used in stories. This one of Putin carrying Trump is the most well known. Below is a caricature used in Paying Russia Back for Election Interference Is an Exercise in Futility story which I hadn’t seen before.
My related diary with the DonkeyHotey Putin carrying Trump caricature:
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