April 15, 2023

If Trump thinks "gangs of hundreds" storm stores and escape carrying stolen refrigerators he's one very sick puppy

By Hal Brown, MSW, retired after 40 years of practicing psychotherapy. Formerly director of a mental health center and in psychoanalytically oriented private practice.



Click to read HUFFPOST article shown above.

I won't bother selecting another Superman comic Bizzaro World image to add to this blog depicting Trump's mind. You can chose your own.

Before I read the above article I clicked on another HUFFPOST story, Trump Targets Transgender Health Care In NRA Speech, because how he could shoehorn this topic into a speech to a bunch of gun nuts piqued buy curiosity. I was curious to learn whether he was urging open hunting season for anyone promoting transgender health care. Color me shocked to discover that this topic actually made a modicum of sense even for someone with a warped bigoted mindset.

“Upon my inauguration, I will direct the FDA to convene an independent outside panel to investigate whether transgender hormone treatments and ideology increase the risk of extreme depression, aggression and even violence,” Trump said during a speech at the National Rifle Association’s conference in Indianapolis on Friday. 

“I think most of us already know the answer,” Trump added. 

Trump and his Republican allies have baselessly claimed that gender identity was a factor that led a shooter to kill three kids and three adults at a school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Then scrolling down the web page I saw this:


You can listen to his near 30 second lamentation here:
Add this to the priceless collection of utterances coming from the mouth of Donald John Trump which will provide choice fodder for late night comics to mock.


Donald Trump claimed Friday that thefts at retail stores in major cities include “hundreds” of people running out carrying pilfered refrigerators. 

The former president, in a speech Friday to the National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis, said that “gangs of hundreds” of young people in major cities “attack” department stores.

“And they run in by the hundreds, and they’re running out carrying refrigerators and carrying air conditioners and big stuff ― big, little, everything,” Trump said.

“Fur coats, non-fur coats, everything they’re carrying. They empty out the stores.”


... but the remainder of the article is composed of clever tweets made in response to this.

Last week Salon's Chauncey DeVega interviewed our very own Trump psychoanalyst, Justin Frank. 

"He is visualizing burning things and blowing them up": How Trump may be coping with being caught

Justin Frank, author of "Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President," on this week's historic indictments

 
The one question I would like to ask Dr. Frank is whether when Trump makes remarks like these if he actually believes the words that come out of his mouth or is this performance art.

If he believes what he says, as someone who practiced for 40 years as a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist, but not a formally trained psychoanalyst, I would have to say, to eschew psychological jargon, he is one very sick puppy.

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April 14, 2023

It seems way to early to say "thank you, Brian," based on Justice Alito's abortion pill ruling

 By Hal Brown, MSW, retired after 40 years of practicing psychotherapy. Formerly director of a mental health center and in psychoanalytically oriented private practice.


By chance when this news (see article in Raw Story: "Justice Alito temporarily blocks court ruling revoking abortion drug)" broke I was at a friend's house where her 9 year old grandson was watching Monty Python's Life of Brian, hence my title and illustration. The New York Times used the word "briefly" and both The Washington Post and Raw Story used the word "temporarily". HUPPPOST was more specific:

Click above to read article

What all this means is impossible to determine except that given that this is the far-right vehemently anti-abortion justice dominated Supreme Court I am not about to thank Brian or any particular deity some people believe exists in a realm up there in the sky somewhere.

If you aren't familiar with who Brian is, he's Brian Cohen, a young Jewish-Roman man who is born on the same day as—and next door to—Jesus, and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah. He is played by Graham Chapman. 





Just a short comment about Dianne Feinstein

By Hal Brown, MSW, retired after 40 years of practicing psychotherapy. Formerly director of a mental health center and in psychoanalytically oriented private practice.

There are more and more reports that Diane Feinstein is getting more and more confused and that she is contradicting herself from one day to the next regarding important matters. 

Her contradiction of her staff announcing her saying he had no imminent plans for this made the news but Raw Story + (subscrition) reports this:

Forgetting the assault weapon ban

In January, California endured back-to-back mass shootings within 48-hours of each other.

While celebrating the Lunar New Year on Jan. 21 in Monterey Park, 11 people were slaughtered and another nine left permanently scarred. Two days later, on Jan. 23, in northern California, a farmworker killed seven people while injuring at least eight others.

Later that day, as Californians reeled from their second mass shooting in two days, Feinstein’s office reintroduced the historic 1990s assault weapon ban she had championed.

Three days later, Feinstein couldn’t remember her own measure. .

Abortion confusion

Last year, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that effectively overturned Roe v. Wade nationally while leaving abortion policy to each state, Democrats coast-to-coast cheered after Kansas residents voted to keep abortion legal.

It took a few moments for Sen. Feinstein to remember the earth-moving news from the Great Plains.

Once she remembered, Feinstein was optimistic as she told Raw Story that upending Roe was an "enlightened finding" by the right wing of the Supreme Court.

These kinds of forgetting often are signs of early demential or Alzheimer's. 

Articles about what was speculated to be her cognitive decline go back at least to 2020: Dianne Feinstein ‘seriously struggling’ with cognitive decline, NY Post Cognitive decline is a general term usually referred to older people who have a form of dementia. (Note: Alzheimer's and dementia: What's the difference?)

I live in a continuing care retirement community and know many people going through the stages of dementia. Of course lots of people have to deal with this with loved ones and friends. I see that some people grasp that this is happening to themselves and most tragically others are in denial. I have seen both. 

If Feinstein deteriorates rapidly and enters the middle or end stages of dementia or Alzheimer's what will happen then?

Related articles:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein faces first calls to resign from members of Congress NBC News




April 13, 2023

At first the abortion pill appellate court ruling headlines looked somewhat positive, but then I read the fine print.

By Hal Brown, MSW, retired after 40 years of practicing psychotherapy. Formerly director of a mental health center and in psychoanalytically oriented private practice.


I was feeling happy about yesterday's news that Justin Pearson joined his colleague Justin Jones in being returned to the Tennessee House of Representatives. This morning, could it be that I'd be reading happy news two days in a row?

I had a fleeting moment of feeling good when I saw the first part of the headline above but then reading the italicized "tighter rules" part I held my breath as I clicked to read the article.

"Tighter rules" indeed. Make that "insane rules" instead. Consider:

When the drug was initially approved in 2000, the FDA limited its use to up to seven weeks of pregnancy. It also required three in-person office visits: the first to administer mifepristone, the next to administer the second drug misoprostol and the third to address any complications. It also required a doctor’s supervision and a reporting system for any serious consequences associated with the drug.


If the appeals court’s action stands, those would again be the terms under which mifepristone could be dispensed for now.

Prior to the ruling of Texas Judge Kacsmaryk women could have the drug prescribed up to 11 weeks of pregnancy and could use Telehealth for doctor visits and have the pill sent by mail.


Just mentioned on MSNBC, previously the generic version was allowed. Now it isn't.


Women who want to terminate a pregnancy in the safest way and the doctors who now have to see a doctor three times are having to, at least for the present, go though, to say the least, a medically unnecessary hassle.


Have you tried to get into see your primary care doctor for an urgent problem recently? It's not like they have lots of free time to squeeze you in for an appointment within a week, let alone on the same day. 


This is why there are so many urgent care centers where people generally see a nurse practitioner or physician assistant who they've never seen before.


It is odd that the two Trump appointed judges who were responsible for the ruling of the three judge panel mostly likely believe that using any means to terminate a pregnancy is morally wrong and the equivalent of murder, while I would bet the farm that Donald Trump would throw a woman off a cliff if she got inconveniently pregnant with a child he wanted to get rid of.





Related: 


How the appeals court ruling makes medication abortion access more complicated, CNN

Update:

Click above to read article


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Stats don't count those who read on 
Booksie and Medium

April 12, 2023

Who's the son of Frederick Christ Trump Sr., talking about when he says "most people when they inherit, they lose it?"

By Hal Brown, MSW, retired after 40 years of practicing psychotherapy. Formerly director of a mental health center and in psychoanalytically oriented private practice.


Unless you worship at the feet of Donald J. Trump and your judgment is distorted you might wonder whether had the former president been looking at himself clearly the above statement referring to "smarts" ought to have been "many people are like me, they inherited it but eventually they lost it."

Trump's praise of Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un is getting media coverage today.

Click above and below to enlarge images
One has to wonder what Putin and
 Kim are thinking in these photos.

Here's a video of a segment from Morning Joe with a discussion of this.

The following is a transcript of the relevant portion of the interview:

Trump: “Top of the line. Top line. They’re all top of the line. Are our guys not top of the line? Never was. These are top of the line people at the top of their game. President Xi is a brilliant man. 

If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn’t find, there’s nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing. 

We had a great relationship. You know, when he first came to Mar-a-Lago, It was so organized by them and by us, but by them very pom, pom, pom. Everything’s like business. No games, you know. 

They don’t say, Gee, how did the Yankees do last night? Oh, that was a wonderful. They don’t care. They don’t care about anything. I said, You ever go to a Broadway play? I’ll take you to one. Do you ever have plays like do you ever go.. No, I don’t know. 

He’s all this is business. These aren’t game players, right? I like it, you know, in a way, I like it. You have no life. But that’s what he likes.”

Carlson: “Yeah.”

Trump: “Top of the line. Smart. Top of the line. When they came in, it was supposed to be a meeting that lasted exactly 15 minutes. . So we go to breakout sessions with all they had. Like 40 people. We had 40 people, you know, the comparables. Right? And we’re sitting across the table from each other in the ballroom of Mar a Lago. 

It was an amazing scene, but our meeting was supposed to take 15 minutes. It took 4 hours. We got along so well. 

People ask how smart is Kim Jong Un? Kim Jong Un is smart too. You know, when you come out and as a young man at 24, 23, even though he sort of inherits it, most people when they inherit, they lose it. And that’s easy stuff. He took over a country, a very smart people, very, very energetic people, very tough people at a very young age. And he has total dominate control. That’s not easy. 

These are these are very smart. Putin, very smart. Now, he’s had in and probably a bad year. If he took over all of Ukraine and what are we going to do because Biden is so committed to Ukraine. What happens if it’s a not winnable war? You know, there are people that say Ukraine cannot win. You can’t beat Russia. Russia right now, I’m not saying anything out of school. I read it in one of our newspapers. So, you know, it’s probably fake news, but maybe not. I don’t think it is. 

Russia right now is making massive amounts of ammunition. Sounds simple, right? But they’re making massive beyond anything they’ve ever made before. We don’t have any ammunition. We’ve given it to Ukraine. We’re not we’re not prepared to fight. I rebuilt our military, new planes, new tanks, new everything. They’ve taken, the military that I’ve rebuilt, and they’ve given it all to Ukraine. I mean, massive amounts.”

If you want to understand the depth of disorganization of the way Trump's mind functions read the transcript. I suspect most of you glossed over it. Even if you did read it, read it again even though it may be painful. 

What is in this man's head? Is there no filter between his brain and his mouth? Does he think he's a history teacher analyzing the intelligence of despotic leaders? Who will be discussed in his next class? Probably Hitler, Stalin, and Mao...

Does he think his audience, even his Fox News audience, have favorable opinions of the most prominent dictators making the news today?

Is this just another example of Trump strategically trying to own the Libs or is it a manifestation of his deteriorating mental condition?

We can only speculate as to the answers to these questions.

What jumped out at me was the line in my title and shown in TV screen photo I used for my illustration. What Trump shares with Kim that he doesn't share with Putin and Xi is that they both inherited their positions from their fathers. Kim Jong-un is the third son of Kim Jong-il, who  was the country's second Supreme Leader from 1994 to 2011. He is a grandson of Kim Il-sung, who was the founder and first Supreme Leader of North Korea from it's establishment it's in 1948 until he died in 1994. (Wikipedia)

Donald John Trump was the son of the man pictured below. Go figure... I didn't know what his middle name was until I searched for a photo.

His middle name was probably pronounced Krist rather than Christ as in Jesus Christ. It was his mother's surname:


Not to get off on a tangent (loath that I would ever do that for the sake of being snarky) but perhaps the former president was given his middle name after John the Baptist.


Related: This demonstrates how disorganized Trump's thinking is from the Carlson interview:


 

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