Holy maraschino-cherry macho mishagas, Batman, what's with these push-up 'pulican's?

By Hal Brown

Click smaller images tp enlarge them/

By chance one of the first articles I read this morning had nothing to do with politics but for me it segued into the second one I read and led me to write this blog. The first article was in The Washington Post (subscription)

Weight training can be easy and still build strength. Here’s how.

It served as some motivation to start doing the light weight training lazy-me got out of the habit of doing an embarrassing length of time ago. My dumbbells don't do me any good languishing on the floor of my kitchen pantry (top photo).

The next article, by Amanda Marcotte, which I looked was... 

 

RFK Jr.'s MAGA workouts won't work: It takes more than push-ups to topple Trump

RFK Jr. and other GOP stooges think their fitness videos are impressive, but it's really quite sad

 It at was featured on the top of the page on Salon:

I watched the videos in the the article.

For some convoluted reason in my mind I thought of one of Robin's oft used taglines in the Batman series/

  Robin had many "holy something Batman" phrases. 

Here's a video of 50 other them.

 Seeing these videos he might exclaim Holy maraschino-cherry macho michagas Batman. This was my intial reaction.

Why did this come to me? 

Letting my mind wander, I recalled the time years ago when my friend Helen, her foster daughter, and I used to go to our local Friendly's restaurant and always made sure our favorite waitress waited on us. One time I ordered a sundae with extra cherries for desert and she brought me a sundae topped with as many cherries as would fit on the ample mountain of whipped cream. I think I made this association because the videos in the articles represented the sicky sweet cherries on the top of the sundae.

I have a photo of the actual sundae somewhere. This isn't it but it was taken of me at the same restaurant.

I'd read that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were going back and forth bloviating about having an actual cage fight, battling it out mano-a-manopossibly in Las Vegas.

You may prefer to forget the 2007 fake wrerstling match, Batttle of the Billionaires, between Trump and Vince McMahon with Trump "winning" and getting to shave McMahon's head.

. I'd seen the "this is my Covid protection" video of Margorie Taylor Greene lifting weights and doing swinging pull-ups...

...  and of course most of the Trump photoshopped digital trading cards depicting him as some musclebound superhero.

I hadn't seen RFK Jr. doing push-ups ("getting in shape for my debates with President Biden" which hopefully will never happen) showing off his actual muscled pects and abs. If anything demonstates the egotism and unseriousness of his run for president this one video tweet does.  

I hadn't seen Tom Cotton and Chuck Grassley trying to show off by doing butt-in-the-air push-ups to prove, hmmm, something half-assed point:

Drew Comments, above left, snarkily wrote:

 For some guys who try to act so macho and manly these some sorry ass push-ups no cap Chuck Grassley and Tom Cotton I see why y’all fight for the 2nd amendment so hard. Y’all NEED guns

I have nothing to add to what Amanda Marcotte wrote in her concluding three paragraphs:

Such nonsense also lays the groundwork for other fascist arguments about who does and doesn't count because of their bodies. Women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, and disabled people are often targeted with stereotypes of bodily degeneracy, as a pretext for stripping them of basic human rights. There's a reason that Trump and his acolytes like to portray immigrants as diseased or drugged-out, implicitly comparing them to supposedly pure-and-strong white Americans. Dehumanizing people as weak or sickly is a first step towards arguing they must be culled or controlled. There's a reason that the discredited theory of eugenics laid the foundation for the Holocaust.

Toxic masculinity and fitness fetishization also do lesser but real harm to the authoritarian personalities that get caught up in it. Right-wing websites and influencers like Alex Jones and Joe Rogan are always grifting their audiences by pitching useless supplements with false hopes of physical perfectability. People who believe Kennedy's silly claim about 35-minute workouts might get frustrated when it doesn't work out for them and develop eating disorders or other bad health habits response. And, of course, there's all the people who believed that only "weak" people need vaccines, and ended up either very sick or dying from COVID-19.

Working out is a good thing to do and being fit is a fine goal to have. It just turns to poison in the hands of fascists, who conflate fitness with moral superiority. Your push-up count says nothing about your character or fitness to lead. But your choice to post cringey workout videos as campaign proves that you're bankrupt in both departments. 

Trump has Israeli artifacts at Mar-a-Lago. They want them back. Send Mossad to get them.

 

Above: Mossad logo with the  seven-branched candelabrum that is described in the Hebrew Bible and in later ancient sources as having been used in the Tabernacle and in the Temple in Jerusalem. Since ancient times, it has served as a symbol representing the Jewish people and Judaism in both the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. It eventually became the State of Israel's official emblem after its founding in 1948. The menorah used for Hanukkah has nine branches.

View on single page here.

This story just broke in Haaretz (subscription required).

Israeli Antiquities Are Stranded at Trump's Florida Estate as Authorities Fail to Retrieve Them

Israeli clay lamps, intended for a brief exhibition in Washington D.C. in 2019, got stranded in the U.S. due to the pandemic. Recently, they were found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida

 It is being reported on other news websites. This is an excerpt:

A source told Haaretz they wouldn’t be surprised if “the items Israel seeks are also eventually found in some bathroom there”.

Israel is trying to recover 'national treasures' held at Trump's Florida home... read article

Here's another article, this one from Business Insider:

Trump has always put  - would I be cycnical to suggest- a political show on for Jews during Hannukah. He once celebrated Hannukah with a menorah from the Tarnów ghetto (article). 

Above: President Trump seen during the lighting of the Menorah by Moshe Margareten during an evening Hanukkah Reception in the East Room of the White House, December 11, 2019. I doubt this is a menorah loaned by Israel since the one described is ceramic.

Specifically celebrating Hannukah has become a fairly recent annual tradition.  The first American president to have a Hannukah party or celebration was in 2001 under Predient George W. Bush. (Reference) 

Oh ye, of little faith, who may think Trump only celebrated a Jewish holiday in the White House because he felt he had to do so and that in his black heart of hearts he harbors anti-Semetic feelings. You may point to how he has used anti-Semtic tropes (see 22021 CNN article: Trump uses anti-Semitic tropes to again criticize Jewish America), but don't forget his deep love for Jared and Ivanka.

It occurred to me that if Israel really wanted the antiquities back from Trump they'd have to go get them by whatever means possible. After all, the United States had to get a warrant and send the FBI to retrieve the stolen White House documents.

I thought  about the fact that one of the most effective intelligence agencies in the world capable of operations outside of their own countries is Mossad. They've tracked down NAZI's and in 1972's Operation Wrath of God dealt with the perpetrators of the Olympic massacre in Munich.

Here's a list of Mossad operations that we know about.

The most effective way to assure the Isreali antiquities are returned is to send Mossad agents to get them. Maybe they could enlist Jared in finding out where they are squirreled away. I would be shocked, shocked I tell you, if Mossad didn't already have agents posing as rich Jewish members of the Mar-a-Lago golf club.

Addendum:

I wasn't going to write a blog about this until I looked up Mossad and saw that their logo had the seven candle menorah. I thought that this was close enough to the nine candle Hanukkah version.

I haven''t been able to find a photo of the actual  ancient ceramic candles which were sent from Israel to the US for a Hanukkah event at the White House attended by Trump or a photo of Trump with the menorah. I don't know if Trump used them for a photo op. I wouldn't be surprised if he did.

The fate of Nixon should temper Trump's arrogant confidence, but what about Napoleon?

 

By Hal Brown

I was enjoying the side-by-side photos of Trump and Nixon with their thumbs up (left) supposedly projecting supreme confidence which Raw Story used to illustrate the article Trump allies plan to rip apart major post-Nixon reforms that limit presidential power: report. 

The reason Nixon's photo was used is because of the following:

As the paper (NY Times) writes, Trump and his allies want to rip apart many of the guardrails that were put in place after the presidency of Richard Nixon that prevented presidents from abusing their power to go after political opponents.

Putting them side-by-side conveys a second message. It is, of course, the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon.

Putting photos of the two of them side-by-side isn't new, for example:

Nixon's fate should represent a cautionary tale for Trump. 

There are certainly other historic leaders he should be thinking of to disabuse himself of his confidence thinking he is going to heroically make it through all of the attempts to bring him down. From Hitler to Hussein, history is fraught with stories of leaders who thought they could rule their domains as they wished with impunity only to go down in humiliating defeat.

Let's consider one leader that may not immediately come to mind: Napoleon, and where he ended up if only because like him Trump could be incredibly lucky and not spend his final years in an actual prison. 

Both could end up in serving a sentence living in a house near the sea.

If Trump was sentenced to home confinement he would live in the luxury of Mar-a-Lago, quite possibly minus the fun of being able to hold parties with adoring fans. 

The watercolor of Napolean shown on St. Helena, where he was forced to live in exile by the British, may look idyllic but his accommodations were anything but luxurious.

Consider this from Wikipedia:

Napoleon stayed for two months at Briars pavilion before he was moved to Longwood House, a large wooden bungalow on Saint Helena, in December 1815. By this point, the house had fallen into disrepair. The location and interior of the house was damp, windswept and unhealthy. The Times published articles insinuating the British government was trying to hasten his death. Napoleon often complained of the living conditions of Longwood House in letters to the island's governor and his custodian, Hudson Lowe, while his attendants complained of "colds, catarrhs, damp floors and poor provisions."  

Modern scientists have speculated that his later illness may have arisen from arsenic poisoning caused by copper arsenite in the wallpaper at Longwood House.

With a small cadre of followers, Napoleon dictated his memoirs and grumbled about the living conditions. Lowe cut Napoleon's expenditure, ruled that no gifts were allowed if they mentioned his imperial status, and made his supporters sign a guarantee they would stay with the prisoner indefinitely. When he held a dinner party, men were expected to wear military dress and "women [appeared] in evening gowns and gems. It was an explicit denial of the circumstances of his captivity".

While the Longword House wasn't Mar-a-Lago, it is interesting to note that he was allowed to hold parties. It would remain to be seen if Trump's "gaolers" would allow him to throw parties.

Christi should educate Republicans about Trump's psychopathology

By Hal Brown, MSW

The following is from the Raw Story, above

"As far as what's going on with Donald Trump in terms of these charges, the fact is that he doesn't believe he won," he explained. "He was concerned before the election that he was losing, and I know that because he said it to me directly. So he knows he didn't win, but his ego, George, won't permit him to believe that he's the only person in America, outside the state of Delaware, to ever have lost to Joe Biden."

Christi makes a reference to Trump's ego here...

So he knows he didn't win, but his ego, George, won't permit him to believe that he's the only person in America, outside the state of Delaware, to ever have lost to Joe Biden."

What needs to be understood in this is what the ego is (in Freudian psychology and common parlance)

The ego is the personality component responsible for dealing with reality.

Everyone has an ego. The term ego is sometimes used to describe your cohesive awareness of your personality, but personality and ego are not the same. The ego represents just one component of one's full personality.

The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. Reference https://www.verywellmind.co...

What Christi should have said was that "this pathological grandiose and delusional narcissist is unable to accept that he lost...." even though most people know what he means when he simply says ego.

Christi is in a position to remind people ignorant of psychology who never heard the message form so many mental health professionals that Trump is mentally unfit to be president. He can explain how his psychopathogy renders him dangerous to our democracy not only here but in the world.

Here on Morning Joe he says Trump is detached from reality. This is a diagnostic term in psychiatry.

Mental health professionals from those like the contributors to "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" to comparatively obscure psychotherapists like me have been educating those willing to learn about Trump's psychopathology, his malignant narcissism, mostly to Democrats, Independents, and anti-Trump Republicans, since 2016. We need someone like Christi who will educate Republicans ingorant about his psychopathology and who will hear him as he campaigns for the GOP nomination. 

Addendum:

Back in April I published the following on my blog:

Nobody knows for certain how Trump feels except Trump

Caricatures by DonkeyHotey

By Hal Brown, MSW, Retired clinical social worker and psychotherapist

This is the title of a Washington Post (subscription) article today:

Shocked and defiant: How Trump is responding to unprecedented indictment

Since a grand jury issued charges related to hush money to an adult film star, the former president has cycled through a range of emotions and postures.

This is an article by Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey

I added this comment to the article:

Nobody knows how Trump is feeling except Trump himself. All that can be reported on with certainty is what is observable. The words "as if he is" should preface any sentence purporting to describe how he feels. Thus even the title of this article makes assumptions. This to be accurate it should read Acting shocked and expressing defiance.

Psychotherapists like me look at this through a different lens than many others. The public would gain a better understand of him if they looked up the term narcissistic injury. They will find this article by Mary Trump: Donald Trump's niece says her uncle felt "narcissistic injury" from being GOP's "biggest loser".

Even Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, is speculating each time she describes her uncle's inner life. Her describing Uncle Donald feeling narcissistic injury makes sense. Look at the definition here and see what you think.

I am as guilty of speculating as all the other mental health professionals who have gone public with their psychological analyses of Donald Trump. Look my name up with Trump and this is what you'll find:

Click above to enlarge image

Google search of Hal Brown Trump here.

My articles and those by mental health professionals who are prominent in the field all helped inform the public as to the likely psychodynamics of Donald Trump, emphasize likely.

If a research psychologist was to construct an experiment in an attempt to determine whether a subject met various diagnostic assessments such as their being a malignant narcissist they could begin with a list of observable behaviors they would predict would manifest themselves in the future if they had the theorized diagnosis. 

Donald Trump has been diagnosed as both an extreme narcissist, a sociopath, and a malignant narcissist which combines the two disorders. We don't actually know, absolutely know, that any of these diagnostic assessments are 100% accurate.

100% certainty is a standard rarely met with a psychiatric diagnosis. There's no MRI machine to scan Trump's brain. There's no pathologist's microscope to put a slide of his mind under to see just how malignant it is.

As Trump will find out within a year or so, 100% certainty isn't even a standard relied on for conviction in a criminal court where the standard is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ashley Parker and Josh Hawley, not to pick on them, are not mental health experts. Here's an excerpt of what is in today's article:

Yet in the immediate aftermath of the grand jury’s decision related to hush money paid to an adult-film star, Trump was not happy, said one person with direct knowledge of his reaction. Others described Trump as “upset,” “irritated,” “deflated” and “shocked,” though some noted that he also remained “very calm” and “rather stoic, actually.”

Even they are relying on second hand reporting, and they only say that "others" who aren't identified described Trump's behavior. We don't know if these are people who actually were with him.

More people described in the article say they know how Trump feels:

• “He’ll do Trump,” said David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who is not working on his 2024 campaign. “He’ll show up. He’ll be indignant.”
• “He initially was shocked,” said Joe Tacopina, a Trump lawyer, on NBC’s “Today” show Friday. “After he got over that, he put a notch on his belt and he decided we have to fight now, and he got into a typical Donald Trump posture where he’s ready to be combative on something he believes is an injustice.”
• “He has never been concerned about any story that paints him as a moral reprobate,” one Trump ally said. “His whole life and career have been full of those stories and they’ve never harmed him, in his mind.”

There's one quote at the end of the article which makes sense:

But the defiant posture seems likely to remain. In a statement, Taylor Budowich, the head of MAGA Inc., railed against the indictment and promised it would deliver Trump another stint in the White House.

The use of the word "posture" is accurate. The head of MAGA Inc. isn't saying he knows for sure what Trump is feeling. He is predicting how he will act. He's probably correct. 

Only Trump is capable of knowing whether he's playing a role or whether he's struggling to avoid experiencing fear. I say "capable" because Trump, like anyone, has psychological defense mechanisms to prevent anxiety from percolating into conscious awareness.

Bottom line:

Only this guy knows what is happening in his mind, and then only in the part of his mind he is aware of.

By definition, nobody knows what is occurring in their unconscious mind. Self-aware people can make informed guesses about this but the unconscious is not conscious. It manifests itself though feelings, behaviors, and hints as to what is going on in the recesses of our minds often comes out in our dreams.

An iceberg is often used to provide a visual representation of Freud's theory that most of the human mind operates unconsciously. Public domain

Updates:

1) In RawStory, writing about the jury pool Trump will face in NYC, Tom Boggioni writes:

Donald Trump faces the embarrassment of arraignment, fingerprinting and a police mugshot in Manhattan on Tuesday, but one legal expert suggested his worst nightmare will come from a jury made up of New Yorkers who know him all too well.

 

Here again we see Trump being described as if he is psychologically normal. He faces what we would be embarrassed by, hell, we'd be mortified. There are two meanings of the word "nightmare" of which one is being applicable here, ie. a terrifying experience. Trump may find it exhilarating. What he can't control is an actual nightmare occurring while he is sleeping. I'd say there is more chance he'll have one or more of these than his actually experiencing conscious manifestations of anxiety.

2) Michael Cohen told Joy Reid that Trump can put on fake bravado but is petrified. He has no way of knowing this is true. He ought to have said that Trump, if he was normal, would be petrified.

3) There is one thing we know for sure abut Trump. It is that yesterday he took a motorcade to play golf (article). However this was arranged, it was done is such a way that he would pass by his supporters. I think it is significant that there were no photographs of him actually playing (at least none that I could find). These might have captured expressions that suggested he was feeling the stress of being indicted.

I didn't know who Jack White was. Then I read what he posted on Instagram. Now I like him... a lot.

 

By Hal Brown

View on one page here.

Before today I'd never heard of Jack White (Wikipedia profile). I discovered he is the frontman for the rock group White Stripes. I read an article about him in HUFFPOST this morning. It was posted on July 10th but I just noticed it. 

Jack White Puts 'Disgusting' Trump-Supporting Celebs On Blast

The rocker called out Mel Gibson, Mark Wahlberg and Guy Fieri after they were photographed with the former president over the weekend.

I know who Jack Black is, though I admit that I didn't know that along with being an actor and comedian he's also a rock musician. Not surprisingly he has been an outspoked critic of Donald Trump. But Jack White was a headscratcher for me.

Shame on me for being so out of touch with the rock world that I didn't know who he was considering he's not only been ranked as one of the 100 best quitarists of all time, but In 2012, the New York Times called him "the coolest, weirdest and savviest rockstar of our time".^[3] 

The HUFFPOST article had a link to this Instagram post:

The White Stripes song "Seven Nation Army" was referred to in the HUFFPOST article so of course I chose it to be the song I listened to and decided to include in this blog:

Click above to hear song

The lyrics are here.

This isn't the first time Jack White used Instagram to rail against someone. Here's what he posted about Elon Musk (for ease of reading I added paragraph breaks):

“So you gave trump his twitter platform back. Absolutely disgusting, Elon. That is officially an asshole move. Why dont you be truthful? Tell it like it is; people like you and Joe Rogan (who gives platforms to liars like alex jones etc.); you come into a ton of money, see the tax bill, despise paying your fair share, and then think moving to Texas and supporting whatever republican you can is going to help you keep more of your money. (How else could trump possibly interest you?) 

You intend to give platforms to known liars and wash your hands like pontius pilate and claim no responsibility? trump was removed from twitter because he incited violence multiple times, people died and were injured as a result of his lies and his ego, (let alone what his coup did to attempt to destroy democracy and our Capitol). 

And how about the division and the families broken apart from his rhetoric and what it did to this country? That’s not “free speech” or “what the poll decided” or whatever nonsense you’re claiming it to be; this is straight up you trying to help a fascist have a platform so you can eventually get your tax breaks. I mean, how many more billions do you need that you have to risk democracy itself to obtain it? 

You did a lot of amazing things with Tesla, Elon, and you deserve a lot of compliments in that department (i personally supported the hell out of that venture), but you've gone too far and are now using your power to promote horrible, violence inducing liars, who are taking the country and the world backwards and endangering the democracy that made you rich and successful in the first place. 

I am a believer in free speech, but for example i’m not about to let the KKK hold a rally at our record label's performance stage. That’s one of the platforms we control and have a say in, it’s not town square operated by the government. And if i owned a gas station, i wouldn’t be selling the KKK gasoline to burn crosses either and then wash my hands as if i didn’t help facilitate hatred. You took on a big responsibility with your purchase, and “free speech” isn’t some umbrella that protects you from that.

Jack White isn't Taylor Swift, the pop mega-mega star who is anything but mega-MAGA. She stayed out of politics for years but became political a few years ago. She also posts on Instagram - read 2020 Newsweeek article about her politics. Still, Jack White has a substantial following in the rock world, and reaches people who don't follow singers like Swift and those from other muscial genres. 

Every celebrity who has a chance to influence people's opinions and opening their eyes to the dangers of Trump and other extremist right wing polticians may help, if not always to change minds,  to prompt some people who wouldn't otherwise vote to cast their votes for Democrats.