Given: That Donald Trump Is mentally Ill # 3

Contd...

>barney67 https://www.librarything.com/topic/266849#6462207

Why would you assume that only a woman would be offended by that?

Why would a man be offended by it?

You know what offends me? The use of the words "mentally ill" as a put down for people we dislike and whose politics we don't share.

These threads spit in the eye of people who really do have problems, people I know and care about and spend time with. Politicizing those words and misusing them for one's "causes" is repugnant. But large marge has no interest in reality.

Here's something that offends me. A Canadian committing libel every day against an American president, on a book forum of all places for over a year, because she lacks the emotional maturity to accept the outcome of an American election.

Turning a free forum into one's own nasty little blog. That offends me.

I didn't ask, and I no longer really care what offends you. I'm just surprised that a human being would think that an insulting epithet against women wouldn't offend a man, just because he's a man.

>7 jjwilson61:
Agree re "cunt." Likewise, do you have to be African-American to state that it's better not to call somebody a "nigger?" Do you have to be fat or short to state that it's better not to mock someone's weight or height? There are plenty of epithets out there. We all know them. But this is schoolyard stuff.

Still, I do agree with you Barney, that armchair analysis about mental illness is also misplaced. It can be another version of the examples cited above.

Without resorting to clinical labels, it would be more prudent to say that our president often rambles incoherently or speaks with rhetoric of superlatives that are demonstrably false and/or impossible to prove. That might come closer to a non-psychiatric objective description.

>8 krolik: ...armchair analysis about mental illness is also misplaced. It can be another version of the examples cited above.

Agreed. It also cheapens those who do suffer from mental illness.

>9 pmackey: ...cheapens those who do suffer from mental illness.

Like many of my Republican friends, fellow Americans, and Hebridean relatives, I agree that being associated in any manner with The Donald is demeaning, disconcerting, distasteful.

Nonetheless, he IS Republican, American, part-Scottish, and according to experts in their armchairs, mentally unbalanced. Duty to inform, y'know.

"Experts" who have never met him and have a political axe to grind.

"Duty to inform, y'know"

WTF?

Though not mental health pros, Tillerson and Kelly's background as CEO and general no doubt required much judgment in human abilities. They reportedly describe our boy as a moron, unhinged, and an idiot.

Those are not medical terms. They are not MDs. Two men who dislike him used playground rhetoric. So?

That doesn't let you off the hook for spitting in the faces of the mentally ill.

What would people say if I had used the words "our boy" about president Obama?

Is narcissism a mental illness? If so, then Trump is mentally ill. If not, he's just a narcissist. He also acts irresponsibly (with his tweets and name calling) and unhinged (fake news, VA nomination, etc.). Trump is not stupid. I believe he's savvy and excels at manipulating people. He convinced a whole swath of voters that he was the real deal and would clean up the swamp. What I've observed though is his adding to the swamp, or shifting the swamp around. Trump, as a narcissist, is out for himself alone no matter how much he panders to his supporters.

I blame the stinking mess of a situation America is in on the two party system. The parties are out to maintain their power at any cost. I also believe Trump won because he was seen as the lessor of two evils between he and Hillary Clinton.

According to Psychology Today, "the hallmarks of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also concentrate on grandiose fantasies (e.g. their own success, beauty, brilliance) and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment. These characteristics typically begin in early adulthood and must be consistently evident in multiple contexts, such as at work and in relationships."

That doesn't describe President Trump. It does describe some of you. He's no more narcissistic than any other president we've had, and he's quite a bit less dangerous than many of our presidents. Note that the paragraph above describes personality traits, not biological or organic illness.

So put your fear away, get off your high horse, stop sticking your nose in the air like you are superior to the president. If you really were superior, then you would be president, not him. I looked out the window today to see if the sky was failing.

It wasn't.

John Kelly is right about the president
Michael A. Cohen | May 01, 2018

White House chief of staff John Kelly: "idiot"
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: “moron”
Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster: “idiot’’, “dope”, who has the intelligence of a kindergartner.
Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus: "idiot"
Steve Mnuchin, the secretary of the Treasury: "idiot"
Fox News head Rupert Murdoch: "idiot"

...so many of the president’s closest aides are critical of his intellect. Imagine what they see from Trump, on a daily, that causes them all to draw the same conclusion...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/05/01/john-kelly-right-about-president/...

Apparently, first report (glowing) on Trump health was dictated by patient himself. Second one (also glowing) by now discredited Ronnie Jackson sounded like it, too, had WH input over the weekend from the initial report. (Note that Trump goons raiding his MD's office Feb 2017 involved possible HIPAA violation.)

Was Trump’s Doctor Raided Because He Blew the Lid Off the President’s Male-Pattern Baldness?
Bess Levin | May 1, 2018

Dr. Harold Bornstein has said the search and seizure was like being “raped.”

...According to Bornstein, Trump’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten, and another “large man” appeared at his office on February 3, 2017, and not only took the medical records but—and this part feels deeply cruel—directed Bornstein to take down a framed photo of him with Trump. Bornstein, who is apparently still scarred by the experience, told NBC that he felt “raped, frightened, and sad” during and after the incident. He also noted that he was not given a form authorizing the release of the records, which is presumably a HIPAA violation...

...Bornstein...confesses that the glowing assessment of Trump’s health he released back in 2015 was actually dictated by his patient himself...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/trumps-doctor-bornstein-raided-because-h...

>16 barney67: According to Psychology Today, "the hallmarks of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also concentrate on grandiose fantasies (e.g. their own success, beauty, brilliance) and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment. These characteristics typically begin in early adulthood and must be consistently evident in multiple contexts, such as at work and in relationships."

I appreciate the definition but I disagree with your conclusion. Trump may or may not clinically have NPD. That's for a doctor to say. I do say, though, the definition you provided describes the public Trump we see and hear. I can't say how he behaves in private and to his inner circle.

>13 margd:

It really sucks losing an election, huh?. But, losing the presidential election to Trump? That must really 'smart.'

Here's the most 'amazing' part: with every passing month, it has become ever clearer to all except those who continue to live in an echo-chamber, that, alas, when it's all viewed honestly, however terrible this may seem to you, the best person of the two top-contenders actually won the election.

Imagine that. The more we've seen of Hillary Clinton since her loss, the clearer it is that we very narrowly missed a much greater blunder: she might have won.

Just right there, Trump did the nation a YUGE favor--by keeping that walking, talking disaster from becoming president of the United States.

__________________________________________

Here's more irony for you:

Who ought to sit in judgment of Trump's (or any others') tendencies to exhibit traits of being

● arrogant

● self-centered,

● manipulative,

● demanding.

● and may also concentrate on grandiose fantasies (e.g. their own success, beauty, brilliance)

● and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment ?

Anyone? Any ideas?

You guessed it:

medical doctors, who, as everyone knows who's spent much time around them,

are so blissfully free of being

● arrogant

● self-centered,

● manipulative,

● demanding.

● or of concentrating on grandiose fantasies (e.g. their own success, beauty, brilliance)

● or being convinced that they deserve special treatment.

>20 proximity1: I'll grant you that these two specimens (Bornstein, Jackson) don't add anything to the reputation of physicians. As pmackey observed in another thread, it wasn't ethical to reveal Trump use of Propecia without patient's permission.

As for relative worth of candidates Trump v HRC--we'll never agree on that.

>20 proximity1: IMO, Trump was the lesser of two evils. Both were horrible candidates for their own reasons.

I despise Hillary's arrogance in thinking the rules didn't/don't apply to her (using personal email for official business, email servers, etc.) If I did what she's done, I would have been -- rightfully -- fired.

I despise Trump for various reasons including the narcissistic traits he exhibits (mentioned above for NPD), his rolling back of environmental progress, his promise to drain the Washington swamp when he's just moved the swamp around.

I hope in the future our nation gets candidates worthy of the responsibilities but I fear it won't happen as long as there are big donors, lobbyists, and the two-party system. Democrats and Republicans have a lock on Congress and the Presidency and they're concerned with maintaining the status quo.

#22--very good post.

>17 margd:


RE : >17 margd: "Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster: “idiot’’, “dope”, who has the intelligence of a kindergartner."

See Fortune magazine, (http://fortune.com/2017/11/20/mcmaster-trump-idiot-kindergartner/)

At a private dinner, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster reportedly mocked Trump’s intelligence, stating that his intelligence was comparable to a “kindergartner.” Citing five sources, BuzzFeed reports that during the same conversation he also reportedly called the President an “idiot” and a “dope.” A spokesperson for the National Security Council said the story was 'false'."


RE : >17 margd: "Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: 'moron' "

Rex Tillerson, on the record, 4 October, 2017: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/04/politics/tillerson-trump-moron/index.html

… “Let me tell you what I’ve learned about this president—whom I did not know before taking this office: He loves his country; he puts Americans and America first; he’s smart, he demands results wherever he goes and he holds those around him accountable for whether they’ve done the job he’s asked them to do; … I have learned that there are some who try to sow disention to advance their own agenda by tearing others apart and in an effort to undermine president Ttrump’s own agenda. I do not and I will not operate that way; and the same applies to everyone on my team here at the State Department.” ...

RE >17 margd:: "White House chief of staff John Kelly: "idiot"

John Kelly, on the record, (30 April, 2018) as reported below, 01 May, 2018:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/white-house-chief-of-staff-kelly-says-its-total-...

"Kelly's disparaging remark was first reported Monday by NBC News. In a statement Monday, Kelly called the report "total BS," and characterized his relationship with Trump as "incredibly candid and strong." He added of the president, 'He always knows where I stand and he and I both know this story is total BS.' "

RE: >17 margd: "Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus: 'idiot' "

Rience Priebus, on the record February 14, 2018 : (Vanity Fair magzine: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/reince-priebus-opens-up-about-his-six-mo...

"The president, Priebus said, speaks with him often on a phone that is unmonitored by John Kelly, who replaced him as Trump’s chief of staff—sometimes just to chat, sometimes for counsel. Trump often called Bannon too—at least before his excommunication following his comments in Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury. Priebus insisted, contrary to Wolff’s description, that he never called Trump an “idiot.” In fact, for all the humiliation he endured, he said, 'I still love the guy. I want him to be successful.' "

RE: >17 margd: "Steve Mnuchin, the secretary of the Treasury: 'idiot' "

That's according to the same discredited book from Michael Wolff

RE >17 margd: : "Fox News head Rupert Murdoch: 'idiot' "

"According to a new book* about the administration of Donald Trump, longtime friend and NewsCorp executive Rupert Murdoch called the President a 'f****** idiot.'

* "Michael Wolff’s book is called Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House"...

I.e., according to the discredited book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Next ?

>24 proximity1: Have you noticed that staffers and cabinet members always deny using the "idiot" appellation--
and then they become the former _______________?

>25 margd:

I notice that Trump has kept some of his staff appointments and dismissed others and that these do not consistently or necessarily demonstrate any such pattern. So, when certain of Trump's appointees who are still in their posts have been reported as critical of certain of Trump's veiws, your theory looks weak or, indeed, simply useless as a sound guide to anything interesting.

Start here:

Have you noticed that all but two of your assertions above--that is, two out of the three sourced from the Wolff book--all but those two are flatly and categorically denied? repudiated openly, on the record, from authoritative sources as being factually false ?

Now, that leaves us with two claims, both stemming from Michael Wolff's book. And one such assertion, that related to Priebus, was itself denied directly by the source himself--after he'd left his post. Thus, he wasn't "saving his job" by denying the claim's veracity.

Have you noticed that you accept uncritically and repeat here everything and anything negative said about Trump ?

Given your record of commentary, you have zero credibility in my book and, therefore, I'm hardly looking to you for lessons in the exercise of critical reasoning and sound judgment.

>26 proximity1: Given your record of commentary, you have zero credibility in my book and, therefore, I'm hardly looking to you for lessons in the exercise of critical reasoning and sound judgment.

That anyone has zero credibility with you could be seen as a plus. But to which post are your referring?

>26 proximity1: You're right: severe lack of judgment on my part. What was I thinking? Back in your box you go.

Musings on the Goldwater Rule, duty to warn, Tarasoff 1976, and common sense:

The Psychiatrist’s Goldwater Rule in the Trump Era
Alan Stone* | Thursday, April 19, 2018

A review of Bandy X. Lee’s “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” (Thomas Dunne, 2017)

https://lawfareblog.com/psychiatrists-goldwater-rule-trump-era

*Alan Stone is a graduate of Harvard University (1950) and Yale Medical School (1955). Professor Stone is the Touroff-Glueck Professor of Law and Psychiatry in the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard University, Emeritus. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, and the Tanner Lecturer at Stanford University. At Harvard, he has been a Fellow of the Interfaculty Mind Brain and Behavior Group. He served as President of the American Psychiatric Association. Professor Stone is the author of several books, many book chapters, and numerous articles. A collection of his film reviews, Movies and the Moral Adventure of Life, was published in 2007.

Should we just convene 27 psychiatrists every four years (in around, say, June, of a presidential election year) and consult them as to their *professional* opinions concerning the mental stability and soundness of all of the plausibly-electable candidates? Let them vet, qualify and pre-sort for us (the rest of the American electorate) who is and who isn't mentally *fit* to be a presidential candidate? (I expect that there are today many people who'd claim to seriously favor that. It's a damning indictment of the intellectual surrender which currently characterizes American political culture.)

Why should we do that? I'm ready to see this argument set out clearly.

But I susupect that no one here will do that. It would require actual thought and that's too damn much trouble for most who "contribute" here.

Doing that, by the way, would effectively negate the whole point of having even a semi-respectable form of democratically-based representative government--supposing that there are still enough Americans who can sufficiently grasp and care about what that means and insist on it.

...The late William T. Kelley, who taught Trump at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.”
Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal,” says Trump had “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.”...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-perspec-chapman-donald-tru...

Republicans are stupid. I've heard that my whole life. It's what you say when you can't debate.

Iʻm a lifelong Democat, I CAN debate, and I don't think Republicans are stupid-- merely wrong-headed (usually --I can even remember when the phrase
"Liberal Republican" was not a contradiction in terms.) But Iʻm not sure if Donald Trump can be called a Republican; it may be his party in name only. Like us Democrats, the GOP made a very poor choice of candidate.

Very successful presidency so far.

I despise Hillary's arrogance in thinking the rules didn't/don't apply to her (using personal email for official business, email servers, etc.) If I did what she's done, I would have been -- rightfully -- fired.

Silly her, doing what her two immediate predecessors in the position did without any criticism or complaint from anyone. And what the GWB administration did in the White House as well.

>35 StormRaven:

Good luck with that in a criminal court.

"Wah! Unfaiwr! Other pwesidents did it!"

Actually, former-president Obama could also be prosecuted under the same federal statute, for he, too, was a party to Hillary Clinton's use of an illegal, clandestine and unauthorized home.based privately-run mail server for official communications--violations about which she had clear and timely legal advice posed potential criminal liabilities on her part. She arrogantly batted these warnings away. And, unlike the 'charges' of Trump's alleged 'collusion' with 'Russia,' the home-email server is a violation of a real and a very serious crime--based on the harms which flow from the jeopardizing the security of national intelligence data--the alleged person's intent is not a factor in this. There is no 'innocent' breach of the security in this case.

I can only conclude that she was completely convinced--and, by all the apparent evidence, quite correctly so--that she was simply beyond the reach of the law.

We now have a system in which it could not be clearer that, above a certain level of federal government power, even clear criminal acts are ignored and the person committing them knows he or she shall not be legally be held accountable.

That's a judicial and a political catastrophe not waiting for a place to happen. It signals the public's complete surrender of the most basic principles of lawful rule. It's an open invitation to more and deeper official corruption.

People who ignore or make excuses for this are demonstrating the height of folly. But that doesn't mean that they aren't quite ready and willing to seek any pretense, however ridiculous, to use the law abusively to carry on a vendetta against president Trump. These two circumstances are completely and intimately related.

"In fact, Robert Mueller is a fanatic, one of those gleaming-eyed ascetics who always pop up when a secret police gets going. He should take a page from Talleyrand and say to himself in the mirror every morning “Surtout, pas trop de zèle.” But that has never been his style. Back in the 1980s when he was in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, Mr. Mueller was up to his eyeballs in a case in which prosecutors framed four innocent men. Two died in prison there before, 30 years on, their families and the other two were awarded $102 million for wrongful prosecution. Mueller never apologised, never even acknowledged the wrongdoing.

... ...

... "But there never was any collusion and/or links between the Trump campaign and the Russians. So his mandate also allowed him to investigate “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” (my emphasis) and “any other matters (my emphasis) within the scope of” the applicable statute.

"In other words, the purpose of Mueller’s investigation is to unseat the duly elected President of the United States. But he is dangerous not just to the President. He is also dangerous to rule of law, which is either impartial, pertaining equally to everyone, or else it is a species of arbitrary rule, that is, tyranny. A headline in Politico warns “The special counsel seems to be leaving the president’s children for last.” Politico reports that with relish. But these are police-state tactics. Go after a person’s family. Verdict first, then find the crime.

"The motto of the first Earl of Strafford, another nasty piece of work, was 'Thorough.' It was the banner under which he endeavoured to enforce the autocracy of Charles I among the Irish and other recalcitrant segments of the population. Robert Mueller is up to something similar. His master is not a king besotted with delusions of absolute power but an engorging leech-like bureaucracy intoxicated by the conviction of its own unassailable virtue and made ruthless by its expropriation of nearly unaccountable power. It is, as the President says, 'a witch hunt.' It should be shut down" ....

_______________________________

(The Spectator (USA) ) Headline: Robert Mueller is out of control. He should be shut down. Now. | by Roger Kimball | 2 May 2018

Now, my comment on the above, from Roger Kimball:

I agree, Mueller's "investigation" does amount, in effect, to a witch-hunt and it is a disgrace--a disgrace, not least, to the American public that they should have stood for this nonsense. And it is both a major impediment to the president's ability to carry out his official duties--which is the real purpose of the witch-hunt--and, of course, it's physically and emotionally an ordeal for anyone who has to go through this kind of affair as its target.

BUT, if Mueller's witch-hunt is closed down by other authorities, it won't help us learn, it will, rather, insure that we don't learn anything at all from this outrage.

Mueller is not going to actually go to court or refer any criminal charges for prosecution that conclude with any convictions for other than what are acts wholly-unrelated to 'collusion' between Trump and 'Russia' (read, Vladimir Putin) or for "process crimes"--i.e. federal agents' leading a suspect into making incriminating statements, be they true or false, about activiities which are not necessarily themselves criminal.

We won't gain the benefit of seeing all this wasted time, money and effort go to court for so little or for nothing at all. And we badly need that lesson. For, if Mueller is shut down rather than allowed to self-destruct, there'll surely be more like his example to come. And that is truly a menace to the nation's political well-being.

>35 StormRaven: As a I recall, at the time Colin Powell served as Secretary of State the use of personal email to conduct DoS business was not prohibited. Subsequently a rule was passed specifically prohibiting this. As I understand it, the rule was enacted to avoid the sort of confusion between what is a matter of public record -- government business -- and what is personal and private. It was and is a good sense rule that benefits citizen's right to know and government appointees' right to privacy. I don't know why Hillary disregarded the rule other than her claim to convenience, but she did. Additionally, the personal server processing public information was at best a conflict of interest and at worst (if there was classified material) a security violation. Federal employees get dismissed for that kind of stuff.

Just because two previous administrations did the same thing doesn't make it right and I would hold them responsible, too. In my view, too many executives and appointees assume special treatment and avoid the rules federal employees must follow.

#18 Bornstein revelations, candidate health, and records

Trump's health: Three big ethics questions
May 2, 2018

...1. Dr Bornstein divulged information about Mr Trump's prescriptions

...Dr Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New York University, said that Dr Bornstein could have violated HIPAA ( Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ), a federal law, by sharing details about Mr Trump's prescriptions.

"It has big penalties," Dr Caplan added. "Five years in jail, a $50,000 fine. Trump's doctor said these drugs are trivial, but it's not on the doctor to decide that."

2. Dr Bornstein now claims Mr Trump wrote his own letter of health

...Dr Caplan said he believes the US needs a new system for examining presidential candidates...Using an independent board of doctors rather than just the candidate's personal physician...

3. Dr Bornstein alleges his medical office was 'raided' for the president's medical records

...Dr Bornstein said the president's aides took the original and only copy of Mr Trump's medical records, including lab reports.

...Dr Caplan told the BBC it is a doctor's right to keep a copy of patient medical records..."In the US, medical records are joint property. They do belong to the patient who can have a copy, but the doctor keeps one too because if an issue comes up about malpractice, they have to have the record. You can't just come in and take away everything."

...because Mr Trump's aides did not provide a letter from Mr Trump himself requesting the information, their taking possession would be illegal...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43980513

As a I recall, at the time Colin Powell served as Secretary of State the use of personal email to conduct DoS business was not prohibited.

That is incorrect. Powell violated several rules concerning the use of personal e-mail during his tenure as Secretary of State.

Federal employees get dismissed for that kind of stuff.

For the kind of e-mail usage that Clinton engaged in? Almost never.

Just because two previous administrations did the same thing doesn't make it right and I would hold them responsible, too.

It was a set of rules that three consecutive Secretaries of State found to be unworkable in practice.

>39 StormRaven:

"It was a set of rules that three consecutive Secretaries of State found to be unworkable in practice."

The nerve of that contention!--just imagine them:

"What?! I can't be bothered with such inconveniences! Secured-servers only?! I need to use my personal (unsecured) phone; now and then, I'll have to transmit classified information; the security concerns for that classified data on the parts of our N.S.A. our C.I.A., the fact that this measure was legislated, passed and signed into law making what I'm doing from the home-server *technically* a crime, is, well, they should just get over it! I'm a cabinet secretary! And I'm going to be the president! This stuff doesn't concern or even apply to me!"

That's the gist of your position and the unstated rationale behind it. And I guess I'd be too damned ashamed to put all that out clearly-stated that way, too, if I were you.

It's a fucking disgrace. And it's making lame excuses for a serious criminal offense.

>39 StormRaven: For the mishandling of classified material.

Reads like Trump's playbook!

20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You
Shahida Arabi | June 30. 2016

1. Gaslighting.
2. Projection.
3. Nonsensical conversations from hell.
4. Blanket statements and generalizations.
5. Deliberately misrepresenting your thoughts and feelings to the point of absurdity.
6. Nitpicking and moving the goal posts.
7. Changing the subject to evade accountability.
8. Covert and overt threats.
9. Name-calling.
10. Destructive conditioning.
11. Smear campaigns and stalking.
12. Love-bombing and devaluation.
13. Preemptive defense.
14. Triangulation.
15. Bait and feign innocence.
16. Boundary testing and hoovering.
17. Aggressive jabs disguised as jokes.
18. Condescending sarcasm and patronizing tone.
19. Shaming.
20. Control.

https://archive.li/i63Xa

>42 margd: Thanks for the list and link. I've saved the link to be read in depth later.

Background and assessment of contingency plans for evoking the 25th Amendment
(https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv)

25th Amendment
Improving the White House Plans for Presidential Inability
John Rogan | Wednesday, May 9, 2018

...The contingency plans binder includes draft letters for invoking the 25th Amendment. Copies of the letters are kept at the White House, aboard Air Force One and Two and in the nuclear football.

...The plans attempt to define “inability” in the context of the president’s non-delegable duties, such as serving as commander in chief.

...One of the most challenging gaps is the lack of procedures for declaring the vice president unable.

This omission is problematic because without an able vice president, the 25th Amendment’s inability procedures do not work. The president would not transfer power under Section 3 to a disabled vice president, and Section 4’s involuntary transfer provision requires the vice president to concur with a majority of the Cabinet that the president is unable—which an incapacitated vice president could not do.

...The president’s physician has a significant role in 25th Amendment plans. He is expected to provide input on the president’s condition when circumstances might require the amendment’s use. This responsibility is part of the physician’s larger role of overseeing all aspects of the president’s healthcare, including handling mental health treatment.

...The White House Medical Unit, which also cares for the president’s family and staff, consults with outside mental-health professionals where appropriate...should consider adding a full-time mental-health professional to its ranks, as the Fordham Clinic recommended...

https://lawfareblog.com/improving-white-house-plans-presidential-inability

>44 margd:

Gee! Ya think?

LOL!: proximity1 : May 17, 2017

>44 margd: Well all I can say is thank God Trump is in excellent health. I mean the excellentest of excellentest. The hugest of excellent health.

41: For the mishandling of classified material.

As I said, almost never. It is incredibly rare for a civilian employee to be dismissed over the kind of actions HRC took.

Also, while you are obsessing over HRC's e-mail server that resulted in no compromised intelligence, Trump is ignoring literally every rule about phone security.

>48 StormRaven:

John Deutch, CIA director under President Clinton : Pardoned by President Clinton in the middle of negotiations over a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Samuel "Sandy" Berger, national security adviser to President Clinton : Pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge for unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. Sentenced to two years' probation.

Alberto Gonzales, attorney general under George W. Bush: Took his handwritten notes home and stored them there, but not in a safe or secure place. The Justice Department's National Security Division declined to prosecute.

David Petraeus, CIA director under President Obama: Pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials. Sentenced to two years' probation.

And that doesn't cover all the instances of ordinary mortals who work in the middle- and lower-level strata of handling classified information who, when they mishandle data are subjected to strict sanctions--fines, demotions, dismissal, or criminal prosecutions. Just because these aren't in the press every day doesn't mean that they haven't happened.
______________________

Related reading:

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICD/ICD_700.pdf

https://fas.org/irp/dni/icd/icd-701.pdf

>49 proximity1: I disagree with you on this one:

And that doesn't cover all the instances of ordinary mortals who work in the middle- and lower-level strata of handling classified information who, when they mishandle data are subjected to strict sanctions--fines, demotions, dismissal, or criminal prosecutions. Just because these aren't in the press every day doesn't mean that they haven't happened.

No, management reserves the right to punitively punish rank and file workers -- thus making a sterling example for others -- rather than inconvenience the high and mighty.

49: Four examples over the course of twenty-four years doesn't exactly make the case you think it does especially given that one of the examples resulted in a resignation, not a dismissal.

It is incredibly rare for a civilian employee to be dismissed over the kinds of actions HRC took. The fact that you have to hunt to find three actual examples over the course of two and a half decades proves my point.

>51 StormRaven:

"It is incredibly rare for a civilian employee to be dismissed over the kinds of actions HRC took. The fact that you have to hunt to find three actual examples over the course of two and a half decades proves my point."

I confined myself to high-ranking examples. If we included everyone subjected to disciplinary measures, there's be many more to show.

But, as for high officials, the paucity of those held to account tells us mainly about how the system is now so thoroughly corrupt and rotten that, had Watergate happened today, there'd be no accountability at all for it since the two parties would find nothing to agree about on the facts. Unlike today, our national press was then not yet quite the disgusting circus of moral and intellectual degeneracy it has become; and, back then, that press corps lacked something of today's shameless pandering to the worst appetites of a jaded citizenry for spectacle and vendetta --this time, mainly among the Democrats.

And, apparently, it's your position in this matter that, well, if we see only the rare examples of high officials held to account for this kind of behavior that must be because there's no need for it--the wrong-doing is either not that frequent or not that serious. And that's the kind of really, really shitty and irresponsible POV which has done so much to bring the fucked up United States to this pass.

Narcissism...

The Measure of Trump’s Devotion
David Frum | 05/28/2018

On Memorial Day, as the nation turned to the president to lead its shared rituals of unity and common purpose, he revealed himself unequal to the office he holds...

Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 8:58 AM - May 28, 2018...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/the-measure-of-trumps-devot...

ETA_______________________________________________

...VoteVets, a group representing some 500,000 veterans and their families, bashed as “appalling” the president’s self-promotion as well as his decision to wish families of fallen veterans a “happy” day. The group was also furious at the Republican Party’s effort to essentially fundraise off Memorial Day by offering a 25 percent discount on official Trump campaign merchandise ― “Use Code: Remember.”...

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/veterans-group-blasts-trump-memorial-day-rem...

I confined myself to high-ranking examples.

Bullshit. You gave those examples because they were the ones you could find. You're desperately grasping at straws and making a fool out of yourself in the process.

But, as for high officials, the paucity of those held to account tells us mainly about how the system is now so thoroughly corrupt and rotten that, had Watergate happened today, there'd be no accountability at all for it since the two parties would find nothing to agree about on the facts. Unlike today, our national press was then not yet quite the disgusting circus of moral and intellectual degeneracy it has become; and, back then, that press corps lacked something of today's shameless pandering to the worst appetites of a jaded citizenry for spectacle and vendetta --this time, mainly among the Democrats.

That is absolutely ridiculous. The paucity of those "held to account" is because minor infractions in this area are dealt with in ways other than prosecutions and summary dismissals, and are often simply dealt with via informal admonishments, warnings, reprimands, and similar administrative processes. This isn't a new development, and was established practice long before Watergate.

And, apparently, it's your position in this matter

Stop trying to tell me what my position is. The precedents set for what is suitable for prosecution and what is not are well-established and HRC's actions fell well below the established standard. This is not new, and not particularly notable. Prosecutors exercise discretion all the time. Whining that they didn't apply a new standard because you don't like someone just makes you look like the silly person that you are.

>54 StormRaven:

James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, and James Clapper, Loretta Lynch, former president Bill Clinton, Hilliary Clinton, Susan Rice, Eric Holder-- and others who conspired with them-- are all in jeopardy of serious criminal charges for their acts over the course of Barack Obama's two terms in office-- or they should be in a government which hadn't been so corrupted.

Even so, it remains to be seen if they'll all completely escape indictment and trial.

>55 proximity1: Just my two cents but I strongly suspect nothing will come of it. Call me cynical, but IMO the high and mighty are rarely held to account despite the sound and fury of the sound bites.

" Comey... and the Clintons et al.. . . OR they SHOULD be in a government which hadnʻt been so corrupted." (!?) (55)

Can @proximity, or anyone, translate this?
I assume itʻs hypothetical, but
I canʻt see what is the basis of the "should".

James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, and James Clapper, Loretta Lynch, former president Bill Clinton, Hilliary Clinton, Susan Rice, Eric Holder-- and others who conspired with them-- are all in jeopardy of serious criminal charges for their acts over the course of Barack Obama's two terms in office-- or they should be in a government which hadn't been so corrupted.

No, they are not. Anyone who thinks they are, or even that they should be, is delusional.

Can proximity, or anyone, translate this?

No. Because at this point proximity1 is doing nothing but tossing out loony word salad.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if proximity1 started quoting QAnon and still expected to be taken seriously.

“He’s like Heath Ledger’s Joker—but without the operational excellence.” That was the grim after-action assessment of one senior G7 official.

per David Frum
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/trump-g7/562487/

Heath Ledger as Joker in "The Dark Knight"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8PxG5zvgOM

Bullshit. The Atlantic is a terrible magazine.

barney, like all Trumpers, can't handle the substance of the article, so he's reduced to vague whining about the magazine.

Funny to categorically dismiss The Atlantic as a "terrible" magazine. What makes it terrible? Poor writing? No. Poor editing? No. Poor graphics? No. Doesn't align with your personal ideology? Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding.

(Note: All data, citations, etc., below, relating to the background of David Frum are drawn from the Wikipedia page profiling him. All emphasis in the following in boldface and Italics is added.)

_________________________

>60 margd: plugs an "article" by David Frum and >62 StormRaven: refers to Barney67's difficulties in "handling" (i.e. approving, granting, accepting,) that article's "substance"--- LOL!

this "substance" being the work of David Frum,

(1) former contributing editor and online blogger at The National Review, now, of course, admired deeply and widely by Democrats;

(2) Former editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1989 until 1992, now, of course, admired deeply and widely by Democrats;

(3) former columnist for Forbes magazine in 1992–94, now, of course, admired deeply and widely by Democrats;

(4) former speech-writer in the George W. Bush administration, now, of course, admired deeply and widely by Democrats;

Frum, who

(5) formerly strongly supported the Iraq War, now, of course, admired deeply and widely by Democrats; (but, then, well, hell, so did The New York Times editorial board, right?!)

who

(6) formerly opposed the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court of the United States, just as, now, of course, this valiant position is admired deeply and widely by Democrats;

(7) Frum, former regular writer as contributing editor at the National Review magazine, now, of course, admired deeply and widely by Democrats;

Frum, a man who wrote,

(8)

“I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea.”

and

(9)

“strongly support(ing) the Iraq War. In later years … would express regret for that endorsement, saying that it owed more to psychological and group identity factors than reasoned judgment:

“ ‘It's human nature to assess difficult questions, not on the merits, but on our feelings about the different 'teams' that form around different answers. To cite a painful personal experience: During the decision-making about the Iraq war, I was powerfully swayed by the fact that the proposed invasion of Iraq was supported by those who had been most right about the Cold War—and was most bitterly opposed by those who had been wrongest about the Cold War. Yet in the end, it is not teams that matter. It is results. As Queen Victoria's first prime minister bitterly quipped after a policy fiasco: “What wise men had promised has not happened. What the damned fools predicted has actually come to pass.” ’ "

As proofs of this man's ability to stand clear of judgment-clouding conflicted interests, we have these data to testify on his behalf:

(10) he "joined The Atlantic as a senior editor in March 2014." So, clearly, his opinions appearing there in the present case are the result solely of the article's merits--mmm-hmm.

(11) "On November 2, 2016, he announced that he had voted for Hillary Clinton for President"

So, he's of course free to show his occasional approval of Trump, should it ever happen, however miraculously, that Trump should say or do something deserving of other than categorical condemnation--mmm-hmmm.

and,

(12) "in 2018, Frum published Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, about the dangers posed by the Trump presidency to American democracy."

so, again, it's perfectly obvious that this is a man with no "sunk-costs" invested in the anti-Trump crusade. Mmm-hmmm.

And, here, we should recall, in the 'Lessons-Learned Dept.,' his expression of regret (see (9), above) for whatever it's worth in showing us about his capacity to have learned something from his former mistakes; surely, after the embarrassment of the support of the G. W. Bush-led Iraq war, Frum would never again be tempted to fall prey to the human nature to assess difficult questions, not on the merits, but on our feelings about the different 'teams' that form around different answers.

Frum "could say about George W. Bush, that he 'was hardly the obvious man for the job. But by a very strange fate, he turned out to be, of all unlikely things, the right man,' ”

but somehow isn’t able to muster the same imagination concerning Donald J. Trump.

Still, this is a man who voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin in the presidntial election campaign of 2007/8 rather than Barack Obama and Joe Biden—

He rationalized that position this way:

“In an article for "National Review Online" that he posted days before the 2008 election, he gave ten reasons why he was going to vote for McCain instead of Barack Obama. Frum had previously been a vocal critic of Republican presidential candidate McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate on the grounds that Palin was unqualified to assume the presidency. Speaking of Palin's performance during the campaign, Frum stated,

‘I think she has pretty thoroughly—and probably irretrievably—proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States.

“Nevertheless, he ultimately stated his support for Palin, writing ‘But on Tuesday, I will trust that she can learn. She has governed a state—and … it says something important that so many millions of people respond to her as somebody who incarnates their beliefs and values. At a time when the great American middle often seems to be falling further and further behind, there may be a special need for a national leader who represents and symbolizes that middle.”

Again, what he found he could do in the case of McCain and Palin, he somehow can’t manage in the case of Trump and Pence.

Mmm-hmmm.

Never mind, Barney67. Democrats today would vote for McCain/Palin against Donald Trump; besides, as everyone "knows,"any old president coulda organized the meet-up with North Korea's Kim--which we know, in any case, can't (fingers firmly-crossed) possibly ever come to any good-- you have that on the word of our American 'loyal opposition', the Never-Trump Demorats and Republicans.


________________________

and bless Mama, and Daddy, ,... and bless Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton; and, Dear God, please don't let that mean President Trump and North Korean leader Kim make a deal which stands up and works out over time, Amen.

________________________

Our top story tonight, two mentally-unstable world leaders, American President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, meeting in Singapore, have concluded and signed a preliminary understanding which the unbalanced Trump says he hopes shall eventually lead to the full nuclear-disarmament of the North Korean nation and perhaps open the way to the establishment of friendly relations between the United States and both parts of the divided Korean nation. Leading Democrats denounced the moves as wild, irresponsibly dangerous and risky and scoffed at the prospect of the agreement's having any chance of a lasting and effective result.

_______________________

From that most-insightful of monthlies, The Atlantic magazine, foreign-policy expert Mark Bowden, writing inJuly, 2017, laid out the grim choices facing the United States in trying to deal with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un :

... ...

"How should the United States proceed?

"What to do about North Korea has been an intractable problem for decades. Although shooting stopped in 1953, Pyongyang insists that the Korean War never ended. It maintains as an official policy goal the reunification of the Korean peninsula under the Kim dynasty.

"As tensions flared in recent months, fanned by bluster from both Washington and Pyongyang, I talked with a number of national-security experts and military officers who have wrestled with the problem for years, and who have held responsibility to plan and prepare for real conflict. Among those I spoke with were former officials from the White House, the National Security Council, and the Pentagon; military officers who have commanded forces in the region; and academic experts.

"From these conversations, I learned that the U.S. has four broad strategic options for dealing with North Korea and its burgeoning nuclear program.

"1. Prevention: A crushing U.S. military strike to eliminate Pyongyang’s arsenals of mass destruction, take out its leadership, and destroy its military. It would end North Korea’s standoff with the United States and South Korea, as well as the Kim dynasty, once and for all.

"2. Turning the screws: A limited conventional military attack—or more likely a continuing series of such attacks—using aerial and naval assets, and possibly including narrowly targeted Special Forces operations. These would have to be punishing enough to significantly damage North Korea’s capability—but small enough to avoid being perceived as the beginning of a preventive strike. The goal would be to leave Kim Jong Un in power, but force him to abandon his pursuit of nuclear ICBMs.

"3. Decapitation: Removing Kim and his inner circle, most likely by assassination, and replacing the leadership with a more moderate regime willing to open North Korea to the rest of the world.

"4. Acceptance: The hardest pill to swallow—acquiescing to Kim’s developing the weapons he wants, while continuing efforts to contain his ambition.

"Let’s consider each option. All of them are bad."

Wow. An option "5" : President Trump's taking a meeting and reaching a negotiated preliminary deal for a lasting denuclearization gradually-effected and subjected to controls and verifications, in which N. Korea's leadership actually comes to believe in this course as part of its own best way forward---that scenario didn't make "the cut."

But this is the daring attempt that Trump--so discounted by the opposition which despises him--has just made.

Of course, Hillary either would have done this same but done it better and so it actually worked, or she'd have had the surperior sense to not even try such a lame-brained stunt in the first place. Besides, Trump's hair is both colored and a comb-over. He's a know-nothing. How's he ever going to get a workable deal with Kim Jong-un? It's ridiculous and all the most experienced experts know and tell us this.

_____________________

"On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) summarized the case against Trump nicely: “We’re not against diplomacy. We’re just against bad diplomacy, and this was really bad diplomacy.”

"And deluded diplomacy as well. Consider that upon returning home, Trump tweeted that 'There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.' "

There's No Defending Trump's N. Korea Performance
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post

the above is posted here in the thread, "GIVEN That Trump is Mentally-Ill" (Part Three in an unending series)

64: Wow. An option "5" : President Trump's taking a meeting and reaching a negotiated preliminary deal for a lasting denuclearization gradually-effected and subjected to controls and verifications, in which N. Korea's leadership actually comes to believe in this course as part of its own best way forward---that scenario didn't make "the cut."

But this is the daring attempt that Trump--so discounted by the opposition which despises him--has just made.

That scenario didn't make the cut because Trump didn't do that. Trump got the same kind of wish-washy commitment that the North Koreans have been willing to put out there for the last two decades and then not follow through on, and even less substantive than several of the efforts made by previous administrations. The "deal" Trump struck is only news to people who haven't paid any attention to the Korean peninsula before.

64: I'll also point out the hilarity in proximity1 defending barney against a claim that he whined about the messenger rather than dealing with the substance of the article by whining about the messenger rather than the substance of the article.

Like I said, all the Trumpers have is whining, and proximity1 seems determined to demonstrate that with every post he makes.

>66 StormRaven: proximity1, who has blocked me for life, actually makes an excellent case both against Frum and, if not for the recent 'summit(seems too hight, no?', at least against the idiocy of the 'Atlantic's' foreign policy analysis in regard to North Korea--or, actually, Bowden makes the case using his own hysterical words.

Pathological liar / divorced from reality / anything for a story?

In an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier that aired on Wednesday, Trump made an unusual claim about his request that the remains of those soldiers be returned, if possible.

“One of the things that, really, I’m happy, is that the soldiers that died in Korea, their remains are going to be coming back home,” Trump told Baier. “And we have thousands of people that have asked for that. Thousands and thousands of people. So many people asked for that, when I was on the campaign. I’d say, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t have any relationship.’ But they said, ‘When you can, President, we’d love our son to be brought back home,’ you know, the remains.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/06/14/its-not-very-likely-t...
______________________________________________

This Is the Quintessential Trump Lie
Shameless, easily verifiable, and rooted in the notion that imaginary people are telling him things.
Jack Holmes | Jun 14, 2018

...This is truly a vintage Trumpian lie...assuming the parents of a Korean War veteran were 18 when they were born, those parents would be a minimum of 101 years old today. More likely, they'd be at least 110. The idea that multiple 110-year-old people came up to Donald Trump on the campaign trail to ask him to bring home the remains of their son killed on North Korean soil 63 years prior is just absurd. It's a stirring story, a noble enough sentiment, and, in this case, completely nuts. The president is just saying things again.

In that way, this is a quintessential Trumpian lie: totally shameless, easily verifiable as false, and rooted in the notion that "many people"—who are never defined further, and who you'll never be able to find—are telling the president something that he just happens to agree with himself. How many times in this troubled period in our nation's history have we heard how "many people are saying" something about Donald Trump?

The possibly more worrying thing here is that there was not all that much to immediately gain from the lie, while the related issue was already sort of a victory for the president. It points to the lying being a truly pathological issue, an instinctive mode of operation for a dangerously impulsive man. It's not breaking any new ground to say it, but this is a problematic attribute for the leader of the world's most powerful country.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a21526163/trump-korean-war-parents-lie/

Impatient narcissism..."selling condos"...appreciation for tough DPRK guards and subservient press... e.g.,

‘Why can’t we just do it?’: Trump nearly upended summit with abrupt changes
Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Carol D. Leonnig and Karen DeYoung | June 14, 2018

...After arriving in Singapore on Sunday, an antsy and bored Trump urged his aides to demand that the meeting with Kim be pushed up by a day — to Monday — and had to be talked out of altering the long-planned and carefully negotiated summit date on the fly, according to two people familiar with preparations for the event.

...Ultimately, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders persuaded Trump to stick with the original plan, arguing that the president and his team could use the time to prepare...warned him that he might sacrifice wall-to-wall television coverage of his summit if he abruptly moved the long-planned date to Monday in Singapore, which would be Sunday night in the United States.

...At one point, after watching North Korean television, which is entirely state-run, the president talked about how positive the female North Korean news anchor was toward Kim...He joked that even the administration-friendly Fox News was not as lavish in its praise as the state TV anchor, one of the people added, and that maybe she should get a job on U.S. television, instead.

...As part of creating a personal rapport with Kim, Trump also privately talked about wanting to extend an unusual olive branch to the North Korean leader: The president suggested he might be able to orchestrate a meeting or proposal with some of his real estate developer and financier friends, who could bring lucrative development deals to Kim’s country. It is unclear whether he ended up mentioning the idea to Kim.

...“they have great beaches,” Trump said. “You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean, right? I said, ‘Boy, look at the view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo behind?’ ”

The president continued: “You could have the best hotels in the world right there. Think of it from a real estate perspective.”

There were other challenges and unexpected twists, as well. After watching former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who also flew to Singapore for the occasion, praise him on television, Trump dispatched Sanders to call Rodman to thank him for his kind words, a White House official said.

“He called, his secretary and she called me and said, ‘Dennis, Donald Trump is so proud of you, and he thanks you a lot,’” Rodman told CNN...

https://www.librarything.com/topic/290649

ETA___________________________________________________

Authoritarianism:

Trump: Kim's people sit up when he speaks, 'I want my people to do the same'
Max Greenwood | 06/15/18

President Trump said on Friday that he wants "his people" to listen to him like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's people listen to him.

"He’s the head of a country. And I mean, he is the strong head," Trump said of Kim in a tongue-in-cheek manner as he spoke to Steve Doocy of "Fox & Friends" outside the White House.

"Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same," Trump said.

It wasn't clear what Trump meant by "his people" and "my people," phrasings that could be interpreted to mean all North Koreans and Americans but that could also mean those people reporting directly to the two leaders...

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/392430-trump-i-want-americans-to-list...

Empathy gap (the Time cover):

Why the Trump Time magazine cover is so powerful
Chris Cillizza | June 21, 2018

...compassion and empathy are not strong suits for this President. Never have been, never will be. He knows -- and relies on -- his experience, and not much else. His ability to cast himself into the shoes of others -- particularly those less fortunate than him -- is minimal. And his interest in doing so is even smaller.

Remember that in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida that left 49 people dead, Trump tweeted this: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!"

While that is the most glaring example, there were any number of smaller signs -- both during the campaign and since -- that Trump simply doesn't do the empathy thing.

And voters acknowledged as much at the ballot box. Of the 15% of people who said that having a candidate who "cares about me" was the most important trait in how they decided to vote, Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 23 points. But far more voters wanted change than cared whether the candidate understood them and their lives -- and Trump won those change voters overwhelmingly...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/politics/trump-time-cover/index.html

>70 margd: Yeah what Margd said !!!

>16 barney67: " According to Psychology Today, "the hallmarks of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also concentrate on grandiose fantasies (e.g. their own success, beauty, brilliance) and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment. These characteristics typically begin in early adulthood and must be consistently evident in multiple contexts, such as at work and in relationships."

Odd I thought you were describing Trump to a tee!

I am not qualified to judge Trump mental or not but he is a prick and I offer this article as proof:

Trump knocks Harley-Davidson again, says administration working to bring other motorcycle companies to the US

article summation of how Trump is being vengeful {& puerile} since Harley is going to manufacture some bikes overseas to defeat the 30% ? tariffs imposed by foreign guvs. in retaliation for Trump tariffs.

President Donald Trump criticizes Harley-Davidson on social media, saying his administration is talking to other motorcycle companies.
“Now that Harley-Davidson is moving part of its operation out of the U.S., my Administration is working with other Motor Cycle companies who want to move into the U.S. Harley customers are not happy with their move - sales are down 7% in 2017. The U.S. is where the Action is!,” Trump says in a tweet.

>71 DugsBooks: I think you are definitely qualified to judge Trum's mentals. Could you make decisions about, say, a typical five year old? Well, then...

8 Signs of Narcissistic Rage and its destructive consequences.
Preston Ni M.S.B.A. | Jul 08, 2018

“Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others.” —Paramahansa Yogananda

...Whether at home, at work, in social interactions, or in day-to-day activities, narcissistic rage may occur when:

1. The narcissist doesn’t get his or her way, even when it’s unreasonable.

2. The narcissist is criticized in some way, even when the critique is made diplomatically, reasonably, and constructively.

3. The narcissist isn’t treated as the center of attention, even when there are other priorities.

4. The narcissist is caught breaking rules, violating social norms, or disregarding boundaries.

“How dare you talk to me this way in front of my son!” —Angry customer being called out for blatantly cutting in line

5. The narcissist is asked to be accountable for his or her actions.

6. The narcissist suffers a blow to his or her idealized, egotistical self-image (such as when being told he will not be given “exception to the rule”, or be granted “special treatment”).

7. The narcissist is reminded of his or her charade, manipulation, exploitation, inadequacy, shame, or self-loathing.

8. The narcissist feels (fears) not in control of their relational or physical surroundings.

...Destructive Consequences
...
1. Family Estrangement...
2. Relational Dissolution & Divorce...
3. Relationship Cut-Offs...
4. Loneliness and Isolation...
5. Missed Opportunities...
6. Financial, Career, or Legal Trouble...
7. Damaged Reputation...
8. Deep-Seated Fear of Rejection / Being Unimportant...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communication-success/201807/8-signs-nar...

Frank Bruni writes, in " "Disgusted With Donald Trump? Do This" (Opinion / July 20, 2018),

"We can’t count on Robert Mueller, the special counsel, because we don’t know what he’ll ultimately report or whether, after the perfervid campaign to discredit him, it will stick to Trump. But elections do stick. Ask Hillary Clinton.

"To blunt Trump’s attack on our democracy, we have to use our democracy. We can restore faith in it by showing faith in it.
__________________________

(emphasis added)

But the problem with that appeal is to be found right there in the laughable assumptions contained in the bold-face portion cited above.

You see, it's simply far, far too late now for Trump's hysterical opponents, who've so amply demonstrated their real opinions, beliefs and their utter contempt for democratic processes which denied them their supposed shoo-in favorite's election--far too late for them to try to assert now that they "have faith in our democracy."

What they actually had faith in was the elaborately tricked out set of shenanigans by which Hillary Clinton had imagined herself quite unbeatable. Everything was arranged in advance. The actual vote would be a mere formality before moving on to her inauguration. For years she worked at putting in place the people, tactics and manoeuvring by which she'd thwart any primary challenge and thus assure that she'd face the Republican party's candidate in November of 2016. And when that turned out to be the supposedly racist, misogynist and incorrigibly stupid and evil Donald Trump, a complete beginner, never elected to public office, she could hardly believe her luck.

"show (their) faith in democracy"? If Democrats had had any such sincere faith, it would surely have been very clear by now. What's very clear instead is that, in fact, their view of "our" "democracy" simply meant and impliied something which completely ruled out the very possibility that a Donald Trump could even be elected at all.

That's the epitome of faithlessness.

Try again, Frank.

In spite of the make-up, he looks tired to me...

Donald Trump Struggles To Say The Word ‘Anonymous’ During Montana Rally (36 sec video clip)
Ed Mazza | Sept 6, 2018

...when trying to slam the anonymous author, Trump let out what sounded like “enenamas” before correcting himself to something more like “enomynous”...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-anonymous-mispronounce_us_5b91...

Independent poll asks Americans whether Trump is ‘mentally stable’
Steve Benen | 09/11/18

...Do you think that President Trump is mentally stable, or not?

Yes, he’s stable: 48%
No, he’s not: 42%

The fact that a plurality of Americans said yes may seem like fairly good news for the president, but that’s a rather generous way of looking at the results. For one thing, Trump couldn’t quite crack the 50% mark on this question, which is hardly reassuring.

For another, we’ve reached the point in American history at which a major independent pollster (Quinnipiac) feels justified asking the public about a sitting president’s mental stability...

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/independent-poll-asks-americans-whether-...

#77--people might have different definitions of what 'stable' means. I mean for some it might mean--able to stand up and walk 20 steps without falling down or being potty trained.

Why Are They So Unfair to Donald Trump?
David Frum | 9/27/2018

In a rambling, 81-minute press conference, the president praised himself and aired his grievances.

...a startling revelation of the president’s own anxious dialogues with himself. Again and again, the president told stories about unnamed third parties reassuring him—and unspecified theys plotting against him.

...somehow the disquieting voices in his head—the voices that call him a failure, a loser, a disappointment to Dad—can never be quieted. No matter how vigorously he praises himself, the final validation never comes.

...everything is great, terrific, fabulous, the best ever. Everything is unfair, dangerous, the worst. President Trump is doing such a tremendous job, everybody knows it. Why won’t the voices in his head allow him an untormented moment of peace?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/trumps-astounding-press-confer...

ETA___________________________________________________________________

President Trump cites China's respect for his 'very, very large brain'
Saheli Roy Choudhury | 9/27/2018

...President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that China supposedly respects him for his "very, very large brain," during a news conference...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/27/president-trump-cites-chinas-respect-for-his-ver...

Empathy Deficit:

failure to visit US graves in France for 100th anniversary of Armistice Day (rain, traffic)

failure to visit Arlington Cemetery on Veteran's Day (rain? just didn't wanna?)

initially threatened to withhold fed $$ from California battling wildfires
(though subsequent tweets were more compassionate: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/12/trump-california-wildfires-985258)

Out of touch? Privileged? Not able to adequately separate categories?

Trump Proves Once Again He Has No Idea How To Do Simple, Normal Shit Like Buy Cereal

In an interview with The Daily Caller:

“If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID,” Trump continued.

More from The Daily Caller interview:

Trump doubled down on his assertions in an interview on Wednesday, suggesting that voters are using disguises to cast multiple ballots.

“The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes,” Trump told The Daily Caller. “When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/15/donald-trump-pushes-cons...

The Washington Post has a lovely opinion piece today, by Dana Milbank, on Trump's gut vs. brain.

Does Trump’s great gut mean a tiny brain?

It should go down in history as the “I Have a Gut” speech.

President Trump, asked Tuesday by The Post’s Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey about the Fed’s interest-rate hikes, gave a gastrointestinal response.

“They’re making a mistake,” he said, “because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”

And what a prodigious and extraordinary gut he has!

Trump’s gut does amazing things. Last week, he said there was no need to prepare for trade negotiations with the Chinese president because “I know it better than anybody knows it, and my gut has always been right.”

He told the Daily Caller that his decisions about which candidates to endorse are based on “very much my gut instinct.” He told the Washington Examiner his 2016 campaign strategy came from multiple locations in his torso. “Yeah, gut,” he said, but also “from my heart.”

He said in 2011 that “my gut tells me” President Barack Obama’s birth certificate may have been forged. His gut also told him to do “The Apprentice.” He has over the years been a veritable fortune cookie on the primacy of gut: “Go with your gut. . . . You have to follow your gut. . . . Develop your gut instincts and act on them. . . . I’ve seen people that are super genius, but they don’t have that gut feeling.”

Obama, during a moment of adversity in his presidency, remarked: “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.” Now, in a similar moment, Trump has an equally felicitous phrase: I’ve got a gut. And it thinks better than some brains! No wonder his primary physician before coming to the White House — the one who pronounced all Trump’s test results “positive” — was a gastroenterologist. A great gut needs great care.

There are, of course, other life forms that do their “thinking” with parts other than brains, but these tend to be sponges, scallops and the slime mold that re-created a map of the Tokyo subway system — not exactly a desirable cohort in which the president has placed himself.

Or perhaps he is claiming to be an evolutionary throwback. Anthropologists’ “expensive-tissue hypothesis” posits that as animals’ guts got smaller, their brains got bigger. If Trump’s gut remains so prominent, might his brain be smaller than his hands?

But Trump isn’t wrong to say his belly has brains. Researchers have found that bacteria in the gut send signals to the mind about what to eat, for example. I undertook a gut check on Trump with Braden Kuo, a director of the Center for Neurointestinal Health at Massachusetts General Hospital, and he told me the large number of neurons and neurotransmitters in the gut make it a sort of “second brain.” This is why people eat comfort food when sad or get butterflies when anxious. “A lot of our emotions, how we feel things, comes from nerve endings in our gut,” he says.

The problem is the gut, intelligent though it may be (and no offense to any guts that are reading this), does not know how to run a country. “Even though it has a lot of neurons and can do a lot of things, it doesn’t think a lot about nuclear policy or climate change,” Kuo says. Nor is the gut well schooled in the nuances of monetary policy — the matter on the mind of Trump’s gut most recently. (Although Trump’s anxiety over rising interest rates “may be exerting influence in his gut, making him queasy,” the doctor says.)

Bandy X. Lee, the Yale University psychiatrist who has sounded the alarm about the president’s mental functioning, thinks Trump’s preference for his gut is a rare moment of self-awareness. When Trump talks about his gut, she says, he’s really referring to his “primitive brain” — from which a rush of emotion is “overcoming him so he’s not able to access his actual intellect.”

“For people who are cognitively impaired, they use what we call our ‘gut,’ but it is really their primitive mind,” she says. “It takes over and can defeat those operations in the cognitive and rational realm.”

This appears to be what’s going on with climate change, for example, where Trump’s views are contradicted even by his own administration’s findings. Trump says he doesn’t believe his administration’s report despite being one of those with “very high levels of intelligence.”

“His thoughts are in conflict with his emotions,” Lee diagnoses, and “in order to eliminate that conflict and pain, he aligns himself with the primitive part of the psyche.”

Trump’s emotional gut, in other words, dominates the rational part of his brain.

This should give us all butterflies.

Trump can launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, with or without Mattis
Bruce Blair and Jon Wolfsthal | December 23, 2018

...Mattis’s departure seems to be provoking unease, especially considering how dangerous our nuclear-command arrangements are. The notion that Mattis, a former four-star Marine Corps general, could have blocked or defied a move by Trump to impulsively launch nuclear weapons may have seemed comforting, but it shouldn’t have been. The secretary of defense has no legal position in the nuclear chain of command, and any attempts by a secretary of defense to prevent the president from exercising the authority to use nuclear weapons would be undemocratic and illegal. With or without Mattis, the president has unchecked and complete authority to launch nuclear weapons based on his sole discretion.

The reaction to Mattis’s resignation, however, could open the door for the new Congress to create long-overdue legal barriers preventing the president from initiating a nuclear strike. Such a step could be implemented without any negative impact on U.S. security or that of our allies.

Every day, the U.S. nuclear early warning system is triggered by some event or another, mostly civilian and military rocket launches by one or more of a dozen countries with ballistic missiles....

In normal times, this system is precarious, and it can pressure even experienced leaders to consider nuclear weapons in a crisis sooner than warranted. Alerts stemming from ambiguous ballistic nuclear missile threats occurred multiple times during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and some alerts went directly to those presidents.

Yet, this system seems especially ill-suited to a president who has demonstrated time and again that he can be provoked into taking rash action, and who, as a candidate, openly questioned why the United States could not use the nuclear weapons it possesses. This is a dangerous set of instincts for a commander in chief with sole and unchecked authority over almost 4,000 nuclear weapons, nearly 1,000 of which could be fired within a few minutes.

...Under standard procedure, an attempt would be made to contact key national security officials, but in some real-world and exercise scenarios, it has proven impossible to tie them into a quickly convened emergency teleconference. Should he wish, the president could exclude all of them, and even bypass the primary designated adviser — the four-star general in charge of U.S. strategic forces — by ordering a low-ranking on-duty emergency operations officer at the Pentagon or elsewhere to transmit a launch order directly to the executing commanders of strategic U.S. submarines, silo-based missiles and bombers.

...One key issue is whether Trump — or any president — should have the legal ability to independently initiate the use of nuclear weapons. It seems reasonable that the president needs to be able to quickly order a nuclear response if an adversary employs nuclear weapons first against us, and that he would not have time to consult with Congress or the Cabinet if nuclear missiles were headed here. (The flight time of ballistic missiles over intercontinental distances is 30 minutes or less, and the president would have only about five to seven minutes to decide whether and how to respond.)

However, our chain of command is not just a presidential preference — it can be determined by legislative action. Congress can and should prohibit any president from using nuclear weapons first. The incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), proposed such legislation last year. It states that it is the policy of the United States not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. Congress could make any first-use illegal, constraining the president from issuing such an order and obligating any member of the military to disobey a command to do so. A no-first-use policy would also ratchet down tensions with Russia and facilitate reductions in the number and types of nuclear weapons in both U.S. and Russian arsenals. The logic and political salience of this position is growing, with some 20 members of the incoming Congress — including House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — now on record supporting no first use.

Legislation to bar first use probably wouldn’t get through the Republican Senate or be signed into law by Trump. But recognition that the system puts too much power in the hands of one person increases the likelihood that the next president will either adopt such a posture or accept legislative controls...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/23/trump-can-launch-nuclear-weapo...

"show (their) faith in democracy"? If Democrats had had any such sincere faith, it would surely have been very clear by now. What's very clear instead is that, in fact, their view of "our" "democracy" simply meant and impliied something which completely ruled out the very possibility that a Donald Trump could even be elected at all.

Just going to highlight this quote from proximity from back in July to note that it has become clear from the evidence that has been produced - including things like Butina's recent guilty plea - that Trump could not have been elected without democracy being subverted.

>85 StormRaven:

... "note that it has become clear from the evidence that has been produced - including things like Butina's recent guilty plea - that Trump could not have been elected without democracy being subverted."

LOL! Your specialty: Laughable BULLSHIT.

What things?

What evidence?

What does Maria Butina have to do with Donald Trump--before or during or after his presidential election-campaign?

Who, other than "Never-Trumpers," is concerned about or could be susceptible to being convinced by your so-called and so far unspecified (other than 'Maria Betina') "evidence that has been produced" ... "that Trump could not have been elected without democracy being subverted"?

What's next from Mueller? Gruelling 'third-degree-treatment'* of those suspected of parking-meter-violations found on the streets where Trump's hotels are located?

_____________________________



“The Third Degree”

Cop #1: "Look, Mac, you betta come clean. We know you wuz parked outsida da Trump Hotel."

Cop #2 : (Bam! his fist slams down hard on the table) "One more time!: What do you know about Trump's deals with the Rooskies!?

Cop #3: Give it up! And remember, we got all night, pal. You'll crack. Sooner or later, you're gonna crack. "

(photo borrowed from DisappearingIdioms.com)

What does Maria Butina have to do with Donald Trump--before or during or after his presidential election-campaign?

Butina was a funnel through which illegal money was directed to the NRA, which then used the illegal funds to influence the election. Whether Trump was directly involved in that or not, that is subversion of democracy. There is ample evidence out in public at this point that there were numerous illegal actions taken in an effort to secure the election for Trump - the only question now is whether the Trump campaign itself conspired with those taking those actions.

But whether the Trump campaign conspired to act illegally or not is irrelevant to the question of whether democracy was subverted. It was. The only uncertainty centers on whether Trump actively participated in that subversion.

To be blunt, if I were you, I'd be hiding in shame. Virtually everything you have claimed in this thread has turned out to be false.

You claimed Trump had made some kind of breakthrough with North Korea in post 64 that he wasn't being given credit for. That turned out to be incorrect. North Korea lied to Trump and has now announced that they have no plans to denuclearize, just like everyone with half a brain predicted back when you were claiming that a preliminary deal had been struck.

You claimed that a long roster of individuals, including the Clintons, Obama, Comey, Brennan, Lynch, Rice, and Holder were in danger if criminal prosecution. Not only has that turned out to be a laughable claim, but contrary to your assertion, those people clearly are in no danger of prosecution, now or ever. In contrast, numerous people connected with the Trump campaign and/or administration have been indicted, and several have been convicted or plead guilty. Several members of Trump's administration have resigned in disgrace after their rampant corruption has been exposed.

Basically, a good rule of thumb at this point is to find out what you are claiming about something and then take the exact opposite position, since you have proven yourself to be consistently and comprehensively wrong on almost every single point.

You don't just have no credibility at this point, you have negative credibility.

The whole lot of you are very sick! Enough said.

88: Thank you for reminding me to block your worthless commentary.

You’re most welcome

>88 JaneAustenNut: Finally someone said it.

"Debt Up $1.37 Trillion Since Last Year; $10,743 Per Household... "

trump and republicans are lying hypocritical self-serving assholes. Film at 11.

Trump is a bone spur for political conservatives.

News Flash: Trump leaves country and Dow Jones surges by over 1000 points

It's nice to be around family during the holidays, when I get to hear the sane political views of people like my sister who believes Trump to be almost the perfect president. Before you insult her, keep in mind she is in health care. You could be your patient someday. You should be so lucky.

>91 barney67: And there we see the utterly rule-bound Republican in action, jumping forward to criticize one of his own for breaking the rules, unlike those hypocritical liberals who only complain about rules when it helps them.

Originally posted and amended, Thursday, 27 December, 2018:
______________________________________

>87 StormRaven:

LOL! You have ZERO, nothing, connected to Trump. That's why you desperately try to parade this bullshit as something interesting.

"There is ample evidence out in public at this point that there were numerous illegal actions taken in an effort to secure the election for Trump - the only question now is whether the Trump campaign itself conspired with those taking those actions." ...

Uhm, no. As a "question," that's not even an interesting one. It's a conspiracy-nut's reverie.

Here's "the question" that ought to be of interest --except for one very unfortunate fact:

"Regarding these alleged 'numerous illegal actions taken in an effort to secure the election for Trump,' is there any evidence that has some connection to Trump or his campaign indicating a plausible case where either the campaign or Trump are in some way legally-liable to be charged with a crime?

I ask because neither you nor anyone else has been able to adduce any such thing --which is the aforementioned very unfortunate (from your point of view, of course) fact .

My credibility is in danger here!?!? LOL! Bring us some evidence! Otherwise, it's you who is making himself a flagrant and public laughing-stock.

CITING YOU, S.R.:

"You claimed Trump had made some kind of breakthrough with North Korea in post 64 that he wasn't being given credit for. "

So where, cited, verbatim, is this calim of mine you say I made, hmm?
Cite it, quote it, word for word. Let's see it and I'll answer you. Until you do, this is more of your trademark unsubstantiated BULLSHIT. Where's the claim?

"You claimed that a long roster of individuals, including the Clintons, Obama, Comey, Brennan, Lynch, Rice, and Holder were in danger if (SIC) criminal prosecution. Not only has that turned out to be a laughable claim, but contrary to your assertion, those people clearly are in no danger of prosecution, now or ever." ...

FALSE. I never claimed that they, jointly or severally, were in "danger if (SIC) criminal prosecution."

Those words "danger" and "prosecution" are your misquotes of my words.

HERE'S WHAT I WROTE, & I STAND BY THESE, MY ACTUAL, WORDS:

"James Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, and James Clapper, Loretta Lynch, former president Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Eric Holder-- and others who conspired with them-- are all in jeopardy* of serious criminal charges for their acts over the course of Barack Obama's two terms in office-- or they should be in a government which hadn't been so corrupted.

"Even so, it remains to be seen if they'll all completely escape indictment and trial."

______________
(from >55 proximity1:) emphasis added here.

* 'Jeopardy' :

"Legal Definition of jeopardy. 1 : exposure to or imminence of death, loss, or injury. 2 : the danger of conviction that an accused person is subjected to when on trial for a criminal offense."
(emphasis added)

I'd even added:

"Even so, it remains to be seen if they'll all completely escape indictment and trial."

That is, all of them remain legally liable to be charged with serious felonies; and that shall remain true unless and until a statute of limitations, if any, on the various kinds of charges* runs out.

Again, CITING YOU:

...
"In contrast, numerous people connected with the Trump campaign and/or administration have been indicted, and several have been convicted or plead guilty. Several members of Trump's administration have resigned in disgrace after their rampant corruption has been exposed."

Bring us something credible in reports of evidence of Trump's own criminal liability.

You have none. Mueller, so far, has shown none.

I don't expect that to change. He (Mueller) is on an open-ended fishing-expedition for whatever stuff he can dredge up that might serve Trump's lynch-mob as a pretext for impeachment charges.

Your posts continue to show that you have nothing.

__________________________

* Fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud
Obstruction of justice,
Conspiracy,
-----
• making false and misleading statements to law enforcement officials in the course of an official investigation

• perjury
• Subornation of perjury
• destruction of evidence

>96 prosfilaes: This post makes no sense. I'm not criticizing my sister. Her comment was in the context of the decades long complaint in America that we needed an outsider president. Now that we have one, certain folks have become stricken with mass hysteria. Several of my relatives are in the medical profession. It was interesting to hear them diagnose the president's critics, journalists, Democrats. I encourage everyone to get help. We maintenance our cars and our computers. Why not our brains? Of course, some of us are not prone to mass hysteria and remain firmly planted on the earth. It makes no sense really. I know hippies who like Trump. Why? Because he's anti-establishment. He's more Reform than Republican, and before that he was a New York Democrat.

>97 proximity1: I've had you blocked for so long, what's the point?

97: Your commentary gets loonier every time you post. None of the individuals you listed are on jeopardy of criminal charges. Your assertions, no matter how you parse them, are ludicrous. None of them are legally loable for any felonies. You make youself look stupider every time you advance that claim. The "outsider" Trump has had his guys in place at the Justice department for two years, and notjing has materialized because the is nothing for any of the people you listed to be prosucted for.

Also, you do realize that Trump is "individual one" in the Cohen plea deal, don't you? And that his son has already been implicated in conspiring with Russian assets on his behalf, right? The desperation in your denials is becoming palpable.

98: No one cares that Trump is an outsider. What people care about is that he is dangerously incompetent - he recently endangere U.S. special frces personnel with stupid tweets. He caused a shut down over nothig - Congress already appropriated billions for border security that his administration has left unused. He is causing markets to tank with pointless trade wars that are harming farming communities. He hasnt drained the swamp, he's made it deeper and swampier with his appointments. He is lousy at the job and not getting any better at it as he goes.

So where, cited, verbatim, is this calim of mine you say I made, hmm?

Here:

Our top story tonight, two mentally-unstable world leaders, American President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, meeting in Singapore, have concluded and signed a preliminary understanding which the unbalanced Trump says he hopes shall eventually lead to the full nuclear-disarmament of the North Korean nation and perhaps open the way to the establishment of friendly relations between the United States and both parts of the divided Korean nation. Leading Democrats denounced the moves as wild, irresponsibly dangerous and risky and scoffed at the prospect of the agreement's having any chance of a lasting and effective result.

I'm sure you will now engage in some wild rhetorical contortions to try to claim this doesn't mean exactly what it says, just like you engaged in wild (and borderline lunatic) contortions to try to claim that "in danger of" and "in jeopardy of" mean different things. At this point, every claim you make is laughably stupid, but you keep finding new ways to say things even stupider than you did before.

>98 barney67: This post makes no sense. I'm not criticizing my sister.

Which is why it's referencing >91 barney67:, not >95 barney67:.

Because he's anti-establishment.

To the extent he is, it's an example of why the establishment is good. Kleptocrats and autocrats tend to tear down the establishment, which tends to limit personal power and exceptional corruption. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, many established political orders have quite a bit of corruption, but it's all by the game; nobody gets to steal it all, and anyone too aggressively corrupt is running a risk of getting condemned from the powers that be.)

I go back to his tax returns. They're probably not important in and of themselves, but they're a form of dominance ritual. A candidate showing their tax returns is accepting the dominance of the public, their right to know about who they're electing. If Trump was really reform, he wouldn't want to set the precedent that presidential candidates don't have to reveal their tax returns, thus moving power from the people to whoever is running.

>101 StormRaven:

This, as a sane and slightly-honest reader could have understood, especially when preceded by having read another tongue-in-cheek piece of make-believe*,

"Our top story tonight, two mentally-unstable world leaders, American President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, meeting in Singapore, have concluded and signed a preliminary understanding which the unbalanced Trump says he hopes shall eventually lead to the full nuclear-disarmament of the North Korean nation and perhaps open the way to the establishment of friendly relations between the United States and both parts of the divided Korean nation. Leading Democrats denounced the moves as wild, irresponsibly dangerous and risky and scoffed at the prospect of the agreement's having any chance of a lasting and effective result."

is of course to be understood as humor. But it remains strictly factual in that all it says occurred is a preliminary understanding, nothing more.

But go ahead and twist my actual words into your lying versions if you like. It just shows what sort of person you are.

________________________

*

"and bless Mama, and Daddy, ,... and bless Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton; and, Dear God, please don't let that mean President Trump and North Korean leader Kim make a deal which stands up and works out over time, Amen."

>102 prosfilaes: If the worst you can say about Trump is he didn't release his tax returns, I'm OK with that because to me it's a trivial subject. Apparently you have forgotten the Clinton tax returns. This is a couple that writes off their underwear.

Probably more than any president we've had, at least in many decades, Trump tries to do what's best for the people. That's a fact that strikes me as not even debatable.

You may want to blah, blah, blah it, but you seem to have forgotten all the complaining esp. in the 1990s when Perot was running about how Americans were no longer represented by their politicians. The public interest was subservient to special interests, those companies who had the resources to influence politicians in Washington. There was much truth in that, and there still is, and the president has tried to change it. The two parties themselves became more powerful, which is probably unconstitutional. The cost of campaigning increased. There was a sense that The People were being squeezed out. The result was a resurgence in populism, starting at least with Pat Buchanan, though it has always existed in America in some form.

I'm not a populist myself. I'm not a cheerleader for The People or Democracy. But I'm not so ideological, rigid, or stubborn to turn my nose up when something works simply because I didn't vote for the guy. I get things wrong all the time. So do you. So do the rest of you. If you want the beginning of wisdom, you could do worse than to start there. Admit your faults, learn from them, and move on. Too many voters treat politics like a football game. Choose a team and stick with it. You can't do that it in politics because it is always changing. Worse, voters see it as the good people versus the evil people, which is so stupid it deserves no further comment.

I've never seen hysteria over a president such as I have witnessed during the past two years. When the right people get pissed off, you are probably doing something worthwhile.

"I've never seen hysteria over a president such as I have witnessed during the past two years. When the right people get pissed off, you are probably doing something worthwhile."

I never think this is a good argument. It seems like the right has been intent on drinking "liberal tears" for the past couple of decades and are devoid of any popular political ideas. It's about getting the base riled up on the same old topics: abortion, gun rights, culture-war wedge issues.

There was mass hysteria on the right during the Obama years. Conspiracy theories that he was amassing armies in Walmarts and would begin mass arrests of conservatives. The IRS "investigating" right-wing groups moreso than left wing groups. And on and on.

Trump, no matter your political leanings, is not at all like last presidents. For his supporters, this is a good thing (see: "liberal tears" from before). For his detractors, it is alarming, and it's understandable why they would be upset.

At any rate, Trump's presidency has been very clearly a failure - our coalitions with other Western democracies is crumbling, our foreign policy is a confused mess, the autocratic and oligarchic politics of Russia are clearly prevailing here in the US, the market ping-pongs at the president's tweets, and so on. We are no safer than we were before Trump was elected, and the only real accomplishment has been a tax cut that benefited mostly the wealthiest Americans. The US is more divided than ever. Where is the "great America" the populace was promised?

>104 barney67: If the worst you can say about Trump is he didn't release his tax returns,

It's not. It was merely one example of what ways he is anti-establishment, that is by tearing away the standards that protect the people. He didn't release his tax returns like every candidate after Nixon, he didn't separate himself from his businesses like Carter and Nixon did. He has demonstrated a lack of interest in the norms that separate an elected president from a dictator.

Trump tries to do what's best for the people. That's a fact that strikes me as not even debatable.

You claim you're not ideological or rigid, but that's a very ideological and rigid statement. How could the President's intent not be debatable?

The piano seller who Trump stiffed doesn't feel Trump tried to do the best for him. Nor the man who lost his family business when Trump refused to pay. How about the 800,000 people who aren't getting paid because of Trump refusing to sign the budget bill? (They're Democrats, according to him; apparently that matters, and thus that's 32%* of the population he's not worried about doing the best for.)

* Gallup poll of December 2018: people consider themselves 26-39-32 Republican-Independent-Democratic.

Fasten your seatbelts, folks. It's going to be a bumpy 2019:

How Narcissists Play the Victim and Twist the Story
Darius Cikanavicius

...narcissistic and otherwise toxic people (hereafter narcissists) play the victim and manipulate the narrative.

Delusion and denial...

Lying...

Projection...

Framing the story...

Slander, triangulation, character assassination...

Closer analysis...

Summary and closing words

Narcissists can’t accept that they may not be wonderful people...

Not only that, they need other people’s validation that their delusion is true...

As a result, sometimes people get seriously hurt: socially, financially, emotionally, or even physically. But the narcissist doesn’t care about that. In fact they are often glad, because in their narrative the target deserves it by being “evil,” so whatever happens is justified.

...minimize the damage, sever your ties with them...quickly, and protect yourself...

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/psychology-self/2018/07/narcissist-delusion

Hot Topics Today
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3 6 Toxic Arguing Techniques Used by Narcissists and Manipulators
4 5 Ways Narcissists Project and Attack You

Yikes--the adults have left the room...below is New Year's tweet from military working with increasingly stressed and isolated Trump. Civilians are supposed to provide control and direction for warrior mentality, but instead we're relying on one unstable man-baby (sans empathy) to decide on life and death issues.

(Russkies should be worried about wages of Putin's 2016 adventure in American politics...years ago I asked a retired silo officer if he really would have released his nuclear bomb on "rosy-cheeked Russian children". No hesitation in his reply: "Yes". )

New Year 2019: US military apologises for bomb tweet
Dec 31, 2018

US Strategic Command, which oversees America's nuclear arsenal, has apologised for a tweet that said it was ready to "drop something much, much bigger" than New York's Times Square ball.

The message, posted on New Year's Eve, was accompanied by a video showing a B-2 bomber dropping weapons...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46727991

President Trump is entering his terrible twos

The Trump presidency turns two this month, and though we often hear the mantra “this is not normal,” what the president is doing actually is normal. For a 2-year-old.

If you want to understand this White House, turn off Wolf Blitzer and pick up Benjamin Spock. The ninth edition of the late pediatrician’s famous guide, first published in 1946, tells us all we need to know about this presidency as it approaches its second birthday:

“This can be a physically exhausting and trying time.”

The 2-year-old “has a hard time making up his mind, and then he wants to change it,” his “understanding of the world is still so limited,” and “he becomes bolder and more daring in his experiments.”

“A battle of wills with a two-year-old is tiring.”

“Two is a great age for whining.”

One moment, Trump says the furloughed workers are Democrats, who oppose the wall. The next moment, Trump says the furloughed workers support his stand. Dr. Spock anticipated this: “Negativism reaches new heights and takes new forms after two.” The “two-and-a-half-year-old . . . even contradicts herself.”

Trump rails about being persecuted by “THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA.” Dr. Spock anticipated this, too: “She acts like a person who feels she is being bossed too much, even when no one is bothering her and even when she tries to boss others.”

Trump believes “my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.” Dr. Spock: “The child’s nature urges her to decide things for herself and resist pressure from other people. Trying to fight this battle without much worldly experience seems to get her tightened up inside.”

And the terrible twos are defined by tantrums, which, Dr. Spock wrote, “usually start around age one” — Trump was precocious — “peak around age two to three” and are worse for “children who are less flexible.” So buckle up.
...
Happily, the terrible twos don’t last forever. “The automatic resistance and hostility,” Dr. Spock tells us, “lessen after three in most children.” In the meantime, “Remember to praise yourself,” he counsels, “for staying calm and rational — not easily done when your two-year-old is having a meltdown.”

Don’t we know it.

>109 2wonderY:

The Washington Post is a piece of shit. Not worth reading--and your cited reference is a fine example of how and why that is the case. The article's author is infantile in his (or her) reasoning and that, of course, is just what sells it, as it flatters the paper's smug, infantile readership.

I think that, were he alive, Dr. Benjamin Spock would find this use of his professional work deeply insulting intellectually; and, of course, since he's dead, the author of this piece of shit opinion is free to insult Dr. Spock's intelligence with such an abuse of his work.

Take a real two-year-old child and have him shadow President Trump throughout a 72-hour period; fortunately, much of that time, the real two-year-old shall spend asleep while Trump, like him or hate him, is busy working or at least pretending to work.

The real two-year-old, placed alongside Trump, would brilliantly highlight the idiotic hyperbole going on in this piece, written to pander to gullible fools whose brains are in "auto-pilot" mode.

Beware the precocious superiority of the humorless four-year-old.

>111 RickHarsch:

>112 2wonderY:

Your mocking photo supposedly indicating Trump's juvenile character isn't that of a two-year-old. The boy pictured above is somewhere between four and five years old.

Two-year-olds look more like this:


(Photo credit: Sabine75|CC / Source: https://www.famlii.com/two-year-old-toddler-does-not-like-sharing/)

This is the age-type you're alleging Trump resembles.

Again, have a child similar to those in the photo shaddow President Trump over 72 hours. That would give us a vivid notion of how similar Trump is to a two-year-old.

I don't think Trump's detractors are in any position to push this line of criticism.

________________________________

By the way, the following is from the source-photographer's website--the author of your posted photo of the four or five-year-old. Check with him, A. J. Rich, (of www.richvintage.com) about the age of the boy pictured. I'm sure he'll be able to tell you:

"*Content from this website may not be used without permission.

© Andrew (A.J.) Rich/Rich Vintage Photography

"All imagery and content on this website is copyrighted and may not be used in any form without permission. I believe in what goes around, comes around. Thank you for being a kind steward of this planet and making sure that stray meteors stay away.

"If you would like to purchase any of my images online, please click on the "Getty Portfolio" link above. You will be directed to my online stock image portfolio. If you would like to purchase prints, please send me a message. Thank you for reading. "

trump is nothing like a two year old. Two year olds are innocent.

trump is like a carnival barker. He is a huckster. He's been one all this adult life. Case in point: his "university". Second case in point: his "charitable foundation".

trump is certainly no politician. He doesn't care shit about politics. He cares about himself only. He makes the average narcissist look like Albert Schweitzer or Florence Nightingale. lol.

>114 JGL53: "trump is nothing like a two year old. Two year olds are innocent."

_________________________

"Child lying refers to children displaying varying degrees of deceptive behavior in a social situation. Children have been observed lying as early as age 2 and their deceptive skills increase sharply as they mature into adolescence. Children who have advanced cognitive skills for their age have an increased tendency to begin lying at earlier ages. Children may lie for various reasons including, but not limited to, escaping punishment for not obeying a task (such as eating a cookie when told not to), through observation of their parents and peers, or lacking a comprehensive understanding of basic morality."
... ...

"Children as young as age 2 can lie, which demonstrates:

" • An increased ability to execute advanced cognitive functioning.
" • An understanding of language and how to manipulate it to achieve a desired outcome.
" • An understanding of basic morality."

(Wikipedia / "Child lying" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_lying )

See Also:

"Social and Cognitive Correlates of Children’s Lying Behavior"
Victoria Talwar and Kang Lee at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3483871/

Just noticed a photo in which Trump appears to have earlobe crease associated with coronary artery disease.

It's not a 100% causative relationship, but an indication one should attend to lifestyle, etc.:
https://myheart.net/articles/earlobe-crease-and-heart-disease-fact-or-myth/

> 115

I doubt that your average two year old tells 6,000 + public lies before he or she is four. In any case children are supposed to learn in time that lying is counterproductive to the goal of having a satisfying, rewarding and decent life.

Adults who lie like dogs all the time are pathological and nothing like small children who might be forgiven their lies as attributed to naivete and inexperience.

trump is a lying pig who makes hillary clinton in comparison look like an angel descended from heaven. When trump dies then hillary might take over his mantle as the filthiest liar in the U.S., but not until then.

>117 JGL53: When trump dies then hillary might take over his mantle as the filthiest liar in the U.S., but not until then.

My money is on Sarah Sanders or Kellyanne Conway.

>112 2wonderY: lqarl

I've just noticed many comments concerning Trump's dependence on adderall, which accounts for the chronic sniffing and other emotional and behavior "quirks" he exhibits.

<120 Maybe that accounts for the sniffing. I thought cocaine maybe as Trump sniffed through a debate, but then he's a teetotaller, so not likely?

> 118

Certainly in terms of lies per unit of time but I was thinking more of consequential lies.

SHS and KAC are nobodies compared to HRC, who was First Lady for eight years, a Senator, a serious Presidential candidate in two election cycles - major party nominee in one - and was Sec. of State for four years. When she lied, people listened.

Also, along with WJC she has a net worth of several hundred million, amassed at a quarter to a half million dollars per 45 minute speech at corporate soirées - most if not all secret to the public. And allah only knows what rip-offs went on at the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea no doubt getting her cut.

Why Autocrats Love Emergencies
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt | Jan. 12, 2019

Crises — real and imaginary — loosen normal constitutional constraints.

Authoritarian leaders often chafe under the constraints of constitutional rule...

...find democratic politics intolerably frustrating. Most lack the skills or the temperament for the give-and-take of everyday politics. They are allergic to criticism and compromise. They have little patience for the intricacies of the legislative process...For would-be authoritarians, the checks and balances inherent in presidential democracy feel like a straitjacket. The media criticism, legislative oversight and adverse court rulings leave them feeling besieged.

Crises offer these would-be authoritarians an escape from constitutional shackles. National emergencies — especially wars or major terrorist attacks — do three things for such leaders. First, they build public support. Security crises typically produce a rally-round-the-flag effect in which presidential approval soars. Citizens are more likely to tolerate — and even support — authoritarian power grabs when they fear for their safety. Second, security crises silence opponents, since criticism can be viewed as disloyal or unpatriotic. Finally, security crises loosen normal constitutional constraints. Fearful of putting national security at risk, judges and legislative leaders generally defer to the executive.

...Crises present such great opportunities for concentrating power that would-be autocrats often manufacture them.

...President Trump...behavior, particularly since the November midterm elections, betrays similar autocratic instincts. The president manifestly lacks the patience or negotiating skills needed to deal with divided government. His response to Democratic control of the House of Representatives has been a refusal to compromise and, more dangerously, a refusal to lose. Unlike Presidents Clinton and Bush, who conceded defeat when it became clear that their initiatives lacked legislative support, Mr. Trump has refused to accept the failure of his border wall project. Unable to obtain the necessary votes in Congress, the president recklessly forced a government shutdown. When that didn’t get him his wall, he moved to circumvent Congress altogether by inventing — if not yet declaring — a national emergency. In his Oval Office speech on Tuesday, he used the word “crisis” six times in eight minutes. That is how autocrats respond to legislative opposition. Following in the tradition of Vargas and Marcos, Mr. Trump fabricated a security threat to make the case for bypassing Congress.

...no matter the outcome, these developments should set off alarm bells. Our president is behaving like an autocrat. His willingness to fabricate a national crisis and subvert constitutional checks and balances to avoid legislative defeat places him closer to Ferdinand Marcos than to Ronald Reagan.

...Mr. Trump lacks...self-restraint...first encounter with divided government has produced what is proving to be the longest government shutdown ever. And any reckless use of emergency powers would set a dangerous precedent for overriding the legislative branch. Unlike other national emergency declarations, this one would openly defy the will of Congress.

This raises a terrifying question: How would a president who is willing to fabricate a national emergency over a simple legislative impasse behave during a real security crisis?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/opinion/sunday/trump-national-emergency-wall....

#123---as far as his border wall--it's not much of an emergency if it can be put off again and again for another day. Every day that he talks about calling an emergency and doesn't call it is just more proof that it's all bullshit. The NYT article just nails his personality as far as I'm concerned.

If Trump does call this emergency though he's not going to expand his public support because the majority of people do think it's fake and nonsensical and his shutdown idiotic. He hasn't got the nation behind him--that he might think it is is only delusion on his part. For those reasons I don't think any silence from the press, his opponents or the public is coming. He continues to do stupid shit he's going to get called out for it. For those reasons I don't see the courts giving him the green light either. He is a would be despot but he's only fooling a minority of the public.

>123 margd: >124 lriley:

LOL!- junk.

“#59-- I agree with most of what you say here. Trump's run kind of plays to me like something out of Barnum and Bailey's circus. Trump as a latter day W.C. Fields. How serious is he? I have no idea. It is major publicity for him though and he eats that up and when it comes to media savvy he makes the entire republican field look like a bunch of hayseeds--which for the most part they are. I think that lurks in the back of some of his supporters minds and they get a kick out of seeing some of these holier than thou stuffed shirts who are always promising but never delivering going nowhere fast. I really get the idea that Trump's not good at resistance---which the congress and the courts would give him shitloads of and the other thing is he doesn't strike me as being good at commitment which kind of goes with the job he's applying for--at least if he's interested in getting some kind of agenda off the ground. I really don't think he can win.” ( lriley; Nov. 2015)

#125-proximity1

LOL!-shit.

>125 proximity1: Talk about an air-tight argument.

ETA: referring to the robo-comment: "LOL!- junk."

Just to be clear.

And Hi Prox! I know you read these. There is a sure way to tell when someone is reading someone they blocked--they announce that they don't. Sorry about the handcuff paradox.

Roger Cohen helps us delineate the differences between a liar and a bullshitter:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/opinion/donald-trump-illegal-immigration-bord...

A message that was best delivered diplomatically, not by Twitter... One can imagine State Dept delivered it while Pompeo in Middle East, but narcissistic Trump just HAD to insert himself in the most public way:

Trump threatens to 'devastate' Turkish economy over Syrian Kurds
1/14/2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46859164

Other headlines today:

Transcripts detail how FBI debated whether Trump was 'following directions' of Russia
Top Democrats Warn Trump Over Comments on Michael Cohen
Stocks are falling after a fresh set of horrible data out of China reignited worries about the global economy
No letup in Saudi crackdown on dissent, and no pushback from Trump administration
Pentagon Officials Fear Bolton’s Actions Increase Risk of Clash With Iran
Most Americans Hold Trump Responsible For Government Shutdown, New Polls Show
Passenger carried gun onto international Delta flight from Atlanta, report says
President Trump Mocks Amazon's 'Jeff Bozo' During Unhinged Twitter Rant (Bezos owns WaPo which reported on Trump efforts to hide Conversation with Putin. How did National Enquirer obtain Bezo's private texts, I wonder...)

Not to worry, though:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump | 7:57 AM - 12 Jan 2019:
I just watched a Fake reporter from the Amazon Washington Post say the White House is “chaotic, there does not seem to be a strategy for this Shutdown. There is no plan.” The Fakes always like talking Chaos, there is NONE. In fact, there’s almost nobody in the W.H. but me, and...ETA:
Trump denies being Russian sleeper agent as he rejects proposal to end government shutdown

Arms Sales OK'd by Hillary Clinton's State Department Raise Questions |
MAY 29, 2015

According to an IBT analysis of State Department and foundation data, during the three full years of Clinton's tenure as secretary of state (FY 2010-12), the department approved commercial arms sales worth a total of $165 billion to twenty nations whose governments had given to the foundation — nearly double the total sales to those countries approved in FY 2006-08, during President George W. Bush's second term. For example, arms exports to Saudi Arabia totaling $8 billion were approved in FY 2010-12 — up from $4.1 billion in FY 2006-08 — including $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets delivered by a consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing, despite the State Department's documented concerns about the repressive policies of the Saudi royal family. In the years before Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, while Boeing contributed $900,000 to the foundation just two months before the deal was finalized.

Separately, the State Department approved Pentagon-brokered arms sales totaling $151 billion in FY 2010-12 to sixteen countries whose governments had donated to the foundation, a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations in FY 2006-08 — compared with an 80 percent increase in weapons sales to all countries.

According to the analysis, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by the State Department have contributed between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family in the form of speaking fees. Donations also were made to the foundation by the governments of Algeria, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar, all of which were cleared to buy American-made weapons even as the department faulted endemic corruption, restrictions on civil liberties, and/or violent crackdowns against political opponents in those countries. While the Clinton Foundation had agreed to disclose to the State Department new foreign government donors and increases in donations from existing ones, State Department and White House officials raised no issues about potential conflicts related to arms sales, IBT reports.

______________________________________________________

Saudi gives lavish gifts to Clinton, Obama
Kingdom gave most expensive gifts to former secretary of state, President in 2012, registry reveals |
By Courtney Trenwith | arabianbusiness |Sun 01 Sep 2013 11:02 AM

Gold jewellery worth $500,000 from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah helped see former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton receive more lavish gifts from foreign leaders than US President Barack Obama in 2012, a new list from the State Department shows.

The King’s present included a necklace, bracelet, ring and earrings made of white gold and adorned with teardrop rubies and diamonds, the department said.

(And, yes, I know these gifts are not allowed to become the property of the officials to whom they are presented. (Unless Hillary sneaks hers home in a duffle-bag.))

duffel

Trump Must Be a Russian Agent; the Alternative Is Too Awful

The pattern of his pro-Putin, pro-Russia, anti-FBI, anti-intelligence community actions are so one-sided, and the lies and obfuscation surrounding every single Russian meeting and conversation are so consistent, that if this president isn’t actually hiding a massive conspiracy, it means the alternative is worse: America elected a chief executive so oblivious to geopolitics, so self-centered and personally insecure, so naturally predisposed to undermine democratic institutions and coddle authoritarians, and so terrible a manager and leader, that he cluelessly surrounded himself with crooks, grifters, and agents of foreign powers, compromising the national security of the US government and undermining 75 years of critical foreign alliances, just to satiate his own ego.

>132 2wonderY:

Wow. I could see it going either way. Trump is super-ego-driven with a narcissistic God complex. He also appears to be in a significant period of mental decline. If the Russians flattered and appealed to his ego enough, I can see them duping him into not realizing he's helping them to the United States' detriment.

And that would be bad enough, but if it's deliberate on his part, I really wish I believed in heaven and hell so he could burn in the latter.

Jennifer Rubin

“To say Pelosi has mastered the art of dealing with President Trump would be a gross understatement,” the conservative Washington Post columnist wrote on Wednesday.

The trick, Rubin said, is to treat Trump like a toddler in the middle of a meltdown.

Pelosi sent a letter to Trump on Wednesday asking to postpone the State of the Union address due to the government shutdown and security issues. Or, as Rubin put it, “she’s taking away the president’s TV” in response to his “nearly month-long temper tantrum.”

Rubin added:

“You wonder why in the world Democrats ever considered replacing her. She knows she has power, she willingly and skillfully deploys it, and, as she has said, as a mother of five children, knows how to handle a toddler’s meltdown. She also knows what Trump craves most — attention and TV cameras.”

Conservative Columnist Reveals The 1 Trick That’s Helped Nancy Pelosi ‘Master’ Trump

>135 2wonderY: Isn't telling him he can't give his SOTUA in the House kind of like telling a toddler he can't have dessert?

If he's going to behave like a toddler, he needs to be treated like one.

But actually, the SOTUA is a government function. And Trump shut down the government. So it doesn't really make sense to have it anyway.

ETA: "government event" is more what I mean, not "function"

Trump denies Pelosi military aircraft for war zone trip
Jeremy Diamond | January 17, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/17/politics/donald-trump-nancy-pelosi-trip-cancel/in...

Some background:

Can the Pentagon Restrict Congressional Foreign Travel?
Ryan Scoville | May 30, 2018
https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-pentagon-restrict-congressional-foreign-travel

(Should something happen, does Trump really want to be responsible for Speaker travelling commercial to Afghanistan? Will new Speaker support longstanding and denied GAO request for info on government expenditures on weekends at Trump resorts? Will both be forced to join 800,000 fed employees at food banks?)

ETA___________________________________________________________

Drew Hammill Pelosi's Dep Chief of Staff | 12:29 PM - 17 Jan 2019
‏
The CODEL to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest. In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, U.S. military leaders and key allies–to affirm the United States’ ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. (1/4)

This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt. (2/4)

The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation & thanks to our men & women in uniform for their service & dedication, & to obtain critical national security & intelligence briefings from those on the front lines. (3/4)

The President traveled to Iraq during the Trump Shutdown as did a Republican CODEL led by Rep. Zeldin. (4/4)

>136 mamzel:

"Isn't telling him he can't give his SOTUA in the House kind of like telling a toddler he can't have dessert?"

No, really--excuse my interruption of your idiotic fantasy--but there's no relation between the two.

Toddlers, unlike presidents of the United States, aren't typically denied the venue of the floor of the House of Representatives out of sheer partisan spite--as in the present case--for their Constitutionally-prescribed annual report on the state of the nation. True, what's involved is "merely" a matter of tradition; Trump could easily dispense with the personal presentation of the address and just send a written text to the Congress. That would fulfill his obligations.

And, come to think of it, unlike Trump, no toddler has ever been elected to the office of president of the United States. So, again, a parent's or some other adult authority's telling a toddler that he can't have dessert is not at all analogous to the Speaker of the House, from partisan spite, telling the president of the United States that he's not welcome in the House chamber--though House rules do authorize the relevant authorities in the House of Representatives to determine the conditions on who may and may not enter the chamber.

It's just that, since the tradition became established, no Speaker has been so infantile as to spitefully refuse the duly-elected president of the United States the opportunity to deliver the address there.

Pelosi is playing to a particular weakness of Donald's--that he doesn't read and that he can hardly write a sentence without at least one glaring grammatical or spelling mistake.

Jefferson and Lincoln were eloquent and I think it's accepted fact that they wrote all their own public speeches--surely all the most important of them. But there's no necessary relationship between being a good, or even a great president--and, still less, a markedly successful president-- and being a good writer. Grant was a very talented writer but neither the best nor the most successful of presidents.

JFK, one of a wealthy and dynastic political family, Harvard educated, employed speech-writers. If he could do that--despite being a quite capable writer of above-standard political prose-- then there's little for Trump to have to be ashamed of in the fact that he needn't write his own speeches as president. Good lord! Do you similarly denounce as literary slackers practically all the past presidents since Madison or Quincy Adams? No, you don't. Because you're simply nursing a bigotted hatred for Trump and everything about him--including features which have been common to American presidents for well over a century and a half.

Obama--with speech-writers--said and wrote things that made me cringe to hear.

( transcript from the Avalon Project at Yale Law School) “Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers*, and true to our founding documents.” (And here. At 01 min.: 57-59 secs, in this Youtube.com video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1ljmtaibC4 )

Interestingly enough, at WhiteHouse.gov, the text of the speech has been doctored, cleaned up, so that the gaffe “forebearers” is replaced by “forebears”—the correct term. Nothing indicates so well the fact that this was recognized as a gaffe after the fact. So actual historical fact was slightly amended to save face on behalf of this president.

And here’s a source you probably swear by, arch-foe of Donald Trump, CNN, presents a transcript of the prepared address as the White House press office sent it out in advance copies—undoctored.

“Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents.”

But not true to their grammar or syntax, alas—LOL!

____________________________

* (audio-file): @ time-marker 02 mins. : 17-19 secs.)

Here's another example of one of President Obama's gaffes, this one committed in an address before the British Parliament given in Westminster Hall in May of 2011--the first such occasion in the history of British-American relations!

Here are Obama's opening words,

"My Lord Chancellor, Mr Speaker, Mr Prime Minister, my Lords, and Members of the House of Commons:

"I have known few greater honours than the opportunity to address the Mother of Parliaments at Westminster Hall. I am told the last three speakers here have been the Pope, Her Majesty the Queen, and Nelson Mandela, which is either a very high bar or the beginning of a very funny joke." ...
_______________________________
(President Obama Addresses the British Parliament)

"My Lord Chancellor, Mr Speaker, Mr Prime Minister, my Lords, ..."

What? were no Ladies present? How about Helene Valerie Hayman, Baroness Hayman, GBE, PC, then Lord Speaker? (i.e. of the House of Lords)

Do you suppose she skipped the event? Were there no other female members of the House of Lords in 2011? How about Barbara Scott Young, Baroness Young of Old Scone FRSGS, a life peer of the House of Lords since 4 November, 1997? Did she also skip the event?

If men of the House of Lords are addressed "my Lords", women are addressed as "my Ladies". It's either both or neither, really. One wouldn't address an audience of men and women by beginning,

"Gentlemen ..." It would be, at a minimum, "Ladies and gentlemen..."

But here we have Obama doing the equivalent of beginning with "Gentlemen..."

Comparing him to Jefferson and Lincoln--really? Most people at this point would put him in a sub-Nixon category. He is easily the worst and the dumbest POTUS in my lifetime--and considereing Bush 2, Reagan and Clinton (who wasn't dumb at all--just evil) that's saying something.

If you're waiting for the Donald to start penning a Gettysburg Address or Declaration of Independence or anything equivalent you'll be waiting forever and you'll die first. Maybe he could get someone else to write something for him though. Keeping in mind that Trump went to military school--to Fordham and to UPenn he has no excuses for writing poorly--not in this day and age anyway. That said his professors or at least the ones who have come forward didn't seem to be very impressed. He certainly doesn't compare well to Lincoln who had a hardscrabble life not a silver spoon life.

>142 lriley:

"Comparing him to Jefferson and Lincoln--really?"

Accusing me of doing that--really? It's called a "straw-man" retort-- as is this: "If you're waiting for the Donald to start penning a Gettysburg Address or Declaration of Independence or anything equivalent"...

But you probably fucking knew that. Very low of you.

I never compared Trump's speaking or writing abilities to those of Jefferson or Lincoln.

After my mentioning Jefferson and Lincoln as models of good spoken or written English come these words:

"But there's no necessary relationship between being a good, or even a great president--and, still less, a markedly successful president-- and being a good writer." ...

Your tactics are vile --and that tends to make Trump look more respectable--that's a comparison!

Ari Melber (MSNBC) @AriMelber | 3:58 PM - 21 Jan 2019:

We checked WH schedules and found Trump arrives the Oval Office around 11:30am *on average.*

Most US workers have been on the job 2.5 hours by the time he starts his official day.

ETA:
"Low Energy": Donald Trump Works Less Than Most Americans | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC
MSNBC | Published on Jan 21, 2019

In a Special Report, MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent, Ari Melber, examines Trump’s first two years in office and a scandal hiding in plain sight: mounting evidence that there are stretches of time when Trump avoids doing most of the work of the Presidency. Melber breaks down how Trump has demonstrated a “new low” in Presidential work ethic, coming into the office late, play golf frequently, spending “Executive Time” watching TV and making personal calls and failing to make many key Government appointments in the State, Defense and other departments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGn7LTXgcyY

The mentally-ill* obviously need more sleep; and surely, for all sorts of reasons, humane ones not least, they ought to have it.

Let me also note the irony of you, who so despise Donald Trump, actually taxing him for ('hypocritically') not getting to work and staying there nearly as long as long-suffering average wage-earners. I'd have thought that the more time Trump is not at his job, the better you'd like it. But in this case, that would deprive you of another occasion to display your obsessive disgust of him. Never that!

MEANWHILE, outside your obsession-driven attention,

(Business) BBC Newa (4 January, 2018)
If you earn an average UK salary, by the end of today a top boss will have earned more than you do all year.

In fact, it takes a top chief executive just three days to earn £28,758.

The day has been declared "Fat Cat Thursday" by think tank the High Pay Centre and HR industry body the CIPD, which calculated the figure.

"Today, Friday, 4 January, 2019, is 'Fat Cat' Friday."

(Report • By Lawrence Mishel and Jessica Schieder • August 16, 2018)

("CEO compensation surged in 2017") "top executives’ compensation.

"Introduction and key findings

"Chief executive officers (CEOs) of the largest firms in the U.S. earn far more today

than they did in the mid-1990s and many times what they earned in the 1960s or late 1970s. They also earn far more than the typical worker, and their pay has grown much more rapidly. Using a measure that includes stock options realized (as described below), CEO pay grew a remarkable 17.6 percent from 2016 to 2017, reaching $18.9 million on average in 2017. CEO compensation grew strongly because of the large stock awards given to CEOs and their ability to sell previously granted stock options in a rising stock market.

"The rapid growth of CEO compensation followed two years of decline. It allowed CEO compensation to grow 71.7 percent in the recovery since 2009, reaching a level just 3.3 percent below the high compensation levels reached in 2007, before the Great Recession. In contrast, the average workers’ annual compensation grew at an annual rate of just 2.1 percent between 2009 and 2017—and by a mere 0.3 percent between 2016 and 2017.

"Average CEO compensation attained its peak in 2000, at the height of the late 1990s stock bubble, at $21.0 million (in 2017 dollars)—344 times the pay of the typical worker. The CEO-to-worker pay ratio dropped to 188-to-1 in 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis but rose to 312-to-1 in 2017, as worker compensation has stagnated in the recovery.

"CEO pay continues to be dramatically higher than it was in the decades before the turn of the millennium. The CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio was 112-to-1 in 1995, 58-to-1 in 1989, 30-to-1 in 1978, and 20-to-1 in 1965." ...

________________________

© 2019 Economic Policy Institute

1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005

"EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI’s research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans."

________________________

"Psychiatric labels create an impression of permanent difference where none exists."

— René Girard, "A Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare", (1991) Oxford University Press

Just making you earn your rubles. ;-)

Go ahead and insult me. No one pays me for the time I spend shooting down your nonsense or for any other things I do at this site. No one. Not one penny. Ever.

And I certainly would never under any circumstances take pay from Putin or from any intermediary of his, however distant. And anyone who'd suggest that I would clearly neither knows nor understands the first thing about me. That would easily include you. You're a joke.

A wannabe then.

"A wannabe then."

You're sad. Really, you are.

Is the shit you do here your true vocation? Is it this for which you get out of bed in the morning? Have you nothing better, nothing more interesting, to do with your time?

This verbal-fencing with you is, for me, dispensable side-work, an occasional diversion from this example of what I am otherwise doing with full serious intent.

Unfortunately, no one pays me for any of that, either. But that I do from pure inner-felt devotion. I'm no "wannabe". I sleep 'rough,' on the street, foregoing every conventional creature-comfort so that I am free to pursue this study-and-research effort. I chose the work and I direct how I go about it. I have no academic advisor and I want none. This work is fully satisfying in ways that no paid-work I've done ever was. I'm not a "wannabe" for anything. I am now doing precisely what most matters to me.

You're a side-track at most. And Putin is one among a countless stream of petty, self-serving tyrants who've come and gone over the course of human history. Edward Oxford and his work-- which one day shall be recognized as that which has so long been stupidly attributed to "William Shakespeare," just one of Oxford's pen-names-- will endure long beyond the time when there was last anyone alive had ever heard of Vladimir Putin, political hack.

I'm going to add my little part to the eventual victory of Oxford's place as a literary genius. And legions of Stratfordian Ph.D.s shall have the ignominious places they deserve for serving a useless and base myth all their lives just so that they could enjoy the comforts I prefer to do without.

For what would you sacrifice the same?

₽

The wages of electing a know-nothing, incompetent, impetuous narcissist:

The shutdown was proof of Trump’s stark incapacity for leadership
Editorial Board | January 25, 2019

...The impasse was proof of the president’s stark incapacity for leadership, which he reconfirmed Friday by threatening to re-shutter the government in three weeks.

...Mr. Trump has failed as a dealmaker...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-shutdown-was-proof-of-trumps-stark-i...

___________________________________________________________

Trump’s Shutdown Was a Cruel Joke
The Editorial Board | Jan. 25, 2019

What a debacle President Trump’s shutdown proved to be — what a toddler’s pageant of foot-stomping and incompetence, of vainglory and self-defeat. Mr. Trump tormented public servants and citizens and wounded the country, and, in conceding on Friday after holding the government hostage for 35 days, could claim to have achieved nothing.

He succeeded only in exposing the emptiness of his bully’s bravado, of his “I alone can fix it” posturing. Once upon a time, Mr. Trump promised that Mexico would pay for a wall. He instead made all Americans pay for a partisan fantasy.

...Of course, the new narrative — that Mr. Trump got owned by Ms. Pelosi — isn’t likely to sit well with him, either. And who knows what he’ll do next to try to salve his ego, and salvage some political capital with the minority of Americans who still seem inclined to support him.

In his Friday remarks, Mr. Trump made threatening noises about declaring a national emergency if Congress cannot reach a compromise by the time this agreement expires. Polls suggest that such a move would be wildly unpopular, causing the president and his party even more grief...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/opinion/trump-shutdown-deal.html

On to North Korea...

ETA
On to Venezuela?

>149 proximity1: An amazing revelation: prolixity1, considers his day job to be slapping up like a waked wave weakly against the piles supporting piers, arguing that Eddie and not Bill wrote the great plays.

Yeah, you know who thinks that a shutdown falls on the president's lack of leadership? Donald Trump, 2013. Two relevant 2013 tweets from Donnie:

FACT – the reason why Americans have to worry about a government shutdown is because Obama refuses to pass a budget.

11:33 AM - 9 Aug 2013

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/365903717930762242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...

Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible.

11:01 AM - 8 Nov 2013

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/398887965302091776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...