Contributors

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Trump Derangement Syndrome Part 5

People with Trump Derangement Syndrome have "the belief that anything negative is in no way related to Donald Trump, but anything positive somehow is." This photo sums it up nicely.


Saturday, October 26, 2019

Remember when conservatives hated deficits?







































I guess it's OK if Trump does it.

Trump Derangement Syndrome Part 4

Trump supporters are traitors. They care more about their own tribe than Americans in what they perceive to be other tribes. They view Democrats as enemies of the state. Looking for evidence?



So, a fourth key characteristic of Trump Derangement Syndrome is a "loss of perspective on what Patriotism means exactly. Symptoms include tolerance of Un-American Ideals, Worship of unfriendly foreign states, respect or Tolerance for ideological influences we have literally had to go to war with at various points in history."

I always used to laugh about the mouth foamers on the right when they talked about reeducation camps. Well, perhaps we should give them what they fear. After all, that's how you deprogram someone in a cult.


Thursday, October 24, 2019

Trump Derangement Syndrome Part 3

Donald Trump has lied more times than any other president. In fact, he has many false statements and many pants on fire statements. A key sign of Trump Derangement Syndrome is the "inability to distinguish fact from Fiction."

Specifically, "symptoms include believing a man who lies so regularly that more falsehoods escape his lips than truth, especially when that man says someone else is lying."

So, it's NEVER that Trump is lying. It's ALWAYS a plot by someone else, usually a liberal elite who is out to get Trump and his supporters.


Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Trump Derangement Syndrome Part 2

The next characteristic of Trump Derangement Syndrome is Incapacitating Cognitive Dissonance associated with anything related to Donald Trump. All negative news about Trump is somehow the fault of the left or isn't real. Take note of how quickly whataboutism or bothsidesism is employed when Trump makes a mistake. 



As noted in the link, "Symptoms include extraordinary mental discomfort related to contradictory beliefs i.e. “Law Enforcement cannot be questioned” “the FBI is Evil” — “Corporate Media is all Fake News” “Fox News is always right”

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Trump Derangement Syndrome Part 1

Since Donald Trump was elected, his supporters have tried very hard to blame his multiple and deep issues on the rest of  us. As is often the case with school children, the "NO YOU!" strategy has been employed and, thus, Trump Derangement Syndrome was born.

Recall that this phrase was originally used to denigrate people who were upset about George W. Bush lying to get us into a war that ultimately was very poorly executed and resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Later it was accurately used to describe people who would have mental and emotional meltdowns when Barack Obama was intelligently doing his job and helping the country.

There is such a thing as TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) but it's not something the rest of us have. There are six distinct signs of TDS and today I'm going to begin a series that will highlight each one. Please use these signs if you encounter a Trump supporter who is accusing you of TDS.

The first key characteristic of TDS is “an absolute and blind adoration of a cultivated personality. Symptoms include odd facial expressions, changes in behavior and wardrobe, sudden illegibility of social media feeds, the sudden belief that a bankrupt reality show host would make a good leader of the free world.” Please refer to the examples of this below for visual evidence.



























This is what a cult looks like. People that are in cults are deranged and highly dangerous. I'm fairly certain that many Trump supporters are going to have to have behavioral management therapy after Trump's time is done.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Amen, Brother


Saturday, October 05, 2019

The Presidential Age Limit, Revisited

Bernie Sanders went into the hospital last Tuesday after having a heart attack. His campaign wasn't upfront about this at first, and only admitted that it was an actual heart attack Friday morning.

Sanders had an earlier scare when he cut his head on a shower door and required 7 stitches.

At 78, Sanders is clearly too old to be running for president. If he were elected, he would be almost 80 when he assumed office in 2021.

Donald Trump is 73, and is also far too old to be president. His fast-progressing dementia is exactly why there should be an age limit for presidential candidates.

Joe Biden is 76, and is too old. His performance in the debates showed that he is definitely slowing down.

Elizabeth Warren is 70, but she seems fine, and as a woman will probably outlive all the men in the race. But, as a woman, she's more prone to osteoporosis and could be one fall away from a broken hip and steep physical decline.

Different people do age at different rates. Their genetics, weight, exercise habits, sleep hygiene, diet and other activities directly affect their longevity, health and cognition.

Donald Trump is clearly inferior to the other candidates on all fronts. His father died of Alzheimers. He is an obese -- and I'll use his own favorite word to describe people who have the same physique that he does -- pig. He doesn't exercise and believes that exercise hurts your health. He sleeps only a few hours a night. He eats garbage. All he does is whine on Twitter and watch television. And he can't even walk up a hill.

The problem with the elderly is that they do not recover from minor accidents that younger people simply brush off. The slightest accident -- or another heart attack -- could send Bernie Sanders into a series of health crises that ultimately incapacitate or kill him.

If Sanders is the Democratic candidate, a slip in the shower next October could hand the presidency back to Donald Trump (if he hasn't been impeached or suffered a mental breakdown by then).

I'm lumped in with the same generation as Warren and Trump, the baby boomers, even though people my age were too young to be drafted in the Vietnam War or take part in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. My age cohort was more influenced by events of the 1970s: the moon landings, Watergate, Three Mile Island, and the Iran hostage crisis.

But I'm still old enough to realize that 60-65 is the maximum age for a presidential candidate. The rigors of the campaign and the office are too stressful for the elderly. Once you hit your 70s, the supposed advantage of experience turns into recalcitrance and an inability to change and adapt to new circumstances.

On a practical note, both Sanders and Biden are older than Trump, and in the general election Republicans would hypocritically hammer on their age endlessly, even though both of them are much healthier than Trump.

Biden and Sanders should step aside sooner, rather than later, and clear the decks for candidates who can make it all the way to the finish line.

Little Donald is Getting Away


Friday, October 04, 2019

Thursday, October 03, 2019

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

The Fall of John Bolton

John Bolton and I rarely agree on anything. But one thing he's right about is North Korea:
“The strategic decision Kim Jong-un is operating through is that he will do whatever he can to keep a deliverable nuclear weapons capability and to develop and enhance it further,” Mr. Bolton said during an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Under current circumstances, he will never give up the nuclear weapons voluntarily.”
This is a direct rebuke of everything Donald Trump has done in his courtship of Kim Jong Un. The reason for Trump's pursuit of this is pure and simple: he thinks he deserves a Nobel Prize. He's jealous that Barack Obama got one.

As Bolton said, Kim will never give up his nuclear weapons. It would mean his death, because the elites in North Korea (rightfully) believe that nuclear weapons are the only thing keeping their regime afloat.

Look at Saddam Hussein. He gave up his weapons of mass destruction and now he's dead.

Look at Muammar Ghaddafi. He gave up his nukes and now he's dead.

This is all the result of George W. Bush's 2002 "axis of evil" speech, in which he named Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Iraq had been defeated by a grand coalition led by the United States in the 1990s. In defeat Saddam relinquished all his WMDs. He was a toothless old man, allowed to rule his country but kept in check by the United States and other forces.

But that wasn't good enough for Bush. He wanted a war. And so in 2003 he got one, acting unilaterally against Iraq (albeit with a smattering of support from a couple of countries trying to curry favor with the US). Bush claimed Saddam had WMDs squirreled away somewhere, and in 2003 weapons inspectors were racing around Iraq looking for them. After months of searching it had become clear that Saddam had none, so Bush invaded before the momentum of frenzy ran out.

The reason Saddam was being cagey about the WMDs was that if he admitted he had none, he would lose face domestically and his people would no longer fear him, inviting revolution.

So Bush invaded Iraq, taking his eye off the ball on the war in Afghanistan.

Iraq was an unmitigated disaster. There were no WMDs. The people did not greet us as liberators. It cost us a trillion dollars, handed Iraq over to control of Shiites beholden to Iran, and created ISIS. A decade later ISIS took territory in Syria, causing mass migration out of Syria and into Europe. That destabilized political systems across Europe as they dealt with the massive influx of Muslim refugees, causing an upwelling of racist and right-wing politics, resulting in nonsense like Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

Given this background it's clear that talking to Kim is a total waste of time. He knows that showing any weakness will get him killed, like Saddam and Gaddafi.

Yet Trump keeps trying to seduce Kim, talking about the "very nice letter" Kim sent, and all that nonsense. Meanwhile North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and constantly threatens Japan and South Korea with missile launches into their territorial waters.

Actions against our allies which Trump just ignores.

John Bolton is right that we can't deal with North Korea. He's wrong to think that we should invade the country, because doing so would get millions of South Korean and Japanese citizens killed, as well as thousands of American military personnel stationed there, and potentially Americans within range of Kim's ballistic missiles on the west coast.

So what does Trump think he can get from Kim? Headlines and attention. That's it. He's playing this up in the press the same way he played up his romances with Playboy models like Karen McDougal, before he payed them all off and forced them to sign NDAs. He's wasting his State Department's time and money on this dalliance with Kim in the vain hope that the Nobel committee will give him the prize he covets so much.

Is Trump stupid enough to fall for fawning praise from Kim's PR guys?  Or to believe that Kim would abide by an agreement even if he signed one? Trump rejected the Iran nuclear deal, and they were actually holding to it!

Bolton recently left his position as Trump's national security advisor in disgrace because he kept harping against any North Korean deal. Like pretty much everyone who works for Trump, Bolton's reputation is now destroyed, permanently stained by the corruption of the scumbag in chief.

Yet when he criticized Trump's North Korea policy, Bolton didn't mention the name of the moron responsible for it, though it's clear that's how Bolton perceives Trump. Like pretty much anyone who's ever worked for him. Yet precious few of them raise their voices against the orange skidmark in the Oval Office.

Republicans, please learn from John Bolton's shame. You will be hailed as heroes by all future generations of Americans if you force this clown to resign.