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.

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.

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.

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”

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.

Trump Supporters Will Be Eaten

Amen, Brother

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

Trump's Defense For Dummies

Men With Titties Won't Overthrow The Government

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.

The NRA is a Russian Asset

The United States Senate has released a report that states what those of us who live in reality already know. The NRA is a foreign asset of Russia. The report details how various members of the NRA and its board were offered business opportunities in Russia (gee, that sounds familiar) in exchange for access to conservative and political outlets in the United States.

In short, they are traitors. And for all the caterwauling I've heard over the years from Kevin Baker on his gun blog about communism, deep states and Orwellian futures with leftists in charge, he and his followers are doing a damn fine job of becoming exactly what they claim to fear. Classic propaganda technique, right? Accuse your enemy of doing the very thing you are doing and demonize them for it. Goebbels 101.

Kevin and followers (who I still see read my blog every day), you have zero credibility. You have sold out your country merely because of adolescent spite of the left. How fucking pathetic...

What Trump Really Did to Ukraine

Everyone is talking about what Donald Trump did to Ukraine. They're framing it as though Trump had merely tried to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky into fabricating dirt on Hunter Biden, or "finding" a server with Hillary Clinton's emails on it.

Trump had just withheld about $400 million in funds Ukraine desperately needs to fight its war against Russia, and to get that money Trump wanted "reciprocity" from Ukraine and for Zelensky to "play ball."

But the unspoken threat was really this: "Come up with dirt on Hunter Biden or I'll have Russia invade you." Everyone knows that Trump is in Vladimir Putin's pocket. Zelensky knows this better than anyone, and it's why he emphasized that he stayed in a Trump hotel when he traveled to New York (and that's a perfect example of Trump's conflicts of interest and his violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution).

Trump is a mob boss threatening to have Vito kneecap guys who won't play ball. Trump has always talked like a mob boss and now he's acting like one. He can't spin this implicit threat as playing hard ball to get a better deal for the United States. Because letting Ukraine fall to a Russian invasion would make us -- and Trump -- look even weaker than we already do.

Yet Trump made that implicit threat.

And since Zelensky is president of Ukraine, a Russian invasion means certain death for him. That's why Zelensky is playing patty-cake with Trump. Trump, in essence, threatened to have Zelensky killed by the same Russian war criminals who shot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine unless Zelensky "investigates" the Bidens.

This is clearly a misuse of presidential power for partisan political gain, the very definition of the high crimes and misdemeanors the Constitution refers to in impeachment proceedings.

If Republicans let Trump get away with this heinous, they will never be able to complain about a future Democratic president's actions on something as innocuous as, say, extending health care benefits to Americans who aren't covered by insurance.

That was the horrible executive overreach that Republicans said Obama was guilty of.

Impeach. Trump. Now.

More than ever.

The Gun Humpers Are Going To Need A Bigger Boat Part II

The Gun Humpers Are Going To Need A Bigger Boat

I've been waiting a long time for gun safety ads like this. Hey gun humpers, you're going to need a bigger boat, assholes.

We are coming for you and nothing is going to stop us.

Sean Spicer Embarrasses Himelf -- and All of Us -- Once Again

After completely embarrassing himself by repeating Donald Trump's lies about the most obvious things (like inauguration attendance), Sean Spicer made it even worse by appearing on Dancing with the Stars:

Mr Spicer opened his performance dressed in a neon, lime-green ruffled shirt and white trousers, banging a pair of bongos as he danced with partner Lindsay Arnold to the Spice Girls' 1997 hit, "Spice Up Your Life".

However the judging panel were unimpressed with the performance, awarding the pair a lowly 12 out of 30, ranking them near the bottom of the contestants.

After his performance was mocked by some spectators, Mr Spicer framed his battle for success on the show as a clash between ruling elites and the American heartland.

"Clearly the judges aren’t going to be with me. Let’s send a message to #Hollywood that those of us who stand for #Christ won’t be discounted. May God bless you," he said in a tweet.

Yes, Spicer tried to play the Christian card. Sorry, Sean, you can't play the Christian card after selling your soul to the demon Trump.

And what's really crazy about this appeal is that Trump's most fervent supporters are evangelical Christians, like the Southern Baptists and the people who run Liberty University, who ban dancing outright.

I'm really getting tired of having to repeat this, but it becomes ever so much more obvious the longer the Trump administration drags on: the Republican Party is full of nothing but hypocrites.

An Energy Policy Dictated by Vanity

We recently built a house, and one of the primary considerations was low energy consumption. Thus, all the light fixtures use LEDs or LED bulbs.

How much energy do LED bulbs save? An incandescent 60-watt light bulb uses, obviously, 60 watts. An LED bulb that produces the same amount of light (800 lumens) uses 9 watts. LEDS use only 15% as much power as incandescents.  You can get 8 LED bulbs at Home Depot for less than 10 bucks. That's a buck and a quarter per bulb.

LED bulbs will typically last more than a dozen years. They will save almost as much electricity in a single year as they cost ($1.08) with typical usage. It's a total no-brainer.

LED bulbs now come in a wide variety of "temperatures." They're no long just harsh bright white light, they come in warmer and cooler colors. You can get a bulb that casts a yellowish "warm" light (2700K), or a cool white (3100K) or a bluish daylight (5000K).

Not only do they use less power and are cheaper than incandescents, they are also safer: LED bulbs usually have a plastic shell that won't shatter into a thousand tiny shards of glass like old incandescent or compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs.

LED bulbs are also less sensitive to vibration. An incandescent bulb has a thin tungsten filament that's prone to breaking if the bulb vibrates.

Why are we talking light bulbs? Because the Trump administration recently nixed regulations that promoted energy-efficient lighting. They claimed that the new bulbs would cost more, which is totally false. The reality is that they're cheaper to buy outright and they're far cheaper to use.

Obviously, the stated rationale is false. So what's the real reason? Donald Trump has a personal grudge against LED bulbs. He thinks they make him look orange. Seriously.

Trump always looks orange because he uses bronzers (spray tanning products):

The president’s skin tone, said makeup artist Jason Kelly, is more likely the result of artificial tanning and an overapplication of bronzer, a type of powder or cream designed to give a tanned look.

Kelly, 45, was the official makeup artist for the Republican National Convention held in Cleveland in 2016. When then-candidate Trump came into the makeup room, he already had his hair and makeup done, Kelly said, and was sporting a thick layer of bronzer. Kelly applied a layer of loose powder on Trump, but according to the makeup artist, Trump “came in, and he said he thinks he already looks pretty good.”

According to the New York Times, aides close to the president have reported similar experiences: Trump tends to prefer to do his makeup in private.

Kelly said it is generally recognized among makeup artists that Trump’s application of bronzer is atypical. “When I see him, I see a line of oxidized bronzer around his hairline,” Kelly said. “The application is like a kindergartner did it.

LED bulbs have nothing to do with Trump looking like an orangutan.

Why is this country's energy policy being set by a vain old man who's afraid to let professional makeup artists get too close to his ridiculous toupee?

The Biggest Problem With The Democrats

During the Democratic debate on Thursday night, Beto O'Rourke had the line of the night.


It was fantastic and spoke to exactly what most voters want. Yet, for the last few days, Democrats have been wringing their hands and having conniption fits that it will cost them votes.

Uh...what?

The biggest problem with the Democratic party is they never seem to understand where the electorate is at. So, they wilt under right-wing bullying and behave in an overly cautious fashion. This is exactly why they lose elections.

They need to fucking go for it. Start talking about banning guns. If someone doesn't like it, tell them to fuck off. Tell the gun humpers that we are coming for them.

And it's not going to be pretty.