BREAKING: The mental age of Donald J. Trump!

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

And of the New York Times:
Is Donald J. Trump "mentally ill" in some way? Might he be cognitively impaired?

It seems that such questions are implied by the contents of Bob Woodward's forthcoming book about the Trump White House. Consider this anecdote, newly reported by the Washington Post:
RUCKER AND COSTA (9/4/18): At a National Security Council meeting on Jan. 19, Trump disregarded the significance of the massive U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, including a special intelligence operation that allows the United States to detect a North Korean missile launch in seven seconds vs. 15 minutes from Alaska, according to Woodward. Trump questioned why the government was spending resources in the region at all.

“We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told him.

After Trump left the meeting, Woodward recounts, “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like—and had the understanding of—‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”

In Woodward’s telling, many top advisers were repeatedly unnerved by Trump’s actions...
Is Trump a victim of mental illness or of cognitive impairment? We've raised those question on many occasions.

That said, we've sometimes wondered about the mental status of some within the New York Times. Just yesterday, we wondered again about the "mental age" which may obtain inside some parts of the Times.

Why has our national discourse been so pitifully low-IQ over the past thirty years? Consider the "Here to Help" feature on yesterday morning's Page A3 (print editions only).

Yesterday was Labor Day, and Labor Day is a holiday. In one of its strangest manifestations yet, the "reimagined" Page A3 asked Tim Herrera to help you figure out how to spend it.

How should Times readers spend holidays? The feature started like this:
Here to Help
WHAT TO DO WITH A DAY OFF

Happy Labor Day! If you’re fortunate enough to have the day off from work, the most important thing on your to-do list today is to actually take the day off. Studies have shown that “people only send 40 percent less email” on holiday Mondays compared with regular Mondays. (Thank you, smartphones and tablets.)

So, great, we’re all out of work mode and ready to enjoy the day. But what to do?
Here are a few suggestions on how best to spend your day off. TIM HERRERA
In hard copy, Herrera proceeded to list five suggestions. We'll skip the supporting detail he offered in each case. His five suggestions were these:
Herrera's five suggestions:
Give your fridge the deep clean it deserves.
Have a family meal.
Do that one thing you’ve been putting off.
Get introspective about your career.
Do absolutely nothing.
No, we aren't making that up. Now that we were "all out of work mode and ready to enjoy the day," Herrera's first suggestion was that we could give our refrigerators the deep clean they so richly deserve.

We wondered about the mental state of an editor who would publish a feature like this. We wondered what that editors might think, perhaps correctly, about the general mental state of this foppish newspaper's readership.

We also wondered who Herrera could be. Here's what we learned about Herrera on our own day off:

According to his official Times bio, Herrera is "the founding editor of Smarter Living, where he edits and reports stories about living a better, more fulfilling life."

Smarter Living, we came to learn, is a New York Times blog. As Herrera's bio continued, we learned more.

"In a previous life," the bio says, Herrera "was a metro reporter for amNew York and Newsday." After that, he worked as a reporter and editor at the Washington Post.

This made it sound like Herrera has been around a while. Apparently, not so much! He seems to be eight years out of college (NYU, class of 2010). That "previous life" at amNewYork began in September of that year.

For several years, we've wondered about the mental status of President Trump, whose possible illness and/or cognitive issues makes him seem like an extremely dangerous man. We've also wondered about the New York Times, which is branded as one of the nation's top journalistic guardian.

Yesterday, we wondered again about the mental status of people inside the Times. Some editor assigned a youngish reporter to tell Times readers how they might spend their day off. This struck us as strange all by itself, but first suggestion the newspaper published took the cake:

Now that we were "all out of work mode and ready to enjoy the day," we could go ahead and spend the day cleaning out the fridge!

The western world has long run on the pleasing fuel which says that we the people are primarily "rational animals." Nothing in recent human behavior justifies that upbeat notion, and the New York Times routinely makes us wonder about the mental age of our modern upper-class elites.

Donald Trump strikes us as impaired, and dangerous. The New York Times routinely strikes us as impaired and foppish, inane.

For the original post: Yesterday's hard-copy Here to Help feature was derived from this original Smarter Living post.

In his original post, Herrera listed six things we could do on our day off. The first suggestion he listed was this:

"Fix your finances"

Now that we were out of work mode, Herrera's original first suggestion was that we might do that!

36 comments:

  1. Woodward's book displays paranoia -- not so much by Trump as by the Trump associates who contributed anonymously to this book. Woodward says they used, "stealthy machinations". They conducted an "an administrative coup d’etat”. They "conspired" to pluck official pap. That's paranoid behavior!

    If the country were falling apart, one might appreciate their remarkable actions. But, under Trump, things are going quite well -- ISIS is being defeated, the economy is booming, unemployment is at record low levels, NK has stopped nuclear tests and nuclear provocations, the US is in no new wars, and government functions are proceeding normally.

    Remember the Reagan associates who thought they were smarter than he was. They tried to stop him from saying bluntly, "Tear down this wall!" Events proved that he was right and his critics were wrong. So far, Trump has a better record than his critics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess there were no fires or floods where you live. Must be nice. I guess you're not affecting by the increased tariffs or the higher prices on things either. Must be nice. I guess your kids weren't taken from you on a pretext, then lost in the system while you were in detention. Must be nice.

      Trump, whatta guy whatta guy.

      Delete
    2. Apparently there are serious inaccuracies in Woodward's book. I suspect that Woodward relied on some sources who provided inaccurate rumors, because they're paranoid about Trump. The book is anonymously sourced, but refutations are made by known people. Over the past three years, a lot of anonymous accusations have been made against Trump. Very few of them have panned out.

      The president was singing a different tune on Tuesday, hinting that Woodward could have 'made up' anecdotes in his book, including a story about Gary Cohn absconding with an order to end the United States' trade deal with South Korea to keep Trump from making an international mess.

      'That's false. It's just made up,' Trump told The Daily Caller in a furious response to the book. 'There was nobody taking anything from me.'

      White House Chief of Staff John Kelly also says he never called the president 'an idiot' and an account in which he's said to have made the remark in Woodward's new book is 'total BS.'

      'The idea I ever called the President an idiot is not true,' Kelly said in a fiery statement put out by the White House.

      He reasserted a prior claim that he and Trump have an 'incredibly candid and strong relationship, saying, 'He always knows where I stand, and he and I both know this story is total BS.'

      'I'm committed to the President, his agenda, and our country,' he said. 'This is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.'


      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6131729/I-never-called-Trump-idiot-claims-John-Kelly-denial-key-claim-bombshell-Woodward-book.html

      Delete
    3. Sure, David. Everyone else is crazy. Der Fuhrer Trump is infallible.

      There's nothing a little odd about the president of the united states tweeting this:


      Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......


      2:25 PM - Sep 3, 2018


      No sir, Woodward must have just made it all up.

      Damn you're such a transparent fraud.

      Delete
    4. 5:32,
      What kind of moron takes norm-breaking Bob Woodward literally, not seriously?

      Delete
    5. General Mattis and General Kelly BLAST lies in new book about Trump

      https://therightscoop.com/general-mattis-and-general-kelly-blast-lies-in-new-book-about-trump/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

      Delete
    6. Mattis and Kelly (and you) are acting like lies are bad all of the sudden. What changed?

      Delete
    7. Palmer Report is suggesting that Sarah Sanders wrote those statements by Mattis and Kelly, and that they cannot deny them without losing their jobs. They were all issued from the same Twitter account, not from their own individual accounts, for example.

      Delete
    8. This is interesting, because one imagines Woodard can back up everything he says. We'll see. Kelly has already shown himself to be a ruthless liar.

      Delete
  2. We howlers are math nerds, and we love Kurt Gödel.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ndIDcDSGc

    ReplyDelete
  3. This doesn't look like the start of a "new road." It's the same post Somerby has been writing for umpteen years now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You should ask for your goddamned money back.

      Delete
    2. You get what you pay for, eh, 3:58?

      Delete
    3. Yes .that's my point .

      Delete
    4. 11:03 seems to be saying that Somerby's blog has no value, though he seems not to realize he has said that.

      Delete
  4. It is fair to ask whether the way others have been treating Trump is consistent with the threat they perceive him to be. If he is that bad, why haven't Republicans done something about him?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because Republicans have no principles and haven't had any for years.

      Delete
    2. Democrats had no principles first!

      Delete
  5. http://www.stonekettle.com/2018/09/labor-day-2018.html

    Can't help it, I enjoy his writing.

    Leroy

    ReplyDelete
  6. Despite supposed insanity, stupidity, and disorganization, Trump is fixing a budget process that remained broken under both Presidents Bush, President Clinton and President Obama.

    Trump breaks 20-year ‘fouled up’ budget gridlock, scores big wins

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trump-breaks-20-year-fouled-up-budget-gridlock-scores-big-wins

    Accomplishments like this are why I continue to enthusiastically support Trump. He's doing the job he was elected to do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Washington Examiner? Haha ha ha ha.
      You're adorable!

      Delete
    2. "Accomplishments like this are why I continue to enthusiastically support Trump. "

      Of course. What else would it be, his embrace of bigotry?

      Delete
    3. What Accomplishments? Trump says the illegal immigration crossings at our border are at a crisis stage.
      We know for a fact that the number of illegal immigration crossings during the Obama Administration were the lowest they had been in decades.
      Are you suggesting that one of Trump's "accomplishments" is the huge upsurge in illegal immigration crossings at our southern border?
      No wonder you support Trump.

      Delete
    4. @11:14 - You're close. I admire the accomplishment of getting the lowest ever unemployment rates for blacks and Hispanics. Aren't you also happy about this?

      @12:58 There are no facts about numbers of immigrants -- just estimates and opinions. Could you please provide a cite for the immigration trends you mention?

      Delete
    5. David,
      Of course I'm happy that we are getting the lowest ever unemployment rates for blacks and Hispanics. Who wouldn't? (Hint: Its the reason why I think this news should be on a 24/7 crawl on Fox News, and that every GOP candidate in the midterms should be introduced as "from the political party which has done more for blacks and Hispanics than they have for whites, may I introduce ...").
      After all, who wouldn't be happy with this news?

      Delete
    6. 8;41,
      Here you go.

      https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/sw-border-apprehensions-by-fiscal-year.jpg

      Delete
    7. Thanks 10:41. Number of Apprehensions may correlate with Number of Crossings, although that's not certain.

      I see where Apprehensions were low during Obama's Presidency. That suggests that Crossings may have also been low, although other causes are also possible.

      If you believe that low Apprehensions means low Crossings, then I don't see where you get the idea that under Trump there was a huge upsurge in Crossings. Your chart shows a DROP in number of Apprehensions in 2017, down to a level somewhat below any of the Obama years.

      Delete
    8. So Trump's border immigration crisis is fake news. Shocking! Or whatever the opposite of "shocking" is.

      Delete
    9. Yup. Turns out Trump's actions around the border aren't in reaction to any kind of crisis, and instead are just a sop to the bigots in his base.
      Take away the white supremacy, and all you have remaining from the Right is ass kissing of Establishment elites and cries for more Daddy Government.

      Delete
    10. One imagines a mother at the boarder having her child ripped from her arms; and David in Ca laughing hysterically.

      Delete
  7. Questioning why the government should be involved in that region at all is the smartest, most common sense statement coming from Washington in decades. And you Bob, if you don't see it, you're a brainless zombie...

    ReplyDelete
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