New questions concerning "Mister Trump's War!"

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 2020

Plus, the New York Times spots a pandemic:
In the past few days, it has become our most frequently-asked question.

The question goes like this:

Is Commander Trump's recent bold action the start of a global conflagration—the conflagration future experts refer to as "Mister Trump's War?"

(As we've repeatedly acknowledged, that description has come to us from Future Anthropologists Huddled in Caves, a disconsolate group of future scholars who report to us through a set of nocturnal submissions the haters refer to as dreams.)

Have we just now seen the start of "Mister Trump's War?" We can't answer your question!

In the past few days, spokespersons for this future group have refused to speak to this point—though we did see Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, rolling her eyes late last night.

As we've said before, so we'll say once again. There is no precedent for what we may see in this coming year.

What might Commander Trump do this year? As we've noted before, there is no reason to think that he won't start a distracting war, the better to rally the public around the commander in chief with.

There is no reason to assume that he won't hack some voting machines himself, the better to suggest that an election he loses is invalid.

There is no reason to assume that he won't attempt to cancel this year's election. Also, there's no reason to think that the mainstream press will ever be willing to discuss the various possibilities concerning his mental health.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has done it again! The paper has spotted a "pandemic of mental illness" in these United States. Rather, it allowed Lee Siegel to announce this pandemic in an opinion column in yesterday's print editions.

Is our nation experiencing a "pandemic of mental illness?" With permission from an editor, Siegel proved it thusly:
SIEGEL (1/3/20): The American Psychiatric Association reported that from 2016 to 2017, the proportion of adults who described themselves as more anxious than the previous year was 36 percent. In 2017, more than 17 million American adults had at least one major depressive episode, as did three million adolescents ages 12 to 17. Forty million adults now suffer from an anxiety disorder—nearly 20 percent of the adult population. (These are the known cases of depression and anxiety. The actual numbers must be dumbfounding.)

The really sorrowful reports concern suicide. Among all Americans, the suicide rate increased by 33 percent between 1999 and 2017.

All of this mental carnage is occurring at a time when decades of social and political division have set against each other black and white, men and women, old and young.
Beyond bitter social antagonisms, the country is racked by mass shootings, the mind-bending perils of the internet, revelations of widespread sexual predation, the worsening effects of climate change, virulent competition, the specter of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, grinding student debt and crises in housing, health care and higher education. The frightening environment helps cause depression, depression causes catastrophic thinking, and catastrophic thinking makes the environment seem even more terrifying than it is.
If you weren't depressed before reading the column, the piece may have taken you there.

Siegel has spotted "mental carnage," first cousin to the "American carnage" of Mister Trump's inaugural speech. For ourselves, we thought we may have spotted a bit of "statistical carnage"—a type of carnage our greatest newspaper often seems to perform.

Next week, we'll examine the statistical carnage the Times committed to print in a recent opinion column about test scores in Mississippi. For today, here's the possible statistical carnage surrounding our nation's alleged "pandemic of mental illness:"

Increase in suicide rate: It's true! Very few people commit suicide, but the suicide rate did increase by 33 percent, if you choose 1999—the lowest point for the suicide rate in the past forty years—as the starting point for your statistical comparison.

If you choose 1986 as your starting point, the rate has barely increased at all. If you adjust for age, the increase from 1986 virtually disappears.

As a general matter, suicide is a very bad thing. So are statistical embellishments of this familiar type, based on the selection of a maximal starting point.

More anxious than the previous year: It's true! The APA did report that 36 percent of adults reported being more anxious in 2017 than they'd been the previous year.

The APA also reported that 20 percent of adults said they were less anxious in 2017. For what it's worth, this wasn't a measure of the type of anxiety which constitutes mental illness.

Major depressive episodes: It's true, or at least it may be true, depending on various factors! In 2017, "an estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode." Or at least, that was one finding in a major federal survey to which Siegel linked.

That said, what's a "major depressive episode?" It's "a period of at least two weeks when a person experienced a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities, and had a majority of specified symptoms, such as problems with sleep, eating, energy, concentration, or self-worth."

Presumably, it would be better if no one ever experienced such an episode. That said, the number involved represents 7.1% of American adults. According to the survey in question, only 4.5% of adults experienced "a major depressive episode with severe impairment."

Presumably, it would be better if no one did. But do those figures really describe a "pandemic of mental illness?"

Anxiety disorders: Is it true? Is it true that "forty million adults now suffer from an anxiety disorder?"

We have no idea! Though the Times let Siegel use the word "now," the data to which he links seem to be from the years 2001 through 2003. This is the careless way the New York Times routinely plays such games. (For the record, only 22.8% of those disorders were classified as "serious.")

Known cases v. the imagined: We're puzzled by the worried claim in which Siegel says this: "These are the known cases of depression and anxiety. The actual numbers must be dumbfounding."

That suggests that the actual numbers must be much larger than the numbers he has cited. But the numbers he cites aren't merely reported cases; they come from surveys of the total population.

Surveys can misfire in various ways. Presumably, the "actual" numbers may be larger, or the "actual" numbers may be smaller.

That said, we know of no reason to think that the actual numbers must be much larger—"dumbfounding," even. We have no idea why the Times let Siegel add this scary enhancement.

Corrections: At the bottom of Siegel's column, this correction appears:
Correction: Jan. 2, 2020
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a statistic about depression. The 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 17 million Americans had had a major depressive episode in the past year, not that 17 million had received a new diagnosis of depression.
In the rush to let Siegel declare a pandemic, the Times let that misstatement pass. If you've ever fact-checked the Times, you'll see this as par for the course.

(On January 3, a second correction sliced a bit of lunch meat extremely thin.)

Mental illness is a serious problem and an important topic. Unless you're reading the New York Times, where no topic is.

Everything will be embellished. Few factual claims will ever get checked.

This is where pandemics come from. With apologies to Jo March, these are our modern "sensation stories," and they're found all over the press.

Next week: Mississippi's rising scores on the Naep (with astounding journalistic misfeasance)

48 comments:

  1. Ha-ha. Dear Bob, you've been craving and constantly predicting that "Trump War" of yours for several years, and of course you are really excited now. The maggots inside zombie skulls get zestful.

    Oh well, we'll see.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Someone as fascinated as Mao by the idea of maggots dancing in one's head, needs a mental health eval STAT.

      Delete
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  2. "We're puzzled by the worried claim in which Siegel says this: "These are the known cases of depression and anxiety. The actual numbers must be dumbfounding."

    That suggests that the actual numbers must be much larger than the numbers he has cited. But the numbers he cites aren't merely reported cases; they come from surveys of the total population."

    If Somerby had ever taken a psych course, he would know the answer to his question. Self-reported anxiety and depression are always an underestimate, often a large one, because of several factors. First, mental illness is stigmatized in our society. That means that people will under-report it because it is a negative, undesirable characteristic, just as people under-report smoking or weight gains and over-report their salaries. Second, men in particular consider it unmanly, weak, inconsistent with male norms to report feeling anxious or depressed. Anxiety is associated with "fear" which men do not like to admit to feeling. If you change the wording to something like "worried" you get increased self-reports. Third, many people do not admit to feeling anxiety or depression because they are worried that employers or coworkers will consider them weak, especially if they think they should be able to handle their own problems. This will affect answers even on an anonymous survey because people don't trust the assurance of confidentiality and don't know who will see their answers or how they might be used against them. Then there are cultural factors. Some cultures explicitly discourage use of Western medicine and especially mental health treatment. Some define mental health symptoms in terms of the body, expressing symptoms as physical illness instead of mental. In that case, a person might report aches and pains or lack of energy or sleeping too much to a primary care physician and not recognize these are signs of depression, thus not report them on a survey as such. Not every culture recognizes the basic emotions described in American psychology and especially among everyday people, anxiety and depression can go unrecognized as such. Gender norms complicate this too.

    We have strong evidence of this under-reporting from contexts where anxiety and depression are common, including military survivors of traumatic experiences and police officers. Most of these situations now mandate mental health treatment instead of leaving it up to individuals to seek it out, because they know that both male and female officers and service members will not want to appear weak to their officers or peers and will not want to have treatment on their record, fearing it may disqualify them for promotion or other opportunities. This is one of the reasons why depression, suicide and divorce are so high in those jobs -- untreated stress-induced mental health issues. The amount of under-reporting there is huge.

    Somerby's criticism is a good example of why statistics cannot exist in a vacuum but need to be evaluated in a context by someone who is familiar with that context. What may have seemed entirely obvious to the author of this report, it seen as exaggeration by Somerby, in his ignorance and unwillingness to accept the expertise of anyone else, especially when he does not like what is being said.

    ReplyDelete
  3. When making a comparison, it is important to state what is being compared to what, but the choice of what to compare belongs to the author -- the person making an argument.

    If suicide is up 33% from its lowest point, that lowest point provides a standard against which all subsequent years can be compared. It makes sense to use it. It does not make sense to use the highest point, especially if you are trying to say that suicide has increased from previous years.

    Somerby is correct that using the lowest point in the recent past makes the increase seem larger, but he is wrong to assume that this is done for that purpose. It would be confusing to say that suicide is up 8% from its most recent high point in 1989. It is more understandable to say that it is up 33% from its lowest point in 1999. The only reason you might do it differently is if you were pointing to some factor that existed in either 1989 or 1999 that affected suicide rates, one way or the other.

    This knowledgeable author thinks the increase is meaningful. Somerby suggests it is trivial because he can show that there was a minimizing comparison available in 1989. Does it help this discussion to minimize suicide rates? Why would someone who cares about helping people with mental problems want to minimize the difficulties? Is Somerby's minimizing comparison any more honest? I don't think so. He has not stated any reason why 1989 is a better place to start, except that it produces a smaller increase, but Somerby is the one manipulating this number, not the author of the report.

    Part of the problem with Somerby's complaint is that he assumes that no one but him recognizes that you can changes the numbers by changing your choices about how to measure something. All psychologists take statistics courses, at the undergrad and graduate level. Reporters don't make up their own stats -- they take them out of other people's papers. Those other people have at least as much training as Somerby. But Somerby assumes that they are either fools or liars, and never considers that they might have reasons for their choices and might know more about this subject than he does. It makes Somerby appear foolish and unhelpful.

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    1. Oh, goody! More failure to read for comprehension.

      If suicide is up 33% from its lowest point, that lowest point provides a standard against which all subsequent years can be compared.

      Hardly. If the lowest point is in the middle of a 40-year time frame, then it’s misleading to use it.

      It does not make sense to use the highest point, especially if you are trying to say that suicide has increased from previous years.

      And for the same reason. As TDH says, “As a general matter, suicide is a very bad thing. So are statistical embellishments of this familiar type, based on the selection of a maximal starting point.” (Emphasis mine.)

      It would be confusing to say that suicide is up 8% from its most recent high point in 1989. It is more understandable to say that it is up 33% from its lowest point in 1999.

      Nope. They’re both misleading. Over a 40 year time span, what you want to know is the trend. Can’t tell from the extrema.

      This knowledgeable author thinks the increase is meaningful.

      Whatever the author thinks is irrelevant. The issue is whether he’s made his case, and he hasn’t. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that Lee Siegel is a particularly “knowledgeable author” in the area of mental health in general or about suicide in particular. I know you don’t like Wikipedia, but here’s an excerpt from that source’s biography of Siegel:

      “Siegel studied comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley and fine arts at Columbia University. He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford for a dissertation in the field of Sanskrit. He then was hired by the University of Hawaii as Professor of Religious Studies, where he has taught ever since.”

      Somerby suggests it [alleged increased suicide rate] is trivial because he can show that there was a minimizing comparison available in 1989.

      Nope. TDH thinks the claim of an increased suicide rate is suspect.

      Does it help this discussion to minimize suicide rates?

      No, but nobody is doing that here.

      Why would someone who cares about helping people with mental problems want to minimize the difficulties?

      They wouldn’t, but nobody is doing that here.

      Is Somerby's minimizing comparison any more honest?

      He’s not. He even says choosing the maximal date is “statistical embellishment.”

      [TDH] has not stated any reason why 1989 is a better place to start

      Because he doesn’t believe it is.

      Somerby is the one manipulating this number, not the author of the report.

      He’s not. He’s just showing you how manipulation works.

      Reporters don't make up their own stats -- they take them out of other people's papers.

      And if they’re either ignorant or dishonest, they can draw conclusions that the stats don’t support.

      Somerby assumes that they are either fools or liars

      No, he portrays them as incompetent.

      [TDH’s targets] might have reasons for their choices and might know more about this subject than he does.

      If they get it wrong, no one should care about their reasons and how much they know.

      It makes Somerby appear foolish and unhelpful.

      Why doesn’t your head simply explode from the cognitive dissonance, and why can’t you get the simplest things straight?

      Delete
  4. Somerby says that the 40 million people who NOW suffer from an anxiety disorder comes from a study conducted in 2002-2003. But Somerby also says:

    "SIEGEL (1/3/20): The American Psychiatric Association reported that from 2016 to 2017, the proportion of adults who described themselves as more anxious than the previous year was 36 percent. In 2017, more than 17 million American adults had at least one major depressive episode, as did three million adolescents ages 12 to 17. Forty million adults now suffer from an anxiety disorder—nearly 20 percent of the adult population. "

    From Somerby's own quote, the 40 million refers to 2016-2017. That makes the use of the word "now" a lot more legitimate.

    Somerby says: "We have no idea! Though the Times let Siegel use the word "now," the data to which he links seem to be from the years 2001 through 2003. This is the careless way the New York Times routinely plays such games. (For the record, only 22.8% of those disorders were classified as "serious.")"

    The quote from Siegel clearly says 2016-2017 not 2002-2003. If there was a link, it is not included in Somerby's quote of Siegel and it is thus hard to evaluate whether it was about those 40 million people (which seems impossible) or some other statement in the paragraph. If it refers to something else, Somerby is being either mistaken or dishonest. I won't guess which.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Somerby's link to Siegel's article leads to a link embedded in text for that 40 million people claim, that in turn goes to a NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) page on Anxiety Disorders which discusses prevalence. Somerby takes his 2002-2003 date from the first graph of several, all with different date ranges. There is also a list of sources, with the most recent date 2010.

      This dispute seems sort of like the one over whether women are underpaid or not. It is clear that a large number of Americans suffer from anxiety disorders, as was established at several points in the past. Does Somerby imagine that those disorders have gone away in the past 10 years? Does he think our population is shrinking instead of increasing (since the number given is actual number of people, not a relative number)? That means that a figure established in 2002-2003 as 40 million is likely to have increased in the past two decades of population growth, not decreased. Unless Somerby wishes to assert some reason why anxiety has decreased instead of increasing? I'd like to know what factor he thinks would have made that happen.

      I also think it is ridiculous to expect journalists to go on this footnote chase, when he himself just grabbed the first date he came across in a graph in that NAMI website.

      Psych majors are routinely taught to beware of advocacy webpages, such as NAMI, and to prefer getting their data from actual studies, as Siegel most likely did (referenced by that 2016-2017 APA source, not linked by Somerby or Siegel).

      What bothers me is that Somerby thinks that small nitpicks like this invalidate the rest of the argument -- they don't. There is a great deal of evidence that mental health problems are increasing, not decreasing. This isn't an all-or-nothing argument, in which finding 2002-2003 way down the chain of links invalidates everything else said in the article.

      And no, I do not agree that the NYTimes was deficient. Reporters have limited time and resources and they are doing the best they can under those circumstances. Somerby's standard is ridiculous. It is game-playing, not serious criticism and the only thing anyone gains by it is Somerby's self-ego-stroking (isn't there a name for that?).

      Delete
    2. What about your own mental disorders? How is that going for you? Do you think you will be cured or always be crazy?

      Delete
    3. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're 14 years old. Only children call things they don't understand "boring" and people they don't understand "crazy".

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    4. But what about your own mental disorders? Do you feel like you are improving?

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    5. I also think it is ridiculous to expect journalists to go on this footnote chase,

      You're a more forgiving person than TDH. Isn't it the job of journalists to undertake whatever chase is reasonably possible to get the story right?

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    6. The key word there is "reasonably." And I don't agree with Somerby's criticisms, as noted above.

      You, deadrat, don't know what you're talking about.

      Delete
    7. 'You're a more forgiving person than TDH'

      TDH is a very forgiving person ! He forgives almost everything nefarious done by DJT, Roy Moore, Ron Johnson, Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes !

      Delete
    8. @3:20P, No, no, I'm pretty sure that I know what I'm talking about. You just don't agree with me. I know about journalists who pored over data dumps, answers to FOIA requests, archives, government repositories, etc. to get their stories right and demonstrably so. Lee Siegel may well be right, but he didn't make his case because he couldn't be bothered to chase a footnote. That's OK with you, apparently. So be it.

      Delete
  5. The following appeared within the last week in presumably mainstream publications:

    “TRUMP'S ORDER TO KILL IRAN'S GENERAL IS PROOF PRESIDENT MUST TAKE MENTAL HEALTH CHECK, SAYS YALE PSYCHIATRIST”
    (Newsweek, today)

    “Pelosi “has the right” to submit Trump to an “involuntary evaluation": Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee
    “I am beginning to believe that a mental health hold . . . will become inevitable," Lee tells Salon in an interview”
    (Salon, last week)

    Somerby ignores these so that he can make his usual “no one talks about this” claim, which seems to be untrue.

    (Now, whether or not Somerby’s hero Bandy Lee is correct, opinions may differ.)

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    1. No statistics in that article. That's why Somerby has ignored it.

      Delete
  6. I won't subscribe to the NY Times, so I cannot read Siegel's article, but I wonder whether Siegel closed the loop by pointing out the increasing number of terrorist shootings and other kinds of mass shootings, up in 2019 over previous years. The Republicans have claimed that these arise from mental illness. Clearly, many do, especially those involving murder-suicides of spouses and children or of coworkers by disgruntled former employees. But there are others that can be argued arise from anxiety over changes in our society, whether incels who fear they will never have a normal relationship with a woman, or terrorists who fear minority privilege or loss of white status or who wish to start the next race war. And how on earth can anyone argue that there is less anxiety these days, after Trump's one-sided action to kill an Iranian general, thereby increasing tensions in the Middle East?

    Mental illness is not solely about anxiety or depression but also about coping skills. Treatment is essential to helping both individuals and our society (which suffers from these mass shootings and other human tragedies). It seems irresponsible for Somerby to claim that when mental health professionals try to sound the alarm, they are just being alarmists. What kind of an ass does that?

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    1. What kind of an ass accepts an alarm based on faulty and misleading reporting?

      Delete
    2. I don't believe the reporting was faulty or misleading.

      It sounds like Somerby is searching very hard for something that will allow him to reject the premise of the article, but these are the facts and everyone on the ground knows them.

      Delete
    3. I don't believe the reporting was faulty or misleading.

      Then you're either gullible or have low standards for reporting.

      It sounds like Somerby is searching very hard for something that will allow him to reject the premise of the article

      Premise? Do you mean conclusion? TDH rejected the means by which Siegel supported his claim.

      these are the facts and everyone on the ground knows them.

      I like my facts demonstrated. Apparently you just consult people on the ground. So be it.

      Delete
  7. pandemic -- adj, (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world

    Is Somerby seriously trying to argue that the word pandemic doesn't apply to depression or anxiety, mental disorders that are found all over the US?

    The definition doesn't say that everyone has to have it, it just says it has to be prevalent (found) everywhere. That applies, since these mental illnesses are not limited by gender, socioeconomic class or race/ethnic group. Their treatment is limited by these things, however. Hence articles like this one.

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    1. No, he's saying that the article hasn't made it's case for such a pandemic. What's so hard about this?

      Delete
    2. That article is saying what everyone in the mental health community knows. A quibble about the stats cannot invalidate the major premise, which is that suicides, depression and anxiety have been increasing. It doesn't matter whether it qualifies as a pandemic or is dumbfoundingly underreported. What matters is that this is a serious public health concern that Somerby and everyone else should be taking seriously. Reporters are performing a public service by publishing such articles.

      Delete
  8. It's premature to say a war is coming, 4:37. Drumpf has made lotsa noise about exiting the ME. His bombing raids could be cover for a dignified withdrawal.

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  9. Comments here are being blocked for some reason.

    ReplyDelete
  10. “the suicide rate did increase by 33 percent, if you choose 1999—the lowest point for the suicide rate in the past forty years—as the starting point for your statistical comparison.

    If you choose 1986 as your starting point, the rate has barely increased at all. If you adjust for age, the increase from 1986 virtually disappears.”

    Hoo boy.

    And if you compare the suicide rate to the rate during the Great Depression, when it was off the charts, it looks like we’re all on cloud nine now.

    The point is that the rate had been declining, reaching its lowest level ever in 1999, and since then, it has been rising precipitously. As a matter of fact, it is now at its highest rate since the Second World War.

    Glance at the graph in the following article to get a visual sense of the rate over time:

    “US suicide rate at its highest since the end of the Second World War” (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207007-us-suicide-rate-at-its-highest-since-the-end-of-the-second-world-war/)

    The graph shows a concerning trend since 1999. It’s as plain as day.

    Somerby just wants to play games with numbers to try to upbraid a journalist. He isn’t interested at all in the data.

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    Replies
    1. No writing gig at the *NYT* for you since you can accurately describe the *trend* over the last 20 years. That trend is concerning, but is it news? The graph also shows that the US suicide rate is cyclical. But the last two decades seem to show the steadiest rise in a long time.

      Is TDH interested in studying suicide in the US this century? Who knows? He's interested in how reporters present data though.

      Delete
    2. This is my point. Ignoring the important problem of suicide in order to focus on mistaken nitpicks of stats displays that Somerby is not much of a human being, in my opinion. He has been doing the same thing with stories about education.

      Suicide should matter, even to Somerby, because lately men have been grabbing automatic weapons and committing suicide by cop in public places, taking innocent bystanders with them. No one is immune to that kind of act, which is indisputably more frequent in 2019 than in previous years.

      Any of us can be such a bystander, unless you stay in your house all the time (without relatives).

      I will point out that I said the same thing as 12:55 and you called me deficient in reading comprehension. I think you and Somerby are both uninterested in the things human beings should care about. That makes this a toxic place.

      Delete
  11. Bob wrote, there is no reason to think that he won't start a distracting war, the better to rally the public around the commander in chief with.

    There is no reason to assume that he won't hack some voting machines himself, the better to suggest that an election he loses is invalid.

    There is no reason to assume that he won't attempt to cancel this year's election


    Did he mean these to be serious concerns? Are they realistic possibilities that point to Trump's mental illness?

    Or, did he mean them to be wild ideas with no evidence, just as a lead-in to his criticism of the media?

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    1. "Or, did he mean them to be wild ideas with no evidence, just as a lead-in to his criticism of the media?"

      I assume these are Bob's fears.

      He is a liberal, after all. Maniacal paranoia, rage and delirium are natural components of that particular cult.

      As we're getting closer to the election, the symptoms are likely to intensify.

      Delete
    2. “ Or, did he mean them to be wild ideas with no evidence, just as a lead-in to his criticism of the media?”

      Somerby means it and believes there should be talking head panels discussing this stuff on tv, as media members currently do, no holds barred, on Twitter.

      I think Bob fears that impeachment and the Ukrainian scandal won’t keep Trump from being re-elected. Even the twitter- media stars don’t bother to snark on Trump as some Russian asset anymore.

      I get that. I don’t get why such a smart man would be so very fearful of this as to be keen on seeing this sort of speculation discussed on tv by people with the nuance, intellectualism, and good faith of Jimmy Swaggart.

      Delete
    3. the Ukrainian scandal

      Aren't you cute.

      Delete
    4. Aren't you uncharacteristically modulated.

      Delete
    5. Ah, the Ukrainian scandal. Here's a good cartoon.

      Delete
    6. So Mao your boy Trump is quite the dealmaker, isn't he?

      It's quite a great negotiation he's made in the Middle East.

      Dumbfuck sap, you got taken for a ride.

      Delete
    7. Mao,
      Here is your chance to explain you're not stupid, you were just lying the whole time.

      Delete
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