BREAKING: Quick observations, plus pet peeves!

MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2020

Rational animals flounder:
Later today, we expect to start a series of afternoon posts, "Epistles to the 9-year-olds."

As the Irish saved civilization, it will fall to the 9-year-olds, in future decades, to rebuild our crumbling culture. Hopefully, these epistles will still be floating around, providing one way they can start.

For now, we'll list a few quick observations and peeves. We'll start with yesterday's daily briefing, which accidentally bled over into prime time.

Here at THE HOWLER, we appreciate the kinds of people who voice appreciation. So it went late yesterday as corporate leaders kowtowed to President Carsale right there in the Rose Garden:
MR. KAUFMANN (3/29/20): Thank you, Mr. President, and thanks for your leadership on this. Because of that leadership, we have really seen the government agencies working with industry like no time before...

MR. PESICKA: Thank you, Mr. President. Let me first start by thanking the administration for all the support you have provided to the industry...

MS. LANE: Thank you, Mr President, for the incredible leadership. I will share with you that UPS is really proud to be part of this effort...

MR. TYLER: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I would certainly like to echo my colleagues’ comments that the collaboration amongst many of the government agencies and the private market and the distributors represented here today has been incredible. It has been increasing and ramping up over the past weeks.

MR. MILLS: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. And thanks to FEMA and HHS. I think great leadership, and it’s really working well...

MR. CONNETT: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. We appreciate the opportunity to work with your administration on a lot of collaborative fronts...
The president's incredible leadership is really working well. It's working like no time before. Everybody seemed to agree on these basic points!

You can't necessarily blame these people for kowtowing to President Sell-A-Wreck. People have to treat him this way, due to his condition.

His condition might be a "mental illness." It might be a "personality disorder."

As far as we know, sociopathy isn't a formal technical term, but a certain percentage of people qualify for the nearest diagnosis. Presumably, they didn't choose to be sociopathic, but many people are.

We can't tell you that President Junker isn't so afflicted. With that, a few observations and peeves:

Shocked, shocked: Kevin Drum has done fantastic work down through the years, That's especially true concerning his work on lead exposure. In that area, he tried to open an important discussion. His work was, of course, ignored and disappeared.

That said, it seemed to us that Drum entered the realm of newly discovered casino gambling in yesterday's post. Like so many others, he continues to be "shocked, shocked" by the latest manifestations of Trump's fairly obvious mental illness.

Now we know why Trump holds those briefings? On what planet was that comment hatched?

Donald Trump seems to be mentally ill. We're amazed by the lengths to which people will go to avoid making this obvious statement and advancing the discussion from there.

Seeing no evil:
Yesterday, at 11 AM Eastern, we watched a 20-minute panel discussion hosted by MSNBC's Joy Reid. One chyron said this:
HOW NEWS OUTLETS ARE COVERING TRUMP'S RESPONSE TO CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
Reid and her pals talked about Fox, but no one mentioned the elephant in the room. The major news outlet which sends them their checks is airing a maniac's daily briefings live.

They're airing his "briefings" live in prime time! None of the overpaid cable stars mentioned this unfortunate fact. These people are paid for their silence.

Hearing the very loud voices: Way back in 1988, Candidate George H. W. Bush defined himself thusly: "I may be a quiet man, but I hear the quiet voices others do not."

Maybe so, possibly not! This morning, it seemed to us that Charles Blow had been hearing a very loud voice which is basically no longer there:
BLOW (3/30/20): Donald Trump has tried in every way to make fighting the pandemic feel like fighting a war. As he tried to frame it: “We’re at war, in a true sense we’re at war, and we are fighting an invisible enemy.” But an invisible enemy doesn’t work as well as a visible one, so Trump now regularly refers to the virus as the “Chinese virus.”

[...]

Calling the virus “the Chinese virus” is the closest Trump can get to a target, to racist, cultural scapegoating.
Regardless of where the first case of this virus was identified, the United States now has more confirmed cases than any country in the world.
Does Trump "now regularly refer to the virus as the 'Chinese virus?'" We'd have to say he pretty much doesn't.

We searched all his daily briefings from last Monday on. We also searched his virtual town hall performance on Fox.

He used the term "Chinese virus" at one point in his Thursday, March 26 briefing. But that was the only usage we found.

Make no mistake! This blatantly disordered man is running a wide assortment of distractions, misdirections and scams. It would be helpful to see high-profile journalists like Blow trying to list them out.

That said, our tribe loves the "racist" narrative, so Blow has been hearing something regularly said. It's a preconceived tribal narrative, and our journalism is based on little else.

This is the way our press has worked all the way back to the Whitewater pseudo-scandals, followed by all the claims about all the crazy things Candidate Gore was imagined to have said. The novelized sliming of Hillary Clinton continued through November 2016.

That's the way rational animals actually work! This is one of the obvious ways Trump ended up where he is.

A certain lack of focus: In his daily televised briefings, Trump has been luxuriating in the gong-show of large numbers. In this way, he is convincing many people that his incredible leadership has resulted in the shipping of incredible amounts of supplies to our beleaguered hospitals.

Yesterday, he actually began suggesting that medical workers have been stealing and selling the mountains of material they've been sent thanks to his own incredible leadership. Because of his obvious but undiscussed condition, this sort of thing is never going to end.

No one has ever seen anything like it! In the last week, this has been the commander's play, much more than any racist attack on the Chinese. (Also, the endless claim that things were a mess when he got there.)

To what extent is testing now available? To what extent are necessary materials—masks, gowns, ventilators—being supplied to hospitals?

This is the basic blocking and tackling of our nation's attempt to respond to the worldwide virus. We're surprised by the lack of dedicated pages to these basic topics in our most famous newspapers. Also on cable, where human interest and interviews tend to prevail.

Masks, gowns, ventilators, tests? These are the basic building blocks of our nation's response. We need to know 1) how many have been provided, but also 2) how many will be needed.

Those items also constitute the basic building blocks of a certain maniac's relentless attempts at widespread public deception. Each topic should have a dedicated page in our daily papers.

The basic facts about these topics should be updated daily in a highly visible way. Would that require a type of focus our "journalists" tend to lack?

79 comments:

  1. You're always going to struggle differentiating between mental illness and standard -issue Right-winger.

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    Replies
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      Delete
  2. 15% of Bernie voters told ABC pollsters they'll be voting for Trump. I'm one of them. I'm one of them but full disclosure I wouldn't want Bernie elected now under these circumstances either. I was never a Trump hater and he's the man for the job of bringing the economy back on line when the time comes. If a candidate is mentally ill it is Biden who doesn't know where he is or what year it is. I'd like Trump's energy and communication skills when I'm his age.

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    1. Strictly speaking, the economy is not offline. A bunch of people are sick and even more are staying home, which impacts our economy, but the economy is not shut down. The economy will improve as people recover.

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    2. From the ABC poll:

      "in spring 2016, an ABC News poll found 20% of Sanders supporters said they would vote for Trump over Clinton, and far fewer ended up doing so."

      and

      "The 15% who said they plan to vote for Trump represents just 6% of Democrats and voters who lean Democratic, according to ABC News. Trump won 8% of Democrats in 2016."

      Also 35% of the poll is conducted via landlines. The poll has little to none meaningful value.

      Trump has not shown any skill with the economy, but with Biden (who does display weakening mental acuity) as his opponent, re-election seems quite likely. If Trump is re-elected, you can forget about improvements to our society, the US will become even more dominated by corporations.

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    3. The Bernie factor is enough in close states. Trump re-election is the best hope to bring it all back to where it was. The economic confidence piece is where he's useful like him or not.

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    4. There is no Bernie factor, a chimera. Trump provides no economic confidence, which is not a thing anyway.

      The stock market is disastrously over inflated (even now), it was going to crash regardless of the Trump virus. The Trump economy is merely consumerism, driven by historic debt levels - not a good plan. A bad plan.

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    5. Not many people could golf for weeks on end while ignoring a coming pandemic, at Trump's age.

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    6. 2:09,
      What makes you think you know more about the economy than a President who has ridden multiple businesses into the ground?

      Before you answer, remember, he also play-acted as a smart businessman on a TV show.

      Delete
  3. "Donald Trump seems to be mentally ill. We're amazed by the lengths to which people will go to avoid making this obvious statement and advancing the discussion from there."

    Somerby is unqualified to make this assessment but it doesn't seem to bother him to malign both Trump and mentally ill people.

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    1. He loses credibility with that one for both reasons you mention.

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    2. So you think that saying that someone has a mental illness is to malign them? Aren't you supposed to be a professor of psychology?

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    3. No, I am saying that when someone (e.g., Somerby) calls another person mentally ill in order to disparage him, that creates a stigma that attaches to the words that hurts those who actually are mentally ill.

      You don't call someone mentally ill just because you don't like them, don't like what they do, disagree with them politically, think they are odd or different, think they are the wrong social caste, dislike their sexual orientation, and so on. Somerby apparently never learned that.

      I wouldn't be answering you except that I don't want anyone else to be confused by your question. Calling anyone mentally ill as an epithet is wrong. It doesn't matter if it is someone as awful as Trump. It is wrong.

      You can fuck off now.

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    4. I agree completely with your second paragraph. But it is only your misplaced trust in your ability to read TDH's mind that leads you to conclude that TDH calls Trump mentally ill to disparage him.

      TDH says that Trump exhibits symptoms of mental disorder, and that everyone agrees that his abnormal behavior is off limits for discussion. There are good reasons to dispute TDH's position without attributing base motives to him. It's not that hard: give it a try. The mental discipline of actually making a coherent, rational argument will do you good, even if it feels strange at first.

      And what kind of gratitude is it to tell me to fuck off? After all the work I do checking things for you, I'd think common courtesy would dictate that you admit when you're wrong. Start with stupnagel.

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    5. Does Bob not think that Trump's mental illness affects his worth as a president?

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    6. "Start with stupnagel."

      First, I said that the google definitions of stupnagel didn't make sense given Somerby's remark. Second, you dug up a different origin story for the word, one not very accessible via internet search (e.g., more obscure) and one that itself is just one guy's opinion, although plausible. Did you miss his tone? He is speculating. On that basis, as usual, you conclude that you are right and I am wrong. Even though I was saying that I didn't find the definition that comes up first on google to make any sense. You can't even tell when we are on the same page -- you have a knee-jerk oppositional reflex. And I'm supposed to thank you for that? No, I don't think so.

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    7. First, I said that the google definitions of stupnagel didn't make sense given Somerby's remark.

      Except that the Urban Dictionary is the first site to come up when you present the google with search terms “stupnagel” and “definition,” and there you can find that stupnagel refers to a stupid, useless person. Which makes perfect sense in TDH’s “remark” when he refers to “stupnagel excerpts” of some of Trump’s ravings.

      Second, you dug up a different origin story for the word, one not very accessible via internet search (e.g., more obscure)

      Except that the Urban Dictionary says that the character name “Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagel” is the origin of the word. So readily accessible. As is my source, Oxford University Press, which is hardly obscure. And the obscurity of a source has nothing to do with it’s accuracy.

      and one that itself is just one guy's opinion, although plausible. Did you miss his tone? He is speculating.

      This isn’t “just one guy”; he’s an expert. (Don’t get me started on tone.) It’s not speculating, which is inference in the absence of evidence. The OUP cites a first usage from a popular source that predates World War II and thus the notoriety of the German general with a similar name.

      On that basis, as usual, you conclude that you are right and I am wrong.

      On the usual basis (i.e., evidence) I concluded that you were, as usual, wrong. But that’s the only reasonable conclusion. Let me make clear what I mean here. It’s not that the evidence requires us to trace the origin of stupnagel to the fictional Colonel (although that’s certainly the most plausible conclusion). It’s that the evidence requires reasonable people not to conclude that the origin is the actual General. That’s why reasonable people aren’t baffled as to why the name of someone who was anti-Hitler is employed to describe a Hitleresque President. That’s insupportable.

      Even though I was saying that I didn't find the definition that comes up first on google to make any sense.

      Then you were doing it wrong. So what?

      You can't even tell when we are on the same page

      That’s manifestly false, as I just commented the other day agreeing with you about an entire paragraph you wrote about mental illness.

      -- you have a knee-jerk oppositional reflex.

      OK, fair cop, and I do have to be careful to take that into account.

      And I'm supposed to thank you for that? No, I don't think so.

      You’re under no obligation to thank me. But you should do what I do. When someone accurately points out that I’m wrong about simple facts, I comment back with “I stand corrected.” You can use the google to find examples. Let me know if you need help doing that.

      I know you think I hate you, but I don’t, not least ecause I don’t know you or anything about you. I’m agnostic about any personal information people post here. I just know what you write, how you reason, and what you conclude.

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  4. Carsale was actually a tragic figure that courageously wore polyester during the cotton holocaust, and nearly was able to end low down payments and zero financing by putting tvs and coffee machines in waiting rooms. Let's not glorify Trump by conflating him with a national treasure.

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  5. In terms of gun attacks, Republicans are more likely to blame mental illness than Democrats and Independents:

    https://morningconsult.com/2019/08/07/democrats-independents-less-likely-than-gop-to-blame-mental-illness-in-gun-attacks/

    Perhaps this tendency to blame mental illness transfers to other wrongdoing as well? Republicans office holders seem to seek therapy when caught doing something wrong.

    And here we see Somerby, again, trying to blame Trump's self-serving behavior on mental illness, when he himself, via his labeling of Trump "carsale", acknowledges that this is how a certain type of business person behaves. He is like the gougers who bought up hand sanitizer and are reselling it for $80/bottle (or more), only on a larger scale. Want a ventilator? What'll you do for me?

    It is remotely possible that Somerby is one of the smaller number of liberals who do attribute shootings to mental illness, but it seems more likely to me (given cumulative evidence of a variety of types) that Somerby is a conservative who is calling himself a liberal in order to deceive readers, while he says things no liberal would say.

    For example, who mocks the people who enable low income people to buy cars when they have no assets and no credit? If no one were willing to lend to the poor, they would have even greater difficulty holding a job (which usually requires reliable transportation to get to work at a specific time). And who thinks that a used car is necessarily a wreck, when many middle class families don't buy new cars either, because they cannot afford them (or because it is smarter to avoid the rapid depreciation)?

    Yes, sales people are icky, Somerby tells us. When Bernie is elected, we can dispense with sales people entirely. Each household with be issued an appropriate vehicle. They're thinking of calling it the People's Car.

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  6. It’s easy to play your role as some people’s enemy. You just need to understand that when you aren’t kissing their posterior, you’re either burnishing or covering your own.

    Trump isn’t the only pol who’s complaining about theft.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/people-are-stealing-face-masks-from-local-hospitals-gov-cuomo-says.html

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    1. He's complaining about theft after giving away our supplies to China.

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    2. Funny that when China returned that effort they were cast as acting like the super power that the U.S., under Trump, is not.

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    3. We sent China tons of gauze and other items they did not need, indeed things we needed. China can provide millions of masks, Trump refuses to accept them.

      Coronavirus Cases Have Surged, But The US Is Refusing To Take The World’s Most Available Masks

      No one is overly optimistic about China's motives, not even The Guardian:

      As countries struggle to respond to the pandemic, China portrays itself as a global benefactor

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    4. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.euronews.com/amp/2020/03/29/netherlands-recalls-hundreds-of-thousands-of-defective-chinese-face-masks

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    5. Face masks are more effective for preventing the spread by people who have the virus, than they are for protecting a person from other people. Those hospital workers may be trying to protect their own families from becoming infected by themselves. Health care workers are being exposed and are likely to catch the virus. Can you blame them for not wanting to infect spouses and children at home? If we had adequate supplies this wouldn't be an issue.

      I watched Trump's briefing yesterday and it seemed pretty likely that he thinks masks can be used several times and that issuing a health worker a single mask should be sufficient protection.

      If you have ever visited someone requiring protection due to an infection, those gowns and masks and gloves are taken off and new ones put on, every time someone enters or leaves the patient's room. Nurses and other staff enter and leave frequently during the course of a day. So a single patient requires use of dozens of masks, gowns, and pairs of gloves. If they were reused, health workers would spread infections from patient to patient. This IS what happens when staff are careless, and we do not want that.

      So, it seems to me that someone needs to tell Trump how exactly this medical equipment is used. From accounts I've read, written by former White House workers, Trump is a deeply stupid and uneducated man. Things he says that may sound crazy could be due to his unfathomable ignorance and unwillingness to listen to and learn from others.

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    6. Corby, I’m not sure what your blabbing has to do with faulty medical equipment from China. Especially since we’re talking N95 masks.

      https://www.ft.com/content/f3435779-a706-45c7-a7e2-43efbdd7777b

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    7. Trump was complaining about medical personnel stealing masks. Go back and read the original post.

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    8. In the Holland case, the masks were recalled because "they did not fit on the faces", not because they were faulty. There could be various reasons why they were not fitting on faces, user error is likely as other places that received the masks did not recall them. Even Holland is not recalling all the masks they received, and we do not know the source of the masks that did not fit.

      The masks that are on offer to the US from China have been vetted:

      "According to 3M, the world’s largest mask manufacturer, the KN95 is “equivalent” and “can be expected to function very similar” to the N95 mask. That opinion was echoed on Feb. 29 by the CDC, which said the KN95 is one of seven foreign-certified respirators “expected to provide protection to workers.”

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    9. The masks didn’t have the requisite filtering capacity. That’s sorta of important...especially since the masks had been distributed and were being worn by care givers treating infected patients.

      https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3077428/netherlands-recalls-600000-face-masks-china-due-low-quality

      “ FFP2 face masks are supposed to have a filter efficiency of 92 per cent, according to European standards. Dutch broadcaster NOS cited a source saying that the Chinese face masks were “not FFP2 quality nor of the lesser safety level of FFP1 – some sort of FFP0.8 at best”, meaning they had less than half the filter efficiency required for the FFP2 designation.”

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    10. "cited a source saying" "some sort of" what a joke, there was no virus filtration efficiency testing reported by anyone in Holland, sounds like someone bought the wrong masks and is just covering their ass, as KN95 masks are working fine all over the world.

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  7. “They're airing his "briefings" live in prime time!”

    If they did not air them, they would be accused of suppressing information. Some actual news and important announcements occur during those briefings, such as the extension of social distancing, or things that Fauci says.

    They are also airing fact checks, and showing examples of his sociopathy that run throughout his briefings.

    Trump’s voters by and large aren’t watching the mainstream media. They watch right wing media, where Trump is praised as a good leader who cares about us, and any criticism of him is just media/liberal Trump-hating bad faith. It is a bubble that will not change whether or not the mainstream media shows or doesn’t show his press conferences.

    As a matter of fact, right wingers are being told by experts such as Dr Birx “[Trump is] so attentive to the scientific literature & the details & the data. I think his ability to analyze & integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit.”

    (http://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2020/03/literary-corner-incredible-phenomenon.html)

    Comments like this from Birx further complicate the media’s ability to counter Trump with facts, and they solidify his voters’ belief in a mainstream/liberal conspiracy against him, and, for them at least, it certainly serves to debunk the notion that Trump is mentally ill.

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    1. This imaginary undiscerning group your conceit leads you to believe exists doesn't. Trump was elected by your mistake of thinking it does.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. All briefings are widely viewed on all the news outlets.

      That’s why people are pulling their hair out. It’s now not enough to have journos countering the information. Though lord knows that it’s a given that media critters aren’t well-equipped to do that, they are there to do it and they do it all day long.

      Their problem is that people want the briefings. They don’t just want Chuck Todd and friends sitting at a round table telling them what’s happening and what the govt says it’s going to do next. That’s why we got the comment about ratings (what people want to see) from Trump since our Overlord Protecter Gatekeepers want this to stop.

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    4. Most people do not support Trump, do not want the briefings; they want the government to do its job and they do not need to pat them on the back for DOING THEIR JOB.

      It is reprehensible for a president to gloat about ratings while failing to protect our citizens, but it is worse that he stands there and lies while failing to protect our citizens.

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    5. Spot on Cecelia.

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    6. Fox quickly cut away from Trump as he went on his ratings gloat rant, did not return to him until he was done, and lied about what he was talking about.

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    7. Even Fox thought it distasteful, yet Cecelia wants to promote it, talk about mentally ill.

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    8. Anonymouse 11:20pm, the comment from Anonymouse 10:55pm suggested that Fox News cut away from Trump during his comments about ratings because the network was protecting Trump from himself, not that they found the comments distasteful.

      There’s been a great deal of negative publicity from those comments. That’s one more reason to argue that there are risks that balance out any advantages of doing these pressers.

      The notion that the media is not just allowing Trump to put one over on our feeble selves via misinformation, but is being given an unfair advantage over Biden and Sanders via a MAGA rally with the gravitas of government, is countered by the accusations of Trump’s obvious perfidy and incompetence by the same people worried about these dynamics.

      It is a fact that in time, in the same daily situation, you’d start to see any wart there is on the elegant Pres. Obama, let alone on the inelegant Trump. Familiarity breeds contempt. We are no longer able to be a united people, even in dire circumstances, but we’re still people. Far from cutting the cameras off, let ‘em roll. Let the media and Democratic pundits get the knives out when it over. Let them go to carving.

      We slubs don’t need protection. You may be at war with your fellow countrymen, but you still need to prize some sense of democracy, the republic, and of office. Let Trump be POTUS and let the chips fall where they may.

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  8. Prime time on TV is 8:00 to 11:00. East Coast 5:00 to 7:00 is not prime time. And, West Coast 2:00 to 4:00 is certainly not prime time.

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    1. That's right, jackass. 5 to 7 is local and network news time, which he is deliberately pre-empting.

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    2. Let David have his niche, explaining time zones and such, it suits him.

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  9. Why is Somerby so obsessed with calling Trump mentally ill?

    He may be. He seems to be, at times. But Trump has always acted pretty much the way he is acting now. Just as his grifting was known during the 2016 campaign, so his personality defects were also pretty apparent. They voted for him anyway.

    Trump has *always* been a con man and a bullshit artist. He acknowledged the deliberateness of it in his book when he talked about “truthful hyperbole.” It was never simply the result of mental illness. Sociopathy? Maybe. Perhaps that’s also considered mental illness, I don’t know. But sociopathy is generally not viewed as exculpatory when a sociopath lies or commits crimes.

    At any rate, this behavior has *worked* for Trump *his whole life.* And it’s pretty clear that Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He has an entire section of the media and an entire political party defending him unquestioningly.

    Aside from the irresponsibility of making long-distance diagnoses, it just isn’t clear what value there is in the press calling him mentally ill. His voters will utterly reject it and be more upset at the media. Swing voters probably won’t see it that way either.

    So, you’re left with documenting his words, actions, and crimes. The media shouldn’t be in the business of psychoanalysis, should they?

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    1. A form of derangement took hold and he can't let the "mentally ill" hobbyhorse go now.

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    2. Somerby's repeated call for behavior that would not benefit Democrats in 2020 is another reason why I do not believe Somerby is "liberal".

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    3. I thought Trump had a screw loose until these daily press conferences. Suddenly there is an agile and fairly articulate president with an obviously strong intellect, standing there volleying with an incredibly awful press. Weird times. I'll be happy to have PT Barnum back up there when this is over.

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    4. 8:29,
      The GOP-led Senate's smash and grab bailout of Fortune 1000 companies last week, is the writing on the wall. Republicans know the Presidency is lost, and most likely the Senate too, in 7 months. The grift will be even stronger from here to November.
      Count the silverware.

      Delete
  10. "There is no sign that the Navy hospital ships that the president made such a big deal of, the Comfort and the Mercy, there's no sign that they'll be anywhere on-site helping out anywhere in the country for weeks yet." Rachel Maddow on March 20

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    1. The Mercy arrived in LA last week and accepted its first patients on Sunday, Mar 29. The Comfort is on its way to NYC and scheduled to arrive today, which means it should begin accepting patients in a few days (judging by the Mercy).

      Given that Maddow made her statement on Mar 20, it took Mercy 9 days, which is within the scope of "weeks". It is not a week or less than a week. Since the Comfort hasn't arrived yet, it should be ready to help just about two weeks from Maddow's begin date.

      We are very happy to have the Mercy in Los Angeles. But, in a situation where every day makes such a huge difference in the number of patients (and deaths), a delay of more than week is a lot. And it would have been more helpful to have them on-site a lot sooner, which I assume may have been Maddow's point.

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    2. My friend (in his 30s) in Los Angeles became sick this week, could be the flu, he went to get tested for corona, and was told no tests were available for him.

      The response so far has been clueless.

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    3. Only in Trump Derangement world does Maddow's comment mean "two days more than one week."

      Delete
    4. And only a Trump Worshipper would blame Maddow for doubting the word of Proven Liar-in-Chief.

      Delete
    5. The point is, what is the use of the ship, most of us can not even get tested.

      Delete
    6. For use for non-COVID-related procedures and care to free up resources for COVID.

      Delete
    7. The resources for COVID do not serve those that can not get tested.

      Mercy is treating nine patients. It arrived in Long Beach FROM SAN DIEGO, about an hour long drive.

      It's a PR stunt.

      Delete
    8. Mercy is treating non-COVID patients only. It is doing that to free up hospital space to treat COVID patients. LA has not hit its peak infections rate yet -- it is about a week behind NYC. The use of the ship is that people with other problems, such as strokes and heart attacks, will be able to get treatment while major hospital resources are devoted to treating COVID patients. The ship is not doing any COVID testing.

      Garcetti has been doing daily briefings on how the city is handling the pandemic. You could also have found this info by listening to the evening news. And it is discussed in the LA Times.

      Mercy is NOT a PR stunt. It takes a ship longer to get from San Diego than someone can drive because ships do not go 65 MPH in water. Further, they needed to first supply and staff the ship in preparation for its mission.

      Delete
  11. He tweeted the phrase eight times since March 16 with about 200 or 300 thousand favorites each tweet and over 30 thousand retweets each.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Why is a media critic so intent on censoring a president and media on full display to the people? Revealing.

    ReplyDelete
  13. How many years did Somerby spend admonishing liberals not to stereotype “The Others” as racists, sexist, etc. There were, after all, 62 million Trump voters, and the media had a duty to ask them why they supported Trump.

    As a liberal, I tended to agree with Somerby, not least because I live and work amongst many Trump voters. Some of them are in my own family, and I do not view them as bad people simply because of who they voted for. In fact, I know many of them to be good, decent people.

    So why doesn’t Somerby take his own advice and try to find out why “The Others” don’t view Trump as mentally ill, or solely as a “used car salesman” type? Can 62 million people all be wrong?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I’m sorry that you have to live and work with those who merely walk amongst us as human. And I’m sorry that you’re related to some of them. A more charitable person than I could reasonably say that those who voted for Trump in 2016 are good, decent people who surrendered the better part of themselves to irrationality. If any continue to support Trump, no reasonable judgment comes down for goodness and decency. I know it must be hard to look at someone who looks like say, your own sweet mother and have to conclude that she’s a monster. But it is what it is.

      Can 62 million people all be wrong? Of course. To conclude otherwise is a fallacy so well known it even has a name: ad populum. The soundness of a proposition is unaffected by the number of its adherents or detractors.

      Delete
  14. I find the discussion of whether Trump is mentally ill or not to be a giant distraction. Once you introduce the idea of mental illness, you also introduce the idea that the mentally ill person may not be responsible for his actions. He lies, but maybe he’s so mentally ill, he doesn’t know he’s lying? Who cares and who knows what goes on in Trump’s brain? None of us will ever know.

    Then when you introduce sociopathy, or some other form of personality disorder, you are adding more tangents to the discussion. Is it his “fault” that he is a sociopath? Are personality disorders mental illnesses in such a way that they also provide a means of excusing bad behavior?

    And now, we have gone down the rabbit hole of discussing the types of mental illness and what they might mean, rather than focusing on the lies and bad behavior, which continue apace while we are having this pointless discussion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sociopathy is called Anti-Social Personality Disorder. It only meets the criterion of a disorder if it results in behavior that places the person in conflict with others, to the point that they cannot function normally (e.g., hold a job, maintain a relationship, stay out of trouble with the law). None of those apply to Trump, so even if he were the most flagrant sociopath in Washington, he couldn't be classified as "disordered" because he is functioning well and thus does not meet the diagnostic criteria.

      There are many sociopaths (or psychopaths) who similarly function well and are not unhappy, and thus are not considered to be "disordered" much less "mentally ill".

      Even if he were classified as anti-social, he would still be held responsible for his actions under the law. He should be held accountable for all of his behavior, as he would be under the law, since lying and his kind of "bad behavior" don't meet legal insanity definitions either.

      So, I agree that this is a major red herring. The question is why Somerby keeps throwing this dead fish in our faces.

      Delete
  15. "...our crumbling culture..."

    Heh. I'm sorry to say, dear Bob, but your new-found craving for mindless dembottery goes an long way to blemish the culture.

    It sounds like the stunning success of Our Beloved Commander in managing the ongoing crisis - not to mention His successful resistance to liberal zombie-induced panic - caused, unfortunately, the second head-explosion. So sad.

    What's going to happen when (with any luck) Our Beloved Commander is elected for the second - and, hopefully unlimited, term? It would inevitably cause the third - and much more powerful! - liberal head-explosion. We're all looking forward to reading your word-salad dembottery following the election...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awesome. Mao and his Establishment buddies are already sweating the election. I love it.

      Delete
    2. Say what you will, but Trump's criminally negligent response to COVID-19 really owned the libs.

      Delete
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