Deterioration


POST 1280

Starting At The Bottom and Deteriorating From There

Early in Trump’s first administration many mental healthcare professionals offered their professional opinions of Trump. Many criticisms of their diagnoses followed, saying that no valuable diagnosis could be made in the absence of an in-person interview. Turns out that is incorrect.

My friend Sheila Markin (The Markin Report) dug into this during Trump’s fist term, interviewing Dr. Vince Greenwood, a psychologist, who is certified to make assessments using the Hare assessment scale. She reports their conversation it here.

I urge you to read her report and keep in mind that this interview was conducted in 2024. Add to that our observations of all the chaos and destruction that Trump has caused since January 20, 2025 and all the obvious signs of Trump’s mental deterioration we all see and commonly refer to as dementia.

This is not a happy case of confirmation bias. It is a serious and foreboding clinical diagnosis from a qualified professional and what we see everyday that is a clear and present danger to all of us.

The Emptying Cabinet

From Dan Rather in his piece, Kash Out, explaining the likely upcoming departure of yet another of Trump’s galacticly unqualified Cabinet secretaries:

Patel, a former public defender with scant law enforcement experience, was a highly unusual choice to run the FBI, but one that makes sense if you want to change the FBI’s mission from protecting Americans to pursuing vengeance.

Trump has many skills, high on the list of which is avoiding accountability, His record is not unblemished (see: the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault and defamation cases; the New York tax fraud case; the Stormy Daniels hush money case; 6 bankruptcies; etc.), but he’s managed to get away with cheating and defrauding a lot of people, including stiffing contractors and ongoing grifting violations. He just hates to be held accountable for his actions.

What with Pam Bondi’s  complete failure to get indictments of Trump’s many accusers, people who had the temerity to tell the truth, she had to go. Poor Pam. She’s been made available to industry, but who would hire disaster Pam?

ICE Barbie Noem snared too much spotlight that otherwise might have shined on Trump, so she had to go. Will the people of South Dakota re-hire her to be their look-at-me governor?

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer was caught with her pants down and her liquor up. Too embarrassing to be close to Trump, so he pulled the plug and down the drain she went.

Each of these firings/faux resignations both shifted blame for Trump’s failures and changed the subject from the Epstein scandal. Effective moves, Orangeman!

But now Kash Patel seems to be in the center of Trump’s bulls eye following The Atlantic publishing a piece detailing some of his embarrassing habits, including drinking and being AWOL from his job. And, of course, there’s that damning video of him beer-ing it up with the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team following their gold medal win. Trump didn’t like that. Maybe that deer-in-the-headlights look of Patel’s will seem to fit better soon.

Quick Quiz:
  1. How many unconfirmed department heads (“acting” – i.e. not confirmed with the advise and consent of the Senate) will there be by November?
  2. How many unconstitutional ways will they find to rig the mid-term election for Trump?
Wuzzup?

The Washington Post reports that a Third U.S. aircraft carrier arrives in waters near Iran. We all get that Trump is trying to amp up his threats. He wants to look like the toughest tough guy, like his idols Putin, Netanyahu and Xi.  Orbán used to be in that murderous collection of psychotics but his countrymen enthusiastically booted his fat ass out of office in their April 12 election, along with removing a bunch of his toadies from their legislature.

Back to our aircraft carriers now stationed and ready to threaten Iran, support an invasion and imperil the global economy through American stupidity.

The USS Gerald R. Ford left its patrol of the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean. It is now redeployed to the the Strait of Hormuz.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was patrolling the South China Sea before being deployed to the Persian Gulf.

The USS George H.W. Bush departed Norfolk, VA and is now in the Persian Gulf region.

Consider the important global areas that we are now ignoring at our peril for the purpose of aiding Trump’s Operation Epic Blunder.

Quick Quiz:
  1. Is China giving serious thought right now to taking over Taiwan by force now that we’ve concentrated our forces elsewhere? Think: Pearl Harbor.
  2. How many terrorists of various stripes are in high gear to cause trouble now that so many places are going unguarded?
The White House Correspondents Dinner

This post was prepared before the White House Correspondents Dinner. This section originally supposed what would happen, including the President embarrassing himself and our country with his typical broadsides against the “mainstream media,” the “enemy of the people.” He would display his typical inability to stay on point, would go off-script into an impressive recitation of meaningless and self-contradictory gibberish. That is what we expected. But that didn’t happen because the event was interrupted by a shooter.

It’s too early to post information about the shooter, but that news will come to us swiftly, At a press conference at the White House after the excitement was over Trump promised his later follow up would include his prepared vitriol. He will attack the press and, indirectly, the First Amendment and he will attempt to give a black eye to some of the journalists he likes to attack. He will try to be funny, but he will only succeed at being cruel. This is what passes today as being presidential.

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