February 16, 2017

Activate your snarkometers: An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trumps Mental State

An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State

Fevered media speculation about Donald Trump’s psychological motivations and psychiatric diagnosis has recently encouraged mental health professionals to disregard the usual ethical constraints against diagnosing public figures at a distance. They have sponsored several petitions and a Feb. 14 letter to The New York Times suggesting that Mr. Trump is incapable, on psychiatric grounds, of serving as president.

Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder.

Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy. It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither).

Bad behavior is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr. Trump’s attack on democracy. He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers.

His psychological motivations are too obvious to be interesting, and analyzing them will not halt his headlong power grab. The antidote to a dystopic Trumpean dark age is political, not psychological.

ALLEN FRANCES

Coronado, Calif.

The writer, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical College, was chairman of the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (D.S.M.-IV).

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/an-eminent-psychiatrist-demurs-on-trumps-mental-state.html?src=me&_r=0&mtrref=disqus.com&gwh=E84C04E1B86109169E683BF4567F4836&gwt=pay&assetType=opinion

February 16, 2017

Jake Tapper fires back at Trump: "Fake media" didn't fire Flynn, you did

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/832199366056300545

CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Wednesday fired back at President Trump for accusing the “fake media” of mistreating ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn.

"The media, of course, did not fire Gen. Flynn. President Trump did. What the media did do, was reveal to the nation that Gen. Flynn had lied to the country and to the Trump team," Tapper said during his program.

Trump on Wednesday defended the former official, stating that the media treated Flynn "very unfairly."


“I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media — as I call it, the fake media, in many cases,” Trump said during his joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I think it’s really a sad thing he was treated so badly.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/319809-jake-tapper-fires-back-at-trump-media-didnt-fire-flynn-trump

February 16, 2017

New Cover Of TIME Magazine" "Nothing To See Here"

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/832209196225552385

February 16, 2017

This Emoluments Thing Isnt Going Away - How state attorneys general could take down Trump

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Schneiderman has been at the vanguard of state attorneys general who have pushed back on Trump’s actions: He brought one of the cases against Trump University, launched an investigation of the Trump Foundation, and has opposed the president’s executive order on immigration. But Shugerman insists that this legal move could work in many different jurisdictions. Actions under a state’s quo warranto authorities could be brought, for instance, against the Trump Organization in Washington, where it appears to be in violation of the General Services Administration lease that bars any federal official from operating the hotel. And Shugerman adds that in some states, like California, entities beyond the state AG would be authorized to bring such an action. California law also grants this power to local governments and municipalities.

I asked Shugerman whether there is any reason to believe the states would be willing to take as dramatic and draconian an action as threatening to dissolve Trump Organization entities. In an email, he explained that this remedy can be tailored to be more or less dramatic, but one meaningful benefit is that it allows for broad discovery:

Under quo warranto proceedings, the state attorneys general and the courts have flexibility to create a balanced remedy. The first step is discovery to find out about the Trump Organization’s financial arrangements and entanglements with foreign and state entities. The next step is to take the emoluments and fraud claims into court. In the end, the attorneys general and the courts may craft a mix of injunctions, fines, divestment, and/or limited dissolutions of LLCs. It’s important to recognize that the first step of transparency about the Trump Organization is a service to the public interest by itself, but so is the rule of law and anti-corruption. If this action prevents foreign entities from using payments and debts to manipulate American policy, some relatively minor and temporary instability is worthwhile and necessary.

As to whether one more lawsuit alleging yet more corruption can dislodge an intransigent president who believes himself above the ethics laws, Shugerman reminded me that allowing the appearance of corruption to persist is not costless. “Look how much instability the Trump Organization and its foreign entanglements have already created,” he said. “This action will actually reduce that instability, legally, economically, and in national security.”

It’s become clear that the courts are the best hope for restoring at least some stability to the Presidency Inc. regime in which we now find ourselves and that the states have become powerful agents for accountability. This quo warranto business may feel airy and academic. But the logic behind it is persuasive, and the impacts of this legal theory could be very real.

the rest:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/02/how_state_attorneys_general_could_take_down_trump_over_emoluments.html

February 16, 2017

Leaked Emails Show Justice Clarence Thomas's Wife Pushing Travel Ban

Leaked Emails Show Justice Clarence Thomas’s Wife Pushing Travel Ban
In leaked emails, Ginni Thomas asked for advice on how to organize in favor of Trump’s travel ban. But by doing so, she may have inadvertently made it harder for the executive order to survive the Supreme Court

Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife is organizing in support of President Donald Trump’s agenda. And it might make her husband’s life a little complicated.

In an email sent to a conservative listserv on Feb. 13 and obtained by The Daily Beast, Ginni Thomas asked an interesting question: How could she organize activists to push for Trump’s policies?

“What is the best way to, with minimal costs, set up a daily text capacity for a ground up-grassroots army for pro-Trump daily action items to push back against the left’s resistance efforts who are trying to make America ungovernable?” she wrote.

“I see the left has Daily Action @YourDailyAction and their Facebook likes are up to 61K,” she continued.
She then linked to a Washington Post story about the group.

“But there are some grassroots activists, who seem beyond the Republican party or the conservative movement, who wish to join the fray on social media for Trump and link shields and build momentum,” she wrote. “I met with a house load of them yesterday and we want a daily textable tool to start… Suggestions?”

the rest:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/16/leaked-emails-show-justice-clarence-thomas-s-wife-pushing-travel-ban.html

February 16, 2017

Chaffetz, Ryan & Mitch: "President Putin Told Us There's Nothing There"

February 16, 2017

TPM: Flynn Doesn't Matter. This Is About Trump

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Through the course of the campaign, transition and presidency, three top Trump advisors and staffers have had to resign because of issues tied to Russia. Paul Manafort, Carter Page and now Michael Flynn. Page might arguably be termed a secondary figure. Manafort ran Trump's campaign and Flynn was his top foreign policy advisor for a year. The one common denominator between all these events, all these men is one person: Donald Trump.

As I said above, this has all been happening before our eyes, the train of inexplicable actions, the unaccountable ties and monetary connections, the willful, almost inexplicable need to make the case for Vladimir Putin even when the President knows the suspicion he's under. When I was writing my first post on this topic more than 6 months ago, I had the uncanny feeling of finding what I was writing impossible to believe as I wrote it. And yet, I would go through the list of unexplained occurrences and actions, clear business and political connections, sycophantic support and more and realize there was too much evidence to ignore. It was fantastical and yet in plain sight.

That's where we still are. There is a huge amount we don't know. We don't know the big answers. But to use the language of the criminal law, there's probable cause to have a real investigation. Not a rush to judgment, but an investigation. This has been in front of us for months. It may gratify Democrats as partisans to see an entire political party be suborned by a President under a cloud of doubt. But it is horrible for the country. There is so much smoke that you could choke on it. It's time to find out what Donald Trump's relationship is to Russia, his and his associates' contacts with Russian officials during the campaign, whatever business ties there might be. If you were Vladimir Putin you could not have done more to help the cause of Donald Trump. And if you were Trump, you could not have done more in actions and statements to repay the favor. The only question is whether the trajectory of perfectly interlocked actions were simply chance or tacit. Is it even remotely credible that with everything that led up to it, Michael Flynn initiated and conducted this back channel on his own? Hardly. It's crazy that we're having this conversation about a sitting President. But here we are. It's time. We need to know the answer to this question.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/flynn-doesn-t-matter-this-is-about-trump

February 16, 2017

Charles M. Blow - "Drip, Drip, Drip"

Every day there is a fresh outrage emerging from the murky bog of the Donald Trump administration.

Every day there is a new round of questions and a new set of concerns that raise anxieties and lower trust.

Every day it becomes ever more clear that it is right and just to doubt the legitimacy of this regime and all that flows from it.


Flynn lied. Trump knew Flynn lied. But Trump kept Flynn in his circle of confidence and apparently left the vice president out of the circle of knowledge. Why


This is an office culture issue. If the boss — in this case Trump — is a pathological liar who forces underlings to repeat and bolster his lies, what signal does that send to everyone else who works in that environment? That lying is not only accepted but also valued, that lying is simply a rhetorical device, a propaganda tool that is inexcusable only when not exercised with skill.


Trump doesn’t mind a lie if it serves him; he does apparently mind if the liar is intentionally, maleficently trying to deceive him.


What we know only makes what we don’t know feel all the more ominous. But I believe that facts are forthcoming. Reporters are digging like a crew of coal miners hopped up on a case of Red Bull, and sources in Washington are leaking to anyone with a press credential.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/opinion/drip-drip-drip.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&mtrref=www.dailykos.com&gwh=A148F87523487E2D00963160564757A5&gwt=pay&assetType=opinion

February 16, 2017

Newly Released emails-Former Doorman Of Trump Property-Tells What He Was Told To Say To Black People

Here's the former doorman of a Trump property, describing what he was told to tell black people, in newly released FBI files.:large
https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/832024735877840897
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/02/trump-fbi-files-discrimination-case-235067

February 16, 2017

AP: A crush of crises all but buries the young Trump White House

The collapse of the ban, which poured fuel on simmering staff rivalries, was followed by a period of stark inaction by a White House suddenly put on the defensive. Trump did sign legislation Tuesday that rolled back a financial regulation, but his administration has not issued any executive orders in days.

House Republicans have been nudging the White House to get behind Speaker Paul Ryan's tax overhaul, which includes a border adjustability plan of which Trump has been skeptical. GOP aides believed they were making progress, but the matter has been overshadowed by the flood of controversies.

Other possible executive actions have been bandied about, from a task force on allegations of voter fraud to steps to strengthen cybersecurity, but have yet to be released. Key legislative items such as a massive plan to rebuild roads and bridges and an overhaul of the tax law remain works in progress.

"He's a one-man band for all practical purposes, it's how he ran his business," said Bill Daley, a former White House chief of staff under Obama. "When you try to take that and everything revolves around that and he is the beginning, middle and end of everything, that is a tough model. His campaign was the same way."


https://apnews.com/ab7b74d015a44b8483b91a0a12132673/A-crush-of-crises-all-but-buries-the-young-Trump-White-House