It would be better to have a calculating liar as president than one who doesn't get all the facts before making a major decision, by Hal M. Brown

Even thinking that Trump would be a model for a modern day Rodin to turn into a 21st century version of The Thinker is no doubt a stretch for most of my readers. I would venture to say most of you would more likely think that if an artist, a cartoonist for example, wanted to depict where Trump would rank on a scale of thoughtful to impulsive, they'd draw him screaming into a cellphone.

Below is the Truth Social post from Trump that made the news on New Years Day after the New Orleans terrorist drove a truck into a crowd of revelers.

"When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!" 

This post was followed that night when Trump had to have had all the information about Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the driver of the truck.

I do not know whether he knew the name of the attacker was  Shamsud-Din Jabbar or that there was an ISIS flag on the truck when he made the first post. He very well might have known these things and figured that this meant he wasn't born here. 

Of course we now know that Jabbar was born in Texas and a military veteran. The only border he crossed before the attack was the one between Texas and Louisiana. If this is another example of Trump lying to support a narrative I have to say "merely" disturbing.  This is how inured I am to Trump being a liar. Even Fox News had to issue a correction regarding that comment:

A Fox News reporter read the statement on air Wednesday afternoon after federal officials identified the suspect, and fact-checked the president-elect.

"Now the former president said criminals coming in in a statement, meaning into our country, but to be clear Molly [Line] and Brian [Llenas] the suspect was born in the United States, he served in the United States Army, he was a veteran, the FBI is the lead agency in this investigation going through the social media and any other accounts associated with the suspect," said Justice Correspondent David Spunt. (Reference)

My point is that if Trump didn't wait until more information about who the driver of the truck was, and he impulsively made this statement this is more evidence that we have a president who cannot control his emotions and his thought process. This would mean he wanted something to be true so he reacted without waiting for confirmation.

Perhaps in his arrogance and his ability to engage in gaslighting with little negative consequences to himself, he thought he could do this again.

In this world of social media and Trump having the ablity to influence people this New Years Day post could have influenced one or more people to commit acts of violence against people they presumed to be here illegally.

Trump gave what many attending his speech perceived as his order to do anything possible to stop the certification of the election on Jan. 6th. It makes sense to think he can post something that is seen by some as a directive to become a hero to him by going on an immigrant hunt with the AR-15 they'd been hoping to have a chance to use against human targets.

Trump is the person who will be in the Situation Room in a time of crisis. He will be the decider-in-chief when it comes to launching a nuclear attack. If he makes decisions impulsively without getting all the information the ramifications could be disastrous.

It would be a better for the country if  this is another example of Trump once again disrespecting the American people and was, as Sen. Chris Murphey posted on X, intentionally lying:

Trump is making the most of this. Even a day later when the fact that this act had nothing to do with open borders is out there he is still posting lies to score political points.

With the Biden “Open Border’s Policy” I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined. Joe Biden is the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA, A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER. What he and his group of Election Interfering “thugs” have done to our Country will not soon be forgotten! MAGA

The lies are certainly dangerous, but at least his lies can be called out with real time fact checking and countered by both journalists and Democratic politicians. 

As I wrote this the subject of Trump's post was being discussed on CNN. Jim Acosta's two guests were a Trump apologist and an anti-Trumper.

The Trumper, Neil Chatterjee, tried to justify Trump's Truth Social post, but the host got the last word. This is how the segment ended with Acosta getting the last word:

Chatterjje said "He's talking about securing the border, and he's been talking for years about securing the border. And I think the data bears out that he won the election, partially because —"

Acosta interjected, "I mean, I just have to say, here he goes again! He talks about everybody else being fake news, and he's the one peddling fake news."

You can read the entire exchange on RawStory here.

Two points were being made. What they had in common was the assumption that Trump made his post on purpose. Nobody brought up that he might have made it impulsively out of wishful thinking.

Since he Trump is surrounding himself with toadies, if he impulsively decides to, for example, invade Mexico because he thinks that after an attack like New Orleans it would be the perfect time to have at least some public opinion supporting this, there won't be anyone to stop him.

I would not label my bronze statue of Trump The Thinker. I would called it The Plotter. He gets an idea and then plots on ways to make it happen without getting input from objective  experts who will help him look at the ramifications. He needs to listen to people who are familiar with the concept of unintended consequenses in real world situations.

Some unintended consquences have been and can be a lot worse than rabbits being introduced as game animals to Australia, and that was really bad. This is the illustration used in Wikipedia.

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The "dignified "Trumps are going to Jimmy Carter's funeral. This is as it should be, however this is what they will be feeling. By Hal M. Brown.

"Asked about it as he walked into a New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump responded, 'I’ll be there.' Pressed on whether he’d spoken to members of Carter’s family, Trump said he’d rather not say." (Reference) 

It is true that when one uses "dignified" and "Trump" in the same sentence the context has to be scrutinized since this could be an oxymoron. 

If Trump was a newly elected first term president who was yet to take office, I think he might have found an excuse not to attend the funeral. Since he is a former president, attending the funeral of another former president this is the proper and dignified thing to do. 

Trump, being Trump, wouldn't give up the chance to sit in the row along with other former presidential couples. I expect we'll see photos of Trump and Melania sitting with the Bidens, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes. Everyone will have their funeral faces on. Ever the performers, Donald and Melania should be able to pull this off.

For Trump this won't be a Truth Social post where he finds it impossible not to interject MAGA talking points and his true feelings into a solemn message. He's not going to begin to shake hands with any of the former presidents and pull his hand back and make the go to hell gesture with his thumb.

He may wish he would make this juvenile gesture. It would signify his distain for them. It would be like his giving Biden, Obama, and Clinton the middle finger. Trump finds it difficult to resist making it all about him and his toxic message.

A case in point is his post about the horrible attack in New Orleans.

On Truth Social, he first wrote, "When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before."

He then got around to what was his secondary thought, the victims and their families. He wrote "Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!"

Even Trump's most ardent supporters don't believe he really cares about celebrating the memory of Jimmy Carter. They know he's there to remind everyone what a great president Donald Trump was, and to rub it in to the Carter family and the other former presidents who will be in attendance that he won the election.

If he was to wear his feelings on a coat he'd have to have one made. I doubt Melania particularly cares, although I think she does have feelings, so she may not have to work that hard to appear to be moved by the funeral service. She may actually experience genuine feelings.

It may be unfair to suggest via an AI image that she'd even consider wishing she could have a designer "I really don't care, do U?" dress coat like this made:

 It is more likely that if she wanted to express her feelings on a coat it would say this:

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Is Trump like an angry caged monkey throwing feces at the fence? By Hal M. Brown

Click to read above article 

This was my comment:

I wrote:

 This is clearly a diversion.  I wrote about how he does this here: Trump is throwing yet another dead cat on the table.There's nothing that really needs to change as far as creating something like the EU. With smaller countries in Europe this made sense. Let's suppose that Canada even considered this. I see no way that they would agree to not having their citizens vote. They would have to be represented in Congress. It they became a 51st state they would be allocated two Senate seats since this is mandated in the Constitution. As far as the House went by whatever formula was used it is likely that when the representative got there they would most likely vote with the Democrats and this would totally change the balance of power. As for our Constitution, there's the pesky problem of the fact that  Canada has its own constitution. Like with states and their constitutions, things like their socialized medicine would be available to people who lived there.

Nobody outside of Trump's inner circle knows where, how, and when Trump comes up with these ideas. This Truth Social message appears to have been posted at 11:42 AM which doesn't mean he didn't get the idea at 2:00 AM. 

Perhaps Trump has a muse in his head that gives him these ideas. Or it's possible there's a real person who comes up with some or most of them. If it's a real person my bets are on Stephen Miller or Elon Musk who we know are with him in person. It could be Tucker Carlson,  Steve Bannon, Alex Jones or anyone who he comes across in social media. It's possible he has multiple maniacal and malevolent muses. He could be one of the biggest plagerizers of pointless pissantery in modern history.

I am basically blowing smoke on the Canada matter because I am not conversant with the issues involved. I am just spitballing, or perhaps better put as shitblogging, when I suggest that of the three ideas: common currency, open trade, and a EU type passport, at first blush only open, or more open, trade seems to make sense. It seems that this could accomplished with the usual kinds of trade treaties. We can't change to a common currency like the Euro without huge complications. It seems to be doable if this would benefit trade. There's no need for any change in how citizens of each country travel across the border.

Being charitable to Trump, I see that being able to entertain new and radical ideas (the cliche "out of the box thinking" applies) can be a positive. I think of how the best sitcom writers put together a show by being unhibited and even unhinged when they throw out ideas. The saying about throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks applies.

With comedy writers, for example, the crappy ideas never get to see the light of day. For example, unfunny ideas never made it onto a Seinfeld episode or into a Monty Python skit. Trump's 2:00 AM waking fever dreams are in the news within hours.

When Trump throws his spaghetti at the wall and it doesn't stick it can have negative national and international ramifications. Even when it does stick with some people because, well, because he is The Donald, he can start a process that will end up in a disaster. There are times where one can give him the benefit of the doubt and say there's method in what seems like madness. Perhaps it is all intentional, however with this supposition the saying "when pigs can fly" comes to mind. Pigs are one of the smartest mammals, but the only time a pig can fly is when it runs off a cliff.

If he is being calculating and deliberate I think at least some of the time he is using the dead cat strategy, which if you haven't already looked it up, is a "thing."

Unfortunately, if Trump actually was strategic, while as terrifying as this possiblity is,  frequently he is like an angry caged zoo monkey throwing feces at the fence. Nothing sticks, but he sure puts on a show.

If by some magical spell he turned into a monkey he'd probably sell simian Trump turds. These aren't available though you can get this on eBay.

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Jimmy Carter's death and his being called "decent" should remind people that the current president elect epidomizes the opposite. By Hal M. Brown

No matter that historians and polls rank Jimmy Carter near the middle of American presidents in terms of best to worst, all of them say something like the following (with my highlights):

Based on the C-SPAN survey, Jimmy Carter is ranked 26th out of 45 pre-Biden presidents. Carter’s ranking among his White House peers was hurt by his performance in economic management, crisis leadership, public persuasion, relationship with Congress, and administration skills. His standing is buoyed by higher ratings in pursuing equal justice for all and moral authority.

Carter’s one-term presidency (1977-1981) was hurt by economic stagnation, an energy crisis, the Iran hostage affair, his inability to persuade a Democratic-controlled Congress to pass his policies, and failure to inspire the nation. Historians gave Carter higher grades for his advocacy of human rights, and for appointing more minorities and women to the federal bench, improving relations with Latin American countries, and helping forge the 1978 peace accord between Israel and Egypt. (Reference)

In the news since his death one word seems to come up more than any other: decency. Here's a Google search, and a DuckDuckGo search (click below to enlarge image) of Jimmy Carter decency.

We all know the definition of decency. Just a reminder: it is behavior that conforms to accepted standards of morality, respectability, and virtue. They key in this definition is what one interprets "accepted standards" to mean.

Today we have about half the country who either doesn't care about whether a president is decent or, if they do, their accepted standard is so low as to be meaningless. 

Historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents. Here's the rest of the chart shown above:

In this ranking he edged out Franklin Pierce for the third worst position.

I don't know much about presidential history, but I would wager that if all presidents were ranked as to who was the most indecent, Trump would easily be number one.

One question I've seen posed was "how would you feel if your daughter was dating someone like Donald Trump." I have no doubt that many of these parents would say how great it was because he was rich and powerful.

I am not sure of the right word to use about my feelings about the fact that not enough voters cared about Trump's demonstrable indecency to vote for Kamala Harris, who, whether you agreed with her policies or not, is clearly as decent a person as they come. Words that come to mind about this state of the populace of this country are appalling and tragic.

It seems like we have become a nation of two tribes. One tribe's members are peaceful people who respect the dignity of human life. The other is composed of cannibals who want to eat them.

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Being called an HB may soon become a MAGA attack line, by Hal M. Brown

The H1-B visa controversy is all over the news (see Google News search). It involves immigration but has nothing to do with our southern border.

Click image above to enlarge.

The vast majority of Trump's base never heard of H1-B visas or other kinds of visas until recently.

At times in my life a few people have called me HB. Take the 1 out and it's me. It has a nice ring to it: aitch-bee. Why I was called this had nothing to do with where I was born. I was born in New York, my mother was born there and my father was born in New Jersey. It was just my initials. Even to this day if I hear someone call out "hey HB" I'll pay attention because I figure they know me.

Now that MAGAs know and are angry about the H1-B visas and how they are granted to foreigners who they think take jobs from Americans, I can see them angrily hurling profane insults at someone they think is here with one shouting "hey HB, get the hell out of my country", using less polite words, and even making threats or committing acts of violence.

I think Trump and Musk envision the people they want to get these visas will look like the man (I made the AI image of) in the sample visa above rather than like another of these (also AI) men shown above.

As for Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy, whose parents immigrated from India, I assume he'd be adamant that visas from counties where people didn't have white skin were granted H1-B visas based on education and skill. He'd know people like his parents would easily be granted them. His father was a graduate of the National Institute of Technology in Calicut and his mother was a graduate of the Mysore Medical College & Research Institute, one of the oldest medical schools in India.

In the twisted world of American politics and society, we now have two disparate groups of people who are persona non grata here as far as one segment of the public goes. Before all the H1-B furor about them was because they were Hispanic whether they were here legally or not. Some might even have had H1-B visas, but most would be the object of scorn and resentment by MAGAs no matter that kind of visa or job they had. They could teach at a university where they might be called a DEI hire, be a health care worker, work in an office, bodega, or mow lawns. Nobody would be telling them to pack their bags and get out because they graduated from a medical school in India. 

People from S.E. Asia and other regions of Asia, while still suffering predjuce coming from some quarters, have managed to avoid the brunt of modern racial bigotry.  Still, we all know this is all about skin color.

A MAGA who knows my politics won't insult me by calling me HB. They are more likely to call me a libtard perhaps prefaced by some choice expletives. I would be one of the people they want to leave the country because I didn't love it they way they thought I should.

They couldn't demand that I be deported because my parents and I were born here, but they'd probably wish I could be deported. They could be like members of Virginia's Friendship Baptist church with their decidely unfriendly sign, shown below. Their sign provoked local controversy.

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I post my blogs on Stressline.org where you can subscribe (for free everywhere) and on Substack where, if you want to submit your email, you can be notified of all new blog posts. I also post them on Medium because this enables them to be easily found on internet searches.

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