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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If Trump has dementia it can only be hidden for so long. This is may be the biggest "if" hanging over him. by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Trump's post on Truth Social (shown above, click to enlarge) was the subject of an article in RawStory.

One of the commenters to the article "'What is going on here???' Trump melts down over Harris endorsements weeks after election" questioned in one way or another whether Trump had dementia." wrote "Does anyone in America believe that we should have a government led by a man who is constantly described as having a meltdown" and another, Fred Berfel (who makes many good comments which you can read here), posted this Simpsons video saying Trump reminded him of Grampa Simpson. 

In the video Grampa Simpson is compos mentis. He is, in fact, deliberately using something like what Trump calls the weave.

I commented: 

Does anyone in America believe that we should have a government led by a man who is constantly described as having a meltdown

Many of the commenters to this article also raised the question of Trump's mental deterioration. Click images below to enlarge them.

Trump asks "what is going on here?" in his Truth Social post. Indeed, this is the question America should be asking. The man won the election. You'd think this post (and others) were sour grapes coming from the loser of an election. If he wasn't about to be president and wasn't surrounded by sycophants, someone who cared about him would be saying "give it up, man."

Right now we simply do not know with absolute certainty that Trump has early dementia. You can use Google and search "Trump dementia" (click) and find numerous articles wiht speculation about this.  You will find many articles by experts and others who think he does. (Clicking below will enlarge Google search image.)

Dementia always gets worse. The course of the downslide varies but it always gets worse. If Trump has it there will be a point where even the most agressive effort to hide this from the public will fail. The cliche about having to take grandpa's drivers license away because of his dementia won't apply to Trump. I wouldn't want to be standing between Trump and someone who tried to take away his ability to post on Truth Social, let alone their trying to keep him from making public appearances whenever it suits him.

It would be easier for his apologists to dismiss what he posts in Truth Social than what he says extemporaneously in public. If he goes off onto tangents like Grampa Simpson in the video saying this was a brilliant example of the weave would eventually be seen as the gaslighting it was.

Watch the video. Grampa explains that this way of talking was a deliberate trick. Note that Grampa began a fairly logical story but ends up talking about having an onion under his belt (below) and who's image was on a nickel and the toast he was making and JD Rockefeller.

There are lots of "ifs" being pondered about what Trump will do to democracy. I do not to minimize them. Our fate as a nation depends on the answers, but in many ways the biggest "if" may be whether he has early dementia and what will happen if it gets so serious it is impossible to deny.

Then the next matter open to speculation is what would happen if a year or two into Trump's term as a lame duck president J.D. Vance became president. Currently Trump can make decisions without having to worry about being elected again. We can only hope that his malignant narcissism doesn't drive him to exact revenge aganst his enemies and rule like a ruthless dictator, but that his psychopatholgy will abate as it sinks in to him that he's actually president. It would save the country considerable suffering if he just settled back and enjoyed the trappings of power. This depends on how much of a sadist he is and whether he enjoys watching enemies suffer more than having world leaders and CEOs bow down to him. 

Vance has to pay attention to the base more than Trump does. I rather doubt he will accept the team Trump put together for top positions. He will be looking for people loyal to him. He won't have to please Trump. He will want to please the voters. The country will discover what he really stands for.

There are two routes aside from Trump being impeached to Vance becoming president in the next four years. One in that Trump dies. The other is through the 25th Amendment. This has to be initiated by the vice president and approved by the majority of the Cabinet. If Trump succumbed to severe dementia unless he resigned he would have to be removed though the 25th Amendment.

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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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