Is He From Mars? Pence Will Have To Try To Make This Sound Normal Tonight

The other day, Keith Olbermann recorded a telling little segment about dogs and Trump. To anyone who's ever been a friend of a dog-- and who, besides Trump, hasn't been?-- it's bad enough on it's own. But when you look at it in a broader context, Trump's psychological unfitness for leadership, it becomes even more interesting. Monday morning, NY Times columnist Charles Blow took a turn psychoanalyzing Trump, dubbing him a terroristic man-toddler.

Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist; only his form of terror doesn’t boil down to blowing things up. He’s the 70-year-old toddler who knows nearly nothing, hurls insults, has simplistic solutions for complex problems and is quick to throw a tantrum. Also, in case you didn’t know it, this toddler is mean to girls and is a bit of a bigot... devoid of fixed principles, willing to do anything and everything to gain fame, fortune and power. He has an endless, consuming need for perpetual affirmation. This is a bully who just wants to be liked, a man-boy nursing a nagging internal emptiness.

He’s fickle and spoiled and rotten.

So, when he loses at something, anything, he lashes out. When someone chastises him for bad behavior, he chafes. This is the kind of silver-spoon scion quick to yell at those he views as less privileged, and therefore less-than, “Do you know who I am?”

We do now, sir.

...This man is a brat whose money has stunted his maturation.

He shouldn’t be ushered into the White House; he should be laughed into hiding. His querulous nature shouldn’t be coddled; it should be crushed.

America is in need of a leader, not a puerile, sophomoric sniveler who is too easily baited and grossly ill-behaved.

Go to your gilded room, Donald. The adults need to pick a president.

Down the coast a ways, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne was having many of the same thoughts at the same time, explain that "he is far too nasty, immature and frighteningly undisciplined to be president" and has now "unleashed the ugly inner Donald-- the man whom the candidate and his handlers have been trying to hide."

This should be a wake-up call to political analysts who have gone out of their way since Trump announced his candidacy to pretend that he was the ingenious creator of a political special sauce who deserved our respect for “speaking his mind.” No, Trump all along has been a clinically self-involved con man who never took the issues, the presidency or the future of our country seriously. Can there be any doubt that his campaign is a branding exercise gone, quite literally, mad?

...Every time Trump has shown us how outlandishly ill-suited he is for the presidency, his outrages have been allowed to fade. Again and again he has been given opportunities to normalize his candidacy. Many can’t believe that a major party nominated someone like him. Their solution is to pretend he’s someone else.

If an onslaught against a Gold Star family didn’t stop him, why should his wee-hours-of-the-morning storm of vicious invective be any different?

The answer is that this episode should finally force everyone to say: enough. Trump is neither normal nor stable. He is manifestly dangerous to our country and erratic in everything except his unrestrained meanness. He should not be given fifth, sixth and seventh chances. He has shown us who he is. We should believe what we see.

These two columns bring up, once again, the mental health of a candidate for president. Is Trump psychologically stable? Fit to serve as president? The American Psychiatric Association told it's members to refrain from diagnosing Trump from afar. (DWT's resident school psychologist, Helen Klein took a swing at it back in early August, asking, pointedly, What is narcissistic personality? What is a sociopath? Take away the bizarre personality traits that Trump can't control and how different, really is Mike Pence from Trump. Sure, Pence is a more doctrinaire and extreme right-winger but on actual policy... they could be the same horrible person-- horrible for America, horrible for working families, horrible for human decency.



And for the moron deplorables who cleave to him-- or them-- they might want to think about their responsibilities as parents and grandparents and what kind of an example Trump is for impressionable children. America's biggest teachers' union, the National Education Association, is kicking off a campaign this week about the example Trump sets as a bully.

Citing a growing number of reports by its membership of Trump-like bullying in classrooms across the country, the National Education Association is planning to make the issue a centerpiece of its argument against Trump in ads and mailings in battleground states.

“We are going to do everything humanly possible to make sure that we have a president who will be a good role model for children,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said. “Donald Trump is not on that list, but Hillary Clinton is.”

Beginning on Monday, the union will hold conference calls and press conferences with teachers, principals and psychologists who link Trump’s comments on the national stage to a rise in bullying in the classroom. The union's outreach will also contrast Trump and Clinton's plans for education.

According to Eskelsen García, their members are reporting children threatening classmates that they might be deported by Trump or calling other classmates terrorists.

“Kids feel like they have been given permission, and they are invoking the name of Donald Trump,” she said.

...The push coincides with National Bullying Prevention Month in October, an effort that is normally part of NEA’s annual activities. But with Trump, the issue has gathered more steam.

Eskelsen García said that their concern about Trump’s impact on the younger generation extends beyond the election. “What we’re seeing is not something that will go away after Election Day," she said. “We’re seeing millions of people who seem attracted to this message, and those folks are still going to be here.”

...And NEA’s membership isn’t predominantly Democratic. A third identify as independent and another roughly one-third of its membership identifies as Republican. Critically for Clinton, the union’s membership is composed of about 75 percent women, voters with whom Trump has struggled.

Bobby Jindal Don't Like No Science And Don't Like No Art-- So That Makes Him A Bona Fide Redneck?

Last night Ken and I were trying to grapple with-- if not exactly "understand"-- some conventional wisdom, namely that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is very educated, very intelligent man and a "policy wonk," or at least what would pass for a Republican version of a policy wonk. His 100% Know Nothing attack on volcano monitoring made him sound like either an ignoramus or a two-bit craven hack pandering to the worst instincts of the purposefully ignorant anti-science crowd that had its day of quasi-respectability when George Bush sat in the White House. Soon after his snide comment about how the federal government (i.e., Barack Obama's new budget) "wastes" money on trying to understand volcano eruptions Alaska's Mount Redoubt exploded for the first time in decades. It's still exploding nearly a week later. Senator Mark Begich of Alaska sent Jindal an e-mail: "I sleep better knowing the scientists are at work ... keeping track of this activity." I suppose the Louisiana electorate is happy Jindal didn't denigrate hurricane monitoring. No amount of media hype will ever persuade me that a man who gratuitously addresses the nation by demeaning science and scientists-- a man, no less, claiming to be able to cure cancer by performing an exorcism-- is actually "intelligent," other than perhaps in a cunning and purely political, manipulative kind of way.

Yesterday Shaun Treat, who got his PhD at Louisiana State University in 2004 and is now an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Communication Studies at the University of North Texas, teamed up with Holley Vaughn, a doctoral candidate in his old department at LSU to warn us about the real life effects of Jindal's politically motivated budget cuts, another manifestation of his exalted status in GOP circles as a "policy wonk," I suppose. Their report:

Bobby Jindal is about to enact a shameful budget cut that will devastate Louisiana's economy by slashing the state budget for the Arts and Arts education by 83%.

Yes, you read that correctly... 83 percent!

This extremist Republican will virtually eliminate a $10 billion industry supporting 144,000 jobs. The Louisiana House Appropriations Committee will be meeting on April 2nd-- which is next week!-- and they are our last hope to stop Jindal from pressing this insane course of action!

We are working to persuade the media to cover this story and give desperately-needed assistance to those Louisianians fighting to keep the Arts and Arts Education alive in our communities and schools!

Investing in the arts is economically productive. It is paramount in revitalizing struggling urban centers and dilapidating historic districts. In terms of civics, these programs foster public discourse and debate and critically activate public memory. Moreover, these programs attract tourism, which is a vital part of Louisiana's struggling economy.

This shameful attack that shows Jindal's true NeoConservative colors!

Now keep in mind that aside from berating scientific pursuits like volcano monitoring, Jindal also gave the finger to funding the National Endowment for the Arts, a perennial Republican Party target. The U.S. Conference of Mayors blasted Jindal after his speech, pointing out that "Louisiana is home to 7,013 arts-related businesses that employ 27,117 people."

In Northwest Louisiana (10-parish region around Shreveport), nonprofit arts groups and their audiences generate $89.77 million in economic activity, support 2,367 jobs, and provide nearly $13 million in state and local tax revenue.

In addition to the arts contributing tremendously to Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, the state launched the World Cultural Economic Forum this past fall to showcase the link between the arts, economy, and tourism. It will be expanded in 2009.

Louisiana's Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism launched the Louisiana Cultural Economy Initiative in 2004; in addition to promoting the arts, the program aims to attract businesses related to the arts to the state. Its 2004 report showed that for every state tax dollar spent, $5.86 is returned to the state treasury and citizens of Louisiana.

The National Endowment for the Arts will distribute $50 million of the stimulus funds to arts projects in all 50 states which specifically preserve jobs in the nonprofit arts sector that have been most hurt by the economic downturn.

In 2008, Louisiana received 27 grants totaling $1,343,700 from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The "cultural economy" in Louisiana is very real and Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu's office explains that the $2.5 million grants Jindal is trying to eliminate are a tremendous economic boost to every parish in the state. “The cultural economy is a $10 billion industry supporting 144,000 jobs. It’s certainly worth the investment, and the return on the investment has been significant. Our cultural stakeholders have made the industry a significant player in Louisiana’s economic health.”

I think it will surprise most DWT readers to know that I am an honorary officer of the Louisiana Highway Patrol. Even more shocking, the person who appointed me to my position was Governor David Treen, the first Republican governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction! And why would a conservative Republican governor appoint someone like me who leans slightly to the left and ran a punk rock record label in San Francisco's Mission District to such an exalted position? Bidness-- arts bidness. I signed a band from Metarie, the Red Rockers, to my label and their music and videos started getting airplay all over America, boosting Lousiana's image as a cultural center. I doubt Gov. Treen ever listened to their songs or grasped what it meant when critics termed them the "American Clash," but he sensed it was something that would bring Louisiana some business. Tony Award-winning actress Jane Alexander, who chaired the National Endowment for the Arts from 1993-1997, remembers when a Republican Congress gleefully slashed the organization's budget back then and disagrees with Jindal's claim that funding the arts are not in any way "Stimulus" for an ailing economy. Alexander:

What people forget is that there are over 2 million people in the United States of America who are professional artists. Those are jobs like any other jobs. The artists have families, they have people for whom they're responsible and they give to their communities.

We all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The life part would be health and housing. The liberty part would be our civil rights. And the pursuit of happiness, the arts would come under that. And it's as vital a part of well-being in the United States as anything else... [W]hat he [Jindal] doesn't understand is that $50 million goes directly ... as a grant to organizations which employ people. It's quick and it's a system that works beautifully and it's done within a year.

There's a great deal that Bobby Jindal doesn't understand-- or makes believe he doesn't understand, which-- Ken reminded me-- is even worse. Like I said, I'm pretty sure Gov. Treen never listened to the Red Rockers and I'll bet Gov. Jindal never has either. I put together a short music clip last year they probably won't want to watch either. You may though:

Darcy Burner, The Not-Sarah-Palin-Candidiate From Suburban Seattle

The whole world (minus, obviously, women who base their daily schedules, if not their lives, on reality TV) wants Obama to win the presidential election.

Britain- Obama 54%
Germany- Obama 61%
France- Obama 62%
Australia- Obama 62%
Italy- Obama 64%
Canada- 69%
Nigeria- 71%
Kenya- 87%

Obama was preferred by citizens of every single country polled, not just our allies above but also India, China, the Philippines, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Panama, Lebanon, Mexico, the U.A.E., Russia, Singapore, Brazil and Poland. What do citizens in all these countries have in common? Not much... other than hope.

Back in the U.S.A., McCain has been making strides against Obama, particularly with low-info voters, who are thrilled seeing Sarah Palin's purty face on the cover of the magazines they read: the National Enquirer, US Weekly and People. What a celeb! No telling when-- or even if-- voters will look past her celebrity and at where she stands on the issues and look past the campaign talking points and look at her actual record on earmarks, Bridges to Nowhere, and shockingly dishonest personal corruption.

Residents of the eastern Seattle suburbs who want to vote for an attractive young woman and mother are much luckier than residents in most places. In Bellevue, Mercer Island, Sammamish, the Lake Washington suburbs and the family-oriented blue collar suburbs of southern King County and Pierce County from Orting all the way east to Mt. Rainier, they can pull the lever for Darcy Burner and get not just good looks, but intelligence, sanity, solid policy direction and the ability-- even eagerness-- to answer a substantive question. Image... Sarah Palin without all the crazy baggage!

This afternoon Blue America did its first-ever live fundraiser; it was a low-key lunch at Cru in Silverlake for Darcy Burner. Except no one told Darcy it was low-key. After letting everyone else say a few words, she pressed on-- and... wow... like Ann said, "It was like a seminar on how to run a grassroots campaign." And it wasn't all "me, me, me" like most fundraisers tend to be. Darcy was very much oriented towards the progressive movement. When Digby asked her what we could do to help her, she pivoted right into help other progressive candidates around the country. Darcy is a truly inspiring candidate. I'm so proud to know her!

One thing we did discuss, though, is the NEA and how they, and other "progressive" interest groups like them routinely sell out progressive candidates for their own pathetic, shallow and ineffectual Inside the Beltway politics. Earlier today I corresponded with someone from the campaign of Florida Blue Dog Christine Jennings. She was trying to persuade me that Jennings was a good match for Blue America and, naively, mentioned other "progressive" organizations that had endorsed her. One was HRC, one of the most craven and despicable of all the sell-out one-issue bottom feeders in DC. Desperate for the "credibility" of bipartisanship, HRC looks for Republicans who may be disastrous for gay families but who aren't quite as disastrous as a Jim Inhofe, John Cornyn or self-loathing closet queen Mitch McConnell. Take their shameful endorsement of Susan Collins whose so-so voting record is no match for her Democratic opponent's perfect voting record. Collins voted for all Bush's hideous, violently anti-gay judicial appointments. Tom Allen, of course, opposed every one of them and, as a senator, has vowed to never vote to confirm anyone who favors discriminating against any group of Americans.

The NEA, similarly desperate for that kind of bogus Inside-the-Beltway credibility, scoured the country for Republican incumbents in high profile, tight races who they could endorse. One was Darcy's abysmal opponent, Dave Reichert, and another was Missouri reactionary goon Sam Graves. Like HRC, the NEA has lost all credibility. (Fortunately the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Darcy, which means the bureaucrats who waste tax money are for Reichert and the actual front line teachers are for Darcy.)

Anyway, we would like to help Darcy raise some money to make up for the $5,000 those craven imbeciles at the NEA gave Reichert. See that picture of Darcy up top? She's holding a Georgie-Is-Outta-Here Party In A Box. What's that? All you need to celebrate the end of George Bush's political career! Watch the video:

Georgie Is Outta Here Party In A Box!


It's never too early to prepare for the end of Bush-Cheney. You can buy the box online now or wait for them to hit the stores... or win one by donating to Darcy's campaign. Everyone who donates this week at the Blue America Darcy Burner page gets entered into a sweepstakes to win the box. There's no minimum amount you have to donate-- and it's a GREAT cause... and we have half a dozen boxes to give away.