monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Eric Kleefeld‏ @EricKleefeld 21h21 hours ago
Reminder: Of course Trump is against transgender people. When he walks up to grab a pussy, he doesn't want *any* surprises.

Parker Molloy‏Verified account @ParkerMolloy 20h20 hours ago
Cost of trans medical care in military: $2.4-8.4 million est.
Cost the military already spends on boner pills: $84.2 million

https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/30/trump-mental-health/

Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill? Part 2 - 5 Professors of Psychiatry Say Donald Trump is “unraveling” and Call on Congress “to remove him from office”
Updated Jul 12, 2017

On November 29, 2016, three distinguished Professors of Psychiatry from Harvard and The University of California decided to defy “The Goldwater Rule”, publicly diagnose Donald Trump and to warn President Obama and the country about what they saw as his severe personality disorders and mental incapacities.

They shared their letter with me and I posted it in an article here in The Huffington Post, “Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill? 3 Professors Of Psychiatry Ask President Obama To Conduct ‘A Full Medical And Neuropsychiatric Evaluation’”

Yesterday these three professors and two additional professors from Yale and Columbia University felt the need to inform The United States Congress that “The signs of the president’s unraveling are stark” and that “The power of the presidency has accentuated Mr. Trump’s failings with devastating effects”.

They urge Congress to “invoke the Constitutional provisions to remove him from office.”

They shared this letter with me and I post it here.

July 11, 2017

To Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives:

Since the election of 2016, each of us has warned against President Trump’s alarming psychological instability, which has been apparent in his repeated failures to distinguish between reality and fantasy and his erratic responses to stress and crisis. We were also concerned about his tendency to become enraged at the slightest criticism. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greene/is-donald-trump-mentally_b_13693174.html

The signs of the president’s unraveling are stark, and they are contributing to his inability to govern: his failure to guard against hacking of our elections and related threats to national security, his decimation of the State Department and other vital government agencies, his irrational, unilateral withdrawal from the world’s commitment to prevent catastrophic climate change, his intemperate exploitation of the presidency to enrich himself and his family, his unremitting threats against a free press, his vitriolic verbal assaults against anyone (especially any woman) who questions his actions or state of mind, and his imposition of false narratives whenever the truth casts him in a bad light.

The power of the presidency has accentuated Mr. Trump’s failings with devastating effects. His psychological isolation – including his tenuous relationship to reality – has led to the dangerous isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.

Our Constitution has provisions for removing any president who is unable to discharge the duties of office. For the sake of our country and the world, we urge our elected representatives to summon their courage so that lawful steps can be taken to end the Trump presidency.

Judith L. Herman, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., Professor Emeritus, CUNY, and Lecturer in Psychiatry, Columbia University

Nanette Gartrell, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (1988-2011)

Dee Mosbacher, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Community Health Systems, University of California, San Francisco (2005-2013)

Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine.

Contributors to forthcoming book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/is-donald-trump-mentally-ill-part-2-5-professors_us_59669d39e4b07b5e1d96ed22

This president should not be the president, and the sooner he is not, the better.

Is there anything Republicans won't tolerate from Trump?

It's all about unit cohesion. Pinky swear!

Quote:

Parker Molloy‏Verified account @ParkerMolloy 20h20 hours ago
Cost of trans medical care in military: $2.4-8.4 million est.
Cost the military already spends on boner pills: $84.2 million

What is Trump thinking here?...
And why would he do this so haphazardly?

Quote:

What is Trump thinking here?...
And why would he do this so haphazardly?

Why do people keep asking this type of question about what Trump does?
It seems as if no matter how many times he proves he's erratic, impulsive and in way over his head, people keep scratching their heads and asking what is his strategy - his plan - the method to his madness? He does whatever feels right in the moment. Just because that was enough for fools to elect him, doesn't mean he has a ******* clue about anything.

For decades leading up to President Trump’s Wednesday tweets announcing a ban on transgender people in the military, the businessman-turned-politician has approached the LGBT community on nonideological terms.

Trump’s relationships with LGBT people, and his evolving positions on issues, have been transactional, according to people who have interacted with him, focused largely on how the community might affect his interests in the moment.

Only a year ago, candidate Trump presented himself as a social liberal seeking to move the Republican Party left on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

He vowed that he would do more than Democrat Hillary Clinton to protect LGBT people. He defended the rights of Caitlyn Jenner, the country’s most well-known transgender advocate, to use whichever bathroom she wanted in Trump Tower. And he added “Q” to his discussion of the “LGBTQ community” in his Republican National Convention speech to show he was in the know.

“People are people to me, and everyone should be protected,” he told The Washington Post in a May 2016 interview.

But circumstances have been changing since Trump entered the White House.

While his staff has met with LGBT advocates and he has hired several New Yorkers who have supported LGBT rights in the past, Trump’s administration has taken positions more in tune with the president’s social conservative base. It has quietly rolled back protections for transgender schoolchildren, removed information about LGBT rights from the White House website and declined to recognize LGBT Pride Month in June.

Trump’s tweets on Wednesday delivered yet another a victory to the political right — including many House Republicans whose support he needs for his policy agenda — while surprising many Republican LGBT activists who had hoped he would end the culture war within the party.

Those familiar with Trump say his stances aren’t contradictory, but rather illustrate the consistency of his instincts to shape his views depending on the moment.

“I don’t believe Donald Trump has an personal animus toward LGBT individuals,” said Gregory T. Angelo, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, which represents gay conservatives and allies. “This smacks of politics, pure and simple.”

Angelo, who once labeled Trump the “most pro-LGBT Republican nominee in history,” said there seems to be a political calculation that reigniting the transgender rights debate will help galvanize conservative voters in the 2018 elections and expand GOP majorities in Congress. A more conservative Congress would allow Trump to achieve more legislative victories, such as his coveted border wall with Mexico or erasing President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul.

“If you think you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare by using LGBT soldiers as a political football, you’ve got another thing coming,” Angelo said.

The White House on Wednesday sought to portray Trump’s announcement as a narrow policy matter and not a reflection of the president’s personal views toward the transgender community.

When asked if this means the president will also reconsider allowing transgender individuals to serve in his administration, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said no, adding that the ban was a “decision based on what was best for the military and military cohesion.” She denied that decision was politically motivated.