It turns out that, when it comes to best practices for dealing with serious mental disorders, I’m doing a lot of the “don’ts” with Trump but not the things I should be doing.
Don’t use sarcasm. Avoid humor. Don’t criticize, accuse or blame. Avoid sounding patronizing or condescending. Don’t assume they are not smart. Be respectful. Be aware that the delusions they may experience are their reality. Stay calm. Minimize distractions. Turn off the TV. Simplify — one topic at a time. Stick to present issues. Acknowledge what the other person says and how they feel, even if you don’t agree.
.. You can’t just smile reassuringly when he tells you millions of people voted illegally in the election but he has no evidence that Russia interfered.
.. We’re seeing “somebody who has operated basically his whole life without anybody to check him,” with no concept of the “highly structured governmental sphere with checks and balances and legal restraints in terms of who does what,” Reed said.
.. Trump, he said, has a “moment-to-moment” way of thinking, without an orderly, long-term strategy.
Good-golly Gorsuch may turn out to be a rascal on the bench
Gorsuch played a folksy sycophant straight out of the 1950s.
No fewer than eight times he punctuated his testimony with “Leave It to Beaver” exclamations of “goodness” — “goodness, no!” “oh, my goodness!”
.. It’s a good bet that Gorsuch, once he has charmed the grown-ups and secured confirmation, will, like Haskell, reveal himself to be a rascal and cause all manner of mischief on the court with abortion and gun rights, money in politics and presidential power.
.. Leahy noted that Feinstein told him not to let Gorsuch’s flattery “go to your head, Pat.”
“Oh, he should!” Gorsuch insisted.
And when Leahy asked Gorsuch to “trust me” on a historical point, Gorsuch gushed: “I trust you, entirely.”
.. The most Democrats can hope for from Gorsuch is that he’ll stand up to Trump when he exceeds his constitutional powers.
.. Was he sincere in saying that he was a lowly “speechwriter” or “scribe” and not the brains behind a controversial memo he authored?
Was he sincere when he said “we were all surprised” to find his name on Trump’s shortlist?
.. People ordinarily don’t talk like this: “I have a loving wife, a beautiful home and children, a great job with wonderful colleagues. I’m a happy person.”
Kellyanne Conway is playing the ‘woman card’ all wrong
What Conway is asking for now, after Trump’s win, is to return to a traditional gender role. She doesn’t want a job in the administration, because she wants to have time with her four kids, to help with homework and make meals. “My children are 12, 12, 8 and 7, which is bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea for mom going inside.”
.. She spoke about how she didn’t like the way Clinton and Sarah Palin were treated in the 2008 campaign. “I left the 2008 campaign feeling really icky,” she said. “I had two daughters at the time, now three, and we just can’t feel good about that. It’s great to ask how we’re making opportunities for women, but do we even have each other’s support, frankly, on our way there?”
She expressed no such misgivings about Trump’s 2016 run, in which he disparaged Carly Fiorina’s face, said both Clinton and Fiorina gave him headaches, used a vulgar word for female genitalia on the stump and suggested Megyn Kelly’s menstruation played a role in the Fox News personality’s tough questioning of him. He had previously fantasized publicly about a woman giving oral sex, fat-shamed a Miss Universe and spoke of the importance of having “a young, beautiful piece of ass.”
.. “I was always raised to respect the office of the presidency and its current occupant,” said the woman whose boss led the campaign questioning the current president’s legitimacy as a native-born American.