Trump: "This is why our country doesn't work." Fire marshal unfazed by Trump gibe
By Jeremy Diamond and Noah Gray, CNN Updated 12:29 AM ET, Sun July 31, 2016
(CNN) — Donald Trump and members of his Secret Service detail were briefly trapped in an elevator Friday before a campaign rally in Colorado Springs.
They were rescued by firefighters with the Colorado Springs Fire Department [ https://csfd.coloradosprings.gov/ ], which lowered a ladder into the elevator, allowing Trump and his entourage to climb out.
Trump eventually took the stage at the rally, where he opened his remarks by blasting the local fire marshal for shutting off entry to his campaign event due to capacity restrictions.
"This is why our country doesn't work," Trump said as he slammed the Colorado Springs fire marshal during the rally, moments after the department's firefighters rescued him. The paper reported that Trump said the fire marshal "didn't know what he was doing and 'was probably a Democrat.' "
"There's an old adage that when a fire marshal walks into a room, milk curdles. So because we're always looking out for public safety and trying to make certain venues go off successfully and safely sometimes there are people that aren't very happy with some of the rules and regulations we're required to enforce. But it doesn't bother me at all," Lacey said.
TEARS AND TANTRUMS Donald Trump made a baby cry and got stuck in a lift during a disastrous time on the campaign trail Republican presidential candidate was hoping his trip to Colorado would go much better than it did DONALD Trump messed up the traditional politician kissing baby photocall and got stuck in a lift during a bad few days on the presidential campaign trail. 31st July 2016 https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1529803/donald-trump-made-a-baby-cry-and-got-stuck-in-a-lift-during-a-disastrous-time-on-the-campaign-trail/ [with embedded video; no comments yet]
First, several important caveats. There is little worse and nothing cheesier than questioning the psychological stability of a public figure, especially a candidate for president, even in this case.
Except that in his year of campaigning, Donald Trump has called Lindsey Graham “a nut job,” Glenn Beck “a real nut job,” and Bernie Sanders “a wacko.” Trump has insisted Ben Carson’s got a “pathological disease,” and asked of Barack Obama: “Is our president insane?” He called Ted Cruz “unstable,” “unhinged,” “a little bit of a maniac,” and “crazy or very dishonest.” He also called the entire CNBC network “crazy.” He called Megyn Kelly “crazy”—at least six times.
Respectful reticence about aspersions and cliches and mental-health questions in a time in which mocking was seemingly slowly maturing into concern, died a long time ago in this presidential cycle—and it died at Donald Trump’s hands. Moreover, if the question is asked seriously and not gratuitously, just the examination might explain how Trump has seemingly survived dozens of moments that might each have been campaign-enders for almost anybody else. Why have we not asked if a given presidential candidate might be disqualified from office due to psychological reasons? Because we not only can’t see this forest for the trees, but each time we try, there are even more trees blocking our view. In the 24-hour news cycle, each successive John Yerkes Iselin moment is not registered cumulatively; it merely supplants the one from last week. Or yesterday. Or this morning.
This could also explain Trump’s seeming imperviousness to his own mind-bending campaign. Surely it must be exhausting to attack Mexicans (June 16, 2015), to attack John McCain (July 18), attack Muslims (December 7), attack the Pope (February 18, 2016), attack President Clinton (May 18), attack candidates who use a teleprompter (May 27) a day after you give a speech using a teleprompter (May 26). It’s got to be exhausting—unless, as the old joke goes, “No pain, no gain. And: no brain, no pain.”
Anyway.
The actual sanity test I found is called, by delicious coincidence, “The Hare Psychopathy Checklist.” Introduced by Canadian criminal psychologist Robert D. Hare in 1980, it is still in use, though with ever more diffuse and specific mental-health diagnoses, it is not without its critics. However, as a practicing therapist who walked me through it agreed, it serves as a kind of triage device to separate the injured from the tripping from the psychopathic.
And about that word. We seem to have completely muddied up sociopath and psychopath. Sociopath? Roughly speaking, think Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, living out there in his shack in the woods, feeling nothing for other humans and unable to interact with them, literally mailing it in. Psychopath? Think Ted Bundy, feeling nothing for other humans but having long ago learned how to expertly mimic relationships by being whatever he needed to be to whomever he needed to use, killing at least 30 women, serving as his own counsel and cross-examining a female witness, proposing marriage to her while she was on the stand—and getting her to say “yes.”
For each of the 20 items on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, you’re supposed to assign the subject a 0, 1, or 2. The highest and most dangerous score is a 40. In the U.S., the accepted minimum score for possible psychopathy is 30.
So. Those are the rules. Let’s play the Freud:
1. Glibness/superficial charm ... --- THRU ---
20. Criminal versatility The psychological professional and I got into a big debate about this one. She argued that “criminal” is not necessarily meant literally here, that if you scammed charities, stole money from grandmothers via a phony university, and directed about 20 percent of your campaign’s monthly spending toward companies you own and the reimbursement for travel by your children, it all qualified.
My point was that the word “criminal” is used. Not “dishonest,” not “unethical,” not “nefarious.” Capital-C “criminal” and the perp walk or multi-million-dollar fine and restitution that that implies. Not that that couldn’t be the end result of “Trump U” but it isn’t, not yet.
Points Awarded: 0 Final Score: 32, out of 40
So, there you have it. He peters out toward the end there, but with 30 points being the marker at which professionals could present a diagnosis of psychopathy, the implications are clear. Our Trumperor’s New Clothes media rightly sees the latest Trump “event”—whatever it is this time—as one of the most unbelievable developments in American political history. But the simple mechanics of following, reporting, and writing the proverbial “new high in low” every single day means that they could be missing one overriding truth about the health of the most remarkable presidential candidate since at least 1864.
In short, our amateurs’ exercise with the very professional Hare Psychopathy Checklist suggests that if you were betting on it, you’d probably want to bet that Donald Trump couldn’t pass a sanity test—open book.
And now, having slogged through this inventory of the Citizen Kane Storage Unit of bizarre presidential candidate conduct, go look at Twitter. Because in the time it took you to read this, he’s probably just done something new to raise his score.
What Really Happened at Donald Trump's Intelligence Briefing
by Ken Dilanian, Robert Windrem and William Arkin Sep 8 2016, 11:37 am ET
[...]
Six current and former senior officials said they were aware of friction between retired Gen. Michael Flynn, one of the advisers Trump brought to the briefing, and the officials who conducted the briefing. Four sources with knowledge of the briefing — including two intelligence officials who spoke to people in the room — said Flynn repeatedly interrupted the briefers until New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie intervened.
Both Christie and Flynn denied the officials' version of events, with Flynn calling the report "total b__s___" and Christie calling it "a complete work of fiction.
[...]
"Current and former U.S. intelligence officials who asked that their names not be disclosed told NBC News that many members of the current intelligence community -- leadership rank and file -- were angered by Trump's comments Wednesday night, and the possibility that he may have disclosed details of his intelligence briefing or attempted to politicize it.
Former CIA and NSA director Mike Hayden, who opposes Trump, told NBC News that in almost four decades in intelligence "I have never seen anything like this before.""
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