Trump's Alarming First Week - Is He Mentally Ill?

Having safely escaped Tidewater Virginia for a long weekend of warm weather, there is one thing that we have not been able to escape: the continuing menace to the nation and the world posed by the current deranged occupant of the White House.  The first week of Der Fuhrer's presidency has been marked by bizarre lies and one demonstration after another that Trump likely DOES suffer from narcissistic personality disorder, a real danger to national security and the civil rights of everyday Americans.  As for immigrants and refugees, Der Fuhrer is imposing policies reminiscent of the bans that sent thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe to their deaths.  Everything revolves around satiating Trump's insatiable and fragile ego and pandering to the ugliest prejudices of his base.  Some Republicans have begun to display alarm, but most seem indifferent to the reality that the White House id now occupied by a madman who is incapable of controlling himself or moderating unhinged behavior.  A conservative columnist recaps the week's alarming cavalcade of unbalanced and ego mad behavior in a piece in the Washington Post.  Here are excerpts:

Week One of the Trump administration was among the most alarming in the history of the American presidency.

There have been scarier weeks for the country, certainly — the Cuban missile crisis and the Sept. 11 attacks. There have been more tragic ones — the Sept. 11 attacks again, the terrible toll of wartime, the horror of four presidential assassinations.

There have been occasions of terrible presidential judgment — Franklin D. Roosevelt’s order to detain U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II. And there have been moments of looming constitutional crisis — during Watergate alone, the Saturday Night Massacre, the showdown with the Supreme Court over the release of the tapes, the impeachment inquiry that resulted in Richard Nixon’s resignation.

But the first week of the Trump presidency was alarming in a different way, because the frightening part involved the president’s own erratic, even bizarre, behavior.

Anyone who paid even glancing attention to the 2016 campaign already understood Donald Trump to be undisciplined, easily provoked and self-absorbed to the point of narcissism. But it was one thing to know that in theory; it was much more unsettling to witness President Trump in action. 

[Each day feeling scarier than the one before, and Trump’s sycophantic aides modeling his own fact-free rants — press secretary Sean Spicer’s falsehood-filled briefing-room tirade, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway’s brazen defense of “alternative facts,” chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s brutish admonition to the media to “keep its mouth shut.”

Trump himself outdid his petty obsession with crowd size with his delusional obsession with popular-vote fraud. . . . . What was once delusional ego-salving now appears headed for official inquiry.

This is ominous not only for the implicit threat of imposing new and unnecessary obstacles to voting, but also because it means that no one, neither American citizens nor foreign leaders, can believe the president of the United States when he makes an assertion.

[M]y lament about the week is largely devoid of ideological content. That is not because his policy moves are not appalling — they are. But you don’t have to disagree with Trump’s policies to be rattled to the core by his unhinged behavior.

What is to be done? In a meeting last week with The Post editorial board, Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said he was weighing legislation to require presidents to undergo an independent medical examination, including for mental health. Chaffetz cautioned that he wasn’t “talking about some of the rhetoric that’s flying around” about Trump. Still, he said, “If you’re going to have your hands on the nuclear codes, you should probably know what kind of mental state you’re in.”

That can’t happen soon enough.

How anyone sane and rational can continue to support the man and make excuses for his bizarre behavior is baffling.  Are really that many Trump voters who put satisfying their bigotries ahead of the nation's long term welfare.  Trump represents "change" only because he is insane.  

Toronto: Unofficial Capital for Gay Iranian Refugees

America continues to tout itself as the "land of liberty" and home of "religious freedom."  The truth, of course is something very different with Christofascists granted special rights - the Hobby Lobby decision underscored this reality - and those of differing religious beliefs relegated to second class status under the civil laws all too often.  So where id the true land of liberty and religious freedom?  Increasingly, it is Canada, America's northern neighbor where not only religious freedom exists but where the middle class is still thriving.  Because of this gays fleeing the threat of death for their religious nonconformity in Iran and other Middle Eastern nations see Canada as the beacon of freedom.  Here are highlights from a piece in The Daily Beast:

When Ali escaped Iran and arrived in Turkey in 2012, he had already decided where he wanted the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to place him. “I told them I’m choosing Canada because I’m going to go to university [and] Canada is cheaper than U.S.; Australia is too far; and in some states in America gay marriage is not allowed and never will be allowed — so I don’t want to go to a country where they don’t give me my rights.”

Ali (not his real name) picked Toronto because he heard it was big and easier to find work. The 27-year-old arrived there at the end of May 2014 and spent 10 days in refugee housing before moving into his own apartment and logging onto Grindr to connect with others in the LGBT community — an ease of networking he never would have in his homeland. Before long, Ali began dating a Syrian man he met via the dating app and they plan to move in together soon.

In the past few years, Toronto has emerged as the mecca of Iranian gays in exile. Hosting both the second-largest Iranian population outside Iran and a reputation as LGBT-friendly, Iranians fleeing persecution in their native country have built a budding community in a city some call “Tehranto.”

Iran, on the other hand, is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be gay. Homosexual acts are punishable by flogging or death, and members of the LGBT community go to great lengths to evade police detection.

Ali is one of an increasing number of LGBT Iranian refugees who have sought out the Canadian metropolis for a better life, opting not to relocate to the United States due in part to the comparative lack of rights and protections for gay citizens and a dearth of social services.

“All of Toronto is a gay village,” says Arsham Parsi, executive director of the Toronto-based Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR).
The city is nothing if not proud. This year, Toronto’s city magazine put “Because We’re a Beacon for Gay Refugees” as one of the top 10 reason to love the city. And last year, in a scene that would have given former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an aneurysm, a towering Iranian in a tube top, black skirt, heels, and neon pink wig proudly waved an Iranian flag to guide the group of marchers in Toronto’s gay pride parade. The city even has a gay-friendly mosque.

"Canada has indicated to the United Nations that we are ready to accept anyone, if they're a gay Iranian refugee," former Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said.

[F]or LGBT exiles who have long kept their sexuality under wraps, tolerant Canada is seen as better than its southern neighbor to build a new, open life.

“Life for LGBT in Canada is totally different than life for LGBT in the U.S.,” says Parsi. In a PEW poll last year, Canada came in as the third most accepting country in the world for LGBT people, while the U.S. lagged 10 notches below.

Besides living up to its national claims of freedom, what else does Canada gain?   Talent and creativity and individuals who will likely value their new country more than many of the native born.