Knowing Your Audience

As we move through Month Three of the Trump Tantrum the NY Times continues the fun by dissociating from reality, or something. This self-help piece by Lesley Alderman seems timely yet unfocused:

The Year of Conquering Negative Thinking

Here’s a New Year’s challenge for the mind: Make this the year that you quiet all those negative thoughts swirling around your brain.

All humans have a tendency to be a bit more like Eeyore than Tigger, to ruminate more on bad experiences than positive ones. It’s an evolutionary adaptation that helps us avoid danger and react quickly in a crisis.

But constant negativity can also get in the way of happiness, add to our stress and worry level and ultimately damage our health. And some people are more prone to negative thinking than others. Thinking styles can be genetic or the result of childhood experiences, said Judith Beck, a psychologist and the president of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. Children may develop negative thinking habits if they have been teased or bullied, or experienced blatant trauma or abuse. Women, overall, are also more likely to ruminate than men, according to a 2013 study.

On the other hand, in social and/or political circles where status is elevated by victimhood, negative thinking may be the way to go. In any case, the reader revolt in the comments confirms that plenty of progressives have no intention of finding anything positive about the current environment.

Yet in a different story we actually find unexpected positivity and imagination from - please sit down - NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio. He is making the same point about Trump's son-in-law and key adviser that many others have made yet few progs seem able to embrace:

Jared Kushner Named Senior White House Adviser to Donald Trump

...

The scion of a prominent Democratic family active in New Jersey politics, Mr. Kushner showed few early signs that he would become a national political power player. A Harvard graduate, he is a lifelong Democrat, liberal on social issues. Like his ideologically limber father-in-law, he has donated to Democratic candidates.

Mr. Kushner’s appointment was greeted with relief by some liberals, including Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, who views him as moderating influence in a Trump West Wing dominated by hard-line conservatives. “I respect him a lot,” Mr. de Blasio said when asked about Mr. Kushner on Monday. “I’ve known him for years and find him to be a very reasonable person.”

My goodness. Like Trump himself, or Mike Bloomberg, Kushner is almost surely a "cut taxes, cut regulation" Northeastern Republican who has no interest in the social conservative agenda. In the rest of the country, he would be considered a staunch liberal. Yet progressives will freak out by this appointment anyway, because Trump.

So negative.

Comments

[dublindave]

"It takes a certain genius to produce a story that somehow manages to discredit even trolls who had not a scintilla of credibility to begin with"

Ignatius seems a wee bit angry.

I better not piss him off today.

[Porchlight]

Here's the guy who claims to be the anon on /pol/ who fed the story to Wilson. Says he's talking to attorneys.

Nick Rochfort ‏@trsprudence Speaking to a lawyer today, about publishing stuff. Tldr Two party notification state, etc

I can tell from his twitter feed that he's definitely /pol/ish, so I don't know, he could be putting people on.

As of last night he was tweeting about under his pseudonym, Sgt. Prudence - now he's changed his account and appears to be using his real name.

[DebinNC]

"Tapper & McRINO got punk'd" links at Drudge.

[Porchlight]

Trump is kicking ass. I love it.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Trump just refused to give CNN a question, because they are fake news. Bwahahahaha!

[JimNorCal]

DebInNC: "CNNgate certainly explains why usually sane, conservative media peeps like Ben Shapiro, Jonah Goldberg, and most of National Review, worked so hard to defeat DT"

Sure, it could be.
But I still think these guys have bought into a lot of the Dem slime that all Repubs are evil racists who drag their knuckles and speak with an accent. Like Sen McCain they're all "sure, Repubs are evil but not ME"

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

BBC News---"another beauty."

[JimNorCal]

Did PL post this joke? Getting it multiple times per day in email....

(image of Trump on phone): Knock! Knock!

(image of Hillary on phone): Who's there?

(image of White House): Not YOU!

[Willy]

Free national Wi-fi with firewall...Wait and see.

[PD]

"Trump refuses to drop business ties"

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-business-ties-conflicts-233468

[Stephanie despicable me]

The report just made it to the Tillerson hearing. Sen Chris Murphy - Dumbass.

[PD]

"Trump nominee with ties to Putin faces confirmation hearing"

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/11/politics/tillerson-confirmation-hearing

Reported by CNN, a "news" organization with something stronger than "ties" to Hillary Clinton.

[Old Lurker]

That was wonderful to behold.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Old Lurker,

Well, that was certainly satisfying. All of this carp about him not building the wall, not replacing Obamacare, discounted.

Apparently he's had Pence working on identifying resources to get moving on it, and IT WILL BE A WALL.

Plus, CNN was completely trashed as fake news, which was great! And BBC got a put down, too.

Most impressive in the divestiture of his business is that any fees to hotels or resorts paid by foreign governments will go to the US Treasury!

[Old Lurker]

New Thread

[JimNorCal]

https://sli.mg/GGc1iX

Yeah, I'm a newb for posting images...go easy on me...It's in the LUN if this doesn't work. Preview only shows a link not the image so it's hard to tell.

[Jim Eagle]

Tillerson gave the correct and legitimate response to dumbass Chris Murphy about how you decide to do business in ANY country not just Sudan, Iran, etc.

1. Is it legal under American law?
2. Does the sanctity of contract exist?
3. Do they have in place commercial protocols recognized internationally.

Outside of No. 1, No. 2 is the most important.

I will add my own special selection criteria: Can it pass the "giggle" test? IOW's you bring the strategy or deal to your board and/or shareholders and they don't laugh at you, then its worth doing.

[JimNorCal]

Oh good, new thread!
I'll try again on this dead one and then move on...
https://sli.mg/GGc1iX
[img] https://sli.mg/GGc1iX [/img]

[DebinNC]

Reporting Porch's earlier link to the fake Trump intel documents Staggering that this obviously bogus stunt fooled our intel services, a U.S. senator, and everyone in the headquarters building of CNN.

[JimNorCal]

Dang it :)

[DebinNC]

Worked great, Jim, and, sadly, it's so true.

[the generallyistic deplorable rich]

IT WAS THE RUSSIANS!!!

They made the documents.

[Cecil Turner]

...go easy on me...

Okay, but it's super simple. Just use this line to link an image:
<img src="place url here">

In your example, it looks like:
<img src="https://i.sli.mg/GGc1iX.jpg">
which gives:

Note that an image isn't considered text in Typepad, which won't allow a blank comment, so you have to put in some text other than the picture in order to post. Cheers.

[Captain Hate]

Trump just refused to give CNN a question, because they are fake news. Bwahahahaha!

I heard that on the radio; some pussyboy was whining "you attacked us so we get to respond" answered by "fuck you, junior; next question" (perhaps a slightly inaccurate paraphrase).

Never another tomato can!

[Willy]

Embarassing for CNN but it's only going to work consistently if used very, very sparingly. I was hoping the guy would persist until thrown out.

They are all wondering when they will feel the lash, and they will have a strategery next presser say in 2018.

[Davod]

Shep was just on Fox talking about Trump's outburst at the CNN journalist. Shep stated that Fox had no problems with the CNN reporting.