https://archive.is/v9RJo

It’s long been deeply unsettling to me how many behaviors associated with psychopathy Mr. Trump exemplifies. There are seven characteristics associated with “antisocial personality disorder,” according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: deceitfulness, impulsivity, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, irritability and aggressiveness, reckless disregard for the safety of self or others, consistent irresponsibility and lack of remorse. I’ve observed all seven in Mr. Trump over the years, and watched them get progressively worse. It’s the last one — lack of remorse — that gives him license to freely exercise the other six.

The past is prologue and, as Mr. Trump has said, he’s essentially the same person today that he was as a child. That is the central warning “The Apprentice” poses, and it comes just five weeks before the election.

Ever since Mr. Trump announced in 2015 that he was running for president, I’ve argued publicly that the only limitation on his behavior as president — then and now — is what he believes he can get away with. Mr. Trump has made it clear that he believes he can get away with a lot more today. If he does win back the presidency, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll have much more on his mind than revenge and domination — damn the consequences — in his doomed, lifelong quest to feel good enough.

The inside story of how the producers of “The Apprentice” crafted a TV version of Mr. Trump — measured, thoughtful and endlessly wealthy — that ultimately fueled his path to the White House.

Late in the summer of 2003, a team of television producers stepped off the elevator on the 26th floor of Trump Tower eager to survey the set of their next reality show. After years filming “Survivor” in jungles around the world, training cameras on exotic spiders and deadly snakes to evoke danger, they came looking for a different set of sensory clues, the tiny details that would convey wealth and power.

Right away, they knew they had a problem.

The first thing they noticed was the stench, a musty carpet odor that followed them like an invisible cloud. Then they spotted scores of chips in the finish of the wooden desks and credenzas. The décor felt long out of date, making the space seem like a time capsule from when Donald J. Trump opened the building early in his first rise to fame.

One of the Biden White House’s greatest achievements, from the perspective of its staffers, if not necessarily the country, has been to deny the press the kind of juicy leaks that were constant under Donald Trump and frequent under his predecessors. Save for a very narrow period of time, that is, when there was a push to force an aging president toward the exits: Then and only then we got a drip-drip-drip of fascinating inside information.

For instance, we learned that Biden hadn’t held a full cabinet meeting since last October and that his handlers expected scripted questions from his cabinet officials. We learned that his capacities peak between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and diminish outside that six-hour window. We learned that congressional Democrats, liberal donors and some journalists all had exposure to Biden’s decline that they didn’t discuss publicly until the debacle of the June debate. We learned that none other than Hunter Biden was acting as a close adviser to his father in the crucial days after that debate.

We even learned that from early in his presidency, the first lady’s closest aides worked to shield her husband from the staff that serves the first family in its living quarters, even as the aides themselves were given unusual access to the residence — as though it were essential to create a cocoon of loyalty and silence around the nation’s chief executive even when he isn’t on the job.

These are all interesting and pertinent facts about the man who officially leads the United States in a time of global danger — and they have not ceased to be pertinent because that president is no longer running for re-election.

(...)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/10/opinion/joe-biden-president.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CE4.0hyL.9CNFJAmhWmk2&smid=url-share

https://archive.is/u2JyP

hi guys,

any flightgear pilots, seasoned or aspiring, here? you are cordially invited to !flightgear@lemm.ee

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/223027

Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Marteen, Caribbean islands

Left still source: https://youtu.be/bMIgcHbqTZY?t=10

hi guys,

any flightgear pilots, seasoned or aspiring, here? you are cordially invited to !flightgear@lemm.ee

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/223027

Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Marteen, Caribbean islands

Left still source: https://youtu.be/bMIgcHbqTZY?t=10

!flightgear@lemm.ee