I guess god really does love me or something because I began my psychology + current events blog exactly when the Ol’ Pussy Grabber came on to the scene. For the past year, he has been an inexhaustible yet exhausting supply of material seemingly tailor made for this blog. Are you kidding me? An undeniably mentally ill person is squatting in the White House? That is mana from heaven! That is everything I’d ever dreamed of!

Each day, week, month, I have a little tingle of apprehension that the well will run dry, that somehow I was wrong about the Ol’ Pussy Grabber, and he will wake up one morning and stop doing and saying outrageous things, and then he goes out and does it again. Same fart, different level of audibility.

I thought about updating the Unproductive Malignant Narcissist Watch post, but this is too much material for that. So, I’ve decided to annotate some headlines from around the web.

Vox.com

His political style makes him uniquely unsuited to an astoundingly complex challenge.

NK Crisis Magnifies Worst

Do you even need to read this one?  The headline says it all. But, can you not read it? I mean seriously, when all you got to keep you from crying is a good smokey peaty single malt and schadenfreude, then you gotta take it where you can get it, #amirite?

The State Department is understaffed and unequipped to communicate with vital Asian allies on the standoff. And Trump’s impatience with coaxing China to apply more pressure to North Korea could end up alienating the US’s most powerful source of leverage over the regime.

How many times have I blogged and tweeted and faced all the books about how an inexperienced and understaffed admin will leave us all in the lurch during the first real crisis? It is so bad, that there orter be a law.

President Obama warned Trump that North Korea would be the most pressing challenge he would face upon taking the White House. But Trump’s habit of improvisation, disinterest in organized messaging, and refusal to hire key diplomatic staff is hobbling his ability to tackle the issue in a remotely effective way. And so it is the president’s whims, not any kind of calculated, expert-backed strategy, that’s guiding us through one of the most complex security challenges the world faces today.

Here we are exposed to an incredible risk because the Ol’ Pussy Grabber has no executive functioning skills. Not only can he not plan or execute a plan, he ain’t interested in doing so. We’re so fucked.

Also, his statements are so imprecise and contradictory that it isn’t clear what he means. Other members of his administration and staff regularly contradict him and each other. Seeking wiggle room and laying the groundwork for future excuses for failure is one thing, it ain’t going to matter much that you can say, The stupid NK’ers were too stupid to realize I was jus’ joking, after they’ve nuked a major US metropolitan area. But, you can’t teach a old narcissist to actually care about anything other than himself, #amirite?

Not only is the Ol’ Pussy Grabber and the other members of the admin not getting information or advice from top experts in the field, in this case Asia, the Koreas, China, Japan, nuclear policy and strategy, there ain’t no one to talk to the North Koreans to say, Nah, we be joshing you guys! Did you see the look on this mook’s face? He thought we was serious!

The people who do knock the dust off the furnishings in the empty offices and echo throughout the hollow offices are so overworked that they are exhausted and overwhelmed by detail. Even if they tried to answer all of their email within 24 hours of reception, they prolly couldn’t do it there is just too damn many of them and too much other stuff to do! I mean do you mop the floor or answer the phone or make the Ol’ Pussy Grabber another taco bowl? How does the deep state staffer prioritize?

The Huffington Post

Trump Best Dealmaker. Experts Say Otherwise

Again, another delicious title just dripping with gleeful schadenfreude. Can we all do the I told you so! dance now?

We all know the Ol’ Pussy Grabber loves him some boastful foolishness about how he can art any deal with anyone and stiff them for the bill whilst declaring bankruptcy and he ain’t need no bank loans no way no how ’cause he’s got all the Russian money the market will bear for the presidency.

But, this here article focuses on what the leaked transcripts with his phone calls with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and another with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull show about how he actually interacts with folks when he thinks he is all by his lonesome. Hint: he folds like a chair and whines like a squeaky hinge.

Let’s let the article its own self refresh our memories of the deep infinite-dimensional chess the Ol’ Pussy Grabber plays with himself:

There were no deals made on either call. Trump threatened Peña Nieto, a top U.S. ally, with tariffs on Mexican goods and then warned he’d never meet with him unless he stopped saying publicly that Mexico won’t pay for Trump’s promised border wall. In a heated exchange with Turnbull, also a key U.S. ally, Trump vented about the “stupid deal” the United States had made with Australia to accept refugees into the country. He all but hung up on Turnbull in the end.

Ha ha! Remember that? He sure sounded strong on the phone with Nieto! He sure was sticking up for the principles he promised all the suckers he would stick up for, #amirite? And, didn’t he jus’ make ya proud with Turnbull? He knowed the mostest anyone could know about refugees and policy and vetting and all that there stuff. No wonder he was longing for the reassuring dulcet tones of the thickly accented Russian Puntangin cooed at him earlier in the day over the telephone.

His belligerent approach to negotiating is an example of what experts call distributive bargaining — making outrageous demands and hoping the other side gives ground in a zero-sum situation, says Fen Osler Hampson, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada. The problem with applying this tactic to something like, say, threatening tariffs on Mexican imports is that it would damage the U.S. economy, too, by driving up prices of products.

“As we’ve heard from American companies who do business across the border, it’s going to hurt U.S. jobs. You don’t negotiate by shooting yourself in your own foot,” said Hampson. “It’s a pretty weak weapon. Choose your weapons carefully.”