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"Sentence Donald Trump to a Mandatory Psychiatric Examination - Political/Legal Maneuverings do Not Change Medical Need"

by Dr. BANDY X.LEE

https://open.substack.com/pub/bandyxlee/p/sentence-donald-trump-to-a-mandatory?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=280c3q

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Civil commitment.

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I'm proud to have been the very first volunteer for Jimmy Carter in the State of Missouri beginning in the summer of 1975. I worked for the campaign in Wisconsin, Illinois, MO and the NYC Convention. However, I was not the guy that suggested that Rosalynn have her picture made with donor John Wayne Gacy. What an intro to politics!

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Wow Howard! Lucky you!!

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The lucky part started in 2001 after which I went to Plains every year and participated in his "Sunday school" lessons and often a dinner with Rosalynn & him with 10-50 Carter alumni & friends.

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Very cool.

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Ramaswamy is using the attack on US culture to hide the real reason he and Musk are dependent on H-1Bs: they refuse to pay industry standard wages to their workers, and H-1B workers are fired and deported if they protest being crowded 30 to a room in sweatshop conditions for 18 hours a day.

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The MAGAts in my area go out of their way to push "Snotty liberal elites all look down on you" propaganda all the time. If a Democrat had said what Ramaswamy said . . . . The problem is that the MAGAts won't hear about it unless, as Simon says, we all get very loud.

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Yes. Very loud. We have a both star. Truth. And love of country. I say the elites that look down on all of us are the billionaire elites. And they want to grab what’s ours and not pay their fair share.

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And they call that patriotism. The MAGits are about to find out just how brutal unbridled Capitalism can be.

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Or the consequences of their blind rage finally kick them in the butt when the billionaire gloves come off. Rupert Murdock is another one who should be in jail.

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It looks like the anti-immigrant racists versus the bring-in-cheap-labor plutocrats -- a great battle for the Trumpsters to have amongst themselves. As Catherine says, let's get very loud and make sure ALL the Trumpsters know about this.

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Exactly. That is why so many US companies went abroad when they discovered they could avoid paying fair wages, benefits, and safe working conditions in unregulated countries. These guys are such heroes.

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As someone who was on an H-1B visa for six years, I only half agree with that. There are two requirements to hire someone on an H-1B: You have to try and fail to hire someone domestically into the position you want to fill, and you have to pay the foreign worker at least the prevailing wage for that specific job. You can get around the first requirement pretty easily. The second one, only at the margin.

So it's not that H-1B workers are that much cheaper than Americans, it's that they are essentially indentured servants. If an American employee is unhappy with how they are being treated, they can quit, and probably find another job pretty easily if they have in-demand skills. H1-B holders can't quit if they want to stay in the US, and if they are fired/laid off, they have 60 days to find another H-1B or they have to leave the country. Therefore, employers can force H-1B holders to work under conditions that domestic workers just wouldn't accept. So while I don't think your first point is correct, your second point is definitely on the mark.

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Employers jimmy job ads all the time to get the profile of the H1B applicant they want. As you say, it is easily done. Americans get nothing out of it.

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Thank you very much for sharing your lived experience.

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"So it's not that H-1B workers are that much cheaper than Americans..."

However in fields where H1B visas are prevalent like IT, I think it puts downward pressure on salaries and also means fewer full-time salaried positions vs. shorter-term contract work.

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Heather Cox Richardson adds some telling details that highlight the contrast between Jimmy Carter and Lester Maddox, the man Carter succeeded as Governor of Georgia:

"[Carter’s] predecessor, Maddox, had refused to let state workers take the day off to attend services for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral; Carter pointedly hung a portrait of King – as well as portraits of educator Lucy Craft Laney and Georgia politician and minister Henry McNeal Turner – in the State Capitol."

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-29-2024

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This is an excellent summary by her, especially if you want the Cliff note version.

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Among President Carter's many accomplishments, he signed into law the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 which strengthened merit principles in the Federal government, and launched the Presidential Management Internship, which brought young people with masters of public or business administration into government. This latter program is alive and well as the Presidential Management Fellowship. Rather than tear down government, he sought to improve it.

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Some of CSRA was used as a weapon against our status under the APA, as if it superceded it. As soon as he could Trump issued an executive order that killed merit selection of administrative law judges and to reqire hiring by the spoils system. Used it to try to kill "best qualified" lists, testing, etc.

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I visited DC 2 weeks ago to see the Impressionists show (and the rest of the museum) plus the remarkable Jefferson Library. Fabulous!

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Thank you for sharing the wonderful tribute to President Carter. The only “fan mail” I ever wrote in my lifetime was a letter to Jimmy and Rosalind Carter. They see both truly extraordinary human beings who represented the best that people are capable of.

And, what a contrast to the incoming President. So much to say, none of it good. I wonder if anyone finds it ironic that the MAGA movement, which wants to eliminate the department of education, and which has consistently jumped on board when educational funding has been cut and standards have been diluted, now criticizes the mediocrity of our populace.

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CIVIL WAR in the MAGA WORLD

“Investing in Americans is actually hard. Really hard. It costs money and time and effort to make a person productive. It’s a short term net loss. It’s much easier to bring in skilled workers who might not do quite a good a job, but will work for a fraction of the cost and be happy just to be here.”

. – Elon Musk, Co-President Elect

By saying the quiet part out loud, Musk is very visibly pissing on the MAGA base.

IMHO, Democrats will be well served by pouring gasoline on the fiery, glaringly-obvious conflict of interest between Trump’s MAGA base and his newfound tech-libertarian friends. (Musk, Ramaswamy, Peter Thiel, Zuckerberg, Bezos, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale, Satya Nadella, et al)

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Agree DEMS will be well-served with this civil war/in-fighting, but I truly wish we already had our 24/7/365 messaging infrastructure up and running NOW to make sure our citizenry hears loud and clear what is happening! Doubtful MSM is covering much of it.

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It doesn’t help that MAGA and project 2025 call for major cuts and defunding - or elimination of - the Dept of Education. What did they think would happen???

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I think the authors of Project 2025 expect to create a more malleable population, with voters who don’t practice bothersome critical thinking. That’s something they share with Richard Nixon back in the day, as well as Ronald Reagan and Caspar Weinberger. The latter got his nickname "Cap the Knife" when he cut the budget of the University of California, at the request of Governor Reagan.

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Agree. But then they want to import all the tech labor. They are so messed up. You can’t destroy education and workers (even civil servants) and expect things will get done.

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"Chief Oligarch". Your gift for short, declarative, depictions is spot on.

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We could have had normal and relatively boring

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President Carter also installed solar panels in the White House, he was a visionary of the environment and climate change's impact. Sadly, Reagan dismantled them. It seems we have not progressed in this area as we should be, the climate denialism still goes on. How very sad for our planet. Thank you President Carter for all you did for our country and humanity!

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My mom, 3 years older than Carter, was a strong advocate for solar houses and passive solar houses. She would complain to anyone who listened that Carter put solar panels on the White House, and Reagan took them off. Sending us, of course, in the wrong direction of being controlled big oil .

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My mom, 3 years older than Carter, was a strong advocate for solar houses and passive solar houses. She would complain to anyone who listened that Carter put solar panels on the White House, and Reagan took them off. Sending us, of course, in the wrong direction of being controlled big oil .

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1. Don’t let democracy die on our watch. https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-using-unitary-executive-theory-in-his-bid-to-amass-supreme-power/

January 3-5, Washington, D.C. Details coming soon

https://nowmarch.org/join-the-movement/

https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5055171-constitution-insurrection-trump-disqualification/

2. IThe media never mentions that Trump was the poster boy for employer sanctions for hiring "illegals" for his jobsites and was fined. He uses temporary visa workers at places like Mar a Lago and the Doral so he doesn't have to hire locals. He brought in models for his now defuct modeling agency using H1B visas. 2 of his wives held visas.... He brought in their relatives (some members of the Communist Party) using a tactic he disparages, would eliminate "anchor babies" citizenship...and he has a plan to "de natuaralize" US citizens that is not covered by MSM. . https://immpolicytracking.org/media/documents/ACLU_Fact_Sheet_on_Denaturalization.pdf

3. The National Gallery was a donation from Andrew Mellon's family, the oligharchs of their era.

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The sad part, the really saddest part in all of this is that if we held another election today, VP Harris would win in a real landslide.

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Simon, glad you got to see that exhibit!

This is one of my hobby horses, but I think framing does matter and we too often adopt theirs. Rather than say, "Here’s his now infamous Christmas day Truth:", which adopts his (deliberate) framing, we can rewrite it to: "Here's his now infamous Christmas day post" or "Here's his now infamous Christmas day social media posting," or "Here's his now infamous Christmas day bullshit" or whatever.

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My first vote as a newly minted 18 year old was for Jimmy Carter. I voted absentee because I was living in Barcelona at the time. They had just emerged from the Franco dictatorship and the Guardia Civil still patrolled the streets armed with machine guns. My Catalan relatives teared up at billboards in their no longer banned dialect. And they all sat with me at the table and marveled at how an American teenager, so far from home, could still have the right to vote. None of them ever had. I used my halting Spanish to explain the ballot and how it worked. I’d never felt more aware of the freedoms I took for granted.

We have so much to lose. We have to keep working.

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Thank you so much Bryn -- I love your story. You are so right, we have so much to lose. I too was in Spain during Franco's regime - I was an au pair in Paris in 1968-69 & went to Madrid during the Easter break with friends -- the soldiers and atmosphere were scary.

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People had to keep reminding me not to approach them for help or information. “In this country the police are not your friends!”

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Thank you for including the Monet pieces in your newsletter. I felt my spirits lift immediately. And if people can get to the National Gallery for this great exhibit, please consider visiting an art museum near you. Art can be a wonderful balm for your worries.

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Spent yesterday at the de Young in SF seeing the Tamara de Lempika exhibit and the Battle of Pavia Tapestries. Afterwards took a stroll through the park with my out of town son. A beautiful and restorative day indeed!

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