Manchurian Candidate

Did you ever see the movie? In it, there is a scene where they are “brainwashing” him, and it is just a series of rapid-fire photos—“hate… hate…”—to condition him to assassinate the target as part of a psychological conditioning process.

Trump’s ad seems to use the same kind of rapid-fire images of Trump, with the voice in the background saying, “love him.”

When I asked an AI what classic psychological manipulation techniques were being used, it replied:

Why that can feel psychologically manipulative

    • Repeated verbal cue: “love me”

    • Repeated visual cue: Trump’s face

    • Rapid editing: little time to examine any individual image

    • Positive claims: tax cuts, manufacturing, law enforcement, etc.

    • Emotional music: rather than a neutral narration

    • Authority association: Trump speaking as president

    • Patriotic imagery: flags, military, national symbols

    • Repetition: the viewer gets the same emotional association over and over

That is classic associative persuasion: repeatedly putting a person alongside positive emotional stimuli and allowing the associations to reinforce one another.

Trump and company are saying that Biden did the same thing, but once again, Trump speaks with a forked tongue. Did the Biden administration use federal funding for ads? Yes.

So, some of Biden’s ads were (from AI ChatGPT):

    • “We Can” — people of different ages saying they were eligible for vaccination and describing their plans to get vaccinated.

    • “We All Need a Boost” — encouraged COVID booster vaccination.

    • “Yes” — connected vaccination with being able to see friends, travel, socialize, etc.

    • “Party Like It’s 2019” — used partying/concert imagery to encourage vaccination.

    • “A Common Opponent” — featured college football coaches, including Jim Harbaugh and Kirby Smart, encouraging vaccination/boosters.

Do you see any of these ads saying “love me”? Do you see anything other than legitimate PSAs?

But for me, it is not about who paid for what. It is about the outright psychological manipulation of the ad.

The number one thing that stood out to me was the imagery:

    • Trump + American flag

    • Trump + military

    • Trump + prosperity

    • Trump + cheering crowds

    • Trump + strength

    • Trump + patriotic music

All the while, “Love Me” was being said as a psychological command.

I see this as an attack by Trump on his low polling numbers, as an attempt to raise those numbers.

Taxpayers have funded nearly $1.5M in pro-Trump ads. Criticism is mounting, including from the GOP

AP News

By  ALI SWENSON

September 28, 2026

The White House has spent days fiercely defending three taxpayer-funded advertisements that glorify President Donald Trump and are nearing at least $1.5 million in public spending, calling them public service announcements like those used in past administrations.

“Don’t let the Fake News get away with their lies about our epic Public Service Announcements that have been running on tv,” White House communications director Steven Cheung posted on X on Sunday.

But the Republican administration’s ads attracted mounting criticism on Monday, including from members of Trump’s own party.

“It shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters.

“It would not have been something that I would have done. And I know that the White House is not covered by the same guidance that we are, but it’s not something that I would have done,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, another South Dakota Republican.

[…]

“You watch all three ads, they’re sheer propaganda,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics czar under Republican President George W. Bush. “This is increasingly looking like what authoritarian governments do to promote their leaders.”

The ads are right out of the authoritarian playbook!

Reuters reported:

Running ahead of midterm elections on November 3 that could reshape the balance of power in ​Washington, the ads tout American exceptionalism.

One includes the president saying “America will never be a communist country” as a chorus sings “love me” in the background. A second combines ​images of Mount Rushmore with shots of Trump on stage as he praises “the golden age of America.” A third describes “the final battle,” ⁠with Trump pledging to demolish the deep state “with you by my side.”

The "final battle" ad is nearly identical to one of Trump's campaign spots from 2024, with the exception of ​the disclaimer at the end.

The ads have appeared during both “Saturday Night Live” and NFL football games on Sunday.

They are the latest example of Trump flouting longstanding rules meant to prevent presidents ​from using the office for political gain, said Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush.

I think people are seeing the manipulation in these ads for what it is, and that may be exactly why they are backfiring on him. When people feel that someone is trying to manipulate them psychologically, our natural reaction is often to resist. Instead, people ask a very different question: Why is Trump trying so hard to make me love him?

Been There, Done That!

But this time I mean being persecuted. What we are facing with Trump we have faced before in the Lavender Scare. We have faced it many times including in some states that are liberal now.

Lucy Hicks [Tobias Lawson] Anderson (1886-1954)

Black Past

June 27, 2007 

Contributed By: Kevin Leonard

Lucy Hicks Anderson, American socialite and chef, lived the first 59 years of her life as a woman until 1945, when it was discovered that she was biologically male. Today she would be described as a transgender person, but that term did not exist during her lifetime. Throughout her life she insisted publicly that a person could appear to be of one sex but actually belong to the other.

Lucy Hicks Anderson was born Tobias Lawson in Waddy, Kentucky sometime in 1886. When Lawson entered public school she insisted on wearing dresses and began calling herself Lucy. Her mother took her to a physician, and the doctor advised her mother to rear Lucy as a girl. She did and Lucy wore girl’s clothing through her childhood before leaving school at the age of fifteen to work as a domestic. When she was in her twenties, Lucy moved west, settling in Pecos, Texas, where she worked in a hotel for a decade. In 1920 Lucy married Clarence Hicks in Silver City, New Mexico, and then moved to Oxnard, California. In Oxnard she continued to work as a domestic, but she also saved her money, purchased property near the center of town where she operated a brothel and sold illegal liquor during Prohibition.  During that time she also emerged as a socialite and hostess in the city, known among the elite as an excellent baker and chef.  When she was arrested for owning a brothel, she was bailed out of jail by the town’s leading banker.

But she had a secret! That only her husband knew… or so she thought!

Anderson challenged the authority of physicians who insisted that she was male. “I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,” Anderson told reporters in the midst of her perjury trial. “I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.” Nonetheless, a jury convicted her and her marriage was declared invalid since only a man and woman could legally marry. The judge however declined to send her to prison.

But she did get sent to prison! For what will show how vindictive the government was. She was arrested for collecting VA benefits meant for widows.

This Was In My Facebook Feeds

The thing that got my attentions was from a Huff Post article about the Time interview with Trump.

President Donald Trump found another target for his press rage ― and this one got the full f-word treatment.

“You haven’t asked me one fucking positive question,” he griped to Time magazine during their recent interview. “All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative. Why are you devoting all this time to the White House?”

Does Trump think the only "Real News" is when the press asks just softballs Questions?

I Want To Point Out Some Facts.

100% of the people need to eat, but the price of food is skyrocketing!

100% of the people need to heat or cool their homes, but the cost of oil is out of sight!

100% of the people travel to work, but they can’t afford the gas!

0.5% of the people are trans and just want to live their lives in peace!

The GOP’s Culture-War Hail Mary

Will it work?

The Atlanitc

By Elaine Godfrey

October 2, 2026

Last week, as the war with Iran dragged into its seventh month, gas prices shot up to an average of $4.50 a gallon, and polling showed President Trump about twice as far underwater with American voters as he was at this point in 2018, Republican senators determined that the time had come to discuss something else entirely: youth sports. “Girls’ sports are for girls. Boys’ sports are for boys,” Senator Marsha Blackburn said in a news conference.

With 32 days to go until the midterm elections, Republicans’ closing strategy is obvious: They’re going all-in on trans. (It seems to have worked for them before, after all. More on that in a minute.) In Texas, Republicans are running an unsettling AI-generated ad that shows the Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico dressed as Maria von Trapp and singing about girls with mustaches. A spot in Iowa accuses the Senate candidate Josh Turek of supporting “sex changes for kids.” On X, former Representative Matt Gaetz offered a tidy summary of his party’s agenda: “I hate the war too,” he told a concerned voter. “But the Democrats want to trans your kids.”

People are starting to say… we don’t want your diversions!

Activists view the whole situation as an alarming shift among Democrats—one that portends worse to come. “Targeting trans people isn’t the winning strategy some people think it is,” Equality Ohio, an LGBTQ-advocacy group, told me in a statement. Childrey said that “the triangulation thought process is that we have to throw trans rights under the bus” to win elections: “We’re leaning in a direction that loses the heart and soul of what it means to be a Democrat.” In an online interview with a transgender political commentator last week, Childrey implied that she wouldn’t be voting for Acton in November, saying that activists need to show Democrats nationwide “that transphobia will not be a successful selling point.” The big risk, she explained, is that in 2028, “you’re going to have the choice between a transphobic Republican and a transphobic Democrat for president.”

Here is how I think we should answer those questions… with a question: “How many trans people are there? Do you even know? But I know people will be frozen out of their homes this winter! And I know people will be going hungry because of the price of food. Those are the issues we should be talking about!”

The voters demand answers to their urgent, basic needs for a roof over their heads, food, heat, and gas , while Republicans are overly fixated on culture-war distractions. And what gets me, is that for some their hate is more important than food on the table.

This Is Wrong! So Very Wrong!

You turned her into a drooling vegetable.

Christa Pike is in critical condition after Tennessee’s failed execution attempt, her lawyers say

AP New

By  KIM CHANDLER and KRISTIN M. HALL

October 1, 2026

Christa Pike was in critical condition Thursday and receiving “lifesaving care” at a hospital, her lawyers said, a day after a failed attempt to execute her pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions this year and order an independent review.

[...]

“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,” attorney Randy Spivey said during a news conference. “But we know she is alive right now.”

The failed execution, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led Republican Gov. Bill Lee to order a review, calling what happened “deeply disturbing” and indefinitely postponing Pike’s execution and another one that had been scheduled for this year. It also reignited the debate over the state’s execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections.

So... she might be in a state of  prolonged unconsciousness requiring a ventilator, feeding tube, nursing care, etc. due to lack of oxygen. If she is it will mean that the Tennessee's Department of Correction is responsible for providing medical care to people incarcerated in its prisons, including hospitalization and treatment when necessary. Which could run into the millions each year!

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) reports that (According to ChatGPT):

• The system is demonstrably fallible. Since 1973, at least 203 people who were sentenced to death have been exonerated in the United States. Tennessee itself has had three death-row exonerations. 
• The risk isn't merely theoretical. A peer-reviewed study estimated that at least 4.1% of people sentenced to death were likely wrongfully convicted, although that is an estimate rather than a count of proven innocent people. 
• Once an execution occurs, the error cannot be corrected. An imprisoned innocent person can theoretically be released and compensated; an executed person cannot be restored to life.
• On deterrence, the evidence is considerably less straightforward than “states with executions have less crime.” The National Research Council concluded that existing research was not sufficient to determine whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates. So it would be inaccurate to claim that executions have been demonstrated to reduce murder.
• There is also a documented problem with official misconduct in capital cases. DPIC currently identifies more than 600 capital convictions or death sentences overturned or resulting in exonerations involving prosecutorial misconduct. 

After you fry someone you can't say "Ops... sorry, we made a mistake!" There is a real question behind all the rhetoric... if all the evidence doesn't capital punishment makes any difference, why are they so eager to fry someone? Why? Could it possible for votes? I know I'm cynical.

---

The Nashville Tennessean writes;

Christa Pike unconscious, burned and intubated, court filing shows

Kelly Puente & Rachel Wegner

Oct. 2, 2026

An Oct. 2 emergency court filing seeks to preserve all evidence related to Tennessee's failed execution of Christa Pike, arguing the state botched the lethal injection procedure.

A judge was considering the request shortly after it was filed. While an unsigned document for the hearing was filed in the court system, no date or time was immediately listed.

Pike was set to be executed by the Tennessee Department of Correction on Sept. 30, but survived two doses of pentobarbital. The document, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court on Oct. 2, revealed more details about Pike's condition. It said she is intubated, on a ventilator and unconscious, and that both her arms were swollen, burned and blistered. As of the night of Oct. 1, Pike was still in critical condition at a Nashville-area hospital, the motion said.

"Hospital staff are working to save Ms. Pike's life and to clear the pentobarbital from her system," the Oct. 2 motion stated.

[...]

"Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike's body," the emergency motion stated. "Instead of remedying this failure, TDOC elected to prepare a backup set of syringes (if they were not also prepared earlier that day) and then administered another lethal dose of pentobarbital."

That is torture!

The Eighth Amendment states:

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Why Oh Why?

Is the Trump adminstration collecting information from ER records? Could it possible be to go after immigrants?

Trump administration demands hospitals share emergency room records

CNN

By Amanda Seitz, Maia Rosenfeld and Darius Tahir

Jul 27, 2026

A tiny federal agency tasked with protecting the public from injuries caused by lawn mowers and coffeemakers is demanding that some of the nation’s biggest health systems turn over detailed, personally identifiable medical records of all patients who seek help at their emergency rooms.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, responsible for tracking and issuing recalls of dangerous products sold in the U.S., began discreetly pressuring hospital executives this year to share personally identifiable health data with a private contractor. But hospital lawyers and other industry experts have questioned the agency’s authority to collect, its ability to safeguard such a swath of sensitive information, and whether it has followed the legal process to overhaul its surveillance system.

After KFF Health News asked the CPSC about the new system, the agency announced the program on July 21. Left unmentioned, however, is the alarm it has raised among hospital executives, as well as the nature and extent of the agency’s data demands.

What possible reason does an agency tasked with product safety want with your name, address, and social security number?

Trump administration to upgrade national consumer product injury database

The revamped surveillance system will incorporate hospital injury data from all 50 states, allowing faster product safety recalls.

Politico

By: Kelly Hooper

07/21/2026

The Trump administration is overhauling the system for tracking consumer-product-related injuries at hospitals, implementing a standardized data exchange that will help the federal government more quickly issue product safety recalls.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, in an announcement shared first with POLITICO, said the changes to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System will bring tracking for product-related injuries into the 21st century. Starting next year, the system, which has used the same manually coded data process since 1972, will automatically pull from patients’ electronic health records to flag issues with consumer product safety in near real-time.

Once again... why do they need your personal information for product safety. Unless it is a way they want to ferret out some other data... maybe like immigrants?

Democrats demand that Trump administration halt collection of patients’ ER records

Anchorage Daily News

By Amanda Seitz, Maia Rosenfeld and Darius Tahir

Published: September 10, 2026

A group of Democratic lawmakers is calling for the Trump administration to suspend a new surveillance program it quietly launched to collect the personal and identifiable health data of Americans who visit emergency rooms.

KFF Health News first reported that the Consumer Product Safety Commission — a federal agency tasked with monitoring injuries from household items — was pressuring hospitals to provide a private company with personally identifiable health information for analysis. The rollout of the program has inspired broad pushback from hospitals and privacy advocates.

This is what authoritarian governments do build databases on its citizens. 

Visions

The elections are less than a month away, and it is time to ask ourselves a very basic question: Is this the United States you envision for your country? Do you feel proud to say, “I’m an American,” or is there a persistent voice in the back of your mind whispering, “But… but…”?

We stood up in school each morning, and the promise was pounded into our heads: “liberty and justice for all” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

But then we found out “liberty and justice for all” wasn't true. We saw it on the evening news: Black people sitting at lunch counters, demanding their rights. And the people said, “Enough,” and passed nondiscrimination laws. That was their vision of America.

Now we have a government claiming those nondiscrimination laws are unconstitutional. A government telling us it is okay to suppress the Black vote as long as you don’t explicitly say that’s the reason. That it is okay to step between you and your doctor as long as they claim, “It’s to save the children!” That it is okay to round up people who don’t look like they belong and deny them their constitutional rights as long as it's disguised as targeting illegal immigration.

It is time to say, “Enough.”

Stormtrooper-clad paramilitary forces yanking people off the streets simply because they look like foreigners. Stormtrooper-clad paramilitary forces bashing the heads of peaceful protesters, while high government officials lie about it right as we watch it with our own eyes.

We have seen images like these before.

We saw them in photographs from the Jim Crow South here in America during the 1950s and ’60s.

We saw them in photographs from Germany in the 1930s. Different countries. Different circumstances. Different histories. But the images carry a universal warning: What happens when a government begins treating some people as less deserving of rights than others?

It is time to say, “Enough” this November.

Which party cares about working people and making sure they have food on the table, while the other tries to trade away parts of Yosemite National Park to build a road to million-dollar private condos? Is this your vision of our country? It is time to stop enabling policies that line the pockets of oligarchs.

Is this the America you envision?

It is time to say, “Enough,” and vote Blue.