Skeptic Raven

[skepticraven]

Climate Change is Real

First of all, it’s important to mention that it’s now called climate change for a reason. The name Global Warming is misleading because then you get people, like Trump, who think the entire planet is supposed to be the Mojave Desert 24-7. He has literally tweeted, “It’s freezing and snowing in New York–we need global warming!” 

Climate and weather aren’t the same thing. Weather is what’s happening today. Climate refers to the weather conditions prevailing over a long period of time. The current climate changes may not be noticed by the layperson or they may seem gradual to someone not looking through the lens of scientific data and climatic trends. You certainly aren’t going to walk outside today and say, “I feel the climate has changed.“ 

But what seems gradual, is actually pretty dramatic when compared to historical data. And, of course, this is all cumulative. Since things are going downhill now, they can predict, based on the current trends, where we are likely to be climate-wise in 10 years or 20 years or whatever. We are already seeing the current climate changes having a significant impact on the Earth. If you’d like evidence of climate change, here you go: 

1) Heightened sea temperatures have caused bleaching of about ½ the Great Barrier Reef. If global warming remains on its upward path, by 2050 just 5% of the reef will remain intact. 

2) Global warming has raised global sea level about 8 inches since 1880, and the rate is accelerating. As I said, we can use this data to predict approximately where the sea level will be in X amount of years. 

3) Ice is melting worldwide. Here a few more specific examples, When Glacier National Park was founded in 1910, there were roughly 150 glaciers. Now there are less than 30. As you can see in the image below, the Snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80% since 1912. Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.8 percent per decade. The mass of ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet has begun to decline. From 1979 to 2006, the summer melt on the ice sheet increased by 30 percent. In the second image below this comment, the Greenland Ice Sheet’s melt zone is shown in a side-by-side comparison, from 1992 to 2002.

Glacier National Park ↓

Mt. Kilimanjaro ↓

Greenland Ice Sheet ↓

4) The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had increased 80% in the past 30 years. The image below shows 4 simultaneous storms in the Atlantic Ocean in 2018.  Visible in the image is Hurricane Florence (a category 4), Hurricane Isaac (a category 1), Hurricane Helene (a category 2), and Tropical Storm Joyce. These are just the ones approaching/hitting land in mid-September. Plus, it’s pretty unusual to see 4 active storms in the Atlantic at once. 

5) The Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average, causing the ice that polar bears depend on to melt away. The sea ice is melting earlier and forming later each year. This makes it more difficult for female bears to get onto land in late autumn to den and also harder to get onto the sea ice in spring to feed. It means bears are fasting for longer – dramatically reducing their body weight and physical condition and making it harder for them to survive the summer season. There have been several viral videos of starving emaciated polar bears wandering around, barely able to walk because they are so weak from hunger. 

6) The range of some animal has changed quite a bit over the last 100 years- in response to climatic change. One notable example would be the European Spruce Bark Beetle.

7) In the last 20 years, the fire season in the Western United States has increased 2.5+ months. There are 4 times more wildfires exceeding 1.5 square miles than there were 30 years ago. And large fires are burning 6 times as much area. The wildfire fighting budget sits at 1 billion dollars per year now. 

I can keep going for a long time on this subject but I think you get the point. Why on earth would we think we can abuse the planet in the numerous way we have without consequence or effect? Why would 97% of scientists agree that climate change is real if it weren’t? Not just American scientists, that includes those that come from all over the globe. And even if you still aren’t sold on climate change (for some damn reason), what harm is there in being environmentally cautious? Even if not for climate change, reducing air pollution (for example) would still benefit our health or at least keep pollution from causing any more harm to our health than it already does. Its a win, win. 

[skepticraven]

Dear Trump Fans,

I keep hearing you say that Trump has done so much for America but you never elaborate on that, even when I ask you to. So, I’m asking again & my question is simple. What has he done that you think is so great? Aside from insulting people you don’t like, I just don’t see any achievements. This is what I do see:

-Trump didn't end the overseas wars like he promised. Instead, he got us involved in Syria. And he has nearly started a couple new wars with Iran & North Korea

- It seems you don't have your giant, waste-of-money wall. You have a small amount of fencing that anyone could cross should they want to. And Mexico won't EVER pay for it. Now, I’m fine with no wall but you shouldn’t be. 

- Trump is trying to cut the CDC budget by almost 20% amidst a pandemic. 

- Trump fired the pandemic response team last year.

- Trump is already saying he wants everyone back to work by Easter & all of the churches full on Easter- except every doctor & all his medically educated advisors are advising Trump against that. The cases of coronavirus are still increasing rapidly. Sending people back into such close proximity to one another will only inflame the problem, increasing the number of infected & dead tenfold.

-Trump has violated the emoluments clause of the constitution by failing to put his assets in a blind trust & thus is charging foreign leaders & American politicians inflated prices to stay at his hotels to win his favor & get private access to the president since he goes there all the time

- Trump is guilty of blatant nepotism. For example, he appointed Jared Kushner to negotiate peace in the middle east, handle diplomacy with China & Mexico, address the opioid epidemic, manage the wall construction process, etc. Jared isn't qualified for any of that, he only has that job because he bones Trump's daughter. Jared wouldn’t be qualified to manage a Pizza Hut. He was born rich and has done nothing but lose billions when he landed in his father job because his father went to prison for tax evasion, witness tampering, & illegal campaign contributions.

- Trump, who claims to be tough on terrorism, signed a multi-billion dollar weapons deal with Saudi Arabia RIGHT AFTER they murdered & dismembered an American journalist. Not to mention the genocide they were waging in Yemen. There is a reason that 80% of the 9/11 terrorist were from Saudi Arabia.

- Trump has eliminated funding for programs that work to de-radicalize people in extremist groups/organizations & help them escape that life.

- Trump cut his own taxes & that of his rich buddies & corporations BY 40%. Due to all the tax loopholes & shady financial dealings (like equity swapping or offshore tax havens) which the wealthiest Americans & corporations do, they already historically weren't paying anywhere near the marginal tax rate they should be on paper. Trump cut the corporate marginal tax rate from 35% to 21%. So after the loopholes & their shady bullshit, they're very likely paying a lower effective tax rate than you are. Thanks to Trump, many paid no income taxes at all in 2018 like Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, IBM, Delta Airlines, General Motors, Whirlpool, Goodyear Tires, etc.

-Trump promised to reduce the deficit but he has actually raised it by a lot. When you decrease the amount of taxes coming in that drastically & you increase government spending that much, the deficit is going to increase. The Caronavirus situation has only exacerbated that problem but the problem was already there.

-Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, solely because Obama did it. And Mr. Art of the Deal did not even try to negotiate a new deal. 

- This great healthcare Trump promised hasn't happened. Less people have insurance now than when Trump first took office. Drug prices have only gone up. There have be cuts to Medicaid as well.

-Trump appointed a judge who clearly lied to congress & whom likely sexually assaulted someone. Why Trump did not pick a different conservative judge to nominate, I will never understand.

- Trump cut all the social safety net programs that help the poor & disabled: SSI Disability, Food Stamps, Medicaid, HUD, etc.

- Like it or not, Trump was technically impeached. He just wasn’t removed from office by the Senate because there are a bunch of scared Republicans who are too scared to do or say anything against Trump. Tribalism saved him. That’s it. Because he admitted on national television that he talked about Biden & his son on that phone call- you can even see the exact moment when he realizes he shouldn’t have said that. So, he did do what he was accused of.

-His administration is a revolving door of hiring & firing/quitting. Trump said he knew the best people so why would he need to fire so many of them? Think about how many people have come & gone. These are just some of the big names who left the administration but there are WAY MORE than I am listing: Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, Scott Pruitt, Steve Bannon, John Bolton, Jeff Sessions, John Kelly, Anthony Scaramucci, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer,  Sarah Sanders, James Mattis, Rick Perry, Nikki Haley, Dan Coats, Alexander Acosta, Scott Gottlieb, Bill Shine, Tom Price,  H.R. McMaster, Ryan Zinke, Mick Mulvaney, James Comey,  Sebastian Gorka, Omarosa Newman, Gary Cohn, Don McGahn, Rod Rosenstein, Michael Flynn, Sally Yates, Tom Homan, Ty Cobb, Tom Bossert, K.T. McFarland, Rob Porter, Dina Powell, Rick Dearborn, Matthew Whittaker, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Hope Hicks, Brenda Firtzgerald, Rob Snyder, Michael Dubke, Sean Doocey, etc.

-This is kind of a minor point but it does illustrate Trump’s hypocrisy.  Trump criticized Obama for golfing so much & then Trump turns around & plays 2.6 times more golf than Obama in his first 2 years and 91 days & has cost the tax payer an estimated $74 million more than Obama. 

- Does it ever embarrass you how little Trump knows about anything? Ever notice how he never goes in depth talking about anything? Its all vague because he doesn’t know enough about healthcare or the Iran Deal or climate change to address it in any kind of depth. You still see that idiocy spill out regardles. During an interview for SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. channel, Trump said that former President Andrew Jackson was angry about the Civil War. The only problem is, Jackson couldn’t have been angry about the war. He died in 1845. The Civil War was in 1861. Another example would be during a call with Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Trump claimed Canada burned down the White House during the War of 1812. Canada didn’t exist as a country until 1867. That was the British... Trump also claimed General John J. Pershing dealt with Muslim terrorists by shooting them with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. That did not happen. The story began circulating the internet around the September 11 terrorist attacks. Apparently Trump believed it was factual, talking about it during his 2016 presidential campaign & again after a terror attack in Barcelona. Then, speaking to the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump confused the Quds Force, a unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, with the Kurds, the minority group battling ISIS in northern Iraq (who he would later abandoned). Maybe that confusion could be forgiven for an average Joe but if you’ president, you need to know stuff like that (especially given the region these two groups are in). Hence why most presidents study political science, law, or economics in college or at least, they bother to read up on this stuff. But Trump doesn’t really read. The only book he claims to have read was a biography about Andrew Jackson whom, he thought was mad about a war that happened 16 years after his death & he also seems to have missed the whole Trail of Tears thing.

-  By pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal & the Paris Climate Accord, Trump has isolated us from our allies. Our word means nothing anymore. And who can blame them for being pissed? Whether Iran has a nuclear weapon effect more than just us. Given the size of our nation, our refusal to take the looming threat of climate change seriously is a detriment to the entire world that can & likely will have devastating consequences for everyone. Furthermore, Trump trash talks our closest allies & has placed tariffs on nearly all of them. For example:

AUSTRALIA: Shortly after taking office, Trump reportedly berated then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over an agreement between the U.S. and Australia involving refugee resettlement. 

CANADA: Trump also attacked Canadian President Justin Trudeau as “meek, mild, dishonest, & weak” during a conversation on trade at the G7 summit in 2018. He also threatened to withhold the U.S.’s signature from a joint communique from the meeting over the feud. Trudeau he also found it “insulting” that tariffs were placed on Canada under a rarely invoked law that allows levies to be placed on a country in the interest of national security. Since when is Canada a national security threat? 

DENMARK: Trump also went after Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen after she refused to sell him Greenland. She called the idea “absurd,” & Trump referred to her as “nasty & inappropriate.” The people that live there don’t want to become American. You can’t just buy a country on whim. Greenland belongs to Denmark but its semi-autonomous. 

FRANCE: Trump threatened to slap tariffs on French wine & called French President Emmanuel Macron “foolish” after he signed a digital services tax on tech companies making at least 750 MILLION EUROS annually, a figure which meant U.S.-based tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook & Amazon would be included. 

GERMANY: Trump has had a particularly tumultuous relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The president has repeatedly threatened Germany with auto tariffs, saying if companies like BMW and Mercedes wanted to sell cars in the U.S., they should build them in the country. German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday criticized President Donald Trump's tweets about four Democratic congresswomen of color telling them to go back to where they came from. She said that the president's tweets contradict "the strength of America." "I distance myself firmly from this & feel solidarity with the women who were attacked," Merkel said. (Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau also criticized Trump for the same thing).

JAPAN: Trump has lamented the U.S.’s responsibility to defend Japan if attacked, saying the alliance between Washington & Tokyo is uneven. Trump has also threatened Japan with auto tariffs, though it announced in May it was delaying any levies for six months. 

MEXICO: President Trump has repeatedly torn into Mexico, slamming it on trade but focusing much of his ire on the country over immigration. Trump has threatened America’s southern neighbor with tariffs over its alleged inaction in working to stem the flow of undocumented migrants in the U.S. And let’s face it, he doesn’t exactly talk about the Mexican people in the nicest way and stroked racial tensions.

SWEDEN: President Trump feuded with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven after American rapper A$AP Rocky was detained in Sweden & charged with assault following a June incident in Stockholm. Apparently Kanye West told Trump about it. 🙄 The rapper was ultimately released in & returned to the U.S AFTER he was convicted & had to pay a fine (plus time served).

UNITED KINGDOM: While Trump has bashed the United Kingdom over trade practices, threatening tariffs on one of the U.S.’s closest allies to rectify what he sees as an imbalance, he has directed much of his criticism toward the country’s handling of Brexit. He also attacked the UK's National Health Service, claiming it is "going broke & not working." That’s not true but its not really his business either way. Trump is so disliked in the UK that at one point, 75,000 protestors gathered in central London’s Trafalgar Square to protest U.S. President Trump’s visit to the U.K

SOUTH KOREA: The Trump administration is reportedly demanding South Korea pay 400% more for U.S. troops in the region- despite the fact that having a base in South Korea is essential as much for us as it is for them. We need a base near North Korea should we ever have to attack. Maybe raising it some is reasonable but raising anything 400% overnight is a little absurd.

I see failure & corruption in Trump. I see a danger to America. Feel free to try to change my mind.

[skepticraven]

Does Trump have Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

In my opinion, yes, yes. A thousand times, yes. However I want to be clear about something before going any further. I am not a psychiatrist. This is entirely my opinion BUT there are a number of doctors who agree with me such as Harvard psychoanalyst Lance Dodes; psychiatrist Dr. Robert Jay Lifton;   professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Dr. John Gartner; and many more. I also don’t want anyone to be under the impression that because Donald Trump seems to be the world’s clearest cut case of NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), that this somehow absolves him of responsibility for his actions. It doesn’t. He is not legally insane- even if his actions often seem irrational to most of us. Narcissistic Personality disorder is in the  DSM–5 (a.k.a. the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition) and it is technically a mental illness. HOWEVER, there is a significant and distinct difference between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other types of mental illnesses, like Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder. First, let’s get a general definition of what personality disorders are and aren’t.

Psychology Today defines personality disorders as: “deeply ingrained ways of thinking and behaving that are inflexible and generally lead to impaired relationships with others.” Mental health professionals formally recognize 10 personality disorders that fall into three clusters.  Cluster A includes the ddd or eccentric disorders. Cluster B includes the dramatic or erratic disorders.  (Narcissistic Personality Disorder falls in Cluster B). And Cluster C which includes Anxious or fearful disorders.”

One might say that narcissistic personality disorder is essentially just an abnormal personality. Like with all personalities, biological factors as well as environment and early life experiences form who a person becomes. People with Personality Disorders just possess personalities that are so outside the norm, and so problematic (for the individual and/or for society) that it has been identified as a mental disorder. With mental illnesses like Bipolar Disorder, the primary treatment is medication to treat that chemical imbalance. You could counsel someone with Bipolar Disorder to the ends of the earth, but unless you treat the imbalance with medication, you won’t get much of anywhere. In many cases, if the Bipolar patient finds the right medication or mix of medications, it will generally control the disorder for the most part. With Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the primary treatment is psychotherapy. No pill can achieve a total 180-degree turn on personality traits that have become ingrained over a person’s lifetime. You can’t re-route a narcissists worldview and patterns of interaction with a pill. That would take therapy. Unfortunately, NPD has a low recovery rate because it takes someone who is truly willing to heed the perceptions/advice of other people and someone who is highly motivated to change narcissistic behaviors. As I go into some of the signs of NPD and how Trump displays them, you will begin to see why most narcissists lack the willingness and motivation to recover or to seek treatment at all.

Symptoms:

1) People with NPD have an inflated sense of their own importance and so CLEARLY does Trump. For example, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Donald Trump claimed he had the largest inauguration crowd in history. He also incorrectly claimed that he had and I quote, “the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.“ The reality is that almost every President since Ronald Reagan won more electoral college votes than Donald Trump.

2) People with NPD have a deep need for admiration. Trump went on a “thank you tour” after winning the election (which is quite unusual in and of itself) and he also continued to campaign even immediately after inauguration. (Case and Point: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAQnXnQQCCI) Why is he doing these things? Trump wants, no needs, to be surrounded by his base who will scream and cheer and stroke his ego.

3) People with NPD lack of empathy for others. A good example of this would be when Trump belittled the parents of a deceased Muslim-American soldier (Captain Humayun Khan). Trump lacks the ability to imagine the pain of losing a child in service to this country. It’s the same reason he made that “I prefer people who weren’t captured” remark about John McCain. He has no ability to empathize with someone who spent nearly six years in a North Vietnamese prison. Even if you disagree with someone politically, an empathetic person would still show respect and gratitude for American heroes. This next example speaks both Trump’s need for admiration and his lack of empathy: Trump’s strangely chipper attitude about Hurricane Harvey’s devastation. When speaking to some supporters at a firehouse in Corpus Christi, Trump just couldn’t help himself and he exclaimed, “What a crowd, what a turnout.” And if anyone else made this next comment, I’d think nothing of it but since it was Trump? Houston, we have a problem. (I apologize in advance for how difficult it is to make sense of his tweets. He has terrible grammar, even by social media standards). Trump said this in his tweets, “ HISTORIC rainfall in Houston, and all over Texas. Floods are unprecedented, and more rain coming… Going to a Cabinet Meeting at 11:00 A.M. on #Harvey. Even experts have said they’ve never seen one like this!….  Wow - Now experts are calling #Harvey a once in 500 year flood!…. Many people are now saying that this is the worst storm/hurricane they have ever seen.” See the problem is Trump is so transparent and I know where this was going before it went there. Of course, Trump would ramble about how this was the biggest and the best flood because everything with him is automatically the biggest, record-breaking thing that ever happened and he is going to turn this around to talk about how awesome he and his team are. And he does exactly that in this next tweet, “ Great coordination between agencies at all levels of government. Continuing rains and flash floods are being dealt with. Thousands rescued…..  Wonderful coordination between Federal, State and Local Governments in the Great State of Texas - TEAMWORK! Record setting rainfall. “ Harvey was just another episode of the Trump show. Everything somehow is about Trump and his sheer tremendousness. All those homes, businesses, vehicles, personal belongings, pets, and even human lives that were lost just another excuse for Trump to compliment himself.

4) People with NPD have a mask of ultra-confidence but behind the mask lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism. For example, Trump sued Bill Maher over a joke. Maher got fed up with Trump constantly harping on the Obama birtherism nonsense, so Maher made a joke that Trump needs to prove that he isn’t the byproduct of his mother and orangutan. What a stupid thing to file a lawsuit over. Apparently, Trump really has no idea how often people mock his orange spray tan. Then Trump threatened to sue The Onion (which in case you don’t know is probably the most famous satirical newspaper currently in print) which published a fake opinion piece pretending to be authored by Trump. It was titled, “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead in About 15 or 20 Years.” Trump is the definition of a snowflake. He needs a safe space so bad, he’ll throw free speech out the window to spare his feelings.

5) Narcissists are preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, or beauty. His obsession with success and power seem pretty clear. If you haven’t picked up on that, you have been living under a rock. His obsession with beauty is fascinating since its definitely not directed inwards. He seems immune to the reality of his own laughable appearance. However, Trump is obsessed with surrounding himself with beautiful women. So obsessed that he keeps replacing his romantic partners will the younger model. Back when George Bush Sr. was President, Trump literally told Esquire magazine: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what the media writes, as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” He isn’t just obsessed with his romantic partner’s level of attractiveness. It’s everyone around him as well, including his daughters. When Tiffany was only 2 years old, Trump made this terrifyingly creepy comment  “I think that she’s got a lot of Marla. She’s really a beautiful baby. She’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know whether or not she’s got this part (meaning her chest) yet but time will tell.” He held his hands in front of his chest to represent breasts when he said that. He was curious if his toddler would have big boobs. Just stop and think about that for a second. During an interview with Howard Stern in 2003, Trump said this about his then 22-year-old daughter Ivanka: “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.”  Three years later on a separate visit to the Howard Stern Show, Trump referred to Ivanka as “voluptuous” and told Stern it was fine for the notorious shock jock to call Ivanka a “hot piece of ass.” That same year on The View, Trump said this about Ivanka, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” Honestly, who talks about their daughter like that? Trump has carried this vanity straight into the white house. He has often referred to members of his team as coming from “central casting.” Its well known that Chris Christie’s weight had a lot to do with the fact that he was not offered a position in Trump’s cabinet. He even commented to the first lady of France (Brigitte Macron) about how in shape she is. 

6) People with NPD are entitled, meaning they believe themselves to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. A good example of this Trump’s 5th military deferment for bone spurs. (He’d received 4 prior deferments for being in college. As tough as he talks, you’d think he’d be itching to go fight for his country). Trump had a perfect bill of health less than two years prior to these supposed bone spurs being used as an excuse to dodge the draft. In fact that previous physical did not disqualify him for service as we can tell from his 1-A classification in July 1968. But this new physical that supposedly turned up bone spurs conveniently placed him squarely at the bottom of any call-up list, meaning he would only be drafted if there were some of complete and total military catastrophe. Funny, how those bone spurs didn’t impede Trump’s ability to play sports in college? Based on his graduation date and the date of the deferment, there is weeks- maybe a couple months tops- in between his athletic college activities and this bone spur deferment. (；一_一) Politifact reports, “Trump failed to mention his medical deferment when he told ABC News on July 19, 2015, that he was never drafted because the draft lottery went into effect and his birthday came with a high number.” In reality, he got an extremely high number because of a medical deferment, not his birthday. Fun fact, only 5 percent of people with bone spurs have any pain at all. It would’ve been an extremely rare case to be debilitated by a spur at age 22.” And even more rare, to miraculously recover so quickly and completely- after the war ended of course- not that we ever saw any actually evidence of physical disability. Since people started bringing this up, Trump has magically remembered the bone spurs… sort of. Except, he couldn’t remember which was his problem foot or if it was both… Come on. Unless you are an idiot, you know Trump had his daddy pay off a doctor to make up an excuse to get him out of the draft. Then on top of, Trump has the audacity to say John McCain isn’t a war hero and insult the parents of a dead Muslim-American soldier who did fight for this country. Ladies and gentleman, that is called entitlement.

7) A narcissist takes advantage of others to reach his or her own goals. Trump has a long, long history of not paying contractors and other employees- lots of them. To quote USA Today, “ During the Atlantic City casino boom in the 1980s, Philadelphia cabinet-builder Edward Friel Jr. landed a contract to build the bases for slot machines, registration desks, bars and other cabinets at Harrah’s at Trump Plaza. They finished their work in 1984 and submitted its final bill to the general contractor for the Trump Organization. Edward’s son, Paul, who was the firm’s accountant, still remembers the amount of that bill more than 30 years later: $83,600. The reason he remember this is that the money never came. A USA Today network analysis found Trump has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past 3 decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And several law firms that once represented him. Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and 3 against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. There were more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y. air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. “ If you’d like to read the full USA Today article, here is the URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/

8) Narcissists apologize extremely rarely and if they do apologize, it’s for self serving reasons, rather than out of remorse. About as close to an apology as Trump has gotten is after the Access Hollywood tapes leaked but it was half-assed, at best. He mostly just deflected by bringing up Bill Clinton’s misdeeds and complaining about how long ago this conversation occurred. He tossed in an “I said it, I regret it. I pledge to be a better man tomorrow.” and then didn’t change his attitude towards women an iota. The Access Hollywood tape came out on October 7, 2016 and he issued that bullshit apology the same day. Then 5 days later, after Natasha Stoynoff came out to accuse Trump of unwanted touching which is exactly what he said he does in that video, Trump responds by insinuating she isn’t attractive enough for him to bother assaulting her. Because all innocent people say that…. (See video of Trump’s “deeply remorseful” behavior: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-sexual-assault_us_57ffc493e4b0162c043aa2a3

9) Narcissists often have unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment. For example, when Trump asked James Comey to pledge his loyalty, to “lift the cloud” around him and his administration involving Russia, and essentially  Trump wanted Comey to let Flynn go. Same thing when Trump got upset at Jeff Sessions recusing himself in a situation he was ethically obligated to do so. Trump expects people to not do their job and not abide by the law and ethical guidelines for him.

10) Many narcissists care little about rules and boundaries so they may engage in behaviors that others find morally objectionable. An example of Trump’s objectionable business decisions, was creating Trump University which engaged in a variety of illegal business practices. Trump was obviously eventually sued for that, as he should be. The plaintiffs alleged that they paid up to $35,000 in tuition for very little in return. Trump has agreed to pay $25 million to settle the lawsuits after claiming he’d never settle because he was “innocent.” The settlement includes a $1 million penalty paid to New York state for violating the state’s education laws by calling the program a “university” despite offering no degrees or traditional education. The worst part is, business settlements are fully tax deductible. Another example of an objectionable personal choice was pardoning Sheriff Joe  Arpaio, a man who violated the civil rights of Americans by having his officers actively target anyone who “looked hispanic” including people who hadn’t done so much as a traffic violation which violates the equal protection clause of the constitution and the 4th amendment which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. Then Arpaio ignored a judge’s order to cease those violations. He also did things like, making male prisoners wear pink underwear and housing them in an outdoor tent city in the Arizona desert where it got so hot that the inmates’ shoes melted. (Up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit). Why did Trump pardon such a man? He’d say it’s because Arpaio battled illegal immigration but the truth is, its because Arpaio stroked Trump’s ego by supporting him during the election. Due process goes out the window because he was nice to Trump.  

(；一_一)

This person is mentally unfit to lead. Trump has no business with his finger on the nuclear launch code. And yet, if we nix him we will end up with Pence. He is is just as bad for this country but in a different way. Pence is just better at hiding what a scumbag he is. That mask makes him dangerous- more dangerous even than Trump. Pence is well-liked by Republicans which means he would face less resistance to his draconian policies in Congress- policies like nixing gay marriage.  As much as I hate to say it, we are better to stick with Trump. His narcissism blinds him and it will be his downfall in the end. Impeachment would be a waste of political capital. We just need to obstruct Trump at every turn for now, distract him where possible, and then ride this wave of hatred and frustration all the way to a crushing democratic victory in the next presidential. election.

[skepticraven]

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Symptom-By-Symptom Checklist on Onision)

Greg Jackson, who goes by Onision on Youtube, has become one of the most polarizing online personalities. Obviously, I can’t make a formal diagnosis over the internet but Narcissistic Personality Disorder would be on the top of my consideration list for Onision. First let’s define what Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or NPD) is. The Mayo Clinic defines it thusly; “It is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. Behind their mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”  Onision certainly has most of the symptoms of NPD:  

1) Narcissists, like Greg, possesses an abnormal sense of entitlement (hence why he has been acting like his viewers- many of whom are teens or tweens- owe him financially and he has demanded Patreon donations from them. He guilt-trips his fans when he doesn’t get what he wants; going so far as to threaten suicide if his channel were to fail completely. At least for a brief time, Greg even added a paywall to his main channel. I believe that plan fizzled out and he back-pedaled because it massively decreased his view count. Paywalls almost always tank channels.

2) Narcissists are excessively envious of other people with more success (real or perceived). The obvious example of this is Greg’s envy of Shane Dawson. Greg desperately tries to provoke Shane with regular insulting videos (despite Shane mostly trying to ignore him). In the videos, Greg often goes after Shane in a downright vicious manner- for example, making fun of his weight and declaring Shane is a pedophile based on some edgy joke Shane told multiple years back). 

3) As previously stated, Onision (like any narcissist) may be envious of others but he will also simultaneously think or claim other people are jealous of him. On a consistent basis, Greg will accuse anyone who criticizes him, for any reason, of being jealous of his success. One example would be those very claims made by Onision and directed at the YouTuber named Mikenactor. Greg has also said that people who talk about his behavior are “obsessed” with him and leaching off his name recognition to get views. But ever the hypocrite, Greg finds plenty of time to talk about other people and he has no problem inserting, Shane Dawson’s or Pewdiepie’s name in the title of his video (knowing full-well that their name recognition is likely to garner new viewers to his channel).

4) Narcissists are, by nature, conceited and often do a lot of bragging. In Greg’s case, his bragging is usually centered around the number of subscribers he has or how he is “the most honest Youtuber” (which nearly everyone agrees is bullshit, save a few starry-eyed teenage girls). 

5) Like most people with NPD, Greg tends to insist on having the best of everything and thus he has lived beyond his means. This is why he was in danger of losing his second house (poor baby) because, after the YouTube ad-pocalypse, Greg no longer makes as much money as he used to. Wanting fancy stuff to feel secure about yourself is an empty, external symbol of one’s ego. 

6) An inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs & feelings of other people is par for the course with this personality disorder. That lack of empathy can sometimes make the narcissist’s behavior rise to the level of bullying. There are countless examples of this callousness from Greg. I’ll give a few a example and then videos to illustrate my points:

6a- I already mentioned Greg calling Shane Dawson fat (repeatedly), as well as a pedophile. He also included some light homophobia in his “jokes” and said Shane looks like he smells, has poor hygiene, and is too unattractive to be raped in prison. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CploG2_YHp4

6b- There were also multiple occasions when Greg called Jaclyn Glenn “too skinny” and mocked the fact that she is tall. Other times he attacked her for choosing to get a breast augmentation, suggesting that her new boobs make her ugly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2CrplVM51o

6c- Greg came after Eugenia Cooney HARD for being anorexic (to the tune of at least 16 videos I found, There are probably some I missed). I mean, Eugenia clearly has a problem and I don’t necessarily have a problem with someone else addressing her. But Onision simply lacks both the knowledge about the complexities of Eating Disorders and the empathy/tact to address Eugenia in a productive way. He isn’t being encouraging and maybe he is trying to be eye-opening but his Eugenia videos just come off malicious. He is exploiting her situation- for the 16th time- after Eugenia has asked him to stop talking about her and he is doing it because her name in the title of his video draws views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3kZVZRvgc

6d- Next was Greg’s completely unprovoked attack on Jeff Holiday, who was meant to moderate a debate Greg was taking part in with another Youtuber: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6F6N9Qs4W0&t=517s) For some reason, Greg started in on Jeff calling him “fake,“ “stupid,” and a “dumbfuck” out of nowhere. Jeff tried to brush it off so he could moderate this debate but Greg became so hostile and combative that Jeff finally snapped. Can’t say I blame him. Nobody would sit there and take someone talking to them like that after he’d made such an effort to be polite.

6e- Then there was that time when Greg and Shiloh faked a pregnancy and a miscarriage. After publicizing that story, they stole a picture of someone else’s sick child to pretend it was their dead baby. It doesn’t get much more unempathetic than that.  

7) Narcissists have an arrogance that turns many people off. This is precisely why Greg’s channel is losing subscribers, getting fewer views, and he is making less money on Patreon. Plus, his arrogance and behavior has burned so many bridges and turned off so many people that Greg can’t get anyone approaching noteworthy to collaborate with him recently- other than his wife. This is unusual for YouTube, where collaborations are extremely common because they give you a chance to reach new potential subscribers through the collaborating channel’s fans. Greg has such significant interpersonal problems that basically no Youtubers like him anymore- even the ones that were once his friends.

8) Narcissists, like Greg, monopolize conversations and they talk over people- just watch almost any debate he’s done ever. Blaire White and JoySparkleBS were the worst. Plus, a lot of his collaborations with Lainey involve him over-talking her.

9) Narcissists often have unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment from others and are generally bossy. Like how Greg refused to be friends with Jaclyn Glenn because she was dating someone he did not like. He actually expected her to disassociate with this guy because he said so. He also once wanted to tie his girlfriend up in the basement and make her get a tattoo that read “liar” all because she smoked pot. 

10) People with NPD have some questionable morals- like Onision does. I mean rating women 1 to 10 in appearance is fucked up period but it is especially fucked up when some of the people being rated are underage. He has dated girls way too young for him on top of it which make the rating of underage girls that much worse. He also has publicly verbally harassed several of his exes in a particularly nasty manner. For example, he has thrown accusations at various exes (whose names I’ve redacted out of respect), like claiming one was in a mental hospital or famously saying one had sex with more than 20 people before him which he claimed made her a “slut” who was “incapable of being raped.”  

11) Greg is emotionally manipulative, like when he threatened suicide if his ex didn’t stop collecting alimony from him. Then he threatened suicide again if his Youtube career ended and he didn’t have income from it. That threat was to guilt people (usually young people) into donating to his Patreon. I don’t think it was a serious threat. Even if it were, this is one of the most basic of principles: Don’t reward bad behavior- such as emotional extortion. Do not give him dime one. 

12) Narcissists have a strong desire for control over relationships- particularly romantic relationships. Onision admitted he creates “relationship contracts” for the women he dates/marries. That contract includes a list of things his partners aren’t supposed to do and he allegedly finds ways to isolate them from their family to further that control over them. His ex Billie has attested to that. He chooses romantic partners who are young and not financially established, which creates a power imbalance in the relationship, tilted in his favor. Which is exactly what he wants.     

13) Narcissists have an insatiable appetite for attention and Greg will go to great lengths to get it. For example, there was the Shiloh memory loss incident. Onision pimped out his significant other’s severe medical issues for views, rather than calling an ambulance. He also publicized several very messy breakups for attention. And given the size of his channel, compared to the social media presence of his exes; they couldn’t even adequately defend themselves to all the people who heard his statements. Additionally, Greg picks fights with other YouTubers and shares very controversial opinions that he may not even truly hold. All that just to get a buzz going about his channel. There seems to be very few lines he won’t cross when he is hungry for attention. And Greg has admitted he has almost no life outside YouTube and social media. Chasing fame is a full-time job and then some.

14) People with NPD can be extraordinarily self-righteous, despite displaying shaky morals at best. For example, Greg often brags about being a vegetarian and never do doing drugs or smoking- as if this inherently makes him a good person or it makes up for how poorly he treats people. He goes so far as to say he wished pot smokers could overdose on pot and he hostilely attacked non-vegetarians as “ murderers.”

15) Narcissists often display an inability to compromise- like when Onision tried to keep his ex (Billie) from seeing her family because some of them allegedly smoked pot and he had forbidden Billie from smoking it herself. He could have struck a deal that perhaps she could smoke if she didn’t do it often and didn’t do it around him. He could have encouraged her to see her family in situations that didn’t allow for marijuana use- like eating dinner in a public restaurant or going to the movie theater. There were ways to compromise. He just wanted his way or the highway.

16) People with NPD may have experienced unpredictable or unreliable caregiving from parents when they were children. In some cases, this may rise to the level of abuse or neglect. Or alternately, NPD patients they may have been over-indulged by their parents and over-praised. DeVon Taruex did a YouTube interview with a confirmed high school classmate of Onision’s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8fYv9Yht1I). In said interview, we learned Greg’s mother was a little nutty and she treated her son as if he could do no wrong- to the extent that she would argue with teachers, school administrators, other students, and the parents of other students to defend Greg, no matter how definitive his wrongdoing was. According to Greg his father was physically abusive him and was eventually locked up for sexually abusing a minor. You have to take anything he says with a grain of salt but assuming he is being honest, he seem to match the childhood profile one would expect from someone with NPD.

17) The irony is, at first glance, many narcissists seem to be likable, even captivating people. Its only with time that people see narcissists for what they are. That has 100% been the case with Onision. Lots of people who once were huge fans have now grown to despise him. People (including many of Greg’s dissenters) seemed to genuinely enjoy his early career comedy skits. 

18) NPD is a common thread among cult leaders and shockingly, Onision is one.. Sort of. Or he was. Before he became an agnostic, he started a “religion” called Sicesca. I highly recommend watching both part 1 and part 2 of SecondClancy’s video about Sisesca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYsTwz-I_RE&lc=z120ulxwyujqfxjfu22udnpbtujbdpeor04.1521122346763440 I doubt Onision would have left his self-made “religion” if it had been particularly successful, but he did attempt to create one nonetheless. I usually don’t like the word normal but nonetheless, norrmal people don’t do that. 

Folks? Let’s just call a spade, a spade.

[skepticraven]

Predatory Addiction Commercials

Make America Sober Again commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHu3S8z_FcY

The Addiction Network commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeIsWu_pXhw

 According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 21.5 million American adults are battling a substance abuse disorder. That comes out to roughly 1 in 10 Americans and with such severe addiction issues sweeping the nation, it has created an addiction treatment industry. Like any other industry, there will be good actors and bad actors. I believe that both Make America Sober Again and The Addiction Network engage in ethically questionable practices, thereby taking advantage of the weak and suffering. Ironically both organizations do exactly the same thing and both organizations stem from one man: Tony Provenzano. He claims credit for these organizations himself on his Linked in page (seen in Image A).

Image A

Image B

Is it just me or does that rose in Mr. Provenzano’s lapel look suspiciously like he ripped part of his outfit off a mobster Halloween costume….  He also ironically related to and shares a first and last name with a deceased New York mobster whom was nick-named Tony Pro. Tony Pro was a member of the Genovesce crime family. When Teamsters’ boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in 1975, the original Anthony Provenzano (aka Tony Pro) held an impromptu news conference outside his home in Hallandale Beach’s Golden Isles neighborhood. The Tony Provenzano still living and affiliated with both The Addiction Network and Make America Sober Again, is originally from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Shocker, Fort Lee is right next to New York City. Now by his own admission on his Facebook page, he currently resides in Hallendale Beach, Florida (see image c). The Genovesce crime family is currently located primarily in the North East: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The Genovese are known to be in only two other places: Las Vegas and Southern Florida. Our subject, Mr. Provenzano is obviously in Southern Florida. Now, could that all be some bizarre coincidence? Absolutely it could. This is not anywhere near conclusive proof that he is involved in any kind of mob activity. But it is one hell of a coincidence, especially in conjunction with string of questionable business practices. The coincidence keep coming- read the next paragraph with special attention to the name Daniel Provenzano in paticular.

To compound my suspicions, when I looked into the background of some of Mr. Provenzano friends and professional associates from Linked In, criminal backgrounds started popping up all over the place. I conveniently can’t access his friends list on FB but I could see comments on his profile picture and found a criminal there as well. Mr. Provenzano knows a lot of criminals- particularly white collar criminals. (You can skip reading number 1-11 if you are short on time. I just wanted to establish the scum bags that Mr. Provenzano is associated with personally and professionally).

1) Daniel Provenzano is the grandnephew of Tony Pro, the mobster the subject of this article is likely named after or at minimum shares a name with. According to the NY Times, Daniel Provenzano was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $111,000 in fines and back taxes for racketeering and failure to file a state income tax return. Judge William C. Meehan said Daniel Provenzano was brilliant but lacked a moral compass when he was the owner of Advice Inc, a Ft. Lee Printing Company. Apparently, Provenzano tried to collect debts by beating up clients and once smashed an employee’s thumb with a hammer for stealing. He directed a film called “This Thing of Ours” about GENOVESCE CRIME FAMILY. The title of “This Thing of Ours” translated from the Italian phrase, “La Cosa Nostra.” La Cosa Nostra is now synonymous with the mob but it became a household phrase in 1962 when A Genovesce soldier Joseph “Joe Cargo” Valachi agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against the Genovesce crime family. However, no arrests came of his testimony. Jesus, I’d love to know exactly how our subject Mr. Tony Provenzano is related to the original Tony Provenzano aka Tony Pro. Its pretty clear they are related somehow though.

2) Kevin Brody plead guilty to one felony count of securities fraud and one felony count of grand larceny in the second degree from his misconduct working at Joseph Stevens & Co., Inc.

3) A federal court found BlueHippo Funding LLC and Joseph Resnin (another professional associate) in contempt for operating a deceptive computer financing scheme in violation of a federal court order that the defendants agreed to in 2008. The court entered judgment against Rensin, BlueHippo’s CEO, for $13.4 million, the harm consumers suffered as a result of the scheme.

4) Jeff Sterrette admits to working at Blue Hippo with Joseph Resnin.

5) Abiel Socorro and Ezell Brown (2 professional associates of Mr. Provenzano) have been described as an untrustworthy conartists by former employees and has multiple Rip off Reports filed against him (at least 4 that I read). Their company called “Education Online Services Corporation” and it is essentially a call center specializing in referrals and they are accused of selling misleading leads and tricking people into receiving unwanted school advertisement calls. Mr. Socorro and Mr. Brown are the owners and they have a history of distributing bad checks to numerous employees (at least 70). The company is allegedly a revolving door of employees because they fire people demanding payment for their work or because employees refuse to be dishonest on calls. One Ripoff Report alleges that they will close down unethical business and open them under new names. Additionally, Socorro’s previous company MarketLinkx Direct was sued for defrauding Simplex Healthcare out of $647,894.  Marketlinkx Direct Inc. operated as a subsidiary of Ezell Brown Inc.

6) Elan Maseri (a professional associate) was charged with Burglary, Fraudulently Giving False Information to a Pawn Broker (twice), Grand Theft, Dealing in Stolen Property, and Refused Obedience to a Police Officer.

7) Anthony Ferlanti was convicted by the Maryland Mortgage Fraud Task Force due to the following circumstance. He operated a company called Elect Group LLC out of Florida but advertised and marketed loan modification services to Maryland residents. He entered into contracts with 3 separate customers to modify their loans and accepted payments from them. These customers were instructed not to contact their previous mortgage lender or make anymore payments. No loan modification was ever done nor were the payments these customers made refunded. Collecting fees before conducting the loan modification would have been illegal even if he had done the modification. There were a number of other procedural violations as well, Additionally,  has been accused of selling false leads to mortgage companies

8) Creaghan Harry (aka Carl Henderson) is also known as the Florida Spam King. He reached a settlement with the FTC requiring him to pay $485,000 as redress for the estimated $5.97-million in consumer injury he caused. Operating as Hitech Marketing, Scientific Life Nutrition, and Rejuvenation Health Corp., Harry spammed herbal supplements touted to contain human growth hormone (HGH). Thanks to a provision in Florida law that spammers and other criminals love, Harry gets to keep his $2.4-million, 6,000-square-foot mansion. There are reports that the former New Jersey resident hid a lot of his money in banks in places like Latvia.

9) Benjamin Salafia was among 18 people involved in telemarketing scheme that reportedly stole millions of dollars from thousands of victims across 41 states since 2007, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. Apparently Salafia and the telemarketers led property owners to believe their land was worth up 15 times its assessed value. The property owners then had to pay fees ranging from $500 to $16000 to guarantee the sale of their land. Some of these people were told their property would be sold to buyers at extravagant dinner shows and they went so far as to stage a show for use in promotional materials. Mr. Salafia was charged with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy to engage in corrupt acts.

10) Jarrod Indik was arrested for leaving his 4 dog in hot car without food or water for hours. He was arrested for animal cruelty.

11) Robert Nuccio, a Facebook frined, has a rap sheet as long as my arm: larceny, possession of stolen property, defrauding an innkeeper, telephone solicitation without a license, etc. Seems like strange company to keep if you’re a legitimate, successful businessman. *

Image C

So, what does Mr. Provenzano have to say about Make America Sober Again or The Addiction Network? I contacted him through Linked In and gave him an opportunity to address all of my questions and concerns. He initially refused to respond to my questions in writing over Linked In and implied that the website for these organizations quote, ” clearly discloses what both companies do.” The websites actually tell you almost nothing so I asked if I could call and make a recording of his responses for accuracy sake. Since then, Mr. Provenzano has ghosted me and stopped responding. It has been several weeks since my last message and it states that he has read my message on Linked In and he has altered his Linked In page since. So he CHOSE not to respond.

So, what exactly are my issues with The Addiction Network and Make America Sober Again? Strap in folks, this may take a minute.

The Addiction Network

First, take a peek at a couple screen shots. (And yes the word “The” in The Addiction Network is in bold for a reason).

Image D

Image E

My first issue with The Addiction Network is their name. The Addiction Network is what is known as a copycat or cloned domain; meaning they chose a name for their organization that is almost exactly the same as another pre-existing organization. The Addiction Network is not alone in this tactic. A lot of major news organization like CNN and the New York Times have copy cats as well. While I cannot conclusively know The Addiction Network’s motivations for doing this, it is most often done to mislead the public into thinking an organization is more prestigious, trustworthy, or experienced than they actually are and to draw foot traffic from the site they imitate. You can see in Image E that Addiction Network and The Addiction Network show up right next to each other on a Facebook search. They have essentially the same name, except for the “The.”  If you click this link, you can see Addiction Network has a detailed professional website (https://www.addictionnetwork.com/ )- with a clear mission statement, information about the what they do, an extensive treatment center data base, etc. Now compare Addiction Network’s website to their copycat, The Addiction Network: (http://www.theaddictionnetwork.com/). It’s a wee bit different, right?  The Addiction Network’s website is pretty empty by comparison. The Facebook page for The Addiction Network has a grand total of 4 posts. That’s it and let’s just say, the few people who found the page are extremely critical. There is not a single positive comment.

The only information besides the phone number that is on The Addiction Network’s website states, “The Addiction Network is not a substance abuse treatment program or service. They are solely an advertising program that generates phone calls from television and radio advertisements. Your call will be directed to an advertiser in our program that is accepting calls.” (I corrected their error but they misspelled advertisements). The problem is that the commercials leave viewers with a very different impression than the disclaimer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZelsWu_pXhw). They put an actor, who is clearly supposed to be a doctor, front and center to talk to viewers about the seriousness of addiction and the commercial even says they will connect you with a qualified advisor. You are getting two entirely different impressions about the credentials of the person on the end of that 800 number from the website and the commercial. They are banking on people not paying as close of attention to this as I did. They are banking on the fact that once you get someone on the phone (especially a desperate and overwhelmed someone), you have a chance of selling them on whatever treatment center received the call, even if that may not be the right place for the caller.

The Addiction Network also has an absurdly large number of phone numbers. Why? I have no idea but its really bizarre. They may forward phone calls out to treatment centers but that shouldn’t have anything to do with The Addiction Network’s main phone number. So why is it that every time a commercial airs, they have a different phone number? These are all phone numbers aired in commercials for The Addiction Network: 

1)        1-800-825-3817

2)        1-800-299-6988

3)        800-835-3165

4)        800-843-1206

5)        800-454-5126

6)        800-611-7904

7)        800-823-7661

8)        800-819-8065

9)        800-555-1234

10)      800-260-4378

11)      305-459-3956

12)      800-847-1324

13)      800-838-5218

14)      800-454-5126

15)      800-849-1231

16)      800-836-9016

17)      800-859-4904

18)      800-704-4381

19)      800-845-0398

20)      800-845-0146

21)      800-529-9009

22)      800-214-6116

22 different phone numbers? Why? I’m sure there are more than that. Those were just the versions of the commercial that I found on the first couple pages of google search results, plus the ones I’ve seen on TV. How is anyone supposed to know who to call? Think about how many people might be dialing the wrong number- which inevitably brings us to the question of how The Addiction Network makes its money. I asked Mr. Provenzano to elaborate on that. He didn’t. 

According to The Addiction Network’s website, they are compensated on a per call basis and not on the outcome of your call (which they have to say because if it were outcome based rewards, that would be considered a kickback and its illegal). Well, I’m not sure I believe them because as I will demonstrate later, Mr. Provenzano is not above putting false information on his websites but let’s assume that that is true. The commercial says, “The call is free. The consultation is free. The referral is free.” So, we know the money is not coming from the callers but don’t excited. It’s not coming directly from the callers. So that leaves two possibilities. The first is that several treatment centers pay a flat advertising fee, regardless of the number of patients they actually take in. The problem with this is although the caller isn’t directly paying for the referral, but they or their insurance is still paying for it because the rehab facility will have to raise its prices to compensate for the advertising cost. If the treatment centers feel like they aren’t getting any patients (perhaps because people are calling a million wrong numbers), I imagine they’d eventually stop paying The Addiction Network. Which brings me back to, so why are there so many damn phone numbers?

Let’s go back to that commercial one more time: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZelsWu_pXhw) At the very end, they bring out this young man who is looking pretty rough and he says, “I wish my family had insurance. I could have gotten the best help available.” They could not be making it any clearer that this is not about helping addicts. They are basically telling people without insurance or a lot of money for an out of pocket expenditure to fuck off. I guess nobody wants to pay them for a broke referral. I couldn’t find an exact statistic but there is a MASSIVE number of uninsured addicts. Addicts tend to have trouble holding down a job and even if they do have one, they are still likely to have money troubles. (Drugs are expensive, who knew?)

Make America Sober Again

Image F

Image G

Like with The Addiction Network, Make America Sober Again is a pretty empty website. There just is not a lot to it. Right off the bat though, I noticed something misleading and most likely intentionally deceptive. Considering Mr. Provenzano is pretty seasoned in the marketing arena, he should know better. They used the SAMHSA logo without permission.  SAMHSA is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and it is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. When I saw their logo, I became suspicious and reached out by email to SAMHSA. I very quickly received a message from Philip Passerelli, the Management Operations Advisor at SAMHSA. He notified me that Make America Sober Again was not given permission to use the logo and then he let me know a couple weeks later when the logo was removed. (The screen shots of those emails are posted below). So why would Make America Sober Again use the logo in the first place? Being a branch of the U.S. government, SAMHSA is obviously a highly esteemed organization whose endorsement would lend credibility to the website. Make America Sober Again is trying to convince you that they are trustworthy but ironically they are doing it in a deceitful, disingenuous manner.

Image H

Image I

As you can see in Image J, Make America Sober Again is trademarked both for advertising/marketing purposes and for the purposes of selling merchandise- hats, t-shirts, socks, etc. They are utilizing that trademark too because I found a Make America Sober Again T-Shirt on Amazon for $27 and Make America Sober Again Baseball cap for $17.95 on a website called Timeless Value Tees. I contacted Timeless Value Tees to see if they had stopped producing the caps because the phrase “Make America Sober Again” was trademarked by Soap Creative Service Inc (which is from whence Make America Sober comes). I was told they still made them. Selling hats and shirts is not illegal but it is a hell of a reminder what this organization is about: making money, not helping addicts. There was no pledge to donate all or even a portion of the proceeds from merchandise to any nonprofit organization combating addiction. 

Image J

I should not need to point this out but Trump and the Make America Great Again logo have been a bit divisive. So why the hell would you choose a name that reminds people of a man that half the country cannot stand? A name that will make people wondering whether you’re using proceed to fund political candidates, causes, or super PACs. A name that might drive some addicts away from your supposed help. Most companies in the addiction treatment industry make it an intentional point not to bring up politics because saving lives is considered more important. To put it politely, the name Make America Sober Again is just very unusual and arguably unethical.

At the end of the day, what the hell do you even need The Addiction Network or Make America Sober Again for anyways? SAMHSA’s National Helpline (1-800-662-HELP) takes calls 24/7, 365 days a year and they help people regardless of whether they have insurance or money. If you prefer to look at treatment centers online, Addiction Network (you know, the website that The Addiction Network copycatted) has an online database where you can search for a treatment center based on your location: (www.addictionnetwork.com/treatment-center-map).  If you are insured, you could call your insurance company to find out what places take your insurance and how much they expect you to pay out of pocket. The Addiction Network and Make America Sober Again are both pointless. Well, its pointless for the addicts. It’s not pointless The Addiction Network and the pockets of the men behind it.

Bottom line, don’t fall victim to these predatory commercials and be careful of where you seek treatment. Southern Florida has had some pretty shady practices going on in the addiction treatment industry in general- many of which are much worse than this. I’d recommend reading this NBC article titled “Florida’s Billion-Dollar Drug Treatment Industry Is Plagued by Overdoses and Fraud” to learn more:  https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion-dollar-drug-treatment-industry-plagued-overdoses-fraud-n773376

Thoughts?

[skepticraven]

15 Reasons Not To Be a Christian

It’s sad that this has to be said but it does because unfortunately, too many people take disagreement as hostility. At least if its an atheist who is doing the disagreement. I do not hate Christians. I don’t think they are all bad people. I harbor no ill will towards them. I just happen to think they are wrong. I get asked why I’m not a Christian a lot so I thought I’d answer the question. I could probably write a small novel on this but this seems like a good start for now. 

1) The concept of Christianity is entirely based on the Bible. We have no original manuscript for it so you have no idea what it said originally. The oldest version we have of the Bible isn’t even in the language that would have been spoken in that part of the middle east and in that time period. 

2) The Bible was supposedly written by a lot of carpenters, shepherds, farmers, fishermen, and similar types of professions. Such people would have been totally illiterate during that time period.

3) Based on the date that the original Bible was supposedly written, the Book spent over a 1000 years being copied, translated, and intentionally altered by hand until the printing press came about in the mid-1400’s. You couldn’t copy it once without making some error accidentally and it was handled entirely by powerful men with plenty of reason to alter it for personal gain. Churchgoers were often illiterate until the past couple hundred years and mass was given in Latin on top of it back then. So most people would be none the wiser if something had been altered. In fact, we know for sure the Bible has been intentionally altered numerous times. There are literally hundreds of versions of the Bible just in English and thousands of sects of Christianity. 50+ Books were either left out of the Bible or later excluded (some were excluded by Martin Luther and some by Pope Clement VIII). If Christians can’t even get their story straight, why in the hell should I believe it? 

4) The Bible plagiarized stories from numerous pre-existing religions: both monotheistic and polytheistic. For example, the Persian scriptures of the Zoroastrians tell the story of how their god created the world and the first 2 humans in 6 days and then rested on the 7th. The names of these two human beings. Sound familiar? The Zoroastrians also invented the concept of heaven and hell and their art portrays the prophet Zarathustra as being surrounded by the same halo of light in which Christian figures are often depicted. Zarathustra even looks like Jesus before they white-washed Jesus. Chapter 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead is the same as the 10 commandments only written in negative confession. The story of the great flood was stolen from The Epic of Gilgamesh- right down to using birds to find dry land and the fact that the boat landed on a mountain.

5) I find it morally contemptible that the Biblically conceived God supposedly gives you enough free will to hang yourself with so that is not really free at all. Love him or burn forever? They’d call that abuse if he were human. And if Christianity is so true, why must they drill it into the heads of children before they have the capacity for critical thought? Its easier to get people to accept extraordinary claims as children. That’s just brainwashing 101.

6) I find it morally contemptible that the Biblically conceived God supposedly committed an act of genocide against all firstborn Egyptian sons because he was mad at one guy (the Pharaoh). The whole point of the Pharaoh is that he alone controlled Egypt and why could this God character have not just unilaterally eliminated him with a bolt of lightning? Instead, Christians believe he murdered a bunch of random people and children who had nothing to do with the decision to keep or free the Jews. But then again, Christians also believe this God murdered the entire fucking world in a flood because our “free” will became a pain in the ass. Not just people but also animals. I guess those giraffes were really acting up!

7) The Bible has dozens of current versions and resulted in hundreds of sects of Christianity with wildly varying beliefs. So if they can’t agree on what it says, why should anyone else believe it?

8) Most Christians believe in the Christian god because they were born in a country where Christianity is the dominant religion. Most people in India are Hindu because they were born into it too. And the same with Muslims in Iraq. And so on and so forth. If there was any divine truth to Christianity over any other faith, why don’t we see more conversion? Why aren’t non-Christians flocking in? Because it sounds absurd to anyone who hasn’t had this stuff drilled into their heads for their entire life.

9)If you read the Bible, there is actually some pretty sick shit in it besides just the aforementioned genocide. The whole idea of the Bible is that it is supposed to be the divinely inspired word of god. I don’t know why God couldn’t just write his own book but supposedly he told his prophets what he wanted to be written. So if that is true, God is not an entity deserving of my praise or respect. Here are examples of this contemptible god character condoning sexual slavery:   In Numbers 31:17-18, Moses commands his people to kill the men, the children, and any women who aren’t virgins. Then tells his people that they may KEEP any woman or girl who is a virgin for themselves. Then in, (Deuteronomy 21:10-14) Moses spells out a ritual to purify a captive virgin before sex. Then in (Leviticus 19:20-22), The Bible tells you that if you bang a slave while engaged to another woman, that you must beat the slave girl and sacrifice a sheep.

10) Either the Bible is bullshit or god sanctions sexism repeatedly. For example: 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent.” 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.” Colossians 3:18: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.” Deuteronomy 22:20-21 “If however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death…” Leviticus 15:19-30 I’m paraphrasing here but it basically says, menstruating women are unclean. Anyone or anything that touches she is unclean.

11) This God character in the Bible also sanctions physical slavery many, many times, not just sexual slavery. Here are a few examples: Ephesians 6:5, "Slaves obey your earthly masters with deep fear and respect.” Colossians 3:22: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord.”

12) Either the Bible is bullshit or the God character in the Bible sanctions murder many, many times.:   (Numbers 16:41-49) In this verse, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them. (Deuteronomy 17:12) says to kill people who don’t listen to priests (Exodus 22:17) Kill witches. (Leviticus 20:13)Kill gays. (Leviticus 20:27) Kill Fortunetellers. (Exodus 21:15) Kill someone who hit a parent. (Proverbs 20:20) and (Leviticus 20:9) Kill people for cursing their parents. (Leviticus 20:10) Kill adulterers (Leviticus 21:9) Kill a priest’s daughter who has sex. (Exodus 22:19) & (Numbers 25:1-9) Kill people of other religions. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13) Kill Nonbelievers (Deuteronomy 13:13-19) Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God (Deuteronomy 22:20-21) Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night (Leviticus 24:10-16) Kill Blasphemers (Exodus 31:12-15) Kill people who work on the Sabbath (Isaiah 14:21) & (Leviticus 26:21-22) Kill the children of Sinners That’s not even a complete list and it leaves essentially no one alive.

13) God is supposed to be this big divine being who created an entire universe full of billions upon billions of planets and stars. And yet the Bible claims he cares an awful lot about incredibly petty, stupid human things. Here are a few of his downright stupid rules. Don’t get a tattoo or a piercing. (Leviticus 19:28) Don’t eat Shellfish. (Leviticus 11:10) Don’t cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27) Don’t get divorced. (Luke 16:18) Don’t wear cloth of blended fabrics. (Leviticus 19:19) Don’t eat pork. (Leviticus 11:8) Don’t work on Sundays. (31:14-15) Don’t have pre-marital sex. (Deuteronomy 22: 20-21) 

14) The Bible contradicts itself all over the place. If the Bible doesn’t have any consistency, why would anyone believe it? Again, there are way more examples than I can list here. STATEMENT 1: Genesis 1:26-27 Adam and Eve were created at the same time. CONTRADICTION 1: Genesis 2:7 and 2:21-22 Adam was created first, woman sometime later. STATEMENT 2: Genesis 1:24-27 Animals were created before Adam. CONTRADICTION 2: Genesis 2:7 and 2:19 Animals were created after Adam. STATEMENT 3: Genesis 1:31 God was pleased with his creation. CONTRADICTION 3: Genesis 6:5-6 God was not pleased with his creation. STATEMENT 4: Exodus 20:13 “Thou shalt not kill.” CONTRADICTION 4: Look back at #12. I listed a bunch of people the Bible says to kill STATEMENT 5: Genesis 6:19 “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark.” CONTRADICTION 5: Genesis 7:2 “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens: and of beasts that are not clean by two.

15) There is simply is no evidence for any god, much less the Christian god.  In fact, there is some scientific evidence that debunks biblical stories. Here are a few examples. Darwinian evolution debunks the idea that animals or people were created as they are today. We have archeological evidence of human beings existing long before humans were supposedly created according to the Bible. There is no geologic evidence of a worldwide flood. And even in theory, how did kangaroos get to this ark from Australia? Fly? Millions of species couldn’t have gotten to the ark if they tried. There are an estimated 6.5 million land animal species. That’s just land animals. If all this flood water was salt water, it would have killed all the freshwater animals (or vice versa) so Noah would have had to include either all saltwater or all freshwater animals as well. And some species need shallow water to survive so that becomes a problem with a flood that reached the tops of mountains. There is no fucking way all those animals fit on any boat, much less one with the dimensions described in the Bible. Besides, there just is not enough water around to account for the water levels rising above the highest mountaintop. Then Noah supposedly lived to be 950? lol. Come on. People had significantly shorter lifespans in ancient times than they do today for obvious reasons. Only 0.0173% of Americans live to be 100 with the benefits of modern medicine and sanitation. 

Conclusion: I reject Christianity because it does not make sense to me. It’s not a phase. It’s not teenage rebellion that has stretched into adulthood. It’s definitely not devil worship since I don’t believe in him either. This is just the conclusion I came to after careful contemplation. Nothing more. Nothing less. Hopefully, this was food for thought for someone. As always, I appreciate feedback and thanks for reading!

[skepticraven]

Gender-Bending Animals

1) The Common Clownfish (aka the star of Finding Nemo) is a sequential hermaphrodite; meaning these fish are born one sex and can change to another. All clownfish start their lives as males. When two clownfish form a pair, the dominant fish will become female. These fish also have a remarkable ability to resist the poisonous stings of many different anemone species and thus they’ll live in the anemone for protection from predators. 

2) The Bicolor Dottyback Fish is protogynous, meaning any female can turn into a male but they cannot turn back. This fish is native to the tropical reefs of the Central Indo-Pacific but it is also a commonly sold aquarium fish. However, they can actually be surprisingly aggressive. 

3) The Rooster Hogfish displays hermaphroditism. It starts off being a female, but turns into a male when it matures. These fish form “harems” with one larger male dominating groups of females. When the dominant male of the harem is removed, the largest female will change its sex and take the original dominant male’s place. This sex change may take as little as 5 days. 

4) Largemouth AND Smallmouth Bass- are among the most wide-spread and well-known fish in North America. Recent studies have found roughly 70-90% are now intersex, meaning an organism with two genders. 

5) Ribbon Moray Eels are common throughout the Indo-Pacific region encompassing the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and also in French Polynesia and East Africa. As you can see, they swim like a dancing ribbon, hence their name. These eels are sequential hermaphrodites but unlike the clownfish, ALL Ribbon Moray Eels are born male and eventually become female.

6) Dragon Moray Eels are sort of the inverse of Ribbon Moray Eels. They protogynous, meaning they start off female but can become male. This occurs as a result of the lack of sufficient numbers of the opposite sex. 

7) Banana Slugs (the second largest slug species in the world) are simultaneous hermaphrodites, meaning they use their male and female organs at the same time. There is no switching back and forth between sexes. Although they are capable of self-fertilization, most Banana Slugs prefer a partner. When it comes times to mate, both slugs curl around each other in a yin, yang shape. Each slug uses its gigantic penis (often exceeding the length of its body) for a reciprocal exchange of sperm that fertilizes each other's eggs. Afterward, each lays its eggs and then leaves. (Fun fact, the Banana Slug’s Latin name is dolichophallus, which translates to mean ‘giant penis’). If a Banana slug is to mate properly, it has to choose a partner of equal size. If it doesn’t and the calculation is not done properly before mating, the chances are that its penis will get stuck during copulation. Unable to pull out afterward, the only option left is to bite off the other slug’s genitals. This strange process of penis-chewing is termed apophallation.

8) Common Blue Butterflies are sometimes born as gynandromorphs, meaning they can contain both male and female characteristics (aside from genitals). The butterfly seen below possesses a genetic anomaly that resulted in half its body appearing male and half female. (Gynandromorphism is not always a 50/50 split and it shows up in other species as well, including Northern Cardinals. Gynandromorphism has been known to affect behavior as well).

9) Cottonmouths and Copperheads are capable of virgin births or parthenogenesis. They can fertilize their own eggs without a male partner. They aren’t hermaphrodites. Rather in parthenogenesis, a special cell called a polar body is produced with an egg. The polar body can act like sperm, thereby fertilizing the eggs. This can even occur when males are available.

10) Bearded Dragons hail from Australia but are commonly kept as pets. What you may not know is they do a sex reversal in the egg. When warmer temperatures occur during incubation, male dragons often switch course and become female in presentation. HOWEVER, they remain male genetically while acting and reproducing like females.

[skepticraven]

How 'The Doctors' Broke a Promise (Marisha Dotson)

Popular daytime television show 'The Doctors' had on a young woman named Marisha Dotson who suffered from a rare type of skin cancer that resulted in needing...

Exploitative assholes... You have to see this to believe what this show did to this poor woman. Please, share this video everywhere.

[skepticraven]

"The only thing Stronger than Fear is Hope" - Unknown

I wish that were true but in reality, people into have traded their compassion for paranoia; their thoughtful opinions for manufactured outrage; and their empathy for hate driven rhetoric. We have thrown out the 4th amendment (which should prevent illegal search & seizure) for NSA surveillance because fear is stronger than hope. The Patriot Act & the National Defense Authorization Act laid waste to the 6th Amendment right to a speedy trial (or a trial at all) because we are afraid. Too many of us have become indifferent to the suffering of Syrian refugees and Iraqi civilians who are being bombed endlessly because we are afraid. Trump is where he is because he plays to the anxieties of the people. He strokes fears of Islamic extremism to justify the travel ban; fears of drug cartels & economic insecurities to justify a wall; fears of government overreach to avoid the consideration of any gun control legislation whatsoever (even minor, common sense things like closing loopholes that allow people to avoid background checks), and I could give you example, after example, after example. Fear has won. We’ve lost our strength with our hope. And because all of that fear, paranoia, and frustration had nowhere to go, it mutated. Into hate. That’s all this country really is anymore. We are all guilty- perhaps to varying degrees and for different reasons, some justified and some unjustified. But we all do it. Myself included. But the amount of hate & fear has gotten way out of control, invading nearly every crevice of this country. I wish I could tell you that it was going to change. I want it to. I try to have hope but at this point, I am beginning to think we just on the breaking point between order and complete chaos. I’m not condoning violence by any stretch of the imagination but how is anyone surprised to see these political rallies erupting? Writing is the only way I know to make any sense out of this clusterfuck- and to keep from giving into total nihilism. 

I wrote that a year ago on Facebook. Nothing has changed. **sigh** (⌣_⌣”) I’m just tired. So very tired.

[skepticraven]

Does Trump have Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

In my opinion, yes, yes. A thousand times, yes. However I want to be clear about something before going any further. I am not a psychiatrist. This is entirely my opinion BUT there are a number of doctors who agree with me such as Harvard psychoanalyst Lance Dodes; psychiatrist Dr. Robert Jay Lifton;   professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Dr. John Gartner; and many more. I also don’t want anyone to be under the impression that because Donald Trump seems to be the world’s clearest cut case of NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), that this somehow absolves him of responsibility for his actions. It doesn’t. He is not legally insane- even if his actions often seem irrational to most of us. Narcissistic Personality disorder is in the  DSM–5 (a.k.a. the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition) and it is technically a mental illness. HOWEVER, there is a significant and distinct difference between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other types of mental illnesses, like Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder. First, let’s get a general definition of what personality disorders are and aren’t.

Psychology Today defines personality disorders as: “deeply ingrained ways of thinking and behaving that are inflexible and generally lead to impaired relationships with others.” Mental health professionals formally recognize 10 personality disorders that fall into three clusters.  Cluster A includes the ddd or eccentric disorders. Cluster B includes the dramatic or erratic disorders.  (Narcissistic Personality Disorder falls in Cluster B). And Cluster C which includes Anxious or fearful disorders.”

One might say that narcissistic personality disorder is essentially just an abnormal personality. Like with all personalities, biological factors as well as environment and early life experiences form who a person becomes. People with Personality Disorders just possess personalities that are so outside the norm, and so problematic (for the individual and/or for society) that it has been identified as a mental disorder. With mental illnesses like Bipolar Disorder, the primary treatment is medication to treat that chemical imbalance. You could counsel someone with Bipolar Disorder to the ends of the earth, but unless you treat the imbalance with medication, you won’t get much of anywhere. In many cases, if the Bipolar patient finds the right medication or mix of medications, it will generally control the disorder for the most part. With Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the primary treatment is psychotherapy. No pill can achieve a total 180-degree turn on personality traits that have become ingrained over a person’s lifetime. You can’t re-route a narcissists worldview and patterns of interaction with a pill. That would take therapy. Unfortunately, NPD has a low recovery rate because it takes someone who is truly willing to heed the perceptions/advice of other people and someone who is highly motivated to change narcissistic behaviors. As I go into some of the signs of NPD and how Trump displays them, you will begin to see why most narcissists lack the willingness and motivation to recover or to seek treatment at all.

Symptoms:

1) People with NPD have an inflated sense of their own importance and so CLEARLY does Trump. For example, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Donald Trump claimed he had the largest inauguration crowd in history. He also incorrectly claimed that he had and I quote, “the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.“ The reality is that almost every President since Ronald Reagan won more electoral college votes than Donald Trump.

2) People with NPD have a deep need for admiration. Trump went on a “thank you tour” after winning the election (which is quite unusual in and of itself) and he also continued to campaign even immediately after inauguration. (Case and Point: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAQnXnQQCCI) Why is he doing these things? Trump wants, no needs, to be surrounded by his base who will scream and cheer and stroke his ego.

3) People with NPD lack of empathy for others. A good example of this would be when Trump belittled the parents of a deceased Muslim-American soldier (Captain Humayun Khan). Trump lacks the ability to imagine the pain of losing a child in service to this country. It’s the same reason he made that “I prefer people who weren’t captured” remark about John McCain. He has no ability to empathize with someone who spent nearly six years in a North Vietnamese prison. Even if you disagree with someone politically, an empathetic person would still show respect and gratitude for American heroes. This next example speaks both Trump’s need for admiration and his lack of empathy: Trump’s strangely chipper attitude about Hurricane Harvey’s devastation. When speaking to some supporters at a firehouse in Corpus Christi, Trump just couldn’t help himself and he exclaimed, “What a crowd, what a turnout.” And if anyone else made this next comment, I’d think nothing of it but since it was Trump? Houston, we have a problem. (I apologize in advance for how difficult it is to make sense of his tweets. He has terrible grammar, even by social media standards). Trump said this in his tweets, “ HISTORIC rainfall in Houston, and all over Texas. Floods are unprecedented, and more rain coming… Going to a Cabinet Meeting at 11:00 A.M. on #Harvey. Even experts have said they’ve never seen one like this!….  Wow - Now experts are calling #Harvey a once in 500 year flood!…. Many people are now saying that this is the worst storm/hurricane they have ever seen.” See the problem is Trump is so transparent and I know where this was going before it went there. Of course, Trump would ramble about how this was the biggest and the best flood because everything with him is automatically the biggest, record-breaking thing that ever happened and he is going to turn this around to talk about how awesome he and his team are. And he does exactly that in this next tweet, “ Great coordination between agencies at all levels of government. Continuing rains and flash floods are being dealt with. Thousands rescued…..  Wonderful coordination between Federal, State and Local Governments in the Great State of Texas - TEAMWORK! Record setting rainfall. “ Harvey was just another episode of the Trump show. Everything somehow is about Trump and his sheer tremendousness. All those homes, businesses, vehicles, personal belongings, pets, and even human lives that were lost just another excuse for Trump to compliment himself.

4) People with NPD have a mask of ultra-confidence but behind the mask lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism. For example, Trump sued Bill Maher over a joke. Maher got fed up with Trump constantly harping on the Obama birtherism nonsense, so Maher made a joke that Trump needs to prove that he isn’t the byproduct of his mother and orangutan. What a stupid thing to file a lawsuit over. Apparently, Trump really has no idea how often people mock his orange spray tan. Then Trump threatened to sue The Onion (which in case you don’t know is probably the most famous satirical newspaper currently in print) which published a fake opinion piece pretending to be authored by Trump. It was titled, “When You’re Feeling Low, Just Remember I’ll Be Dead in About 15 or 20 Years.” Trump is the definition of a snowflake. He needs a safe space so bad, he’ll throw free speech out the window to spare his feelings.

5) Narcissists are preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, or beauty. His obsession with success and power seem pretty clear. If you haven’t picked up on that, you have been living under a rock. His obsession with beauty is fascinating since its definitely not directed inwards. He seems immune to the reality of his own laughable appearance. However, Trump is obsessed with surrounding himself with beautiful women. So obsessed that he keeps replacing his romantic partners will the younger model. Back when George Bush Sr. was President, Trump literally told Esquire magazine: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what the media writes, as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” He isn’t just obsessed with his romantic partner’s level of attractiveness. It’s everyone around him as well, including his daughters. When Tiffany was only 2 years old, Trump made this terrifyingly creepy comment  “I think that she’s got a lot of Marla. She’s really a beautiful baby. She’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know whether or not she’s got this part (meaning her chest) yet but time will tell.” He held his hands in front of his chest to represent breasts when he said that. He was curious if his toddler would have big boobs. Just stop and think about that for a second. During an interview with Howard Stern in 2003, Trump said this about his then 22-year-old daughter Ivanka: “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.”  Three years later on a separate visit to the Howard Stern Show, Trump referred to Ivanka as “voluptuous” and told Stern it was fine for the notorious shock jock to call Ivanka a “hot piece of ass.” That same year on The View, Trump said this about Ivanka, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” Honestly, who talks about their daughter like that? Trump has carried this vanity straight into the white house. He has often referred to members of his team as coming from “central casting.” Its well known that Chris Christie’s weight had a lot to do with the fact that he was not offered a position in Trump’s cabinet. He even commented to the first lady of France (Brigitte Macron) about how in shape she is. 

6) People with NPD are entitled, meaning they believe themselves to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. A good example of this Trump’s 5th military deferment for bone spurs. (He’d received 4 prior deferments for being in college. As tough as he talks, you’d think he’d be itching to go fight for his country). Trump had a perfect bill of health less than two years prior to these supposed bone spurs being used as an excuse to dodge the draft. In fact that previous physical did not disqualify him for service as we can tell from his 1-A classification in July 1968. But this new physical that supposedly turned up bone spurs conveniently placed him squarely at the bottom of any call-up list, meaning he would only be drafted if there were some of complete and total military catastrophe. Funny, how those bone spurs didn’t impede Trump’s ability to play sports in college? Based on his graduation date and the date of the deferment, there is weeks- maybe a couple months tops- in between his athletic college activities and this bone spur deferment. (；一_一) Politifact reports, “Trump failed to mention his medical deferment when he told ABC News on July 19, 2015, that he was never drafted because the draft lottery went into effect and his birthday came with a high number.” In reality, he got an extremely high number because of a medical deferment, not his birthday. Fun fact, only 5 percent of people with bone spurs have any pain at all. It would’ve been an extremely rare case to be debilitated by a spur at age 22.” And even more rare, to miraculously recover so quickly and completely- after the war ended of course- not that we ever saw any actually evidence of physical disability. Since people started bringing this up, Trump has magically remembered the bone spurs… sort of. Except, he couldn’t remember which was his problem foot or if it was both… Come on. Unless you are an idiot, you know Trump had his daddy pay off a doctor to make up an excuse to get him out of the draft. Then on top of, Trump has the audacity to say John McCain isn’t a war hero and insult the parents of a dead Muslim-American soldier who did fight for this country. Ladies and gentleman, that is called entitlement.

7) A narcissist takes advantage of others to reach his or her own goals. Trump has a long, long history of not paying contractors and other employees- lots of them. To quote USA Today, “ During the Atlantic City casino boom in the 1980s, Philadelphia cabinet-builder Edward Friel Jr. landed a contract to build the bases for slot machines, registration desks, bars and other cabinets at Harrah’s at Trump Plaza. They finished their work in 1984 and submitted its final bill to the general contractor for the Trump Organization. Edward’s son, Paul, who was the firm’s accountant, still remembers the amount of that bill more than 30 years later: $83,600. The reason he remember this is that the money never came. A USA Today network analysis found Trump has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past 3 decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And several law firms that once represented him. Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and 3 against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. There were more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y. air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. “ If you’d like to read the full USA Today article, here is the URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/

8) Narcissists apologize extremely rarely and if they do apologize, it’s for self serving reasons, rather than out of remorse. About as close to an apology as Trump has gotten is after the Access Hollywood tapes leaked but it was half-assed, at best. He mostly just deflected by bringing up Bill Clinton’s misdeeds and complaining about how long ago this conversation occurred. He tossed in an “I said it, I regret it. I pledge to be a better man tomorrow.” and then didn’t change his attitude towards women an iota. The Access Hollywood tape came out on October 7, 2016 and he issued that bullshit apology the same day. Then 5 days later, after Natasha Stoynoff came out to accuse Trump of unwanted touching which is exactly what he said he does in that video, Trump responds by insinuating she isn’t attractive enough for him to bother assaulting her. Because all innocent people say that…. (See video of Trump’s “deeply remorseful” behavior: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-sexual-assault_us_57ffc493e4b0162c043aa2a3

9) Narcissists often have unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment. For example, when Trump asked James Comey to pledge his loyalty, to “lift the cloud” around him and his administration involving Russia, and essentially  Trump wanted Comey to let Flynn go. Same thing when Trump got upset at Jeff Sessions recusing himself in a situation he was ethically obligated to do so. Trump expects people to not do their job and not abide by the law and ethical guidelines for him.

10) Many narcissists care little about rules and boundaries so they may engage in behaviors that others find morally objectionable. An example of Trump’s objectionable business decisions, was creating Trump University which engaged in a variety of illegal business practices. Trump was obviously eventually sued for that, as he should be. The plaintiffs alleged that they paid up to $35,000 in tuition for very little in return. Trump has agreed to pay $25 million to settle the lawsuits after claiming he’d never settle because he was “innocent.” The settlement includes a $1 million penalty paid to New York state for violating the state’s education laws by calling the program a “university” despite offering no degrees or traditional education. The worst part is, business settlements are fully tax deductible. Another example of an objectionable personal choice was pardoning Sheriff Joe  Arpaio, a man who violated the civil rights of Americans by having his officers actively target anyone who “looked hispanic” including people who hadn’t done so much as a traffic violation which violates the equal protection clause of the constitution and the 4th amendment which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. Then Arpaio ignored a judge’s order to cease those violations. He also did things like, making male prisoners wear pink underwear and housing them in an outdoor tent city in the Arizona desert where it got so hot that the inmates’ shoes melted. (Up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit). Why did Trump pardon such a man? He’d say it’s because Arpaio battled illegal immigration but the truth is, its because Arpaio stroked Trump’s ego by supporting him during the election. Due process goes out the window because he was nice to Trump.  

(；一_一)

This person is mentally unfit to lead. Trump has no business with his finger on the nuclear launch code. And yet, if we nix him we will end up with Pence. He is is just as bad for this country but in a different way. Pence is just better at hiding what a scumbag he is. That mask makes him dangerous- more dangerous even than Trump. Pence is well-liked by Republicans which means he would face less resistance to his draconian policies in Congress- policies like nixing gay marriage.  As much as I hate to say it, we are better to stick with Trump. His narcissism blinds him and it will be his downfall in the end. Impeachment would be a waste of political capital. We just need to obstruct Trump at every turn for now, distract him where possible, and then ride this wave of hatred and frustration all the way to a crushing democratic victory in the next presidential. election.

[skepticraven]

The right wing doesn’t want prayer in school. They want Christian prayer in schools. And in some cases, they get more specific and want their Christian denomination’s prayer in school. For example, most Christians are not fond of Pentecostals who speak in tongues. My mother went so far as to call it “demonic.” (Its not demonic, just stupid), 

The thing is, prayer is not even banned in American public schools. Students can pray privately. They can wear religious clothing or jewelry. They can bring their personal religious texts to school. The school can teach about religion from a literary, historical, psychological, or cultural perspective. Even student-initiated extracurricular religious clubs are allowed; like FCS (aka the Fellowship of Christian Students) or FCA (the Fellowship of Christian Athletes). Public Schools just aren’t allowed to endorse one religion over another, nor endorse religion over lack of religion. Teachers and administrators are not to run schools like a church, preaching a certain faith as fact. They cannot lead prayer in schools. 

So why the religious right has their panties in a knot is a mystery to me. If you want no division between school and church, then pay for your kid to go to private school. . 

[skepticraven]

If you actually believe in horoscopes, I’m judging you. It’s so clearly horse shit. Besides, most of the horoscopes memes and posts that you see on social media were literally made up. These people aren’t charting the movements of celestial bodies. Do you have any idea how complicated that is? (Case and point, see the chart below. This Astrological Chart was “calculated” ONLY AND EXACTLY for January 1, 2000 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time New York City, New York. (Longitude: 074W00'23" - Latitude: 40N42'51") The local barfly, Tiffany So-and-So, who posts memes declaring what you’re like in bed based on your horoscope is not reading that fucking astrological chart. SHE IS MAKING THINGS UP for likes and shares. People are just making random declarations and calling it horoscopes. Not that it matters. The various rocks and giant balls of burning gas floating around in space cannot predict shit anyways. Why on earth would it? Besides, tons of people will attest to the inaccuracy of horoscopes. Just to prove a point I looked at mine: Sagittarius. Half of it was so vague it could literally describe most of the human race but a lot of it was just downright wrong. 

It called me an extrovert.  Not at all. I am definitely an introvert. It’s not even a close call. 

It called me an optimist. Nope, I’d call myself a realist with occasional bouts of nihilism. 

It called me outdoorsy. Nope. I am a creature of comfort.

It said I am a big traveler. Not any more than anyone else. I’m overwhelmingly homebody, save an occasional vacation about twice a decade. 

It’s not a fucking prediction if occasionally some people luck into a horoscope that kinda describes them and some people end up with a horoscope that doesn’t describe them at all. It’s bullshit. 

[skepticraven]

A sign in Maryland tells liberals to get their guns if they try to impeach Trump

The Calvert County Sheriff's Office said it's received multiple calls since the sign went up a month ago.

That’s the problem with cults. No matter what the cult leader says or does, he’s never wrong to the indoctrinated. You could find insurmountable proof of illegal activity and the Trump cult members would shrug it off. We are already seeing it happen. Fox News, for example, has an article up on their website titled “Yes, Trump can pardon himself – and the left’s endless quest for magic bullets to stop him won’t work.” They are saying Trump can pardon himself- even if he is guilty- like a dictator would. The investigation hasn’t concluded yet and they’ve already decided any evidence of Trump doing something illegal is automatically fake or if the evidence happens to be compelling enough, Trump’s wrongdoing is unimportant. They’ve decided that before they have a clue what Mueller has uncovered. See, the indoctrinated work back from their conclusion. In this case, their conclusion is Trump is right. He is their political Jesus. But in order to keep the conclusion that Trump is right, they have to try to bend reality to that conclusion. Where some of these people once criticized Obama for not pulling out of Iraq, they now champion Trump’s decision to ramp up the conflict or simply to ignore Trump’s behavior that mirrors behavior they criticized in Obama. To keep their conclusion intact, any prior beliefs or principles have to become malleable. Like any cult leader, Trump embodies something more than himself. In religious cults, the cult leader often represents the will of a divine being. Trump IS conservatism. He is the Superman of conservatism come to right the world. To Trump’s groupie’s, admitting he is ever wrong is tantamount to saying conservatism is wrong. And worse, its tantamount to saying liberals are right about something. (**gasp**) To far-right conservatives, liberals are the devil. Reality is less important than sticking it to those “libtard cucks” (or whatever childish nickname they’re using now). Their hatred of liberals/democrats created President Trump. That hatred is as irrational as their devotion to Trump.

[skepticraven]

Black America has buckled and accepted this blatant brainwashing of slaves. African-American Christians can’t even take issue with the Rev. Colcock-Jones because he was simply obeying the Bible. Case and point:

1) Titus 2:9-10 “Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”

Sounds like God needs a new title. A more accurate title than savior. “God the Enslaver” rings much more accurate. If the god of the Bible was real, we’d all be his slaves. Before the civil war, the sum total of free will that slaves had was one singular choice: Disobey your master and get the whip or fall in line with the master’s wishes. Disobedience was swiftly and harshly punished. Well, if the Christian god were real then we are in much the same situation. Your choices are either to fall in line with his wishes or your disobedience will be punished with eternal torment in hell. The punishment of damnation may be slightly less immediate than the whip but the threat would loom nonetheless. Frankly, the whip sounds merciful compared to burning for all eternity. Thankfully, there is not a shred of compelling evidence that a God or Gods are real, much less the Christian god. 

2) Colossians 4:1 “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”

You cannot treat a slave justly AND enslave them. Those 2 things are incompatible. Plus, remember how I just told you this god character would be like a plantation slave owner. Colossians 4:1 even refers to God as the master drawing a direct comparison between slave owners and God.

3) Leviticus 25:44-46 “As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule.”

How specific. The phrase “God’s chosen people” suddenly takes on a whole new meaning. Chosen for a slavery exemption. How about, just don’t own people?

4) Exodus 21:1- 5 ″Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. If thou buy a Hebrew slave, 6 years he shall serve: and in the 7th he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. Or the servant may plainly say, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free.” “

Compare the past two listed verses: Exodus 21:2 and Leviticus 25:44-46. Notice how they contradict each other? Leviticus says owning Jews as slaves is a no-no. Exodus says the Jewish slaves are to be free after the 6th year. (Jeremiah 34:14 reaffirms this 6-year rule for Hebrew slaves). Supposedly, MOSES WROTE BOTH LEVITICUS AND EXODUS. Either he has a short memory and lacked a consistent position on slavery OR Moses didn’t write both books. (Most likely, he didn’t write either because we have no proof Moses was a real person and not just a character in a story that people took too seriously). The Bible is deeply contradictory. It will set up rules for how slaves and their masters are to behave. It sets up biblical laws around purchasing slaves and says this morally permissible. Then it will turn around and say slavery is not allowed. It does the same dance of contradiction with murder too. This is part of why the Bible is a dangerous book. It can be used to excuse atrocities and then people will defend the Bible as a moral compass. 

I have one last point about Exodus 21:1-5,. It is saying that if the master essentially gives (aka orders) a slave to take a wife, he has to choose to either abandon his wife/kids after those 6 years or he is stuck being a slave if he wants to stick with him. Sounds like a clever way to keep a Hebrew slave in bondage. Its coercion. 

5) Luke 12:47 “And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who unknowingly acted against his master’s will shall receive a light beating.

I’ve heard people try to excuse the slavery verses by claiming slavery meant something different at that time. That’s total hogwash but even pretending I bought that excuse, this verse still condones beating the shit out someone who didn’t obey you or even unintentionally displeased you. You can substitute any word you want for slavery and you still have a disciple advising assaulting someone for no good reason.

6) Leviticus 19:20-22 “If a man lies sexually with a woman who is a slave, assigned to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom, a distinction shall be made. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free; but he shall bring his compensation to the Lord, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, and he shall be forgiven for the sin that he has committed.”

Slaves have no true free will. Having sex with a slave would be rape- whether it is physically forced or just coerced. For example, prison guards sleeping with inmates is by definition rape for the same reason. Inmates and slaves can’t just leave the situation. Even if the inmate/slave says yes at the time, they know saying no would likely result in serious consequences so they guard/slave owner has not received consent. According to the Bible, if you rape your slave, she/he is to be murdered and you kill an animal for God. Just let that sink in for a second.

7) Proverbs 12:24 “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.”

Watch out lazy people! Aside from the immorality of forced labor (aka slavery), this verse is dripping with irony. Have you ever been to a Baptist Church for those fried chicken luncheons that they do on occasion? Sloth and gluttony is their bread and butter. 

8) Exodus 21:20-21 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.”

What could be more quintessentially immoral than minimizing a murder victim to a financial loss for the slave owner? And what does it matter if he survives a day or two? Dead is dead. Although I guess death might be preferable to enslavement… It would be to me.

9) Exodus 21:26-27 “When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.”

Gee, is God not merciful? 

10) Colossians 3:22  Slaves, obey those who are your earthly masters in everything, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 

I cannot love or respect any being that wants to be feared or that allows the endorsement of immorality in his name. Immorality that masquerades as morality. 

11) 1 Timothy 6:1 “Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.”

Who reads this and thinks this book is at all moral? Not only is slavery not forbidden, but slavery owners are worthy of honor? DA FUQ?

12) Galatians 3:28 ”There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

I am sure that was very comforting to the slaves. Although, it is noteworthy that the Bible says there is no male or female. I guess, the Christian anti-transgender argument is null and void.

13) 1 Peter 2:18 “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.”

Fuck Peter for supposedly writing this. Fuck your god for supposedly decreeing or inspiring this. Anyone who holds up the Bible as the pinnacle of morality has clearly not read it too closely. 

14) Exodus 22:2-3 “If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed;but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed. Anyone who steals must certainly make restitution, but if they have nothing, they must be sold to pay for their theft. “

So theft (no matter how small) makes you a slave. A starving guy steals an apple and then BAM! Sold into slavery- assuming you don’t kill him. Moses confuses vengeance with justice.

15) 1 Corinthians 12:13 “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Slaves don’t care about drinking of the spirit. They care about breathing free air and not getting their teeth kicked in because their master had a bad day.

16) Ephesians 6:5-7 “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the LORD, not people.”

Not only do you have to obey some asshole who owns you, you have to be sincere in your obedience. You have to mean it. If a slave achieves that, he or she is suffering from stockholm syndrome.

18) Exodus 21:32 If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. 

Its bad enough someone is dead and was a slave but now you’re killing an animal for being an animal? 

I am sure there are examples I missed but you get the point. I know it’s hard to think rationally about what you were taught from birth. These things become a part of your identity and that tends to make people defensive when faced with uncomfortable truths. People feel attacked when you point out inconsistencies in their beliefs. But I hope you will try to set emotion aside for a moment anyway. 

When you get down to the nitty-gritty, the only “evidence” of the Christian god is the Bible which is no evidence at all. Anyone can write anything down. We have no original manuscript for the Bible. We aren’t even sure there was one single original manuscript at all and even if there was, that would not prove validity and the Bible we have today would inevitably be completely different from the original since this is essentially the world’s longest-running game of telephone. The Bible spent well over a thousand years being copied and translated by hand. Its hard not incorrectly transcribe something on accident but Catholic priests had a lot of power way back then. Power corrupts. They had reason to alter it to their liking and they gave mass in Latin to church-goers who were largely illiterate, even in their native language. There are currently hundreds of versions of the Bible in English alone and thousands upon thousands of sects of Christianity. There are books that have been rejected from the Bible. There are numerous verses that contradict one another, even in the same book. (For example, Genisis says that animals were created before Adam. Then it turns around to say they were created after). We know some biblical stories flat out did not happen. (Like Jonah and the whale or Noah’s ark). With a few exceptions, the people who supposedly wrote the Bible were primarily carpenters, shepherds, farmers, fishermen, and similar types of professions. Such people would have been totally illiterate during that time period and obviously, they are all dead and thus cannot be questioned for information. That’s if they all even existed in the first place. We know for sure that, at minimum, the names of the apostles were Europeanized. (To give a few examples, Matthew’s would have been Mattityahu. James was Yakov. John was Yochanan. Judas Iscariot was Yehuda.  Thomas was Tau’ma). 

Another issue is that the Bible plagiarized stories from numerous pre-existing religions: both monotheistic and polytheistic. For example, the Persian scriptures of the Zoroastrians tell the story of how their god created the world and the first 2 humans in 6 days and then rested on the 7th. The Zoroastrians also invented the concept of heaven and hell and their art portrays the prophet Zarathustra as being surrounded by the same halo of light in which Christian figures are often depicted. Zarathustra even looks like Jesus before they white-washed Jesus. Chapter 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead is the same as the 10 commandments only written in negative confession. The story of the great flood was HEAVILY inspired by The Epic of Gilgamesh- right down to using birds to find dry land and the fact that the boat landed on top of a mountain. There are more examples of plagiarized stories but you get the point. Even without all the aforementioned issues, god only seemed to want to announce himself before we kept good records or were capable of documenting evidence of alleged miracles and such. That alones screams bullshit. Ancient man simply made up supernatural explanations to explain things they didn’t understand and to quell their fears about death. 

[skepticraven]

Climate Change is Real

First of all, it’s important to mention that it’s now called climate change for a reason. The name Global Warming is misleading because then you get people, like Trump, who think the entire planet is supposed to be the Mojave Desert 24-7. He has literally tweeted, “It’s freezing and snowing in New York–we need global warming!” 

Climate and weather aren’t the same thing. Weather is what’s happening today. Climate refers to the weather conditions prevailing over a long period of time. The current climate changes may not be noticed by the layperson or they may seem gradual to someone not looking through the lens of scientific data and climatic trends. You certainly aren’t going to walk outside today and say, “I feel the climate has changed." 

But what seems gradual, is actually pretty dramatic when compared to historical data. And, of course, this is all cumulative. Since things are going downhill now, they can predict, based on the current trends, where we are likely to be climate-wise in 10 years or 20 years or whatever. We are already seeing the current climate changes having a significant impact on the Earth. If you’d like evidence of climate change, here you go: 

1) Heightened sea temperatures have caused bleaching of about ½ the Great Barrier Reef. If global warming remains on its upward path, by 2050 just 5% of the reef will remain intact. 

2) Global warming has raised global sea level about 8 inches since 1880, and the rate is accelerating. As I said, we can use this data to predict approximately where the sea level will be in X amount of years. 

3) Ice is melting worldwide. Here a few more specific examples, When Glacier National Park was founded in 1910, there were roughly 150 glaciers. Now there are less than 30. As you can see in the image below, the Snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80% since 1912. Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.8 percent per decade. The mass of ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet has begun to decline. From 1979 to 2006, the summer melt on the ice sheet increased by 30 percent. In the second image below this comment, the Greenland Ice Sheet’s melt zone is shown in a side-by-side comparison, from 1992 to 2002.

Glacier National Park ↓

Mt. Kilimanjaro ↓

Greenland Ice Sheet ↓

4) The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes had increased 80% in the past 30 years. The image below shows 4 simultaneous storms in the Atlantic Ocean in 2018.  Visible in the image is Hurricane Florence (a category 4), Hurricane Isaac (a category 1), Hurricane Helene (a category 2), and Tropical Storm Joyce. These are just the ones approaching/hitting land in mid-September. Plus, it’s pretty unusual to see 4 active storms in the Atlantic at once. 

5) The Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average, causing the ice that polar bears depend on to melt away. The sea ice is melting earlier and forming later each year. This makes it more difficult for female bears to get onto land in late autumn to den and also harder to get onto the sea ice in spring to feed. It means bears are fasting for longer – dramatically reducing their body weight and physical condition and making it harder for them to survive the summer season. There have been several viral videos of starving emaciated polar bears wandering around, barely able to walk because they are so weak from hunger. 

6) The range of some animal has changed quite a bit over the last 100 years- in response to climatic change. One notable example would be the European Spruce Bark Beetle.

7) In the last 20 years, the fire season in the Western United States has increased 2.5+ months. There are 4 times more wildfires exceeding 1.5 square miles than there were 30 years ago. And large fires are burning 6 times as much area. The wildfire fighting budget sits at 1 billion dollars per year now. 

I can keep going for a long time on this subject but I think you get the point. Why on earth would we think we can abuse the planet in the numerous way we have without consequence or effect? Why would 97% of scientists agree that climate change is real if it weren’t? Not just American scientists, that includes those that come from all over the globe. And even if you still aren’t sold on climate change (for some damn reason), what harm is there in being environmentally cautious? Even if not for climate change, reducing air pollution (for example) would still benefit our health or at least keep pollution from causing any more harm to our health than it already does. Its a win, win. 

[skepticraven]

15 Reasons Not To Be a Christian

It’s sad that this has to be said but it does because unfortunately, too many people take disagreement as hostility. At least if its an atheist who is doing the disagreement. I do not hate Christians. I don’t think they are all bad people. I harbor no ill will towards them. I just happen to think they are wrong. I get asked why I’m not a Christian a lot so I thought I’d answer the question. I could probably write a small novel on this but this seems like a good start for now. 

1) The concept of Christianity is entirely based on the Bible. We have no original manuscript for it so you have no idea what it said originally. The oldest version we have of the Bible isn’t even in the language that would have been spoken in that part of the middle east and in that time period. 

2) The Bible was supposedly written by a lot of carpenters, shepherds, farmers, fishermen, and similar types of professions. Such people would have been totally illiterate during that time period.

3) Based on the date that the original Bible was supposedly written, the Book spent over a 1000 years being copied, translated, and intentionally altered by hand until the printing press came about in the mid-1400’s. You couldn’t copy it once without making some error accidentally and it was handled entirely by powerful men with plenty of reason to alter it for personal gain. Churchgoers were often illiterate until the past couple hundred years and mass was given in Latin on top of it back then. So most people would be none the wiser if something had been altered. In fact, we know for sure the Bible has been intentionally altered numerous times. There are literally hundreds of versions of the Bible just in English and thousands of sects of Christianity. 50+ Books were either left out of the Bible or later excluded (some were excluded by Martin Luther and some by Pope Clement VIII). If Christians can’t even get their story straight, why in the hell should I believe it? 

4) The Bible plagiarized stories from numerous pre-existing religions: both monotheistic and polytheistic. For example, the Persian scriptures of the Zoroastrians tell the story of how their god created the world and the first 2 humans in 6 days and then rested on the 7th. The names of these two human beings were Adama and Evah. Sound familiar? The Zoroastrians also invented the concept of heaven and hell and their art portrays the prophet Zarathustra as being surrounded by the same halo of light in which Christian figures are often depicted. Zarathustra even looks like Jesus before they white-washed Jesus. Chapter 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead is the same as the 10 commandments only written in negative confession. The story of the great flood was stolen from The Epic of Gilgamesh- right down to using birds to find dry land and the fact that the boat landed on a mountain.

5) I find it morally contemptible that the Biblically conceived God supposedly gives you enough free will to hang yourself with so that is not really free at all. Love him or burn forever? They’d call that abuse if he were human. And if Christianity is so true, why must they drill it into the heads of children before they have the capacity for critical thought? Its easier to get people to accept extraordinary claims as children. That’s just brainwashing 101.

6) I find it morally contemptible that the Biblically conceived God supposedly committed an act of genocide against all firstborn Egyptian sons because he was mad at one guy (the Pharaoh). The whole point of the Pharaoh is that he alone controlled Egypt and why could this God character have not just unilaterally eliminated him with a bolt of lightning? Instead, Christians believe he murdered a bunch of random people and children who had nothing to do with the decision to keep or free the Jews. But then again, Christians also believe this God murdered the entire fucking world in a flood because our “free” will became a pain in the ass. Not just people but also animals. I guess those giraffes were really acting up!

7) The Bible has dozens of current versions and resulted in hundreds of sects of Christianity with wildly varying beliefs. So if they can’t agree on what it says, why should anyone else believe it?

8) Most Christians believe in the Christian god because they were born in a country where Christianity is the dominant religion. Most people in India are Hindu because they were born into it too. And the same with Muslims in Iraq. And so on and so forth. If there was any divine truth to Christianity over any other faith, why don’t we see more conversion? Why aren’t non-Christians flocking in? Because it sounds absurd to anyone who hasn’t had this stuff drilled into their heads for their entire life.

9)If you read the Bible, there is actually some pretty sick shit in it besides just the aforementioned genocide. The whole idea of the Bible is that it is supposed to be the divinely inspired word of god. I don’t know why God couldn’t just write his own book but supposedly he told his prophets what he wanted to be written. So if that is true, God is not an entity deserving of my praise or respect. Here are examples of this contemptible god character condoning sexual slavery:   In Numbers 31:17-18, Moses commands his people to kill the men, the children, and any women who aren’t virgins. Then tells his people that they may KEEP any woman or girl who is a virgin for themselves. Then in, (Deuteronomy 21:10-14) Moses spells out a ritual to purify a captive virgin before sex. Then in (Leviticus 19:20-22), The Bible tells you that if you bang a slave while engaged to another woman, that you must beat the slave girl and sacrifice a sheep.

10) Either the Bible is bullshit or god sanctions sexism repeatedly. For example: 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent.” 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.” Colossians 3:18: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.” Deuteronomy 22:20-21 “If however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death…” Leviticus 15:19-30 I’m paraphrasing here but it basically says, menstruating women are unclean. Anyone or anything that touches she is unclean.

11) This God character in the Bible also sanctions physical slavery many, many times, not just sexual slavery. Here are a few examples: Ephesians 6:5, “Slaves obey your earthly masters with deep fear and respect.” Colossians 3:22: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord.”

12) Either the Bible is bullshit or the God character in the Bible sanctions murder many, many times.:   (Numbers 16:41-49) In this verse, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them. (Deuteronomy 17:12) says to kill people who don’t listen to priests (Exodus 22:17) Kill witches. (Leviticus 20:13)Kill gays. (Leviticus 20:27) Kill Fortunetellers. (Exodus 21:15) Kill someone who hit a parent. (Proverbs 20:20) and (Leviticus 20:9) Kill people for cursing their parents. (Leviticus 20:10) Kill adulterers (Leviticus 21:9) Kill a priest’s daughter who has sex. (Exodus 22:19) & (Numbers 25:1-9) Kill people of other religions. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13) Kill Nonbelievers (Deuteronomy 13:13-19) Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God (Deuteronomy 22:20-21) Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night (Leviticus 24:10-16) Kill Blasphemers (Exodus 31:12-15) Kill people who work on the Sabbath (Isaiah 14:21) & (Leviticus 26:21-22) Kill the children of Sinners That’s not even a complete list and it leaves essentially no one alive.

13) God is supposed to be this big divine being who created an entire universe full of billions upon billions of planets and stars. And yet the Bible claims he cares an awful lot about incredibly petty, stupid human things. Here are a few of his downright stupid rules. Don’t get a tattoo or a piercing. (Leviticus 19:28) Don’t eat Shellfish. (Leviticus 11:10) Don’t cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. (Leviticus 19:27) Don’t get divorced. (Luke 16:18) Don’t wear cloth of blended fabrics. (Leviticus 19:19) Don’t eat pork. (Leviticus 11:8) Don’t work on Sundays. (31:14-15) Don’t have pre-marital sex. (Deuteronomy 22: 20-21) 

14) The Bible contradicts itself all over the place. If the Bible doesn’t have any consistency, why would anyone believe it? Again, there are way more examples than I can list here. STATEMENT 1: Genesis 1:26-27 Adam and Eve were created at the same time. CONTRADICTION 1: Genesis 2:7 and 2:21-22 Adam was created first, woman sometime later. STATEMENT 2: Genesis 1:24-27 Animals were created before Adam. CONTRADICTION 2: Genesis 2:7 and 2:19 Animals were created after Adam. STATEMENT 3: Genesis 1:31 God was pleased with his creation. CONTRADICTION 3: Genesis 6:5-6 God was not pleased with his creation. STATEMENT 4: Exodus 20:13 “Thou shalt not kill.” CONTRADICTION 4: Look back at #12. I listed a bunch of people the Bible says to kill STATEMENT 5: Genesis 6:19 “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark.” CONTRADICTION 5: Genesis 7:2 “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens: and of beasts that are not clean by two.

15) There is simply is no evidence for any god, much less the Christian god.  In fact, there is some scientific evidence that debunks biblical stories. Here are a few examples. Darwinian evolution debunks the idea that animals or people were created as they are today. We have archeological evidence of human beings existing long before humans were supposedly created according to the Bible. There is no geologic evidence of a worldwide flood. And even in theory, how did kangaroos get to this ark from Australia? Fly? Millions of species couldn’t have gotten to the ark if they tried. There are an estimated 6.5 million land animal species. That’s just land animals. If all this flood water was salt water, it would have killed all the freshwater animals (or vice versa) so Noah would have had to include either all saltwater or all freshwater animals as well. And some species need shallow water to survive so that becomes a problem with a flood that reached the tops of mountains. There is no fucking way all those animals fit on any boat, much less one with the dimensions described in the Bible. Besides, there just is not enough water around to account for the water levels rising above the highest mountaintop. Then Noah supposedly lived to be 950? lol. Come on. People had significantly shorter lifespans in ancient times than they do today for obvious reasons. Only 0.0173% of Americans live to be 100 with the benefits of modern medicine and sanitation. 

Conclusion: I reject Christianity because it does not make sense to me. It’s not a phase. It’s not teenage rebellion that has stretched into adulthood. It’s definitely not devil worship since I don’t believe in him either. This is just the conclusion I came to after careful contemplation. Nothing more. Nothing less. Hopefully, this was food for thought for someone. As always, I appreciate feedback and thanks for reading!

[skepticraven]

Corporations Creating Wealth Inequality (Walmart & Facebook)

Facebook lost $130 billion dollars in the stock market on July 26th, 2018. This is the largest loss of wealth in a single day and it won’t effect Mark’s lifestyle or livelihood at all. He is still a multi-billionaire. If you worked every single day for the entire time modern humans have existed (200,000 years) at $15 dollars an hour (which is twice the national minimum wage), you still would not make a TENTH of what was LOST in the stock market that day. (Keep in mind, how little the loss was compared to how much Facebook and Zuckerberg have in total). Zuckerberg won’t have to adjust his lifestyle at all. 

And here is the thing. Even if Zuckerberg earns these billions upon billions of dollars, he doesn’t have to hold on to all that wealth like Smaug hoarding the treasures of Erebor. But people like him always do. Sure, billionaires give some money to charity and compared to what the average American gives, it seems like a lot of money. But when you have a lot, you should give a lot. Billionaires should not just give a larger amount, but also they should give a larger percentage of their net worth BECAUSE THEY CAN. Zuckerberg could give away 50-75% of his net worth and still live with a silver spoon wedged up his ass. Getting rid of 75% of his net worth would still leave him with roughly 20 billion dollars. Contrary to what Republicans say, no liberal wants or expects Zuckerberg to assume the lifestyle of a cart pusher at Walmart. He could still live the kind of lavish lifestyle most of us could never imagine while giving wealth he doesn’t need to people who do need it. At the very least, more CEO’s could put more of their profits back into the company to build jobs and improve pay/benefits for existing employees. But again, their profits aren’t generally used for that.

In 1965, CEOs earned about 24 times the amount of the average worker. In 1980, they earned 42 times as much. Today they earn 325 times what the average worker does. (That’s the average income of workers, it would be way higher when compared to what the lowest paid worker earns) Since 1990, CEO compensation has increase 300%. Corporate profits have doubled. The average worker’s salary has increased 4%. But when you adjust for inflation, the minimum wage has actually DECREASED. So clearly corporate profits aren’t being used to improve wages/benefits for employees.. 

Corporations are actually actively keeping many of their employees so poor that many have to turn to the government to be able to survive. Take Walmart, for example. As the image below suggests, many of their employees are on food stamps (as well as other government social programs). Generally, all or a large portion of the food stamps that Walmart employees receive are spent at Walmart (along with spending a portion of the meager wages Walmart does pay them and possibly money from any welfare payments as well).  

On top the low wages, Walmart tends to dodge paying it’s fair share of taxes. (If corporations did pay what they owe, perhaps we could lower taxes on the middle class and working class without plunging deeper and deeper into debt the country can never escape). According to the organization known as the Americans For Tax Fairness, “the U.S. statutory corporate tax rate (aka the amount corporations are supposed to pay) is 35%. But Walmart has used tax loopholes to reduce its effective tax rate (aka what it actually pays) to an average of 29.1 percent. This allowed the company to cut its tax bill by $5.1 billion over five years – a tax savings of $1 billion a year on average. Additionally, Walmart is avoiding paying U.S. Taxes on $21.4 Billion in offshore profits.  Because corporations can indefinitely postpone paying U.S. taxes on offshore profits that have not been brought to America, Walmart has paid nothing to the U.S. Treasury on those earnings. 

Skipping out of paying taxes isn’t enough for Walmart though. They want to pay even less taxes than they currently are with all the loopholes and whatnot. Walmart is working to influence tax legislation in three ways – through lobbying, campaign contributions and issue advocacy via major corporate coalitions. Walmart employs 74 lobbyists – 80 percent of whom have previously served in government – and it has spent $32.6 million lobbying on tax and other issues over the past five years. Tax issues have been by far Walmart’s top lobbying focus. Its PAC has contributed $6.1 million to federal candidates, committees and political parties since 2009. How can any citizen contend with the amount of money Walmart spends in hopes to affect public policy? The overwhelming majority of us can’t compete with that. So who do you think politicians listen to when the chips are down? The corporations and the richest American who are engaging in legalized bribery.