Daily Planet (syndicated) columnist Bill Press recently took a giddy approach to discovering a clinical psychologist who had written a book highlighting Donald Trump’s “mental health.” 

As I read his column, three countering thoughts came to mind: (1) Psychologists are in a profession compelled to avoid diagnosing people we have not seen (2) The good doctor in question seems to have thus taken feverish liberties with his declarations on President Trump’s mental health status and (3) columnist Bill Press ironically demonstrates many of the same qualities as the target of his missive. 

I’m a clinical psychologist and I’m licensed to make a couple of additional observations: (1) I absolutely agree that President Trump demonstrates narcissistic symptom behaviors (that’s not a diagnosis) and (2) He is neither psychopathic or sociopathic as measured by one well-defined indicator – folks in these groups “feverishly” work to conceal their pathology. Trump boldly displays his flaws ‘ala narcissism (that, too, is not a diagnosis).

Bill Press and his psychologist character assassin should be ashamed of their subjective efforts to diagnosis someone with whom neither has had direct diagnostic opportunity. The effort to do so demonstrates pathological symptomology that they might want to consider exploring with a professional. 

Ironically, a large number of our national politicians demonstrate precisely the same symptom profiles that they are, in both cases, unprofessionally attempting to apply to our president.

Reader accuses comedian of 'genocidal enjoyment'  

At comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s recent show in Chicago, an audience member shouted the following about Gaza:

“Twenty-two thousand Palestinians who are children now are killed with our taxpayer money, and you’re making jokes?!”

The comedian then began dancing on stage and mockingly declared, “I am a racist. It’s a genocide. I’m into it,” before saying, “I’m gonna find out how much your ticket was — and I’m sending it to Israel.”

Seinfeld, an outspoken supporter of Israel, previously stated, “I don’t care about Palestine” — and that “It doesn’t exist.”

In their journal article, “Genocidal Enjoyment: On the Weaponization of Joyful Cruelty and ‘Dark Fun’ during Israel’s Genocide in Gaza,” sociologists Raúl Pérez and Charles Thorpe define genocidal enjoyment as “the weaponized use of joyful cruelty in the service of state violence” against a dehumanized community.

One example cited is the propaganda channel, “72 Virgins-Uncensored,” which was operated on the social media platform Telegram by members of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Influencing Department. 

Its target audience was Israeli citizens — and the channel showed videos and posted photos celebrating and mocking the death and abuse of Palestinians.

According to the authors, genocidal enjoyment bonds soldiers and supporters through shared pleasure, reinforcing moral hierarchies and portraying the targets of state violence as moral outsiders.

Seinfeld’s actions demonstrated genocidal enjoyment. 

Cruelty was made to feel like camaraderie — and Palestinian suffering was made to seem like a fitting subject for laughter.

It was sweet in the 1920s; Now DSA, Soros afflict U.S.

How sweet it was in the 1920s until 1929 and the Depression. 

My father was 18 and my mother was 14. It was a time of no frills. 

Homes were occupied by three generations of family and, in some cases, an extended family. 

Kids may even live in one bedroom on  bunk beds. Parents slept on a double-bed.

If you had electricity, you might have had one radio in the living room. You might also have had a refrigerator. 

If you had running water, you might have an inside toilet. If you had a telephone, it was a party land line. 

How sweet it was — and life was much simpler then, with only three TV stations on for 14 hours. 

In those days, kids played outdoors and you walked to most places.

Now, we have the modern world where people have expensive tattoos, lots of bling and fancy cars, while drawing food stamps to feed the family — and living on the streets instead of in a home. 

Then came Democratic Socialists of America — who are driving the courts, law and order, the family structure, church and  good old mountain views of self-reliance right off the face of the earth.

Thanks to George Soros, the leftist organizations and  the devil himself  appear to be succeeding.

My solution is to run DSA out of the country, defund George Soros, bring back the family, and law and order. 

To be real, there is no free lunch. Someone has to pay. Why shouldn’t it be you??

Sen. Jon Ossoff touted as top candidate for president

It’s time for the national Democratic Party to return to its previously proven winning political strategy of nominating a charismatic presidential candidate who is in their 40s, regardless of how many elderly Baby Boomers insist upon their oversized and overpublicized post-WWII generation retaining political power until they take their final breath and final bribe in a hospice.

After all, a hospice facility is what the United States Senate resembles these days, with almost-corpses like Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, occupying Senate seats that could be filled by much younger, much more lucid lawmakers who aren’t still living delusionally in the distant past that only continues to exist in the empty, enfeebled minds of octogenarian crooks like Putin’s puppet President Ronald McDonald Trump — the official hamburger hoarding hippopotamus of Queens and Epstein Island.

In 2028, the Democratic Party’s next presidential nominee should be Senator Jon Ossoff from Georgia. He is currently 39 years old and about to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate in “Blue Georgia” by a double-digit margin in a deep Southern state that has become a so-called “swing state” ever since President Joe Biden’s victory there in 2020.

Jon Ossoff is the real deal who would not only be an extremely effective presidential candidate who could — and probably would — win several Southern states in 2028,.

This young senatorial rising star would become the United States of America’s first officially religiously Jewish president, in contrast to America’s first secretly ethnically Jewish President Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Texas, who was raised as a Protestant Christian and hid his ethnically Jewish maternal lineage his entire life.

Times in America have changed though, and Senator Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. — who will turn 41 years old in 2028 — would also become America’s youngest president, if he wins, almost at the same age that John F. Kennedy, D-Mass., was when JFK was elected to the presidency over Republican Richard Nixon.

Personally, being partially Palestinian Arab-American as a result of my maternal lineage and also raised as a Protestant Christian just like ethnically part-Jewish LBJ was, I am a pragmatic partisan Democrat primarily concerned with American domestic policy who understands just how important winning the presidency is in 2028, after Democrats retake both the Senate and House of Representatives on Nov. 3.  

Do I agree with all of Jon Ossoff’s stated opinions on topics, such as America’s imperialist foreign policy in the Middle East, specifically regarding the catastrophe that is Israel-Palestine under the maniacal misrule of corrupt Israeli Crime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s crumbling right-wing regime?  

No, I do not, but Senator Ossoff is a highly intelligent, well-informed, compassionate, reasonable, lifelong American patriot and advocate for the protection of our civil liberties who can be trusted to put America and Americans first — for real, which is exactly what America needs from its next president, in contrast to Trump’s deceptions.

And Georgia’s Jon Ossoff is a vocal opponent and harsh critic of Israel’s indicted war criminal butcher “Bibi” Netanyahu, which is clearly preferable to the Supplicant-in-Chief Donald Trump whose willful (or blackmail-induced) subservience to the genocidal government of Israel rivals even traitor Trump’s infamously unshakable allegiance to Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin and chump Trump’s much lampooned public man crush on fascist Fat Donald’s favorite “Little Rocket Man” North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un.  

Instead of building a billion-dollar ballroom and D.C. arch/ammo dump for Trump, why don’t we just deport Trump?  

Argentina is where his type usually ends up, but perhaps Trump would prefer Tel Aviv?

Midterm election called last chance to stand up for values

How important are these midterm elections? 

Yes, that’s a rhetorical question. Maybe they are America’s last chance to stand up for what it claims it has always stood for.

Yes, Donald Trump is not on the ballot, but his brand — unchecked, perilous power and soul-less, self-serving grift — is.

An electoral-chastened GOP could be a precursor to America-salvaging subplots — from impeachments and actual convictions to a 25th Amendment enactment. 

A diminished Trump and a defeated GOP could provide the impetus for Republican spine-growth. Call it pragmatic patriotism: Country over careerism. Whatever it takes; even turn it into a bumper sticker.

Trump must be seen and treated as an existential threat, not merely as a partisan president. His unhinged digits remain on the nuclear codes; his geopolitical allegiance remains with Vladimir Putin — and not Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy or NATO. 

His war of choice with Iran has adversely impacted — and infuriated — the world. His response to climate change is to “drill, drill, drill.”

Domestically, his bucket list has included an insurrection, media demonization, Epstein aversion, felony unaccountability, immigrant assaults and tariff-induced, inflation insouciance. 

He’s likely to say anything anytime —and he has the ultimate forum to do so. His pathologically narcissistic, authoritarian deportment and oligarch fidelity are an ongoing, apocalyptic tripwire. 

These mid-terms are so much more than the usual push-back to an off-the-ballot incumbent. 

These mid-terms are America’s self-reckoning over debasement, humiliation and existential threa — and we’d better be up to it. 

Do we still want a president who represents America’s — and  the world’s — best interests, or do we want that bombastic, “last call” drunk promising to buy the final round?

Judgment test advised for A-B Tech’s new AI credentials

A-B Tech’s artificial intelligence degree and certificate programs create a useful pathway into digital work. But graduates need to demonstrate more than the ability to operate an AI tool.

In an Oct. 16 employment study, Anthropic reported that junior technical roles fell from 27 percent to 9 percent of its technical hiring.

Those are figures for one unusual company, yet they pose a practical challenge to employers everywhere: how will beginners earn trust when AI performs more first drafts?

An Asheville employer could assess an applicant with a realistic, AI-assisted customer response, inventory forecast or construction estimate containing a planted error.

The candidate would explain what needs independent checking, correct the mistake, and document when a supervisor should intervene.

A-B Tech already includes AI tools and computer ethics in its curriculum. 

Adding a scored verification exercise to internships and final assessments would give graduates evidence of workplace judgment. 

Local businesses should help design those exercises and offer supervised practice, so students have a credible first rung on the career ladder.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Tsipursky included the following biographic information at the end of his letter to the editor:

“Gleb Tsipursky, PhD, (is) a behavioral scientist, CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, and author of ‘The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results’ (Georgetown University Press, 2026).”

Public housing slumlords earn pushback, reader says

Public housing has about as bad a reputation as prison does for corruption.

Public housing slumlords are notorious for double-gouging and double-dipping and for making public housing tenants double-pay their rent by forcing them to pay their rent twice by altering their books to make it seem like tenants are guilty of not having paid their back rent and current rent.

And if public housing tenants don’t pay up and don’t cough up the money, then their public housing slumlord will retaliate by refusing to renew their lease — and will blacklist them and make them unable to secure public housing ever again.

Unscrupulous public housing slumlords also charge for the slightest damages to tenants’ public housing units. And public housing slumlords seek every opportunity to tow and impound tenants’ cars parked in public housing parking lots — and charge a $150.00 towing and impounding fee.

The public housing slumlords don’t do it for the money, as much as for the chance to be an (expletive deleted).

And public housing landlords will have their public housing tenants’ cars towed and impounded if their tenants aren’t up to date on their auto tags, driver’s license, auto inspection, car registration, car insurance, etc., etc., ad infinitum, even though none of these things has anything to do with public housing.

But it gives public housing slumlords an opportunity to be a (expletive deleted).

Does this situation describe the situation in Hendersonville public housing?

All I’ll say is... that better conditions exist in affordable housing.

And I know they won’t do it, but they ought to do away with public housing altogether, and they should put poor Americans in affordable housing.

That’s exactly what they should do.

They should do away altogether with public housing. And they should place poor Amricans into affordable housing.

And they could afford to if America would stop spending its wealth on billionaires and corporations.

That will never happen.

So what is my advice to public housing tenants who are victims of corruption in public housing?

PUSH BACK!!!!