Some people are more fascinated with evil than others. The biggest rage in the office is the series “Dahmer” on Netflix. Everyone has been trying to get me to watch, but I’d be watching solo at home. I don’t necessarily want to see evil or watch it described, but the idea of sociopaths and psychopaths interests me as someone that has a masters in counseling and has dabbled in some abnormal psychology.

I picked up a book at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago and was finally able to crack it open. Mind you, I haven’t finished it but I found Science of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen to be a fascinating read so far. The biggest breakthrough was in the terminology itself. He doesn’t use terms like good and evil. Instead he talked about empathy. Some people have a lot of it and some people have a little or zero real empathy.

As someone interested in mental health, this revelation brings a number of questions that I hope he has answers for. For instance, is empathy something innate that some people simply lack or is it something learned from our environment? For instance, he was able to show different parts of the brain and explain what was happening on a physiological level when someone’s empathy was impaired. Can we successfully teach empathy? Can we develop an empathy pill for those that have biological reasons for a lack of empathy?

What strikes me most of all is that terms like “good” and “evil” come with significant value judgments attached. Empathy can be measured. We may not have a perfect measurement, but we can certainly do better than “evil”. One can say that they are doing something for the good of mankind and yet conduct themselves without a shred of human empathy.

Cohen described it like a spotlight. Those that have empathy have two or more spotlights. One is on them and their thoughts and needs. The other spotlight(s) are on others and their thoughts and needs. Those with zero to no empathy have only one spotlight. There are times in all of our lives when we are down to one spotlight. It happens. Something horrible happens or we feel more vulnerable for one reason or another. However, that condition is just temporary. When our lives stabilize or the crisis abates then our empathy returns to normal.

Yet, what we are seeing is an increasing amount of people that are stuck on one spotlight. Again, I wish I knew whether this was learned behavior or somehow organic. What I do know is that this is a more substantial description of potentially dangerous people than simply calling them evil. After all, a person with a single spotlight can seem good as long as their ends seem in line with everyone else’s. When their interests and the interests of others collide then watch out. Until we can get a pill at the local pharmacy we need to make sure we don’t give those folks too much power.

This is exactly what extremist Republicans are trying to impose on Americans.  The Handmaid’s Tale comes into actual life.

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1521307942577790976?s=20&t=O1O5tDHFo1dgypg6Roy-ng

Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas.  That old adage was never more true than when it comes to TFG in ANY endeavor.  Let’s take the cases of Andy Litinsky and Will Wilkerson, co-founders of TFG Media & Technology, the owner of Truth Social, the Twitter of racists, insurrectionists, and weirdos.  When the company was founded, Trump demanded 90% of the stock for the use of his name and his occasional involvement.  Classic TFG, taking almost all the money for doing nothing.

But it gets worse.  According to Wilkerson’s SEC whistleblower report, last year, after the company launched, TFG called Litinsky and demanded he gift some of his company stock to Melania.  That’s right, he actually demanded that the president of the company give up his stock to TFG’s wife.  This is also classic TFG – 90% of OPM (Other People’s Money) is not enough.  He wants it all.  Litinsky refused, pointing out not only how absurd the idea was but that it would trigger a large tax bill.  Nonetheless, TFG persisted in his demand, ultimately removing him from the board 5 months later.  Litinsky has hired lawyers to sue the company.

Wilkerson, who was a senior vice president at the time, filed a whistleblower complaint against TFG with the SEC and then gave an interview to the Washington Post.  The company fired him the next day in retaliation, which is also illegal.  It goes without saying that the SEC is investigating.

I know of no one who’s worked for, or done business with TFG who has benefitted from the relationship.  Trump cheats, steals, and intimidates everyone around him.  Talk about fleas; if a person stays with him, the results are generally not good, and can ultimately lead to fleas like jail time and financial ruin.  And yet people follow him and do his bidding.

It is truly bewildering.

Here on the Left Coast, in the California “Fighting 41st”, we have a congressional race between Ken Calvert, a Trump-endorsed 30-year Republican veteran, and Will Rollins, a young, energetic former federal prosecutor of 1/6 insurgents. And a Democrat.

You already know this because I have previously requested donations from the Juanita Jean reader community to promote the Will Rollins “Visibility Campaign” to purchase 50 4′ X 8′ campaign signs.

I kicked in a few dead presidents toward the signage, and several of Juanita’s readers have responded to my shameless begging. So here are some of the fruits of our donations.

Thank you!

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This afternoon, the SCOTUS issued a one sentence rebuke of TFG in his efforts to hamstring the DOJ investigating his theft of thousands of government documents.  The order, one sentence long, said:

TRUMP, DONALD J. V. UNITED STATES

The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.

Even the SCOTUS can occasionally surprise by doing its goddam job.