Ok, hear me out here for a second.

We have a weekly tradition on my timeline.

Every Friday, I ask people for one good thing that happened in their lives that week.

I’m sure none of us feel much like doing that today...

1/ However, this tradition matters to me.

It goes back a lot further than my Twitter tenure.

I went through some serious sh** a few years back when everything in my life burned down.

One of the things that got me through it was always looking for at least SOMETHING good.

2/

Just gonna lay this down here...

Behind the public facade of McConnell being all in on Kav, Treason Turtle knows that R voters tend to vote best when they're voting angry.

Repubs got their best polling news in two years this week. The potential for a Kav loss woke the base.

1/ While a highly public defeat would seem like just that - a defeat - McConnell inevitably knows that it could be just the ticket to saving control of the Senate in November.

In ordinary times, I'd see the push to vote on Kav as a dire sign.

Today though, not so fast...

2/

I’m just going to gush for a second.

The NYT’s sprawling exposé on the fraudulent myth of a successful Donald J. Trump is just everything journalism is supposed to be.

It’s a soaring journalistic achievement of legwork and research. It’s a careful unraveling. A distillation.
1/ It’s the kind of comprehensive investigative reporting that topples tyrants and preserves democracies.

It is a masterwork.

A Pulitzer is due and all but assured.

2/

Folks who have survived narcissists will get this one...

When you’re close to a narc, you develop an internal, subconscious weatherman.

You can read the room. You can feel the narc’s temperature like it’s air temp.

You can viscerally feel the volatility level. The danger.

1/ You can read their emotional state but more importantly, you can read what it means for YOUR emotional state.

It’s an “external locus of control”.

You pick up cues others wholly miss. You process shit you can’t explain.

It’s helpful and exhausting. Hypervigilance is both.

2/

Y’all will invariably fill my mentions with endless chides about my fact-based dislike of Avenatti but here’s something that ought to be processed regardless:

The right LOVES Avenatti’s grandstanding. It’s the only good thing that happened for them this week.

1/ The right wants to spin all of the accusations against Kavanaugh as a political hitjob.

They want to turn attention from the actual accusers to the Dems attached to them. Avenatti, Feinstein, etc.

2/

Tissue warning.

Yesterday, in the hall of the Senate, these two women found themselves facing Senator Jeff Flake with only a moment to change his mind.

The woman on the left, Ana Maria Achila, spoke first.

1/ Then, with the elevator doors closing, choked with emotion, desperate to be heard, desperate for all survivors of sexual assault to be heard, Maria Gallagher spoke.

“I was sexually assaulted.”

2/

Days like today are so surreal for me.

As someone who has been through the anxiety-producing, crazy-making of being close to someone with narcissistic personality disorder, the chaos is just... familiar.

1/ It's surreal to be on the deck of a ship in rolling seas seeing lots of panicked faces while it feels like just another day on the water to me.

Don't get me wrong, it's choppy as hell... but it still just feels... typical.

Just another day off the coast of Crazytown.

2/

The most insane aspect of Ed Whelan’s “mistaken identity” conspiracy theory is that it implies that one of two people assaulted Dr. Blasey Ford: Kavanaugh or a classmate.

That opened the door to Blasey Ford saying she knew them both and knows which of the two attacked her.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1042946576510017537

It’s the kind of stupid alibi you cook up when you’re remarkably stupid about how actual human beings think and react.

Twins look alike to strangers. Their parents can tell them apart.

Students sometimes look alike. Their friends can tell them apart.

Despite Michael Avenatti’s grandstanding and grandiose drama, Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit was always destined to come to a sudden and underwhelming end.

This was an automatic. The overpromises were empty theater.

1/

https://twitter.com/mj_lee/status/1038243657852309504

Stormy Daniels’ primary claim was that she should be let out of the non-disclosure agreement she signed.

All Michael Cohen had to do to likely make the case disappear *whenever he wanted* was to simply say “Okay. You got it.”

Tear up the NDA. Case evaporates.

2/

When my random little Twitter account first started to take on a life of its own, the very first few “blue checkmark” who reached out to me was @MollyJongFast.

She’s an earnest, honest person whose inclination to trust is endearing and disarming.

1/

forward.com/opinion/409412… Molly got played by a Twitter phony just like many of us have been at some point.

I know I’ve fallen for a couple of frauds before wising up.

Most of us mask the embarrassment of it all by rolling our eyes at those slower to catch on as if we’re somehow smarter.

2/

While this will seem hyperbolic and problematic for its own reasons, I’m just gonna put this down:

Nike is poised to do more for Colin Kaepernick’s standing than any business has done for any hero of civil rights at any time in U.S. history.

1/

https://twitter.com/CharlesRobinson/status/1036741136294064128

It is a crass and vulgar reality but in our capitalist, profit-driven, celebrity-loving culture, advertisers have the power to platform athletes with more reach and authority than even the media.

Nike will profit from this but was as a society stand to profit even more.

2/

I’m on a plane full of disgruntled WiFi-less passengers after the flight attendants announced it wouldn’t be available inflight.

I got in.

I’m not telling anyone.

Enjoy the flying hell that is small talk with the people next to you, suckers. I’m just tweeting. because. I. can.

Take THAT, Mr. 26E!

Next time, don’t tell every flight attendant how awful it is that Delta has failed you three times this week.

I’m tweeting about you.

You’re 1,500 miles from seeing it.

In April 2017, a police officer named Roy Oliver opened fire on a car carrying five black teenagers leaving a party killing 15-year old Jordan Edwards.

Today, a Dallas jury convicted Oliver of murder.

But this isn't a story of justice being served.

1/
cbsnews.com/news/roy-olive… Instead, it's a story of how little systemic regard there is for people of color - and just how much it takes for even a known "bad cop" to ever face justice for their entirely foreseeable and avoidable violence.

The backstory here speaks much louder than the verdict.

2/

Everything about this day was my relationship with my son in a nutshell.

A trip to a water park that has become a day-long series of traditions.

Starts with a long drive, radio barely on, talking about everything and nothing.

1/ Then bfast at the same place as always because they serve it in a skillet.

Then, the water park hitting every slide in the place until our legs ache and feet hurt...

...and then we do one more ride anyway. It’s always on a double-tube.

We always do the last one together.

2/

The United States Government has still not returned this many immigrant children to their parents.

🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒

1/ 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶 🧒 👶

2/

The first time I’ve disagreed with Tony Schwartz about what makes Trump tick and what he’ll do...

A drowning Trump will indeed rage but it’ll primarily be directed at perceived enemies... and that may pave the way for a softer landing than most expect.

1/

https://twitter.com/tonyschwartz/status/1033071547110572032

Trump, like all malignant narcissists, tends to a garden of grievances and slights that he keeps alive until avenged.

He’s got a million people he could scapegoat and blame for his current troubles.

The biggest target is the media though.

2/

Huge story breaking... Trump's longtime money man, Allen Weiselberg, was granted immunity in the federal investigation of Michael Cohen.

Weiselberg allegedly knows more about Trump's finances than anyone alive.

1/

wsj.com/articles/allen… We'll have to wait to see what this immunity deal entailed.

I have a hard time believing the feds would give Weiselberg broad immunity in exchange for merely coughing up info on Cohen alone.

Smells like there is more afoot.

2/

One thing I've found interesting about Lindsey Graham:

While he appears to be a Trump sycophant, he has frequently checked Trump's worst impulses quite cleverly by playing Trump like a fiddle in the media.

He seems to get how Trump's narcissism works.

1/

https://twitter.com/MikeDorning/status/1032662689384939520

Graham never comes right out and tells Trump what to do.

Instead, he says "Well, I don't think he'll do ______ because he's too smart for that." or "I expect he might think about doing _____ but that would end up being a mistake."

2/

Since last night’s narcissist forecast seemed to have been worthwhile, let’s keep it rolling.

The punchline on what’s likely to come next.

Spin, racism, and a shiny object.

See quoted tweet.

1/

https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1032428067275374592

Trump is still deflated. He’s like one of those ghost thingies that’s powered by a fan.

Flops about until fully inflated and then briefly stands fully upright... but then even a slight breeze folds it over and it falls back down.

2/

I’ve watched a lot of these Trump rallies.

When he’s on his awful game, he taps the audiences anger and hatred and snarls it back at them in fiery, vitriolic flames that rev them up even more.

Tonight, he had no connection. He couldn’t hit the notes... couldn’t feel the pulse. Narcissists are so very fragile.

Their facades of bravado and strength and aggression are just porcelain shells around broken self-esteems.

The second they fear they’ve been caught, outed or knocked down, they lose the mojo...

...at least until they regroup.

Ok, with Trump set to take the stage in West Virginia in a mere 90 mins, might as well take a swing at what we might see from him.

The Vegas betting odds have installed "Completely raging like an unhinged lunatic" as the odds-on favorite.

I'm gonna throw a curve though.

1/ I used to write about Trump's narcissistic personality disorder all the time. Back in the day, it was almost eerie how accurately his shtick could be predicted. Folks who have been around my feed for a while can vouch for that...

It has gotten harder though...

2/