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Ned McDoodle's avatar

WRITTEN ELSEWHERE. DRs LEE & COX RICARDSON should collaborate. Their aggregated knowledge would not only be compelling, but also frightening. Dr Lee explains how Trump's mental illness feeds ever more outrageous lies and enables similarly anti-republican behaviors from people like the preppy whore, Tucker Carlson.

Unfortunately, the Goldwater Rule is preventing experts from informing the rest of us just how precarious things are right now. The Goldwater Rule forbids psychiatrists from making analytical judgements about public figures whom they have not met directly.

😱

Dr Bandy Lee is one psychiatrist, on the nature of violence, who really has stuck her neck out and been punished by the American Psychiatric Association (#AmericanPsychiatricAssociation) for violating the 'Goldwater Rule' (i.e., making a professional evaluation without direct contact with the analysand who is a public figure).

https://bandyxlee.substack.com/p/trump-contagion-past-and-future/

She is writing a series of essays about what she labels as the #TrumpContagion, of which Mr Carlson, for example, is manifestly both a carrier and symptom; she perseveres in defiance of, and as an exile from, the A.P.A.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pacific-heart/202405/responsible-dialogue-on-the-goldwater-rule-must-continue

Needless to say, Dr Lee has the bravery of a whistle-blower in facing adverse professional consequences. What the #APA overlooks is that . . .

> readers of analyses like those of Dr Lee can think for themselves; as well as,

> one can detect when a professional crosses the invisible line-of-bias between opportune counsel for the rest of us AND opportunism at the expense of the rest of us.

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GJ Loft ME CA FL IL NE CT MI's avatar

Dozens of 501(c)(3) organizations violate the Johnson Amendment. Why is the Justice Department along with the Treasury Department not revoking their tax exempt status. If they want to denigrate Joe Biden and the Democrats, then make them pay taxes.

Once their status is revoked billions of dollars in taxes would come due from the white-Christian Nationalist churches in property taxes and income taxes.

The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are the most common type of nonprofit organization in the United States, ranging from charitable foundations to universities and churches. The amendment is named for then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, who introduced it in a preliminary draft of the law in July 1954.

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PitterPatter's avatar

I support enforcement of the Johnson Amendment but enforcement must be consistently and uniformly enforced to maximize effectiveness, not simply because, “If they want to denigrate Joe Biden and the Democrats, then make them pay taxes.”

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GJ Loft ME CA FL IL NE CT MI's avatar

Which is not an easy thing to do. But I agree with you. Several "churches" put out a voting guide which is supposed to be non-partisan, but they only recommend candidates from one party with suspect reasons for ALWAYS voting for the candidates of their choosing. I think if you took away the 501(c)(3) status of a few of the obvious candidates (see documentary BAD FAITH) where week after week they rail on only Democrat candidates and then very briefly mention the Bible.

Not to pick on the mega-churches, but why should someone have to listen to political BS when they go to church to worship.

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Gail Adams VA/FL's avatar

There’s also 501(c)(4) which allows advocacy. Many are offshoots of entities established as (c)(3). For example Planned Parenthood has a (c)(4) arm. https://afj.org/resource/comparison-of-501c3-and-501c4-permissible-activities/

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Ned McDoodle's avatar

At the very least, 501(c)4s, acting in contravention of the Johnson Amendment, should impose an income tax on the 501(c)3s funding them.

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Carol Stanton (FL)'s avatar

Ned, a factor that seems to be left out of the Goldwater Rule folks is that we have a public figure here....who has repeatedly and consistently shown us, in public, his behavior dynamics for years!! We HAVE " met" him; his deeply disturbed personality is obvious to even us non- psychiatrists!

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Ned McDoodle's avatar

Dr Lee makes the same point. She feels ethically bound to hoist her flag against Trump. So her career and A.P.A. be damned she is going to do it. Perhaps that moxxy comes from her graduate degree in theology.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B072YQ8TYZ/about

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Robin Birdfeather's avatar

Yes! Strongly recommend reading Dr Lee's Substack.

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Jen Andrews's avatar

I just read yesterday's post. I'm not sure I can bear more of this. My hair is already on fire.

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Kathy Clark's avatar

Remember there are more of us than them, as much as I hate dividing this country into us versus them.

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

Same, Jen, same.

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Ned McDoodle's avatar

I feel depressed, but ready to fight if I have to.

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Robin Birdfeather's avatar

We can't begin to handle a problem as large as these challenges to democracy without first identifying the form and function of those challenges. You

might want to wrap an ice towel around your head and keep going 😉 and you are not at all alone.

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