#but i read that letter w his post war meltdown

[newty]

raises my hand to hit terence w te lawrence disease

[elisesole]

After an Autistic Student Was Turned Away From School Dance, Community Rallies Around Him

Max Bedard, an 8th grader who has autism, was turned away at a school dance. (Photo: Carl Russo/Eagle Tribune)

An autistic boy who was turned away from a school dance because of his “inappropriate” outfit inspired a social media movement called #MaxItMonday.

Max Bedard is a 14-year-old autistic boy with a sensory processing disorder. On Friday, he was excited to attend his first dance ever at Pelham Memorial Middle School in New Hampshire and meet up with his date. But when he showed up wearing a gray long-sleeved shirt, black sweatpants, a hooded sweatshirt, and dog tags in honor of his brother who had joined the Army, Max was sent straight to principal Stacy Maghakian’s office instead of being allowed into the dance.

“He was stopped at the door,” Max’s mom, Michelle Bedard, told local Fox affiliate WFXT on Tuesday. [The principal] said to him, ‘Are you really wearing that?’ and he said, ‘Yes,’ and she brought him to the office and made him call home. He never made it to the dance and never saw that girl who was meeting him there.”

Max was given the option to go home and put on a formal shirt, but Michelle says he was too upset to return to the dance.

“He ripped off the wristband that they give them and threw it on the floor of my car,” she told the news station. “I drove home listening to my son cry.”

Because of his sensory issues, Max only wears clothing made from soft cotton, Michelle told WFXT, something she had discovered after Max had a “meltdown” when she wrapped him in a fleece blanket. “You notice these things, like when he showers, he doesn’t use warm water,” she said. “Cold does not faze him, heat does. He doesn’t get invited to birthday parties, he doesn’t get invited over to friends’ houses to have playdates, so this dance, for him, it was huge.”

When Max’s classmates discovered he didn’t get into the dance, they attended school Monday wearing sweatpants and blue shirts in a show of support — blue is a color associated with autism awareness — and posted on social media using the hashtag #MaxItMonday.

#MaxItMonday #NH teens wear sweats & blue for #Autism in solidarity w/student who left a dance after his clothes didn’t fit the code #7news pic.twitter.com/TWK71vGDFO

— Kimberly Bookman (@KimberlyBookman) February 21, 2017

Michelle also created the Facebook page #MaxItMonday. The group’s nearly 500 members upload photos of themselves and their children (some with autism, some without) wearing blue. One woman designed a blue bracelet spelling out Max’s name, another dressed her dog in a blue jacket, and a pair of medical professionals posed for a photo wearing blue scrubs.

According to the Eagle Tribune newspaper, the Joseph Middlemiss Big Heart Foundation, which spreads awareness for childhood heart conditions, is crowning Max as a “king” in May and the American Legion, which advocates for war veterans, is hosting an event for kids with special needs.

A representative from Pelham Memorial Middle School did not return Yahoo Style’s request for comment. However, in a letter to the community, superintendent Amanda Lecaroz wrote, “Number one, the young man was never ‘sent home’ by Ms. Maghakian from the dance on Friday night, but rather sent to her office by other staff members to make a phone call along with several other students to have parents bring alternative clothing to better meet the dress code or clothing expectations of the event. That being said, obviously there were communication breakdowns prior to and during this event that led to this unfortunate situation, and we will use these lessons to make things better for everyone in the future.”

Yahoo Style could not reach the Bedard family for comment. However, Max told Fox25 of the mass movement: “That really made me wicked happy inside my heart. And I was really happy that people actually cared for me.”

Read More:

Hairstylist Sits on the Floor to Cut Autistic Boy’s Hair, Goes Viral

#ShePersisted Becomes Battle Cry as People Tweet Their Female Heroes

Melania Trump Hired a Lawyer Over False Claims That Her Son Has Autism

Let’s keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Style + Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

[preciousmetals0]

3.28 Million Lost; Micron Moves; Cheesecake Blues

3.28 Million Lost; Micron Moves; Cheesecake Blues:

Denial, Seems It Had to Come

I warned you it was coming. I warned you it’d be bad.

Relied on me to say it all. (Any Sevendust fans out there? No? Oh well…)

Weekly jobless claims arrived today, and they were record-breaking. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week.

That’s 15 times the number of people who filed two weeks ago … and five times the previous record of 695,000 claims set in 1982. It was more than the peak number of claims during both the Great Recession and the Great Depression.

3.28 million Americans out of work — all because of the coronavirus (or the panic along with it).

The situation is so bad — How bad is it? — that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appeared on the Today show to reassure Americans that the U.S. central bank is on our side.

“The Federal Reserve is working hard to support you now and our policies will be very important when the recovery does come,” Powell said.

The Takeaway: 

Let’s think about the situation for a minute.

The head of the U.S. Federal Reserve — the guy who’s responsible for the country’s most powerful financial institution — felt it was necessary to reassure the American people on a popular morning show.

On one hand, that’s somewhat comforting … Powell taking time out of his busy day to tell everyone that it’ll all be OK.

On the other, it shows just how badly the situation has deteriorated. We now have the head of the Fed offering reassurance, not some lackey.

Oh, and those 3.28 million jobless claims? The market shrugged them off.

It seems that most of Wall Street believes that the worst is now behind us. Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, summed up the Street’s opinion pretty well:

We all know the pain being felt and the economic damage being caused by this damn virus but because we are so close to getting past the worst of the spread, we need to start getting creative about what the restart will look like.

So close to getting past the worst of the spread?

The U.S. is about a month behind Italy in terms of COVID-19’s spread, and Italy hasn’t even peaked yet. We’re three months behind China, and it’s just now seeing the end of community spread. Both countries went into complete lockdown. While individual states have gone this route, the U.S. as a whole has not.

As hopeful as I want to be … as hopeful as Wall Street wants to be … we aren’t close to getting past the worst of the spread.

As the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, put it: “You don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.”

But … but the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue bill!

Yes, I hear you out there … protesting my negativity again. The Senate’s bill will blunt the impact, to be sure. But it can’t stop what’s already happening. Despite reassurances that everything will just bounce back … that this isn’t really a long-term economic problem in the U.S. … let me tell you now: It is.

What? You think the U.S. economy could just hire back those 3.28 million out-of-work Americans tomorrow if the coronavirus magically disappeared? Nope. It doesn’t work like that.

But, while the U.S. economy is going down, down in an early round, sugar we’re going down swinging. And Great Stuff will be your No. 1 with a bullet. A loaded market complex … cock it and pull it.

Now, here’s the thing — and listen up, all ye positivity seekers!

Just as the virus chooses the timeline for this whole crazy shebang…

Only you choose your investing timeline. Only you decide if you keep hanging in there.

If you ask expert Charles Mizrahi, the situation is crystal clear. You could either:

Capture peak gains like 300%, 500% and 600%.

Or let the market turmoil and the virus’s impact eat away your financial future.

Gains like those? In this kind of market?!

Yes, dear reader — there’s potential in any market. See, according to Charles: “What you do in this current meltdown will make all the difference on what your net worth will be in the next five years.”

So, while other folks around you join the fleeing fearful, you have a chance to gain a leg up. In fact, Charles Mizrahi thinks this moment is so crucial he recorded a special video presentation on how to leave all this market panic behind.

Click here now.

The Good: Remote Connections               

Investors are falling in love with Micron Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) in a hopeless place today.

The flash memory maker beat Wall Street’s second-quarter earnings and revenue estimates and issued solid third-quarter guidance.

In fact, Micron appears to benefit from COVID-19 lockdowns around the world. In its post-earnings conference call, the company highlighted rising demand for PCs, notebooks and other devices as more people work and study from home.

Furthermore, Micron noted additional demand in the data center market, as companies push to beef up cloud computing storage and performance amid spiking remote demand.

While now is clearly the time to be cautious about buying anything in the market, Micron is one company to keep on your short list of potential winners in this brave new world.

The Bad: 1 Bourbon, 1 Scotch, 1 Beer

Wanna tell you a story about the Cheesecake Factory Inc. (Nasdaq: CAKE) blues…

I read the headlines one particular Thursday and saw that Cheesecake Factory had lost its jobs. But that don’t confront me, long as I get my money next Thursday. Next Thursday come, and they didn’t have the rent … and out the door I went.

Seriously though, the Cheesecake Factory just sent a letter to its landlords that it won’t pay rent in April due to the coronavirus. Here’s an excerpt from a letter to landlords from CEO David Overton:

The severe decrease in restaurant traffic has severely decreased our cash flow and inflicted a tremendous financial blow to our business. Due to these extraordinary events, I am asking for your patience and, frankly, your help.

And it’s not just Cheesecake Factory acting kinda funny … everybody funny … now you funny too. Retailers, from clothier H&M to fast-foodie Subway, are all struggling to make rent.

If anything reinforces the idea that the COVID-19 situation is far from over, it’s retailers not paying rent. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for a few drinks.

The Ugly: Old Junker

Growing up in rural Kentucky, I lived through the great Ford versus Chevy wars and endured many a heated argument on the topic. “Ford Don’t Make Junk” was among the many stickers plastered on the windows and tailgates of F-150s for as far as the eye could see.

Turns out, those bumper stickers weren’t quite accurate. Today, S&P Global Ratings cut Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) bonds to junk status. The ratings firm lowered Ford’s credit rating to BB+ (junk status) and said that it may lower its rating further as the coronavirus’s impact spreads.

S&P isn’t alone in its “junk” rating on Ford, however. Moody’s Investors Service cut its credit rating on the Big Blue Oval twice in the past month, citing a “credit shock” for automakers across the board.

But Ford has an answer … it plans on reopening production at key plants in April, including its Dearborn, Michigan, and Kentucky truck plants, its Kansas City Assembly Plant’s transit line and its Ohio Assembly Plant.

That’s all fine and dandy, but I’m pretty sure the United Auto Workers Union will have something to say about this. And it won’t be pretty.

You Marco, I Polo … it’s Reader Feedback time!

Let me just say, you guys have been busy … or maybe you’re just bored after being locked in your homes for days on end.

In the past week, Great Stuff received a veritable flood of comments with two common themes: You absolutely despise bailouts (especially for airlines) and you don’t think the market rout is over.

Let’s dive right into your comments:

The Unfriendly Skies

NO BAILOUT TO THOSE WHO BOUGHT BACK STOCK

— Stan B.

Airline bailout NOT. Only if that Airline assists our American citizens stuck away from their respective residents need to get home. Not for anyone just traveling. Bailout? Why do they need it as they have gouged the travelers for transporting their necessary luggage to the tune of millions of dollars of profit while still collecting their usual air fares. Why should we bail out these huge corporations. Use that money to help the smaller companies to keep their doors open. I personally am sick of seeing billions bailing out these high corporations that only turn around and use that money for the top management so called golden parachutes. Stop this madness of government bailouts.

— Peggy B.

Pigs to the trough, as usual. And, why should it shock you that R’s have no problems throwing tons of money at pillars of industry? Well, not exactly industry. Finance! That’s the magic word The Graduate should have been told. Not “plastics,” “finance”.

— Joe S.

Let them go under.

— Tony C.

Wow … the sheer vitriol dripping from your comments is … honestly, it’s a bit impressive. I don’t know whether to be proud of you or to start locking my doors.

As I’ve said several times here in Great Stuff, I don’t like stock buybacks — at all. It’s a company telling me they have nothing better to do with their money … nothing to invest or reinvest in. No new ideas to grow.

And now, those companies are paying the price. Well, somewhat of a price. A lot of them just got bailed out by the government … again.

It’s Not Over

Still doesn’t feel like the bottom.

I don’t see enough anger / despair that would mark the point at which all the buyers are exhausted.

Love your work – thanks!

— Gary W.

I believe it’s not over till people go back to work… I am a supplier to GM, laid off until the 13th… even then I could be laid off longer depending on how orders rise or fall… at the time of the layoff orders were down 15% before the virus hit…

— Timothy C.

Most of your subscribers, I’m sure, want rosy pictures. Most investors do. They want to catch the bottom of the V. This time it’s an L, though.

By end of May most airlines in the world will go bankrupt. Restaurants, bars, gyms, taxis. Hotels, travel agencies, tourist attractions. Shops, malls, import/export companies. Trucking, railways, bus liners. Cinemas, museums, stadiums…

Investment banks with derivatives exposure, ETF spinners, trading houses, oil companies, automakers and aerospace are in trouble. Possibly miners too. And schools.

But investors want to believe that the FED is going to fix it all. Thing is, we should hope the FED doesn’t try. If they do, we’re all going to wake up with 1000s of $ in our pockets, and nothing to spend it on.

The ONLY moneys (FED or fiscal) that should be spent is on buying test kits from Russia, respirators from Elon Musk, hospital beds and walls. The ONE thing we need is a victory against the virus. Nothing else.

— Dan W.

Dan the man, you hit the nose on the head … or something like that. And Timothy, you are absolutely right.

This is what Great Stuff has said for a while. You can pass a $2 trillion spending bill to help things along, but it won’t magically rehire 3.28 million workers filing for unemployment. It won’t stop the virus from spreading.

Hunker down, dear readers. It’s going to be a rough ride. But, if you stay tuned in to Great Stuff and BanyanHill.com, I promise to keep telling you like it is and help guide you through the storm.

Finally, a shoutout to Angela O., Christine P., Phil G. and the others who have offered Great Stuff support for telling you the truth. Sticks and stones … you know. Thank you all!

Have you written in yet? What’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[goldira01]

Denial, Seems It Had to Come

I warned you it was coming. I warned you it’d be bad.

Relied on me to say it all. (Any Sevendust fans out there? No? Oh well…)

Weekly jobless claims arrived today, and they were record-breaking. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week.

That’s 15 times the number of people who filed two weeks ago … and five times the previous record of 695,000 claims set in 1982. It was more than the peak number of claims during both the Great Recession and the Great Depression.

3.28 million Americans out of work — all because of the coronavirus (or the panic along with it).

The situation is so bad — How bad is it? — that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell appeared on the Today show to reassure Americans that the U.S. central bank is on our side.

“The Federal Reserve is working hard to support you now and our policies will be very important when the recovery does come,” Powell said.

The Takeaway: 

Let’s think about the situation for a minute.

The head of the U.S. Federal Reserve — the guy who’s responsible for the country’s most powerful financial institution — felt it was necessary to reassure the American people on a popular morning show.

On one hand, that’s somewhat comforting … Powell taking time out of his busy day to tell everyone that it’ll all be OK.

On the other, it shows just how badly the situation has deteriorated. We now have the head of the Fed offering reassurance, not some lackey.

Oh, and those 3.28 million jobless claims? The market shrugged them off.

It seems that most of Wall Street believes that the worst is now behind us. Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, summed up the Street’s opinion pretty well:

We all know the pain being felt and the economic damage being caused by this damn virus but because we are so close to getting past the worst of the spread, we need to start getting creative about what the restart will look like.

So close to getting past the worst of the spread?

The U.S. is about a month behind Italy in terms of COVID-19’s spread, and Italy hasn’t even peaked yet. We’re three months behind China, and it’s just now seeing the end of community spread. Both countries went into complete lockdown. While individual states have gone this route, the U.S. as a whole has not.

As hopeful as I want to be … as hopeful as Wall Street wants to be … we aren’t close to getting past the worst of the spread.

As the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, put it: “You don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline.”

But … but the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue bill!

Yes, I hear you out there … protesting my negativity again. The Senate’s bill will blunt the impact, to be sure. But it can’t stop what’s already happening. Despite reassurances that everything will just bounce back … that this isn’t really a long-term economic problem in the U.S. … let me tell you now: It is.

What? You think the U.S. economy could just hire back those 3.28 million out-of-work Americans tomorrow if the coronavirus magically disappeared? Nope. It doesn’t work like that.

But, while the U.S. economy is going down, down in an early round, sugar we’re going down swinging. And Great Stuff will be your No. 1 with a bullet. A loaded market complex … cock it and pull it.

Now, here’s the thing — and listen up, all ye positivity seekers!

Just as the virus chooses the timeline for this whole crazy shebang…

Only you choose your investing timeline. Only you decide if you keep hanging in there.

If you ask expert Charles Mizrahi, the situation is crystal clear. You could either:

Capture peak gains like 300%, 500% and 600%.

Or let the market turmoil and the virus’s impact eat away your financial future.

Gains like those? In this kind of market?!

Yes, dear reader — there’s potential in any market. See, according to Charles: “What you do in this current meltdown will make all the difference on what your net worth will be in the next five years.”

So, while other folks around you join the fleeing fearful, you have a chance to gain a leg up. In fact, Charles Mizrahi thinks this moment is so crucial he recorded a special video presentation on how to leave all this market panic behind.

Click here now.

The Good: Remote Connections               

Investors are falling in love with Micron Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) in a hopeless place today.

The flash memory maker beat Wall Street’s second-quarter earnings and revenue estimates and issued solid third-quarter guidance.

In fact, Micron appears to benefit from COVID-19 lockdowns around the world. In its post-earnings conference call, the company highlighted rising demand for PCs, notebooks and other devices as more people work and study from home.

Furthermore, Micron noted additional demand in the data center market, as companies push to beef up cloud computing storage and performance amid spiking remote demand.

While now is clearly the time to be cautious about buying anything in the market, Micron is one company to keep on your short list of potential winners in this brave new world.

The Bad: 1 Bourbon, 1 Scotch, 1 Beer

Wanna tell you a story about the Cheesecake Factory Inc. (Nasdaq: CAKE) blues…

I read the headlines one particular Thursday and saw that Cheesecake Factory had lost its jobs. But that don’t confront me, long as I get my money next Thursday. Next Thursday come, and they didn’t have the rent … and out the door I went.

Seriously though, the Cheesecake Factory just sent a letter to its landlords that it won’t pay rent in April due to the coronavirus. Here’s an excerpt from a letter to landlords from CEO David Overton:

The severe decrease in restaurant traffic has severely decreased our cash flow and inflicted a tremendous financial blow to our business. Due to these extraordinary events, I am asking for your patience and, frankly, your help.

And it’s not just Cheesecake Factory acting kinda funny … everybody funny … now you funny too. Retailers, from clothier H&M to fast-foodie Subway, are all struggling to make rent.

If anything reinforces the idea that the COVID-19 situation is far from over, it’s retailers not paying rent. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for a few drinks.

The Ugly: Old Junker

Growing up in rural Kentucky, I lived through the great Ford versus Chevy wars and endured many a heated argument on the topic. “Ford Don’t Make Junk” was among the many stickers plastered on the windows and tailgates of F-150s for as far as the eye could see.

Turns out, those bumper stickers weren’t quite accurate. Today, S&P Global Ratings cut Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) bonds to junk status. The ratings firm lowered Ford’s credit rating to BB+ (junk status) and said that it may lower its rating further as the coronavirus’s impact spreads.

S&P isn’t alone in its “junk” rating on Ford, however. Moody’s Investors Service cut its credit rating on the Big Blue Oval twice in the past month, citing a “credit shock” for automakers across the board.

But Ford has an answer … it plans on reopening production at key plants in April, including its Dearborn, Michigan, and Kentucky truck plants, its Kansas City Assembly Plant’s transit line and its Ohio Assembly Plant.

That’s all fine and dandy, but I’m pretty sure the United Auto Workers Union will have something to say about this. And it won’t be pretty.

You Marco, I Polo … it’s Reader Feedback time!

Let me just say, you guys have been busy … or maybe you’re just bored after being locked in your homes for days on end.

In the past week, Great Stuff received a veritable flood of comments with two common themes: You absolutely despise bailouts (especially for airlines) and you don’t think the market rout is over.

Let’s dive right into your comments:

The Unfriendly Skies

NO BAILOUT TO THOSE WHO BOUGHT BACK STOCK

— Stan B.

Airline bailout NOT. Only if that Airline assists our American citizens stuck away from their respective residents need to get home. Not for anyone just traveling. Bailout? Why do they need it as they have gouged the travelers for transporting their necessary luggage to the tune of millions of dollars of profit while still collecting their usual air fares. Why should we bail out these huge corporations. Use that money to help the smaller companies to keep their doors open. I personally am sick of seeing billions bailing out these high corporations that only turn around and use that money for the top management so called golden parachutes. Stop this madness of government bailouts.

— Peggy B.

Pigs to the trough, as usual. And, why should it shock you that R’s have no problems throwing tons of money at pillars of industry? Well, not exactly industry. Finance! That’s the magic word The Graduate should have been told. Not “plastics,” “finance”.

— Joe S.

Let them go under.

— Tony C.

Wow … the sheer vitriol dripping from your comments is … honestly, it’s a bit impressive. I don’t know whether to be proud of you or to start locking my doors.

As I’ve said several times here in Great Stuff, I don’t like stock buybacks — at all. It’s a company telling me they have nothing better to do with their money … nothing to invest or reinvest in. No new ideas to grow.

And now, those companies are paying the price. Well, somewhat of a price. A lot of them just got bailed out by the government … again.

It’s Not Over

Still doesn’t feel like the bottom.

I don’t see enough anger / despair that would mark the point at which all the buyers are exhausted.

Love your work – thanks!

— Gary W.

I believe it’s not over till people go back to work… I am a supplier to GM, laid off until the 13th… even then I could be laid off longer depending on how orders rise or fall… at the time of the layoff orders were down 15% before the virus hit…

— Timothy C.

 Most of your subscribers, I’m sure, want rosy pictures. Most investors do. They want to catch the bottom of the V. This time it’s an L, though.

By end of May most airlines in the world will go bankrupt. Restaurants, bars, gyms, taxis. Hotels, travel agencies, tourist attractions. Shops, malls, import/export companies. Trucking, railways, bus liners. Cinemas, museums, stadiums…

Investment banks with derivatives exposure, ETF spinners, trading houses, oil companies, automakers and aerospace are in trouble. Possibly miners too. And schools.

But investors want to believe that the FED is going to fix it all. Thing is, we should hope the FED doesn’t try. If they do, we’re all going to wake up with 1000s of $ in our pockets, and nothing to spend it on.

The ONLY moneys (FED or fiscal) that should be spent is on buying test kits from Russia, respirators from Elon Musk, hospital beds and walls. The ONE thing we need is a victory against the virus. Nothing else.

— Dan W.

Dan the man, you hit the nose on the head … or something like that. And Timothy, you are absolutely right.

This is what Great Stuff has said for a while. You can pass a $2 trillion spending bill to help things along, but it won’t magically rehire 3.28 million workers filing for unemployment. It won’t stop the virus from spreading.

Hunker down, dear readers. It’s going to be a rough ride. But, if you stay tuned in to Great Stuff and BanyanHill.com, I promise to keep telling you like it is and help guide you through the storm.

Finally, a shoutout to Angela O., Christine P., Phil G. and the others who have offered Great Stuff support for telling you the truth. Sticks and stones … you know. Thank you all!

Have you written in yet? What’s stopping you? Drop me a line at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let me know how you’re doing out there in this crazy market.

That’s a wrap for today. But if you’re still craving more Great Stuff, you can check us out on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[bountyofbeads]

The Unraveling of Donald Trump

As the impeachment inquiry intensifies, some associates of the president predict that his already erratic behavior is going to get worse.

Peter Nicholas | Published October 18, 2019 9:45 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted October 18, 2019 |

The country is entering a new and precarious phase, in which the central question about President Donald Trump is not whether he is coming unstrung, but rather just how unstrung he is going to get.

The boiling mind of Trump has spawned a cottage industry for cognitive experts who have questioned whether he is, well, all there. But as the impeachment inquiry barrels ahead on Capitol Hill, several associates of the president, including former White House aides, worry that his behavior is likely to get worse. Angered by the proceedings, unencumbered by aides willing to question his judgment, and more and more isolated in the West Wing, Trump is apt to lash out more at enemies imagined and real, these people told me. Conduct that has long been unsettling figures to deteriorate as Trump comes under mounting stress. What unfolded Wednesday inside the West Wing’s walls might be only a foretaste of what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described that day, after a meeting with Trump, as a presidential “meltdown.”

“He’s grown more comfortable in the job and less willing to assimilate new information and trust new advisers,” a former White House official told me. “He’s decided to throw caution to the wind and go it alone, especially when he’s stressed and feels under attack and threatened in various ways. Then his worst impulses and vices shine through.”

On Wednesday alone, he peddled a discredited conspiracy theory in an Oval Office meeting with his Italian counterpart; threw a tantrum during the meeting with Pelosi; dismissed former Defense Secretary James Mattis as “the world’s most overrated general”; and released a letter he wrote to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that was so bizarre, people weren’t convinced it was real (“Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!”).

At least one associate has confronted Trump recently about his judgment, specifically his decision to repeatedly attack the Biden family. Isn’t it unseemly for a president to target Joe Biden’s son Hunter? Wouldn’t it be smarter, at least, to outsource this sort of attack to someone else?

According to a person close to the president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss private conversations, Trump’s explanation was that he acts as any normal person might, and that he won’t be moved by what he calls “political correctness.” “You don’t get it,” Trump said.

Most presidents in the modern era have had emotional moorings to sustain them during crises. President Franklin D. Roosevelt fussed over his stamp collection as he plotted victory in World War II. President Barack Obama would play miniature golf with his young daughters and basketball with old friends from Hawaii as he navigated the financial crisis. In Trump’s world, these sorts of leavening influences don’t seem to exist. Apparently absent from his life are traditional family bonds, creative outlets and hobbies, even exercise. (While some of his children are visible and vocal advocates for their father, Trump’s relationships with them are notoriously complex.) Splayed out on Twitter, his life has always seemed a limitless diet of Fox & Friends episodes and interpersonal disputes. Long gone are the trusted aides with whom he seemed comfortable (and who were willing to speak their mind), such as the senior adviser Hope Hicks.

“I think what we’re viewing, if you think about the human side of it, is the man has no life. He just has no life,” the person close to him told me.

A common question these days is whether Trump has an impairment of some sort that might explain his behavior. Writing in The Atlantic earlier this month, the lawyer George Conway, who is married to the Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, described how some health professionals have ascribed two personality disorders to Trump: pathological narcissism and antisocial personality disorder.

But the latest concerns about Trump are just a crescendo in a long-running drama. Sam Nunberg, a former 2016 Trump-campaign aide, told me that a colleague once approached him and asked if Trump was losing it, saying they had just had the same conversation twice. Nunberg dismissed such concerns, assuring him that it was only because Trump likely wasn’t paying attention the first time.

His speech has changed over time, too. Software programs show that Trump currently speaks at a fourth-to-sixth-grade level. (Politicians are practiced at speaking to wide swaths of Americans, but Obama, for example, according to those speech analyses, spoke at an 11th-grade level in his final news conference as president.) A study last year by two University of Pittsburgh professors examining Trump’s appearances on Fox News found that the quality of his speech was worsening. They studied his comments over a seven-year period ending in 2017—just as his presidency began—and found that he had begun using substantially more “filler words”such as um and uh, though the authors did not conclude that the change signaled cognitive decline.

Even a casual observer can see the disordered and nonlinear thinking behind Trump’s speech. A case in point was Trump’s rally last week in Minneapolis. Within minutes of taking the stage, Trump launched, without explanation, into a dramatic reading of what he imagined was the pillow talk between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, a pair of former FBI officials who had exchanged text messages critical of the president. He gave no context as to why he was talking about them, leaving it to the audience to fill in the Mall of America–size blanks. Trump never even mentioned that they had worked for the FBI or that Strzok was at one point involved in the Russia investigation—just that they were “lovers” who disliked him. (Still, as theater, it seemed to work. When Trump cooed, “Oh, God. I love you, Lisa!” the audience laughed appreciatively.)

Other people who have worked with Trump in the White House and on the 2016 campaign pushed back on the notion that his mental acuity has eroded over time. “Every president has a super-exaggerated ego and personality in some way,” Tom Bossert, Trump’s former homeland-security adviser and a former official in President George W. Bush’s administration, told me. I asked him if presidents or presidential candidates should be subject to a fitness test measuring whether they’re up to the job. Various psychologists have floated this idea in response to Trump’s behavior. “I’m not sure what the fitness standard would reveal about people who are already wired that way,” Bossert said.

Conventional wisdom in Washington is that impeachment won’t lead to Trump’s removal, but that view rests on Republicans continuing to stay by his side. Even those most loyal to Trump could lose patience if his rash decision making collides with their own interests. Trump’s impulsive decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria last week, setting the stage for Turkey’s attack on America’s Kurdish partners, has already infuriated some of his closest friends in Congress. It was soon after the House, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, rebuked his Syria gambit on Wednesday that Trump lashed out at Pelosi, prompting her to abruptly walk out of their meeting. (Democrats, of course, are seizing the opportunity. “For those who don’t do politics professionally or even follow it closely: It is getting worse. He is getting worse,” Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii tweeted last night.)

At least one lawmaker thinks that Republicans could hit a tipping point—though he’s a Democrat. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland told me that it might be easier for Republicans to concede that Trump is unwell than that he’s a criminal who violated his constitutional oath by committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The path to removing Trump, in this formulation, might not be impeachment, but the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.

Raskin, a former constitutional-law professor, is sponsoring a bill aimed at clarifying a provision of that amendment—a vehicle for removing a president who is unable to carry out his duties, with the consent of the vice president—by shifting responsibility for making such a judgment from the Cabinet to a panel created expressly for that purpose.

“It may be easier for at least certain Republican colleagues just to admit that the president is acting increasingly incapable of meeting the arduous tasks and duties of his office,” Raskin told me.

That’s still a lot to ask of Republican lawmakers who fully grasp Trump’s mystic hold on his political coalition and fear backlash. The question is whether Trump’s base starts to notice, or care, that the man it elected, facing pressures he’s never seen before, is devolving unmistakably into a different sort of man.

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Why Turkey Treated Trump’s Letter as Trash

There may be no more vivid illustration of how American leadership has declined in the world.

David A. Graham | Published October 17, 2019 | The Atlantic | Posted October 18, 2019 |

When Fox News’ Trish Regan first reported President Donald Trump’s October 9 letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, some journalists and pundits wondered whether it was a joke or a hoax. But the White House confirmed: It was genuine.

“History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen. Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!” Trump wrote, signing off incongruously, “I will call you later.”

As it turns out, the Turkish government didn’t stop to puzzle over whether the missive was authentic or a joke: It quickly concluded that it was both.

The letter “was not taken seriously at the time, especially given its lack of diplomatic finesse,” Gülnur Aybet, a senior adviser to Erdoğan, told NPR’s Morning Edition today. The BBC quoted a Turkish source saying that “President Erdoğan received the letter, thoroughly rejected it, and put it in the bin.”

The letter’s language and the puerility of Trump’s attempt at forestalling a Turkish invasion of northern Syria are embarrassing on their own—the language and syntax resembling a tense note exchange in a middle-school classroom far more than the stilted conventions of international relations.

But Trump has long dismissed such critiques of his language as mere tone-policing, another side of the political correctness he decries. His language is, he has contended, “MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL”—all caps his, and self-reinforcing. Trump may not sound like a typical president, he and his defenders contend, but his blunt style is more forceful and effective than the mannered language of po-faced diplomats and effete leaders such as Barack Obama.

The fiasco in Syria shows, however, that this style is not only unbecoming—it’s ineffective, too. Faced with a strongly worded missive from the president of the United States—the supposed leader of the free world and the most powerful head of state in NATO, an alliance of which Turkey is a member—Erdoğan snickered and tossed it in the trash. (And not just metaphorically, according to the BBC.) There are perhaps more vivid illustrations of how little respect Washington gets and how American leadership has declined in the world, but none comes to mind at the moment.

The best argument for Trump’s decision to yank American troops out of northern Syria is that Turkey was determined to invade no matter what and the president acted to get U.S. soldiers out of harm’s way. It’s not a very good argument, since Trump successfully held off Erdoğan for two years, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that it is true.

If so, Trump wasted more than a week of precious time. Erdoğan charged forward with the invasion without regard for Trump’s warnings. When the president moved forward with the sanctions he threatened in the letter, it didn’t rattle Erdoğan at all. American troops were fired on in the chaos of withdrawal. American planes are bombing U.S. munitions dumps to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Independent observers have identified atrocities in the fighting.

Today, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are in Ankara to attempt old-fashioned diplomacy. By now, it might be too late. “They say, ‘Declare a cease-fire.’ We will never declare a cease-fire,” Erdoğan said Tuesday. If Erdoğan sticks to his guns, literally and metaphorically, it will show how little American leadership is respected overseas. If Pence and Pompeo succeed, it will demonstrate the failure of the president’s personal approach. Not that he seems to care what happens. “They’ve got a lot of sand over there,” Trump said yesterday. “So there’s a lot of sand that they can play with.” It’s hard to believe that world leaders don’t put more stock in his word.

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The Senate Must Rein In Trump

Unless Congress acts, the Kurds may not be the last allies this president abandons.

Chris Coons, Democratic U.S. senator from Delaware | Published October 18, 2019 10:36 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted October 18, 2019 |

After President Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon the Kurds and withdraw our troops from northern Syria, Congress spent this past week trying to decide how best to respond. A resolution of denunciation? Tough sanctions on Turkey? Reconsider our relationship with Turkey? Convene the coalition against ISIS and consider how to recapture or even track the hundreds of escaped fighters?

I think we have an even bigger problem on our hands.

Until now, it was reasonable to debate whether Trump was simply an unconventional president, the first with no prior experience serving in either our military or government, or whether he was truly willing to work with foreign dictators to place his own political interests ahead of our nation’s. This week, we learned that this was a false choice—he’s both.

First, despite the temporary cease-fire that Vice President Mike Pence and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Thursday, the damage President Trump has caused cannot be undone. He betrayed our Kurdish allies, aided Russia and Iran, and gave ISIS a chance to reconstitute itself—all to serve his own perceived political interests.

Second, Trump’s abrupt order to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria was not a legitimate response to Americans who are tired of “forever wars.” An abrupt withdrawal from Syria that emboldened our enemies and has already led to the death of hundreds of innocent people was not what the American public had in mind. And just days after Trump announced the withdrawal from Syria, abandoning the Kurds and risking the revival of ISIS, he deployed another 3,000 troops to Saudi Arabia. The net impact is more American troops in the Middle East.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, Trump knew full well how ill-advised an abrupt withdrawal from Syria would be because he tried to do it once before, in December 2018. In response, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest and a broad coalition in Congress voiced its strong opposition to the withdrawal.

Less than a year later, all it took to convince Trump once again that Mattis and nearly every serious foreign-policy and security leader from either party in Congress were wrong was a phone call with Erdoğan, the increasingly authoritarian leader of Turkey.

The president apparently chose to listen to the Turkish dictator instead of his top advisers and the bipartisan consensus in Congress because he thought it would make a good campaign talking point.

While we need to do everything we can to limit the impacts of the president’s decision, members of Congress also need to ask ourselves what we can do to prevent Trump from letting other dictators steer U.S. foreign policy as Erdoğan has done.

What’s to stop Trump from pulling the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, offering up Taiwan to China’s President Xi, or handing over Estonia to Vladimir Putin? What about withdrawing our troops from South Korea to secure a nuclear deal with Kim Jong Un or abandoning the Baltics to secure peace in Ukraine? Those terrible ideas might strike Trump as bold strokes designed to bring our troops home, too.

We can’t let any of those hypothetical situations come to fruition, because, as we have seen in Syria, the vacuum of American leadership is quickly filled by adversaries.

If the Senate fails to act now to constrain the president and dissuade foreign dictators from asking Trump to desert longtime allies, disregard U.S. interests, and overturn years of U.S. foreign policy, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. It’s true that foreign policy is primarily driven by the executive branch, but it’s Congress’s role to establish guardrails, particularly when the president cannot be trusted to pursue American interests.

The Senate needs to put Trump, our national-security leadership, our allies, and the strongmen with whom Trump regularly flirts on notice. We need to demonstrate to dictators that our system is different: Congress can constrain the president and punish dictators for acting against our interests. There is broad bipartisan support for doing so in this case, and that should extend to preventing a repeat performance.

The Senate must preemptively put in place mechanisms to defend our democracy and our network of alliances before Trump acts against our interests once again, whether to indulge his isolationist impulses or to distract from impeachment.

Specifically, we should pass legislation to prevent a U.S. withdrawal from NATO without congressional approval, require Senate approval of any adjustments to U.S. troop levels in South Korea or Japan, and debate an Authorization for Use of Military Force that accurately reflects the conflicts in which we are currently engaged and claws back war-making authority from the executive branch.

Trump’s tragic decision in Syria unleashed ISIS and abandoned our Kurdish partners to the mercy of their new defenders, whether “Russia, China, or Napoleon Bonaparte,” as Trump tweeted. This cannot be accepted on its own, and it cannot be allowed to establish a new precedent for American foreign policy.

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The Intelligence Fallout From Trump’s Withdrawal in Syria

The chaotic withdrawal from Syria will severely weaken U.S. efforts in the country—and could also be a boost for Russia and Iran.

Mike Giglio | Published October 18, 2019 6:00 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted October 18, 2019 |

This version of the forever war in Iraq and Syria was built around the work done by local U.S. allies. The fight against ISIS was America’s, but it was also being fought by Syrians, Kurds, and Iraqis—a U.S. strategy known as “by, with, and through.” It meant that local troops carried out ground fighting in battles drawn up by American war planners. It meant that they received arms, training, and logistical support from the U.S. military and were backed by U.S. air strikes. Crucially, it also meant that they were getting help from special-operations forces, the U.S. military’s most elite units, who work in the shadows around the world to carry out difficult and sensitive missions.

Perhaps the best-known unit is SEAL Team Six, which carried out the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011. But task forces made up of SEALs and other officially classified units such as the Delta Force have carried out the dangerous work of hunting terrorists and breaking up insurgent networks since America’s forever wars began. Often, they work on their own; but sometimes, as in the war against ISIS, they work with local counterterrorism units specially trained for the task. In the “by, with, and through” strategy, these special-operations forces, along with the better-known U.S. Army Special Forces, or Green Berets, served as a force multiplier—a relatively small number of American troops who made the war effort by local forces far more deadly.

These partnerships have proved invaluable in the war against ISIS. At the same time, they have also opened a small hole in the secrecy that typically shrouds the special-operations community—by giving the local partners who work with these forces a rare and up-close view of who they are and how they do their jobs.

In Syria, elite U.S. troops among the 1,000 American personnel in the country worked closely with Kurdish counterterrorism units while regular Kurdish fighters carried out most of the ground operations against ISIS. The U.S. partnership with the Kurds grew as America armed and trained them and later merged them with Arab groups under an umbrella militia called the Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF spearheaded the fight against ISIS in Syria, rolling back its most important strongholds. It has said that it lost more than 10,000 soldiers in that fight.

U.S. military officials wasted no opportunity to laud the SDF’s prowess. So President Donald Trump’s announcement of a hasty and ill-planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria to allow for a Turkish onslaught left everyone—allies, lawmakers, defense officials, but most significantly the Kurdish-led forces themselves—stunned. Fearing for its existence in the face of an invasion from NATO-allied Turkey, which considers it an enemy, the SDF has rushed to strike a deal with the Iran- and Russia-backed Bashar al-Assad regime. While the details of this arrangement remain in flux, one possibility is for SDF forces to be folded into the Syrian state, following negotiations to which they suddenly bring very little leverage. As a result, the same Kurdish counterterrorism units that have worked with U.S. special-operations forces and intelligence may suddenly find themselves working with—or at the mercy of—the Syrian government. This raises a vexing counterintelligence question for America: Might these units be forced to spill their secrets to some of America’s foremost global adversaries, in Assad, Russia, and Iran?

Eric L. Robinson, a former U.S. intelligence official who worked on anti-ISIS strategy at the National Counterterrorism Center, calls the fact that the SDF was forced to seek Assad’s protection in Syria a counterintelligence “nightmare.” He worried, in a Twitter post this week, that “given years of SDF exposure” to U.S. special-operations forces and intelligence, it would “be forced to give up TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures], names, locations, etc. What a coup for the Russian intelligence services—five years of history regarding the elite forces of NATO.”

Robinson, who was a senior civilian in the United States Special Operations Command until last year, also noted that the same elite troops who served in Syria also work around the world on America’s most sensitive national-security missions. They’re “from the same community that relieves an embassy under siege, identifies [North Korean] mobile missile capacity, rescues hostages, or defends Tallinn from [a] Russian invasion,” he wrote.

“We’re now five years into a relationship that has metastasized from a handful of basically cellphone connections between American special-operations forces and [Kurdish soldiers] into a robust operation,” Robinson told me by phone.

Along the way, Robinson said, the Kurds “got a close look at the way Americans fight war, and [it was] an extraordinary chance to observe segments of the American military within special operations that are not necessarily covert or clandestine but do try to keep a low profile.”

“Whether [the Kurds] like it or not, they are exposed to the way the United States conducts unconventional warfare,” he added. “Whether you’re talking about communications infrastructure or response times for medevac or response times for aviations support, that stuff is all interesting.” Robinson worries that any potential deal between the Kurds and Assad will include “not just speaking with Syrian intelligence officers but Russians and Iranians,” he told me. “It’s going to turn out that, all of a sudden, the ways that elite American counterterrorism forces operate are known to the opposition.”

The chaotic nature of the U.S. withdrawal from Syria—following a snap decision by Trump during a phone call with the Turkish president earlier this month—is unnerving those who have been involved in all levels of the fight against ISIS.

Brett McGurk, the former senior U.S. diplomat who helped to arrange and then oversee the partnership between the U.S. military and the Kurds, told me by email: “The chain of reaction from Trump’s call with [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan to a predictably catastrophic situation on the ground led to abrupt abandonment of military posts and relationships that had been built over years.” (McGurk declined to comment on the specifics of potential intelligence ramifications.) “None of these issues were thought through or prepared, no consequences considered. It’s a disaster.”

Several news outlets have reported that U.S. troops who worked with the Kurds in Syria are “heartbroken” and “ashamed,” while senior administration officials were reportedly left scrambling to deal with the ramifications of Trump’s decision. As they made their retreat in Syria, U.S. troops were reportedly fired on by Turkish-backed fighters. U.S. fighter jets later launched air strikes to destroy ammunition that American forces left behind amid the chaos.

“We’re running out of appendages in which to shoot ourselves,” Brian Katz, a former CIA official who recently took a post as a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me. “Understanding how the U.S. military, special-operations, and intelligence community operates is going to be very valuable for Russia and Iran—if not in Syria now, then wherever we’ll be competing and fighting in the coming years. They’ll have a playbook for how we operate.”

A U.S. military official with experience on special-forces missions pushed back against the idea that Kurdish counterterrorism units will reveal sensitive information. “It’s not a huge concern if they go and play ball with somebody else, because the relationship that we have at the tactical level endures over time,” he told me on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly. He added that “there’s a counterintelligence risk whenever you work with a partner force,” and the U.S. military is accustomed to mitigating it.

I asked whether he was concerned about the identities of special-operations forces being exposed. “I would say that’s by and large an individual’s responsibility,” he said. “I look about 15 years older and like a wild man when I have my beard [in the field], and I’m assuming that the majority of these guys are probably in similar fashion. There are ways that guys protect their identities when they’re down-range. It’s not like we’re giving our Social Security cards and bank information to the [Kurds].”

A spokesman for the U.S. military, Commander Sean Robertson, declined to comment on the issue in detail. “We take information security and operational security seriously. It is integral to our partnerships, and we plan for it regularly,” he said in an emailed statement.

The Kurdish militants who partnered with the U.S. military in Syria hail from the YPG—an offshoot of a separatist group, the PKK, that has waged a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Turkey and is labeled a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department. The U.S. relationship with the YPG was controversial from the start, and a major source of friction between America and Turkey.

While regular YPG forces carried out various ground offensives, its specialized counterterrorism units worked with U.S. special-operations forces to disrupt ISIS networks and target its leadership, Nicholas Heras, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security who briefs the U.S. military on Syria, told me. That work continued even after the demise of ISIS’s so-called territorial caliphate; in fact, it became arguably even more important, as ISIS returned to its roots as an underground insurgency. YPG counterterrorism forces worked with U.S. troops to capture the Tabqa Dam from ISIS, Heras said, and conducted “other discreet operations to capture and kill ISIS targets.”

Heras traveled to SDF-held Syria this summer and met with Kurdish commanders who oversaw the YPG’s counterterrorism units. He learned how they worked not just with U.S. intelligence and special-operations forces, but also with those from Britain and France. “This was a major line of effort that was quietly being done to improve the capabilities of the SDF and prevent the reemergence of ISIS,” he said. “It means U.S. special-operations forces considered certain elements of the YPG to be so trustworthy that they can go on these sensitive missions.”

Heras stressed that it’s still unclear what will become of the YPG and its counterterrorism units under a deal with Assad, though he noted that integration into the Syrian security forces is one likely possibility. Even setting aside the potential counterintelligence risk that would come with the YPG switching sides, he added, the U.S. will suffer a major intelligence setback with the loss of a crucial partner.

“This kind of hasty withdrawal creates a collapse in our intelligence collection on ISIS,” Katz, the former CIA official, told me. “People sometimes think there’s this magical intelligence button that the military and intelligence community hits—boom, start collection now. But building an accurate and active intelligence picture of a terrorist group, and one as savvy and sophisticated as ISIS, is a tedious and years-long enterprise.”

All of that is now at risk of being lost. “It’s human intelligence that gives the U.S. government its best ability to understand the strategic plans and intentions of terrorist groups—not only their movements on the ground, but their plotting of extremist attacks,” Katz said. “And human intelligence requires proximity and access and trust and building relationships with sources on the ground.”

Another ramification for the U.S. intelligence community is the potential for mass escapes of ISIS prisoners. The SDF holds thousands of suspected ISIS militants, including many foreign fighters, in its territory. Some prison breaks have already been reported, and the fate of the prisoners who remain in SDF hands is uncertain. Heras, the Center for a New American Security expert, told me that the possibilities are grim: More could escape, or all could be handed over to the Assad regime, which could torture and execute them, or perhaps seek to co-opt them, as it did in sending jihadists against U.S. troops during the Iraq War.

Regardless, U.S. investigators will likely lose access to a vital source of information about ISIS. One former U.S. military officer who worked at senior levels of the anti-ISIS campaign told me he doubted that U.S. investigators had managed to interview all the ISIS prisoners, especially those captured more recently. “We’ll lose out on interrogations that didn’t happen and on follow-on interrogations that won’t happen,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. “The historical knowledge that’s resident there would take years to get through. And that’s knowledge that we’re probably not going to have access to.”

Anne Speckhard, who directs the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, has interviewed dozens of the suspected ISIS prisoners held in SDF prisons. She told me that many had turned against ISIS and were powerful voices in persuading others not to join militant groups. “Most of the people that we interviewed got disillusioned by ISIS—and got disillusioned because they felt ISIS is un-Islamic, corrupt, and really brutal,” she said. “We’re just losing a gold mine of data.”