Politicians have had a dubious relationship with the truth for thousands of years. It wasn’t until Trump, however, that the United States was led by a man who seems more comfortable telling lies than he is simply reporting events as they actually happened.
And yes, these lies become part of his future. The problem is, at least up until now, Trump has been able to tell a new set of lies that continue to kick the can down the road.
Tragically, we lost American astronomer Carl Sagan to cancer in 1996. But before he left, he bestowed upon us wisdom that went far beyond the study of the universe.
At left is an example.
If he were alive today, it’s hard to imagine how he’d deal with the presence of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and, of course, Donald Trump.
Interesting stuff here. Yes, thinking optimistically, it’s possible that there are young people who were raised to think that Republicans were the party of solid “family” values, only to learn to their disgust that these principles are actually lies, hate, ignorance, and criminality.
In the real world, I doubt that the cruel reality of Trumpism has effected significant change on any number of those kids.
I went to school with a boy whose father was an officer in the Philadelphia police department. He told me stories, and I have to believe they were true, of his father’s and his colleagues’ pulling over black drivers who were suspected of having committed crimes. The normal practice in these cases was, because the “liberal” court system would likely set the “n*****s” free, was to beat the suspects into a pulp, and tell them, “If any of this leaks to the newspapers, we’re going to kill you and your entire family.” “The n*****s,” my schoolmate said with pride, would tell anyone who asked about their broken limbs, “I’z in a gang wahh.”
Can anyone believe that the stupidity of Trumpism has turned any of this around?
This is the guy who, we were told, flipped on Matt Gaetz in order to receive a lesser sentence.
At this point, one fears that Gaetz was somehow successful in avoiding prosecution. That would be a travesty.
History provides us with hundreds of different comments as to the cause of societal evils. What ancient Athenian historian and general Thucydides says here is quite consistent with the others’ observations.
Sadly, there are people who look at Donald Trump and simply cannot make the connection.
From this piece in the New York Times:
Despite all the talk of fancy apartments, free Mercedes-Benzes and cash flowing at Christmastime, the criminal tax fraud trial of Donald J. Trump’s family business could come down to three mundane words: “in behalf of.”
The company stands accused of doling out those off-the-books perks to several executives, who failed to pay taxes on them. The scheme’s architect — the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg — pleaded guilty and testified at trial.
The company, however, is not automatically guilty of his crimes. Under New York law, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office must prove that Mr. Weisselberg committed his many felonies “in behalf of” the Trump Organization, a clunky phrase that the judge overseeing the case has, in something of an understatement, called “a confusing area of the law.”
Call me obtuse, but I don’t see the issue here. What is the defense claiming to be Weisselberg’s motives for committing his crimes? Tax fraud is his hobby? He derives sexual gratification?
Sorry.
Dr. Alex Cannara is best known for his work promoting nuclear energy as a technology that he claims is absolutely essential if we are to control global warming before its effects become catastrophic and irreversible.
Sadly, most environmentalists are rabidly anti-nuke, as they don’t understand that fission is statistically quite safe and becoming more so with each passing year.
A reader sent this in with the text; “This one piece 204 foot mast all came from a single fir tree. And, these days we scramble to find a 40 foot piece that’s half worth having.”
But I rather wonder what his point is.
I asked a friend, who said, “Well, it means that we just don’t grow trees like that any more,” like we don’t parent children like we did when we spanked them when they were disobedient, or we don’t make toasters designed to last a lifetime.
I think the more logical explanation is that we’ve chopped down the huge trees, and replacing them isn’t a profitable enterprise, so who cares?
The guilty findings against the top people at the Oath Keepers and the long prison sentences that will be meted out may stand as something of a deterrent against future insurrections. The idiot with the swastika shirt and the Nazi salute may think twice before she breaks laws that carry 20-years imprisonment.
In any case, and at the risk of repeating myself, if I were hearing a case like this, I would be somewhat compelled by the fact that these people honestly believed that the election had been stolen and that there were acting as patriots by forcing the overturn of the results. Why? Purely because they were ordered to by the President of the United States.
This was not something that came from the deputy police chief of some cow-town in rural Alabama; it came from the White House, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States armed forces.
It is for this reason that justice actions that do not include charging the former president are really no justice whatsoever.
I’m always interested in speaking with my mom about politics, as it gives me a summary of what the Fox News talking points have been over the intervening days since our last conversation.
Last night it was Ukraine–the folly of helping Ukraine defend itself against the invading Russians. (more…)
