Plenty of Americans believe that, if we were simply to teach Christianity to our schoolchildren, we would greatly reduce the number of our kids whose bodies are torn to bits by crazed gunmen.
Of course, that doesn’t account for places like Japan, where virtually no one worships Jesus, and school shootings simply do not exist.
What level of criminality (and stupidity) do Georgians want representing them in the Senate?
The only good thing about this is that it will be over soon, unless he actually is charged with a crime, that is.
From this: Democrats are once again seizing on the issue to stir up voters. Republican Herschel Walker is adopting the anti-abortion movement’s playbook and leaning into his opposition.
Abortion is a key issue here, but as important as women’s rights are, IMO, they are trumped by sanity, decency, and honesty. The referendum is really this: Do Georgians want to be represented by Walker, an extremely unintelligent pathological liar and racist?
Joe Biden’s approval rating hovers in the low 40s. How that’s possible, I can’t begin to explain, when his antagonists are so profoundly hateful, not to mention stupid.
The current wave of antisemitism, and the president’s reaction to it, is a prime example. What Biden is doing here is called leadership.
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.
