CSotD: Rumors of War, Shortage of Truth
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was written in the early hours of the morning before American participation was announced. I see no reason to make any changes beyond acknowledging the announcement.
This is indeed the new normal. We’re kept up to date on the weather, but the possibility that we were about to be involved in a war was barely mentioned to us or to Congress, either.
Turner does point out the dangers the world would face if nuclear arms fell into the wrong hands, so perhaps something should be done about the menaces.
I’m not naive enough to expect an actual Declaration of War as mandated in the Constitution. Congress let the President take control of that decades ago. But it would be nice to at least have some sort of discussion.
He did mention Iran in his SOTU speech, noting that he had wiped out their nuclear development capacity and wouldn’t let them rebuild it. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” he declared, three days before he apparently joined Israel in bombing Tehran.
We don’t know if American forces are actively involved, though we’re listed as partners in the attacks, but it sure would be nice if they’d let us know what’s going on.
Anyway, I’m told we’re going to get a few inches of snow later today, so at least the meteorologists are laying their cards on the table face up.
And there’s a third type of snow job at our southern border, where the Secretary of Greasy Kid Stuff has apparently shot down one of our own drones, or, as Granlund puts it, shot himself in the foot once again. I wonder if he paints silhouettes of party balloons and drones on the fender of his limo to keep count of his victories?
I was talking to a friend about the Crimean War the other day. It happened back in the days when wealthy people could buy commissions and raise their own troops, which is how the Brits ended up with a pair of nincompoops, the Lords Raglan and Cardigan, leading soldiers into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of hell in a bloody blunder.
Britain won the war, but more by default than by military skill, and came away with little more than names for sweaters.
And here we are now with not just a Secretary of Defense/War but a whole cabinet full of people who gained their stations through personal preference rather than by competence.
Seems like old times.
Meanwhile, back in Mother England, they’ve shown an ability to read and understand files that we seem to lack, unless, as Smith suggests, there’s some kind of deliberate cover-up going on here.
There does seem to be a particular group of files missing, but Slyngstad says we don’t have to worry, because we’ve got the renowned investigative team of Patel and Bondi on the job.
Surely those files will turn up, Danziger assures us.
Duginski notes that we’ve had evidence mysteriously disappear before, though this isn’t exactly like Watergate, despite parallels of staff loyalty in both administrations.
Until the existence of the tapes emerged, Nixon blamed everything on an over-eager staff, and fired a few people to show his desire to clean things up. But even without the tapes, John Dean had laid out the scandal, so that, by the time that gap showed up, Nixon’s dishonesty was clear and nobody took the erasures as accidental.
This time around, Dear Leader has declared himself “totally exonerated,” so there’s no reason to hide files. They probably just got accidentally put in with a bunch of other papers.
I wonder if anyone has looked in the bathroom at Mar A Lago?
Or maybe they got mixed in with those UFO files that Dear Leader has promised to release, in which case they’ll pop up when space buffs start rifling through the papers looking for confirmation of that autopsy they saw on TV and of the truth about Roswell.
Though I like Margulies’ theory that Dear Leader suspects the aliens of illegally voting. After all, he thinks that people seeking asylum are escapees from lunatic asylums, so why shouldn’t illegal aliens have come out of flying saucers?
It appears that Homeland Security command may climb out of its airborne bordello long enough to assign ICE to hang around at polling sites during the elections, in order to intimidate naturalized citizens from voting for fear of being snatched, beaten, jailed and deported, a fate against which passports and birth certificates are no shield.
If so, I’ll see them, since I’ll be working the polls, though I think they should at least obey the rules about electioneering and stay back on the sidewalk well away from the doors. And don’t hand out any water.
Working the polls is part of my new freedom as a retired journalist. I avoided registering with a party for 40 years, because journalists are supposed to remain neutral. No bumper stickers, no lawn signs, no buttons and certainly no membership in a political party.
But I realized once I retired that I didn’t need to be ostensibly neutral anymore and registered as a party member, at which time I discovered that I was helping to keep the Postal Service in business, because, like the fellow in Morland’s cartoon, I was suddenly inundated with solicitations and flyers and requests to participate in dubious partisan polls.
But it wasn’t junk mail, because the solicitations all begin “Dear Mike.”
Another reason to get money out of politics. I spent enough time as a consumer reporter to know there are people who think those solicitations really are addressed to them.
However, on a more upbeat note than anything that has gone before today, Adam Zyglis points out that some truths continue to emerge. Our job is to listen, to pass along these truths and to keep the faith. As the marchers in the streets say, “The people united will never be defeated.”
Meanwhile, Aislin sounds a comforting note for those people in Bagley’s cartoon, bundled up and with their dogs in sweaters: Tomorrow is March first, and sometime that month we can expect the snow to disappear and warmth to return.
And if it can happen meteorologically, it can happen metaphorically, too.
Though not without effort.
Keep the faith.
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