Tag: Posted

From msn.com, “The House Jan. 6 committee has tried to recruit high-profile journalists to write its report about the attack on the Capitol, hoping to build a narrative thriller that compels audiences and is a departure from government reports of yore. Committee members and staffers are seeking to compile dramatic videos, texts and emails in a digital format that is easy to understand — and easy to share on social media. And they want to put together blockbuster televised hearings that the public actually tunes into, according to people with knowledge of the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. Their challenge: Making the public care deeply — and read hundreds of pages more — about an event that happened more than a year ago, and that many Americans feel they already understand.”

I have to commend the committee members; they understand the uphill battle, and they are on the right track to solving the American apathy problem. Lord knows if there is one thing most Americans lack is a basic sense of civic duty. Furthermore, Americans are morons. They have no attention span; they lack critical thinking skills; they don’t read much (Twitter and Facebook don’t count); they prefer entertainment to enlightenment. So, how does the committee overcome these seemingly insurmountable obstacles? Easy: Make the House Jan. 6 committee findings into a mini-series! They could probably tell their story in three two-hour T.V./streaming episodes. The only way most Americans learn history and absorb information is by watching some quasi-historical melodrama. The magic formula is relatively straightforward — good vs. evil, hero vs. villain, white-hat vs. black-hat. And movies have been a tried-and-true format of storytelling for a century, so take a page from screenwriters, movie studios, and America’s favorite (trusted) actors: Make the report into a movie! I recommend the action-thriller genre with a splash of horror and Greek tragedy — that sums up the state of America aptly. Welcome to stupid America! The “entertain me country.”

DeVega writes in Salon, “In all, this [qoute not provided here] is a damning indictment of the current state of American democracy and political culture. Donald Trump’s regime and his coup cabal attempted to nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election, his followers launched a violent lethal assault on the Capitol and the Republican-fascists’ Jim Crow attacks on multiracial democracy are escalating. The United States faces the possibility of a low-level civil war or sustained right-wing insurgency. Yet the American people must be ‘entertained’ with a spectacle in order to care.”

He continues, in part, “As sociologist Neil Postman famously warned in the title of his best-known work, the American people have ‘amused themselves to death’ through a culture of anti-intellectualism, and the superficial, immediate gratification of mass media. Collective narcissism is a major public health problem. So many people, because of loneliness, alienation, social atomization and a culture of hyper-individualism and self-centeredness, feel no sense of linked fate with other human beings outside their families and immediate social circles. … Education is the best way, and perhaps only way, to create responsible, informed citizens who have the capacity and willingness to participate in a healthy democracy.”

And he ends, in part, “I asked a friend who teaches at a small regional college if [students’ aversion to thinking] resonated with her experiences in the classroom. She told me her students often complain that she makes them think ‘too much’ during class about current events, which ‘hurts their brains.’ Unfortunately, these are not isolated examples. Most people in America do not want to think about the crisis of democracy and what they can do to stop it. Even more troubling and dangerous, many Americans are attracted to fascism and other anti-human philosophies and behavior precisely because they are so desperate for a life of meaning in a world that can often feel devoid of it.”

Needless to say, these few paragraphs reinforce the entire thesis around which I created this blog. But I like to incorporate DeVega’s thoughts because he is a reasoned and well-researched writer; I’m the writer full of rage and contempt. America is just too stupid to survive, and no one cares. I say it almost daily! Welcome to stupid America! It never gets old.

Courtesy of The New York Times, “The following is the full text of the resignation letter by Mark Pomerantz, who had investigated former President Donald J. Trump, but left after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, halted an effort to seek an indictment.”

Dear Alvin,

I write to tender my resignation as a Special Assistant District Attorney and to explain my reasons for resigning.

As you know from our recent conversations and presentations, I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations of the Penal Law in connection with the preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition. His financial statements were false, and he has a long history of fabricating information relating to his personal finances and lying about his assets to banks, the national media, counterparties, and many others, including the American people. The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did.

In late 2021, then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance directed a thorough review of the facts and law relating to Mr. Trump’s financial statements. Mr. Vance had been intimately involved in our investigation, attending grand jury presentations, sitting in on certain witness interviews, and receiving regular reports about the progress of the investigation. He concluded that the facts warranted prosecution, and he directed the team to present evidence to a grand jury and to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump and other defendants as soon as reasonably possible.

This work was underway when you took office as District Attorney. You have devoted significant time and energy to understanding the evidence we have accumulated with respect to the Trump financial statements, as well as the applicable law. You have reached the decision not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges at the present time. The investigation has been suspended indefinitely. Of course, that is your decision to make. I do not question your authority to make it, and I accept that you have made it sincerely. However, a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong. I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest. I therefore cannot continue in my current position.

In my view, the public interest warrants the criminal prosecution of Mr. Trump, and such a prosecution should be brought without any further delay. Because of the complexity of the facts, the refusal of Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization to cooperate with our investigation, and their affirmative steps to frustrate our ability to follow the facts, this investigation has already consumed a great deal of time. As to Mr. Trump, the great bulk of the evidence relates to his management of the Trump Organization before he became President of the United States. These facts are already dated, and our ability to establish what happened may erode with the further passage of time. Many of the salient facts have been made public in proceedings brought by the Office of the Attorney General, and the public has rightly inquired about the pace of our investigation. Most importantly, the further passage of time will raise additional questions about the failure to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his criminal conduct.

To the extent you have raised issues as to the legal and factual sufficiency of our case and the likelihood that a prosecution would succeed, I and others have advised you that we have evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and we believe that the prosecution would prevail if charges were brought and the matter were tried to an impartial jury. No case is perfect. Whatever the risks of bringing the case may be, I am convinced that a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice. As I have suggested to you, respect for the rule of law, and the need to reinforce the bedrock proposition that “no man is above the law,” require that this prosecution be brought even if a conviction is not certain.

I also do not believe that suspending the investigation pending future developments will lead to a stronger case or dispel your reluctance to bring charges. No events are likely to occur that will alter the nature of the case or dramatically change the quality or quantity of the evidence available to the prosecution. There are always additional facts to be pursued. But the investigative team that has been working on this matter for many months does not believe that it makes law enforcement sense to postpone a prosecution in the hope that additional evidence will somehow emerge. On the contrary, I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating.

I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes. I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice. I therefore resign from my position as a Special Assistant District Attorney, effective immediately.

Sincerely,

Mark F. Pomerantz

The Pomerantz letter is just more proof that my First Axiom always holds! Recall, First Axiom of Political Science for Presidents: Ain’t no president or ex-president ever going to be convicted of a crime or go to jail — ever. We get the government we deserve. Oh, well. Welcome to stupid America!