Answering The Phone! #287
By Hank Silverberg
Commentary
There has been a lot of discussion this week about the conviction of Donald Trump in the hush money case in New York. I will skip the analysis of the trial and Trump's ranting about it being rigged.
To my readers, I must write that this is the furthest I have ever gone in a partisan direction.
I would like the voters, who DO have a big decision to make in November, to just sit and think for a moment about the future, leaving party loyalty and ideological leanings behind.
Trump has gone beyond anything we have had as a major party nominee in the past.
Trump is now a convicted felon--something that would disqualify him to serve in the military, yet he wants to be commander-in-chief.
It's unlikely he will ever serve jail time, for this crime at least. But it's clear, if you didn't already know it, that Trump is a pathological liar. Not just a braggadocio liar about his gulf score, and not just a man who has cheated on at least two of his three wives.
We've had presidents who were womanizers before--Clinton, Kennedy, FDR, Andrew Jackson, and Ike while he was a General.
We've had presidents who have lied in office before--Reagan on Iran/Contra, Kennedy on the Bay of Pigs. And Nixon, the worst of them all, on Watergate.
But none of those people ever talked about being "a dictator on day one." None of them ever proposed arresting women for getting an abortion, or their doctors for performing one.
None of them ever proposed rounding up illegal immigrants and putting them in "detention camps".
Only Nixon talked about using the justice system for getting back at his political opponents, but he never attacked the justice system directly, and in the end had to accept the rule of law.
We've had very close elections before--but when George Bush went to the Supreme Court, Al Gore accepted the court's decision. He didn't run around the country for years screaming fraud or call elections rigged.
But Trump is uniquely disturbing. His gestures and general demeaner reminds me of the the World War Two-era Italian Fascist, Benito Mussolini. His attacks on the media and the court system make Nixon and his hit man Spiro Agnew look like amateurs. Trump's ramblings in public seem erratic and paranoid, and it seems to be getting worse each month as we get closer to the election. He rarely puts a full, coherent sentence together.
So what about his party, the GOP, which did the right thing and abandoned Agnew and Nixon when it was clear they had broken the law? They now follow Trump as if he is the new messiah. Some of his followers actually say he was sent by God.
All the polls seem to indicate November's election is going to be very close.
There's little that can be done about the loyalists who have been conned by Trump and his minions into thinking only they can make things better. (Things aren't really that bad in the first place, but that's for another blog. )
But there are many of you who do not like either candidate and are thinking about staying home, or voting for a third party.
For those voters, I am reminded of an old political adage you don't hear much any more.
When there is an international crises at 3 a.m. and the phone rings in the private residence of the President of the United States, do you want Trump answering the call? The answer to that is clearly "no".
No matter what your political views are, deep down you know I am right on this one.
News You May Have Missed!
No AI Here!
I am not a robot. This blog was written by a human being with years of experience as a journalist and writer.
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| (<a href="https://www.vecteezy.com/free-photos/ai"> Ai Stock photos by Vecteezy</a>) |
The Associated Press is reporting that an effort by the Democratic National Committee to get campaigns and other campaign committees to check work by AI tools for bias and false information has gone nowhere.
Political operatives nationwide have been using the the AI technology to help manage workload. Example: AI has been writing fundraising emails, texting supporters, and even using chatbots to answer voter's questions.
Both parties have been doing it. The DNC wanted a pledge from candidates to follow some guidelines on the use of AI, but according to the AP report, some of those running campaigns worried that might hamstring their ability to use AI and also turn off rich donors with ties to the AI industry.
It's not just words that are at issue. The Republican National Committee used AI generated images in a TV spot last year depicting a dystopian future under President Biden. None of the images were real.
This is no minor issue, since AI is used extensively on the internet and more and more people, particularly Gen Z, are using the internet as their sole source of news and information.
Scrubbed Space Flight
Boeing has had its share of trouble with safety issues over the last few months on some of its jet liners. So a showcase space launch with Boeing's Starliner capsule on top of a huge Atlas V rocket would have been good news for the company.
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| (Boeing Starliner aboard an Atlas V, photo courtesy of NASA) |
The sequencer coordinates all the computers for the mission. NASA says they are working on fixing the problem.
The next available window for launch will be Wednesday at 10:52 a.m. eastern time.
The Starliner has been competing with the SpaceX Crew Dragon, which has already had 13 successful flights carrying 50 people, including a number of civilians, into orbit. Twelve of those flights went to the the Space Station.
NASA funded development of both spacecraft to ensure it would be able to launch crews to the Space Station if one of the company's ships was grounded for some reason.
The Atlas V rocket is old technology, remade. It was first used to carry Astronaut Gordon Cooper into space on a Mercury flight 61 years ago. The technology was brought out of moth balls to build new Atlas V's for the Boeing missions.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/01/science/nasa-space-launch-boeing-starliner-scn/index.html
Space flights continue to be low-keyed these days despite NASA's ambitious schedule to put a man on Mars sometime in the 2030's.
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
This week's dumbest quote goes to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who should know better. The Republican from Louisiana was reacting to the guilty verdict in the Trump hush money case. He said:
"I do believe the Supreme Court should step in. I think it will set the record straight, but it's going to take a while."
He made his comments on Fox and Friends (where else? ) where he went on to say about the Supreme Court Justices:
"I know many of them personally, I think they're deeply concerned about" faith in the U.S. Justice System.
Well, guess what Mr. Speaker? Right now the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction in the case. It would only consider it if Mr. Trump loses his appeal to the New York State Appellate Court and the New York State Supreme Court. Then there would have be some overriding constitutional issue for Trump to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. That is totally out of any possibility in the near future, and the Speaker knows it. His comments are pure politics.
(Your suggestions and comments are welcome)
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