You know what? Good people are good people! Not so good, not so good! San Saba is a wonderful community, full of good people! Be that as it may, some STILL worship the Great Prevaricator and I don’t really understand why. Maybe someone will enlighten me, but I still wonder. If you don’t know who the Great Prevaricator is then just try Forty-Five.
In Spanish, there is a great word, enganar. It basically translates or means “pull the wool over one’s eyes,” something we have seen a lot of in recent history. Sad, but true, IF you believe truth is in actual facts, rather than misdirection, lies, and disinformation! Ah, me!
Additional information which is coming out now in the news media, liberal and conservative, seems to continue to point to collusion between Trump election campaign manager Paul Manafort and the Russians. Haven’t the Russians been our traditional adversaries since the end of World War II? Do you not believe that actual facts connote truth? History repeats itself, they say, and we do need to know history in spite of what Jared Kushner once said.
A word that I have seldom heard used much until recently is grift! I had always heard of graft, a very common word when talking about public persons. Interesting to me that graft, grift, and greed all begin with gr. Oh well! To better understand grift, read the book by Jim Thompson, The Grifters, or watch the movie starring Angelica Huston, John Cusack, and Annette Bening. To grift is to appear legitimate while carrying out a ripoff, a major con-job. Sound familiar? Maybe you remember Bernie Madoff, a recent name in news media this week?
And speaking of dishonesty, graft, grift, and greed, how about a current news item? Recently, the Russians have created incredible amounts of cyber crime havoc in the U.S. by breaking into all kinds of government agencies, including our Defense Department, hundreds of corporations, small businesses, into even a single organization as unusual as the City of Austin. Why? Obviously not for legitimate purposes or for our own good! Worrisome news!
We have been listening to reports of cyber corruption by the Russians since they were found interfering in our elections in 2016, and again in 2020. I don’t know about you, but I have become increasingly distrustful of on-line banking! If the Russians can wander around in the U.S. Department of Defense for up to six weeks, what are they doing in our banks, your checking accounts and mine? Oh well! Thank you, Mr. Biden, for sanctions against the Russians!
Allegiance to our American President is an honorable thing! Some of us love one and resent another. I do not believe it is only tied to party affiliation, but instead to what each does or does not do. That is as it should be! But I do long for the days of bipartisanship, when Everett Dirksen and Sam Rayburn and LBJ and Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and so many others would disagree vehemently during the day, then sit down after hours for friendly happy hour and kinship. Where did that wonderful American egalitarian Washington go? Oh for the days of bi-partisanship where all were Americans first!!! And presidents did not kiss up to the Russians!