Notes from around the Human Experience…
HERE WE GO AGAIN: We are going to let others discuss the facts and ramifications of the Trump family’s relationship with Russia. But let’s take a look at the bigger picture here.
Distractions like these preclude any actual governing from getting done.
All this is is merely another opportunity for the Trump White House to batten down the hatches and circle the wagons and remain distracted from what they were elected to do.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: It means is nothing of substance is going to get done. We weren’t entirely optimistic this would happen in the first place, of course, our expectations for the Trump Administration being kept low from the start to avoid complete disappointment.
But America is going to spend the next three-and-a-half years marking time because some zero progress is going to be made on the two issues that will destroy our country before this half-century is out: our perpetual wars and our national debt.
More Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Anyone who believes any country can sustain constant warfare and mindless spending is deluding themselves. No nation in history has been able to and America isn’t going to buck the trend. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either deluding themselves, trying to delude you or – as likely as not – both. Come Election Day 2020 we still be at war and well over $20 trillion in debt.
LOL: Nothing is getting done despite the fact the GOP controls both the White House and the Congress. If they were controlled by different parties, sure, we could understand the logjam. Lord knows America has lived through that before.
But to have a controlling party unable to get anything done? That is bad.
The fact the GOP hasn’t been able to pass anything in just under six months in power means Trump is unable to provide the two things a chief executive of anything is paid to provide: a long-term vision and the inspiration to others to go and get it done. It also means GOP Congressional leadership is unable to produce legislation that members of their party will vote for.
GREAT MOMENTS IN STORMING THE BASTILLE: French citizens, peeved at numerous and assorted things, get the French Revolution off to a rousing start by storming the Bastille prison on this date in 1789. Though the prison only held a handful of prisoners, it did hold weapons and was a symbol or royal power.
The Bastille fell by afternoon. King Louis XVI managed to hold on for a few years, but he was executed in 1793 and the revolution continued until Napoleon took power in 1799.
USA! USA! President John Adams signs the Sedition Act on this date in 1798, which made it a crime to, among other things:
To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President…
The law mandated a fine of up to five years in prison and a fine of $2,000, about $39,000 in today’s dollars.
Dry, Technical Matter: The Sedition Act was one of four bills known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were passed by the Federalist Party mainly to annoy the Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, who was then vice president of the United States. To some extent it worked, as many pro-Jefferson newspapers were shut down, however, Jefferson would defeat Adams in the presidential election of 1800.
And You Wonder Why You Don’t Get Invited To More (Any) Parties: Actually, Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr both defeated Adams in 1800. Electors in the Electoral College cast two votes, but which was for president and which was for vice president wasn’t specified back then and all 73 Democratic-Republican electors voted for both when one was supposed to withhold their vote for Burr so Jefferson would have one more electoral vote and win. The House of Representatives eventually elected Jefferson.
Still Boldly Going: Man visits Pluto for the first on this date in 2015 when New Horizons conducts the first flyby of what used to be our ninth planet.
New Horizons launched in January, 2006 and took its first pictures of Pluto that September, though Pluto was just an unrecognizable speck then.
FunFact: The data haul was so massive and the distance it had to travel back to Earth so great that the data transfer from New Horizons to Earth wasn’t complete until this past October.
QuoteBook: There is always something else to be done. But if you want the world you must forget insignificant places… – Gore Vidal, Creation
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Army Private Jacob Parrott was the first Medal of Honor recipient. On March 25, 1863, Parrott was the first of six men to be awarded the Medal.
Today’s Stumper: How many ballots did it take for the House of Representatives to elect Thomas Jefferson president in 1801? – Answer next time!
