No Illusions About Collusion

The fish was huge

The fish was this big

                                                                            


    Mueller’s report stated that, “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systemic fashion.”

It also stated that, “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency,” something Putin has admitted publicly and Trump has agreed with.

It also stated, “Russia could assist Trump’s campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton,” something Trump publicly requested.

The report also talked extensively about the secret Trump Tower meeting between Trump’s senior campaign manager, Trump family members and a Russian lawyer promising to produce “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. It also reported on numerous other meeting between Trump operatives and Russians.                                                             The report cited initial statements by Trump and his family denying the meeting and its purpose as lies.

Attorney General Barr read, so he says, Mueller’s report including these quotes and concluded there was no collusion.
Trump didn’t have to read the report. If Barr said, no collusion, that was good enough for him. However, for those Americans who, like himself, had not read the report, Trump issued an official White House Twitter announcement stating that there was no collusion.

He then called Putin, the former head of the KGB, to inform him they had both been cleared—by the Attorney General. Bottom line: no conclusion, witch hunt, big hoax. They had both hinted at this outcome, but until Barr arrived at his conclusion of Mueller’s conclusion, they were both under a cloud of suspicion.

Both men are accustomed to operating under clouds of suspicion, even storm clouds of suspicion, but it’s always nice to have an umbrella when the rain does fall.
Trump and Putin congratulated each other for surviving the Democratic witch hunt, commiserating, no doubt, that the business of winning elections is not for the weak-hearted.

So where does this leave everyone?

Putin is ecstatic. He got the candidate he wanted and the American political system is a mess. True, 25 Russian operatives and three Russian companies were indicted for criminal activity, but as they say in Russia, “So what?”

Trump is feeling good, too. After saying, “no collusion” ten thousand times, it was nice to finally be vindicated by his hand-picked Attorney General, who before even reading the report had concluded that a president can’t be indicted, and possibly proven guilty of a crime because he’s the president. If you can’t be proven guilty, obviously you can’t be guilty.

But, where does this leave the American people?

I guess we will have to wait and see.

Wait for what? Look for what?

We will have to wait and see if in the months leading up to the 2020 election, Trump announces a summit with the Russian dictator, Putin, because as president he can do things in plain sight that he could never do as a candidate.

Wait and see if during that summit, they have a private conversation behind closed doors as they so like to do.

Wait and see if Trump opts to tell us nothing about what they talked about, other than to say it was very friendly and there was definitely no collusion, despite the obvious secrecy, before demanding we believe him.

Wait and see if, like with the Trump Tower meeting, this also turns out to be a lie.

Wait and see if when that happens, Republicans in Congress finally say, “Wait a minute. We don’t like what we’re seeing.”

Who knows how big the fish was, All I know is it was a fish.
It could have been a fish story? Who knows?

So, now we're banning Kate Smith?

   When I first read the story about the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Flyers discontinuing the playing of Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America,” my first thought was God help America.

I understand the “Me Too” movement and its goals.

I understand the prejudices and racism that lingers in America, which has to be exposed at every opportunity.

I understand the concept of zero tolerance. That if we let something go unchallenged, the problem only gets worse, although zero tolerance has proven just as bad as the original problems.

Well, newsflash. We have another problem to worry about. We are fast becoming a nation with no common sense. It would be too easy to say, as we often do, that a lack of leadership at the top is the reason for all the stupid-ness at the bottom, but “too easy” is another problem we face in this country.

The reason for throwing Kate Smith under the bus was her 1931 recording of “That’s why Darkies were born,” written by Tin Pan Alley lyricist, Lew Brown.  Forget that the satirical song poked fun at whites. Forget that at the same time, in the real world deep south far from Tin Pan Alley, real whites were lynching real Negros.

Forget that Lew Brown also wrote “Don’t sit under the apple tree” and the “Beer Barrel Polka.” He also wrote “Shine,” which had racial overtones and was recorded by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Anne Murray among others. He wrote most of his songs between the two world wars, a time when Negros couldn’t attend white schools, eat in white restaurants, or sit in the front of the bus.

These songs were written and recorded for one reason and one reason only. Audiences were buying them.

The lyricist were writing and the singers singing about a very real world that didn’t exist on records.

My point is, yes these were terrible times involving terrible laws and outrageous criminal behavior, but the music industry was only reflecting the world that existed at that time. The music industry didn’t create that world. In fact, the music industry has played a large role in taking us away from that world.

Individual American bigots and racist, those who are often given cover under the cloak of American Exceptionalism, gave us that world that we’d now like to expunge from memory.

Maybe, it’s time to take that picture of old granddad down from the wall.

Or, we can stop taking it out on individuals and start fixing a culture that has been bad for so long that all we can do is search for scapegoats.

    This in no way excuses statues of Confederate generals. They fought against this country. And their statues were only erected during the same period many of these songs were written, not to entertain people, or to honor the soldiers as their supporters claim. They were erected to send a message that the war might have been lost, but the fight was going to continue.

Whatever the issue that people think something needs to be done about, I suggest we attack the issue. Shakespeare may have been right when he wrote, “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” That doesn’t make it right. The good should count for something.

Attacking individuals, particularly individuals having nothing to do with the problem is getting tiresome, especially when so many real problems go unfixed. Playing the blame game and not doing the hard work is another problem we face in today’s world.

Blacks are having their voting rights attacked in North Carolina and other states. Republicans harp on voter fraud as if it were a real thing and are virtually silent about Russia attacking our elections.

None of this has anything to do with a song Kate Smith recorded in 1931. Descendants of people who listened to that song back then are guilty of racism today. White nationalists are still the problem. Kate Smith is not a problem.

A lot of what the entertainment industry has done in the last century is questionable, going all the way back to, “Birth of a Nation,” but everything they have done has been geared to their audiences.

If we stop using common sense, who knows what dumb thing we’ll do next? Let’s give entertainers a break and start shaping up ourselves.