Tag: Epstein

Shipwrecked Ethics in Stormy Political Seas

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
—Howard Beale (Peter Finch), Network (1976)

WTF

Pete Hegsmith, meet Heinz-Wilhelm Eck.

Oberleutnant Heinz-Wilhelm Eck was a German U-boat commander who, in 1943, ordered his crew to machine-gun the survivors of a Greek steamer they had just sunk. Tried by the British in 1945, he was convicted of war crimes and executed.

One might imagine that the Secretary of War—and the uniformed brass surrounding him—would possess at least a passing acquaintance with the Hague and Geneva Conventions and the protections afforded to shipwrecked survivors. But apparently not. Instead, we are offered the “fog of war” as a catch-all excuse for killing helpless castaways, as if confusion somehow ennobles idiocy.

In my lifetime, Presidents have made some ghastly cabinet appointments—some incompetent, some malevolent, some simply stupid. The current administration appears determined to check all three boxes with gusto.

Sleepy Joe

Not long ago, pundits and political Cassandras wrote breathless tomes about President Joe Biden’s alleged cognitive unraveling. Democrats engaged in public self-flagellation, blaming one another for not confronting his fading vigor. Republicans snickered with schoolyard delight about his age and apparent frailty.

The ink is scarcely dry on those volumes, and yet one hears comparatively little about the mental and physical disarray of Donald J. Trump.To their perverse credit, Trump and his entourage are not bothering to hide anything. The public has front-row seats to his naps during cabinet meetings, his deranged social-media dispatches, and his endless stream of misstatements delivered with the confidence of a man who has never troubled himself with facts. His sneering insult at a female reporter—calling her “piggy”—barely registered as a scandal, landing with all the outrage of a damp tissue dropped on a sidewalk.

Americans are apparently meant to sleep serenely knowing that a man of Trump’s “unmatched intellect, tireless stamina, and unimpeachable judgment” has his hand on the nuclear button. Sweet dreams.

Epstein Files

The furor over the Epstein files has quieted to a dull hum. Every day, whether through Machiavellian design or sheer gonzo incompetence, the Trump administration generates enough scandal and spectacle to bump Epstein to the back pages.

Most Americans understand perfectly well what Trump may fear in further disclosures. Yet a sizable portion of the MAGA faithful will excuse anything—anything—no matter how sordid. Trump was found liable for sexual assault and it barely dented his presidential campaign.

As for me, I have exhausted the lower bounds of my opinion of Donald Trump. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—he could do that would surprise me anymore. His behavior long ago slipped the surly bonds of shame.

This is the Week That Was

I’m amused by Trump’s reluctance to release the Epstein files—as if there’s anything left that could truly shock us. His behavior has long been an open book. At this point, what more could possibly lower public opinion of him?

Replace Jerome Powell as head of the Federal Reserve? Makes about as much sense as firing the fire department while a building is still on fire.

The CEO and the HR Director of Astronomer were caught on a kiss cam in a romantic embrace at a Coldplay concert. The CEO is married with children and the HR Director is recently divorced. Due to the public and rather unusual nature of the disclosure of the relationship, this story is all over social media and other news outlets. My guess is that the HR Director will either resign or be let go but that the CEO will keep his job after publicly confessing his infidelities and promising to reform.

Though I’m not a late-night viewer at my age, I recognize that some of the sharpest political and social commentary in recent years has come from the desks of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and especially Jimmy Kimmel. The upcoming end of The Late Show with Colbert marks more than just the close of a program—it signals the fading of a cultural force that once helped us laugh through the chaos.