Words To Live By

On this fourth of July:

“ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU – ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY”

Who said those words?

Most Americans know three of them by heart. Scant phrases which, though spoken in the most ritualistic and formal of settings, commonly define an age, and a speaker. “With malice toward none” Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Nothing to fear but fear itself” in his first. John F. Kennedy, whose centenary is celebrated this month, uttered the third such phrase at his only inauguration and it is, in popular memory, recalled the most simply: “Ask not.” Of course, that is not the whole of the quotation, or the whole story, which is told here…

The seventeen most inspiring words in 20th century American history were spoken by John F. Kennedy, around mid-day, on January 20, 1961, in Washington, D.C. The occasion was his Presidential Inauguration, and came as he was concluding his Inaugural Address. Kennedy, the first President born in the 20th century, and 27 years younger than his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had just declared that the torch had been passed to a new generation of Americans – “born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage” – and pledged to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Then he spoke the seventeen words –

And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

Those words, when first heard over a half-century ago, were positively electrifying. No president had ever challenged citizens, in peacetime, to sacrifice or commit to a larger vision. With that single sentence, Kennedy inspired people to new possibilities. He raised their expectations of themselves, and of their nation. In response, some joined the Peace Corps, others the Green Berets; thousands flocked to Washington to be part of the “New Frontier.” Students, thinking ahead to government service, went to law school or into programs with social benefit. All across the country, Kennedy’s words changed lives. “It was a special time,” a Senator remembered years later. “Lord, I’ve never had such a feeling before or since then. It was marvelous; without living it, you can’t express it. It gave the country a lift; it gave the world a lift. People cried in the dusty streets of Africa when he died.” All because of, really, seventeen simple words of inspiration.

My favorite words: “Give me liberty or give me death” and “Don’t tread on me” are my reasons for being an American.

Has Donald Trump or the previous recent presidents lived up to the JFK challenge? Sadly the answer is NO!

Self Aggrandizement

The first 20 minutes of Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech was all about telling us what a great job he has done.

Happily Trump did not digress from his planned speech.

It is not difficult to find words that describe Donald Trump. He is the super promoter of himself. He is the P.T. Barnum of the early 21^st century who emphasized with extreme exaggeration his place in American history. Braggadocio, glorification, and boasting are the words that best describe his State of the Union speech. He clearly reveled in the attention and honor he received both entering and leaving Capitol Hill. He was in his glory with every moment of applause during his speech.

If you heard his speech or read the transcript you know that other than calling on the Congress to produce “a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment” and an “administrative fix for high drug prices” there were no other plans proposed.

This speech will go down in history as a boring and an utterly uninspiring waste of time.

Obsequious

Our language skills have improved thanks to “fake news.”

The viewership spike for cable news shows no signs of slowing down. Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC all saw double-digit ratings growth.

It has been reported that thanks to Donald Trump more people are watching the news. Mr. Trump himself watches Jake Tapper’s “State of the Union” on CNN. We know that because he tweeted: Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!

Here is what brought on the above tweet. On Sunday, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller dropped by Jake Tapper’s CNN studio to appear on State of the Union and defend his boss, President Donald Trump, from allegations made in the hottest new political book in the country — Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

The interview was contentious from the very beginning. During the interview Miller repeatedly accused Tapper of being condescending. Miller attacked CNN of being the peddler of fake news. It should go without saying that Miller’s performance was aimed squarely at Trump, but Tapper said it anyway. “There’s one viewer that you care about right now and you’re being obsequious,” Tapper said near the end of the segment. Tapper finally cut Miller off. “You’re being a factotum in order to please him,” Tapper said. “I think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time. Thank you, Stephen.”

That CNN flunky is one smart dude. Using the words obsequious and factotum.

So what do they mean? I asked merriam-webster.com

Obsequious – An obsequious person is more likely to be a follower than a leader. Use that fact to help you remember the meaning of “obsequious.” All you need to do is bear in mind that the word comes from the Latin root sequi, meaning “to follow.”

Factotum – 1 : a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities. 2 : a general servant.

Jake Tapper is a Dartmouth College graduate earning Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with a B.A. in history modified by visual studies. He has also joined the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television.

This is not fake news!

Treason

Russia wants to destroy western democracies. Not just the United States. There has been media reports of Russia’s efforts to impact elections in France, Germany, Belgium, and other nations. Their reason, I believe, is that Vladimir Putin is a dictator and the success of western democracies is demonstration to his countryman that the will of the people results in a more successful nation. National leaders like Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, and Hassan Rouhani of Iran are the dictatorial leaders that Putin admires.

I believe that Donald Trump, his son Donald Junior, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort are all guilty of treason. They all colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 presidential and have continued to collude since Donald Trump’s election. I suspect their reason for the collusion is to earn money for themselves. They have little or no regard for American democracy.

Update 7-18-2017:

Trump and Putin spoke a second time for nearly an hour at G20 summit, White House says. Apparently the only people at that meeting were Trump, Putin, and a Russian translator. As this was not a meeting that Trump wanted to be known, isn’t this another piece of proof of collusion?

Trump’s repeated claims of fake news and his contention that everyone does the things he and his inner circle have done are all part of politics strains credulity beyond what any reasonable person would expect.

Read this definition of treason from thefreedictionary.com
n. the crime of betraying one’s country, defined in Article III, section 3 of the U. S. Constitution: “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Treason requires overt acts and includes the giving of government security secrets to other countries, even if friendly, when the information could harm American security. Treason can include revealing to an antagonistic country secrets such as the design of a bomber being built by a private company for the Defense Department. Treason may include “espionage” (spying for a foreign power or doing damage to the operation of the government and its agencies, particularly involved in security) but is separate and worse than “sedition” which involves a conspiracy to upset the operation of the government.

I know that as of today the Republican Party is not ready to charge Trump or his inner circle with treason. I predict that the day is coming.

Obfuscate

To obscure, muddy, cloud, and conceal. Those were the objectives of two guests on ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” US National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster and Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy who is now as an ABC News contributor.

I have put in bold what I think are some of the most interesting parts of this interview program.

RUDDY: So many stories, fake news stories, are becoming fact here. Where in the Russia investigation has there ever been an allegation that the president had done anything wrong with the Russians? Where is there any evidence?

Or in other words the New York Times and The Washington Post are creating fake news.

The real thing to read is the transcript of Stephanopoulos talking to McMaster today, May 21, 2017 his Sunday morning talk show.

STEPHANOPOULOS: General McMaster, thanks for joining us today. I want to get to the trip, but first some questions about that meeting you all had with the Russian foreign minister. “New York Times”, as you know, reporting that here’s what the president said in the meeting. “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s take off.”

Is that what the president said?

H.R. MCMASTER, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well I don’t remember exactly what the president said. And the notes that there apparently have I do not think are a direct transcript. But the gist of the conversation was that the president feels as if he is hamstrung in his ability to work with Russia to find areas of cooperation because this has been obviously so much in the news. And that was the intention of that portion of that conversation.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you know he was going to report that to the Russians? And what did you think when you heard it?

MCMASTER: Report what, George?

STEPHANOPOULOS: The — what you he said about James Comey. That he fired him and why.

MCMASTER: Well, the firing had been in the news. But I didn’t know in advance that the president was going to raise it, but as I mentioned he raised it in the context of explaining that that he has been — feels as if he’s been unable to find areas of cooperation with Russia, even as he confronts them in key areas where they’re being disruptive, like Syria for example, and the subversive activities across Europe. Their support for the — not only the Assad regime but for Iran and its activities across the Middle East.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you understand how this might look though to an average American right no? You have the President of the United States telling the Russian foreign minister, in their first meeting, that that the pressure is off because he’s fired the FBI director investigating Russian interference in the campaign. Does that seem appropriate to you?

MCMASTER: As you know, it’s very difficult to take a few lines, to take a paragraph out of what are — what appear to be notes of that meeting. And to be able to see the full context of the conversation.

As I mentioned last week, the really purpose of the conversation was to confront Russia on areas, as I mentioned, like Ukraine and Syria, their support for Assad and their support for the Iranians.

We’re trying to find areas of cooperation in the area of counterterrorism and the campaign against ISIS.

And so that was the intent of that conversation was to say what I’d like to do is move beyond all of the Russia news so that we can find areas of cooperation.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, did the president confront them on their interference in our election? This was their first meeting?

MCMASTER: Well, there already was too much that’s been leaked from those meetings. And one of the things that I’m most concerned about is the confidence, the confidentiality of those kind of meetings, as you know, are extremely important. And so, I am really concerned about these kind of leaks, because it undermines everybody’s trust in that kind of an environment where you can have frank, candid, and often times unconventional conversations to try to protect American interests and secure the American people.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I understand your concern about leaks, but I could an see the — the feeling of perhaps someone likely on your staff or in your community who leaked this thinking they had a duty to leak it because you have this apparent contradiction.

The president disparaging the person who was investigating the Russians, but not confronting the Russians who interfered in our election.

MCMASTER: Well, as you know, the initial leak that came out was a leak about concerns about revealing intelligence source and methods, information that’s not even part of the president’s briefing. And so in a concern about divulging intelligence, they leaked actually not just the information from the meeting, but also indicated the sources and methods to a newspaper? I mean, it doesn’t make sense, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I take your point on that, although there’s also the question of whether or not it was right for the president to give that information to the Russians. But I just asked a direct question. Did the president confront the Russians on their interference in our election?

MCMASTER: Well, I’m not going to divulge more of that meeting. Those meetings, as you know, are supposed to be privileged. They’re supposed to be confidential. They’re supposed to allow the president and other leaders to have frank exchanges.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, let me ask just one final question, then, on that meeting. Sean Spicer has spoken out, the president’s press secretary. He said by grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russian’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.

You’re the president’s national security adviser, do you agree that the former FBI’s director grandstanding and politicizing, those are Sean Spicer’s words, hurt our ability to deal with Russia?

MCMASTER: I think what’s been hurting our ability to deal with Russia more than any other factor, has been Russia’s behavior. But since President Trump has taken action in Syria, we think that there may be opportunities to find areas of cooperation in places like Ukraine, places like Syria in particular.

STEPHANOPOULOS: After your first press conference on that meeting, your friend and former colleague, retired Colonel John Neagle told NPR that you’re in an impossible situation, because the president expects you to defend the indefensible. What’s your reaction to that?

MCMASTER: I don’t think I’m in an impossible situation. I think what the president expects and what is my duty to do as national security adviser and as an officer in our army is to give my best advice, to give my best, candid advice. Nobody elected me to make policy. What my job is, is to give the president options, to integrate the efforts across all of our agencies and departments. And then once the president makes decisions, to help him execute those decisions to protect and advance the interests of the American people.

So, I find no difficulty at all serving our nation and serving the president in my current capacity.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if the president did put you in that position as you wrote about with President Johnson and Vietnam, would you resign? Would you push back?

MCMASTER: Well, you know there was middle ground there during the Vietnam period. What occurred in that period is many of the president’s senior advisers, civilian, and military, didn’t give their best advice, because they concluded that what would be appropriate for them to do given what Johnson expected, President Johnson expected, was to tell him the advice he wanted to hear. I don’t think the president expects that from me, and certainly I don’t think I’d be fulfilling my duties and responsibilities unless I gave him not just my candid advice, that’s really not my job either — is to integrate and coordinate across the departments and agencies to give him the best advice from across our government and with our key multinational partners.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it sounds like one of the difficulties of this meeting –and I do want to get on to the trip — is that when the president disparaged James Comey, when he gave that information to the Russians who had interfered in our campaign, when he apparently did not confront the Russians over this, he didn’t even ask your advice.

MCMASTER: Well, George, what I’d like to talk about is where I am right now, in Saudi Arabia. I mean I think I answered the questions concerning the media and I’d like to move on while we still have time.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We definitely will have time. So, you — did the president ask your advice about this before he talked about James Comey?

MCMASTER: The president always asks for advice before these sorts of sessions, but the subject of the FBI investigation to my recollection didn’t come up. But really, that conversation, although I don’t want to talk about any more of the specifics from within it, covered a broad range of subjects, most of which had to do with areas in which we think Russia’s behavior’s been unacceptable and is increasing risk to international security, is supporting those who are helping to create a humanitarian crisis in Syria and across the region. That would be the Assad regime and Iran. But then also look for areas where we can cooperate and begin to move toward a resolution of conflicts in Ukraine, in Syria, and then to be able to cooperate more effectively in our counter terrorism campaigns.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s talk broadly about the goal of this trip. The president said you had a very good start. What exactly do you want to accomplish?

MCMASTER: Well, really three main things. The first is to advance the security of the American people. And to recognize that to do that, America needs allies and partners to deal with the very complex problems that we are dealing with. And of course in this region, those are two main and interconnected problems, the problem of transnational terrorist organizations, some of which now, like ISIS, control territory and populations and resources. But then how that problem is connected more broadly to the problem of Islamist extremism and the brainwashing of youths with really an irreligious ideology that is meant to foment hatred and justify violence against innocents.

And the second problem of Iran and Iran’s actions across the region, which we believe are aimed at keeping the Arab world perpetually weak and mired in a very destructive civil war. And you see that in Syria, obviously, a great human cost, but you see it in Yemen as well. You see it to a certain extent in Iraq.

And so security, cooperation, counterterrorism, but also counter-extremism is a big part of it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, the Saudis…

MCMASTER: The second part of it…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Go ahead

MCMASTER: The second part of it is economic cooperation, being able to get better access to markets, develop trade relationships, to create American jobs. There are a lot of important signings that happen in that connection.

And the third is to foster — this is just for this leg of the trip — better defense cooperation in the region and to encourage additional burden-sharing, responsibility-sharing with allies and partners so Americans don’t foot the full bill for security in this region and globally as well.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The Saudis have been in the past consistent backers of extremists around the world, around the region and around the world. Are you convinced that they’re truly ready to change?

MCMASTER: Well, we’re going to ask them to convince us. And so there’s some very good first steps being taken with the establishment of the center for combating global extremism, or terrorist extremism. We’ll have to see what the results are.

But I think the willingness to talk about it is somewhat different than it has been in the past. And as you know ,the record is poor going back to the ’60s and ’70s and beyond. And even today. And so what we need is we need to convene leaders across all religions, and that is a big theme of this trip, is to promote tolerance and cooperation across our religions to identify these terrorists for who they are — the enemies of all civilized people, irreligious criminals who use a perverted interpretation of religion to advance their criminal and political agendas.

And that’s the tone and tenor of the conversations that occurred today, which I think that is encouraging. Now I think there have to be concrete steps taken. Funding has to be cut off to these madrassas and mosques that are fomenting hatred and intolerance. Funding has to be cut off to terrorist organizations through effective threat finance measures, and that’s a big part of the initiative as well.

And so we’ll see. I mean, I think the expectation is that there — results — that we deliver results together. That’s what we’ve said that we expect of each other, and that will be a big part of the conversation tomorrow when the group of leaders expands dramatically to include not only the Gulf Cooperation Council but also about 50 nations of predominately Muslim and Islamic populations.

STEPHANOPOULOS: General McMaster, thanks for your time this morning.

MCMASTER: Thank you, George.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

1984

1984 is a book written in 1948.

The dystopian novel has experienced another surge in sales that has resulted in the printing an additional 75,000 copies this year. As of January 25, 2017 according to Nielsen BookScan, which measures most but not all book sales in the United States, “1984” sold 47,000 copies in print since Election Day in November. That is up from 36,000 copies over the same period the prior year.

Here is a summary of the story:

George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948. The novel is set in 1984 – Orwell’s near future and our recent past-but the novel is still relevant today, due to its depiction of a totalitarian government and its themes of using media manipulation and advanced technology to control people.

The movies do not do the book too well. I have seen both a read the book.

The book is on Amazon’s Best Seller list this year. You don’t have to wonder why. Consider “alternate facts” and “fake news” in the real world. The similarities between the book and the world of Donald Trump are too frightening.

The Big Lie

A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels, launched a massive campaign to convince the German people that the Jews were their enemies. Having taken over the press, they spread lies blaming Jews for all of Germany’s problems, including the loss of World War I. One outrageous lie dating back to the Middle Ages claimed that Jews engaged in the ritual killings of Christian children and used their blood in the unleavened bread eaten at Passover [source: Landau].

Donald Trump is proving himself to be a fabricator of colossal untruths and an expert liar. Here’s a partial list of false statements he has made: The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.”

Despite photographs taken at the same time from the same location, Donald Trump’s press secretary insisted that the crowd at the Trump inauguration was at least as big as the crowd at the 2008 inauguration of Barack Obama.

2009 inauguration left 2017 inauguration right

President Donald Trump believes millions of votes were cast illegally in last year’s election. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that on Tuesday, but he wouldn’t provide any concrete evidence for the claim, which has long been debunked. “The President does believe that, I think he’s stated that before, and stated his concern of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign and continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence people have brought to him,” Spicer said.

“Alternative facts” are the words used by Kellyann Conway when confronted by many Sunday morning news shows are all part of the big lie strategy.

Donald Trump’s win of the presidency is not in doubt. No Democrats challenged the election results. Why is he besmirching his win? Will he continue to offer his own reality on other situations?

Perhaps Trump’s focus on his election results is simply Vanity. Merriam Webster definition: the quality of people who have too much pride in their own appearance, abilities, achievements, etc. : the quality of being vain. : something (such as a belief or a way of behaving) which shows that you have too much pride in yourself, your social status, etc.

What will happen when President Donald Trump is confronted with a foreign leader who challenges his position or ideas? I fear the consequences for the United States.

Affordable Health Care is an Oxymoron

The words “Affordable Health Care” are a contradiction. By its very nature health care is unaffordable. That is the reason so many countries have embraced universal health care as a national responsibility.

The rhetorical term oxymoron, made up of two Greek words meaning “sharp” and “dull,” is itself oxymoronic.

As you probably remember from school, an oxymoron is a compressed paradox: a figure of speech in which seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side. British writer Thomas Gibbons characterized the figure as “sense in the masquerade of folly.” This explanation comes from http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/100-Awfully-Good-Examples-Of-Oxymorons.htm.

In my opinion the most outrageous oxymoron statement was “Peace for our time.” It was said by Neville Chamberlain on September 30, 1938.

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is “peace for our time.” Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.

On September 3, 1939 in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declared war on Germany.

While health care is hardly in the same category as a war, the Affordable Health Care Act is not affordable.

Obamacare rates are going way up. The latest estimate from the federal government is that the average midlevel Obamacare plan, the most popular choice, will cost about 22 percent more in 2017 than it did in 2016. This is based on data from 39 states where people sign up through the HealthCare.gov website and some preliminary data from four other states and the District of Columbia.

The health care industry is a “for profit” system that hides under the IRS category of “non-profit” but pays its management high rewards. Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard J. Tyson earned $2.3 million in salary and other compensation in 2010, according to Kaiser’s federal tax filing.

For profit companies Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini and Cigna CEO David Cordani both saw their total pay surge to $17.3 million in 2015 after earning $15 million and $14.5 million, respectively, in 2014.

Over the past six months, Mylan, which is one of the world’s largest purveyors of generic medicines, raised prices more than 20 percent on two dozen products. And Mylan also boosted prices by more that 100 percent on seven other products, according to Wells Fargo analyst David Maris, who called some of the price hikes “exceptionally large.”

So where is the affordability? The idea of controlled costs is a myth. There are no laws limiting the profits that hospitals earn, pharmaceutical companies earn, or insurance companies earn.

For reasons that evade me the GOP’s war on Obamacare offers no reasonable alternative. Of course if their intent is to protect health care profits by returning health care to the way it was before Obamacare was enacted, they are on the right path.

When Facts, history, logic don’t matter

As an Independent I find my self listening to the words of some conservatives even though I think of myself as a progressive. Thus I do read Charles Krauthammer’s columns. The following column appeared in this morning’s Los Angeles Daily News. We all know that Mr. Krauthammer is no friend of Hillary Clinton but he is obviously no fan of Donald Trump. Like a moth Donald Trump took the bait laid out by Hillary Clinton. Can you imagine what a Vladimir Putin would do to Donald Trump?

By Charles Krauthammer, September 20.2016

And now less than six weeks from the election, what is the main event of the day? A fight between the Republican presidential nominee and a former Miss Universe, whom he had 20 years ago called Miss Piggy and other choice pejoratives.

Just a few weeks earlier, we were seized by a transient hysteria over a minor Hillary Clinton lung infection hyped to near-mortal status. The latest curiosity is Donald Trump’s 37 sniffles during the first presidential debate. (People count this sort of thing) Dr. Howard Dean has suggested a possible cocaine addiction.

In a man who doesn’t even drink coffee? This campaign is sinking to somewhere between zany and totally insane. Is there a bottom?

Take the most striking moment of Trump’s GOP convention speech. He actually promised that under him, “the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon – come to an end.”

Not “be reduced.” End.

Humanity has been at this since, oh, Hammurabi. But the audience didn’t laugh. It applauded.

Nor was this mere spur-of-the-moment hyperbole. Trump was reading from a teleprompter. As he was a few weeks earlier when he told a conference in North Dakota, “Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything.” Everything, mind you. “I will give you what you’ve been looking 50 years.” No laughter recorded.

In launching his African-American outreach at a speech in Charlotte, Trump cataloged the horrors that he believes define black life in America today. Then promised: “I will fix it.”

How primitive have our politics become? Fix what? Family structure? Social inheritance? Self-destructive habits? How? He doesn’t say. He will it. Trust him, as he likes to say.

After 15 months, the suspension of disbelief has become so ubiquitous that we hardly notice anymore. We are operating in an alternate universe where the geometry is non-Euclidean, facts don’t matter, history and logic have disappeared.

Going into the first debate, Trump was in a Virtual tie for the lead. The bar for him was set almost comically low. He had merely to (1) suffer no major melt-down and (2) produce just a few moments of coherence.

He cleared the bar. In the first half-hour, he established the entire premise of his campaign. Things are bad and Hillary Clinton has been around for 30 years. You like bad? Stick with her. You want change? I’m your man.

It can’t get more elemental than that. At one point, Clinton laughed and ridiculed Trump for trying to blame her for everything that’s ever happened. In fact, that’s exactly what he did. With some success.

By conventional measures – poise, logic, command of the facts – she won the debate handily. But when it comes to moving the needle, conventional measures don’t apply this year.

What might move the needle is the time bomb Trump left behind.

His great weakness is his vanity. So central to his self-image is his business acumen that in the debate he couldn’t resist the temptation to tout his cleverness on taxes. To an audience of 86 million, he appeared to concede that he didn’t pay any. “That makes me smart,” he smugly interjected.

Big mistake. The next day, Clinton offered the obvious retort: “If not paying taxes makes him smart, what does that make all the rest of us?”

When gaffes like this are committed, the candidate either doubles down (you might say that if you can legally pay nothing why not, given how corrupt the tax code is) or simply denies he ever said anything of the sort.

One of the remarkable features of this campaign is how brazenly candidates deny having said things that have been captured on tape, such as Clinton denying she ever said the Trans-Pacific Partnership was the gold standard of trade deals.

The only thing more amazing is how easily they get away with it.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Loose lips sink ships is an American English idiom meaning “beware of unguarded talk”.

Quite arguably one of the most famous and effective propaganda posters, “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships” links sharing war secrets with the loss of American life and attacks on the Navy. This slogan, created by the War Advertising Council, quite literally meant that citizens should avoid talking about ship movements, destinations and deployments because that information could easily be intercepted by the enemy at a grave cost. This propaganda poster is a prime example of how a simple, clear and memorable slogan can convey the severity of an issue and influence public behavior.

In an interview Donald Trump did with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday morning, in which Hewitt attempted multiple times to get Trump to say he was being metaphorical or hyperbolic, Trump repeatedly refused — and insisted he really meant Obama was a founder of ISIS.

Hewitt prodded Trump, suggesting the GOP nominee meant that Obama “created the vacuum, he lost the peace,” and was not to be taken literally. But Trump objected.

“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton,” Trump said.

Hewitt tried again, saying: “But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them.”

“I don’t care,” Trump replied. “He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?”

Today, Friday, Trump attempted to walk back tweeting “”Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) “the founder” of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON’T GET SARCASM?”

Did Hewitt take Trump’s words as sarcasm? I don’t think so. Hewitt is a very serious guy. He made every effort to obtain a clarification from Trump.

As president would he be threatening sanctions, tariff imposition, or war and then say “Oh, I was joking” or “That was sarcasm. I really didn’t mean what I said.”

You want this man as commander-in-chief of the United States?