"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Today's Must-Read: Willful Ignorance

This piece by Brody Levesque at NCRM lays out something that others seem to be missing. The meat:

“He just doesn't get it. Every action he takes, every tweet he sends, every public pronouncement he makes has a direct impact on more than just foreign policies and U.S. interests. He is displaying willing effort to remain ignorant about matters than change in mere hours or even minutes – that impact not just national security but global stability.”

Famed journalist Dan Rather took the President-elect to task too, saying, “Forget talking about the Trump Administration. The question now is whether this will be a Trump Putin Administration or a Putin Trump Administration.”

It's beyond Trump claiming he doesn't need intelligence briefings because he's a "smart person" -- it's a determination to remain ignorant of critically important information.

And it's beyond Russia putting him in office (which, of course, is something we should be really pissed off about): there are other players that Trump seems to be going out of his way to offend, starting with China.

It's been a long time since this country could operate as though it's the only country that matters. This idiot could really screw everything up royally.

Read the whole thing.

Footnote: And this.

Rep. Chris Collins has some advice for us. Just move on, give it up, nothing to see here.

"I don't think we should continue investigations because at the end, what do we really accomplish," Collins said. "We need to unite the country."

I'm not going to bother with comparisons to Benghazi!!1! or E-Mails!!1! (and thank you, James Comey, for doing your part to saddle us with this nightmare). But I seem to remember someone, maybe about eight years ago, a little less, refusing to investigate members of the previous administration for war crimes, saying "We need to move on and unite the country."

Things like that have a way of coming back to bite you in the ass. Especially when you've established a precedent of "No consequences."

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