There comes a time when it’s hard to know the difference between a banana republic and the greatest system of government devised in human history. Sometimes it’s just a Thursday. Dictionary.com defines a banana republic as “any exploitative government that functions poorly for its citizenry while disproportionately benefitting a corrupt elite group or individual.” Gee, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

There are any number of biases we have to sift through on a daily basis. The worst one is what I would lovingly call the superlative bias. In short, it is the concept that whatever event we are currently going through is the best or worst event of its type in history.

In some sense it makes perfect sense. Sensationalism sells and nothing kills the sensationalism like the admission that we have been through this before. Just this week we saw reporting that pointed to what most people would call treason during the Iran hostages scandal of the late 1970s and 1980. Americans back then would have been flummoxed to hear that news if it had immediately come out. Fortunately or unfortunately we did not hear about those events until long after they actually happened. If American voters had known Richard Nixon was conspiring with North Vietnam then maybe he doesn’t become president.

The job of the media is becoming increasingly more difficult as these stories become news instantaneously. We learned about Russian interference in the 2016 election almost virtually as it was happening. We learned about various Trump scandals almost immediately. We had all of the evidence we needed. Hell, it was all on tape. It has to be difficult when things are that simple. In a nation where conspiracy theories reign (and rain), it seems impossible to believe something so simple. We keep getting told that arrests and indictments are imminent. We saw that in 2017 and 2018 with the Russia scandal. We saw that with the first impeachment following Ukraine. We saw that with the second impeachment and January 6th. We have seen it since the bloviating moron left the White House.

Every time an arrest or indictment doesn’t happen it makes you doubt the story itself. The press is just crying wolf again. Maybe this is another “trumped” up charge. It’s really not that serious. Someone that is such an accomplished businessman would never do something so blatantly obvious like that. Except he did at every turn.

The current and former jackass in chief is even leaning into it. He is releasing his own rumors that he will be indicted. Why? It leans into the narrative. If he gets indicted for Stormy Daniels then it is proof in his mind that he is being persecuted. He did all this other stuff and it is a one night stand with a porn star that gets him? He must not have done any of those other things.

Political prosecutions are tricky business. If you overplay your hand then you guarantee the other side will do the same when they get the opportunity. There was talk from day one about impeaching Joe Biden. What’s the charge? They don’t know and couldn’t explain it if they did. They just know that it’s not fair that you busted our guy when he obviously broke every law in the book. Just rest assured that this latest scandal will be the worst of all. At least it will be until the next one.

Okay, I have a Can’t Wait Until Friday Toon –

I bought two bottles of my favorite happy wine – one for when he’s indicted and another for the perp walk next week.  I will re-read Tucker Carlson’s extremely comical statement and laugh my rump off.  He wants Biden to “stop” Trump’s indictment.

Said Carlson: “America will never be the same… You’ve got to hope that for the sake of the country, the Biden White House, which will be running against Trump, will put the country above partisanship and stop this.”

He added: “And that Merrick Garland at the DOJ will issue a very public statement saying that this is wrong—which it is—and therefore preserve for our grandchildren our justice system.”

I looked real hard for Tucker’s similar statement about Bill Clinton but … I dunno, must have just missed it.

Do you think I’m mad about John Connally and Ben Barnes making a deal to trade arms for hostages to keep Jimmy Carter from being elected?

Oh, Honey, no.

I ain’t even steamed compared to the former hostages.

The Dallas Morning News article is behind a paywall, but I’ll give you as much as I can.

The former hostages did the math and figured out it was five freekin’ months they had to wait to be released. And they weren’t staying in a fancy hotel.

To survivors, the revelation was more appalling than stunning. Democrats and hostages suspected the Reagan camp had a hand in prolonging the ordeal, given the obvious political benefits.

“It’s just typical. Politicians do all sorts of things to achieve whatever political agenda they have in mind,” said William Royer Jr., now 91 and a resident of Katy in suburban Houston.

On Nov. 4, 1979, when militant college students overran the embassy after the fall of the U.S-backed shah, Royer was an English teacher at the U.S. Information Agency.

Over the years he’s recounted the torture – being stripped naked and forced against a wall in front of a firing squad, testing his faith that he was more valuable alive than dead.

Connally died in 1993, which in my mind, gives a pretty plausible explanation of global warming what with the fires of hell surging and all.  I say we dig the sumbitch up to drive a stake through his heart just to make sure.

In the last four to six months as captives, many “deteriorated physically and mentally,” he said. “You don’t want to add even a day to that kind of treatment.”

The first 30 days, Sickmann was tied to a chair and forbidden to speak outside of interrogations. He spent more than a year in a room with two others, often subjected to physical and mental abuse. Until his release, he only went outside seven times.

“It was traumatic for a hostage, but it was traumatic for my poor family and everybody else involved,” he said.

Connally is dead and Barnes is not returning phone calls.

Sumbitches.

I am mad enough to chew nails and spit barbed wire.

Come to find out, 40 damn years after it happened, former Texas Lt. Governor Benny Frank Barnes, who bought a slick suit and started calling himself Ben Barnes, has sat silent carrying the earth-shattering story of deceit and cahooting that changed history.

Ben Barnes

I have never liked Ben Barnes and I always will. That boy was slicker than snot on a doorknob.

Ben Barnes was a bag man for Texas Governor John B. Connally. You remember Connally – he was in the front seat in Dealey Plaza when John Kennedy was killed. Connally was winged and wore a sling for his arm for about two years. Seriously, people told him it was unbecoming a grown man to pump sympathy like that. It ain’t like he was at the Alamo.

Anyway, I could tell you creepy John Connally stories all day but here’s what is important – Kennedy came to Texas to patch up things between Connally and Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough, who achieved genuine Texas hero status by punching out Strom Thurmond on the senate floor.

Both were Democrats because Texas was a solid blue state but Yarborough was a liberal and Connally was a conservative and racist sumbitch.

Connally ran for president but got slaughtered in the primaries. He was Texas oilman cocky and that just didn’t go over big in foreign states. Then Connally got behind Ronald Reagan and figured he could be Secretary of State if Reagan owed him for something. You couldn’t slide a greased knife between Reagan and Connally for the whole campaign.

And now —

WASHINGTON — It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.

Yep, Connally was the middle man for guns-for-hostages.

Barnes says he’s telling the secret now because Jimmy Carter is fixing to die and “History needs to know that this happened.” No way, Jose. Ben Barnes is 85 and knows that God knows what he did and that there’s no way he did it “unwittingly.” Barnes ain’t that dumb and he and Connally were tighter than skin on a sausage. There’s not a soul in Texas who lived during those times who thinks that Ben Barnes ever did anything unwittingly.

And it’s also interesting to note that John Connally did not get to be Secretary of State. You remember who did? Alexander Haig.

In 1986, Connally filed for bankruptcy and ended up auctioning off his personal possessions – including  furniture, his wife’s jewelry and china place settings – to cover his debts. Two years later, Ben Barnes filed for bankruptcy.

So here we are. Ben Barnes trying to get right with Jesus at 85 years old. By the way, Barnes was the one who got George Dubya in the National Guard so he didn’t have to go to ‘Nam.  So Barnes gave us both Reagan and Baby Bush, so it’s gonna take more than a confession to get right with God.

While we all sit around and wait for indictments, I came across this on the weekend.  Just when you start to think our whole damn country is screwed to hell and back, there’s a school of thought that we do some things right.

My list includes taco trucks or, for that matter, food trucks in general.  In fact, taco trucks are so good that they almost cancel out crappy airports.

We have Dolly Parton, Aaron Sorkin, and Willie Nelson.

Almost everyone plays a musical instrument of some kind, many of them in public. Plus, there’s no yodeling. By the way, I am a giant fan of music on the streets. If you’re downtown and there’s a street musician, give them at least a dollar or all your pocket coins. We need to encourage this. It will make the world safer and better. Even if you don’t like their music or they are not very good, it’s just a damn dollar. Give them a dollar.

Have fun with the list and let us know if you have something to add or subtract from it.

“And when you stop and think about it
You won’t believe it’s true
That all the love you’ve been giving
Has all been meant for you” — Justin Hayward

For some reason, I have been thinking about scumbags lately and when I think of scumbags my mind somehow wanders to Kirk Cameron. For those unfamiliar with Cameron and his work, he gained some fame and notoriety as the child star of “Growing Pains” back in the 1980s. Like most child stars, he didn’t successfully make the transition to adult actor. Once he stopped being cute he left the public eye for the most part.

What also happened is that Cameron went through a pretty dramatic conversion to Christianity. This conversion to Christianity may or may not have resulted in an actress getting fired from the show. For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, Julie McCullough played his girlfriend on the show, but it was discovered that she had posed for Playboy. The rumor was that Cameron had her fired, because that kind of image didn’t jive with his new found Christian beliefs. Of course, he denies this version of the story. Needless to say, her career went the way of the doodoo bird and he went on to make more sanctimonious films and creative works.

Well, all that is old is new once again. Cameron is embarking on a library tour to read his children’s books. A Hendersonville Library director made the call to cancel an event involving Cameron as a way to keep the library from becoming a venue that would take part in a culture war. The director in question stated that he wanted to keep all potentially controversial events away from the library. This would include drag queens reading to children as well. Fair is fair after all. Well, the Sumner County Library board voted 4-3 to terminate the director of the library after Cameron and his group complained.

In a growing trend, some threatened violence if they didn’t get their way. To be perfectly fair, his supporters were not the only ones to threaten violence. Some on the left responded with threats as well. We aim to be fair here as much as possible and being fair means calling out bad behavior all the way around. All that being said, this is a pattern with Cameron. I’m legitimately thrilled when anyone finds a religion that works for them. If his Christian beliefs keep him on the straight and narrow then that is fantastic. Those Christian beliefs are also supposed to be tolerant and forgiving of those that may not subscribe to the same mode of thinking.

That goes for a young actress that may have made a decision she regrets and it goes for a librarian that decides that he doesn’t want his library to be used in a game of political ping pong. Free speech is a right that protects people from government oppression or government censorship. I suppose a library is in some way an extension of that, but the first amendment states, “Congress shall make no law…” It certainly doesn’t guarantee you the right to a platform and it certainly doesn’t make you look more Christian if you use coercion and threats to get your way. I’m sure Cameron’s books have a nice message, but that message is at least somewhat sullied by his tactics to get the story heard in the first place.