SO NOW…TAPES? THE NIXON SIMILARITIES ARE GETTING SCARY, THE ONLY QUESTION IS WILL IT END THE SAME WAY

Three cheers for the Fourth Estate! In years to come, it may be seen that they saved the United States of America itself!

MY HAT GOES OFF TO THE PRESS POOL at the White House, seriously kudos! I had my doubts during the campaign but those doubts went out the window just about the same time our President’s mental capacity began to become a real issue. I had begun to lose faith in our country, how could a nation which prides itself on its place on Earth as the beacon of freedom and democracy turn so quickly into what appears to be a third world dictatorship? How could so many be fooled so easily into believing so many lies by those who seem to want  to turn our nation into a satellite of Russia? When did the bad guy win and why did we allow it to happen right in front of our eyes?

Bill and Hillary Clinton for years had warned of a vast right-wing industry that was created to take them down and people laughed at them. So whose laughing now? Me thinks the Russians are. Watching Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov make light of FBI director Comey’s firing, as he was being escorted into the Oval Office, surely sent a chill up many in America and all over the globe who see what apparently is occurring.We have watched our lives get scarier by the day, or should I write by the hour,  seeing the possible takeover of our Democracy by either a foreign nation or by a possibly delusional wannabee tyrant that is either using Russia for his profit and gain or is being used by them. But the most defeating part in the whole experience has been watching an entire section of society closing their eyes to reality. Listening to the media during the campaign, it was seriously hard to stomach the lies spouted by everyone who wasn’t in Hillary’s camp. For all of historical significance of a woman becoming the President, for the most part HIllary Clinton was a traditional candidate and she ran a campaign any political leader would strive for accept the media, the talking heads, the online community didn’t want that. They wanted a show, they wanted shock and awe, and all Hillary could show was her expertise, intelligence and resume and the people turned their backs from her. All the talking heads, ignored the usual campaign issues, the budget, taxes, experience, knowledge of foreign affairs, and focused squarely on Donald Trumps accusations. No matter how insane the lies were, the talking heads would spend days on as many of the charges as possible. Nothing was ever left out, and nothing was discussed about her accomplishments and her proposals. The press followed every crumb the Trumpeters sprinkled, no matter how often the charges were slapped back, proven false, and showcased to be made-up, the media kept bringing them up. It appeared Hillary Clinton couldn’t win. I guess their ruse worked cause by election night they had won in turning a woman most prepared ever to lead this nation into a crooked lying monster by millions of people, many who had loved her only months before.

I’m not saying the reporters on television and in the press didn’t try to report the news. It just appeared when they did, the noise of all the lies and conspiracies so overshadowed what we should have been talking about,. And the more they failed, the more the lies became the truth and facts became fake news. How many times was Kellyanne Conway on television, or any of the other countless hired liars that still refuse to respond with any real answers. It was like a game show for the hosts of their perspective news programs. As one by one each host would allow the liars enough rope to hang themselves, yet each time they pounced on the liars, the Trumpeters seemed to have the talking point to punch back, no matter how farfetched it was.

The Press appeared as useless as our votes did. We had a candidate, now President who spent half his campaign attacking the media and the half attacking Hillary, and the people seemed to eat it up. As the Trumpeters accused Hillary of being crooked, the Republican double downed by warning everyone as many times as possible that if she won the Presidency, they would Impeach on everything until they dragged her body to her eventual prison cell. I mean even I was tired of the attacks, I was one of those political junkies who watched every despicable minute of the entire Benghazi hearings on television, not just the ones featuring the should be President. But I saw them for what they were, a deflection by an entire political party and propaganda machine known as Fox News. The more they talked about this, the less they discussed the nightmare who was gonna be the eventual leader of the free world, a dictator in orange face. That said, what should have been her designing moment, her 11 hour tour de force, smacking down every lie and conspiracy like one would expect from anyone whose every watched her before, didn’t seem to do anything. All we got was how weak she was, how close to death she was, and of course we had that now infamous fainting spell, that made all the lies seem real. See she was a frail dying crook, and boy did the media milk that one. They kept telling us, that we wanted change in Washington. That the change President Barack Obama had promised had failed and Hillary Clinton wanted to bring back more of the same. How could so many forget so quickly about what we had lived through during the presidency of George Walker Bush? How could so many disregard Donald J. Trump’s as well as most of the Republican party who were up for election or reelection in their disgusting racist attacks against our nations first African American President. But they did, and many used all the lies and conspiracies that Donald Trump spread as the reasons. 

Looking back now, its pretty stunning how right the Clintons were about the attack that our democracy was under. Turns out that they were just the face of the attack, it wasn’t just them. Now maybe we are discovering too late that our entire way of life is what they were going after. While the attack against President Barack Obama had a lot to do with his race, the real issue with the former President was his policies. As have been obviously showcased by all the Executive Orders that Donald J. Trump has announced. It seems the ‘fake news’ out there on CNN, or MSNBC, or ABC, or CBS, or NBC, or, well you get the drift, were trying their best but nothing seemed to stop whatever Donald Trump was doing. No matter how many ways they went after the big orange faced buffoon, nothing they reported seemed to affect the voters. No matter what they were uncovering and showcasing, their audiences didn’t want to listen, preferring the entertainment of the carnival barker turned Presidential candidate. The audience it seems rather preferred the ‘news’ the way Fox Faux News were informing them. Sadly the more the information came out, the more the now President’s poll numbers grew. It was if the viewers were enjoying this nut job making the grown ups in the room nervous. The worst part was how  Hillary Clinton was taken to task for whatever lies and conspiracies they could tarnish her with. Everything was twisted into something evil or crooked, and poor Hillary Clinton sadly was almost forced into an almost weekly apology. 

Now lets jump ahead, to our current political situation, at what appears to be a Watergate style unraveling of a President and just like the journalists that took down Richard Nixon, today’s journalists may be doing the exact same thing to our current commander in chief, and all I can do is praise what I’ve been seeing and hearing of them. Everyone makes fun of Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as well as the other Trumpeters trying to make sense of the craziness that they have to lie through and mostly failing hysterically. But what I’ve been watching and admiring though the nonsense is how the journalist turned up the heat on the liars. How the pressure is getting to the Trumpeters and how its obviously doing a number on the Mad King in his oval sweat box. Apparently the man is his own worse enemy, seemingly a nervous wreck, each day putting another foot into his own mouth. Lucky for us we have the journalists out there catching every unbelievable development. 

Maybe the problem before the election was that all the accusations seemed so unreal, so farfetched that even with all the insanity that we were living through, for whatever reason, this was going just a bit too far. What was so maddening about the while thing was, that as each piece of the puzzle was being connected, the tainting of Hillary, the liars of transforming her into a lying crook in the eyes of many had worked. It appears the liar that she was turned  into, wasn’t believed when she was the one telling the truth. The con had worked. The Trumpeters screamed to high heaven that this Russian invasion was just a figment of the criminal mastermind Hillary Clinton, and Donald was simply the savior who could do no wrong.  Speaking of Karma, which is whats all the Trumpeters are experiencing right now in spades. I must say it’s been pretty striking watching the media smack down the lies that Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Sean Spicer always try throwing. But now it appears the accusations, the conspiracies have slowly but surely turned out to be real. As the pieces of the puzzle have begun to fill in, the journalists have been connecting the dots and the blood in their eyes and they see the biggest story in their careers staring them in those eyes isn’t cloudy their vision. It has been amazing watching the back and forth between Sean Spicer and the White House Press core, not just enjoying the reporters on the attack, but the fact that they’re allowing it. For all his bravado, he’s trying his best to punch back and win the argument, the fact is the man is way over his head and its so obvious that the hysterics of it are simply sad. That said, the journalists in that room are simply blowing me away daily. Not giving an inch, till the ‘powers that be’ pull their mics.

The day the bottom dropped out of Donald Trump’s presidency, was when he allowed himself to be interviewed by someone other than a Fox Faux News reporter. A real journalist it seems is Donald J. Trump’s Achilles heel. As others have noted, amazing the President handed Lester Holt a folder which had the questions he wanted to be asked, and the anchor without a word placed them under  the questions he was gonna be asking. Sorry sir, you may be leader of the free world, but you ain’t in charge of the Forth Estate. Then the man with the nuclear codes showcased again why that is such a bad idea, by revealing that he had three phone conversations with the now former FBI director. According to Trump, James Comey wanted to keep his job, and he wanted to know if he was being investigated for being in cahoots with the Russians. So let’s get this straight the president of the United States asked if he himself was under investigation, and he expects the head of the FBI to tell him the truth about this? And this is supposed to be okay. I thought the man was insane before but I’m sorry, this is just crazy. So far, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and the  rest of the liars are still making excuses for this. Seems the real isn’t real enough and they are still trying to patch the holes that keep leaking, just wondering how many of them will drown as their leader slowing goes  under.

Last night, on cable I watched ‘All the President’s Men’  and relived what a great achievement that film was. Not just as a work of art, a movie that has stood the test of time, but as a document showcasing what reporters can do. The important job that these news people really do. Uncovering the truth, discovering the crimes and reporting it to the world. Showcasing most importantly that no one is above the law, and without the Forth Estate, that law would be meaningless. Much like another Oscar winning film ‘Spotlight’ if it wasn’t for a few journalists the crimes of the Church would have never been revealed, the possible crimes of this White House might have been erased out of existence much like they are trying to wipe away former President Barack Obama entire tenure. We have witnessed as Donald J. Trump systemically fired one by one those in pursuit of the truth. We have watched his henchmen like Devin Nunes turn from a Republican with a perfect record to a pariah who tried to play Igor to our Frankenstein Monster of a President. 

But thanks to the journalists working today, the people whom Trump has been attacking as fake, it appears, that they have been showcasing that the only thing fake that happening today, is what the President and his Trumpeters are spewing. When or if the hopefully inevitable occurs, and what happened to Richard Nixon happens to Donald Trump, it will clearly be because of the members of the Forth Estate and I for one thank them, because without them, I’m afraid our Democracy would surely be a thing of the past. But because of them, and their dogged nature, our futures look a lot brighter then it currently appears to  be. 

Just one man’s opinion
© Neil Feigeles, Neilizms, Sunday, May 14, 2017