“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
— Mark Twain

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

Cool air in the wake of the wind and rain from Hurricane Sally has now cleared the smoke from wildfires out west mostly out of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina. But the memory of those catastrophic events lingers and haunts us as a portent of what is coming as the world continues to heat up due to the burning of fossil fuels for energy and the Trump administration does nothing but deny reality.

On the bright side, if you are looking for a place to escape the worst impacts of climate change, this is one of those places to consider. As I discovered and wrote last year after traveling up and down the East Coast and around the country looking for the best places to camp to escape summer heat, and a consultation with a very smart doctor, the mountain ranges in the East are cool spots with plenty of fresh water and communities with fresh produce.

This lesson is still lost even to the great science writers of The New York Times, who have studied the issue of climate migration in depth.

HOW CLIMATE MIGRATION WILL RESHAPE AMERICA: Millions will be displaced. Where will they go?

That’s OK. Let’s keep this a secret awhile longer, before the property values soar.

Election 2020

Meanwhile there’s an election dead ahead in 42 days, and the reasons for voting against Trump continue to mount.

If climate change denial, blatant racism, growing authoritarianism, attacking health care in court and mishandling the coronavirus pandemic were not enough, now the future of the Supreme Court is at stake with the death this week of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

There was a time when the words of Senators mattered. As everyone knows by now, Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, refused to hold confirmation hearings or bring President Barack Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court Merrick Garland up for a vote nearly eight months before the 2016 election. But he is vowing to bring Trump’s pick to replace Ginsburg up for a vote before November 3 with only 42 days to go?

This is more proof, as if we needed it, that the Republican Party is now the party of lies, deceit and corruption — and 42 percent of “the people” seem to be OK with that.

South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham also advocated refusing a vote on Obama’s nominee, but now says he will vote to replace Ginsburg on the eve of an election. And it is unclear whether the voters in his home state will take a stand to hold him accountable for his words. He is up for reelection and leading in the polls.

Political ideology in the United States is now more important than telling the truth. We are in serious trouble. If Trump gets his way, the court will be dominated by a conservative majority of 6-3 for a generation. Women’s rights, voting rights, civil rights, health care, the environment, all are on the line here.

There are a few honorable people left in public life, like U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, who does not advocate a vote to replace Ginsburg before the election. Of course he is getting hammered by outside money funding ads around the clock on radio and television. I’m afraid spending millions on Facebook ads is not going to be enough to counter it.

The Flood of Outside Money Threatens to Taint Democracy in Alabama

But if you want to see the words of a rare honorable politician responding to the news of Ginsburg’s death, this is what he said in a statement. He called her death “a devastating loss for our country and for all those who have been inspired by the inimitable Justice Ginsburg during her long and historic career.”

“Justice Ginsburg led a life guided by principle and filled with purpose,” he said on deadline. “A true trailblazer in the legal field in her own right, she inspired generations of young women to reach for heights that previously felt impossible. Through her quiet dignity, her willingness to bridge political divides, and her steady pursuit of justice, she was a standard-bearer for positive leadership.”

He cited her “bold dissents” in cases like Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Shelby County v. Holder as “particularly meaningful to me, and to so many in Alabama and across the country.”

“She stood for what was right and for the constitutional principles of equality and democracy that she held dear, even if it meant she was in the minority on the Court. As only the second woman to ever serve on the Court, she made full use of her opportunity to serve as a voice for women on the bench,” he said. “Beyond her legal acumen, Justice Ginsburg will also be remembered for her sharp wit, her tireless advocacy for voting rights, and her historic role in fighting for a more equal society for women across the country. She will be greatly missed.”

If the Republicans who control all three branches of government in my native state of Alabama honor my application for an absentee ballot, I will fill it out and mail in my vote for Joe Biden-Kamala Harris and my friend Doug Jones. It will most likely be my last election to vote in Alabama, especially if the people there don’t vote to reelect Jones to a full six year term in the Senate. He has done more for people in the state in three years than Republicans Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions and all the Republicans in Congress have done in a quarter century.

Of course a majority of people in Alabama don’t know that, because the pathetically weak press and media in the state simply won’t tell them. How can we expect people to know what the truth is if we don’t even bother to tell them? This fair and balanced game of political news needs to stop. It’s just not working anymore.

Back in the 20th century, the great era of the mass circulation daily newspaper, there was a feeling that we now know is naive that if given the facts and both sides of the story, a majority of people would do the right thing at the end of the day.

But in the 21st century, in the time of a corrupted Google search engine and YouTube video channel and fake news on Facebook and Twitter, opinions now trump facts on a daily basis.

Mark Twain was right, but he could never have imagined how bad the situation would become in our time.

If I could reach an audience without Facebook, I would quit it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, people are addicted to it now. I’ve stopped using the Google search engine and no longer produce YouTube videos. If I could find an honest law firm in America, I would sue them all.

In the absence of that, we will limp along here for awhile longer in the mountains. I’m looking for a cabin with a fireplace close enough to a cell phone tower to hunker down for the winter. If by some chance “the people” turn out in record numbers and elect some people who can at least try to run the government, begin to actually deal with the coronavirus pandemic and start to fight climate change, maybe by spring we will see some chance of hope for a future in this world.

In a fantasy world, I wish I was a bear and could hibernate and sleep until spring. Instead I hope to find a place to shiver through it. I may or may not make it to the other side.

Wish us luck, dear fellow Hobbits. And if you care enough that the press in America survives the era of Trump and Twitter, maybe send us a few bucks to show us you care.