Give me the “good news”

A bad week for those who court truthiness. A good week for the investigative press.

A run-down on some of what we read and saw and witnessed, March 1–5:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

Revelation: Get ahead of the vaccine bump in your state to proclaim victory over a pandemic you blame others for encouraging all the while risk killing Texans.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo

Revelation: Block public reporting of nursing home deaths due to COVID-19 because it “may affect your political future.”

Former Acting Sec’y of Defense Christopher Miller

Revelation: Delay ordering up National Guard troops upon calls from the Capitol Police because of “the optics” of Guards battling Trump inspired insurrectionists on the Capitol Steps January 6.

A predilection of the power elite these days is for “good news.” Unlike their “bad news” nemesis, victims, whom the power elite call “losers”(Trump) and “small people,” (BP Chairman’s label for Gulf residents affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill), the powerful claim this predilection because the powerful are being “optimistic.” They are “not being negative.”

They’re not “being optimistic.” Think for a moment about the oxymoronic essence of the behavioral call-out “being optimistic.”

They are protecting perfidy. They are dissembling. They are “courting truthiness.”

Their falls from from grace are not “cautionary tales,” or simply comeuppance. Theirs are revelations of acts of nascent criminality, causing death and the risk of death.

March 6