Home › #News › WTF IS GOING ON? – BY ELLIN CURLEY

WTF IS GOING ON? – BY ELLIN CURLEY

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I’m so confused. I used to think I had some handle on what was going on in the news. Pretty much all bad, all crazy, all the time. But I had definite opinions on how I thought things would play out.

No more. I’m clueless now. I have no idea what’s going to happen. I was sure that no matter what Trump did or what Mueller found, the Republicans in control of Congress would not do anything to censure, let alone impeach him. I thought we would have to wait for Democrats to regain control of both houses in Congress before impeachment could even be considered. And even then, I didn’t believe that there would be enough votes in the Senate to actually convict Trump and remove him from office. So any impeachment by the House would end up being a toothless gesture.

At that point, my brain would freeze over. I had no idea what would happen next in my own scenario.

Now I’m less certain about this whole theory. I’m really not sure what will happen in the future or even later today. So much happens so quickly these days. Often out of the blue, or so it seems. Trump makes spontaneous, off the cuff policy announcements that no one in his own White House knows about or is prepared for. He often backtracks the next day. Or not! Headline news stories blare out constantly with revelations from various investigations, law suits and ethics probes involving the president and his merry band of unethical misfits.

I worry that Trump will bomb a random country and start another pointless war. I live in fear that Trump will fire Robert Mueller or Rod Rosenstein, which would have the same effect. One minute I’m sure he’ll do it and throw the country into a major constitutional crisis with no satisfactory resolution in Republican controlled Washington. The next minute I’m sure he won’t risk the major political explosion he would trigger if he interfered with the Mueller investigation.

This perpetual uncertainty makes me very uncomfortable. I pride myself on staying informed enough to understand what’s going on in the news at any given time. I’m shaky on Mid Eastern and Far Eastern policy and economics. But I usually have a handle on domestic news and policies. I have to narrow my focus since I don’t want to spend even more time than I already do consuming news every day. I’m a slow reader so I can only cover so much territory.

Things are happening so quickly and so randomly that I can’t keep up any more. Even though I do try.

I have to admit that sometimes all the national drama can be exciting and energizing. But the crazy and the unpredictable are going into warp drive. Trump seems to be devolving and dragging us all under with him. It’s getting less and less exciting and more and more scary and insane.

I wish I could turn away from this slow motion train wreck, but I can’t. So I’ll keep reading and watching MSNBC and hope that my sanity survives longer than Trump’s does.

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Categories: #News, POTUS, President, War and battles

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28 replies

  1. Kiki
    04/20/2018 • 05:27

    The only info of what’s going on ‘over there’ are the newspapers and the YTube late shows’ snippets and all of that is scary enough to make me read them as little as I can – although I feel I must be interested in these matters as they concern us ALL in more ways than we care for.

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  2. swo8
    04/16/2018 • 13:16

    It’s gotten to the point where I don’t believe anyone and what they say in the news.
    Leslie

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      04/16/2018 • 13:20

      I think this is largely because (1) THEY don’t know what it means and all they can do is guess and their guesses are no better than yours , and (2) some very big money has gotten their hands on the media and it is changing it much for the worse.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Ellin Curley
      04/16/2018 • 13:47

      I still think there are many reliable, honest and trustworthy news outlets. They may get something wrong once in a while, but they are trying to report facts. And you can’t argue with the facts or pretend that they don’t exist. They are still out there and most of the so called mainstream media is still dedicated to reporting facts that are verifiable.

      Liked by 3 people

      • swo8
        04/16/2018 • 13:57

        I agree, Ellin, there are still some very good reporters out there.

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      • Marilyn Armstrong
        04/16/2018 • 14:16

        I don’t think the “true” media is bad, only … lost. I think no one really has much of a grip on what’s going on. We guess and we are better guessers than many other people because of our husbands’ links to news … but in the end, because we have a chaotic dumbass at the top, guessing is all we CAN do. Facts are meaningless when the people who should be giving us facts, don’t.

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  3. Martha Kennedy
    04/16/2018 • 11:34

    Me too. It’s chaos. Or maybe it isn’t and the news just makes chaos out of it as a way to keep the ratings up because it — and our president — function on ratings. I just know that I hate him more every day. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      04/16/2018 • 12:22

      I don’t think I have the capacity to hate him more. To deal with it, I try to spend at least 1/2 of every day pretending it isn’t NOW. Or, as I say to me, read more and don’t try to make it make sense. There IS no sense.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Ellin Curley
      04/16/2018 • 13:42

      I think part of the reason I watch the news is that I want to be there when Trump is taken down. I want to be able to savor it. It may not be until 2020, but at least he’s squirming now and very unhappy with the circus that is happening all around him. I am patiently waiting for the boom to drop- on this corrupt, amoral disaster of a human being.

      Liked by 3 people

  4. judyt54
    04/16/2018 • 08:08

    I stopped listening to any of it (beyond wanting to be sure we hadn’t declared war on ourselves) long ago. It’s like trying to make sense of a kaleidoscope that hasn’t stopped spinning. No matter what happens today, tomorrow someone will graciously back away from the roaring fire, or be flung out the door, and someone else will take their place. I no longer know, I no longer care.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      04/16/2018 • 12:24

      Remember riding a carousel? If you look at a fixed spot — like where a friend was standing, the circles were sort of orderly. But if you just looked outward, it was a life-size kaleidoscope. Everything spun around until it was just pieces — broken images in a broken mirror. I feel like we are living in a broken fun house mirror and life is in pieces.

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    • Ellin Curley
      04/16/2018 • 13:37

      Good for you if you can remove yourself completely from the news cycle. You are probably calmer and happier than those of us who are news junkies. But I am more anxious not knowing what is going on than when I get a handle on what is out there, at least intellectually.

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  5. Marilyn Armstrong
    04/16/2018 • 00:41

    I believe we are living in what the Chinese referred to as “interesting times.” We are like a country at war, but we are at war with ourselves and each other. Mostly, we aren’t shooting at each others, except when we are. How does it turn out? How do wars ever turn out? They end and then, the next one starts preparing. I have some hope for the younger generation, but not much hope that we will see less interesting times in this life. I would like very much to be wrong.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Ellin Curley
      04/16/2018 • 13:35

      I have lived through interesteing times before but never like this. Everything now is amped up to 11. The younger generation may not be able to help us out of this mess in the next two or three years. But eventually they will swing the pendulum back to democracy and decency. I hope I live to see it.

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