Tag: UnionCountySheriff

The Message of Hitler Admirers

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The reasons why it is hardly possible to acquire a gun legally in Germany

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

I often ask myself what I am doing here in the “United” States of America. People of my host country shoot their own people in droves every day. The good thing is that even after a quarter of a century, I don’t owe this alienated land of the Brave a single crumb.

My country of origin, Germany, has one of the strictest gun laws in the world. This has to do with both our culture and our history. Growing up, my generation sat at the dinner table with family members and relatives who had lived through Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich and now left a message for us that has been imprinted for a lifetime: Only an idiot voluntarily picks up a gun.

Shocking: As always, the USA leads by a wide margin.

These people, long in their graves, were anything but wimps. They had gone out to conquer the world for Hitler and Germany. They were in France with Guderian, on speedboats in the English Channel, on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad, in the desert with Rommel. Several great uncles were in Soviet captivity for several years, which hundreds of thousands of German soldiers did not survive. We were still children when our old soccer coach suddenly took off his shirt in the middle of the sports field and showed us his war wounds, caused by shell splinters. We were shocked at the sight. “Memory of Stalingrad”, he called it, and “look, what it does.” In the end, they had at least come to their senses after initial enthusiasm for their beloved Fuehrer, and this clearly reflected on me and my generation.

Today I am glad, almost proud, to have been surrounded by people who had their minds together. Their legacy is deeply rooted in me, because they spoke out of a very deep experience that was, as it were, extremely painful for them and for which they had had to pay a high price.

Of course, they saw this experience with weapons from a different perspective than is the case today in the U.S. – from the perspective of war. A society in their own country where people justify their gun ownership by claiming they need to protect themselves from their own people – not even the former Nazi supporters could imagine such a thing. But that is exactly the daily reality in the USA, the most Christian of all countries, where gun advocates and proud gun owners sit in their churches on Sundays and call themselves anti-abortionists to boot. How can someone who calls himself pro-life and anti-abortion, in all seriousness, not be firmly against any private gun ownership when tens of thousands of innocent people, including even school children, are murdered in his country every year?

For obvious and logical reasons, the German system of gun control restricts the acquisition, possession, and carrying of firearms to those who have a credible justification for carrying a weapon. Fully automatic weapons are absolutely prohibited.

Spied on by Communists

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The Secret State Police of the GDR had me in their sights

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

The vernacular called the Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) summarily “Stasi” or “Peek and Listen.” It was not as harmless as it sounded on the surface. The Stasi, abbreviated for “Staatssicherheit”, was not a civilian secret service, but a military institution.

They called themselves the “shield and sword of the party,” the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Under this emblem they observed, denounced, blackmailed, harassed millions and destroyed the lives of thousands: The Stasi.

When this German Democratic Republic went down, I was 29 years old. Like most people, I didn’t dare in the communist dictatorship to be a real resistance fighter. I was rather one of those who often stood there with clenched fists in their pockets and often burned their mouths – sometimes close enough to expose themselves to the danger of the State Security Service. So, I was more of a dissenter, of which there were a few. Otherwise, the non-violent revolution that swept the country in the fall of 1989 and led to the fall of the Berlin Wall would not have been possible. There is no way to make a revolution with people who have adapted to a ruling system.

Anger pent up over the years about the government, which had not been freely elected, erupted into this revolution. It was about freedom rights and democracy, with freedom of travel at the top of the list. It was like a kettle that suddenly boiled over, setting off a chain of events that led to the fall of the Wall more by accident than design.

Of course, I knew at the time that the Stasi existed – but not how intensively they spied on people in their own country. I could not imagine having people in my immediate environment who cowardly and secretly passed on information about me to a communist power organ. Yet in the course of the last few years, I have read more and more books about the Stasi and its practices. Remembering my own experiences, especially in 1985, when I got into serious trouble because of political remarks, I became curious after so long about my own situation at that time – especially how close I came to being harmed. So, I would like to have certainty.

Now I have proof.

Invalid since 1990: Third page of my GDR identity card, issued December 27, 1988.

Unlike the secret documents in the other states of the former Warsaw Pact, the Stasi files were made accessible after German reunification. Anyone who wishes to do so can submit an application and try to find out whether he or she was classified by the GDR secret service as a “person potentially dangerous to the socialistic state”. I filed such an application a year ago and have now received the notification.

In the decisive passage of the letter from Berlin to me it says: “[Our] research has shown that you were recorded in the files of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic. The registration indicates that documents on your person may exist.” Due to the high number of application processing, it can take up to two years before I can receive more detailed information. If this information exists, of course I would like to know what the communists wrote down about me and who was set on me. Because even for the aliases of the spies, their clear names can be requested.

In the months following the fall of the Berlin Wall until German reunification on October 3, 1990, the Stasi had attempted to destroy as much evidence of its espionage activities as possible. In most cases, the documents were shredded, but to this day the Stasi Archive in Berlin is still trying to piece together these mountains of paper scraps with the help of computer technology.

Faith under Threat

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

At least sometimes a few Americans stand up against nonsense, and there is much hope when young people do this. The following story is set in West Virginia in the 21st century – please follow the link at the bottom.

Instead of accepting the silly claptrap, a number of American school children decided to kick the old church fart’s butt after being exposed to the following:

“Students who attended were asked to raise their arms in prayer and give their lives to Jesus so that they can find purpose and salvation. The speakers said that those who did not follow the Bible would go to hell when they died, students told the Associated Press.”

Faith and salvation under the threat of punishment – this is how the church and its demagogues have always operated since the early Middle Ages. The Church is, in its history, the most insane and criminal institution ever invented by mankind to make the mainstream compliant.

Their instruction manual for a magical ideology is called the Bible, a work of art largely dating from the first century, when ordinary people could neither read nor write, were exposed to all kinds of superstitions, knew no medical care, gnawed on bones, had to walk around in rags, and barely lived past the age of 40. It was the time from which also Halloween originates. Compared to the nonsense from the Bible, the old witch’s cookbook from the fairy tales of my childhood read comparatively harmless.

What does it have to do with freedom when wicked parsons are allowed to tell kids in their school what they have to believe? This is even worse and more stupid than the propaganda I experienced in the alleged socialism of the GDR. But this is also part of the pointed “program” of mass dumbing down in the “land of the free.” It is a routinely occurrence – in this case it came out into the public eye because someone had the courage to stand up to it.

If there is any hope for this country, it lies with the young people.

Christian revival at West Virginia public high school prompts more than 100 students to walk out – The Washington Post

Trump’s Stalinist Show Trial

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

At his rally in Arizona, a mastermind named Donald Trump spoke of Stalinist show trials in connection with the investigative committee on the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

I was born into a Soviet satellite state where there were such show trials, as a result of which Stalinists and Communists tortured and murdered people. The victims were neither mentally deranged nor anti-social rioters, but freedom fighters who stood up for the fundamental right of the people.

To compare victims of dictatorship and tyranny with the demented American mob of January 6, would be tantamount to disparaging Stalinist victims – if it didn’t come from the mouth of someone like Trump, who, as a con man, is bent on taking others for fools. Figures like Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Ted Cruz strike the same chord.

The fundamental question is: What brainchild are those who elected and support experts like Trump, Cruz, and Taylor-Greene to positions of ultimate responsibility for their country – political charlatans who don’t shy away from fomenting conspiracy theories no matter what societal damage they inflict?

But such a question cannot actually arise. After all, what can be expected in a country where half of the population (!) completely rejects evolution and instead believes that the world and all life was created by a supernatural ghost?

Is What Bernie Sanders is Saying not True?

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

Is someone a radical left if he calls a truth by its name – a truth that affects the majority of people in the U.S. at that?

The truth should prevail above personal political and, by the way, religious convictions. Why? For, first, humanity has been misled and abused by both sides – by politics and even more so by religions – more often than seldom. And secondly, because those who in principle give their convictions a higher value than facts and truth degrade themselves to intellectually wretched creatures whose train of thought discharge into baseless assertions. From such a corner emerge the conspiracy theorists, who, by the way, have always existed throughout history.

Without my own experience, I probably wouldn’t believe Bernie Sanders so easily either. In eight years of working for a company called Walmart, I’ve encountered more than enough not to know what he’s talking about. I can justifiably say that I have not experienced such a lack of rights on the part of the workers even under communist rule in the GDR. There – in a command state in which we were all walled in – at least the physical well-being of the workers was still taken care of. In the workplace, physical integrity was a high priority, and no one has ever been burdened with additional financial demands other than the monthly health insurance contribution. Medical care at that time was excellent, even if it was subsidized.

It is an arbitrariness like in a third world country, to which the employees at Walmart and more than likely elsewhere in the country are exposed – without a real possibility to defend themselves. Working time was cut if the profit figures for the store did not match greedy corporate expectations. Consequently, those who were spared from even lesser income now had to run faster to get all the work done. In a hopelessly understaffed department, I contracted a double hernia. All references from my side to a health impairment contracted at Walmart were of no use – the superiors had their instructions according to which they had to proceed.

A case like mine was everyday business, and Walmart had long since taken precautions to shirk its financial responsibility. Workers’ compensation insurance was only on paper, because according to Walmart’s philosophy, I had not sustained the injury while loading hundreds of bags of mulch, garden soil and compost for the customers, not seldom without help, but probably at home growing tomatoes or studying American history books.

Despite health insurance, a not inconsiderable part of the costs for the surgery fell on me. I settled the bill with means not generated in the USA, but in my home country Germany. How many Americans are fortunate enough to be able to similarly compensate for the miserable care their own wealthy country provides them?

After the passing of a young colleague, the lady from Human Resources went from table to table in the Walmart break room asking for donations for his immense hospital bill that the bereaved family was facing. No one sitting there could answer in the negative. People barely able to make ends meet themselves pulled a dollar out of their pockets, some as much as five, while American health insurance companies shoveled billions in profits into their own pockets without lawmakers lifting a finger to stop the criminal profiteering at the public’s expense.

A few weeks later, this HR woman who had helped me get a full-time job in 2014, was also hospitalized and died.

During my tenure at Walmart, I’ve seen colleagues 80 and older dragging themselves to work, forced by medical bills, incurred years ago. People undergoing cancer treatment had visible difficulty to make it through the workday. I saw all this for the first time in my life, and I couldn’t believe I was in the United States of America.

Of course, Bernie Sanders is right. Anyone who denies this has lost all touch with reality and lives in another galaxy. Facts cannot be blurred by closed eyes during prayer, either, but faith and belief can be misleading. Religion can very easily lead astray – especially when those who derive lucrative benefits from it know how to skillfully spread it among people as an ideology. As a consequence, this has a lot to do with how few of my colleagues recognized the injustices that happened to them every day. Most took it in silence. To put it bluntly: they were used to it, they didn’t know any different.

The old man Bernie is also right about the Democratic Party. Because just like the Republicans, Democrats with very view exceptions are also grateful recipients of large donations from the country’s moneyed elite. Their corrupt nature deprives millions of needy Americans of much-needed help in connection with the build back better act once so hopefully announced by Biden. Instead of supporting their president, his own party is embroiled in an internal battle of alignment while more and more Americans are dissatisfied.

Is he really surprised? Joe Biden is an American, he should have known better. After all, not long ago he publicly described himself as a capitalist. It seemed to me as if he wanted to make clear with this very insipid formulation how little he has to do with socialist ambitions. The man knows only too well what a sour taste such a disposition would evoke in most of his compatriots. Therefore, he did not even bother to explain to them what socialism actually is, nor what kind of capitalist he himself impersonates as president of the country.

I don’t think a turn for the better is imminent for most Americans.

The Neoliberal Blow to the USA

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Children sent to school with guns, a silly never-ending abortion debate, a congressman posing with his family in front of a Christmas tree, all with guns in hand: profit-hungry gun manufacturers with a criminal National Rifle Association (NRA) as their umbrella of protection take precedence over the welfare of the American people, while at the same time the protection of unborn life is prioritized as the noblest of Christian values. The insanity of all American contradictions is supported and directed by the donors of a targeted policy that in the end ensures the greatest possible financial gain for both sides. At the same time, most Americans are apparently unwilling to recognize that their society is vegetating under subversive neoliberalism.

How should they know? If they already associate the term “socialism” with the most ludicrous notions, then how should they grasp the facts about neoliberalism in their very own country? An essential factor is: There is no realistic approach to tangible socialism in the United States; instead, neoliberalism is pervasive. The specter of socialism is meant to ensure that a perception of real existing neoliberalism cannot arise in the first place.

I know both forms of society all too well; I have personally lived among them and experienced them first hand. The second experience occurred in a place of freedom where I least expected it: the United States of America. For in the past, living far away in a completely different world, we looked longingly to America in the firm belief that this was the freest country on earth.

In my “first life”, I was involuntarily exposed to socialism in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for 28 years. I didn’t see anyone there who was really enthusiastic about it; we were walled in, separated from relatives in the free part of Germany, and there was no escape without a high possibility of endangering life and limb. In 1989, the barrel overflowed, and the long-pent-up popular anger was discharged in an astonishingly peaceful manner. The realization had already grown in us long before: Socialism is indeed a dictatorship, therefore it has no human face and it does not work also because there is no freedom for individual creativity due to the nationalized means of production. Moreover, people in the masses do not function according to predetermined moral norms. For similar reasons, Christianity as a whole has continuously failed in its own demands, with very few people able to live according to Christian ambitions (read the first paragraph again).

I experienced the excesses of neoliberalism for more than eight years in a company called “Walmart”; a lawless space without any legal protection for the working people, some features strongly reminiscent of the GDR with intimidation methods the order of the day, here and there. Of course, in the end you could “merely” lose your job at Walmart, while in the GDR personal freedom was at stake – a disproportionately higher price. In terms of labor, however, the working people in the GDR did have rights, which I could not see in any way at Walmart.

The deception about socialism is spread in the United States as deliberately and purposefully as is the concealment of inhuman neoliberalism: in the media, in the schools, in the churches, by politics anyway, because the political caste is the essential part of the whole, similar to a referee in sports who has been bribed by one of the participating teams. As shocking as the realization is, but it has been possible in the land of the free and the brave to create a broad stratum of ordinary people whose thinking is directed to the restrictions of microcosm and who willingly allow themselves to be trimmed in almost any direction – except that of reality.

The real disaster of the present is the Republican Party’s nearly unconditional agreement to neoliberalism, thereby dealing a deep blow to the old idea of conservatism on American soil. Large sections of the Democrats are not lagging behind. This is how a country is divided from the top down. Those who speak out against it risk being assigned to socialism, a form of society that is not applicable to practical life anyway.

Thus, a conducive discourse about the country’s problems cannot even take place, especially since every opinion in the U.S. is subject to the principle of deeply divided two-party rule. Even wearing a mouth-nose guard because of Corona some interpret as political orientation.

How conditions are supposed to change for the better under such circumstances is a mystery to me.

Center-Left Government in Germany takes Shape

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

The coalition agreement in Germany is ready, and the country gets a center-left government within the next weeks, consisting of three parties. It is reassuring to know that there are still countries in the civilized world where political currents can come together to share responsibility without blocking each other, even if they are far apart on some issues. And it is astonishing how little this seems the case on the other side of the Atlantic, in a country that calls itself the oldest existing democracy on earth, along with all those people who proclaim a Christian faith. If only they would live accordingly instead of constantly denigrating political dissidents in support of perverts like Donald Trump and his minions.

In authoritarian countries – and the U.S. may be one of them, because a very large part of its electorate cannot be reached with rational arguments and instead adheres to delusions that may reflect in radical election results again at any time – the term “left” may sound strange and be equated with socialism. First, not only is it wrong, but the label “center left” is also not particularly informative. Secondly, content is more important than labels, not only because the pandemic has created even more complex problems worldwide that require overarching answers. Thirdly, it follows that the questions of our time will not be solved by partisan ideological stubbornness, but by rational approaches of pluralism.

Those who want to divide a people into left and right, liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, and point the finger at anything progressive, are damaging the unity of their own country. The U.S. has been and continues to be a prime example of deep social division. In Germany, too, a burgeoning polarization must be persistently countered so that those who refuse to face reality by promoting conspiracy theories cannot divide society with ideological nonsense.

So, it remains to be seen what the new German government is capable of achieving. The challenges are huge, and for that reason alone things will more than likely not run completely smoothly.

Biden’s Egg Dance over 9/11

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The God Who Told an American President to Start Two Wars

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

The American President is once again on a course of appeasement. Family members and victim’s representatives do not want Joe Biden to speak on-site on the imminent 20th anniversary of the terror attacks on the United States. Instead of the usual heroic epic, they demand clarification about the real reasons why their loved ones had to die. Yet, shortly after the attacks, reports already circulated about the actual mastermind behind the 19 terrorists, 14 of whom came from Saudi Arabia alone. But George W. Bush, in the exuberant euphoria of his deluded countrymen, ordered the invasion of Afghanistan.

With his announcement to review classified information about the terrorist attacks from FBI sources at the time and release it early if necessary, the current president is trying to take ammunition out of the game. Once again, Biden runs the risk of having to take the rap for unfortunate decisions of his predecessors. For he is no more responsible for the Bush administration’s deliberate “miscalculations” 20 years ago than he is for the premature decision to withdraw the last American troops from Afghanistan. Nevertheless, he is aware of how much more compromising intelligence material could discredit the U.S. as the Western leading power, even more so after the ignominious end in Afghanistan.

Moreover, even a Joe Biden cannot afford to seriously condemn the close ally Saudi Arabia. The Americans are too involved with the Saudis in multi-billion dollar oil and arms deals. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia is seen as a kind of bulwark that keeps the other Arab countries in a reserved position toward Israel. As tragic as it is obvious, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center were certainly intended to also hit major Jewish interests in the United States.

Biden again finds himself in an unenviable position. This time, however, he will hardly have to fear a similar backlash from members of Congress as he did during the chaotic retreat from Kabul. For even if the truth behind the September 11 attacks now emerges more clearly with the likelihood that Afghanistan had nothing to do with it, this will hardly change anything in the public perception in the USA. The masses barely take notice. Even the American defeat in the Hindu Kush seems to have been acknowledged by the population to only a relatively small extent – ideal conditions for future U.S. military aggressions in all parts of the world. After all, war material gathering dust in arsenals does not bring in revenue, but costs money – a lot of money. And it yields billions in profits to a few as soon as it is used and subsequently replaced. Seeing it from this paramount American perspective, the results in Afghanistan and Iraq were anything but defeats.

A numerically very small caste of politicians and big capitalists operating in the background – all members of a power-obsessed oligarchy – consistently lead the American public by the nose, and they are not reluctant to deceive Americans even when it comes to senseless wars and human lives. This is by no means a new insight with regard to the USA, and it has nothing at all to do with conspiracy theories. In this context, it also does not matter who holds the presidency.

The U.S. cannot live without intervening or let to intervene militarily somewhere in the world – too often, this fact has proved to be a perpetual spiral. Perhaps this and his own place in the history books was George W. Bush’s primarily motivation when he started the two wars with shameless hypocritical religious bluster and lies twenty years ago. In the historical record, before Bush’s time, political leaders and responsible military officers had been brought before international tribunals for their actions under very similar circumstances.

But his very personal assessment for the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, which resulted in endless civil wars in the Middle and Near East and the deaths of several hundred thousand civilians, as well as the emergence of ISIS, was, in George W. Bush’s own words, different: “God told me to start this war.”***

In reality, neither of the two wars instigated by the U.S. was directly related to the victims of September 11. Their deaths were misused to impose American ideas of democracy and freedom by force in countries that never wanted anything to do with American culture. The relatives of the dead of September 11 fear nothing less than that today.

Notes:

*** There are several verifiable sources that support Bush’s statements at the time about the wars; only two are cited here. Sometimes, the bizarreness of his choice of words seemed to rival the later primitive rhetoric of a Donald Trump. In connection with himself, Bush finally brought Divine Providence into the picture, and the majority of Americans fell for it. This was their blessing for the “Christian Crusades,” which the former President himself has called by these words.

“President George Bush has claimed he was told by God to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden’s stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians.” Quote: The Independent, UK, 15 November 2011“God told me to go to war.” Quote: George W. Bush, The Mirror, GB, 10 July, 2005.

An Almost Collective Failure

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Once again the compassionate, everything and everyone understanding citizen of the world spoke to his people.

The American president’s pithy remarks yesterday are surprising, because just a few days ago he sounded quite different. But it is he who is largely responsible for the chaos at Kabul airport.

It is amazing how the American pattern repeats itself over and over again. After the deaths of 13 soldiers, Joe Biden found words that have become standard in this country – it is what most Americans want to hear, although the supporters of the right-wing spectrum may not believe this president on this point. Because many of them falsely believe that it was he who screwed things up in Afghanistan. Yet, Biden “merely” handled the exit to another American tragedy in an incompetent manner that could hardly have been worse.

As recently as July 8, he had responded to a reporter’s question by saying that it is “highly unlikely” that the Taliban would overrun the entire country. This had proven how out of touch he was with reality. He was clueless about the historical realities in Afghanistan, which a president before him had already thrown to the wind: George W. Bush, the man leading an administration actually responsible for what we see today.

To a certain extent, however, responsible are also the millions of Americans who fell for primitive slogans 20 years ago and who, with their consent, supported the American adventure in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of freedom and thus made it possible in the first place.

From this point of view, it is eminently notable that the crusade ends under the same slogan from the mouth of an American president with which it began in 2001: “We will hunt them down.”

DeSantis, the Story Teller

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

“The idea that you can just push God out of every institution and be successful, I’m sorry our founding fathers did not believe that.”

It’s laughable: These words actually came out of the mouth of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday in Surfside, Fla, in the presence of Florida Legislature and leaders in the local Jewish community. The background is that starting next school year, all public K-12 schools in Florida will be required to hold a moment of silence at the beginning of the day. The phrase “Moment of Silence” clearly replaces the intended wording “prayer” to circumvent the American Constitution. DeSanti’s own, historically untenable commentary unmasked the true intentions, allowing no other conclusion.

This feeble-minded person should receive some history lessons, whether with or without silent remembrance – about the past of his own country. For the “Fathers” during their constitutional convention from May to September 1787 in Philadelphia left the question of religion completely aside to not to prefer one religion over another. For similar reasons, the word “God” does not appear a single time in the American Constitution, on the contrary: The framers of the Constitution in their First Amendment’s Establishment Clause explicitly excluded any endorsement of any specific religion over another as well as the preference of religion over non-religion on the side of the polity, thereby establishing the American Republic de facto as the first secular state in the modern Western world.

DeSantis should quote the founders of his own country instead of putting words in the mouths of the dead. But these lies are purely intentional: American adolescents are to be brought into line before they can even read and write properly. Of course, the better one succeeds in controlling the thinking of others, the better such tactics serve to achieve one’s own goals. Liars like DeSantis have no qualms about hoodwinking the Americans, and they don’t even shy away from children and teenagers. And clearly – “provisions” like the one announced yesterday bring easy votes from the clueless.

Not even the communists in East Germany lied to me to such an extent as Americans lie to their own people.