Stephen Wertheim speaks the truth:
I think about Federalist Paper No. 68 sometimes:
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: "For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration. ....is that I can be a serious person while also taking moments for frivolous things that bring me some small bit of joy in this miserable world.
So, yes, I just spent a few minutes perusing the Star Trek reddit.
At the beginning of the week, I was prepared to argue that investigating and prosecuting Trump -- at the federal level, at least -- would be more trouble than it's worth. I don't want the Biden Administration to *also* be all about Donald Trump. Four years is enough, right?
Now I think he's a tumor that must be excised. It will probably cause a lot of pain, but there has to be a price for his wholesale assault on the integrity of the election, on top of his thoroughgoing corruption.
I would really like to settle down for a few minutes to think about how to be an effective and quality opinion writer when Trump leaves office. The benefit of Trump's presidency was a certain, righteous clarity -- he is such a bad president, that often writing was a matter of waiting for him to do something bad, then criticize it. That's overly reductive, but not as much as I would like it to be. And I'm ok with that. Trump really is a bad president. Serving truth, in my mind, means constantly pointing how how he steers America wrong.
The problem with my whole "pivot to a post-Trump future" plan, though, is that Trump won't pivot. There's still too much happening. We should be looking forward to Joe Biden's presidency. Right now, though, the current president is still keeping all of us on our tippy toes.
...is that our healthcare system might be broken if and when we get to the other side of this.
More than 900 staff members across the Midwest Mayo Clinic system have been diagnosed with Covid-19 over the last 14 days, a spokesperson told CNN "Our staff are being infected mostly due to community spread (93% of staff infections), and this impacts our ability to care for patients," Kelley Luckstein wrote to CNN in a Wednesday email.
