By Bob  Gaydos

“You’re blunt.”

“I’m blunt?”

“You tell people what you think. You tell the truth.”

I’m blunt.

Well, if that’s true, it’s the result of 23 years of writing daily editorials for a local newspaper and another two decades of doing the same thing in retirement via the Internet. You get used to getting to the point.

The brief conversation above with a friend was in regard to whether I had said something to offend a mutual acquaintance.

Turns out I had.

What I said was something I have been compelled to write (and occasionally say) for the better part of 10 years: “You’re part of the problem.”

Apparently, that’s blunt. It’s also unfortunately true, and not just about our mutual acquaintance, but millions of other Americans. They’re members of the “both sides are the same” crowd. The Americans who have plenty of gripes, but don’t bother to vote because, “what’s the use, they’re all the same, they all lie, they’re all crooked, they’re all voting where the money is, they’re all …” Etcetera.

That millions of Americans think that way is true. And sometimes the truth is hard to hear. That doesn’t make it any less true.

To have gone through ten years of Donald Trump in politics, all the lies, the promises, the grifting, the chaos, the incompetence, the racism, the bigotry, the greed, the abuse of power, the absolute indifference to the rule of law and the utter embarrassment of the fracturing of America’s position as leader of the free world and the total surrender of the Republican Party to all of that, to, in fact, as the party in power, allowing all of that to happen and to then argue that both parties are the same is to simply ignore reality.

Democracy is not a spectator sport. To protect and preserve it, the people have to participate in it. They must be engaged, informed, educated on the issues that are important to them. They must speak out when they are angry, let the politicians know. And they have to vote for the candidates who espouse and work for the things that are important to them and not the ones who, in our times, out of fear or simple greed, are allowing Trump and his minions to turn the American dream into a nightmare.

Look at the facts. Who did this? A convicted felon who is an accused pedophile who pardoned all those “patriots” who attacked the nation’s Capitol, who started a war without the approval of Congress that has thrown the world’s economy into chaos and who every day shows less and less of a connection to reality and, by the way, threatens to remove the concepts of free speech and a free press from the Constitution.

While Democrats have worked with varying results to deal with that mess and try to preserve the pillars of democracy, the Republican Party has stood by meekly allowing it. Some Republicans in Congress actually even left town to avoid dealing with it all.

So no, sorry, both parties are not the same. If you, whoever you are, cannot or will not see that and vote accordingly, you are absolutely, at this point, a big part of the problem.

Sorry if I was blunt.

Bad Bunny and his Grammy

By Bob Gaydos

   I was scanning one of those social media posts about the various generations — The Greatest, Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X, Gen Z … — and wondered what mine was and, heck, where it was. Turns out I’m part of the Silent Generation.

     Who knew? Did I miss the memo that I was supposed to focus on my career and hold my tongue for 84 years? Well, live and learn.

      I guess being born into the war years and inheriting the prosperity that came with victory was supposed to make us care only about ice cream sodas and eventually rock and roll. Not a bad deal, but honestly, I gotta say I think we’ve also been pretty vocal about race, Vietnam, Iraq, gay rights, women’s rights, sports betting … etcetera. Life.

    So, in the spirit of the not so silent generation and because as a journalist I’ve unknowingly been violating my generation’s assigned code for 60 years, I’d just like to comment on two recent events. 

    — Don Lemon and three other black journalists were arrested for charges brought against them while covering a demonstration in Minnesota against ICE. In a church. He’s accused of preventing people from exercising their right to religious freedom. The demonstrators were protesting against the church minister for his cooperation with ICE. The demonstration and Lemon’s press coverage were both protected by the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and a free press. Not negotiable. 

    Attorney General Pam Bondi couldn’t find a legal way to arrest Lemon (a judge refused to issue a warrant), so she slapped together a secret grand jury and, undoubtedly, lied.

  This gestapo-like policing to arrest journalists who have been critical of Bondi’s boss is what the Greatest Generation — my parents’ generation — fought to eliminate. No American of any generation should support it. None. Ever.

    — Someone named Bad Bunny is the lead act at halftime of Sunday’s Super Bowl. Full disclosure: Who?

     No, I never heard of the performer until the NFL announced his selection. Then he just won the Grammy for best album of the year. And then, he tore Donald Trump a new one in his acceptance speech live on TV, denouncing ICE tactics and saying the violence is not who we are as human beings. 

     Bad Bunny also happens to be Puerto Rican. Trump hit the roof, typically insulting everything about Bad Bunny and saying he won’t watch the Super Bowl. Who cares?

     I’m now probably going to watch the half time show to see what all the fuss is about. It will be in Spanish. I suspect I won’t be crazy about the music, since I grew up with the crooners and then the rockers and the jazz giants and the folk story tellers. (Great times). But I’ll watch.

     Bottom line?

— Pam Bondi: Bad.ii

— Bad Bunny: Good. (Although I’m still not a fan of the name.)

****

     PS: Go Seattle!

By Bob Gaydos

Something to consider as you stock the cooler, clean the grill and get the burgers, hot dogs and buns ready for Friday’s Fourth of July celebration: On the eve of Independence Day, Paramount Global, parent company of CBS, agreed to give Donald Trump $16 million because he didn’t like the way the staff at 60 Minutes, the premiere news show at CBS, edited an interview with Kamala Harris last October.

That’s pretty much the gist. Paramount, an entertainment company which has no business owning a news media operation, figured it was cheaper to buy off the president of the United States, than go to court and defend its journalists’ rights under the First Amendment  to the Constitution. A free press, to be specific.

Trump, who was running for president against Harris at the time, sued 60 Minutes, claiming the edited interview was defamatory to him. Editors at 60 Minutes, which has continued to tell the truth about Trump, said it wasn’t. The board at Paramount said we have a bottom line to worry about, new projects to worry about and we don’t want Trump siccing his legal goons on us. They didn’t say that, but that’s the gist.

Trump, who threatens lawsuits almost as much as he lies, just recently threatened to sue both CNN and The New York Times for their reporting on leaked information regarding U.S. bomb strikes on nuclear power sites in Iran.

Trump immediately bragged that the attacks had “decimated” Iran’s nuclear weapon capability. But U.S. intelligence reports a couple of days after the attack cast serious doubt on that assessment. Trump demanded a retraction of the reports by both news agencies.

CNN and The Times stuck to their guns and their reporting. CNN said it will issue no retraction. The Times issued a statement saying, “No retraction is needed. No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”

I sincerely hope so. The Times appears to have gotten over its infatuation with tiptoeing around Trump. Couldn’t have come at a more important time.

The truth is the truth and a free press is a free press. Both have been under constant attack since Trump entered national politics and, unfortunately, a lot of Americans in my opinion have forgotten what it means to have a free and independent press.

You hear a lot of complaints about the so-called “mainstream media,” whoever that may be, but I think the slow death of so many local newspapers, bought up by corporate interests with no journalistic background and concerned only with their bottom lines, has caused many Americans to forget what it means to have a free and independent press delivered every day on their doorstep.

After a while, you don’t know what you don’t know because nobody’s telling you. Except for Trump and his henchmen on social media. And Trump siccing his lawyers on anyone who dares even suggest that he might not be telling the truth.

You can say this is a bit personal for me since I spent more than 40 years working for daily newspapers, 23 of them writing editorials on an almost daily basis. I loved it. From my observation, so did most of the people I worked with. Also, from my observation, the people running the show recognized that, with the freedom guaranteed under the Constitution came a responsibility to be honest and truthful and factual. That’s our job. Tell the truth. Let him sue. We’re not called the Fourth Estate for nothing.

Anyway, something to think about. Have a hotdog on me, forget about the fireworks and maybe let the people at 60 Minutes know you appreciate their efforts.

rjgaydos@gmail.com