Times-Herald

Stray thoughts from the brain pan

- George Smith (EDITOR’S NOTE: George Smith is a former reporter, editor and publisher at several Arkansas newspapers.)

Every single person on this planet, now, then, and in the future, had/has/will have something that irritates the unholy hell out of them.

Jesus had his moneychang­ers;

Abraham Lincoln had a string of incompeten­t generals;

John Wilkes Booth had Lincoln;

Ike Eisenhower had Gen. George S. Patton;

Patton became disgusted over perceived weakness of soldiers;

Rosa Parks hated sitting in the back of the bus when her feet hurt;

The U.S. colonists got piqued over taxation without representa­tion, and;

I see red behind my eyes over incompeten­t, pulpit-pounding, blabber-headed politician­s and talking hairdos who do and say anything to get a headline or a verbal salute on cable news.

That is the poignant lead-in to this topic: People I want to just stop talking!

Al Sharpton had been a go-to spokesman for the black community for decades. He’s gone from obese to ultra-thin but his inane habit of constantly dropping verbal bullets on most people who just happen to be white is so old, it’s moldy.

He lost his daily show on MSNBC because of his focused racism; he now has a weekend show that is a repeat of his thoughts and verbiage from the days he was dogging law enforcemen­t for the 1980s case of the alleged rape of Tawana Brawley, a woman of color. In that instance, Sharpton created a riotous situation by believing a made-up story by an attentionw­anting teenager.

Ms. Brawley was black and said she had been raped for days by white men, who had scrawled racial slurs on her body, creating a made-for-Rev.-Al-in-thespotlig­ht moment.

Of course, he wanted the men, one of whom had been identified as a police officer, drawn and quartered, but when an investigat­ion proved the charges were false, he convenient­ly forgot to apologize for being a pious fool.

His black vs. white rhetoric has caused more harm over the years than it has helped. The fact he is still considered a spokesman to minorities is astounding, dismaying, and should be a clarion call that people of color need to get another, much better standard carrier.

Michael Moore was, at one time, a reasoned voice for liberalism and a constant irritant to Big Business and shoddy government tactics. Now, he’s just a kook with an ancient resume and his I-wasat-one-time-a-celebrity platform.

His documentar­y films won awards, created needed changes in corporatio­ns, and offered up plausible opportunit­ies for perplexing problems.

Now, he is a mere shadow of his former forceful presence; he mouths about darn near anything because of his prior celebrity status; he’s now like a toothless politician recalling imaginary heydays in the marbled halls of Washington­the-Deficit.

Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, has too much power apparently from a genetic defect that allows him to believe his beliefs should count for more than that of a single citizen. He, like former speaker Mitch McConnell, effectivel­y killed a bill to protect the 2024 elections from foreign interferen­ce. Why? When asked, he gave an answer that blew up the Internatio­nal BS-o-meter: The federal government should not interfere with states’ rights to protect their own elections is what he said.

This is the same man that still backs up his savior’s (Trump) claim of a stolen 2020 election.

In other words, “Russia, welcome to the election fray! Let’s party like it is 2016 and 2020.”

Joe Biden does not get a full pass on his verbal faux pas. Although he has a speech impediment (he has been a lifelong stutterer and it’s apparent when the malady is approachin­g, as he stops and squeezes his eyes tightly as he tries to pull up the word or phrase), his mentally embossed empathy for the plight of citizens and immigrants alike is apparent in virtually every action he takes. He is an old man and he makes verbal blunders; there is, however, no doubt his heart is in the right place and being a dictator is not on his list of life goals.

Finally, for Donald Trump and his band of mouthy miscreants and scary scalawags, it’s past time to realize that every time their mouths open, their tongues waggle in high gear and words slip unseen past their eyeteeth, negative things happen.

Their combined blather has created more animosity toward the party they pretend to embrace, alienated countries that used to be our closest and most reliable allies, and widen the ideologica­l abyss that divides this country. There is no way to justify their actions which are underminin­g the foundation­s of democracy; their errant, baffling and incomparab­le words are helping sworn enemies of this nation.

Of course, Trump leads the Cult of Foolish People; they follow his lead. What he refuses to see, and what they refuse to acknowledg­e, is that every time Trump opens his mouth…the Republican Party suffers.

All of you: Think before you speak. And, sometimes, whatever you were going to say…forget it. Please and thank you.

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