Our Big, Fat Fugazi

If you've never seen the movie, "Donnie Brasco", you owe it to yourself to get a copy and watch it at least once. The film is multi-layered with lessons involving many essential human emotions, to say the least, honesty, loyalty, and the struggle to maintain dignity. It's also a great triumph for acting. Al Pacino and Johnny Depp give masterful performances.

The scene above is the first meeting of the two main characters, but the reason it's here is because of Depp's invocation of the word "fugazi." In other words, a fugazi, or fugazzi, or "Fugazy" is a fake.

The most probable origin of fugazi meaning fake comes from a late 70s, early 80s New York limousine service known as Fugazy Continental, after Bob Fugazy, its owner and the man who promised the public "high class for a low price," as a person trying to display wealth without really having it would hire.

But, the discussion of the meaning of "fugazi" is beside the point. That the recent presidential showdown was anything but an honest debate is the point. The so-called "debate" was a fugazi, a complete fake, like just about everything else presented for public consumption is these days.

There are a number of elements surrounding the staging of this event of international importance that were tip offs that it wasn't real and contained an underhanded agenda.
The timing was the first clue. No presidential debate had ever been held this early, nearly two months before the official party nominations. More than a few skeptics on both sides of the aisle thought this was unusual and that the Democrats, in particular, were up to their usual funny business.

Then there was the matter of the host, CNN, no doubt the most distrusted and anti-Trump media outlet in the world. And, then, the rules. The debaters would have two minutes to answer questions from serial spinner, Jake Tapper, and the utterly vacuous Dana Bash, during which the opponent's microphone was silenced.

There were to be no interruptions, especially while Brandon (Biden) would ramble incoherently.

This entire staged event was a set-up, designed to give the media the opportunity to explain to the clueless American public that Joe Biden was not fit to run the country for another four years and to give the Democrats time to find a replacement before the conventions in their increasingly desperate plot to keep Donald J. Trump from ever setting foot in the White House again.

Right from the start, it was obvious that Biden's handlers had access to the questions beforehand because his answers were well-rehearsed. The two minute answering period was designed not for Biden or Trump to actually address the question at hand, but to unleash various talking points or assail their opponent with accusations of wrong-doing or failures of their office, whether true or not.

Thus, there was no debate, per se, only two minutes of hate (hat tip to George Orwell) followed by a minute of denial or counter-attack. It was just awful. It became even more surreal when the moderators cut Biden's rambling and bumbling off on multiple occasions. Plus, they didn't go after Trump with the usual "gotcha" gusto that's the customary form from CNN media operatives.

"In" the fix certainly was.

Besides, Trump's facial expressions being Oscar-worthy stuff of Shakespearian quality, it was probably a good thing the NBA and NHL playoffs were over and done, because a game six or seven surely would captured a larger audience share than this perniciously plotted attempt to sway public opinion and set up the possibility of replacing Biden on the ticket.

The immediate aftermath was almost predictable, but strayed far from the usual half-truths, spinning, spewing, and fawning over Biden. On the major networks, all the talk was about how poorly Biden performed. There was no attempt to critique finer points either candidate made - there were few, if any - only a media chorus of "OMG, Biden isn't all there!" which, of course, most of the usually-inattentive public knew all along.

Giving media and the Democrats this kind of out was rather gracious of the Republicans and Trump himself, who fell right into the trap, either knowingly or not. Trump was well aware that he'd mop the floor with Biden as his opponent in a live debate. He agreed to the format and the timing if only to speed along the process of getting himself elected, improve his polling, and get some extra national attention. He could hardly resist.

So, this is what politics in America looks like in 2024. A blundering, babbling current president accusing a former president of having sex with a porn star (In itself that isn't a bad thing. It's something a lot of men wish they could do.) and the former president telling the current one how badly he's wrecking the country.

Somewhere along the line, Americans of all stripes will have to make up their own minds, but not before those minds are bent and twisted into all manner of contortions worthy of a Harry Houdini performance. According to the experts in the land of make-believe politics like the WEF, intel agencies, and the plethora of government-supported, agenda driven think tanks and public policy associations, the American public isn't smart enough to decide national issues nor choose their presidents, or congress, or laws.

The media circus over whether Joe Biden should represent the Democrats in the race for the White House is proceeding with alacrity. Already the number one topic on all the Sunday shows, the debate over Biden's mental health has now become the main issue of the election. Not immigration. Not foreign policy. Not Ukraine. Not genocide. And certainly, not the economy.

Those issues are for the elites to decide, not the general public, which leads to the inevitable ponderable, now that we've had a fugazi debate, will the next election also be a fugazi, like the last one?

Historic July Events

July 1, 1862 - President Abraham Lincoln signed the first income tax bill, levying a 3% income tax on annual incomes of $600-$10,000 and a 5% tax on incomes over $10,000.

July 1, 1863 - Beginning of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.

July 2, 1776 - The Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the following resolution, originally introduced on June 7, by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances. That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation."

July 2, 1881 - President James A. Garfield was shot and mortally wounded as he entered a railway station in Washington, D.C. He died on September 19th.

July 3, 1775 - During the American Revolution, George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

July 4, 1776 - The Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress.

July 7, 1906 - Baseball pitcher Leroy R. (Satchel) Paige (1906-1982) was born in Mobile, Alabama. Following a career in the Negro Leagues, he became, at age 42, the first African American pitcher in the American League. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

July 10, 1943 - The Allied invasion of Italy began with an attack on the island of Sicily.

July 12, 1817 - American philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born in Concord, Massachusetts.

July 14, 1789 - The fall of the Bastille occurred at the beginning of the French Revolution.

July 16, 1945 - The experimental Atomic bomb "Fat Boy" was set off at 5:30 a.m. in the desert of New Mexico desert, creating a mushroom cloud rising 41,000 feet.

July 17, 1918 - In the Russian town of Ekaterinburg in Siberia, former Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children were brutally murdered by Bolsheviks.

July 20, 1969 - A global audience watched on television as Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first step onto the moon. As he stepped onto the moon's surface he proclaimed, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"

July 21, 1899 - Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was born in Oak Park, Illinois.

July 22, 1934 - Bank robber John Dillinger (1902-1934) was shot and killed by FBI agents as he left Chicago's Biograph Movie Theater after watching the film Manhattan Melodrama starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy.

July 26, 1856 - Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, Ireland.

July 30, 1975 - Former Teamsters Union leader James Hoffa was last seen outside a restaurant near Detroit, Michigan.

July 30, 1963 - Automotive pioneer Henry Ford (1863-1947) was born in Dearborn Township, Michigan.

July 31, 1790 - Opening of the U.S. Patent Office. The first U.S. patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a new method of making pearlash and potash and was signed by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.