Paul Luvera Journal

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post wrote a column “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.” It dealt with the standing ovations for Joseph Stalin out of fear of stopping to applaud his speeches. She describes the consequences for being the first to stop applauding. She recounts this from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag  Archipelago” an illustration of this truth:  "At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just…

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Just when I had made up my mind not to write about the coronavirus or President Trump, Mr. Trump has done it again. I can't sit silent when he once again attacks reporters for asking relevant questions with a childish tantrum and while  so badly mistaken about his constitutional power. On Monday President Trump conducted a shouting exchange with reporters involving name calling and interrupting. He took the occasion to repeatedly claim he had the ultimate  and final power to compel…

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I'm nor sure why I watched another Democratic debate last night. Having watched the previous debates, I didn't expect to learn anything helpful. Yet I decided to watch it anyway. It's sort of like not being able to not watch a replay video of a train wreck – morbid curiosity?  Everyone who also watched will have their own viewpoint, but here's mine. To start with, in evaluating candidates,  I think you have to keep in mind the distinction between those…

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We all know the extraordinary record regarding the crowd of people Donald Trump has selected for administration posts and praised as exceptionally qualified for the position only to fire them a short time later or have them resign.This never ending rotation of people first in his favor and shortly thereafter attacked by him as utterly unqualified and then totally contemptible reminds me of Shakespeare's play of Henry VIII. There is the famous speech of Wolsey about his downfall from favor…

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On Wednesday of this week President Donald Trump sat in the oval office holding up a map which he claimed confirmed his earlier assertion that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian even though the National Weather and Service had immediately denied his statement saying: "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian." Worse, the map he displayed had obviously been doctored by adding a felt tip line extending the official storm path so it now went into Alabama. Instead of admitting…

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I wouldn't call the two nights a "debate." A debate involves people in disagreement about the same subject who are given equal time to convince judges which side has the correct position on the matter measured by their logic and delivery. That's not close to what these TV shows are because, at best, they are a brief preview of the people running for president while trying to impress voters. As conducted, they do not provide equal time to each candidate,…

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Regarding the news about a missile strike on Iran after it destroyed our drone, Donald Trump has tweeted and told the media this story:  "We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die," Trump said, "150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone." In his telling of his story about the situation,…

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 Prince Machiavelli once said: "politics has no relation to morals." Nor does it appear to have any relation to logical thinking and honest reasoning  as far as president Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are concerned. Let's start with the facts and then examine the arguments they are making about the government shutdown. FACT: There is only one reason and one person who is responsible for the shutdown- Donald Trump. He famously took credit for it on public television: "I…

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Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone can be blind to the truth because of their bias about their position on an issue. It’s a fact that almost all politicians are regarded as untrustworthy about the truth when political consequences are involved. But the majority of people generally are truthful and past presidents have been careful about their representations because of the media checking on them. None, in recent history, have made it a practice to make totally outrageous fabricated claims about important national…

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Let's start the discussion of President Trump's demands of Billions of dollars for a wall with what is a billion? Well, a billion seconds ago it was 1959. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion years ago our ancestors were living in the stone age. If we wanted to pay a debt of $1 billion dollars by paying one dollar every second, it would take 31 years and 259 days. President Trump demands $5.7 Billion dollars as a…

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