By Ed Staskus

   “There’s a sucker born every minute.” PT Barnum

   “John McCain is not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Donald Trump

   “I will build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” Donald Trump

   “The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.” Donald Trump

   “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

   “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries coming here?” Donald Trump

   “We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” JD Vance

   JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, has said that childless women shouldn’t be teachers. It begs the question, what about nuns teaching in Catholic schools?

   “If you believe that today’s ‘climate change’ is caused by too much carbon, you have been fooled. Climate change is natural. The push for clean energy is a scam.” Marjorie Taylor Greene

   “In politics stupidity is not a handicap.” Napoleon Bonaparte

   “On January 6th, when that happened, we were respected all over the world. All over the world, we were respected” Donald Trump

   “Childless Americans should have less voting power than parents.” JD Vance

    “We are producing fossil fuels. That keeps people’s houses warm in the winter. That saves people’s lives, people die in the cold. This earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us. It helps us to feed people, it helps keep people alive. The earth is more green than it was years and years ago, and that is because of the Earth warming.” Marjorie Taylor Greene

   “Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn’t misuse it.” Pope John Paul II

   “I don’t think Ivanka would do that inside Playboy magazine, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her.” Donald Trump

   “The people that came, most of them that came to Washington, D.C., that day, January 6^th, were there to support President Trump. On one side of the Capitol, people were singing, they were praying. I mean it was, you know, amazing. Other side of the Capitol, yeah, there was a little riot going on. Approximately over 800 people went inside the Capitol, but there was a very small percent there in total that day, out of all the people that were there that actually did anything wrong. And they are being persecuted. It’s a political witch hunt.” Marjorie Taylor Greene

   “Randi Weingarten – president of the American Federation of Teachers – doesn’t have a single child. If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.” JD Vance

   “Stupidity is infinitely more fascinating that intelligence. Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none.” Claude Chabrol

   “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Donald Trump

   “Our message is it’s not your fault that you’re a loser. It’s the government’s fault.” JD Vance

   “Wildfires in California are not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes have been started by Pacific Gas & Electric, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project.” Marjorie Taylor Greene

   “Stubborn and ardent clinging to one’s opinion is the best proof of stupidity.” Michel de Montaigne

   “No matter what you do – guns, no guns – it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna come through the cracks.” Donald Trump

   “If I have to create stories to get attention, then that’s what I’m going to do.” JD Vance

   “We are witnessing a communist takeover of our judicial system to target political enemies.” Marjorie Taylor Greene responding to news that the former national leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was sentenced to 22 years for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Enrique Tarrio was found guilty by a jury and the judge who sentenced him was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

   “If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” Will Rogers

   “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.” Donald Trump

   “I used to use the word incompetent. Now I just say stupid. I went to an Ivy League school. I’m very highly educated. I know words. I have the best words. I have the – but there’s no better word than stupid.” Donald Trump

   “You know, I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like – and friends of mine that are, like, English professors – they say, it’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.” Donald Trump

   “Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not so handicapped.” Elbert Hubbard

   “Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say China, in a trade deal? I beat China all the time. All the time.” Donald Trump

   “I probably wouldn’t tell Republicans voting for Comrade Harris anything, because usually it would be maybe a personality problem, maybe they don’t like the way I was tough on China, You know a lot of them don’t want me to be tough on China. A lot of them don’t want me to be tough on anybody because they’re taken care of by people. But for every one they have, I have many, I have so many that have left the Democrats and they’ve come here.” Donald Trump  

   “To be blunt, people would vote for me. They just would. Why? Because I’m so good looking.” Donald Trump

   “Stupidity is infinitely more fascinating that intelligence. Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none.” Karl Kraus

   “The line of ‘Make America great again,’ the phrase, that was mine, I came up with it about a year ago, and I kept using it, and everybody’s using it, they are all loving it. I don’t know, I guess I should copyright it, maybe I have copyrighted it.” Donald Trump

   “I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far. Nobody’s ever been more successful than me. I’m the most successful person ever to run.” Donald Trump

   “All rich, job creating people, that support Comrade Kamala Harris, you are STUPID.  She is seeking an UNREALIZED TAX ON CAPITAL GAINS. If this tax actually gets enacted, it guarantees that we will have a 1929 style Depression. Perhaps even the thought of it would lead to calamity. But at least appraisers and accountants would do well!” Donald Trump

   “Stupidity really gets me going, when it’s just plain stupid, obvious stupidity.” Lewis Black

   “All I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.” Donald Trump

   “Water does not significantly affect a magnet’s strength or function because water is essentially non-magnetic, meaning it doesn’t interact with magnetic fields in a noticeable way.”  Wikipedia

   “I don’t agree with Trump politically, I don’t think he should be anywhere near the White House. I don’t hate the guy. The people who vote for him, I think they’re stupid. I do. I’ll be honest with you.” Howard Stern

   “My candidate is Donald Trump. He has the business sense that the country needs to make the economy go in the direction it needs to go. For too long we’ve gotten into bad trade deals and watched jobs disappear. I have been laid off from several jobs because my jobs relocated either south of the border or into another country altogether. Donald Trump can end a lot of these stupid trade negotiations and get American jobs back in our country. He has built a billion-dollar empire, and yeah, he’s had a few bankruptcies in his past, but what successful businessman hasn’t? So, if it works, hey, you made money, and, if it doesn’t work, that’s what bankruptcy is for. It’s part of the process.” Dan Koehler

   “He’s a man that speaks his mind and he tells the facts the way they are. I think it’s interesting because it’s gonna to determine the direction of the country. If we are going to become just another country where our government is basically the babysitter, or if we’re going to become a country that shows self-efficiency again, like it did when I was a young man. The country I grew up in is definitely not the country I live in.” Pat Acciavatti

   “I guess the stance he’s taken on closing the borders and enforcing, you know, an emphasis on homeland security, that’s my biggest thing with Donald Trump. We need somebody like that that is going to take a stance and do something about it and not just talk about it. Some people think I’m joking, some people think it’s funny, I’ve come across, where people think because I’m Hispanic I’m automatically a Democrat or that’s the way I’m going. It’s a stereotype. I’m more worried because, I mean, Trump, he’s a firecracker. So, it’s scary, yes, it’s scary, we don’t know where we’re going from here.” Herman Delgado

   “Disinformation is more than just lying. it’s the denial and twisting of reality in order to present some desired image to the rest of the world.” Will Hurd

   On August 7, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the Detroit Airport for a rally, where she was received by a large crowd. Four days later Donald Trump posted claims on social media that the crowd was not real, but AI-generated: “She was turned in by an airport maintenance worker who noticed the fake crowd picture. There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She should be disqualified from the election because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”

   Photo images of the event were analyzed with two computer models that can detect patterns associated with AI-generated images. “Both of these models reveal no evidence of AI-generation,” Hany Farid of the University of California stated. “In addition, the text on the signs and plane show none of the usual signs of generative AI,” which can often garble the details in images. So, the crowd was clearly present at Harris’ Detroit-area rally, and there’s no evidence to suggest that the image shown on social media was created or altered with AI. 

   “Some men are just very good at cheating and lying.” Colleen Nolan 

   During the presidential debate with Kamala Harris on ABC Donald Trump said, “In Springfield, Ohio, Haitians are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating, they are eating the pets of the people that live there.”

   The claim spread on social media, with Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance promoting it on X. The post had more than 11 million views. However, the Republican governor of Ohio said none of it was true. “Springfield is having a resurgence in manufacturing and job creation,” he said. “Some of that is thanks to the dramatic influx of Haitian migrants who have arrived in the city over the past three years to fill jobs.” Springfield city officials and law enforcement said there have been “no credible reports” that any killing of pets had actually happened. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called Vance’s comments “dangerous” and a “conspiracy theory based on an element of racism”.

   “When we first started cataloguing President Donald Trump’s false or misleading claims, we recorded 492 suspect claims in the first 100 days of his presidency. On Nov. 2 alone, the day before the 2020 vote, Trump made 503 false or misleading claims as he barnstormed across the country in a desperate effort to win reelection. This astonishing jump in falsehoods is the story of Trump’s tumultuous reign. By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency, averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.” Washington Post Fact Checker Team

   “Global warming will cause the oceans to rise just an eight of an inch in the next 355 years.” Donald Trump

   Sea levels are currently rising more than an eighth of an inch a year according to  scientific estimates.

   “Tariffs on imported Chinese goods will be paid by China, not Americans. No previous president has generated even 10 cents from tariffs on Chinese goods.” Donald Trump

   Tariff payments are made by American importers, not Chinese exporters, and the American government was generating billions from such payments long before Donald Trump took office in 2017.

   “I created the Veterans Choice health care program and got it passed in Congress after others had wanted to do so for 57 years.” Donald Trump

   President Barack Obama was the president who signed the Veterans Choice health care program into law in 2014. 

   “My God Bless the USA Bible is a reminder that the biggest thing we have to bring back in America, and to make America great again, is our religion.” Donald Trump

   The real estate mogul’s God Bless the USA Bibles were printed in a country that he has repeatedly accused of stealing American jobs and engaging in unfair trade practices, namely China. Global trade records reviewed by the Associated Press show a printing company in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou shipped close to 120,000 of the Bibles to the United States earlier this year. The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible, according to databases that track exports and imports. The selling price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million.

   “You can fool all of the people some of time. You can fool some of the people all of the time. But you can’t fool all the people all the time.” Abraham Lincoln

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Atlantic Canada http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. 

“Cross Walk” by Ed Staskus

“Captures the vibe of mid-century NYC, from stickball in the streets to the Mob on the make.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Fiction

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRPSFPKP

Late summer and early autumn. New York City, 1956. President Eisenhower on his way to the opening game of the World Series. A hit man waits in the wings. A Hell’s Kitchen private eye scares up the shadows.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication