In God We Trust. Maybe

So, who do you trust? Do you trust the people involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s death? They tell you he committed suicide. Despite any number of bizarre coincidences that suggest he was done in by someone. So, do you trust the officials who tell you otherwise? Do you trust your FBI? If you say you don’t, I […]

Already an Subcriber? Log in

Get Instant Access to This Article

Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.

So, who do you trust?

Do you trust the people involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s death? They tell you he committed suicide. Despite any number of bizarre coincidences that suggest he was done in by someone. So, do you trust the officials who tell you otherwise?

Do you trust your FBI? If you say you don’t, I can’t blame you. An entire level of top guys there have been booted. More have resigned under a cloud. You have seen any number of accusations of sleazy FBI behavior flung against the proverbial wall. Many have stuck. 

You maybe saw director James Comey on TV a few times. You maybe have heard him tell one story, then an opposite story at a later date. You maybe followed his convoluted reasoning regarding Hillary Clinton’s email problems.

You maybe read how Comey’s team gave unprecedented soft treatment to Clinton and her staff. Would you trust him again at the head of our FBI? Do you trust the FBI to give equal treatment to all under our laws? Will they treat you the same way they will treat a politician or big government official?

You know our intelligence agencies dropped the ball leading up to 9/11. You know they got wrong the question of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. You should know by now they were knee-deep in the sludgy surveillance of Donald Trump’s campaign. You maybe have seen former CIA director John Brennan openly lie to the public. (He totally contradicted himself on a few occasions.)

You may also remember that James Clapper, the former head of our NSA, assured us his agency was not collecting our phone data wholesale — until he later admitted it was.

So, do you trust the birds that run these agencies to always tell us the truth? Do you trust the intel agencies to get things right?

How about the TSA? The guys who check you through the scanners at airports. They miss about 70 percent of fake weapons. Undercover guys try to sneak guns, knives, and explosives through checkpoints. Try? Better to say that they move these dangerous items past the inspectors. But inspectors catch 30 percent of them.

Hey, this is a big improvement. Used to be TSA missed 95 percent of this stuff.

So, if I ask if you trust TSA to nab bad guys who want to get on your flight, what do you answer?

Then there is the IRS. You must have read or seen how Lois Lerner directed a program that targeted conservative groups. The FBI, looking into this, found a lot of mismanagement, etc., blah, blah. But it saw no political mischief. Oh no. And the IRS denied wrong doing. Lois pled the fifth before the House. She resigned and started collecting her pension.

The IRS also simply refused to cough up all kinds of information that would have made it look bad. It resorted to full cover-up.

So, what do you think? Trustworthy?

How about the Washington, D.C. bureaucracy? We see countless cover-ups. We see foot-dragging when agencies are ordered to produce documents. They take years to find emails or bits of info that would make them look bad.

Trust is an elusive thing, isn’t it? My friend, now in his 60s, told me he trusts no one. No one. Why is that? He is Jewish. “When I was a kid, at every family gathering, my relatives talked about the horrors Jews suffered in World War II. They talked about neighbors and best friends betraying Jews, helping to send them to the death camps. Do you blame me for trusting no one?”

Ronald Reagan told us to: “Trust but verify.” He said this when he talked about nuclear agreements with the Soviets. How ironic. It was an old Russian rhyme. “Overlay, no proveryai.”

Russia’s Lenin voiced similar sentiments. Brutal dictator Stalin built upon them. He said, “A healthy distrust is a good basis for working together.”

Yeah, nice words. But who in hell trusts the evil, lying, villainous, colluding Russians? After all, Stalin also said, “I trust no one, not even myself.”

Now that is more than a little mind-boggling. Trust me.

From Tom…as in Morgan.                     

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home in upstate New York. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com, read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com, or find him on Facebook. 

Tom Morgan: