governments live die by their ability to sustain corruption
Mr. Trump is apparently profiting from these cases: The Times estimates that he has made more than $1.4 billion since he was elected to his second term, in part from supplicants seeking his clemency. But his subordinates, too, have benefited from the broader rollback of white-collar prosecutions.
His border czar, Tom Homan, for instance, accepted $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from undercover F.B.I. agents in September 2024 in exchange for promising to secure government favors if Mr. Trump returned to office. (Mr. Homan has denied taking the money.) Such a scheme would have ordinarily resulted in a scandal, and quite likely a prosecution. But the office that would have investigated Mr. Homan has been largely gutted — just five attorneys reportedly remain — and Mr. Homan himself remains in office.
All this self-dealing is a threat to our democracy. Illiberal governments tend to live or die by their ability to sustain corruption. That’s because they rely for support on a network of oligarchs, who in turn are tied to the administration’s success. It happened in Hungary, in Turkey, in Russia and increasingly, it is happening here.
We don’t have to end up that way. As other countries’ experience shows, when bribery is risky, rich criminals are less likely to try it, and less likely to feel bound to a regime’s success. When corruption is revealed, voters often realize that the strongman they elected cares more for a small group of rich cronies than he does about them. That’s why it’s often the corruption that is key to toppling autocratic leaders, like Joseph Estrada in the Philippines, Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine and Otto Pérez Molina in Guatemala.
In a world where the Department of Justice and the president are either indifferent to or actively support rich criminals, what can be done?
In this high powered world of corruption at the highest levels of government, something to remember is the words of Silvio Dante when he said, “You’re only as good as your last envelope.“
most enviable of titles, the character of an honest man
In a letter to Alexander Hamilton dated 28 August 1788, George Washington wrote:
Still I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man, as well as prove (what I desire to be considered in reality) that I am …
The character of an honest man.
The headline comes to mind, “Channel 4 to mark Trump’s UK visit with ‘longest uninterrupted reel of untruths’”.
The occassion for the show was the current man in office and his visit tot he UK in Ocotber of 2025.
Another columnist for the Guardian wrote: “Channel 4 will be marking Donald Trump’s visit to the UK with what it describes as “the longest uninterrupted reel of untruths, falsehoods and distortions ever broadcast on television”. It will play more than 100 of Trump’s lies or misleading statements in a segment called Trump v The Truth. All his greatest hits, from false claims about the price of eggs to disgusting lies about the US spending millions on condoms for Hamas, packaged together.
Obviously we’ve got to be fair and balanced here, though, haven’t we? Gotta show both sides. So I think it’s only right that Channel 4 also broadcast a 10-second segment covering all of the truthful and astute things the president has said”
Still I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man, as well as prove (what I desire to be considered in reality) that I am …
The character of an honest man.
Washington’s letter came at the time when the new country was discussing the adoption the new Constitution that had been pulled together in 1787.
It was during the discussion about the Executive and its powers that Dr. Ben Franklin said:
“The first man put at the helm will be a good one.
No body knows what sort may come afterwards.“*
Just some thoughts for Presidents Day, 2026.
*Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention, Monday June 4, 1787 – The Question was resumed on motion of Mr. PINKNEY 2ded. by WILSON, “shall the blank for the number of the Executive be filled with a single person?”
worst of times, age of foolishness, the epoch of incredulity
La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie!
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way –
in short, the period was so far like the present period,
that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil,
in the superlative degree of comparison only.
The opening to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
Mr. Dickens was trying to portray life in the era of the French Revolution.
Something the Brits must have viewed with a bit of relief.
See the French had a law about leaving France to go to the new world.
You had support the government, had to support the King and you had to be a Catholic in good standing with the Church.
The Brits took the line of ‘if you don’t like it here, you can go to America and complain there.’
So those PROTESTing PROTESTants did and when the time came for a British revolution, it was far from home.
In France, they kept all the rabble rousers home and when they had their revolution it was in the front yard.
Mr. Dickens was writing a little more than 50 years after the events of revolution in France.
Here is almost 225 years later.
And it is the worst of times …
The age of foolishness …
The epoch of incredulity …
The season of Darkness …
The winter of despair …
Nothing before us …
We were all going direct not to Heaven, but the other way …
Still …
Remember, the barricade blocks the street but opens the way.
PS: By chance I put this haiku together from the book and was thinking about a picture to use and I checked my Thurber database to see that this drawing with the caption,See you at the barricades, Mr. Whitsonby! was first published in the New Yorker Magazine on February 15, 1936. 90 years ago today! And as we all remember, to the barricades is the motto of the French Revolution or as history has it, La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie! or The barricade blocks the street but opens the way.
way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – if followed God forever bless
According to Wikipedia, The 1862 State of the Union Address was written by the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and delivered to the 37th United States Congress, on Monday, December 1, 1862, amid the ongoing American Civil War.
This address was Lincoln’s longest State of the Union Address, consisting of 8,385 words.
In the closing paragraphs of this address, Lincoln penned words which have been remembered and quoted frequently by presidents and other American political figures. Lincoln’s concluding remarks were as follows:
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history.
We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.
No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
We say we are for the Union.
The world will not forget that we say this.
We know how to save the Union.
The world knows we do know how to save it.
We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.
In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.
Other means may succeed; this could not fail.
The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just —a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.
Can’t pass by Mr. Lincoln on his birthday.
It used to be a big day.
Probably still should be.
More so not that other people have elevated the office of President of the United States.
But that other people have demonstrated the depths to which the office can sink.
I think of what Alistair Cooke wrote about Mr. Lincoln in his book, America:
“It is difficult, and in some quarters thought to be almost tasteless, to talk sense about Lincoln.
But we must try.
For the holy image and the living man were very far apart, and keeping them so does no service either to Lincoln or to the art of government.
Like all strong characters, he was well hated, and like most frontiersmen who have come to high office—like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson—he was ridiculed for his directness and country manners.
The London Times called him “the Baboon.”
Lincoln had a gangling gait, a disturbing fondness for rough stories, and a maddening habit of being, in a kind of tooth-sucking way, wiser and sharper than you. (To make it worse, most of the time he was.)”
On the 100th anniversary of Mr. Lincoln’s birth, biographer Ida Tarbell spoke at the University of Michigan on the topic, “Abraham Lincoln : an address the Centennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.”
Ms. Tarbell’s address was part of 1908-1909 schedule of speakers arranged by the Students’ Lecture Association of the University of Michigan.
I was fascinated to see the Hon. W. Bourke Cockran also on the list.
He is the Bourke Cockran in this oft told story of Mr. Churchill … “Adlai Stevenson, himself a notable speaker, often reminisced about his last meeting with Churchill. I asked him on whom or what he had based his oratorical style. Churchill replied, “It was an American statesman who inspired me and taught me how to use every note of the human voice like an organ.” Winston then to my amazement started to quote long excerpts from Bourke Cockran’s speeches of 60 years before. “He was my model,” Churchill said. “I learned from him how to hold thousands in thrall.”
It must have been an interesting lecture to attend.
Ms. Tarbell spoke in University Hall, a hall that held 2500 people in a building that stood where Angell Hall now stands on the UofM campus.
She was introduced by the President of the University, James Angell and gave a lecture that, as stated in The Michigan Daily account, was made by the “probably the best informed person living in regard to Lincoln.”
Her final words on the subject?
It is doubtful if this country, if any country, has produced a man so worthy of our study and our following as is Abraham Lincoln.
Who indeed is there so fit to guide us in that highest of tasks – the giving of service?
Whoever saturated himself so with his subject?
Whoever trusted more utterly to the integrity of his logic, and to the appeal for the sense of human justice?
Whoever put aside with more contempt all the tricks of his trade – appeals to emotion simply to stir emotion, wit simply to arouse a laugh, subterfuges and evasion to escape valid objection?
Whoever handled with more honesty and respect his tasks?
Whoever struggled harder to understand not only with his head but with his heart and understanding, wrestled more to make others understand?
Whoever looked more deeply, more gently, into the hearts of men, and having looked, put into more moving words what he had seen? He has no parallel.
He stands in a towering lonely figure – a man who, by the persistent and reverential following of his own highest instincts, unaided, raised himself from the soil to place of the First American.
Now, 217 years after Mr. Lincoln’s birth … well, its beyond belief isn’t it.
ethical demand must resonate in our hearts revealed in our lives
These issues are fundamental to the disciple of Jesus Christ.
“What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
I ask the faithful to join with people of good will everywhere and to stand with those who are afraid to leave their homes, afraid to go to the hospital, afraid to take their children to school, afraid to buy groceries — those who are forced to live in fear every moment of every day.
These are the ways we stand with Jesus Christ.
And between our voices and our always respectful, nonviolent witness, we might just reveal that the soul of our great nation is alive and well in us.
Read that line again, “What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
How can any Christian any where read that and not feel called upon to act, to do something.
Anything but support what is happening and if not openly support, say nothing.
Again, “What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
It might also be good to remember the warning.
What warning?
I point you back to Bible to the Book of Matthew, Chapter 7.
I’ll quote the verse in the King James English as it seems to resonate in my heart.
Chapter 7, verse 21 says, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
And in verse 23 …
Verse 23 reads, “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you.”
These issues are fundamental to the disciple of Jesus Christ.
Who willingly runs that risk?
Read the complete essay below the photo.
In the light of recent and tragic immigration enforcement incidents, a great many individuals have asked my opinion of our nation’s immigration procedures.
Actually, they are among the issues that keep me awake at night.
Before I address the question, please allow me to recount a portion of my personal history which — along with the Gospel and Catholic teachings — has profoundly affected my understanding of the situation.
‘What you do to the least among you, you do to me’
When I served as the Bishop of Tucson, Arizona, my diocese contained the entire Arizona-Mexico border. Working with government entities, Tucson’s Catholic Charities coordinated the reception of thousands of immigrants during my tenure.
While it was usually a far lesser number, at its peak our Catholic Charities processed 1,400 asylum-seekers and immigrants per day. While Catholic theology makes no distinction between assisting immigrations with or without documents, I would note that every person we assisted was brought to us by the U.S. Border Patrol or other federal agents, and each was in possession of valid immigration documents.
In my own interactions with these immigrants, I knew I was on holy ground as I would hear their stories. I would also witness the traumatic wounds of those who had seen relatives killed or did all they could to find food for starving children. I am forever changed by that experience, and when I couple it with Our Lord’s teaching, “What you do to the least among you, you do to me,” I am compelled to speak on their behalf.
Fatal and toxic
In the last few weeks, we have witnessed a 5-year-old child, Liam Conejo Ramos, separated from his mother and quickly sent with his father from Minnesota to a detention center in Texas. This fast relocation of detainees seems to be a policy that seeks to separate the detained from family, community or any local legal assistance.
As this family entered the U.S. as legal asylum-seekers and committed no crimes, many are left to wonder, why focus on them? Having largely failed to detain and deport the large numbers of violent criminals as promised, is Immigrations and Customs Enforcement now rounding up legal asylum seekers for the sake of an optic of success?
We then witnessed the killing of Renee Good, whose death at the hands of ICE agents was ruled a homicide by the local medical examiner’s office. Rather than allowing for a transparent and independent investigation of the death, our federal government is uncooperative, and insisting on doing only the equivalent of an internal investigation.
More recently, we have the tragic death of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs Hospital nurse. A common concern in both deaths is that they appear to have been fatal over-uses of violent force on the part of federal agents. The matter is made further toxic by leadership vilifying Good and Pretti within hours of their killings, despite having no substantial knowledge of the facts at that time.
America’s soul is at risk
I must admit that when I look at the totality of this situation, I am dumbfounded and deeply disturbed.
As a proud American, I have always lived by the belief that we are a nation of guiding values, a nation of noble virtues, a nation established on the rule of law and respectful of human rights. Increasingly, I find myself asking if our nation is losing its very soul.
For this reason, I join my voice to the growing number of those who have expressed grave concern for what is happening in our midst.
I also reject any notion of an internal investigation of these incidents, and instead call for an independent and transparent review of these actions.
Lastly, I call for a restoration of entirely innocent small children who have been separated from their mothers. Are we not better than that?
We must acknowledge that a substantial degree of responsibility for this catastrophe flows from the failure of our federal government to craft reasonable immigration reform.
Missing that federal leadership, we should not be surprised at the humanitarian and moral crisis that has resulted.
It seems that Americans can only envision two options: Either open borders with no restraint, or closed borders with no immigration of any kind.
That dichotomy is a lie. It is quite possible to acknowledge, respect and defend our borders, while also creating a path for the same kind of immigration that brought many of our ancestors to this nation.
I believe that our elected legislators are intelligent and capable. What is lacking is unified resolve to create this critical immigration reform. While admitting that it is a daunting task, I nevertheless urge our legislators to address what is truly a life-or-death issue, even if it entails braving the onslaught of criticism from those entrenched on one side or the other of this crisis.
Christ’s ethical demand
Without substantial immigration reform that balances legitimately maintained borders with the mercy that has always been at the root of our nation, I fear we will continue to see 5-year-olds separated from mothers, American citizens killed while protesting or exercising their right to free speech and documented immigrants who arrived in this nation via the correct channels rounded up for deportation.
Again, these issues are fundamental to the disciple of Jesus Christ. “What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
I ask the faithful to join with people of good will everywhere and to stand with those who are afraid to leave their homes, afraid to go to the hospital, afraid to take their children to school, afraid to buy groceries — those who are forced to live in fear every moment of every day.
These are the ways we stand with Jesus Christ. And between our voices and our always respectful, nonviolent witness, we might just reveal that the soul of our great nation is alive and well in us.
May God bless you, may God bless those at risk and may God bless our great nation.
Edward J. Weisenburger is the Archbishop of Detroit.
No Haiku For You 