By Stephen Macaulay

Small-town Fourth of July celebrations often have a case where during the fireworks at the end of the day a rocket goes up and rather than exploding into a visual rendition of John Phillips Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever,” there is a disappointing fizzle. 

And for some people, that is the effect of the partial release of the findings of the Fulton County special grand jury looking into whether Donald Trump and his minions unlawfully interfered with the results of the 2020 presidential election.

No one should be surprised that a group of ignominious grifters who claim to be working on behalf of the public or supporters of the commonweal are likely to have committed perjury. These people aren’t in it for a greater cause. They lie and cheat because it goes to their personal benefit.

Does anyone actually imagine that except for the most delusional among them, these people truly thought that Trump won the election and therefore it was up to their machinations to maintain the sovereignty of the Republic in an unsullied manner? Or did they simply think that because they were in the good graces of the Boss this would redound to their well-being: Four more years of feeding on the stew of the Swamp that they, and he, loudly proclaimed they were draining.

And after he retired from office to his Schlagmetal-gilted palace, they thought they would have the opportunity to get a position at the Heritage Foundation or other group that once actually supported conservative beliefs only to surrender their values for a seat at the table where they could tug their forelocks and pledge fealty to a man who probably thinks Edmund Burke is the name of the title character of Burke’s Law. (For those of you who don’t remember the TV show of 1963-1966, Amos Burke was a millionaire L.A. police detective who was driven around in a Rolls — but at least he solved crimes and didn’t commit them.)

Back to the firework that didn’t have the anticipated explosive display.

Many people probably thought that the proverbial jig would be up for Trump, that he would be charged with not just something, but many things. What these people had long anticipated would finally come to pass.

And it hasn’t. This doesn’t mean that it won’t. It doesn’t mean that Trump has slithered away once again. It simply means that the old saw is right: “The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow, but exceedingly fine.”

Let’s look at the situation from another perspective, one that has to do with things like discerning right from wrong and feeling shame for one’s bad actions.

Does anyone think that Trump was telling the truth when he told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “As you know, every single state … we won every state” or “There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes”?

And by “anyone” this includes those who were brought before the grand jury. They know that was simply not so. But they also know that Trump was able to lie while in office some extraordinarily large number of times (The Washington Post calculated over 30,000, so even if we imagine that this is a “fake” calculation borne of Jeff Bezos owning the Post and we cut it down to 10% of that figure, that’s still 3,000 lies—and he was in office for 1,460 days, so that’s approximately a lie every other day.)

The surprising — and disappointing — thing is that people who claim to uphold laws like those codified in the Ten Commandments (a refresher — Nine: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” — which simply means: “Don’t lie”), give this a pass and don’t shun the man but continue to work toward his elevation.

A dud firework is sad. This is simply pathetic. These people — including Donald Trump — should be ashamed of themselves.

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What is Right

We want to hear from you about …

•Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley becomes the second Republican, after former President Trump, to declare candidacy for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Never-Trumper conservatives point to the fact that recent polls show the still-undeclared Ron DeSantis leading Trump by a significant margin, so any additional candidates dilute the Florida governor’s lead. Thus, some pundits have asked whether Haley is really running to be her former boss’ running mate.

•Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has called out Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) proposal last year to push legislation that would result in reviewing Social Security and Medicare funding every five years.

•Coverage and analysis of President Biden’s State of the Union address, plus commentary by Stephen Macaulay, “Say Goodbye, Joe,” in this column and Ken Zino, “Biden’s Strategy Wins,” in the left column.

•Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Republican response to Biden’s State of the Union address in this column, and Rep. Delia Ramirez’s (D-IL) “progressive” response on behalf of the Working Families Party, in the left column.

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