Based on the sad fact that I’ve passed my peak earnings mark, I felt compelled to spend the last seven weeks learning what I could about America’s justice system. I facilitated my study by watching the goings-on of the trial of Donald J. Trump on television constantly during that entire time. Trump, as we were reminded every time his name came up, was breaking history as being the first U.S. president to be indicted as a felon. With any kind of luck, the pundits crowed, he’d be the first president to be convicted of said indicted crimes. Those were my days. My nights were spent listening to the television in my sleep at a reduced volume, hoping to absorb news of less importance.
There is not the time nor, most importantly, the interest in detailing the machinations of a clearly flawed legal system. There are certain factoids that keep any judicial action about as interesting as a new bar of soap. A bar of soap, while filled with promise, is worthless without water; in its newest form, it is rendered too large for the average person to effectively handle. Donald J. Trump, with his smaller-than-normal hands, can easily identify with my somewhat lame analogy. At least that’s what Marco Rubio said before realizing he was first in line to become Trump’s running mate in the not-too-distant future.
Now he denies having ever made such an accusation, despite there being video footage of him doing exactly that. Rubio has suggested that MSNBC hired a lookalike to fake the remarks.
Why MSNBC would do that isn’t entirely clear. Then again, lots of stuff on MSNBC seems not entirely clear, except for anything requiring more than a single news cycle of 17 hours.
I bought a second television to facilitate my monitoring of both news channels (CNN and MSNBC) at once. This feat was accomplished by isolating myself from the world as we know it by checking into a quiet motel in Malta, Montana.
Malta, a town of some 2,000 people, offers few cultural activities beyond a museum with dinosaur skeletons and the daily arrival of Amtrak’s Empire Builder, making it the ideal place to contemplate Trump’s future. I could see the train station from my room at the Sav-Me Motel. In seven weeks, not one person disembarked the train. During that same stretch of time however, there averaged fourteen departures of weary adults with big-eyed children clutching stuffed animals per day.
Clearly, at this rate Malta should stop existing as a populated settlement in 142 days. That number of days happened to be same number of days the trial of U.S. v. Trump was predicted to last. Nearly five months of Trump’s constant image on two television screens seemed like some kind of sentence—penance for doing something I did that I should regret, if only I could remember what that might have been.
But back to the trial.
MSNBC, CNN and Fox News are the three major television networks that Americans can easily access to hear the latest about little. PBS and the BBC don’t count because between news reports PBS is busy hawking tote bags and the BBC anchors have funny accents. Fox is the official channel of the MAGA arm of the Republican Party. It’s exciting to watch Fox in that the on-air personnel are trying desperately not to laugh while reading scripts written by members of the John Birch Society—an organization that, in 1958, received this characterization by my father: “They’re a bunch of whack-jobs.” He was a man clearly ahead of his time.
MSNBC, just to counterbalance Fox, is the official news outlet of the Democrat Party—a party that couldn’t be more biased in its coverage if it actually tried. I like MSNBC because I like being part of the choir the channel preaches to. I don’t much care for CNN because I don’t much care for Wolf Blitzer and his stupid Situation Room. I also don’t much care for MSNBC’s Ari Melber whose weeknight program ends just in time to watch the CBS Evening News; Ari reminds me of Wolf.
CBS, the network, was once noted for its having Walter Cronkite report the evening news like it was a bedtime story, is now replete with a penchant for broadcasting at least one each of a daily act of heroism and another of gut-wrenching stories about high school students doing things that no self-respecting high school student would ever be caught doing.
Both MSNBC and CNN have a plethora of commentators whose job it is to make sure that Joe Biden wins re-election. I am all in favor of that because I’m a Democrat and Angela Davis seems to be retired or something. Biden is just fine.
I’m sure that Fox would like to have people with some kind of expertise be correspondents on its daily schedule of programming. The problem is that nobody from Central News Casting is smart enough to have an intelligent opinion on anything beyond basic embroidery.
The categories of expertise are oddly similar. CNN has on its roster mostly men who are retired from military service; MSNBC has at least three times as many experts, most of them being “former” something-or-others. MSNBC’s number of lawyers is three times that of CNN’s. By contract, former lawyers, politicians, and hairdressers—under penalty of whatever—are expected to offer leftist offerings on any given day on any given subject.
And that, as Mr. Cronkite would say, is the way it is.
Photo montage by Courtney A. Liska
Pork Tenderloin with Dijon Sauce
This is a wonderful dish that perfectly pairs the pork with a hint of Dijon mustard sauce. It goes well will a bed of pasta or mashed potatoes.
2 pounds pork tenderloin
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chicken broth
3 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 Tbs. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves
Fresh parsley for garnishing
Season the pork tenderloin with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the tenderloin until golden brown on all sides, approximately 2-3 minutes per side.
Transfer the seared pork to a slow cooker. Add chicken broth and a mixture of Dijon mustard and butter.
Cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours, until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 140°F.
After cooking, transfer the tenderloin to rest. Meanwhile, blend the cooking liquid with heavy cream and flour in a saucepan, simmer until thickened, and then stir in fresh thyme.