“No man is an island entire
of itself; every man is a
piece of the continent.”
Poet John Donne, quoted in
The Washington Post
“What we regard as Evil
is capable of a fairly ubiq-
uitous presence if only
because it tends to appear
in the guise of good.”
Poet Joseph Brodsky, quoted
in BrainPickings.org
“If you want children to
keep their feet on the
ground, put some respon-
sibility on their shoulders.”
Advice columnist Abigail
Van Buren, quoted in
GoodHousekeeping.com
“There is more than
one way to burn a book.
And the world is full of
people running about
with lit matches.”
Author Ray Bradbury, quoted
in INews.co.uk
“The man that hath no
music in himself,
nor is not mov’d with con-
cord of sweet sounds,
is fit for treasons, strata-
gems, and spoils.”
William Shakespeare, quoted
in The Baltimore Sun
“Democracy is the art and
science of running the cir-
cus from the monkey cage.”
Journalist H.L. Mencken,
quoted in Spectator.us
“Normal is nothing
more than a cycle on a
washing machine.”
Comedian Whoopi Goldberg,
quoted in the Montreal GazetteTalking points
Wit &
Wisdom
Newscom
NEWS 17
Poll watch
QAfter the Dayton and
El Paso mass shootings,
68% of Americans say
they are worried there
will be another attack by
white nationalists. 62%
now support banning the
sale of assault weapons,
and 89% support expand-
ing background checks for
all gun sales. How ever,
45% are worried about
government overreach in
restricting gun rights.
NBC News/The Wall Street
JournalGreenland: Trump’s biggest deal yet?
“Donald Trump wants to
buy Greenland, because
of course he does,” said
Heather Mallick in the
Toronto Star. The real
estate mogul turned presi-
dent has been talking about
it to his staff for months.
“If only they had tittered,
the world might have
been spared this.” But
instead Trump’s sycophants
resorted to their customary
“Right as usual, Mr. President” or “Do you know
that Nuuk doesn’t have a single decent hotel?” As
a result of their cowardice, Trump really is talk-
ing publicly about making an unsolicited offer to
purchase a glacier-covered expanse of emptiness
owned by Denmark and inhabited by just 56,
hardy Inuits. “We’ll talk to them about it,”
Trump said. “Essentially, it’s a large real estate
deal.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen
immediately pushed back, insisting, “Greenland
is not for sale.” Here to America’s north, we
sincerely hope the Danes stand firm. For surely,
“after buying Greenland, Trump will turn his eye
on Canada.”“Don’t laugh,” said Quin Hillyer in Washington
Examiner.com. “Trump’s idea of buying Green-
land isn’t entirely wacky.” At 836,330 square
miles, the world’s largest island is rich in rareearth metals needed by
industry and is of great
strategic importance as a
bulwark against Russia’s
expansionist designs on the
Arctic. Indeed, it’s a “bril-
liant idea,” said Matthew
Walther in TheWeek.com.
“The only real upside”
to global warming is that
it’s melting glaciers in
Greenland that cover vast
mineral resources. America
might as well profit from the climate catastrophe
by mining all of that suddenly accessible ore.So what’s a fair price for Greenland? asked
Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post.
Alaska’s a good comparison, and the U.S. bought
it from Russia for a mere $7.2 million in 1867, or
$130 million in today’s dollars. In 1946, President
Truman considered offering Denmark $100 mil-
lion in gold ($1.4 billion today) for Greenland.
But both those figures seem “awfully low.”
Perhaps we should just trust Trump on this one.
Back in 2011, when Trump’s dream of occupying
the White House seemed absurd, he appeared on
a Discovery Channel program called Curiosity:
What’s America Worth? He insisted it was pos-
sible to put a dollar value on the entire country.
Staring intensely into the camera, our future presi-
dent said: “Everything has a price.”President Trump is in a “state of panic about
his dimming re-election prospects,” said Eugene
Robinson in The Washington Post. A recent poll
by Fox News showed the president losing badly
in head-to-head matchups with the four leading
Democratic candidates, with Joe Biden beating
him by a whopping 12 points. Trump doesn’t
even crack 40 percent in any of the imaginary
races. How did Trump respond? By raging that
his favorite network “is making a big mistake,”
and calling the results “fake news.” State polls
are even more troubling for Trump, said Ed
Kilgore in NYMag.com. A new Civiqs poll shows
his net approval ratings are deeply underwater
in 10 states he carried in 2016: Arizona, Florida,
Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. In
Pennsylvania, he’s down by 12 points, and by 11
in Michigan and 9 in Wisconsin and North Caro-
lina. “It’s not a pretty picture for the president, to
put it mildly.”Still, “it would be a serious mistake” to count
Trump out, said Yascha Mounk in TheAtlantic
.com. Yes, Trump is deeply unpopular, and “most
Americans abhor his bigotry.” But his approval
rating of 42 percent is actually better than it wasthe day he was elected, when only 38 percent of
Americans said they viewed Trump favorably. He
won anyway, because voters disliked Hillary Clin-
ton even more. When Clinton retired as secretary
of state in 2013, two-thirds of Americans viewed
her positively. But then Trump and the right-wing
attack machine went after her character, and her
approval rating plummeted. Any Democrat who
is nominated will get the same treatment, so head-
to-head polls at this stage may be misleading.Don’t bet on Trump winning another unpopu-
larity contest, said Bruce Gyory in TheBulwark
.com. With his race-baiting, childish tweeting,
and constant chaos, Trump has permanently
alienated many of the swing voters who decided
to take a chance on him in 2016. As a Tea Party
Republican who voted for Trump last time, said
former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh in The
New York Times, even I’ve seen enough. Trump
hasn’t governed as a conservative; instead, he ran
up a $1 trillion deficit and ignited an irrespon-
sible trade war with China. But most of all, it’s
his lying, bullying, and bigotry that make him
“unfit for office.” It’s time for a challenger to
look him in the eye and say, “Enough, sir. We’ve
had enough of your indecency.”Tr ump: Dismal polls, rising panic
Greenland: Just name your price.