Transparency

How often do we feel like we don’t even know the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our current state of the nation, the state of the state and the state of our local affairs?  I sure feel like there is a huge piece of intel missing that would finally explain the true Trump-Russia connection. Why is the president, who’s not afraid to alienate our historic allies by hurling insults at them, melting like butter in the sun when he meets with Russian president Vladimir Putin?
Despite the best efforts of intelligence experts and tireless journalists in Washington DC to uncover the latest information about the Trump-Russian connection — including the gem that was uncovered this week that Donald Junior couldn’t wait to get some dirt on Hillary from a Russian source — we haven’t even scratched the surface of finding out who’s running this country and who  is in charge. Well, too bad that the Russian “source” didn’t deliver, but now we know that the Trump campaign was not afraid to use enemy sources for their own gain. I can’t even find an fitting adjective that describes this level of unpatriotic behavior.
On the state level, who knows what is behind the reluctance of hammering out a fiscal plan that would set the state on a path of survival. I wonder if Senate Republicans are really that shortsighted that they think they get away with not coming up with a plan versus devising a plan that may be unpopular but would save the state from going bankrupt.
On the local level, we only get bits and pieces of information to assemble the full picture of what really transpired as a long-time physician in the region stands accused of opioid diversion and agencies or the corporation itself cannot or will not lay the cards on the table.
In all, I think society gains a lot when we are informed, when the information we get is not sugarcoated or put in 140-letter tweets and easy to digest. Give us the straight up facts and we can deal with reality in a reasonable way. Give us lies and the moral erosion sets in where we feel disoriented and can’t tell right from wrong. Reagan spoke of trickle-down-economics, we now feel the effects of trickle-down-indecency. — D.H.—