The High and the Mighty

SHOW NOTES: There was a song from the movie of the same name called The High and the Mighty, by Dimitri Tiomkin, nominated for an Oscar. It was about a trans-Pacific flight with critical engine problems and crew and passengers facing confrontations with death. It was probably the first of the major disaster films: 1954. We have the high and mighty today and they occupy.....Washington, DC: 2025, 70 years later. The Senators and Congressmen still get their salaries during a government shutdown. They go on "junkets," often with family, overseas. They don't stop at TSA. Many have served through generations of their constituents and they are shameless. They "gerrymander" openly, seeking unfair and wildly distorted districts to ensure local victories. They are hypocrites, with very weak people, such as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who screams for term limits on the Supreme Court but not the Senate. He gives more speeches on climate change than anyone else, but his wife is a marine biologist consultant, and the subject of an ethics complaint last year because of his lobbying for climate investments and her potential to benefit from them. Neither party has a statesman, as they've both had in the past, who can create civility and collaboration. They each want the sandbox solely for themselves and threaten to destroy it—shut it down—rather than compromise on where the toy cars should be place. Jasmine Crockett is one of the most foul-mouthed, profane people in any profession I've ever heard, and she's a Representative. She's an embarrassment whenever in the media. They think they're the High and Mighty, but they make that emperor without the clothes seem fully dressed.