Earlier this week Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and National Security advisor Mike Waltz conducted a group chat with eighteen people on the Signal platform about a military operation involving the Houthi. There was nothing inherently wrong with having a chat.

What was wrong – and stupid – was: (1) revealing in advance classified operational military plans; (2) using the Signal system, which is not rated for classified information; (3) including, if inadvertently, a reporter from The Atlantic; and (4) subsequently lying about the contents of the meeting, which led to The Atlantic releasing some of that classified information to prove the lies made by Hegseth and others.

Subsequently, Trump declared that nothing of import was released and that no one reads The Atlantic anyway, while Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, initially claimed that “no classified information” had been revealed before later saying that she didn’t recall what had been discussed.

Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, said of the leak, “I don’t think most Americans care one way or another.”

Although the Trump administration is looking stupider by the week, other Republicans offered support and voiced sentiments along the lines that the administration would fix the problem.

From what I’ve observed over the years, you can sometimes remedy honest ignorance, but stupidity usually occurs in those who cannot or will not learn – and for that reason, as an old saying goes, “You can’t fix stupid.”

As far as Trump appointees go…we’ll see.

Both Elon Musk and Donald Trump have taken Mark Zuckerberg’s early mantra – “Move fast and break things” – to heart in their efforts to reshape and downsize the federal bureaucracy.

This is already presenting at least three major problems. First, like Humpty Dumpty, some of those things they’re breaking shouldn’t have been broken in the first place and may not be easily repaired or replaced.

Second, one of the things they’re trying to break is the concept that the United States is a land of laws, and that the laws are superior to the desires of those who lead government. Trump, of course, has nothing but contempt for any law that thwarts or restricts anything he wants to accomplish, regardless of either existing law or the future consequences of his acts.

Third, they really don’t know what they’re doing, beginning with firing the federal employees in charge with the nuclear weapons stockpile and reducing the number of FAA and IRS employees at a time when both agencies are understaffed. Firing the Forest Service and National Parks employees will only increase the severity of fire damage and turn the parks into trash heaps, especially now, given the backlog of infrastructure maintenance at the parks and the increasing number of visitors.

Blaming Canada for the fentanyl epidemic is also absurd, since less than one percent comes from Canada, and imposing tariffs on Canada will hurt the U.S. far more than it will impact Canada, particularly U.S. auto manufacturing. It also won’t do anything to reduce drug trafficking.

Trump and Musk also haven’t targeted the most obvious sources of waste, especially the U.S. military/industrial complex. There are so many U.S. military bases/facilities both in the U.S. and worldwide that there’s not even a consensus on how many there are. Reputable estimates range from 800 to 1,200, and the military has been trying to consolidate and close a number of those installations for years, but for some reason, Congress doesn’t like the idea when it comes to reducing bases in the districts of individual members.

Regardless of critics, moving fast will continue, at least for a while, and civil liberties will be further eroded; prices will increase; productive federal employees will be fired, while unproductive ones will be retained; and Trump will proclaim how wonderful everything is.

As most of my readers know, there’s an element of romance in most of the books I’ve written, and sometimes even more than that, but I tend to present sex in what I call “thirties movies sex,” where a chapter ends in an embrace, suggestive language, or some similar fashion, and then the two reappear together either later or in the next morning.

The latest furor in the publishing world appears to be “romantasy.” From sales figures and from conversations with editors I know, romantasy appears to be taking over the speculative fiction field. Good hard science fiction is getting more and more difficult to find, and fewer major houses are purchasing and releasing it. Fewer and fewer straight fantasy novels, those that are being published, contain a freshness of view and style, and more than a few portray magic systems that, shall I say, lack any semblance of internal consistency.

Romantasy is supposedly a fusion of romance and fantasy, but in many so-called romantasies that fusion is more like fantasy, romance, and graphic erotica.

Some romantasy authors write very well, and more than once I’ve been engrossed in an interesting and intriguing book, only to have it come to a dead stop while the protagonists engage in detailed and fiery, possibly physically improbable, sexual gymnastics. I don’t mind a certain limited amount of that, but, as one deceased F&SF author noted, at some point sexual gymnastics become the mechanics of plumbing, at least for me.

In this respect, I’m definitely old-school, because I tend to favor writing about accomplishments, either single or joint, over endless rhapsodizing on the peaks of sexual consummation. But it’s also clear that such rhapsodizing sells – really sells. I recently read that one romantasy author’s latest book sold over 2.7 million copies in less than a week, but then it mixes that sex and romance with military dragon riders. I don’t know whether Anne McCaffrey is turning over in her grave or laughing her head off in the great beyond.

Why are lies so abundant today, especially in politics?

There are likely as many reasons to explain that prevalence as there are those commenting on the abundance of falsehoods. There’s also the possibility that lies aren’t any more prevalent , but that modern communications have made their spread easier and broader.

Personally, I’ve certainly seen more lies in current politics than I did when I began as a political staffer more than fifty years ago.

My own rationale for the growth of lies is based on the growing political and technological complexity of modern societies. Explaining almost anything today accurately isn’t simple. People want simple.

Even forty years ago, when I was at EPA, both Congressmen and their constituents wanted simple, straight-forward answers to complex issues. Everyone wanted yes or no answers to issues and questions to which the accurate answer was “It depends on the circumstances.”

Today science, technology, and politics are even more complex. So are taxes, for that matter.

But people want direct and simple answers, especially simple answers that appeal to their beliefs and prejudices.

Contrary to popular beliefs, lies are simple and believable; accurate statements require knowledge and understanding.

It’s much easier to blame government overspending on “fraud and waste” or diversity programs than upon the bureaucracy necessary to handle hundreds of billions in salaries and procurement, or for that matter, upon the 535 members of Congress, each trying to get government to make matters or the economy better in their individual districts and states, or to recognize the billions spent on lobbying to influence Congress and high-level bureaucrats.

Also, a great deal of that “waste” occurs because large organizations require checks and balances, standardized procedures, compatible systems, personnel checks on new hires, pay scales, and a whole raft of other requirements, including requirements for procurement to prohibit sweetheart contracts, bribes, conflicts of interest, etc.

It’s easier to blame the excess of immigrants on drug cartels than to address the shortage of agricultural and less-skilled labor in the U.S., or the internal urban and rural social conditions that fuel drug abuse, or the U.S. past federal and corporate meddling in the internal politics of Central and Latin American nations (as well as other contributing factors).

It’s easier to claim that the U.S. trade deficit is because other countries are “ripping off” the U.S. than to address the differential in wage costs between onshore and offshore, the American tax system that benefits corporate CEOs excessively while penalizing workers, an emigration system that allows more poor and less educated immigrants than highly educated ones, etc.

And, of course, there’s also the very real problem that American education has moved away from developing critical thinking and toward teaching to the [supposedly]objective tests, and that lack of critical thinking results in greater success for liars.

According to the dictionary, virtue is “behavior showing high moral standards.”

These days people don’t talk much about moral standards. The President talks about making America great again, but he never says much about morals. His talk is all about power and forcing others, both persons and nations, to do his will, and to get revenge on those who’ve opposed or thwarted him.

Trump has said little said about truth and honesty, and his words are merely tools of personal power. He can and has slandered people and then flattered them, or vice versa. He claims he’s out “to make America great again,” even as he attacks every foundation laid by the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

With each tariff, decree, and chain-saw slash, he’s undermining public trust, both within the United States and among our (former [?]) allies. In addition, DOGE and Trump are now creating lists of “undesirable” individuals and “persons of interest,” the principal criterion of which is often based only on a person’s speaking out against Trump. Those actions reflect more of a secret police mindset and indicate a President determined to be a dictator.

Workable and lasting human societies are based on a combination of trust and power. Too much power and too little trust results in autocracy, and too much trust and too little power leads to anarchy. There has to be a balance.

What’s being forgotten or ignored these days is that trust is based on virtues – where people can see and know that what leaders say is truthful and that their actions support their words; that they treat all members of society fairly and equally, and apply laws even-handedly; that they exhibit compassion for the less fortunate; that they respect others who do not share all their views.

Societies held together by raw and absolute power do exist, and they’re comparatively poor and inefficient. That’s because too many resources are required to police and control society. To this day, Russia cannot mass produce large numbers of high technology weapons and a range of complex durable consumer goods at prices affordable for most of its people. North Korea is even poorer. China has been forced to allow more freedom in order to be competitive.

A number of political scientists have claimed that Trump supporters take Trump seriously, but not what he says as that serious. This is likely true, but those supporters bespelled by his charisma are misguided in their belief that Trump won’t do all the awful things he’s promised… because he’s already doing them.

Virtues are important, especially in leaders, because lack of virtue results eventually in a lack of trust and political instability. Trump isn’t so much a cause of corruption, but the most prominent symptom of an increasingly dysfunctional political structure, and a society, that rewards the most charismatic of liars, while largely ignoring those who stick to the facts, an ignorance based on an increasing lack of virtue on all levels of society.