State of the Nation, 2     

   Nancy Gibbs is director of a center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, so you can guess she's no fan of the president.

   She wrote a column about Trump "cynicism:" 

* Nothing is as simple as it looks; there is always a dark agenda.
* No one deserves the benefit of doubt; those who profess to act in the 
   public good are just acting.
* Journalists don't make mistakes; they lie.
* Cynicism spells the end of trust...trust in facts.
* Goodbye to trust in compromise and in experts.
* Goodbye to rule of law, because the well-connected will always skate free.

   "Only 17 percent of Americans trust the government to do the right thing all or most of the time," she writes. "If we assume the worst in each other, we focus on protecting ourselves. We avoid collaboration; we miss opportunities in order to prevent disappointment." 

   Here's the kicker:
  "People do get away with murder; that doesn't make the crime any less heinous or weaken the need to prosecute it." 

   So, politics she doesn't like is akin to murder. Does she not know about real murders in the days of crime syndicates in Democrat Party strongholds? 

   Well, Ms. Gibbs, cynicism is nothing new. Cynicism has been building for decades; some former polls showed our trust in government to be less than 17 percent.  

   Maybe Trump's crime of standing for what he believes is a shock to Dems, who haven't faced a real fighter previously. But, what do I know? 

Other notes: Our U.S. suicide rate is the highest since 1941...the highest suicide rate of 11 wealthy nations. U.S. life expectancy is two years lower than the average among the 10 other nations. 

      Jimmy