“How long? Not long.”
“How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?”
“I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because ‘truth crushed to earth will rise again.’
“How long? Not long, because ‘no lie can live forever.’
“How long? Not long, because ‘you shall reap what you sow.’
“How long? Not long:
“ ‘Truth forever on the scaffold,
“Wrong forever on the throne,
“Yet that scaffold sways the future,
“And, behind the dim unknown,
“Standeth God within the shadow,
“Keeping watch above his own.’ “
—— Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “How Long? Not Long,” March 25, 1965
My friend was focused on the lengths the administration and MAGA Congress are going to keep the Epstein scandal files hidden. I noted that innocent people never try to hide the truth, while guilty people will do anything and everything to hide it. “How long,” he asked, “do you think they can keep it hidden?” My mind went to James Russell Lowell’s poem, “The Present Crisis,” that King often quoted.
https://poets.org/poem/present-crisis
The investigation into the series of crimes we know collectively as “Watergate” seemed to take forever, when I was young. On October 30, 1973, right after the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre,” the House Committee on the Judiciary began holding hearings on the multiple resolutions to impeach Nixon. For seven months, Republicans fought tooth and nail to protect the president. If one watches those hearings – right up to the vote to put the resolution to a full House vote, many Republicans were as obnoxious as those we witness today.
How long? Not long, for we actually have three men in particular who have a plan to expose the toxins in those files with the disinfectant of light. The first is a remarkably talented man, Rep. Jamie Raskin. I note that early on, he connected the Epstein scandal files with those highly classified documents the felon hid at mar-a-lago.
Judge Eileen Cannon has not released the prosecutor’s report on that, because the case could be re-filed once the felon leaves the White House. Mr. Smith’s report on the felon’s insurrection has been released. More recently, we have seen Hakeem Jeffries speak about the Mr. Smith’s second report. This is not a coincidence, for Jeffries understands the manner in which the truth will slowly come to the surface. He knows that the maga republicans are in much the same position as those attempting to protect Nixon, which at the exact same time, damaged their positions in the upcoming mid-term elections.
And now the third man is speaking out, though with restraints. House MAGAs have requested that he speak to them in private. His legal team responded by informing them that Mr. Smith would speak to them in an opening hearing, if the DOJ agrees that he can testify without a threat of sharing information from his second report. Smith would be happy to answer any and all questions from a joint House & Senate public hearing. It is, of course, highly unlikely that either the republicans or especially the DOJ will agree to those conditions.
How long? Not long, because those mid-terms are coming up, and the Democratic Party will soon control that branch of the federal government. This is not to dismiss the severe damage that the administration is doing to our society. Indeed, we see the extreme efforts that Mike Johnson takes to not swear in Adelita Grijalva, purely to protect the felon. Yet in protecting the puppeteer, puppet Johnson ensures his party’s defeat next November.
Like every other good person in this country, I wish that we could have the immediate gratification of seeing shit stains like the felon tried and incarcerated. Yes, I surely do. But as an old man who remembers Watergate, I know I have to be patient. Our turn is coming up, right around the bend. So stay strong, for the truth is straight ahead.