fraud | The Direction of Intention

Our Context [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on July 23, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Words are never good or bad on their own, context makes them so.” ~Abhijit Naskar

I know what the image is and, even so, it took my brain a moment to make sense of it. It’s what happens when the subject of an image is stripped of context. On first glance this looks like a claw machine in an arcade instead of the last moments of our ancient maple tree. It took a crew less than an hour to reduce a century of growth into a stump. A giant claw easily lifted the massive trunk into an awaiting dump truck.

I am writing this the day after the grifter in the White House served the nation a prime time lie. A well-worn, very tired, endlessly debunked lie. Every statement he made was void of context. He is adept at wrapping simple facts in a morass of made-up hooey. He lost an election. His knows his party is about to lose “bigly” in the upcoming midterms. It can’t possibly be that he is incompetent. It can’t be that he and his party have no interest in governing or a shred of reverence for the constitution or the rule of law. It can’t be that the nation is shocked by the blatant corruption. No, to stay in power, a fabricated context is called for. Fraud! Hoax! Foreign intervention! The loser-in-chief cries again and again and again, “They cheat!”

Context: Over 60 courts tossed his 2020 claims of voter fraud for lack of evidence. His own government watchdogs reported that the election – like all elections in the USA, was free and fair. Context: while he lost, the down-ballot republicans, listed on the very same ballot, in the very same election, won handily. Context: His administration was in charge of the election he claims was rigged against him.

Context question: Are you as weary of this incessant boy-crying-wolf as I am?

“Separate text from context and all that remains is a con.” ~ Stewart Stafford

His cries of corruption in our elections are a deception. He is the corruption in our electoral process. He is the threat to our free and fair elections. He and his crew are the danger to our democracy.

His prime-time lie, like everything else about him and his crew, is a con. They expect you and me to ignore the context, to swallow their bilge without question. It is less than 100 days to the midterm elections. Our role as citizens in a democracy has never been so clear: first, we must be keepers of the actual context and protect our right to vote. This administrations authoritarian intentions are apparent. Their actions are criminal. It is our context.

Second, after we protect our elections from this assault, we must hold this con man and his mob accountable for their crimes. It is what they most fear, it is why they lie, it is the reason they ask you and me to close our eyes, plug our ears, and pretend that they are not reducing our centuries old democracy into a fascist stump.

In the end, history will place them in their proper context.

Red Bird*, 16″x20″ mixed media on canvas

*This painting has nothing to do with the theme of this post. It’s new. It’s lighthearted – and, like me, I suspect you could use a bit of that.

read Kerri’s vastly different thoughts about THE TREE

likesharecommentsupportthankyou!

Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Language, Pattern, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, con, context, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, election, fraud, incompetence, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lies, meaning making, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

The Willingness To Change [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 14, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

We will have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year. The heat, the humidity, the ample rain have provided the perfect tomato growing conditions.

Keep in mind that I am not an expert on tomato growing conditions. I have no knowledge and limited experience growing tomatoes so when I assert that we have perfect-tomato-growing-conditions I am being hyperbolic. I really don’t know. I am borrowing statements from 20 who is a seasoned grower of tomatoes. I do know and can write with certainty that our tomato plants are a’ poppin’. They are climbing to the sky. They are out of control.

What is it in us that needs to be right, with or without knowledge of the subject? Or at least appear to be? I suppose it is not a trait unique to our time but is a characteristic common in human beings. What is it in us that needs our opinions and judgments to masquerade as facts?

We live in the age of rabid confirmation bias. We seek easy reinforcement of what we believe-to-be-true while soundly rejecting any fact or mountain-of-data that contradicts what we believe. Every day we witness leaders make up what they want to be true, what they want us to believe. They ask us not to believe our eyes and many – too many – comply. Firmly planted into lazy minds is the phrase, “Fake News”.

For instance, elections in these United States are – and have always been – safe. Actual incidents of corruption or fraud in our elections are so minuscule that they are statistically zero. You’d never know that if you listened to the current occupant of the White House, the Speaker of the House or the maga republicans who currently clamor to pass a bill that will rob people of color and women of the right to vote. They commit fraud in the name of fraud prevention – and their base eats it like candy. People-who-want-to-believe-what-they-want-to-believe so participate in the destruction of the very system they claim to defend.

It would only take a moment to check the verity of their belief. That, to me, is the ultimate tragedy of our times: we’d rather defend a lie than confront a truth. We’d rather vehemently insist on our righteous belief, arguing over the existence of the iceberg in our path rather than turn the Titanic in time. As we are discovering, as becomes clearer every day in this kakistocracy, the USA is not unsinkable.

And it would only take a minute. And some courage. And some commitment to fact.

In 2020 we saw the insurrection with our own eyes. People died. In the wind-up to the insurrection we heard the loser-of-the-election call the Georgia secretary of state asking to “find” enough ballots to overturn the election. The loser spent months sowing the seeds of doubt in our elections, whipping his followers into a frenzy, readying them for violence because he knew he would lose. We are now, in 2026, witnessing a repeat performance, only this time it is more dangerous. We are everyday inundated with the false claim that our elections are fraudulent – and witnessing the republican party pretend that it is so. They act “as if”. It is a stage-performance with very real consequences that could include the end of our democracy.

Just a little commitment to fact. And some courage.

We must all face the fact that we cannot survive in a nation of dueling “facts”. The white nationalist fantasy of pure blood is – a fantasy. We are a diverse nation that strives for equity and inclusion. We are a nation of laws and not a nation of tyrant kings. Voter fraud is concocted by fraudsters who intend to usurp power from the hands of the people so they might forever live above the law.

If these republicans are successful in their attempted coup, they will successfully flip every statement I just wrote. We will be a nation subject to the rage of white supremacists, an authoritarian nation with the power firmly in the hands of the few, their crimes never subject to the law. We will be a democracy in memory only.

Truth takes just a few minutes to verify. And some courage. And the willingness to change when the facts do not support belief. Truth requires the ethical fortitude to call a lie a lie. Just a little commitment to fact.

read Kerri’s blog post about TOMATOES

likesharecommentsupportthankyou!

Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, belief, corruption, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fact, fraud, hypocracy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, verity | Leave a comment »

Second As Farce [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on March 1, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

My friend Roger once said that the real problem pathological liars face is that they can never keep track of their lies so they must continually heap lie onto lie onto lie until their narrative is a tumorous absurdity. The same rule applies to the enablers of liars. They, too, must heap justification upon justification until their justifications are preposterous. Ridiculous. Harebrained.

And, so, here we are. Tumorous absurdity propped up by preposterous, ridiculous, harebrained justifications.

With a pathological liar-in-chief and his party of dancing-bear-enablers, the story gets more and more barmy. A rapist leading the charge to eliminate abuse. An oligarch profiting mightily from the government he proclaims to be cleansing of fraud. Republicans, in the name of cutting waste, race to run up the national debt to provide tax cuts for billionaires.

It leaves me wondering how much balderdash a maga-mouth can swallow, how much rubbish a fox-infused brain can justify before it (they) wake up – you know, become “woke” – to the fact that America is not being made great, it’s being plundered. When do the sheep realize that they are being fleeced?

Karl Marx called it: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WASTE, ABUSE, FRAUD