Category Archives: national news

local news, military news, national news

Ready to receive long-awaited thanks

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My day today was spent doing something I didn’t think I would do … which was think about a brief trip to the nation’s capital to receive thanks for my service to the nation.

The Honor Flight about which I have written on this blog is at hand. The Honor Flight is the 63rd such venture from the Dallas/Fort Worth area to Washington, D.C. We depart early tomorrow from Love Field. Our plane will carry 45 military veterans and “guardians” assigned to assist with anything under the sun that we might need on our whirlwind visit.

We’re going to hit the ground in a full sprint when we arrive in D.C. I don’t know the precise itinerary, but I am aware it will include the major memorials and monuments along the National Mall. We will see the World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the FDR Memorial, the MLK Jr. Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery (including the changing of the guard).

I need to mention the Reflecting Pool, the one that’s been in the news after Donald Trump messed it up by trying to dye the water blue, only to have it turn out green.

I am anxious to see it all and to share some of my not-very-exciting military story with fellow vets.

We’re going to get lots of thank you greetings from strangers, or so I have been told. They will deliver thanks for our service, much of which we didn’t get when we returned home when we were so much younger. The nation was not used to “losing” a war and many Americans blamed soldiers like me for the failed policies we were ordered to carry out. Don’t misunderstand: I didn’t get spit on when I got home, but I did get a wide range of indifference from strangers when I informed them of my then-recent history, which involved a brief tour of duty in Vietnam.

The good folks who arranged this Honor Flight assure us that’s all about to change. I am ready to accept all the love I expect to receive.

national news

Do our eyes now turn to Barron?

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Barron Trump remains the mystery member of the nation’s premier political family.

I am more than willing to admit that the young man has stirred my curiosity more than just a little bit.

I mention Barron because he now is an adult. He is past the age of majority, which in some circles makes him an open target for all kinds of rhetorical mischief. I will not go there.

I do intend to express some interest in the kind of man he has become, living as he has in the crucible known as the White House.

Barron Trump, born in March 2006, now towers over almost everyone he sees. His father stands 6 foot 3, and Barron appears to be around, oh 6 foot 9 or 10.

Soon enough, probably when Dad leaves office in January 2029, we’ll get to see more of the youngest of Donald’s five kids. Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka all have made their marks on some fashion or another. A second daughter, Tiffany, has obtained her law degree and has remained out of the limelight.

Now we have Barron.

Here’s my hope for the young man. I hope he has learned from the plastering his brothers have gotten because they chose to become political animals, just like Dad. My hope for Barron Trump is that somehow, someway and through some channel that escapes me, he is able to carve out something akin to a normal life.

I suppose there’s always hope that the young man can stumble into a relationship that gives him complete happiness. I realize that’s a difficult order to fill, being the member of a family led by a fraud, a con man, a charlatan … and a loser!

economic news, national news

He’s not my POTUS

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Some of you who have read this blog over the span of many years might recall a pledge I made, which was to never insert the word “President” in front of Donald Trump’s name. I have been faithful to that pledge.

Why? Because he’s not my president and that is a feeling I never have experienced with any man who didn’t get my vote for high office. Every single day he is in office, Trump demonstrates he doesn’t give a damn about me, my family or any American who fits our profile.

And that is …

We pay our taxes on time (generally) without complaining, we serve our communities, we have worn the uniform and in many cases have gone to war when ordered, we play by the rules, we worship a holy God.

OK, you get the idea? Trump has many issues on his plate that present existential threats to our way of life. Does he deal with them in public, with the same aggressive nature he spends on trivial matters? Not in the least. Average patriotic Americans like my family members and me insist that he right some of those wrongs. He doesn’t give a damn about any of them.

He once told a reporter that he doesn’t spend any time worrying about the effect the Iran war was having on Americans’ financial condition. Never mind that the price of automobile fuel has doubled since we went to war with Iran, or that the worldwide tariffs he has imposed has spiked the price of damn near everything we buy at the grocery store.

My president would care about those effects on my family and me. Not this one.

He sickens me.

national news, political news

If only we understood the truth

Flash back about six decades, to Jan. 6, 1961, when Vice President Richard Nixon performed a task that Donald Trump sought to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from performing.

Nixon had just lost a razor-thin election to President-elect John Kennedy. He might have had reason to contest the results from Cook County, Ill., but chose instead to let the numbers stand, giving JFK a narrow win in and ultimately the presidency. The vice president on Jan. 6 of ’61, certified the Electoral College count giving Kennedy and Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson the keys to the Oval Office.

Prior to affirming the count, Nixon stood before his colleagues and said it was the first time in a century that a sitting VP had to certify an election result in which he was the losing candidate for president. However, he told the nation, that singular act spoke more eloquently about the greatness of the nation that it could conduct a peaceful transition of power from one party to the other, and then carry out the nation’s business.

Nixon understood something that Donald Trump never will grasp. Trump launched an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, damn near succeeding in stopping the Electoral College count. And I’ll be damned if Trump is still bitching about an election he contends was stolen from him.

Trump seemingly will never grasp the very notions that give this country its standing as the world’s indispensable nation.

Richard Nixon, of course, went on to be elected president in 1968 and then got himself into serious trouble by covering up a scandal that unfolded before the world in real time. That shining moment in 1961, though, stands out as a singular act that will stand for all time as a moment in which this great nation exhibited a profound moment of political grace.

Donald Trump, national news

Trump is none of these things

Donald John Trump would have you believe a number of things about him that make many of us want to laugh out loud, such as …

  • He is the smartest man in human history.
  • He knows more about how to win wars than any of the decorated soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen under his command.
  • He keeps every promise he makes.
  • He was elected twice to the presidency in landslides.
  • The Iran war is done, that he is able to declare victory over the Islamic Republic in a war that he started for no apparent reason, or strategy to end it.

That’s five items, all of them are demonstrably false. What’s more, while he vowed to surround himself with the “best people,” he has instead hired a collection of clowns, BS artists and sycophants whose only qualification is that they pledge complete loyalty to the liar in chief.

He said the Iran war would be over in weeks. It’s now into its seventh month. Eighteen American service personnel have died, hundreds more have been injured.

Americans need to look inward at what we have done to the democracy we say we cherish. We elected someone who expresses admiration for the tyrants of this world. He contends he has “very strong relations” with Kim Jong Un, the murdererwho presides over North Korea. He has denigrated the intelligence work of our own network of spies, spooks and analysts. He continues to insist the 2020 election — which he lost to President Joe Biden — was stolen, even while lacking a shred of evidence to back up that ridiculous assertion.

Americans were sold a dose of snake oil from a known fraudster, a crook and a charlatan.

And guess what. Americans got fooled twice, in 2016 and in 2024. You know the saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

We had better start looking for ways to repair the damage we have inflicted on ourselves.

military news, national news

We haven’t won anything yet … Donald

Donald J. Trump keeps heaping superlatives on our war with Iran, such as declaring complete victory, saying we have accomplished all we intended to do when we went to war more than six months ago.

The only thing he hasn’t done is land aboard an aircraft carrier and emerge under a huge “Mission Accomplished” sign.

Hmmm. We know why, I reckon. It’s because Trump must know in its private self what many of the rest of us know, which is that Iranians haven’t yet lost the war. Trump went to war without explaining how it would end, or what he intended to accomplish. He has done not a damn thing to unite the nation behind this feckless effort.

Still, POTUS 47 continues to boast — along with his defense department blowhard/mouthpiece Pete Hegseth — that the Iranians have been rendered “combat ineffective for years to come.” Hegseth even has declared the Iranians have been rendered defenseless against U.S. forces “for decades.”

Someone needs to explain to me why we continue to have forces on duty against Iran if we already have accomplished all we have intended.

Oh, wait. I almost forgot. Trump is lying about it all.

national news, religious news

This preacher has it exactly right

Rafael Warnock wears two hats and both of them fit him perfectly. He is at once a Democratic U.S. senator from Atlanta, Ga., and also a Southern Baptist preacher who preaches from the same pulpit that once featured the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He knows a thing or two about the U.S. Constitution and the Bible. If you listen to Warnock long enough you understand the wisdom contained in this gentleman’s facile mind.

He recently called himself a “Matthew 25 Christian,” meaning that he follows the Gospel taught in the New Testament how God fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty and provided comfort and aid to the ill. Today’s Republican Party, he said, cut $1 trillion from Medicare, slashed insurance coverage for 15 million Americans’ health insurance … all in the immediate aftermath of passing the “Big Ugly Bill” promoted by Donald J. Trump.

And yet these politicians all stand foursquare behind the Bible as their guidepost for the legislative agenda they want to become the law of the land.

Warnock also said that the thing that unites Americans isn’t religion, but it is the liberty granted by the U.S. Constitution. which includes the freedom to worship as we please, or not worship a deity. “We have freedom of religion,” Warnock said, “and freedom from religion.”

Well … and yet states such as Texas are requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property and are mandating that public school children study the Bible as a historical document. What utter garbage! The Bible I read is an article of faith. Either you believe what it says, or you don’t. The Constitution grants us as citizens the right to accept or reject the Bible … period, full stop!

We should teach historical events for what they were, matters that occurred in a secular world. And we should keep matters of faith where they belong … in houses of worship.

national news

Just who suffers from TDS?

Many of you already are aware that I’ve been accused of “suffering” from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I actually don’t consider it a malady I should shake. I am proud of the variation of the syndrome I lug around in my head and heart.

What I should say right off the top is that my accusers suffer from it, too. Only their syndrome is an affliction that is causing them distress that might be going unrecognized.

A pro-Donald Trump reader of this blog, and I believe I have more of them out there than I probably know about, is as stricken with the ailment as I am. Only he or she will never acknowledge it publicly. Therein might lie a fundamental difference between them and me. I wear my TDS proudly and I call it what it is. They don’t. They hide behind some fiction that life has been better for them and for the country since Donald took office a second time in January 2025.

How in the world can it be that they believe such fecal matter? We’ve gone to war with Iran after Trump said categorically he would never sanction such an activity. The individual has imposed tariffs against the entire planet, driving up the costs of essential goods and services. He said he would end the Russia-Ukraine War on “day one” of his new administration; it rages on.

He continues to lie about the scope of his victory in 2024 over Kamala Harris, calling it a landslide when in reality he just barely squeaked by her.

If you’re going to accept his lies and disregard the fact that he has added trillions of dollars to our national debt, well … I believe you have the Trump Derangement Syndrome you accuse me of having.

Just own it, OK?

economic news, International news, national news

So very tired of ‘winning’

Why is that, why would “winning” wear me out, bring me down, make me wish for the real thing?

Because not a damn thing Donald J. Trump describes as “winning” is anything of the sort. Trump is the loser in chief.

Think about this for just a brief moment. He says we’ve already “won” the war with Iran, but he won’t stop bombing the Iranians. His tariffs are punishing Americans, the people he was elected to protect. In a related matter, Trump has leveled a 50% tariff on Canadian goods. Yes, goods produced and brought into this country by our most reliable (until now) trading partner and worldwide ally.

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Trump has declared war on Canada. He vows to fight back. Will Trump be able to declare he is “winning” this latest trade war with the nation with which we share the world’s longest unsecured border? Hah! Hardly.

We have no allies in the Iranian war. Oh, wait. We have one. Israel has joined us in the bombing campaign.

Even North Korea is on the Iranians’ side. Trump, though, has this lovey-dovey relationship with North Korean killer/despot/thug Kim Jong Un.

Yep, that’s “winning” in Trump’s perverted world.

national news

Keystone Kops makes a return

Are you as confused as I am about what is being reported about securing the president of the United States? Please say “yes,” because I can’t make sense of any of it.

It’s being reported that Donald Trump was squirreled away in a catering vehicle because of a “credible threat” to his security. Now comes word that the White House is downplaying the threat, which occurred while Trump was trying last month to leave Turkey after attending a NATO summit.

There’s more to this tale of fantasy. Trump was supposed to fly out of Turkey aboard the Boeing 747 jet designated as Air Force One whenever it transports the president of the United States. That didn’t happen. Trump took another plane out of Turkey. Except we know are told the air traffic controllers never used the Air Force One terminology to ID the jet that carried the POTUS. I understand that would constitute a major no-no in aviation standard operating procedure.

I’m trying to keep all this straight. I fear it’s a losing fight.

Now I understand that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett and other key Cabinet officials were aboard the targeted 747. Good grief, man! So are we to believe that the White House deemed Rubio, Bessett et al to be expendable? As I’ve noted long ago, I never take anything coming from the White House under the Donald Trump era at its word.

The jokesters are going to have a field day with this item. If only the White House had a communications department that could set the record straight.