Category Archives: national news

national news

Trump fails simple task

Donald J. Trump cannot pass the simplest tasks sought from him as he sits in the Oval Office as president of the United States.

One simple task, for example, is for Trump to serve the unwritten role in his office, that of mourner in chief.

A commercial jetliner collided the other evening with an Army helicopter. The crash over the Potomac River killed all 67 people aboard the aircraft. Some TV networks had video of the moment of impact. It is tough to watch.

What was the task awaiting Trump? All he had to do was stand before the nation and offer his condolences for the lives lost; he could have said the NTSB, the FAA, Homeland Security, Reagan National Airport staff all are working overtime to find out what went wrong. He could have pledged the nation’s support for the loved ones who are grieving.

That’s it! That’s all he needed to say!

Except he didn’t stop there. He chose instead to offer conjecture on the cause of the crash. He suggested it might have had something to do with hiring policies that he said diminished the quality of personnel on duty.

Good grief, man! Why can’t this moron just keep his trap shut and stick to what we all know and feel … that the nation is in pain?

That was a simple task that the president of the United States of America failed to perform in stunning fashion.

military news, national news

Trump’s narcissism on full display

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Did anyone alive in the United States of America actually recoil in surprise at the show of self-aggrandizement and petulant partisanhip this morning when Donald J. Trump spoke to the nation in the wake of the tragic air crash in D.C. last night?

I didn’t think so.

Sixty-seven people are presumed dead after a crash involving an Army Blackhawk helicopter and a regional jetliner that was seeking to land at Reagan National Airport.

Trump entered the White House press briefing room ostensibly to deliver some remarks about the tragedy. What he delivered instead was a stomach-churning display of raw politics. He blamed the hiring practices of two predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, for possibly putting unqualified air traffic contollers in the tower at Reagan airport.

Presidents are asked occasionally to fulfill an unwritten rule of the office they occupy … that of comforter in chief. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and Biden all rose to that role at various times during their tenure as president. Today, Trump did speak briefly to the grief felt by the family members of the victims.

But then …

He talked about DEI hiring policies enacted by Presidents Obama and Biden. He implied those “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies lowered the standards required of air traffic controllers, hinting that someone on the ATC staff at Reagan might have been responsible for the horrific crash.

Donald J. Trump today demonstrated one more time why he is incapable of performing even the most basic tasks of holding the nation’s highest elected office.

This numbskull is an absolute disgrace.

national news

Figuring out a countdown clock

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OK, ladies and gents, we’re one full week into Donald Trump’s term as president of the United States and already I am seeking a way to count down the time before he departs the White House for the final time.

I have several measuring devices available to me.

We have the daily calendar. Trump entered the White House on Jan. 20 with 1449 days to go before the end of his time. He’s spent eight more days, leaving him with 1,441 to go. Still a lot. The number sounds daunting.

How about a weekly calendar? Trump began his term with 208 weeks to spend. He’s lopped off a first full week, leaving him with just 207 to go.

I won’t mess with a monthly calendar, as each month seems to last a lifetime.

I am inclined to keep a weekly short-timer’s calendar near my Man Cave desk at home. The weeks don’t drag on. The number of remaining weeks diminishes fairly rapidly.

Those of us who served in the military are familiar with short-timer’s calendars. I kept one on the door of my wall locker upon returning from Vietnam. I think I started it out at four months. I just checked off the days each evening before I hit the rack. It went quickly. Then I was done. Gone. Headed for home down the highway from Fort Lewis, Wash.

My desire to track the time before Trump is gone from my sight flies in the face of a truth my mother would preach. “Don’t wish your life away,” she would say to me as I coveted the arrival of the weekend.I was a teenager and I didn’t know any better. Besides, at that age I thought I’d live forever.

Well, I’ve made a lot of orbits around the sun since then. I am an old fogie … who still tends to wish my life away when it involves certain events or individuals I want to vanish.

I don’t expect Donald Trump to make any pronoucements or push through any policies that will delight me. He and I do not see the world through the same prism. It’s as simple as that.

Therefore, my form of countdown has begun until he is shown the Oval Office door for the final time.

national news

‘Great’ precedes ‘good’

Walter Isaacson, a political journalist of some renown, believes that Donald Trump already has established himself as a “great” president, but now must work on becoming a “good” one.

The difference, if I heard Isaacson correctly on a TV interview, suggests that Trump already has established his place in history as a politician of significant presence. He has reshaped the political landscape in a way that bears no resemblance to what it used to look like.

His task now is to do some “good” for the country he governs. Isaacson called Trump’s triumph over Kamala Harris a sweeping victory, in that he carried all seven of the swing states being contested. Granted, he didn’t win the “landslide” he keeps suggesting.

It was an important victory nonetheless, Isaacson contends.

Still, Trump — and this is my view — needs to channel the rage he still carries from his 2020 defeat at the hands of Joe Biden into constructive legislation. Dude needs an agenda on which he can hang his hat. I don’t see one. Nor do I see any evidence from Trump that he can craft anything of the sort.

All of this makes me doubt that Trump ever will achieve the “good” part of the office he has won.

national news

Trump Cabinet coming together … for better or worse

Four down and a bunch more to go for Donald Trump as he seeks to assemble the latest version of the federal government’s executive branch.

As expected, it’s been some tough sledding for some of Trump’s picks to administer policy decisions. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth needed a tie-breaking vote from Vice President J.D. Vance to push him across the finish line. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sailed through with a unanimous 99-0 Senate vote.

CIA Director John. Ratcliffe from North Texas and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also got confirmed; they both had their share of “no” votes.

What’s next presents the possibility of at least three serious donnybrooks. FBI Director nominee Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence hopeful Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I almost don’t where to begin with these three nimrods. Patel wants to destroy the very agency he says he wants to lead; Gabbard has chummed around with deposed Syrian goon Hafaz al Assad; RFK Jr. might seek to endanger our children by getting rid of many vaccines now required.

All three of these individuals have serious opposition facing them. Patel has zero business running the FBI, given his expressed hatred of the agency. Gabbard is equally unfit to become DNI, as she has next to zero intelligence-gathering and analytical experience. RFK Jr. is half-cracked judging by his statements involving the care of our elderly and our children.

All three of those individuals need to be shown the door … with malice. It isn’t likely to happen because the GOP majority in the Senate is demonstrating it comprises a cabal of cowards who cannot bring themselves to demand that Trump find truly qualified public servants to fill these key posts.

Welcome to the return of government by chaos.

national news

Newest MAGA moron steps up

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Step right up, Andy Ogles, and take your place as the latest MAGA moron to exhibit his colors as a blind loyalist to the MAGA man in chief, Donald Trump.

Ogles is a Tennessee Republican House member who has introduced a bill to allow Trump to run for a third presidential term when his current term runs out in January 2029. Ogles, of course, wants to rewrite the Constitution, which bans anyone from being elected president more than twice.

This is the product of a MAGA dipshit who believes Trump is the savior for a nation that, truth be told and heard, is in quite good shape. Ogles’ amendment would limit a third-term president to those who serve non-consecutive terms. That means, quite naturally, that former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are out, given that they were elected to two consecutive terms.

Let it be understood that the 22nd Amendment was crafted in the late 1940s by Republicans who didn’t want an “imperial presidency,” which they feared when Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt got elected to four terms. It has worked out all right since its ratification in 1951.

I am quite sure that when Trump’s current term is up that Americans will have decided they have had enough of the carnival barker masquerading as a serious politician.

As if one term wouldn’t have sufficed.

national news

Once more … what if?

What if a Category 4 or 5 hurricane were to slam the Texas coast, killing many people and destroying billions of dollars in property?

Or … what if a similar storm blasts Florida, causing that kiind of damage?

How about if an F-4 tornado swept across Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, tearing apart valuable farm land?

Would the Republicans in Congress be so eager to attach strings to the damage the way are demanding of California in the wake of the wildfires that have destroyed thousands of homes, killing dozens of people? Of course not!

Why? Because those previous states are governed by Republicans, which tells me in the plainest language possible that the congressional GOP is politicizing aid to Americans that should be far above any political concerns.

The debate over whether we can afford aid to Americans who live in one of our United States simply makes me sick to my stomach.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Donald J. Trump should be ashamed of themselves. That is, if they have any shame left.

national news

Yep, it’s the Age of Rage

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To be perfectly honest, I had never thought of what one might call the current political period that has enveloped this nation.

Then, as I was typing a message to an acquaintance, it popped up on my computer screen. I called this period the Age of Rage.

What? Really? Then I thought about it for a moment or two. Then it dawned on me that this is precisely how we should describe this time in the history of our great republic. Besides, it has kind of a nice rhyming ring to it … you know?

A thoroughly unqualified and unfit individual has just returned to the presidency by virtue of an election he managed to win in 2024. Donald Trump took his oath, then delivered an inaugural speech full of bitterness, vindictiveness and anger. He described a country I do not recognize. The US of A is not “in decline.” We remain the envy of the world. The weaker nations of the planet turn to us for help. How can that possibly signal that we are on the decline?

He is an angry man.  Full of rage at immigrants, environmentalists, feminists, those who adhere to the rule of law, gay and transgender people, indigenous people.

Not only that, his first flood executive orders have triggered rage among those of us who oppose him, his policies, his world view (such as it is), his alliances … damn near everything about this guy!

Yep, we have entered the Age of Rage in the United States of America. It doesn’t feel good to me, nor should it feel good to you or anyone else.

Except, of course, for the guy who provokes the rage.

national news

Trump legitimizes treason!

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How does one process the action on the first day of his return to high office … other than to recognize that Donald J. Trump delivered on a campaign promise.\

Just after taking the oath as POTUS, Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 of the traitorous goons who stormed the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election that Trump lost to President Biden.

It was arguably the darkest day in the history of our republic. Thousands of people stormed the Capitol that day, waging hand-to-hand combat with police officers seeking to protect members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence from the anger emanating from the assailants.

Americans never in our history had witnessed such a flagrant attack on the very system of government we say we cherish.

Well, Trump called the prisoners “hostages” and issued blanket pardons to them.

Utterly and completely disgusting and abhorrent to those of us who value the rule of law.

This American patriot — that would be me — am simply astonished at what transpired after the inauguration.

Donald Trump has just legitimized a clear and present act of treason against the government he swore to defend and protect.

I’ll have more to say on the other executive orders Trump issued, but first … I need to catch my breath.

national news

Birthright citizenship must stay

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The first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State where they reside.”

Donald J. Trump wants to get rid of that right of those born in this country. Birthright citizenship, he said, must be repealed. Trump said also that he’s the man who’ll do it.

Whoa! Let’s hold on a minute, shall we?

Amending the Constitution requires a whole lot more than merely a presidential declaration. Repealing birthright citizenship would require a super-majority of both houses of Congress to approve it, Then it would require a super-majority of the 50 state legislatures in the United States of America to approve it.

This action goes far beyond a president’s ability — or authority — to make it happen.

This is part of Trump’s anti-immigrant view, which is articulated by many senior advisers within the administration he has created. He wants to stem what he calls the “invasion” of immigrants across our southern border. Many of those immigrants — chiefly the undocumented among them — are bring unborn children with them. Therefore, he reckons that this country cannot afford to have children born to those who are here illegally, but who become U.S. citizens the moment they draw breath.

The amendment was ratified in July 1868 and has served as a beacon for those seeking opportunity in the “land of opportunity.” Trump’s desire to shoo away those seeking a better life in this great nation ignores one of our great land’s basic tenets … which is to welcome everyone born within our borders.