Category Archives: national security

national security

Trump brings chaos back to White House

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Jeb Bush perhaps had the most apt description of Donald Trump’s candidacy back when the two men competed against each other for the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination.

Bush, the former Florida governor, said Trump would be the “chaos president” if elected. Well, he was elected that year and by golly, he brought chaos into the Oval Office with him.

Here’s some cheery news for those who voted for him the second time around: The chaos hasn’t gone away, as there will be plenty more of it when he takes office on Jan. 20.

Spoiler alert … I was not among those who voted for Trump either time, but you knew that already. Allow me to say, “I told you as well that this would happen.” 

An attorney general nominee already has backed out amid a tidal wave of criticism over his (lack of) qualifications for the job. The defense secretary-designate is facing another storm of criticism, as is the proposed health and human services secretary, the next director of the national intelligence and the FBI director-designate.

Chaos, anyone? Anyone?

Trump keeps boasting of his intelligence. How he plans to recruit the “best people” to serve in his administration. He is recruiting nincompoops to key national security posts. I will concede that not all of his picks fall into that category, but damn!

What the hell is this guy thinking when he chooses a sworn anti-vaxxer to serve as HHS head, a guy who wants to destroy the FBI while serving as its director, an accused sexual assailant and a right-wing TV blowhard to run the Pentagon, and someone who sympathizes with an accused war criminal as DNI.

I thought we were better than to elect someone such as this guy. I guess I was mistaken.

national security

How can Gabbard serve as DNI? She cannot!

How in the name of all that is holy and sacred can Donald Trump select a former Hawaii congresswoman who has zero intelligence background to be director of national intelligence?

Oh, wait! She’s a loyal Trumpkin. That’s all the next POTUS needs.

Tulsi Gabbard has zero business being considered for DNI. She was an obscure congresswoman. She was a Democrat once. Then she flipped to the Republican Party.

Events in Syria have called Gabbard’s many shortcomings into sharp focus. She once called former Syrian murderer Bashar al Assad a minor player. She met with the madman not long before he was deposed by rebels. Assad is gone from power, to the relief of millions of Syrians he terrorized during his reign.

Gabbard also is pals with Vladimir Putin, the thug/goon/tyrant in Moscow.

This is the individual Donald Trump wants to entrust our national security secrets? Give me a fu**ing break!

I am astonished way beyond belief at what Trump is seeking to do to our security apparatus. He distrusts our intelligence gatherers, which he all but admitted in that hideous 2018 presser in Helsinki.

My hope now is that Republicans in the U.S. Senate who will have to confirm this moron as DNI will come to their senses and reject her nomination out of hand.

national news, national security, political news

‘Weaponized’ DOJ? Hah!

How in the name of legitimate political discourse does the MAGA wing of the Republican Party justify accusing Joe Biden of “weaponizing” the Department of Justice?

Why pose the question? Because the MAGA minions’ main man, Donald Trump, took weaponization to a new level … and pledges out loud and with crystal clarity that he plans to do even more of it were he allowed to return to the White House!

Trump said he intends to rid the nation of the “vermin” he says occupy key offices in D.C. Think about the use of that particular term for just a moment. Does it ring a bell? It should. It’s the same kind of language Adolf Hitler used when talking about his desire to rid the world of Jewish people.

How would Trump accomplish that moronic notion? By deploying federal agents. In other words, by weaponizing the Justice Department.

The MAGA morons are lining up behind the idiotic rants of a disgraced, twice-impeached, multiple-times indicted former POTUS who stands at this moment of being a convicted felon by the time the GOP presidential nominating convention kicks off next summer.

We are witnessing in real time, ladies and gents, the dumbing down of a voting population that calls itself “patriotic” when, in reality, they are the exact opposite; No patriot would dare endorse the notion of siccing federal government agents on Americans whose only “crime” is to disagree with politicians who crave power.

But … listen carefully to the rants that pour of out of Trump’s pie hole and you hear a fraudulent pol pledge to toss democratic principles into the crapper.

He pledges to turn the Justice Department into a weapon he can use to punish anyone who dares challenge the idiocy that is bound to become this individual’s benchmark.

He must not be allowed anywhere near the White House.

local news, national security

Is Walker a Georgian … or not?

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Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, has been in the news around the nation for the past two years.

His notoriety isn’t about to expire, given what has been revealed –allegedly — about the GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia.

Herschel Walker keeps a “primary residence” in Tarrant County, Texas. Walker is running for the Senate from Georgia. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, it might be that Walker doesn’t live in the state he wants to represent in the Senate.

Oh … my. What does that mean for Raffensberger, the chief election official in Georgia? It means he might be forced, just a week before runoff Election Day, to disqualify Walker. Does he act now, sending a message to Georgians who are set to vote either for Walker or the Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock?

Raffensberger, newly re-elected as secretary of state, is no stranger to controversy. Donald Trump pressured Raffensberger to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump to swing the state that had voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 president election. Raffensberger declined, saying he could do no such thing under the law.

A part of me cannot escape the poetic justice that would be delivered if it is determined that Herschel Walker — a one-time University of Georgia football star — no longer calls Georgia home. That he actually is hanging his hat these days in Texas.

Why should anyone care? Because Democrats have a chance to win a 51st Senate seat, given them an actual majority in the upper legislative chamber.

It also goes to demonstrate in graphic terms the miserable quality of Herschel Walker as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

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military news, national news, national security

Mullen to POTUS: cool the rhetoric

Mike Mullen wore a Navy uniform for many decades; he went to war for this country and served as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So, when a distinguished officer admonishes the commander in chief over some tough talk about “nuclear Armageddon,” I am inclined to take the admiral’s words seriously.

So should President Biden.

Mullen went on TV this weekend to offer his take on the Ukraine War and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s implied threat to use tactical nukes to put down the Ukrainian resistance to his illegal invasion. Biden has talked about Armageddon and said we’re closer to that catastrophe than we have been since the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Mullen wants Biden to cool it. We need to persuade Putin to negotiate his way out of the quagmire in Ukraine. Issuing warnings about what will happen to Putin if he decides to use more dangerous weapons against Ukraine won’t work, Mullen said.

He’s right. At least I am going to presume he is right. The man knows a thing or three about warfare. Pay heed to his advice.

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crime news, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, legal news, national news, national security, political news

Will Trumpism outlive its founder?

It has been said by more than one commentator that the movement Donald J. Trump spawned will live long past the time he no longer is a political factor.

Pardon the skepticism, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

I’ll start with this notion: I have doubt that Donald Trump is (a) going to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and (b) that the GOP has gone totally braindead to nominate him if he does enter the fray.

The Republican Party has shown itself in the past, oh, six years to be a party full of gullible numbskulls who are willing to swallow the swill delivered by Trump. They ignore the threat he continues to pose to our democratic process; they give him a pass on the idiocy that flies out of his mouth; they proclaim a desire to “defund the FBI” after the feds find top-secret documents squirreled away in his Florida home.

So, what is going to happen to Trump’s movement — his cult — once he’s no longer a political player. The way I see it, and I’ll admit it is from the cheap seats, whatever “movement” that Trump has stoked will disappear. Why keep telling The Big Lie about a “stolen election” if the Main Man is no longer calling the shots?

I am going to hold tightly onto my own hope that the law’s lengthy arm is going to corral The Donald sometime soon. The Justice Department is examining whether Trump broke the law in taking those classified documents from the White House; the House select 1/6 committee is considering whether to ask for indictment related to the insurrection that Trump clearly incited; the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney is looking into whether Trump broke state election laws by demanding that officials “find” enough votes to overturn that state’s 2020 presidential election result.

Oh, and the New York attorney general already has filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Trump Organization for allegedly falsifying its worth to obtain favorable loans.

We have, as they said in a movie, “a target-rich environment.”

The cult leader, it appears to me, is going down in flames. May the fire consume what is left of the movement that bears his name.

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crime news, legal news, national news, national security, political news

Constitution works!

Gerald Ford spoke a fundamental truth only minutes after taking office as president of the United States in August 1974.

“Our Constitution works,” President Ford reminded us, as if we needed reminding about the crisis that preceded his becoming president. His predecessor, Richard Nixon, resigned just as he was about to be impeached and tried (and likely convicted) for high crimes against the Constitution.

I want to remind everyone who worries about whether the Constitution will hold up under the pressure being applied to it these days by a former POTUS who all but vows violence if he is indicted for criminal activity.

I am going to remain somewhat calm about the strength of the Constitution. It did survive the Watergate scandal. President Nixon had to quit. President Ford took office as the Constitution had been battered and bruised by the calamity of Nixon’s abuse of power.

It survived then. I am going to continue to believe in the strength of the Constitution now as the nation awaits the outcome of several investigations into a former president’s effort to upend the “peaceful transfer of power” from one administration to the next one.

I will concede that the transfer of power was not peaceful. It was bloodied by the 1/6 insurrection. However, the transition did occur.

Our Constitution works, indeed.

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crime news, Donald Trump, legal news, national news, national security

GOP senators break with Trump … woo hoo!

It’s not every day one gets to salute U.S. Senate Republicans for doing the right thing as it regards the former president of the United States, the former Liar in Chief.

Donald Trump declared on Fox News the other day that he could “declassify” documents taken from the White House and stored at his Florida home simply by “thinking” about it.

No can do … Mr. ex-POTUS. Declassification is a complicated process, Sens. John Thune, Mike Rounds and Thom Tillis told CNN.

They said:

SEN. THUNE: There’s a process for declassifying documents. And I think it ought to be adhered to and followed.

SEN. TILLIS: There’s a formal process that needs to be gone through and documented … As I understand, the executive branch requirements there is a process one must go through.

SEN. ROUNDS: I think anyone who takes the time to appropriately protect that information, and who has taken the time to see what’s in the information would have serious concerns about how items could be accessed, if they’re not stored properly.

GOP Sens. Tillis, Thune, Rounds Break With Trump: “There’s A Formal Process” For Declassifying Documents | Video | RealClearPolitics

Do you get what I mean here? Donald Trump, once again, is making things up in what passes for that brain in his thick skull.

It’s getting might cramped in that space surrounding The Donald as the walls keep closing in.

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medical news, national news, national security, political news

Mental acuity test for The Donald?

Ronny Jackson keeps yammering nonsense that challenges President Biden’s fitness for high office, without bothering to offer any solutions of his own on how to guide the nation.

I have stopped expecting anything constructive from the Amarillo Republican member of Congress.

As long as we’re talking about mental acuity, though, I want to offer a suggestion for Donald J. Trump to ponder: The former Imbecile in Chief ought to consider submitting to such a test for himself.

I mean, any former POTUS who would suggest he could “declassify top-secret documents simply thinking about doing so” clearly has a screw loose in his fluffy noggin.

What kind of brainless idiocy is that? Trump took top-secret documents from the White House and squirreled them away at his Florida mansion.

Earth to The Donald: You can’t “declassify” anything just by “thinking” about doing it.

As for Jackson, he ought to ponder whether the moronic observation from his hero should require him to take another test of his mental fitness.

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crime news, national news, national security, political news

Trump has lost it … period!

It’s now painfully obvious — at least it is to me — that the longer Donald Trump is away from the seat of power the more unhinged and, frankly, certifiably loony he has become.

The latest example occurred Wednesday night on the Fox News Channel when he told the host Sean Hannity how he (Trump) could declassify documents marked “top secret.”

How would he do it? Trump said all he had to do was “think it.” That’s right. Just “think” that the documents were OK to be stored in an unsecured location in his Florida digs. Therefore, just like that, it’s OK.

Wow!

At issue, of course, are the documents Trump took with him from the White House to his Florida home when he left office on Jan. 20, 2021. Trump has said the belong to him. He refused numerous requests to turn them over. He ignored previous court orders to comply. So, the FBI did what it had to do: It sought a search warrant from a federal judge, who granted it, and the feds went into Trump’s mansion and collected the classified documents Trump was hiding.

But … no, he cannot “think” his way toward declassifying these papers. There’s a laborious process presidents must use. Trump didn’t do that.

He took national security secrets with him to Florida and … well, he kept ’em.

The man needs to be locked up.

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