local news, media news

Better friends … than ever!

Someone posted a question on social media that drew an out-loud laugh from this old man.

“How many of you are friends with someone you knew in high school?” this individual asked.

So help me I chuckled out loud … loud enough for my puppies to hear me and come running to see for themselves.

Here’s the back story …

I graduuated from Parkrose High School in Portland, Ore., in June 1967. They called it the Summer of Love. Whatever. The truth of my high school years was that I didn’t have many friends. I was painfully shy around girls and so I didn’t date. That’s right … I dated no one from my high school. I had a few close friends, maybe two or three. I met one of them the day I reported for junior high school in March 1962 after my parents moved us to the suburbs.

Dennis and I have been close friends ever since.

I change came over me in the 58 years since I graduated from high school. I snapped out of my shyness, thanks in large part to the girl I met in college in January 1971 and whom I would marry and spend 51 glorious years in her embrace.

We traipsed through life and along the way I came across men and women I knew back in high school. I was unafraid to chat them up, whereas before I wouldn’t have dared try to engage them in conversation.

Over the years as social media has advanced and taken over many millons of Americans’ lives, I now find myself with quite a few more friends from high school than I had in the olden days. Some of them are men with whom I share a common bond called “the Vietnam War.” Others are guys who just pop up from time to time on Facebook friend request feeds, enabling us to connect. Others still are women who these days are all grown up and understand why some of us boys were too shy to reach out before.

I cannot count a lot of high school-age friends, but my network of acquaintances surely has grown … thanks to social media.

Hey, it’s not all bad. You know?

Uncategorized

How did she escape blame?

I want to revisit one of the darker chapters in our nation’s glorious story, the 9/11 terror attack that killed 3,000 or so innocent victims.

Netflix has produced a three-part documentary that chronicles the effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden, mastermind behind the 9/11 attack. It’s more than four hours of really gripping TV. It takes the viewer through all the pre-9/11 attempts to hit the United States. There are interviews with key officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

We remember what happened that day. It was a gorgeous September morning in New York. A jetliner crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Then a second plane tore into the other Tower. A third plane smashed into the Pentagon. A fourth jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought with hijackers for control of the doomed craft.

The documentary sought to assess responsibilty for the catastrophic intelligence failures that produced the tragedy. I didn’t hear one time the name of an individual at the center of the intelligence network, nor did I hear a single reference made to anything she did or didn’t do: Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser for President Bush.

It has been a major puzzle to me how in the world she has escaped any recrimination for the failure to detect or act on any clue that might have materialized prior to the events of that horrifying day. I recall at the time as the nation endured the shock of what happened that no one seemed to mention Rice’s name publicly. My goodness, she was at center of our nation’s intelligence-gathering network.

President Bush selected Rice to be his national security adviser because she is known to be a deep thinker, a critical analyst, one who studies her craft thoroughly … and for my money, someone who should be held accountable for whatever failings occurred on her watch that led to the mass murders and destruction of the World Trade Center.

The series concludes with a detailed look at the planning that went into the eventual killing of bin Laden by the SEALs. I was struck by this nugget as well. President Obama was told that his national security team had less evidence of bin Laden’s presence in that Pakisani compound than what was used to persuade Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t have the WMD and we went to war in March 2003. All Obama had was purely circumstantial evidence that bin Laden was in the compound.

I am still waiting to learn, though, whether Condoleezza Rice ever will be asked to answer this question: Did you do all you could have done to prevent 9/11?

military news, national news

One and done? Hah … !

Donald J. Trump no doubt is hoping for a “one and done” bombing mission against Iran’s nuclear weapons project.

He likely won’t get it. Instead, Iran is vowing to strike back at U.S. interests and most certainly against Israel. The question for Trump then becomes: What shall this country’s follow-up entail? More air strikes? Boots on the ground?

I am suspicious of Trump’s decision to send the B-2 bombers over Iran. I join him in praising the skill and precision exhibited by the aviators who carried out the mission. They dropped about a dozen bunker buster bombs weighing about 30,000 pounds apiece. Submarines launched Tomahawk missiles at the nuclear targets once the aircraft had completed their mission.

I do not want the United States to go to war against Iran. Under no circumstances should we commit our forces to fighting an enemy dedicated to our destruction, not to mention the destruction of Israel … which began this conflict some days ago with missile and drone attacks against the Iranian nuclear sites.

The political consequences of this event are staggering. Democrats in Congress say Trump has committed an impeachable offense by acting without prior consultation with Congress, which they say is spelled out in the Constitution. They are joined by the MAGA mob that says Trump campaigned for election on the promise to end “endless wars.” Spoiler alert: Don’t wait for the MAGA morons to join an impeachment movement against Trump.

These are dangerous times, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve been through them before. I could blow this off as a one-and-done deal, except that with the current POTUS, one never — not ever! — can predict what he’ll do.

military news

Hegseth: a disgrace to the military

Pete Hegseth’s smirking responses to serious questions from members of Congress only serve to remind many millions of us what a horrifying choice Donald Trump made in selecting him as our secretary of defense.

Trump plucked Hegseth from the weekend TV talk show ranks to put him in charge of managing the most lethal military force in human history. Hegseth entered his new job with myriad issues: questions over how he treats women; alleged drug and alcohol abuse on the job; his blatant politicization of every issue that comes across his radar; his lack of experience running an agency of any size, let alone one as massive as the Department of Defense.

Yet there he is. He lectures members of Congress on how they should conduct themselves while questioning his policy decisions. Hegseth actually has smirked and snarked his way through answers from the likes of U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who lost both legs while flying for the U.S. Army in combat in the Middle East.

I get that Hegseth earned his spurs as a weekend co-host on “Fox and Friends,” where he made a handsome living poking fun at politicians’ policies. As I watch him answer questions from House members and senators, I am struck by the perception that he still sees himself in that former role.

The dude needs to take his new gig far more seriously than he does at the moment. He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the chief of Naval Operations. He has yet to hire a new top sailor. When asked if an appointment is coming, all he can offer is a bland “I’ll make that decision due course.” What the hell … ?

We are in the midst of a potentially deadly crisis in the Middle East and Trump’s version of the “best people” in the Pentagon doesn’t have a clue as to what he must do to keep us all safe.

Trump keeps vowing to surround himself with “the best people.” He wants us to believe Pete Hegseth is the best person he could find to run the Pentagon?

national news

Our system will hold up!

I am running out of ways to say what I believe in my heart about the strength of the governmental system our nation’s founders devised in the late 18th century.

We had a spirited discussion in a worship study this week in the church I attend. It turned to the events in D.C. and whether Donald Trump was going to destroy the republic and create a dictatorship. I sought to remind my friends, many of whom have that concern, that the founders created an imperfect governing document, but imbued in it the ability to withstand crises such as what many of us believe is unfolding.

I reminded my friends of Gerald Ford’s wisdom spoken minutes after he became president in August 1974, that “the Constitution works.” I said that it worked in that moment. I believe it will withstand the tumult being stirred at this very moment.

My faith in our founders’ wisdom is about all I have left on which to rely. I reminded them that we endured a Great Depression, engaged in two world wars, killed 600,000 of our own citizens in our Civil War, slogged through four presidential impeachment trials and watched our government fumble, bumble and bamboozle its way through various and sundry crises of various sizes and importance.

What has remained intact through all of that? The Constitution of the United States of America.

I want this foolishness to stop as much as the next guy. I am using this blog to seek to wield some influence toward that end. We have an election coming up in a little more than a year from now. Another one will follow two years after that. We have the power to enact fundamental change … just as the Constitution grants it to us.

military news

The MAGA morons are right! Who knew?

Never in a zillion years would I have imagined saying what I am about to say … which is that the MAGA cabal that powered Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency are correct to object to any direct American involvement in the dispute between Israel and Iran.

This dispute inside the Republican Party is an amazing thing to witness. Trump campaigned for the presidency vowing to end our involvement in wars seemingly without end. Yet now he is pondering whether to launch air strikes against Iran with the aim of destroying the country’s capability to develop nuclear weapons.

Which is the reason why Israel hit them hard in the first place!

Some Republicans are lobbying Trump to launch the strikes. The MAGA crowd says Trump would break a key campaign promise by doing so. The MAGA goons are right! Can you believe I just said that? Neither can I.

Israel already has plenty of military capability to defend itself against Iran. It also has the know-how to strike military targets. The mission that began this exchange was years in the planning and the Israeli Defense Force decided the time is right now to hit the Iranians hard. So, it did.

Not only did the Israeli air force strike hardened targets, it managed to kill key Iranian military leaders it had identified.

Trump said he will decide within two weeks whether to launch strikes that could include huge bunker-buster bombs that only the United States can deploy.

Where does it end? How do we get out of such an engagement? And how many young American lives might we lose in this effort?

Listen to your political base, Donald Trump. They are correct!

national news, political news

Shades of earlier intraparty battles

I am amazed at the level of surprise expressed by the talking heads over the growing rift between the MAGA wing of the Republican Party and the rest of once-Grand Old Party.

Why, they just cannot believe the party that is so loyal to Donald J. Trump would turn on itself over whether to go to war with Iran or to resolve the growing problem with immigration.

Really? You cannot believe it? Those of us of a certain age remember another time when another great American political party damn near tore itself to shreds over the conduct of the Vietnam War.

The Summer of Love was anything but amorous when I graduated from high school in 1967. Democrats tore at each other’s throats over the war. It was the Doves vs. the Hawks. A lot of young men were torn about whether to join the war effort or dodge the whole thing. I didn’t get caught up in the struggle. Uncle Sam called on me the following summer and I did my duty.

The nation was torn asunder by the rebellion within the great Democratic Party. The Hawks followed the dictates of President Johnson, who had his allies in Congress. The Doves became smitten first by Sen. Eugene McCarthy and then Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

That was then. The MAGA wing is angry with others within the Republican Party. This time it’s MAGA vs. The Establishment Wing of the GOP.

Where am I going with this? I don’t know, eaxcept to remind you that the country’s internal makeup is strong enough to withstand these internecine battles. The TEA Party once rose to challenge the GOP establishment. My goodness, the very nation declared war on itself in the 1860s over the issue of slavery and it survived once the killing stopped.

I don’t give a crap about the MAGA dipshits who have aligned with our nation’s adversaries in Moscow and who think the current POTUS is a man of character and achievement.

However, none of this new to the nation that was founded on the principle of dissent and seeking “redress of grievances.”

national news

News watching: testament to futility

Some of you might recall an earlier blog post in which I declared my intention to consume less news from TV because if found it (a) boring and (b) not very informative.

My semi-boycott is continuing. I’m home alone these days with just my two puppies — Sabol and Endo — and we spend time talking to each other, although I do most of the talking to them. The TV is turned off.

Occasionally, though, I switch it on to kinda/sorta get caught on the day’s events and on occasion I find myself watching a congressional hearing featuring one of Donald Trump’s sycophantic Cabinet picks.

Then it dawns on me why I launched the boycott in the first place. Invariably, this happens: a House member or senator — usually a Democrat — asks a question of the witness who then proceeds to traipse down some rhetorical path where the congressperson doesn’t want to go. The witness tries to continue on that path, the House member or senator seeks to steer them in another direction. They talk over each other — at the same time! As a general rule, the questions asked are relevant; the answers, such as they are, veer away from the point.

To be clear, neither party has a monopoly on this form of rhetorical evasion. Democratic Cabinet members have been hectored and harassed by Republican members of the House and Senate. I watched it unfold during the Biden and Obama administrations. I get that this a bipartisan affliction.

The here and now, though, is what is revelant. Trump has selected an array of ignoramuses for the Cabinet. They don’t know policy. They don’t care about details or even about facts. As I have pondered the lack of quality among these men and women, it occurs to me they reflect the ignorance and apathy of the nimrod who selected them.

I’ll stay current with events as they unfold. I just won’t rely on TV to deliver the news. We have plenty of legitmate news organizations to tell us their version of the truth. It falls on each of us, though, to parse through it all and discern our own version of what’s right.

military news

Trump’s parade falls flat

Well, kids, it turns out Donald J. Trump didn’t get nearly the birthday wish he wanted for himself with the military parade through Washington, DC, falling flat on its face.

I intend to explore briefly why that happened.

First of all, it well might be that most Americans finally — finally! — have caught on to Trump’s inauthentic and insincere reverence for the military. He evaded being drafted during the Vietnam War, citing those mysterious bone spurs. Now he’s commander in chief of the world’s mightiest military, so he wanted to stage a parade that coincidentally fell on his 79th birthday.

He said he wanted to salute the Army’s 250th birthday. You and I know the real reason. He wanted to call attention to himself. And that, I suggest, likely didn’t get past the hundreds of thousands of no-show Americans who stayed away from the event.

Trump reportedly lashed out at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for the failure of the parade. No problem there. Hegseth can’t find his ass with both hands as he tries to run the Pentagon. The failure of this event goes far beyond Hegseth’s incompetence. It goes straight to the guts of the man at the top.

Trump only recently said he cannot stand the sight of wounded warriors and said he didn’t want them present for presidential photo ops. He called a Vietnam War hero, the late Sen. John McCain, a loser because he got captured — and was tortured — by the enemy. He has denigrated a Gold Star family because they are Muslim and even though the couple’s son died in combat wearing an Army uniform.

The parade was the kind of thing seen in Moscow or Pyongyang. Except that it never materialized in anything approaching the manner that Donald Trump envisioned.

I am going to hope for all my worth that Americans finally are awakening to the charade that the president of the U.S.A. has been leading.

crime news

What’s next from Trump?

A dear friend from Germany, an astute follower of American politics, sent me a message overnight that wondered: Now they are handcuffing U.S. senators. What is next, my friend?

To my friend, Martin, I have no answer. I don’t know who’s next or what’s next as we watch Donald Trump’s administration lay waste to the rule of law.

Allow me to put this into a bit of perspective.

Trump pardoned hundreds of traitorous mobsters for the crimes for which they were convicted relating to the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on our Capitol. Many of those pardons were convicted of assaulting police officers, of injuring others and of desecrating the halls of Congress while seeking to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Just this week, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., attended a town hall hosted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and was placed in handcuffs and thrown onto the ground to silence him from pursuing his constitutionally guaranteed right to protest government policy.

What in the name of justice is wrong with this picture? Damn near everything I can consider!

We are witnessing the piecemeal dismantling of our rule of law by a presidential administration bent on the idea that Trump’s views are the only views that matter. Anyone who protests them can become subject to the kind of mistreatment that befell Alex Padilla.

To think that Trump would have us believe that people around the world admire this individual’s conduct is to believe that the sun will rise over the western horizon tomorrow morning.

I will have to remind my German friend that our Constitution remains strong and that millions of Americans join me in hoping it is strong enough to withstand this frontal assault.

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