Tag Archives: Donald Trump

military news

Where is concern for our troops … Donald?

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A sailor jumps off the USS Abraham Lincoln, floats at sea for an hour before he’s rescued.

The Lincoln is at sea for a record-breaking 240 days and the galley is running out of food to feed the 5,000 crew members aboard the massive warship.

Morale is being reported at the lowest ebb possible.

What does the commander in chief have to say about it? He said another carrier, the USS George Washington is en route to replace the Abraham Lincoln and then made some comment that the crew hadn’t spent “nearly enough” time at sea.

Donald Trump keeps feigning support for the men and women who serve in the world’s mightiest and most lethal fighting force in world history. His actions, his statements and his posture betray all of that concern.

Remember that this is the individual who once referred to those who wear the uniform as “suckers and losers.” I cannot let this go.

This moron in chief has no business commanding this fighting force. It is on a mission that no one has defined. There is no plan to end this war with Iran that Trump has boasted has already been won; if the war has been won, as Trump has bragged, then what in the hell are we still doing out there?

I once took part briefly in an unwinnable war. We weren’t all fighting for God and country in Vietnam. Many of us sought mainly to survive, to return home to our loved ones and start building our lives. Trump only worsens the lives of our warriors by blathering the cruelty that spews from his overfed mouth.

The men and women who are fighting a war with no end in sight need the complete respect from the individual who has sent them into battle. Donald Trump needs to keep his trap shut.

national news

Keystone Kops makes a return

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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.

national news

Trump outdoes himself … once again!

Donald Trump fielded a question over the weekend about news that President Biden’s cancer has spread from his prostate gland to his bones, apparently signaling a daunting turn for the 46th POTUS.

His answer was disgusting, but not the least bit surprising, given Trump’s lack of empathy for any human being on this Earth.

He called his predecessor a mean spirit, said he has trashed the reputations of his political adversaries. “So, no, I don’t feel sorry for him,” Trump said. Wow, man.

This is precisely why Donald Trump engenders such loathing among millions of Americans. And, yes, even from those who contend they support his ideas but dislike the man. All the POTUS had to say was simply something like this: “The president and I have profound differences, but I want to wish him well as he continues his struggle against cancer. I will say a prayer for Mrs. Biden and their children, Hunter and Ashley and their families.”

Even a milquetoast statement of empathy such as that could go a long way toward possibly redeeming Donald in the eyes of a nation that is growing so very weary of his continued insults.

This lack of compassion only proves what many of us have said all along, that Donald Trump carries none of what many of us think would be a normal sense decency.

This individual is wired in a way that bears no resemblance to anything you and I experience routinely as we go about a normal lifestyle.

I will pray for President Joe Biden, whose decency alone casts a gigantic shadow over the wreckage that Trump is bringing to the nation’s highest office.

national news, political news

Never have seen hatred like this …

My interest in politics and public policy goes back a ways … to, oh, around 1968. I had just graduated high school the previous year and was floundering in college.

Military duty awaited me, along with the Vietnam War that was fueling much of the debate in this country. The war and the debate raged on after I donned the Army uniform in the summer of ’68; in fact, I was inducted on Aug. 21 of that year, which means I will commemorate my induction date in just a few days.

I had a preferred presidential candidate that year. It was Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York. He was possibly on track to be nominated that summer as the Democratic candidate for president. Then in June 1968 it ended in a hail of gunfire in the Los Angeles hotel kitchen the night of the California Democratic primary that RFK won.

I went on to serve my country. I returned home in 1970. I got involved in the 1972 presidential election.

Where am I going with this? At no time, not a single time, did I witness the kind of bad blood flow among activists and politicians that we’re witnessing now in the Age of Donald Trump. We are witnessing the tearing apart of one of the essential threads of our political fabric. It’s the fabric that tells us that civility and decorum have their place … even as we debate with every ounce of mental and emotional strength in favor of policies and politicians we admire.

These days we hear about politicians fearing for their lives, that their political foes could react violently. And I won’t be coy about this aspect of the today’s climate: Pols and activists on the right — especially the MAGA right — are the most guilty of fomenting this fear. To be fair, the violence has its roots across the spectrum. I will cite the gruesome murder of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk as a key example of how dangerous this rhetoric has become for everyone in the public eye.

Can we return to the good old days of fierce debate among friends in high places? I damn sure hope so.

legal news

This isn’t compromise … it’s betrayal

In all the years I have been watching and covering politics — as a daily print journalist — I have seen my share of men and women make compromises to seek a greater good.

The decision by key Republican U.S. senators to back Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation in the Senate, however, falls into a darker category. It is a betrayal of common decency, not to mention of the oath they all took to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina both had been critical of recent decisions by Donald J. Trump. They made noise about opposing Blanche’s confirmation. It turned out that’s what it was: just a lot of noise.

The same could be said of Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a longtime foe of Trump. He, too, cast his vote to confirm Blanche, even though the new AG demonstrated repeatedly during his confirmation hearing that he had no intention of bucking the POTUS were he to issue an order that would violate the Constitution. Blanche, of course, served as Trump’s defense lawyer during his trials for various felonies of which he was convicted.

Accordingly, I am going to say a good word about Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,, who were the only GOP senators to stand on principle, rather than on blind fealty to a lame-duck president who has shown zero inclination to do anything for the good of the entire nation he was elected to lead.

Cornyn and Tillis’s plunge into the cavern is particularly odious. They had demanded a written commitment from Blanche that he would disallow the spending of $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to the traitorous felons convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the government after the 2020 election that Trump lost to President Biden. They got a written promise from Blanche, but there remains a distinct possibility that he and/or Trump could renege on that promise. There is zero legal binding to it.

Cornyn and Tillis both went with the idiot in chief rather than sending a clear message that they stood on a matter of principle.

Blanche’s confirmation by a 50-49 partisan vote, indeed, was a dark day for the rule of law. The GOP will have to defend the indefensible before a voting public that has lost its patience with a once-great political party.

national news

Trump hangs on by a thread

Donald J. Trump keeps bragging about how great he is as a man and as a politician, about he won two of three presidential elections in a landslide.

Hmm. I gave that some thought, so I looked up a few numbers to try to put this man’s time in high office in its proper perspective. Let’s take a brief look at them, OK?

Trump ran in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. He finished that election with nearly 3 million fewer votes than Clinton, but won the Electoral College and, thus, became president.

He ran for re-election in 2020 and got whipped by Joe Biden, who tallied about 7 million more votes than Trump, who then protested Biden’s victory by launching the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump ran again in 2024 and beat Kamala Harris by about 2 million votes, and won the Electoral College, too.

I totaled up Trump’s popular votes in all three elections and came up with 212 million votes compared to 214 million votes tallied by Clinton, Biden and Harris combined.

Here’s my point.

Donald Trump can declare until his orange face turns blue, but the numbers don’t lie, unlike the liar in chief. Donald Trump did win all those “battleground states” in 2024 and I will give him credit for that. He fought hard to persuade voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia to support him. But across the vast nation, he still came up short of anything approaching the “landslide” he keeps saying he won.

Furthermore, in all three of those national elections on which Trump’s name was on the ballot, he fell short of scoring a majority. He finished with about 45% in 2016, 47% on 2020 and 49% in 2024.

A landslide usually describes a 10-point victory or greater. Trump has been hanging on by a single thread since the moment he took the oath of office in January 2017.

I believe he is going to see what a landslide actually looks like in about 88 days.

political news, State news

How will Donald react to the drubbing?

Hey, it’s time to ask what I believe is a pertinent question regarding the midterm congressional election that is now just around the corner.

How is Donald Trump going to react if his Republican Party suffers the drubbing it is expected to receive from voters across the land who are tired of going to war, weary of the inflation caused by tariffs and sickened by the POTUS’s power grab?

My hunch? He will hate it all with a purple passion and will seek to find conspiracies around every corner and in every nook and cranny of the electoral system.

We now can presume that Trump cannot stomach the thought that he is a loser. Except that he is. He keeps challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden. He’s lost more than 60 court challenges. Loser!

What will happen if Republicans lose in states where they haven’t lost since The Flood? Will the party accept the results of free, fair and legal results if Democrats end up with more votes than the GOP? Bwahahahahaha!

Republicans will be fueled by the POTUS’s anger. They’ll gobble up the lie about elections being stolen.

I’m trying to fathom what might occur in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico holds an estimated 5-point lead over Republican Ken Paxton. Suppose Talarico’s lead is real and suppose as well that it translates into a victory in November. Trump will become apoplectic! He’ll go crazier than he already has become … especially if it’s a narrow Talarico win.

I am going to hope for the best. Which is that Trump realizes finally — finally! — that his battle to cling to power is lost forever. And that he’ll accept the thrashing he is expected to get and settle into the lame-duck status that is his alone.

You can stop laughing now.

medical news

Fauci is a hero, not a zero

How in the name of all that is sane does a man go from receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom to being treated as a run-of-the-mill hoodlum during a Senate committee hearing?

It’s not the individual, but rather it’s the change in the political climate that produces senators who have no sense of honor, decency or decorum.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man who likely saved the lives of millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, was raked over the coals by senators intent on slapping handcuffs on him and tossing him into the slammer. Why? Because the dipshit in chief, Donald Trump, wants them to do it.

Fauci once was honored by another Republican president, George H.W. Bush, with a Medal of Freedom. President Bush cited Fauci’s work as the world’s premier epidemiologist and his work to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. It was that record that Donald Trump brought him on board to lead the right against COVID, except then Fauci began contradicting the statements made by the current POTUS.

So, Trump turned him into a pariah. Now we have Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who this week sought to vilify Dr. Fauci for alleged misstatements he made. He called Fauci a liar. Dr. Fauci pushed back, citing his constitutional right to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid saying something that his accusers could use against him. He said Paul doesn’t know what he’s talking about and declared that “if anyone is lying, senator, it is you!”

I am going to stand with Dr. Anthony Fauci in this dispute. The man’s expertise is beyond dispute. It cannot possibly be challenged, especially by two-bit tinhorns masquerading as know-it-alls.

national news, political news

Trump earns title of ‘loser’

One of Donald J. Trump’s favorite epithets appears to be “loser,” which he bestows on anyone he deems to be, um, well … not worthy of any description other than that one.

I want to hang the label round the flabby neck of the current POTUS, for he has assumed the title of loser in chief.

He keeps harping on an election he lost to Joe Biden. He has filed 60-some lawsuits and lost every one of them in various courts of law. Trump continues to tease us with the half-baked notion of running for a “fourth term” in the White House. Why four? He won the first race in 2016, claims to have won the second one in 2020, captured the presidency in 2024 and suggests the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t apply to him … so he might run again. The amendment says he’s only able to win twice. He did so. At the end of the current term, he’s out. For keeps. Forever!

He backs candidates who win their Republican primaries. So, he can claim victories there. The test of success has come in general elections when his MAGA morons face real opposition. Then they lose. I am suggesting strongly they’ll keep losing throughout the 2026 midterm election season.

What does make the 47th POTUS? It makes him a loser. Pure and simple.

His legislative agenda — such as it is — is dead. He’s heading for certain impeachment once Democrats reclaim control of the House of Reps. Then it will fall on the Senate to determine if he stays in office. If the GOP keeps control of the Senate, he might hold on until the end of his term. If not, well, then the fun really begins.

The loser in chief’s legacy will be cast in stone.

national news

Trump surrounds himself with dimwits

It is as clear as the length of the day that Donald Trump’s premier broken campaign promise is the one that he pledged to surround himself with only the “best people,” the brightest minds and bona fide experts in every field known to humankind.

It also is clear as the deep blue sky that Trump has delivered us an executive team full of dimwits, nimrods, dipshits and kooks. I won’t name them all, as they likely would take too much time to finish these thoughts.

However, I want to explore briefly why Trump has scraped so low to fill his government executive team. It’s because the boss himself — that would be the POTUS — fits into all the pejorative descriptions I laid out in the previous paragraph. The last thing Donald Trump wants to do is have his team show him up by actually have an understanding of government, the Constitution and the limits the framers placed on the president.

In a strange, perverse sort of way I kind of get it if that is Trump’s desire. He doesn’t want to be shown up by underlings. We saw glimpses of that during his first term. He had a retired Marine Corps general, Jim Mattis, as secretary of defense. Mattis got the boot because he knew better than to just be a yes man to the president. The same can be said of John Kelly, another USMC general who took a spin at White House chief of staff. Mark Esper, another Defense boss, also got the boot in the. rear. I would even count Rex Tillerson, the first secretary of state to serve the Trump team.

The second term administration is filled with lackeys, yes men and women and assorted individuals who have no business serving in the highest levels of government.

We are getting the kind of government we should expect from a POTUS who brings to the highest office in the land zero background in public service.