Tag Archives: JD Vance

national news

No on ‘War’ Department

Vice President J.D. Vance has joined Donald Trump’s name-change cabal by declaring the Defense Department as the “War” Department.

This American patriot, who once got a glimpse of war back when I suited up for duty in the Army, will not join the MAGA cultists in making such a reference. I will continue to call it what it is and what it should remain, the Department of Defense, with a mission to “defend” the nation against foreign enemies.

I just don’t understand what enters Trump’s vacuous noggin. Think for just a moment about this.

When he was eligible to serve in the military when we were fighting a war, he chickened out. He claimed bone spurs. Has anyone ever seen him walking the aid of a cane? A doctor said he had them, so he backed out of serving the nation he said he loves.

Since becoming a politician, he has denigrated those who have served. He once said he didn’t want to be photographed with service personnel wounded in battle. He has insulted the likes of the late Sen. John McCain, a former Vietnam War prisoner whom Trump once said he didn’t deserve to be called a hero. He said he likes only those who “aren’t captured.” The bastard …

Now he wants to rename the Defense Department the War Department because it sounds tough. It has a sort of manly ring to it. This blog never will refer to the Defense Department in that new context, any more than it will attach the word “President” directly in front of Donald Trump’s name.

A department of “war” is overtly provocative and should be tossed aside as a reminder of the smallness of the individuals who support this cockamamie notion.

International news

Trump-Vance bashing draws heat from right

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance decided to form a tag team in the Oval Office, taking turns bashing Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he came to D.C. ostensibly to sign a mineral-rights deal with the United States.

What the Ukrainian president received instead was a shameful and unconscionable hectoring from the U.S. president and vice president who stunningly decided to stand with the dictator who unleashed his army on Ukraine three years ago.

Trump and Vance made a bit of notoriety with their lecture of Zelenskyy, who has stood firm with his troops who have inflicted tremendous injury and death on the invaders. They became the first American president and VP to turn their backs on an ally while he is fighting quite literally a hostile force intending to do this nation harm.

The tag-team approach was particularly galling, it appears, even to congressional conservatives who have been talking up their displeasure over what they witnessed in the Oval Office.

The true measure of their displeasure will come when they have to cast votes on Trump policies. Newfound anger at Trump well could be just so much bluster and bravado. The validation could come when they propose tangible measures to strike back at what many of them have called a betrayal of an ally fighting for democracy.

Indeed, what we witnessed was a sickening display by the former leader of the Free World.

International news

What could go wrong?

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to the White House today supposedly to cement a deal over some mineral rights with the United States.

It didn’t end with anything signed. It ended instead with Zelenskyy storming out a shouting match with Donald Trump, who along with Vice President J.D. Vance, managed to insult the beleaguered Zelenskyy to the point of immense frustration.

This man is our ally, or at least he was our ally when Russian forces attacked Ukraine three years ago while Joe Biden was president of the United States.

It’s all changed now that Biden has retired and Trump has returned to power. Trump has buddied up to Russian goon Vladimir Putin, taking up where he left off when he lost his re-election bid to Biden in 2020.

That a meeting with Zelenskyy would crater as it did today should have surprised no one, given Trump’s propensity for saying the wrong things at the wrong time.

national news

Going to wait for nominee

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Running a blog allows me to make command decisions without consulting with another human being … so I have done that very thing.

I have decided to wait until Thursday night to watch the Republican National Convention that will send Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance off to battle against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The RNC has nothing to offer me until the nominees take the microphone.

Why wait? Well, Trump says he’s rewriting his acceptance speech, crafting a document he says will stress unity.

Hmm. Do you believe him? Well, in truth neither do I.

But I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt simply by waiting to hear what the GOP nominee says when he takes the stage.

I am sure the delegates and many TV viewers will be emotionally charged when they see Trump, injured in that assassination attempt over the weekend. I won’t be caught up in the emotion of the moment, but I will be caught up in the context, tone and tenor of his remarks.

Trump has crafted his political career around rhetoric that seeks to divide Americans. He’s been good at it, too. I’ll give him plenty of credit for the success he has enjoyed.

How does he change gears, shift direction and come at us with a unification speech? Beats the daylights out of me.

I also am dubious on two other points: that he’ll actually deliver a unity speech and on whether he will be faithful to that promise in the rare probability that he does deliver it.