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The Screaming Moderate

Noblesse oblige? Arc de Trump? Hunger in America?

11/7/2025

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The President of the United States literally is playing with the lives of the country that elected him.

From withholding food assistance to the 42 million people who need it, to forcing airlines to cancel flights because air controllers are working without the promise of pay, to murdering people in boats, to threatening war with Nigeria and Venezuela, to putting untrained immigration enforcement people and troops on the streets of American cities, to roughing up even American citizens (am I leaving anything out?), more American lives are at risk today than the day he was sworn in. 

I don’t think that’s how our democracy is supposed to work.

Meantime, despite promising to lower prices on Day One, food and other daily costs are increasing while the President is building homages to himself (an arc de Trump?). He’s cut the legs out from under one of the great performing arts centers in the world. He is gilding the People’s House in gold, building a ballroom that everyday Americans will never be inside for events. He’s whining about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize he hasn’t earned while he threatens violence against other countries and wants to start nuclear testing again (so, maybe he gets it next year?).

Does anyone think he's really solved the Middle East problem except him?

Rather than demonstrating leadership as the country goes through the longest government shutdown in history, he proposes the Senate does away with its filibuster so a simple majority can adopt his desires to force more spending cuts, to stop our free elections.

Instead of providing leadership to solve the shutdown he wants to change the rules so he can win.

Same as he wants to change the election laws, how redistricting is done and, even today, is hinting (I'm being nice) that Ukraine cannot win its war with Russia, rather than having solved it in less than 24 hours, as he promised.

He, therefore, wants to face life as he has for the last roughly 80 years – with a sliver spoon in his mouth, getting his way by force of threat. He wants his easy life to continue as he “leads” what has been the most important country in history.

This week he experienced an election where he was rebuffed by voters from the East to the West. Swing voters shifted back against him. Not that it bothers him – he isn’t running again. But you’ll witness the chill among House and Senate members who see their elections not automatic anymore, as voters exercise free will and vote in their best interests, not the President’s best interest.

The bully tactics don’t work in a free society forever. Only as long as life is good or at least tolerable for the people the government is supposed to serve.

People going hungry in the USA? Unheard of.

But it’s beginning as the President fights against them as he ignores and appeals court orders that leave those who need help not knowing where or how their next meal is coming from as SNAP goes on hiatus and food kitchens will suffer lack of stock shortly.

The President can, until he’s gold in the face, bluster that prices are down but they aren’t. And we all know that because we pay the bills. He doesn’t, nor does he even care that there are people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from or if they can pay their energy bill, mortgage or rent.

It can’t even really be called noblesse oblige. The President just doesn’t care. A guest fainted during a presidential press conference yesterday. What was the President’s reaction? He stood there. Did nothing. Didn’t even call for help.

Because he doesn’t know how to show care or empathy for anyone other than himself.

Or to provide needed help.


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Cease fire. Nice work! Peace. Not so fast.

10/14/2025

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President Trump rightfully is getting credit for the cease fire and return of hostages in the Middle East. Period, full stop.

Are the “3000 years” of conflict over? Not so fast.

Trump Special Envoy Steve Witkoff made the right call to split negotiations in two parts – that got us to a cease fire and hostage/prisoner exchange, not an easy task.

The more difficult work is the second half, especially getting Hamas to disarm and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to some type of governance in Gaza that isn’t Israeli-dominant.

Trump said, among other things yesterday, “Like the USA right now, it will be the golden age of Israel and the golden age of the Middle East.”

Spoken like the true showman he is.

Trump is, as he likes to say, a deal-maker. A guy who is transactional -- someone who views interactions as a series of exchanges, expecting a tangible or immediate return for his contributions – sees everything as a deal. You get something, I get something. Has to be of equal value to each side, or at least of more value to his side.

That isn’t necessarily how you make peace, or win a Nobel Peace Prize.

President Trump, we must never forget, is a narcissist, a man who thinks primarily (only) about himself. He also thinks like a television producer – in 30-minute episodes. How will the pictures look? What’s the narrative? How do I look my best?

On to the next episode, new plot, new expectations.

He was greeted in the Middle East yesterday as a hero. And in many ways, he deserved that. But it cannot be equated with total success in the Middle East. Yes, the hostages are home, thank goodness. The visuals of the families greeting their loved ones indeed are priceless.

President Trump may have been the only recent president to be able to hold Netanyahu to account as he did. The only one who could bomb Iran as he did and get away with it. Those are among the steps it took to get to a cease fire and get the Arab world mostly on his side for this deal, a ceasee fire with potential for more.

Peace in the Middle East will come at a higher cost. Rebuilding Gaza, using funds donated by wealthy Arab countries is another thing, too. As wealthy as they are, they aren’t going to donate billions without a higher payback than peace with Israel.

Hamas (full  name: Islamic Resistance movement) is not going to just lay down its arms.  And they haven't yet. That's part of the second half of negotiations, just as is full Israeli pullback from Gaza.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope this deal results in long-term peace for the Middle East. People there, on all sides, have suffered long enough.
Donald Trump the dealmaker got them to this point, and he deserves praise for that.

Getting to long-lasting peace is another is another deal altogether.

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1st Amendment under attack.

9/19/2025

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Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the public interest.

Words that I believe. But not my words.

That first paragraph is a quote from now FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. In fact, he posted it on Twitter in 2019 after a Democratic FCC commissioner called for a crackdown on electronic cigarette ads.

So, who is the real Brendan Carr? The one who believes in the First Amendment, as the first paragraph states, or the one who mob-talked ABC this week into suspending Jimmy Kimmel?

Mob-talked. Like the old mobster who used to walk into the neighborhood candy store and tell the owner, “Nice store you have here,” with the clear threat that we can make it not so nice if you don’t do what we want.

Carr told ABC in an interview, “we can do it the easy way, or the hard way,” implying FCC punishment if they didn’t keep their store “clean.”

I have watched the Kimmel shtick from the other night several times. Honestly, the MAGA angle, I did not find funny. But comics not being funny is not against the law, or the Constitution.

At the moment Kimmel told that joke, there were rumors reported that Charlie Kirk's murderer had beliefs similar to MAGA. As with most police investigations, rumors at the early stages often are wrong.

Comedy is timing, not only in how you tell a joke but when you tell a joke.

The part after that in Kimmel's monologue, even though the timing of it may have been wrong, was funny. He played a video of Trump being asked a day or two after Kirk was killed how he was doing dealing with the murder of his friend.

Trump’s answer: “I think very good and by the way right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ball room for the White House.”

The camera shifted back to Kimmel who then deadpanned: “Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief, construction.”

To me, that was funny.

On the day of Kirk’s murder, though, Kimmel posted on X:

“Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

That’s Jimmy Kimmel the human versus Jimmy Kimmel the not always funny comedian whose show was suspended.

It’s all important “only” because the First Amendment is first for a reason – it’s one major reason America exists and is admired around the world. Carr, though, not only threatened ABC, he now is threatening others (NBC?) who still have late show hosts on air.

And, Carr is reinforcing Trump grievances about the media being against him (by reporting news), and about comics making jokes about him (as they have about every President who preceded him).

Trump is pushing his “narrative” that it is Us vs.Them.

MAGA believers (I’m not sure how else to describe them – they are not conservative Republicans) want the murderer of Kirk to be a man who was acting on orders from “Them,” who I presume includes the Deep State and liberals with money who fund liberal organizations – all of whom apparently met to tell the murderer to shoot Kirk.

It’s ridiculous. That didn’t happen.

This country is not Us and Them. It’s a country that is deeply divided right now and is deeply split by leaders (led by Trump on the MAGA side) who want there to be, like authoritarians have done before him, an Us and a Them – an Us that is good and a Them that is evil.

It’s easier that way to split the country.

It’s simple. “They killed him,” some MAGA bloggers and others are saying. Rather than what is the truth – the 22-year-old pulled the trigger by himself in an act that is horrific, wrong, and a crime that removed a man from his wife and children, for no reason other than the 22-year old disagrees with him. 

Kirk had a right to have and voice his views, just as Jimmy Kimmel has a right and a voice to tell jokes. Bad jokes are protected by the Constitution just as political rhetoric is protected.

And that goes for all of us or it goes for none of us.
 


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Can this really be a turning point?

9/12/2025

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The country truly could be at a turning point in its politics of rage, tweets, Truths, online postings and rhetoric, as many of our leaders are saying now.

Let’s add in another ingredient to this recipe: We, the People.

Trite as I know that sounds the power has always been ours to lower the political rage that too often reaches beyond the boiling point -- as with the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk this week.

It’s not that Kirk’s sometimes beyond the pale rhetoric led an obviously mentally deranged young man to pull the trigger on his rifle from 100 or 200 yards away and drive a bullet into Kirk’s neck, likely killing him instantly.

It’s how we all react to it now.

I was watching Kasie Hunt’s show on CNN the day of the shooting, before authorities arrested a young man for the killing.

First, Hunt showed a clip of President Trump’s video reacting to the murder in which he shared his condolences to his friend’s family and quickly segued into blaming the “radical left” for fomenting a climate of rage, despite having no knowledge of the shooter’s motives (which we still don’t really know).

Hunt had a panel of one Republican partisan and one Democratic partisan and two others. When the show switched back from Trump’s video to that panel, no one on the panel commented on Trump’s statement – the Democrat didn’t attack it for its partisan tone and the Republican (a senior advisor on the last Trump campaign) didn’t endorse it or even mention it.

The panel just discussed the shooting and what comes next – with no reference at all to the President of the United States.

And, the discussion was thoughtful, calm, reasoned. No one yelled at each other, no one screamed partisan talking points and tried to point fingers of blame at one party or person or the other.

To me, it was a shocking (in a good way) television talking heads’ moment. They ignored the gas Trump was pouring on the fire and just talked – with each other, not against each other. Not reacting to the loudest voice in the country.

Could this be part of the answer to our political raging? Ignoring the loudest voice in the room, and getting on with solving or at least discussing the issue(s) as a way to work through them?

Today, the Republican governor of Utah, where the Kirk murder took place, announced authorities had the person they believe killed Kirk in custody. Gov. Spencer Cox, who has a history of trying to get the political “sides”’ to return to talking civilly to each other, gave the information we all wanted to hear in a professional manner.

Then, speaking to the younger people of our country, he said, “Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now, not by pretending differences don’t matter, but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations.”

Such a reasonable observation, such a rational observation.

Meantime, this morning on Fox News, President Trump said, among other things, “the radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”

Two different approaches to the potential turning point our country faces politically now.

We can continue to raise our blood pressures by watching the “sides” try to out-do each other, join in, pile up the "likes" and re-posts and grab the immediate attention or we can return to the American experiment that has served us all so well for these two plus centuries and talk with each other about our differences, about our policy choices and about what kind of civilization we want in our country.

I’ve never been accused of being an optimist. And I know I sound like Pollyanna.

But I go for the lowering the temperature, stopping the violence and talking it out with each other. Like we used to do.

What do you choose?


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It's the ratings, stupid

8/27/2025

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Donald J. Trump is a TV person at heart. A producer!

A child raised in the television era. He’s a creature of the medium who’s become quite expert (in his way) at it.

Example? That three-plus hour “Cabinet meeting” yesterday. It wasn’t a Cabinet meeting. It was performance art because the cameras were there, live, every minute. There was no meeting, no decisions, no policy presentations or options to review.

Here's what it was: 

His soliloquy about many different topics, so he could shout from his bully pulpit demands and proclamations -- true or not --  all ears on him. Then, the one-after-the other Cabinet members providing witness to his greatness. Each trying to outdo their peers. With the cameras feeding it, live, to the millions he wants to impress, whether he impresses them or not.

All attention is on him. That’s what he likes. That's what he seeks. That's what he craves.

That's entertainment!  

Street crime? He’s not really taking that on. He’s posturing. But Trump views it through the lens of a TV producer, what makes a good episode?
What gets him the ratings?

After just a few days of shipping the National Guard to Washington, he declared victory. “No crime in DC … D.C. was a hellhole and now it’s safe,” he proclaimed.

A good episode. Not true, but entertaining.

Never mind that those troops are being videotaped picking up trash in DC. The garbage kind, not the criminal kind.

 After just a few days of “cleaning up D.C.,” he was moving on to Chicago! Another Democratic led city with the advantage, to Trump, of being known as Mob Central – about 100 years ago. But for some who watch TV, that perception remains  and now he is getting what he wants: A fight with the Democratic governor (a potential 2028 presidential candidate) and the (black) mayor of Chicago.

He lives for that game.

He's a genius at politicking. At delivering results?  Not so much.

Never mind that if you look at the list of the top cities and states leading crime statistics in the United States, the vast majority are Republican-led cities and states. But (shockingly?) Trump isn’t threatening sending troops to those locations.

The Democratic Party is on the ropes in the country with registration down, special interest groups once theirs now flirting with the Republican Party.

As we all know, crime isn't a result of bad leadership by Republicans or Democrats but it is a result of bad leadership by Republicans and Democrats who aren't working on the roots  of crime -- be that education, drugs, poverty, enough jobs, after-school activities, etc.

Trump's efforts on crime are not seen by experts in the field as fighting crime, they are seen as gathering the benefits on the political issue – which is all Trump ever cares about.

Peace in Ukraine or Gaza? Only if it gets him his treasured Nobel Peace Prize. What’s he actually done to move the various sides to peace in those areas?

His latest Ukraine effort ended with him saying that if the leaders of those two countries don’t solve the problem themselves, he’ll figure out who to blame.

A winning Nobel strategy!

Trump actually is ignoring his real ratings: those that show what kind of job the people think the President is doing. He's under water on about every question.

Donald Trump grew up on television, real estate and being a rich kid.

He thinks,  therefore,  that life is won in 30-minute episodes, the transaction of the moment and who has the most money.

He measures a successful government in terms of monetary profit – and democratic governments are not built to make profits; they are built to provide help and security to their citizens.

He’s playing by a different set of rules. A set that doesn’t help the American people.

But, boy, does he get (TV) ratings!

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Gull, we hardly knew ye

8/16/2025

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Picture
I was passing my front door yesterday and saw a bird standing on the porch.

So, I looked again.

This time I saw the bird walking off the porch onto the flat boulder we use as a first step. She was slowly strutting into the front yard. (That's her in the picture on the left.)

I was surprised because typically we see birds like this (white and black feathers, yellow bill) out back, where there also is a beautiful tidal river more accustomed to being the setting for them (well, and other wildlife. Saw a fisher cat there once, not to mention the ground hog that lived under our shed, until we hired a wildlife catcher-guy to trap him so he didn’t burrow all over the place. But that’s another story. So is the five turkeys that were once perched on the shed's roof).

Anyway, I left the bird and went back downstairs to finish reading the morning papers. About an hour later, I went back upstairs to go out and check the mail. And, the bird was still standing -- in the same spot, on the manhole cover that provides access to our septic tank. Now, I’m thinking to myself, “Self, that bird must be injured.” But, her legs looked fine (though thinner than mine even) and her wings looked fine, too.

So, I opened the door to head to the mailbox by the road, thinking the bird would take off when I exited. She didn’t, just standing there, kind of watching me but he also had a distant look in her eye. I walked to the street, pulled out the mail and walked back to the house. She hadn't moved one step.

Now, I’m thinking she must be injured, what do I do? So, I called the police, where, the listing on the interweb said, there also was the Animal Control Officer.

The officer who answered seemed bewildered after I explained, “I have some kind of seabird in my front yard and she doesn’t seem to want to leave. I think it's injured.” He said, “a sea bird?” I said, uh, best word I can come up with at the moment. He took my info and said he’d track down the animal control officer.

About a half hour later she called asking what was going on. She wouldn’t be fooled, though. “Uh, a ‘sea bird?’” she said, asking for if she was white and grey. I said, “Yes!” with a yellow bill, I can sand a picture? She said, “it’s a sea gull.” Feeling more than a tad dumb I said, “Uh, right!”

(Too) Long story short, she said "I have a meeting at 1 but I’ll come over after that. It may have bird flu. Not much I can do but I’ll try to shoo it to the water." I thought about saying I could try to do that but thought better of it. Bird flu just sounds bad.

Before she arrived, I checked the front yard and, of course, the bird had flown the Coop, so to speak.

I looked around the side yards. No gull. I looked out back and my wife was returning from her kayak trip down river and was saying something, but I couldn’t hear her.

Eventually she pointed to the gull standing by her kayak. 

How that sick bird with its skinny legs walked all the way around back, I’ll never know. But there she was. Standing now in the back yard.

My wife watched as the gull walked toward the river, and we lost sight of her.

The Animal Control officer arrived and we walked her to where we last saw the bird and had a nice chat about bird flu (did you know it affects their brains?), groundhogs and the various reasons she gets called to a homeowner’s.

My wife explained she believes the bird walked into the river, “just like Virginia Woolf.”
She’s an English Lit major. I’m not, didn’t get the reference.

The Animal Control officer did and they had a nice laugh.

(Ms Woolf put heavy stones in her pockets and drowned herself in the River Ouse in Sussex.)

Life in retirement. 


 


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Authoritarian country? For now is all he cares about

8/2/2025

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There was a time (a long time, I must admit) that I thought Donald Trump was trying to transition the United States from a democracy to an authoritarian country. I was wrong.

That would presume that Trump cared what happens to the country or its people after he’s gone from office.

Now, I’ve concluded that he wants to be as authoritarian as he can be within the boundaries he sees put on him (none, but there still are times they will be forced by the court. That’s court singular because the lower courts he just ignores. He only worries about the Supreme Court.)

No, thinking Trump wanted to leave an authoritarian country to his successors would mean that he cares about those successors. He cares about no one except himself – and that is the concept I’ve finally accepted in all its implications.

Play footsy with Vladimir Putin? Only until he recognizes, which he may be doing now, that Vlad plays footsy with no one, except himself. All the lives and money Putin’s taken while in power will never be fully counted. Nope, Trump and Vlad are of similar character/personality traits. They care only for themselves.

Tariffs? Rather than seeing them as the flawed economic tool they’ve proven to be over the years, Trump sees tariffs as a further tool to wield the bully power he thinks he has. Don’t agree? Look at his tariffs on Brazil. He’s not just applying sanctions to the country’s exports but also on the judge who’s handling the case of the country’s former leader and (Trump has been convinced by that former leader's son) is persecuting that leader unfairly.
 
That’s none of his, or the United States’, business. But … sanctions!

(It's still to be formally adjudicated that the President even has the power to charge tariffs without Congress' approval, as the Constitution states.)

War and peace? Trump claims to have ended six wars (he hasn’t) but among the ways he claims he’s succeeded at that is to threaten economic sanctions. A war ends, he claims credit. (After all, he's building his resume to claim he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.)

The economy? The economy is chugging along. But as soon as the federal government released data he views is bad news (yesterday’s jobs report), he doesn’t reconsider his policies, he fires the messenger – the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics who he claims, without a smidgen of evidence, is “rigging” the numbers. That’s the same word he uses to explain his defeat to Biden – the numbers were rigged. (By the way, Trump's White House trade czar also has stated that Trump should win the Nobel for Economics.)

There can be no news about Trump that implies – in any way – that he was wrong about anything. He’s just that good!

Check that. He’s just that perfect!

That’s what an authoritarian does. Shoots messengers. Declares bad news fake news. Says bad statistics are rigged. 

Those numbers form the Bureau of Labor Statistics? They get adjusted about every month – whoever is President.

Why?

Here’s how the bureau develops those numbers: Companies, large and small, report their job statistics to the bureau every month. About 200 individuals at the bureau are involved in that collection/analysis every month. On a date certain, the bureau releases those numbers which become the official government data on jobs, who’s seeking them, who’s losing them etc.

Almost every month, the country’s largest companies are more reliable about submitting their reports regularly – they simply have the infrastructure to do that. The country’s smaller company’s – those most immediately affected by the twists and turns of the economy – are slower to report. Thus, the numbers the following month are updated to reflect more up to date reporting of jobs created/jobs lost etc.

No secret. No conspiracy. No rigging. Been done like that for decades in all the data-collecting and reporting agencies.

Something else: Typically those data-collecting agencies report their latest numbers to the White House 24 or 48 hours before their public release. Typically, those numbers are included in a report to the President of the United States.

I’m guessing that President Trump doesn’t get that report because he’s not big on details. So, his tantrum over the substance of those numbers were (or should have been) known to him in advance.

But Trump lives day to day, another function of his transactional life.

His firing of the bureau’s leader is a very, very bad thing. Because now he will appoint someone of his choosing who (likely) may  be more accepting that “correcting” the numbers submitted for public release is okay to do if that's what the President wants.

If that person does “adjust” those numbers based not on data but his or her boss’ politics, no business (nor the government) will have legitimate data to make decisions on – potentially destroying our economy equal or worse than what his tariffs will do.

This is an authoritarian move that he can get away with, with no changes to the Constitution, no push back from his compliant Congress – just his own authoritarian desires.

He doesn’t care if Vice President JD Vance succeeds him and takes over his authoritarian country – Trump will have made whatever ego and economic gains he corruptly took.

And that’s all  he cares about.

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Bombing Iran: Good, bad? Discuss

6/25/2025

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Bombing Iran’s nuclear sites – good or bad? Discuss.

From one perspective, the bombings by Trump may change the politics of the Middle East. Personally, I doubt it but that’s based on nothing ever having changed the Middle East before or the complex territorial, political, religious makeup of the region. Some day, something has to change.

Though my hope is it does, for the better

My reality is – I just don’t trust Donald J. Trump.

And that distrust is turning out to be justified to this point. He claims obliteration of the sites. Initial reports from his own Defense Department say that isn’t true.

The Trump-appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave the more realistic report immediately after the bombing – that serious damage was done but he didn’t use the word “obliterate.” That’s probably because the truth is no one really knows yet what damage was done. And the chairman was leaning on facts and his own credibility, not trying to score quick political points.

Another question, of course, is: Was obliteration of the sites necessary to stop Iran from having a nuclear bomb? Maybe not. Time will tell.


The president’s press secretary tells us that if something is hit with multiple 30,000-pound bombs, of course it’s been obliterated!

Of course, a 30,000-pound buster bomb, best I can research, weighs 30,000 pounds because it carries a heavy load – propeller to dig into the ground, and other necessary equipment to carry out its mission:– dig hundreds of feet into the earth and then explode. It’s bomb weight is impressive – 2400 kg (that’s a 5,000 pound bomb).

No question it’s big and does serious damage, but when the President and his spokespeople say a “30,000-pound bomb,” that’s not exactly what it is. And the description carries more weight (pardon the unintentional pun), than the bomb itself is. It's more for public relations purposes to label it a "30,000-pound" bomb.

Quibbling, I know, but just trying to lay out some facts.

Trump and his minions are calling the DoD’s initial assessment wrong but that’s based on them thinking it’s wrong, not knowing it’s wrong.


Again, quibbling because no one really “knows” yet what damage the bombing did.

So, if Ronald Reagan, or George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton, for that matter, had ordered the same bombing – their reports would carry far more credibility than Trump’s, to me anyway. Because they wouldn’t lie about something so serious. But Trump (eye on the Nobel Prize, and history of outlandish statements to make his point) would.

When a President uses up his credibility by telling untold, proven, tens of thousands of lies in his career, when we go to “war” his credibility is, at best, questionable. You can disagree with interpretation of intelligence, as Trump does often, but you can’t disagree with what are facts.

Do I hope the bombing did damage? Of course. What right-minded individual thinks Iran should possess a nuclear bomb? When you have the power to order a big bombing – and you do – you want it to be successful.

Fact is, we just don’t know what real damage the bombing did – yet.

Nor do we know if the current cease fire will  hold. Hard to know when it’s agreed to by two players (Israel and Iran) who have a history  of breaking such agreements and a President whose credibility is, at  best, questionable.

So, we’ll see.

Discussion may, of course, continue.


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Monarchy or Republic (if we can keep it)

6/11/2025

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We are as close to being an authoritarian-led country as much as a Republic can be that close.

Our county was founded as a republic (as a reminder the definition of republic is:  a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

As you watch President Trump’s actions, though, it’s obvious he’d prefer being a monarch. For example:
  • Under law and precedent, presidents do not send National Guard into an area without a request from state or local leadership.
  • Under law and precedent, presidents do not withhold congressionally passed funds from those it was aimed at helping.
  • Under law and precedent, presidents do not withhold research funding from universities as punishment for policies they disagree with, even if they are right.
  • Presidents don’t typically pardon those convicted of attacking the Congress and plotting and attempting to carry out an insurrection.

President Trump, though, has done all those things (and more). He also has kidnapped a parade that originally was proposed as a small affair to honor the Army’s birthday and made sure it is celebrating his own birthday. It’s the parade he’s dreamed of holding since he was young.

In our country, dreams (and nightmares) can come true.

Look for Trump to deliver his standard partisan speech attacking his perceived enemies on a day set aside to honor our military and those who honorably served our country and Constitution, not our president.

On January 6th, we all watched on television as our Congress was attacked by hundreds of people who wanted to overthrow our government. Not all of them, of course, but a good chunk who later pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes against our country and law enforcement.

President Trump’s reaction – pardon them all, even those who attacked not “just” a symbol of our freedom, but law enforcement who were  trying to protect it. Pardoned. Get out of jail free.

Out of jail and standing back and standing by to help their leader when he calls them next.

That call may come at any moment now.

He already has broken precedent and law by sending National Guard and the Marines into California to quell protest. Are some of those people paid to stir up trouble? Of course they are but most are “simply” protesting Trump’s government’s approach to immigration.

That approach is: Set a quota for daily deportations and meet  it, no matter the methods or the consequences.

Are Americans upset with our immigration policy. Yes, as they should be.

In fact, the Congress -- both parties -- agreed on a bill that would have addressed many of the flaws in our system but that law was stopped in its tracks when Donald J. Trump said: Stop! It doesn’t help my campaign to pass that law and remove a populist issue I can leverage to my advantage.

Thus, the law was not passed. Therefore, our immigration problems grew worse. Now he uses those problems to justify his authoritarian desires.

Want to blame that on Biden? Fine, go for it. Blame doesn’t’ matter to good politicians – solutions to problems matter.  And Biden isn't president anymore. He's history.

Trump though prefers the issue to the solution: The better to appear to be a populist. The better to serve his goals, not the country’s goals.

The language he and his minions use to describe the protests in California is aimed at one thing: establishing what they think is a case for invoking the Insurrection Act. You don’t even need to listen closely – just pay attention to the words. It’s coming.

Only the courts (may) save us.

Trump is threatening that protests at his birthday parade will “be met with very big force.” Protests. That’s part of the fabric of our country, agree with the cause or not – people get to scream and yell and march.

They don’t get to grab equipment away from law enforcement and use it to smash windows of the Congress though. That’s against the law. That may be insurrection. Apparently, a pardonable offense these days.

But that’s what those “tourists” did on Jan. 6 to our Capitol.

Now that Trump has begun to use his powers as commander-in-chief against his own people, what’s to stop him from going even further? He’s already deported people without due process. He’s already paid a foreign leader to house those deported in prisons he couldn’t last until lunch in.

Now, he is deporting illegal immigrants from allied countries and deporting them – but not back to the countries they came from (and who want them) but to Gitmo -- without informing our allies where or who they are.

No president has unilaterally invoked the Insurrection Act against a state’s wishes since Lyndon Johnson did to provide protection for civil rights activists in Alabama in 1965.

But Trump did it just the other day. Inserting himself as a tough guy in a protest that covered a few blocks of Los Angeles. Some of those folks, don’t get me wrong, committed crimes and should be punished. Some of them. Some are just citizens standing up for their neighbors.

Our media tends to knee-jerk react to the politics of all this. California’s governor makes a speech to take political advantage of his state’s tragic recent history to leap ahead of the candidates for 2028, they say. Finally, they tell us someone has taken the lead on taking on Trump.

Personally, I don’t dwell on who should run in 2028.  I’m simply hoping we have a free election in 2028.

It’s not guaranteed.


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He's the "King of the World!"

5/7/2025

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I finally figured out why I haven’t been able to figure out just what Donald J. Trump is doing. I mean, some of the things he gets into have nothing to do with being President of the United States.

Things like trying to tell private universities what to teach, how to hire and punishing them by withholding research money that goes to finding cures to diseases, among other remarkable discoveries.

Or, renaming international bodies of water like the Gulf of America or, today, the Gulf of Arabia, by fiat.

How about deciding Canada needs to be our 51st state? Or Greenland needs to be owned by the United States or declaring retaking of the Panama Canal?

How else can the President and his family make millions of dollars by signing real estate agreements in foreign countries, making profits off it while he serves as President? No president has done that before!

Or, displaying his for-sale red heads on the Cabinet table during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet room? No president has ever done, or likely thought of doing that before!

Additionally, no U.S. president has said “I don’t know” when asked if he needs to follow the U.S. Constitution – a document he has sworn an oath to up twice!

No president has sold cars in the White House driveway nor has he ever sold his own crypto from the Oval Office!

No president has extorted business people by threatening to hold up mergers simply to punish them to get improved treatment from the media outlets they own (praise be to “60 Minutes” for its weekly stories on Trump overreach even in the face of its owner caving to Trump’s demands).

In just the last few days he has threatened tariffs on movies made out of the country to supposedly bring film-making back to America, he is threatening to engage in whether college athletes are paid or not, and he has called for the return of Alcatraz, a museum, as a maximum-security prison.

No, my friends, his goal wasn’t to be the President of the United States, his goal is to be the King of the World, and maybe even star in the remake of Titanic.

Nothing else explains the lunacy and over-reaching of his presidency.


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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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