Donald Trump has an aversion to the military - The heroes that he calls loosers!!! #votehimout

Echo letter opinion published in the Hays Daily News, in Kansas:

Wrong minded and evil comments by Donald Trump! He calls the  military “suckers and losers,” his generals “sissies and dopes.” !!!

Obviously, Donald Trump did not attend the opening of the President Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington DC. If he had attended, Trump would have learned how Eisenhower demonstrated great executive ability in supervising an unprecedented logistical challenge, and his remarkable interpersonal skills welded and held together the most diverse military alliance in history. 

Since COVID-19, he is glad that he doesn’t have to “shake hands with those disgusting people.” He describes the COVID-19 as, “it is what it is,” discounts “blue states” as being bad for the virus statistics, and claims that the rate of COVID-19 cases would be lower if fewer tests were done. With 200,000 dead, he gives himself an A+ on his response to the virus and excuses the fatalities as older, unhealthy people who were already sick anyway.

He claims that his rallies are safe because he is “on stage and far away.” That would be far away from those “disgusting people” who are packed together and, following his lead, not wearing masks. He cares not for their safety.

Incredulous as it seems, Trump indeed claimed that the virus would “magically disappear”, but then he became aware that it was “deadly stuff,” as has been revealed in the Woodward tapes. And, then he whined and whimpered that “nobody likes me” and “I don’t have any friends anymore.”

I expect that, by now, even his apologists are hoping for a Biden win so they can get off the defensive and back on the attack.

Michael Mattson, Salina, Kansas

Republicans and the irresponsible Donald Trump have taken a wrecking ball to America's public health system

Echo opinion editorial published in the Topeka Capital-Journal submitted by Tomari Quinn:

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases saved to Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID Director
NIAID supports World Health Organization’s SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign. Proper #HandHygiene can help to prevent #AntibioticResistance.

Echo: America's nation’s public health system is a treasure.

It comprises multiple agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), some of which conduct original research and others of which inform the public about ways to prevent illness. 

Still other agencies make sure the medicine and vaccines we use are safe and effective.

That’s why it’s been so deeply distressing to watch the Trump administration take a wrecking ball to the integrity of this system and these agencies.

We don’t have the time or space to list all of the Donald Trump administration’s most egregious actions. We could start with the sidelining of Anthony Fauci, perhaps the nation’s most trusted scientific adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic. We could continue with efforts in the Health and Human Services Department to control regular scientific reports that come out of the CDC.

Perhaps most alarmingly, we could focus on the way that the president has urged the FDA to cut corners and accelerate the timeline on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, hoping against hope to deliver an October surprise and a presidential re-election.

In each of these cases, we see Donald Trump and an administration devoted to short-term political gain over long-term public health. The United States has paid a continuing price, as other nations have followed the science and kept their outbreaks under control. 

Our Trumpzi government’s decision to put the political ahead of the scientific has cost us all dearly.

And the trade-off hasn’t ended. Polling has shown that many Americans will distrust an eventual COVID-19 vaccine. If the president demands that the FDA approve a treatment before testing is conducted, how is the public supposed to react?

We have non-partisan public health institutions for a reason. They are meant to prevent exactly this kind of abuse. They are meant to be a trusted source of information for every American, Republican, Democrat or independent.

In attempting to break the mission of these institutions — which are still packed with incredibly talented researchers, scientists and public communicators — the president risks breaking trust with the American people.

This illness of governance was preventable. Curing it may take more aggressive treatment in November.

Eishenhower the President and General has a big D.C. memorial but few noticed and even fewer seem to like it

The Topeka-Capital-Journal, a Kansas newspaper coverage about the lackluster unveiling of the memorial dedicated to President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Dedication of the official memorial to General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower occurred on Sept. 17, 2020. Frankly, relatively little media attention was devoted to what should have been this historically important event. This report describes an ambiguous response to the unveiling of this memorial and the apparant lackluster ceremony. I wonder if a French delegation was invited to  attend?

 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, honoring the legacy of the World War II Supreme Allied Commander and nation's 34th President,

Too bad about the lack of coverage.  No surprise there. We’re preoccupied with public health, public demonstrations and violence, and the intense, nasty bitterness of the ongoing presidential campaigns.

The memorial is mammoth in concept and scale, occupying four acres of downtown Washington D.C., now transformed into a park. Two giant columns flank the site. One is devoted to Ike’s service as Supreme Allied Commander during World War II in Europe, the other to his accomplishments as the 34th President of the United States.

Designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, the Eisenhower Memorial encapsulates Eisenhower’s legacy in a four-acre urban park at the base of Capitol Hill along Independence Avenue SW.
Gehry’s unique vision is a grand new civic space in the heart of DC. It features a one-of-a-kind stainless-steel tapestry depicting beaches of D-Day.

The park, in Washington D.C., includes additional columns, statues and a giant stainless steel woven tapestry. Frank Gehry is the architect, a celebrity transcending his profession, in constant demand by people seeking immortal institutional designs or at least greater comfort through luxurious dwellings in this life.

Congress commissioned the Eisenhower memorial in 1999, but the project consumed over two decades to complete. Disputes over design, location and other particulars caused extensive delays. Ike’s two granddaughters were initially extremely unhappy with the project. His grandson David Eisenhower, reportedly unhappy also, is politely supportive of the finished product.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower was crucial to the extraordinarily complex, costly long-term effort to liberate occupied Europe and destroy the Nazi regime in Germany. The mammoth D-Day invasion of France on June 6, 1944, encapsulated the myriad challenges of the war overall.

Eisenhower demonstrated great executive ability in supervising an unprecedented logistical challenge, and his remarkable interpersonal skills welded and held together the most diverse military alliance in history. Related to this, Ike was able to establish overall command. This unity eluded even the American military alone in the Pacific theatre, where Army General Douglas MacArthur relentlessly pursued one strategic vision, while U.S. Navy admirals took an alternative approach.

Planners proposed extensive bombing of transport routes and supply depots in France as necessary to the enormous effort to prepare the way for invasion. Such air action would bring an estimated minimum of 60,000 civilian casualties and perhaps many more.

For that reason, American and British air commanders resisted widespread destruction and argued for a much more limited bombing effort. Ike was able to turn to General Charles de Gaulle, temperamental leader of the Free French forces, who unreservedly supported widespread bombing as essential.

Simultaneously, Eisenhower was aware of the terrible human costs of war, borne primarily by the enlisted ranks. He constantly stressed the role of the combat soldier and regularly visited troops. Classic photographs include his visit with young American paratroopers about to depart early on D-Day.

Eisenhower took a similar approach to national leadership, after securing the Republican Party’s presidential nomination and the White House, with a landslide victory in the 1952 election. As president, he met regularly with Congressional leaders.

For six of eight years in office, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Lyndon Johnson led the Senate majority and Sam Rayburn was Speaker of the House. Ike disliked both, but regularly invited them to the White House for consultation and socializing, at the end of the business day. 

Over time, the partisan political lines became blurred.

When Eisenhower died, newly inaugurated President Richard M. Nixon rightly compared him to George Washington as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Eisenhower preferred public modesty. Gehry’s monument unfortunately neglects that dimension, by design.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of “After the Cold War” (NYU Press and Macmillan). Contact acyr@carthage.edu.

Coronavirus infections continue: #TrumpVirus

 Reported in The Week:  the U.S. hits a grim pandemic milestone.  

In fact, the U.S. surpassed 200,000 coronavirus related deaths this week, the last week in September 2020, just days after Donald Trump publicly challenged the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) scientific advice about wearing masks and its timeline for a Covid-19 vaccine. Moreover, Trump said the CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield had been "confused",  when he told Congress (under oath) that that a vaccine likely will not be "fully available" until the summer or fall of 2021.  (Pinocchio!) 

Trump stupidity in his own words!

Nevertheless, Donald Trump insisted that a vaccine could be approved as soon as October, 2020, with 1000 million doses ready by the end of the year. Concern about the political pressure being exerted on the CDC grew after the agency published and then removed new guidelines warning that the virus can be transmitted via respiratory aerosols- tiny particles that can linger in the air- as well as by larger respiratory droplets that fall quickly to the ground.  Donald Trump gave his (botched!)response to the pandemic as being "A-plus" and, at a packed rally in Ohio, where few were waring masks, he falsely said the Covid-19 "affects virtually nobody" except the elderly people with heart problems.

Meanwhile, Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Utah set record highs for morbidity, with a seven day average of new confirmed cases and 21 other states saw increases in infections.  In fact, Olivia Troye, a former coronavirus task force adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, spoke out emphatically against Trump's handling of the pandemic, saying he showed a "flat-out disregard for human life" and cared only about his re-election. Troye, whom the White House called a "disgruntled ex-staffer", claimed that Trump once said, "Maybe this Covid thing is a good thing," because, "I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people", meaning his supporters.

What the editorials said: #TrumpVirus

Mourning the 200,000 (++) dead, said The Washington Post, "and be angry- very angry".  The tragedy has been worsened by Donald Trump, who minimized the threat, refused to mobilize a large-scale government response, dismissed the importance of mask wearing and prodded the GOP run states to reopen before the viral spread was under control.  "Nothing more could have been done", Trump has said about coronavirus casualties. But, there is work to do.  "Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash your hands. And vote", wrote The Post. 

What the columnists said:

Tragically, the Trump administration is letting, "politics distort science", said Claudia Wallis in ScientificAmerican.com. Leaked emails have revealed how political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have tried to slow the release of data that contradict Trump, including a negative report on the fake cure hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug that Trump touted as a Covid-19 therapy, and information about children spreading the virus. With scientific findings being run, through a political "distortion field", will the public be able to "trust federal assessments about the coronavirus treatments and the vaccines?," she wrote.

Here is the reality check:

The U.S. is trapped in a pandemic "death spiral", said Ed Yong in TheAtlantic.com.  Influenza season 2020-21, is approaching, which will make it harder to identify Covid-19 symptoms, and winter is not far away, which will pack people indoors. Our failure to build testing capacity and hire enough contact tracers means that many parts of the U.S. could see a repeat of the horror that New York City suffered in the spring 2020. Tragedy-numbered Americans might, "stop treating the pandemic as the emergency that it is," and, instead, accept thousands of daily deaths as "the unthinkable normal." #TrumpVirusGenocide, IMO.

Health care coverage is on the election ballot!

Remember that your vote can determine your health care! Echo opinion published in the Lansing State Journal, a Michigan newspaper.

For many Michiganders, the outcome of the upcoming November election could be a matter of life and death.

Depending on the outcome of the election, health care for millions of people could be in jeopardy. That’s why it’s crucial to know the facts when deciding who you’re going to vote for. Decisions about the health care that will be available to you and your families in the future will be made following the election.

It’s important to note that many Republicans have said they support Donald Trump’s lawsuit to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Others have not addressed their plans for health care. Both positions are dangerous for many people.

In Michigan, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) means more than 720,000 people will lose their coverage, and the 4.1 million people in our state with pre-existing conditions will lose protections afforded to them under the Act.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the lawsuit to repeal the ACA. The administration has made clear it seeks the destruction of the ACA, including its protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

During a global pandemic that has killed more than 6,500 people in our state, this is an especially cruel time to be fighting to rip coverage away from people who desperately need it. The pandemic has put a spotlight on this issue and shown all of us how important it is for every American to have access to quality, affordable health care. The stakes have never been higher for many Americans

It’s unfortunate health care has become an increasingly partisan issue, as we should all understand it to be a right.

Republicans in leadership have put partisanship ahead of the interest and safety of their constituents for too long. To make matters worse, they have tried to repeal the ACA without any replacement. When that failed, their next move was to file the lawsuit that is now before the Supreme Court with oral arguments beginning one week after the presidential election.

If the ACA is repealed, seniors would have to pay more for prescription drugs, and many young adults would no longer be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance. The 4.1 million Michiganders with pre-existing conditions would lose their coverage, or be once again subjected to unaffordable premium costs or lifetime caps on their coverage. These are just some examples of the long list of benefits that would be eliminated if the ACA is overturned.

Democrats in leadership have consistently supported strengthening the ACA — including introducing and passing legislation to expand the ACA, reduce costs and provide better coverage for families and lower the costs of prescription drugs.

These comparisons are to point out that we know clearly where the parties stand on health care. The question is simple: Will any Republican candidates disavow the Trump administration’s continual attempts to sabotage the ACA? Will they oppose the Trump administration lawsuit to repeal the ACA?

If the answer is no, or if the response is continued silence, Republicans have made voters’ choices in November easier.

Dianne Byrum is state director for Protect Our Care Michigan.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

Catholic Democrats echo opinion:

I am hoping that Judge Amy Coney Barrett had a difficult time with the ethics of accepting the Supreme Court nomination by Donald Trump, to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The dying wish of Justice Ginsburg was for her seat to be filled after the inauguration, in 2021, of a new president.  Although Judge Barrett is qualified to sit on the United States Supreme Court, I believe she was misguided in accepting the nomination because of the precedent that was arbitrarily set by Senator Mitch McConnell when he rudely ignored the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, after President Obama nominated him to replace Justice Scalia, when he died unexpectedly. Therefore, I agree with this opinion published by Catholic Democrats.  In my opinion, Justice Ginsburg's last dying wish should be honored, respected and kept.

Catholic Democrats Condemns Dishonorable Timing of SCOTUS Nomination & Encourages Judge Amy Coney Barrett to Withdraw

A Scalia Protégé, she will further divide Our Fractured Nation and

Her nomination will risk eliminating the Affordable Care Act health care coverage for millions of people. 

September 27, 2020 (Boston, MA) - Below is a statement from Steven Krueger, president of Catholic Democrats, regarding the White House's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States:

Catholic Democrats condemns the dishonorable timing of the nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States made by the current administration yesterday. We also strongly oppose the nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, and encourage her to withdraw her nomination.

About 60 percent of the American public opposes the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice only weeks before the presidential election - and for good reason. Although the appointment is within the letter of the law, it is not within the spirit of our democracy.

This is underscored by the rampant hypocrisy of US Senate Republicans, who have lost their way and are poised to dishonor their oath of office again. The vivid memories of when they denied President Obama's moderate SCOTUS nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, so much as a nomination hearing still deeply trouble fair-minded Americans. At that time, the current occupant of the White House also weighed in with his agreement from the campaign trail.

As Catholics, our faith is based on our belief that God is Love and Truth. While the current occupant of the White House has declared that he doesn't ask God for forgiveness and has gone as far as to speak on behalf of God, the 20,000 plus lies of his presidency have been a remorseless assault, day-after-day, on civic decency and indeed "truth, justice and the American way."

As bullies and tyrants do, the 45th president is now seeking to impose his political will on the nation, without regard to the will of the American people. No one who truly loves our country, and who recognizes the human dignity of all people and their right to participate in democracy, would take such an ignoble action, particularly while also blowing a dog whistle to the nominee that he wants a 9th justice on the Supreme Court to settle any election cases in his favor.

How is it that Republicans want to destroy the protection for health care coverage provided by the Affordable Care Act?

At Saturday's nomination ceremony, Judge Barrett, a protégé of Justice Antonin Scalia, said that he had an "incalculable influence on her life" and that "his judicial philosophy is [hers]." We appreciate her candor but it puts anxiety in the pit of our stomach for the high risk her nomination poses to the common good of all Americans, particularly those in need of healthcare, working class families and those in financial need, and people of color.

Justice Scalia's judicial philosophy led him to vote against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2012 and to say that the Voting Rights Act was "a racial entitlement."

The implications of Judge Barrett as Scalia 2.0 are ominous for our country on a range of issues that go beyond healthcare and voting rights including, reasonable gun safety legislation, the environment, immigration, and the death penalty to name just a few. And this foreboding is only exacerbated by the fractures in our nation.

If nominated, her judicial philosophy will be on display as soon as November 10th when a weak case challenging the ACA comes before the Supreme Court. In 2012, Judge Barrett criticized conservative Chief Justice John Roberts for not overturning the ACA saying, "Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute."

Beyond the extreme harmful impact that her judicial philosophy will impose on the American people, her acceptance of this nomination in and of itself disqualifies her to sit on the bench. By accepting this shameful nomination, the judge is in effect complicit with the 45th president in this parody of democracy and this will forever taint her appointment. We may never know if the 45th president asked about her opinions on mail-in voting, but there is no question of his expectations with respect to the outcome of the cases that will likely come before the Supreme Court, which may well determine who is our next president.

Judge Barrett is writing herself into a dark history of our country. If she truly "loves the United States," as she said she did yesterday, then she will withdraw her nomination.

Steve Krueger is available for interviews. If you are interested in speaking with him on this subject or matters related to the 2020 election, please contact him at media@catholicdemocrats.org or by phone at (617) 817-8617.

About Catholic Democrats

Catholic Democrats, a national advocacy organization with supporters in all 50 states and over 20,000 Twitter followers, represents a Catholic voice within the Democratic Party and a Democratic voice in the Catholic Church. The Church's mission is to advance the rich Catholic Social Justice Tradition in the public square and within the Democratic Party, to help form a more just, and peaceful society and to advance an understanding of an "integral ecology."

Echo endorsement - Anybody But Trump: For the people and by the people to vote Joe Biden

#JoeBiden2020

Echo opinion editorial published by the Detroit Free Press, in Michigan.

Among the myriad lawn signs sprouting in anticipation of November's presidential election, two are noteworthy for their seeming nonpartisanship:

The first sign — "ANY FUNCTIONING ADULT 2020" — makes light of America's current upheaval, tacitly confessing how little today's disillusioned voters expect of their elected leaders. (Respectfully disagree with this quick assessment. I read this sign ie AFA, as being justifyably "anybody but Trump- IOW "abt", JMO.)

The second, beginning with the words "IN THIS HOUSE," advertises the occupants' allegiance to a list of cardinal virtues — kindness, respect for learning, compassion for those with disabilities, etc. — as timeless and anodyne* as the Girl Scout Law.

Neither sign mentions any candidate, political party or elective office. But it is telling that both signs are understood — instantly and universally — to signal the resident's opposition to Donald Trump's re-election.

Optimists who believe in America's boundless capacity for re-invention like to think we are always one election away from redemption. But it will be no simple task to recover what has been lost in the four years since 2016, when a confluence of working-class anger, bipartisan resignation, and misplaced confidence in polls that forecast an easy Democratic victory propelled a man who personified the nation’s worst qualities to the highest office in the land.

Donald Trump’s election was a tragedy whose cost Americans have scarcely begun to reckon. Its most conspicuous casualties are the disproportionate number of American lives extinguished by a pandemic that raged unchecked for months while the president shrugged off, mocked and occasionally obstructed the medical community's urgent efforts to contain it.

Continuing to pay the price of Trump's negligence are the tens of millions of U.S. workers still languishing in unemployment, even as their counterparts in other developed countries — countries whose leaders recognized the pandemic's seriousness and acted promptly to curtail its spread — return to work, and secure incomes.

Other damage is more difficult to quantify: It includes the pervasive mistrust triggered by Trump's relentless campaign to discredit or corrupt nonpartisan institutions like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Postal Service, and the myriad agencies that comprise the nation’s intelligence community; the legal chaos arising from his contempt for the authority reserved for the courts and the U.S. Congress, and the normalization of behavior Americans once found intolerable even in their children and house pets.

The Detroit Free Press Editorial Board urged Michigan voters to reject Trump's candidacy in 2016, and we have opposed many of his signature initiatives: his obsessive war on immigrants, which began with an overtly racist attack on Mexicans and culminated in images of caged children that shocked the world; his chaotic tariffs, which brought confusion to U.S. auto manufacturers and higher prices to American consumers, and his emasculation of regulations designed to slow or combat climate change.

Trump's State Department deserves credit for brokering a rapprochement between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors, but his blustering, impulsive conduct of foreign policy has mostly diminished America's reputation and influence abroad.

But our most serious reservations about Trump's presidency do not rise to the level of politics or policy. They center, rather, on his aversion to facts and contempt for science, his nonchalant cruelty toward everyone from principled public servants to deceased political rivals, his use of social media to promote white supremacist extremists and amplify flagrantly fraudulent conspiracy theories, and his unapologetic exploitation of his public office to enrich his family and favored friends.

His attacks on the federal judiciary are without precedent in their viciousness, and he will likely exploit U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death to appoint a successor dedicated to eradicating much of Ginsburg's civil rights legacy, including the rulings that have protected the reproductive rights of American women for the last half-century.

Today, we call on Free Press readers to support the election of a new president who can restore dignity and integrity to an office debased and diminished by its current occupant.

Former Vice President JOE BIDEN, whose name and decades of public service are familiar to generations of American voters, is the man Democrats have nominated to undertake that critical mission, and we are confident that he is a trustworthy choice — the only responsible choice, in fact, for voters who wish to see this country's 244-year-old experiment in government by, for and of the people continue.

*not likely to provoke dissent or offense; inoffensive, often deliberately so.

Donald Trump provides no leadership to the courageous U.S. military

Donald Trump shows contempt for military.  

Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic.

In fact, he has fired the generals who were working for him including like McMaster, Kelly and Mattis. 

General James Mattis denounced Donald Trump, and escribed him as a threat to the Constitution. In an extraordinary condemnation, the former defense secretary backed the protesters and said Trump is trying to turn Americans against one another.

In The Week, this commentary summarizes how Trump has shown contempt for the American military troops.  (Just look at how Trump treated US Navy Captain Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt who was relieved of duty after raising the alarm about a Covid-19 outbreak on his ship in March. ... Crozier will not be eligible for future command, effectively ending his Navy career.)

The courage it takes to fight and die for your country is hard for many civilians to comprehend, said Max Boot, in The Washington Post.  Donald Trump marvels at it too, apparently - just "not in a complimentary way". 

"Trump's hypocrisy is sickening. His actions display consistent contempt for the armed forces and their ethos of “duty, honor, country.” All he cares about is using troops as political props. To see how little Trump truly respects our military, all you have to do is examine the differing treatment of three decorated veterans: Alexander Vindman, Eric Greitens, and Anthony J. Tata", wrote Boot.

A recent bombshell story in The Atlantic , by Jeffrey Goldberg (September 3, 2020), repoted that Trump repeatedly startled aides by describing US. troops who have died for their country as "suckers" and "losers".  During the Armistice Day memorial in France, in 2018, the White House publicly blamed poor flying condidtions for his skiping a ceremony at a cemetery filled with American oldiers.  In private, multiple sources say, Trump was worried the wind and rain would leave his hair disheveled, in front of cameras, and asked why he sould visit a cemetery "filled with losers". Trump once accompanied then- Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly to Arlington National Cemetery, and at the grave of Kelly's son, who was killed inAfghanistan, he told Kelly directly, "I don't get it. What was in it for them?" White House insiders were understandably unwilling to go on record, said Jefrey Goldberg, in The Atlantic. But, several said the draat-dodging, money-obsessed Trump "simply does not underestad non-tranactional life choices", and nurses a deep "cynicism about heroism and sacrifice". 

Maybe Trump did say those things, said Jeff Groom, in TheAmericanConservative.com, but, Trump's "crassness and superficial callousness" are hardly news at this point. What matters more to our troops are his actions. Colonel Jeff McCausland in NBCNews.com said our troops and their families deserve a leader that understands military service and "truly cares about their welfare".  

Trump, doesn't care that Russia is paying the Taliban to kill Americans, he praises war criinals as heroes and uses generals like Kelly, Mattis nd McMaster as props, only to discard and denegrate them.  It's time for these generals to tell Aemricans on the record whether The Atlantic story is true.  "Their silence right now is truly deafening."

Donald Trump is a political fraud- an echo from Delaware

Echo opinion letter published in the Delaware State News- The Capital Daily:

Just in case some of you have forgotten, let me remind you how Donald Trump came to be named president of the United States.

Remember, Secretary Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Unfortunately, that unnecessary and outmoded Electoral College system, using the old “formula” for counting votes, arrived at Donald Trump.

Trump has no political background or experience in running a government. Yes, he ran a financial “empire,” most of which he has run into the ground with bankruptcies. He doesn’t seem to grasp the difference between an empire and a government that is by the people and for the people. He does seem well-versed in the art of firing employees who do not agree 100% with his decisions, despite the effects his decisions would have on the citizens of our country.

Now, Trump is so fearful of not winning reelection, he is doing all he can to see that all anti-Trump votes will not be counted. 

By controlling the Postal Service, Trump hopes to steal the election. 

Moreover, Trump has already told us he plans on fighting if the votes are not in his favor. Why is he building a barricade around the White House, the people’s house? Is he preparing for a standoff?

The White House is now surrounded by nearly 2 miles of fencing and barricades

Is Trump, by any standard, the man to be president? This man has no qualities (!) that would lend themselves to what a true leader is! (Maine Writer- In fact, Trump is a failed leader!)

No, no, Trump does not merit even one more month in office.

From Gloria Bakin in Dover, Delaware

Donald Trump: hundreds of high level retired military, diplomats and security professionals sign in support Joe Biden for #potus2020

By Courtney Kube* and Dan De Luce** Reported in NBCNews.com


WASHINGTON, D.C. — More than 200 retired generals and admirals endorsed Joe Biden for president in a letter published Thursday, saying he had the character and judgment to serve as commander-in-chief instead of President Donald Trump, who has failed "to meet challenges large or small."

Some of the officers who signed the letter supporting Biden had retired only in the past few years, including Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, who served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump before he retired in August 2019; Vice Adm. Gardner Howe, a Navy SEAL leader who also retired last year; and retired Adm. Paul Zukunft, who oversaw the Coast Guard until 2018.

The list of signatories featured 22 retired four-star military officers, among them Navy Adm. Samuel Locklear, who oversaw all U.S. forces in the Pacific from 2012 to 2015, and Adm. Harry Ulrich, who commanded U.S. naval forces in Europe during President George W. Bush's administration.

The retired top brass signed the letter backing Biden along with nearly 300 other former national security officials and diplomats. 

William Webster, the former director of the CIA and the FBI, was among the signatories, along with five former defense secretaries: William Perry, William Cohen, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta and Ash Carter.

"My own personal view is that I have a duty to be involved in civic matters of the nation that I'm a citizen" of, retired Adm. Steve Abbot said of his decision to sign the letter.

Abbot served as commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and commander of Naval Striking and Support Forces in Southern Europe, and he later became Bush's acting homeland security adviser. He said that he believed he had a duty to speak out as a citizen and that he was troubled initially by Trump's comments about the late Sen. John McCain in 2016.

"To hear someone say that John McCain was a loser and they don't like people who become prisoners, I just knew I was going to have trouble going forward with somebody who held those views," he said.

"Over the past four years, I've seen what is a clear manipulation of our military to serve his personal needs," Abbot said. "The military has been a loyal, reliable constant in this country because of its apolitical nature. And here we had a president working to undermine it."

In August, more than 70 former senior national security officials — most of them Republicans who worked in previous GOP administrations — issued a similar letter throwing their support behind Biden, arguing that Trump had undermined America's role in the world. In the 2016 election, dozens of former Republican senior national security officials came out against Trump and became known as "Never Trump" Republicans. Many were blacklisted for jobs in the Trump administration for having signed the letters.

By law, military service members must remain apolitical while in uniform, but most senior officers stay out of the political arena even after they hang up their uniforms. Although the number of retired senior officers wading into politics has steadily increased over the past two decades, Thursday's letter was notable for the sheer number of top brass from every branch of the military who chose to endorse Biden.

"We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We love our country. Unfortunately, we also fear for it," they wrote.

The retired officers and officials said the country needs a principled, honest leader who shows empathy for fellow citizens, values alliances, makes informed decisions and takes personal responsibility.

"While some of us may have different opinions on particular policy matters, we trust Joe Biden's positions are rooted in sound judgment, thorough understanding, and fundamental values," they wrote.

"The current President has demonstrated he is not equal to the enormous responsibilities of his office; he cannot rise to meet challenges large or small. Thanks to his disdainful attitude and his failures, our allies no longer trust or respect us, and our enemies no longer fear us," the letter says.

"Climate change continues unabated, as does North Korea's nuclear program. The president has ceded influence to a Russian adversary who puts bounties on the heads of American military personnel, and his trade war against China has only harmed America's farmers and manufacturers," it says.

Several retired African American military leaders signed the letter, including retired Lt. Gen. Walt Gaskin, who commanded Marines in western Iraq; retired Lt. Gen. Willie Williams, who served as the No. 3 in the Marine Corps; and retired Lt. Gen. Ronald Coleman, who became the second African American in the Marine Corps to reach three-star rank.

A number of retired ambassadors also signed on, including Robert Blackwill, who was Bush's deputy national security adviser; James Cunningham, who was ambassador to Israel and Afghanistan under both Republican and Democratic administrations; and Robert Ford, a former ambassador to Algeria and Syria.

*Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

**Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Journalism is a dangerous profession- Voice of America under siege from Donald Trump

Independent Journalism Is Being Attacked

This opinion was published in the  Dallas, Texas newspaper Focus Daily News. 

Obviously, this sad threat to the Voice of America is anothe urgent reason to support the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

I have spent my entire working life of 40 years as what is now called a mainstream newspaper reporter, as distinguished from opinion mongers and talking heads on television, and I can honestly say that I was never told by anybody to put a particular spin on a story.

Sure, I’ve had my disputes with editors who thought the lead (we write “lede”) on the story should be different, or challenged the accuracy or description of some element. But those were journalistic disagreements, and in most cases I prevailed.

And although politicians, elected officials and bureaucrats have tried to influence coverage, they did not succeed either because of the backing of my newspaper and, of course, the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press.

I am now deeply concerned about the Voice of America, which currently is under siege by a newly installed overseer appointed by Donald Trump.

Basically, the situation is this: The VOA, though it is funded by the taxpayers, functions like our traditional independent free press. It delivers news world-wide in 47 different languages. 

To enable that, it employs a number of foreign-born journalists who report on news in the United States and in their home countries. The coverage is particularly important in places reached by the VOA that practice censorship forbidden in the U.S. and western democracies.
The overseer of the VOA, as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, is the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Its new chief executive is Michael Pack, a filmmaker and ally of Steven K. Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump. Pack appears bent on dismantling the independent journalism that is a hallmark of the VOA as well as U.S. newspapers and other news organizations.
Pack’s Actions Puts Journalists At Risk

Shortly after taking office, Pack fired the top editors of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The two top editors of Voice of America, Director Amanda Bennett and Deputy Director Sandy Sugawara, resigned before they suffered a similar fate.

Now Pack has “paused” the visa renewals of foreign-citizen reporters who cover news for their countries at Voice of America. In some cases, if the visas are not renewed, those journalists are in jeopardy of being sent back to their home countries, where they could be in danger from despotic authorities unhappy with their coverage.

Journalist safety

There have been reports that the VOA staff, including U.S. citizens, are demoralized over the action. One journalist there said, “I never understood how difficult journalism was in other parts of the world. 

In fact, I work with people who have been tortured and physically scarred. Seeing the sacrifices they’ve made to share truth with the public is inspiring.”

Now those foreign-citizen reporters are threatened, not only with the loss of their jobs but perhaps with harm to themselves and their families as well. Moreover, they provide a unique service for the Voice of America and their home countries that U.S. journalists could not do, so they are not taking jobs from Americans.
National Press Club and Journalism Institute Warn of Repercussions

The National Press Club and its Journalism Institute have protested the so-called “pause” of visa renewals for the reporters.

“We know of no sensible reason to deny VOA’s foreign journalists renewed visas,”said National Press Club President Michael Freedman. “These men and women provide an essential service to VOA by reporting from the U.S. and telling the American story to their audiences overseas. They have the language skills and cultural background to perform this work. They are not taking jobs away from American workers.”

Journalism Institute President Angela Greiling Keane said, “Failure to renew visas for Voice Of America’s foreign journalists could be tragic. Instead of fulfilling its mission of standing for press freedoms, USAGM would be chasing journalists out of the U.S. and putting them in harm’s way.”

Frank Aukofer is a retired reporter and a former president of the National Press Club.

Donald Trump fails to bring dignity to America- denegrates science and the military

Opinion echo letter published in The Gazette an Iowa newspaper:

A call for dignity in the White House!  Donald Trump does not show compassion. He is a failed creature:

In 2015, Republican Donald Trump said John McCain, a Vietnam War Prisoner of War (POW), wasn’t a war hero. (OMG!) I was incensed! My uncle, Sam Lyle, was a POW in Germany during World War II. I couldn’t believe that any U.S. citizen, regardless of party, would vote for Trump after that outrageous statement!

The Atlantic’s article of Sept. 3 reignited my fury! 

How can a person who disparages military leaders and service members, our veterans, and the fallen who made the ultimate sacrifice be reelected! I also recalled Donald Trump’s nonresponse to this summer’s reports on Russian bounties being paid to kill American troops in Afghanistan.

As a lifelong Democrat who first voted 55 years ago, I ask you to vote for Joe Biden for President. Vice President Joe Biden demonstrates compassion and respect for the military. 

Electing Joe will restore the needed dignity and global leadership to the office of the President.

Patricia A. Ikan, Solon Iowa

Corrupt Donald Trump cult and his William Barr enabler

Echo opinions published in the Austin Statesman, a Texas newspaper.

AG Barr- criticism for handling of several challenges, including his mischaracterized summary and selective redaction of the Rober Mueller #treasonTrump report,

William Barr abuses the Justice Department with help of Trumpzi enablers, (Just Maine Writer opinion but William Barr reminds me of the Nazi Theodor Eicke.)  

To the Editor:  (The cult Trumpzi Senator)...John Cornyn and mostly other Republican senators voted (fake!) Bill Barr into the office of attorney general and are thus responsible for a corruption of our judicial system and erosion of our democracy that is unconscionable.

In fact, AG Barr is only interested in protecting Donald Trump and in destroying his political enemies. We no longer have an attorney general representing the people of the United States. This is a direct consequence of Cornyn and other Senate Republicans absconding from their government oversight responsibilities.

We can only restore the underpinnings of our great democracy when enablers like Cornyn are voted out of office. Only then will people with autocratic tendencies who abuse be again held accountable for their actions.

From Steven Jones, in Austin, Texas #voteBlue

Republicans must be held to the value of their word - Consistency!

#RuthBaderGinsburg #DyingWish: 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 'most fervent' deathbed wish to be replaced by 'the next president' was told to her granddaughter and made public in her obituary written by friend, an NPR reporter, Nina Tontenberg.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1934-2020)

Echo editorial opinion published in the Kansas Hays Daily News.

Voters deserve (and must demand!) consistency on the Supreme Court stance... "Could it be that principle was never the point? Could it be that rank partisan politics was always the endgame?"

When it comes to selecting a new U.S. Supreme Court justice to replace the late great Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in an election year, we agree with Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran. Everyone should wait until after the election.

That is, we agree with the statements that Republicans Roberts and Moran made in 2016.

“By nominating a replacement for Justice Scalia, President Obama is attempting to deny the American people a voice on the next Supreme Court justice,” Roberts was quoted as saying in a Topeka Capital-Journal story from March 16. “The next justice will have an effect on the courts for decades to come and should not be rushed through by a lame-duck president during an election year.”

That makes sense, we suppose. And if that was true in March of 2016 with the nominee being the widely praised centrist jurist Merrick Garland, we can only imagine how true it is in September of 2020. With the presidential election in full force and President Trump trailing badly in the polls, how could any of his nominees hope to represent the will of the American people?

Roberts said it wasn’t even a partisan matter: “This is not about the nominee, it is about giving the American people and the next president a role in selecting the next Supreme Court justice,” he said. Again, we would note, in March of 2016.

Moran ended up taking a principled stand, too. Although he had earlier entertained the possibility of holding hearings on Garland’s nomination, he ended up saying they weren’t necessary based on a study of the nominee’s record.

“Senator Moran remains committed to preventing this president from putting another justice on the highest court in the land,” an aide to the Senator told news outlets in early April.

We know that both of the senators from Kansas are honorable men.

Both put the people of Kansas ahead of party or partisan politics. Both understand how important it is that the judiciary remain free of political wrangling or interference. Both understand the importance of retaining the confidence of the people they represent.

So we are sure that now, with an opening coming on the court with less than two months to the presidential election, they will oppose as a matter of principle any nominee coming from President Trump. After all, as Roberts notes, the American people need to have a role. And Moran doesn’t even have a nominee to study yet. How could he even take a stand?

If the senators end up acting differently this time around, it’s worth asking why.

Could it be that principle was never the point? Could it be that rank partisan politics was always the endgame?

We hope that’s not the case. We hope that Republicans Roberts and Moran will continue taking their principled stances from the words they expressed, four years ago.

Donald Trump is not qualified: No leadership qualifications

#VoteBlue

Four more years of Donald J. Trump?

Consider these unqualifying credentials.

Echo opinion letter published in TribLive a Pennsylavania on line news source.

Does Donald Trump speak before he thinks?

Tsunami of mistruths - published in The Guardian

Does he find pleasure in imitating those he dislikes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA

Trump shows no respect about the workings of the Constitutional “checks and balances” system of government.

Does he feel that “talent” supersedes experience when referring to the office of the presidency?

Is he too vain to wear a mask, as highly recommended by health experts as one way of minimizing the spread of covid-19?

How many of his close friends are serving prison terms for a variety of offenses?

Is his vocabulary sprinkled with words like “the greatest,” “the best” and “never before”?

Is his ultimate goal to divide the nation rather than unite it with his radical views?

Does he find it easy to blame others for his own errors in judgment?

Does he implement the use of diversion frequently?

Does he view the United States as his kingdom and himself as the king?

Are you still a Trump supporter? Think about it.

Grace Beck, Rostraver, Pennsylvania

Obviously William Barr is a failed leader of the U.S. Justice Department - he views slavery as "whaaaaa"? OMG!

Echo opinion:  Ruth Marcus: Slavery? Attorney General William Barr has never gone this far Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post and republished in the Akron Beacon Journal.

Dumb Barr?

WASHINGTON, DC — Attorney General William Barr's recent comments, in public and private, are so alarming it's hard to know where to begin. Barr has gone too far before, but never this far.

He compared pandemic restrictions to slavery. "You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest," Barr said during a speech Wednesday night at Hillsdale College. "Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history."

Barr was discussing limitations on religious services during the pandemic, and there are legitimate questions about whether some restrictions on worship have gone too far. But the slavery comparison is beyond offensive. Slavery was evil. Pandemic rules are grounded in concerns for public health.

And even if the two phenomena were somehow legitimately considered along the same continuum, there is no way that the COVID-19 lockdown could be accurately labeled "the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history."

How about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II? How could anyone, no less the attorney general, who oversees civil rights enforcement, analogize COVID-19 restrictions to slavery? "A different kind of restraint?" How does that sound to anyone with an ounce of historical memory — or of decency?

He warned that electing Joe Biden would put the nation on the road to socialism. "I think we were getting into a position where we were going to find ourselves irrevocably committed to the socialist path," Barr said in an interview. "And I think if Trump loses this election, that that will be the case. In other words, I think there's now a clear fork in the road for our country."

Leave aside the bizarreness of believing that electing Biden would consign Americans to life under socialism. Barr's entitled to think so. But he's the nation's chief law enforcement officer. He's supposed to be removed from partisan politics, so we can trust — in theory — that partisanship hasn't infected prosecutorial decisions. "As an attorney general, I'm not supposed to get into politics," Barr said in that same interview — right before getting into politics.

He belittled his own department: "Letting the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency,"Barr said at Hillsdale. He depicted career prosecutors as over-aggressive "headhunters" in need of being reined in by "detached supervisors."

Barr was responding, without mentioning it, to criticism of his remarkable interventions in the cases of Trump allies Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. Of course, there are appropriate times for supervisors, including political appointees such as the attorney general, to step in.


But the circumstances of Barr's involvement in the Flynn and Stone cases did not conjure up the "dispassionate decision-makers" of his imagining — they suggested that political appointees were overruling career prosecutors precisely because of political connections. "The essence of the rule of law is that whatever rule you apply in one case must be the same rule you would apply to similar cases,"Barr proclaimed. No one believes that Flynn and Stone would have received the same kind of solicitude if they were not friends and campaign allies of the president.


He urged using sedition laws to prosecute protesters. The Wall Street Journal reported that on a conference call with federal prosecutors last week, Barr pushed them, rather than leaving the matter to state officials, to be aggressive in going after violent protesters, including possibly using "seditious conspiracy" charges.

Talk about prosecutorial overkill and the need for "detached supervisors." The rarely used sedition statute makes it a crime to attempt "to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States . . . or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof." Could violent protests fall within the parameters of this statute? Arguably. Would it be wise to use such a law, with the attendant concerns about free speech, to prosecute protestors? No — certainly not when there are other, more straightforward, less constitutionally dangerous statutes available.

There is a remarkable quality of obtuseness — or, possibly, gaslighting — to Barr's arguments. At Hillsdale, he bemoaned "hyperaggressive extensions of the criminal law." This from an attorney general who had urged his prosecutors to do just that with the sedition statute.

He decried the unhealthy "criminalization of politics," adding, "The political winners ritually prosecuting the political losers is not the stuff of a mature democracy." This from the attorney general for a president who reveled in chants of "lock her up" against his opponent.

And he accused those who fear a defeated Trump will refuse to leave office of "creating an incendiary situation where there will be loss of confidence in the vote" — this from an attorney general who described mail-in voting as "playing with fire" and trumpeted the risk of fraud.

Barr's Constitution Day address quoted, inevitably, former attorney general Robert Jackson's famous address on the role of the federal prosecutor. Suffice it to say, 80 years from now, no one will be quoting Barr, except as a cautionary tale.

Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.

Nurses mourn the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Call to honor her dying wish

Senator Susan Collins Alert! Bereavement first for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Statement from National Nurses United.

"Hamakom y'nachem etchem b'toch sh'ar availai tziyon ee yerushalayim." May God comfort you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020)

Justice Ginsburg's death just over six weeks before Election Day is likely to set off a heated battle over whether Donald Trump should nominate, and the Republican-led Senate should confirm, her replacement, or if the seat should remain vacant until the outcome of his race against Democrat Joe Biden is known.

The more than 155,000 members of National Nurses United, the country’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses, are mourning the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and are strongly urging the Senate to honor her dying wish that she not be replaced until after the 2020 presidential race is decided.

As a predominantly female profession of caring, nurses understand how critical the next appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court will be in upholding the rights of women, Black, Indigenous people of color, and other vulnerable populations in our society. Further shifts in the balance of power on the Supreme Court toward conservative forces will cause more harm and suffering for their patients, say nurses.

“Nurses are often the ones who sit at the bedside of our patients as they transition out of this life, and we fight like hell to act in their interests and respect their wishes,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN and executive director of NNU. “We feel compelled to honor the wishes of Justice Ginsburg and work to make sure the people of the United States get to make their voices heard in the November election before a new justice is named.”

Some U.S. senators, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have already declared that they will not support a vote to confirm a new Supreme Court justice until after the election. NNU supports such efforts, and says that it will work harder than ever to elect its endorsed presidential and vice presidential candidates, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, in November.