Donald Trump and maga Republicans want to support a terrible name change for Department of Defense

In the responses to the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025,  in Orem, Utah, the preponderance of messages calls for bringing down the heaated political rhetoric in American's political discourse.  This bipartisan call gives us even more reasons for Republicans to stand up for something....anything❗...and oppose changing the name of the Department of Defense, to include the word "war", as proposed by Donald Trump. Makes no sense to wail about the intensity of brutal political attacks occuring too frequently in America, while putting he word "war" into our national Department of Defense. 💜😥

Echo opinion letter published in The Chronicle, a Washington State newspaper:  In an act that is bizarre even by the standards of this incompetent presidency, Donald Trump has announced that he intends to rename the Department of Defense, which was created in its current form by President Harry Truman, 78 years ago.

The new moniker would be that which until 1947, applied to the Department of the Army alone, the Department of War.

Truman's decision, of course, was issued in the immediate aftermath of World War II. America and its allies had emerged triumphant in this most destructive of armed conflicts, and were determined that no such horror would happen again.

A part of this determination was simply to alter the nomenclature. War was awful and unmentionable. Defense was acceptable.

It appears that every other nation on the planet has adopted this usage. France dropped its Ministry of War in 1947, and Britain relabeled its War Office in 1964. A quick Google search of over 100 nations reveals that while all have a defense ministry, none use the word "war" in the title.

Were Trump's plans to be realized, this country would be even more of a pariah than it has been since the Donald took office. The symbolic damage to our international image would be devastating.

It is significant that our president faked an affliction of bone spurs to dodge the military draft in his youth, and that he hasdodge the military draft in his youth, and that he has spent his entire adult life publicly bragging about his supposed prowess with women. This Department of War nonsense, "a message of strength," suggesting "maximum lethality," in Trump's words, is just another manifestation of his inadequacy and narcissism.

One wonders, furthermore, whether other government offices might be retitled. As reformulated in the Trump era, should the Department of State be the Department of Hate? How about the Department of Health as the Department of Disease? And why not the Department of Justice as the Department of Just ICE❓😟

Trump's deployments of National Guard and U.S. Marine units in various cities are all about trying to steal next year's congressional elections. If his health permits, he will try to steal a third term in 2028, and to hell with the Constitution.

From Joseph Tipler in Centralia

DonOLD is a deeply flawed draft dodger and failed employer who "stiffs" contractors

"defeat this dreadful man"....

Echo opinionl letter published in The Chronicle in Centralia Washington: 

Republican speakers at the failed RNC Milwaukee convention raised the idea that *God*❓ saved DonOLD Trump from assassination so that he could become the future U.S. president.

Really❓

As Christians who overlook Trump’s many shortcomings well know, the man they hope will advance their agenda is deeply flawed. 

Trump is a serial adulterer and divorcer. A draft dodger. He stiffs contractors, taking their work but not paying for it (lawyers, even).

He is a liar. When he says he wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban bill, he’s lying. He tweets savage social messages that stir up hatred and death threats to those who inconvenience him — while pretending not to know that. He is a convicted felon, guilty of business fraud and subverting an election. He created a fake cash cow university and a fake cash cow charity. As president, he pardoned convicted cronies and extorted the president of Ukraine. As president, Trump sabotaged our country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic — touting bleach and hydroxychloroquine as cures, resisting vaccination (while secretly getting one himself) and leaving nearly a million Americans dead before President Biden put the brakes on the epidemic. Out of office, he used his MAGA stooges in Congress to block passage of a tough, humane immigration policy, earlier this year.

There’s more, none of it good.

In God We Trust. To intervene on behalf of Trump❓ No, rather to bring out the best in all American people — to enable us to show our basic decency, defeat this dreadful man by a landslide vote, defeat his plans to riot himself back into the White House, and punish him by making him a loser.

From David Milne, in Thurston County,  the state of Washington 

Crazy to allow Donald Trump on the ballot- Trumpzism is a danger to democracy

Echo opinion letter published in The Chronicle a newsaper published in Centralia Washington state:

Donald Trump in the Manhattan court

It’s hard for me to fathom what I am hearing from grown-up Americans. Democrats of all stripes join with Republicans in predicting Donald Trump will soon be the shoo-in Republican candidate for president in 2024. 💥😔😞

OMG! In their minds, apparently Trump has an inalienable right to run for office, even though already found liable and fined for civil sexual assault, found liable and soon to be fined for large-scale business fraud, and likely soon-to-be convicted of some or all of 91 felony counts of breaking the criminal law.

It is clear that nary a Republican or Democrat and nary a news media anchor or talk show host in this country has ever read a serious book about Athenian, Roman, Israelite or Anglo-Saxon democracy. Throughout its history, democracy has always been defined by its fierce protection of the processes of people’s government. Democracy does not allow anyone to appear on a ballot for any office of public trust who is an inveterate liar and sexual predator, a financial fraudster, a civil insurrectionist who interferes in sacred state election procedures and inspires mayhem and civil riot at a perilous moment in a national election process, a thief of protected government documents, a friend of foreign autocrats and mobsters, or a citizen who pays thousand-dollar-an hour lawyers millions to delay actions in civil and criminal courts for years. It simply cannot happen in any sane democratic republic.

Athens and Rome, the prototypes for our own republican system of representative government, regularly impeached politicians who committed malfeasance while in office or committed public or private crimes while wooing the electorate while not in office. Greece and Rome first suspended their civil rights, next sequestered or expropriated their wealth, and finally sent them packing into mandatory exile for years or forever. They lost civil rights when they offended civil statutes.The idea that nobody is above the law in a democracy was first clearly validated in the Hebrew republic, which began around 1,200 BCE, some 600 years before Athenian and Roman democracy. Aaron Wildavsky, a past president of the American Political Science Association, wrote a book titled Moses as Political Leader (Shalem, 2005). He called our attention to the fact that even Moses was impeached by the Israelite people late in his career for an offense at the “waters of Meribah.” God commanded that Moses not be allowed to cross-over Jordan and enter the Promised Land with the rest of the 12 tribes. To “go before God” in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament meant going to court. 

If the very highly moral Moses was first impeached, and then found guilty and exiled by his own Hebrew republic, how can a modern democracy let an inveterate liar and ignoramus like Donald Trump run for school board let alone president of the United States❓

Democrats and many Republicans today sit on their hands hoping that criminal courts will convict Donald Trump before the election of some of the 91 charges currently pending against him and thus remove some of the luster of his popularity as a candidate before November 2024. Folks, his popularity is not the issue. His civil right to run for office is the issue. We have laws saying convicted or imprisoned felons cannot vote. That also implies they cannot run for or hold public office as well. Imagine disqualifying a prisoner from voting but allowing him to run sacred public operations from a prison cell. That’s what cartel thugs do, not American civil servants.

Listen up my fellow Americans❗ Donald Trump cannot be on the ballot in 2024, in any state devoted to rule of law, not merely because it would be political suicide for a nation to bestow a full slate of civil rights upon a multiply indicted or freshly convicted criminal (a likely outcome in one or more of the criminal trials). He cannot be on the ballot also because it would demonstrate something even worse, that neither of our two hallowed political parties has enough constitutional intelligence to understand or courage to deal with aspiring leaders who intend to dispense with law and rule like a medieval king or an Oriental despot.

If state legislatures do not already have them, then they need to enact laws suspending or ending the civil right to vote and run for office for civil fraudsters and criminal felons of any race, gender, ethnicity or national origin.

From Kimball Shinkoskey formerly of Lewis County

How Fox News used Nazi style propaganda to sell fake news

Echo opinion published in The Chronicle, a newspaper in Centralia, in the state of Washington:

Maine Writer- This opinion echo is spot on!  

I would like to retitle this heartfelt opinion to "How Fox News used Nazi style public relations to create fake news"- During the first weeks of 1933, the Nazi regime deployed the radio, press, and newsreels to stoke fears of a pending “Communist uprising,” then channeled popular anxieties into political measures that eradicated civil liberties and democracy.

Fox News Sells Lies to Willing Viewers.

At what point do you admit to yourself that America is in trouble? I would say it would be the point you realize that Fox News has been lying to you for years.

All these radical extremist ideas, where the billionaire has all the cookies and you have one, and Fox News is telling you that another guy is going to get yours, so you better hate them. Fox News is in the midst of a lawsuit because they chose to lie to you for ratings rather than tell the truth.

They really think Trump is a demonic idiot — they said so to each other. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity wanted to get rid of him for good, but they never told you that. They lied deliberately to mislead you. Look up the text messages they sent each other. If you only watch Fox, you have no idea about this because they won’t cover it.

Fox News nearly ruined a good honest company in Dominion Voting Systems with lies. Dominion is suing for $1.6 billion. 

Fox "Fake" News is brainwashing vulnerable cult viewers.

Smartmatic, another voting equipment system, is right in line behind them for $2.7 billion. Fox News did real damage to your idea of election integrity, even though the experts all agree that 2020 was a free and fair election in 2020. If you think it was stolen, how do you explain the down-ballot races where the GOP won? That is the big lie. Common sense Americans voted Trump out. End of story.

As far as being woke, you bet I am. So was Jesus Christ. He would be appalled at today’s GOP. The moneychangers fooled around and found out. I have compassion and empathy for my fellow man. I seek out the common good. If you disdain that, I don’t want to know you either.

Fox News is a fantasy, to make you mad enough to send grifters, petty swindlers, money. They make money on your outrage and anger, and admit it, you tune in to see who you are going to hate today: 

• Immigrants?* 
• People of color? 
• Fox has made Democrat a dirty word by ignoring the facts. 

Aren’t you tired of hating everything and everyone? If you want facts, read the rest of this newspaper. The Chronicle is a truthful conservative newspaper. I don’t always agree with their opinion, but at least I know they have some integrity.

Katherine Ford in Centralia, Washington

*Nazi propaganda: The elimination of the German multi-party political system brought about the demise of hundreds of newspapers produced by outlawed political parties. It also allowed the state to seize the printing plants and equipment of the Communist and Social Democratic Parties, which were often turned over directly to the Nazi Party. In the following months, the Nazis established control or exerted influence over independent press organs.

Support the prevention of mental illness and suicide

Mental Health America means "providing practical tools that everyone can use to improve their mental health and increase their resiliency regardless of their personal situation." 

With 1 in 5 adults struggling with mental health issues.

Opinion letter published in The Daily Chronicle, in  Centralia, 

Washington.

From the National Alliance of Mental Illness:

NAMI provides advocacy, education, support and public awareness so that all individuals and families affected by mental illness can build better lives.

January is Mental Wellness Month and has been designated to recognize the importance of attending to our mental health and the mental health of our friends and loved ones.

According to NAMI, one in five adults experience mental illness each year, and one in 20 experience serious mental illness each year.

Mental health disorders also affect our nation’s youth, as one in six aged 6-17 experience these each year. Fifty percent of all lifetimes mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24. NAMI also lists suicide as the second leading cause of death among people aged 10-34.

In the United States, 90% of people who die by suicide may have experienced symptoms of a mental health condition, according to interviews with family, friends and medical professionals.

One of the major problems with mental illness is that less than half of people with a mental health condition receive treatment. As stated earlier, many mental health disorders can begin at an early age.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), two of the most common mental health disorders in young people are depression and anxiety disorders.

Not everyone who is depressed is suicidal, but depression is the leading condition associated with suicide and many times is left undiagnosed and untreated. It is important to know the warning signs of suicide because four out of five individuals considering suicide give some sign of their intentions either verbally or behaviorally.

If you suspect someone is experiencing a mental health crisis or is contemplating suicide, consider reaching out to them with empathy and understanding. Call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Dial 911 if it is an actual emergency.

The Jason Foundation is another available resource. The Jason Foundation is dedicated to the awareness and prevention of suicide through educational programs and provides tools and resources to identify and assist those who are at-risk. 

Please visit jasonfoundation.com for more information about helping your friends and loved ones who are suffering with a mental illness. 

Taylor Harling, Divisional Director of The Jason Foundation

Mission Statement: The Jason Foundation, Inc. (JFI) is dedicated to the prevention of the “Silent Epidemic” of youth suicide through educational and awareness programs that equip young people, educators/youth workers and parents with the tools and resources to help identify and assist at-risk youth.

JFI believes that awareness and education are the first steps to prevention. We want to establish a Triangle of Prevention by providing students, parents and teachers the tools and resources to help identify and help at-risk youth. This is accomplished through a curriculum unit for students and informational seminars for teachers and parents. The programs provide resources to accomplish this goal. The materials are easy to use and are intended to provide educational information. There is no intent to diagnose or treat suicidal ideation. JFI’s intention is to empower youth, educators and parents to help recognize when young people are in pain and know to get professional help involved as soon as possible. The Jason Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit 501c3.