Donald Trump and maga Republicans creating a global calamity with the illegal Iran World War: Dangerous "Amateur Hour at the Pentagon"

Echo opinion letter publshed in TRIBLive: 

As if Donald Trump’s actions against health care, education and voting rights, his horrible programs and military orders weren’t bad enough, he now joins Israel in attacking Iran. This war is creating a global economic calamity that has never been seen before.

The Trump administration has no clue as to cause and effect. Soldiers are being killed, the markets are in a downward spiral. In my opinion, the speaker of the House is a puppet who does nothing to lead Congress to stop these terrible choices. 

(Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg who is also a former Navy intelligence officer calls Trump's incompetence "Amateur Hour at the Pentagon".)

We as a nation have lost our international identity. Trump has disrespected the nations that have been our greatest allies, especially the NATO countries. 

I don’t believe we will make it to Election Day. 

If we do it may be too late. #ImpeachTrumpNow

(Where is Senator Susan Collins❓)

From Leonard Mucci in Derry Township, Pennsylvania

Memorial tribute to Ron Reiner and Michele Singer Reinder: Stand By Me hymn

Lyrics to the song, Stand By Me, by Ben E. King, are now a memorial hymn to honor the lives of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner who died on December 14, 2025, at their home in California.

In Memory:  Stand by Me (1986), a coming-of-age film directed by Rob Reiner, adapted from Stephen King's novella The Body, about four boys in 1959, Oregon who take on an adventure journey to find a dead body, highlighting the themes of friendship, loss of innocence, and growing up.  The song “Stand By Me”, was written by Ben E. King’s and became a hit in 1961, was revived for the movie’s 1986, release and has become synonymous with it.

Bob Reiner (b. 1947- d. December 14, 2025)

Michele Singer Reiner (d. December 14, 2025)

Stand By Me

When the night
Has come
And the land is dark
And the moon
Is the only
Light we'll see

No I won't
Be afraid,
No I won't
Be afraid,
Just as long
As you stand
Stand by me

So darlin', darlin'
Stand by me
Oh stand by me
Oh stand
Stand by me
Stand by me

If the sky
That we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountains
Should crumble to the sea
I won't cry,
I won't cry,
No I won't shed a tear
Just as long
As you stand
Stand by me

And darlin', darlin'
Stand by me
Oh stand by me
Oh stand now
Stand by me
Stand by me

And darlin', darlin'
Stand by me
Oh stand by me
Oh stand now
Stand by me
Stand by me

Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me
Oh stand by me
Won't you stand now
Oh stand, stand by me, stand by me!

Mr. and Mrs. Reiner were married for 35-36 years.

Cinematographer Barry Sonnefeld told The New York Times: When the couple were found dead at their home in Los Angeles on Sunday, December 14, 2025, they had been married for more than 35 years. Mr. Reiner was 78, and Ms. Singer Reiner was 70. They were a joyous couple,” Mr. Sonnenfeld said in an interview with The New York Times, “Michele was so important to Rob’s life, and, believe me, Rob would have been a basket case without her.”

Poster essay - Remove The Former Guy: tRumposity

Maine horror writer Stephen King's poster essay about the dangerous Former Guy, creates an blogworthy exhibit:

"I think we all agree that Donald Trump is a vile, racist, and incompetent bag of guts..."

"When a superior seems bonkers": The Former Guy was fired!

Echo opinion letter published in the Colorado Springs Indy

"... the truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership." Quote by Jack McDevitt

Thank God for General Mark Milley!

"Former Guy Trump’s words and actions during and after the January 6, paramilitary putsch (a violent attempt to overthrow a government) by a murderous mob of Trump loyalists certainly raised this issue."

The United States Constitution establishes a civilian-military Chain of Command with civilians at the top and our military at the bottom.

Even as Commander in Chief and apex of the military portion, the President is the bottom of the civilian portion.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 69, "as commander-in-chief [he is] nothing more than...first General and admiral" of the United States.

As "The Apprentice" repeatedly emphasized, the Boss is the one with the authority to say “You're Fired!"

The American people can fire a President every four years.

Congress can impeach and fire a President at any time.

The Vice President and a Cabinet majority can fire a President at any time under the XXV Amendment.

The sole issue under the XXV Amendment is whether a President is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” especially since his finger is on the nuclear trigger.

Anyone who has served in our military knows that when a superior seems bonkers, his subordinates have a duty to report to and consult with his superiors and act as they recommend.

Trump’s words and actions during and after the January 6 paramilitary putsch by a murderous mob of Trump loyalists certainly raised this issue.

Reporting to, and consulting and coordinating with Trump’s superiors is West Point 101. Thank God for General Mark Milley and his loyalty to our Constitutional Chain of Command.

NOTE: I'm USAFA 1967, not West Point, but both taught the same duty to our Constitution.  Oath: "...do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and ..."

From Ralph Palmer, Colorado Springs, Colorado

President Joe Biden will end the reality show Trump

This is an excellent and expressive editorial in the Las Vegas Sun, in Nevada! 

President Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President Elect Kamala 

Harris have earned our support to lead the nation

Las Vegas Sun Editor’s note: The Sun wrote this endorsement prior to Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and hospitalization. (Updated by Maine Writer- Thank you "Sun"!)

On rare occasions, history offers us a clear choice that demands one, and only one, proper answer. This election is such a moment, and the proper answer is Joe Biden for president.

We have lived through the chaotic, traumatic and utterly debased Trump years. We have all the evidence we need from the damage he and his supporters have done to the beautiful idea that is America.

It is time to heal our nation. 

America needs Biden in ways that are as broad as protecting our future as a free people, and as personal as a grade-schooler getting enough to eat. They’re as broad as protecting the planet from the effects of global warming, as personal as every American’s ability to obtain affordable health care when we’re sick or injured. They’re as broad as overcoming the pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 of us, as personal as the treatment of any Black American in interactions with police.

We know it’s an election cliché to say that America needs (fill in the blank). But this year, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris filling that blank, it couldn’t be more true.

A Biden/Harris administration brings an end to four years of sabotaging of our democratic foundations in pursuit of autocracy, of undermining our standing in the global community, of demeaning our allies while embracing despotic leaders, of vandalizing our civility and ethical standards, of trampling our American values of inclusion and equality, of encouraging racism and vigilantism by violent extremists, of rigging our election process with the goal of establishing minority rule, of vilifying immigrants and people of color, of tilting our economy to funnel more money to those at the very top of the income bracket, of using unmarked federal forces to conduct extrajudicial detainments of protesters, of turning back the clock on equal rights for women and minorities, and much more.

With Biden as president, adults will pry the steering wheel from a wild (spoiled, narcissistic) toddler. America would be led by a president with decades of effective leadership in Washington, who knows how to pull the levers of government as opposed to only knowing how to break them. 

President Elect Joe Biden and and Vice President Elect Kamala Harris will form the nucleus of a team of policy professionals with the experience, education and skills to address complex issues. 

Moreover, the revolving door of White House incompetents will stop.

President Elect Biden comes armed with a detailed array of strategies for leading Americans — all Americans — into a new era. He stood out among the Democratic candidates in large part because he developed a particularly impressive set of policies covering a huge array of issues critical to Americans — health care, climate, energy, infrastructure, gun violence, foreign policy, and more. Look on his website, (A President for All Americans!) and you’ll find detailed policies covering nearly 50 topics.

The America ushered in by these policies will be healthier, more prosperous, safer, greener, more just, more inclusive. The middle class will have a chance again and so will the environment. The bleak resurgent racism of the Trump years will be pushed back as America continues to work toward real equality. And American decency will flourish once more.

There is a narrative about true American greatness and hope found in these policies.

That’s leadership from someone who knows how government works. By contrast, Donald Trump’s campaign site offers practically nothing of a vision for a second term. Instead Trump presents a list of “promises kept.” Right (OMG!)— like building the wall and making Mexico pay for it? Promises like that? Let’s see, only about 300 miles of the 1,200-mile wall have been constructed, and much of that was replacement. And we’re still waiting for that check from Mexico.

Trump has never had an actual policy that wasn’t handed to him by (Moscow!) Mitch McConnell or Fox News (aka "right wing fake news!).

While Trump has no discernible policy, other than self-interest, he does have goals: He’s a stone-cold racist, a self-serving grifter and an aspiring dictator. We spent all of the 20th century fighting people like Trump at home and abroad, and now in this young century, by a confluence of cruel forces, America has endured his occupancy in the White House.

There would be an end to the exodus of government experts in science, health and other fields who have left the government in disgust or after being hounded out. There would also be an end to the attack on inspectors general, the watchdogs who help hold the presidency accountable.

In President Biden, America will have a president who listens to public health experts about the coronavirus pandemic, as opposed to disdaining them and refusing to follow their advice by even doing something so simple as routinely wearing a mask in public.

Biden provides essential leadership qualities that have been absent under the Trump administration — humility, empathy and honesty. He’s able to admit he’s wrong, and that he’s not the smartest person in every room on every topic. He’s opened himself to public scrutiny through his career in office and learned to face criticism.

He can admit he’s imperfect.

And let’s be clear, he is imperfect. Biden has notoriously been his own worst enemy due to lapses in judgment, including when he lost his temper at a couple of everyday Americans who challenged him during Q&A sessions on the campaign trail.

Yet Biden, unlike Trump, shows the character traits the nation desperately needs in our next leader.

Does anyone really believe Trump cares about a child who goes to school hungry? A woman who requires a health clinic for a pelvic exam? A Dreamer facing deportation? A Black man under the knee of the police? A Puerto Rican family recovering from a hurricane? A Mexican child? A peaceful protester for social justice? Young people growing up with an epidemic of gun violence? Anyone who loathes today’s tribalism?

Of course Trump doesn’t care! He has a narrow list of things he cares about: himself, primarily, then his family, golf, adulation and the odd cheeseburger or porn star. Oh, and Vladimir Putin.

With President Biden in the Oval Office, the reality show presidency of the past four years will end.

No more wanton perversion of our justice system. No encouragement of extremists like militias, the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois to commit violence against their fellow Americans. No insider reports about the president calling U.S. soldiers “losers” and “suckers.” No teargassing of peaceful protesters in order to conduct a photo op with an upside-down Bible.

A Biden presidency cuts the noise, replacing it with calm-headed, expert-guided leadership and a detailed policy blueprint for a better tomorrow.

Biden’s choice of running mate, Kamala Harris, is every bit as impressive as his other choices. Poised and brilliant by any measure, Harris is exceptionally well-equipped to help Biden guide the nation during the long and complicated process of repairing the damage of the Trump years. As a city prosecutor, state attorney general and U.S. senator, Harris understands the impact of government on people’s lives at all levels. In the event something horrible happens, Harris would be immediately ready to occupy the Oval Office. Adding to her spectacular qualifications there is this: It is high time for America to have a woman of color occupying the highest offices in the land.

Rarely has the country more desperately needed this type of even-handed leadership, with millions out of work due to the pandemic and far too many families either having faced the loss of loved ones or illness from the coronavirus themselves. Meanwhile, Trump has made it clear he’ll continue to fuel tensions between Black Lives Matter protesters and law enforcement, a cynical strategy to protect his own interests by claiming the clashes represent the future of the nation under Biden and Democratic leadership.

That’s not the case at all. Biden, unlike Trump, has clearly denounced violence in the protests on all sides, and has done nothing to encourage violence on anyone’s part.

This is what a president should do. This is what President Biden and Vice-President Harris will do.

Simply put, America needs a president and vice president who can lead all of us and know how to do that. We need them on a global level, on a national level and at a kitchen-table level.

This year, it’s no cliché. America needs President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Guns - Second Amendment Rights Can Cause Rather than Appease Fear

Although Second Amendment Rights were created by America's Founding Father's to help protect people from harm, this privilege is now causing more fear than reassurance.  People are buying guns like never before because many fear others who own them.  This paranoia is out of control and there are likely more guns in American circulation than there are people to protect.

But, many paranoid Second Amendment fundamentalists are ordinary people who steadfastly believe they have a right to own as many guns as they can afford, whether they ever use them (or intend to use them) or not.    Stephen King described these good minded individuals in his excellent essay, "Guns" where he magnificently (albeit with harshly realistic current events) describes how guns are wrongly perceived  as necessary by right wing extremists. 

King writes:
"Most Americans who insist upon their rights to own as many guns (and of as many types) as they want, see themselves as independent folks who stand on their own two feet; they may send food or cloths to the victims of a natural disaster but they sure-God don't want charity themselves. They are, by and large, decent people who want to help their neighbors, do volunteer work in the community and would not hesitate to stop and help a neighbor broke down on the side of the road.  They are more apt to vote for increasing law enforcement funds than school improvement funds, reasoning (and not without some logic) that keeping kids safe is more important that getting them new desks. They have no problem with drug and alcohol recovery centers...as long as they are in somebody else's neighborhood. They can weep for the dead children and bereft parents of Sandy Hook, then wipe their eyes and write their congressmen and women about the importance of preserving the right to bear arms."

Constitutional Second Amendment rights, allowing Americans to own and bear arms, are often politicized while current events report life and death drama about those who deliberately abuse this privilege.  

Right wing advocates for this Constitutional privilege deliberately create paranoia about government taking away the right to bear arms.  They're stocking up on guns and ammunition, thereby stirring undue fear in the public, creating anxiety among law abiding citizens who can't understand why some people need so many of them. After all, one human being can only use one gun at a time. Owning an outrageous number of guns doesn't protect a person from attack any more rigorously than one gun aimed at a threat.

Paranoia about the unreasonable need for guns is fueled by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Rather than call for common sense solutions to curb the fear and muck raking about gun ownership, the NRA calls for people to own more arsenals of guns and ammunition, if they choose.  Yet, it turns out, this stubborn entrenchment may have more to do with conflict of interest of the Association's Board members than with protecting people or Constitutional Rights.  When the leadership of the NRA is disclosed, it turns out there are Board members who have a financial conflict of interest with their positions. In fact, policies that foster gun ownership improve the profits of those who sell guns.  Some influential people who run the NRA also own gun manufacturing businesses.  (Check link - http://www.meetthenra.org/)

Obviously, change in NRA advocacy for unlimited gun ownership won't happen soon, regardless of how unbridled gun ownership impacts on innocent people, especially, if regulatory practices negatively impact sales and profits.

Sadly, reforming America's Second Amendment doesn't seem likely, but that doesn't mean reasonable people should stop trying to do the right thing. Brave people must call for reform, even when they're grieving over the loss of a loved one or are, themselves, recovering from gun violence.

Reasonable people can join with those who Stephen King identifies as independent folks who protect guns but cry when others are harmed.  We can join with them, as well as with those who are harmed by gun violence and those fearful of facing harm.  It's time we work together to solve the problem of gun violence rather than create even more fear.  Second Amendment Rights are not intended to create fear.  Nevertheless, and unfortunately, fear is now driving both sides of this issue.