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

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are enabling tryannical overreach by Trumpziism and dictatorship

 Tyranny and overreach are not acceptable behaviors, now or ever❗😡 Echo opinion publihed in The Chronicle, in Washington State.

The latest round of overreach by the Trump cult regime includes threatening cities with military deployment. Do you know who does that? Dictators do.

Donald Trump is a convicted felon who lies about virtually everything❗

Also notice that the cities he is threatening are run by Black Democrats. But if he really cared about crime in U.S. cities, he would be going to Republican-run states and cities, because many of them have higher crime rates than the cities he is illegally targeting.

Memphis, Tennessee, has the highest rate of murder in the country. Does he even mention sending troops to that city? A heavily Republican state. Not as far as I have heard.

This all really boils down to pushing more of his agenda onto blue areas and giving the false sense of a strong man in charge.

But the truth is, he is weak. His agenda is unpopular, no matter how loud his base and the trolls of Lewis County yell.

I wonder what they would think if a Democrat president did this? They would call it tyranny and extreme overreach, but because they are part of the cult and cannot see any wrong, they will stay silent.

I suppose one thing Trump was right about was that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nothing will be done about it. 

He certainly has gotten away with many evil things. Might as well release the Epstein files. It won't move the needle.

We are going down a very dangerous path where vengeance is a routine mission and who cares if more than half the country is not going along with it and another third are not happy but will remain silent because they are afraid of more retribution. Everyone is just hoping that it won't be that bad. But when it gets that bad, it will be too late.

Tyranny and overreach are not acceptable behavior now or ever. But I am sure the cult members and trolls of Lewis County will find so much to agree with in these actions and laugh at my concerns. We are doomed.

From Grace Thornton in Centralia Washington state

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 

Trump promises "bloodbath" if not reelected- violates an oath he took to protect and defend the Constitution

 Echo opinion letter: Trump has no values at all.

Donald Trump convicted of 34 felonies by a New York City jury

At a recent political rally in Ohio, Donald Trump fully displayed the toxic serum he has been injecting into the American "body politic" for the last nine years.

Trump said, "If I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the country. And that's the least of it." The Trump campaign made the excuse that he was speaking of an "economic bloodbath," but the use of the word bloodbath to describe an economic issue is very uncommon. And what did he mean by "that's the least of it?"

Trump's use of violent imagery and rhetoric is little different from Adolph Hitler's speeches of the early 1930s. For those who say "Trump won't do that — those are just words," I would say, how did that turn out for Germany? Trump's dystopian words are no different today than the words he used to incite the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to incoming President Joe Biden.

Trump knows what he is saying. The lesson of 1930s Germany is to heed what politicians say they are going to do.

In the rambling, profanity-filled speech, Trump referred to the convicted felons who attacked the U.S. Capitol building as "hostages." The mob that attacked the Capitol are not, as Trump claimed, "patriots." They are deluded fools serving justified prison sentences.

At the rally in Ohio, Trump snapped to attention, saluting a recording of the January 6th Convict Choir singing the national anthem. This is a former commander-in-chief saluting criminals who attacked the Capitol Police, seriously injuring many and causing the death of three. This is your MAGA Party that supposedly stands for "law and order" attempting, at Trump's behest, to overthrow a U.S. presidential election. Trump has a demonstrable taste for political violence.

The aftermath of riots at the Jan 6h US Capitol Building.

Recently, Trump posted a bond to cover his penalties in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. The amount of debt Trump faces makes him a very ripe candidate for corruption by a foreign government. Far less debt than Trump's excludes candidates for government employment. The bond was put up by the Chubb Insurance Co. 

It is not known what assets Trump used to secure the bond.

More importantly, it is not known if another entity or government co-signed for the bond. We do know Trump received millions of dollars from foreign governments while president in direct violation of the "emoluments clause" that prohibits government officials from taking money or gifts from a foreign government.

For example, the government of Qatar rented an entire floor of California's most expensive office space from Trump at 555 California St. in San Francisco. The Qatar offices were always vacant. Never used. Simply a gratuity. Trump's violation of the emoluments clause was widespread and brazen.

Lewis County (Washington state) likes to take pride in wholesome values as compared to Seattle. With all due respect, I do not see how that can possibly be squared with support for someone like Trump who has no values at all.

Marty Ansley in Cinebar, Washington state

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.

Trumpziism is Trumpist Republicans that lie about everything!

Echo opinion letter published in The Chronicle, a newspaper published in Centralia, Washington.  

This is an interesting opinion letter! 

Those with strong memories may recall that on the very first day of the Trump presidency, Jan. 20, 2017, the new administration claimed despite all eyewitness and photographic evidence that the Trump inauguration crowd was the largest in history.

Maine Writer - check this site here for photographs taken when protestors demonstrated after the 2017, Trump inauguration.

But not only did the Trump presidency begin with a lie, its mendacity has moldered and metastasized ever since.

A combination of photos shows the small crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies of Donald Trump, left, and the enormous crowds that celebrated the inauguration of President Barack Obama. These pictures were taken by Reuters, and were not the edited NPS images. Photograph: Staff/Reuters

The security of military and intelligence data always has been a top concern of the nation-state. The compromise of such data often has been of enormous consequence.

During the Civil War, for example, two Union infantrymen accidentally discovered a copy of Confederate battle plans, Special Order 191, wrapped around a cache of three cigars. Although slow and overly cautious, as usual, Union commander General George McClellan was able to use this information to stymie General Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North at the epochal Battle of Antietam, on Sept. 17, 1862, the bloodiest day of the entire war.

During World War II, at a secret facility at Bletchley Park, England, Ultra cryptographers successfully hacked the German Enigma military code transmitter, allowing Winston Churchill to boast in private that he knew Hitler's orders to Rommel before Rommel. 

Nazi neglect of its security apparatus undoubtedly contributed to the successful Allied campaigns in Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily and Normandy, and may even have swung the balance.

Mar-a-Lago: tRumpzi took stolen documents to his country club in Palm Beach, Florida. 

But, now we find that when Donald Trump left the White House, he hauled off crates of highly classified information to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Some of these documents were labeled "TS/SCI," an abbreviation for "top secret/sensitive compartmented information," the highest classification extant.

Without exception, such documents are meant to be read only in secure government facilities and should never be moved from such facilities without clear and urgent cause. To do so is an irrefutable violation of the Espionage Act and of other federal laws as well, and indisputably opens the door to many forms of malfeasance, including the illegal transfer of such information to foreign powers and treason.

Yet on Aug. 12, 3rd District congressional candidate Joe Kent posted that "the FBI leaked the nuclear documents nonsense to seed yet another narrative based on fake information that will be way too classified for them to release, we'll just have to trust the 'vanguards of democracy' w/another kangaroo court."

This is just garbage. Kent is a military veteran, as was his wife, Shannon Kent, a cryptologic technician who died in combat in Syria during the Trump presidency.

Clearly, this is a sensitive matter, but Kent, of all people, should know better.

Joe Kent (shame on him!) not only is a doormat for Donald Trump, he simply does not know what he is talking about.

From Joseph Tipler, in Centralia, Washington State

Opasnost' - Evil Vladimir Putin will move beyond Ukraine

Echo opinion letter published in The  Chronicle, a newspaper serving Centralia, a city in Lewis County, in Washington state.

Delusional Vladimir Putin is dangerous! 

Опасное письмо два

Putin has his sites on the Baltics regardless of the consequences:

Speculation is rampant that if Vladimir Putin prevails in his evil and shabby war with the people of the Ukraine, his next targets will be the small Baltic states, of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 

Like Ukraine, these three nations were parts of the Russian-dominated Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which was dissolved by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

Unlike Ukraine, however, these democracies are members of both the European Union and NATO. Any armed violation of their territories would entail war with the United States and the other major western powers, as guaranteed by treaty.

But not so with Moldova. Like the Baltic states, this small nation was one of the 15 constituent republics of the USSR. Like Ukraine, however, it is not treaty-bound with the EU or NATO, and more likely would whet Putin’s appetite.

Putin is one of the world’s most cynical and dangerous men and a hideously unworthy steward of the Russian people’s interests.

Moldova shares its entire eastern border with Ukraine, and this boundary is bereft of major geographical hurdles, such as mountain ranges or large bodies of water. In terms of both land area and population, the country is less than one-tenth the size of Ukraine.

To its tremendous credit, Ukraine has defended itself against Russian treachery with valor and persistence. But Moldova would simply be too small to offer much resistance.

Particularly in time of war, statecraft often demands the selection of the least unpalatable of alternatives. The current American and NATO policy, limited to arming Ukraine and squeezing Russia hard economically, is the most advisable and must be maintained to the hilt.

Were this policy to fail, Ukraine would be imprisoned in the dungeon of a Russian-dominated dictatorship with Moldova sure to follow. The lunatic Putin might then be tempted to hit the Baltics.

War between the Western powers and Russia could go nuclear. 

Moreover, the potential here for danger and destruction would be beyond all prior human experience.

It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. There certainly aren’t.

Joseph Tipler, in Centralia, Washington

#FormerGuy lost his aspiration to be "ein Führer"!

This opinion letter was published in The Chronicle, a Washington state newspaper.  In fact, this is another in a series of opinion letters published by unrelated writers, and printed in many US national newspapers, where the comparisom is made with Trumpzis, and Nazis, and the Former Guy and the Nazi Führer.  

One wonders whether the narcissist Donald Trump realizes how calamitous his life has become. Not only has the #FormerGuy president lost the popular vote two times running, but his fatuous attempts to cling to power, culminating in the horrific assault on the nation's Capitol, have devastated his reputation and all hopes for a financial or political comeback.

The Trump "brand," the basic source of the president's wealth, fame and power, was built on an image of success and glamor, effortlessly achieved. This was always exaggerated, of course, and now has been utterly trashed.

A case in point: Deutsche Bank, the sole moneylender to Trump of any consequence for many years, is cutting all ties to The Donald. Trump owes hundreds of millions to this firm, and now may be unable to repay or to refinance this debt.

Also, the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) has scrapped plans to hold the 2022 PGA Championship at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Trump is an avid golfer who loves to associate with sports celebrities, and the blow to his pocketbook and to his ego must be (yes indeed it was!) enormous.

Similarly, Bill Belichick, the legendary coach of the New England Patriots, has refused an offer of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, citing recent political unrest. Belichick is a patriot in more ways than one.

Most important, myriad state agencies in New York are aggressively investigating Trump's innumerable financial dealings. It is probable that the president will face serious charges regarding bank fraud, insurance fraud and tax fraud.

Unlike "collusion" and "conspiracy," furthermore, financial crimes are comparatively easy to prove.

More to the point, they could not be nullified by a presidential self-pardon, which would apply only to federal malfeasance.

Exactly what the storming of the Capitol was intended to achieve remains nebulous.

Evidently, the goal was to roil such chaos as to enable an act of martial law and a derogation (belittling) of the U.S. Constitution.

Sort of an American version of the Reichstag fire. (The German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933.)

Indisputably, Trump is capable of provoking such contretemps (disputes). The #FormerGuy has no moral bearing whatsoever, and damns all criticism of his "stable genius" as treason. Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer!

In 1941, Churchill said of Hitler: "Nothing is more certain than that every trace of Hitler's footsteps, every stain of his infected and corroding fingers, will be sponged and purged and, if need be, blasted from the surface of the Earth."

Is it fair to apply these words to Donald Trump? Not entirely, but close enough. 

From Joseph Tipler in Centralia, Washington