September 11

Republicans And Veterans: Total Hypocrisy And Disgrace!

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The Republican Party loves to wave the flag and talk about “patriotism”, but they are regularly against veterans receiving health care for their sacrifices since September 11.

They just, out of spite, worked yesterday against aid to soldiers exposed to toxic pits and other dangers in war zones, including in Afghanistan and Iraq after September 11.

It is shocking to see even so called “better” Republicans, such as Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse joining with outgoing Senators, such as Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, Richard Burr, Roy Blunt, and Richard Shelby, and all of the usual obnoxious Senators (including Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Rick Scott, and others) to vote against veterans’ health aid!

Only 8 Republican Senators supported the legislation yesterday, including Susan Collins, Shelley Moore Capito, Marco Rubio, Jerry Moran, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, and two others!

Twenty Years Since September 11, And The Terrorists Won! We Have A Divided America Worse Than The 1960s!

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It has now been a full generation since September 11, 2001!

Sadly, the terrorists won!

We have a more divided America now than we had in the 1960s!

There is no sense of unity, and one of the two political parties, the Republican Party, is a shell of itself, totally contradicting the heritage of the party, and now a full blown Fascist Party, which has no concern about public health, public safety, or common decency!

It is nearly impossible to accomplish any great goals, as occurred with the “Great Society” in the 1960s, as the Republicans are nihilists, libertarians, who do not care at all about anyone other than themselves. Their wealthy benefactors only care about keeping taxes low, not dealing with the many social and economic problems of a society which is becoming more inequitable every year.

The Supreme Court is the most extreme it has been since the 1920s, and is losing public respect, and there is no sense of humanity, empathy, compassion in the public sphere by close to half of the Congress, only out to promote cruelty and suffering of the masses of Americans.

So the terrorists won. and only the corporations and wealthy have benefited, and this portends future conflict that could escalate the terrible divisions now so evident in America!

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani Suspended From Practicing Law In New York

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Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani was suspended from practicing law in New York, due to his lying about the Presidential Election of 2020, undermining American democracy, and supporting the Fascist authoritarian Donald Trump in his quest to destroy America in every way possible. His misconduct and corruption is massive!

Giuliani could have retired from public life after September 11, and gone down as a hero, but his greed, selfishness, and growing dementia (which is clear to anyone who pays attention), has now doomed him to being a villain in American history long term!

Giuliani helped to incite the January 6th US Capitol Insurrection, and needs to be indicted, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison as a traitor and seditionist!

To think that in 2007, Giuliani led polls for the Republican Presidential nomination, and seemed a “reasonable” potential candidate at the time, makes one shocked at his fall and degradation!

Evil and the devil took over Giuliani’s personality, and he and another potential Presidential contender in 2007, former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, will go down as mentally disturbed, corrupt individuals who deserve the total rebuke of historians who look back on the recant degradation of the Republican Party, which will never recover from what Donald Trump has done to the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower!

Mike Pence Historical Reputation At Stake As He Leaves Vice Presidency Next Month

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Vice President Mike Pence, the 48th Vice President, has been a total disaster in that office, and has added to the horrendous record of recent Republican Vice Presidents, as compared to recent Democratic Vice Presidents.

Just going back a half century, and one can see how different the historical reputation is of the two party’s Vice Presidents.

There are two Republican Vice Presidents since 1969—Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush—who later went on to become President, and despite controversies, stand out as reasonably decent Vice Presidents. Nelson Rockefeller, under Gerald Ford, also comes across as having had a decent record and historical reputation worth defending.

But then we have Spiro Agnew under Richard Nixon, who was forced out of the Vice Presidency by corruption, and it remains terrifying that he came so close to becoming President.

We have Dan Quayle, who was a not very bright man, and very scary as potential President when George H.W. Bush had some health crises.

And we have Dick Cheney, often considered more a President in the first term of George W. Bush, who was terrifying in his “Darth Vader” type evil, and committed war crimes and abuse of power while Vice President, demonstrating the potential for harm done by a very bright man, who was transformed by September 11 in a dangerous way.

Now compare this to the Democratic Vice Presidents since 1969. We have Walter Mondale under Jimmy Carter, recognized by scholars as the most active, engaged and exceptional Vice President in American history, and still living 40 years after his time in office, and reaching the age of 93 on January 5.

We have Al Gore, who served Bill Clinton in a very reputable fashion, and influenced Clinton on environmental and other matters. And he had the dignity after a contested Presidential election in 2000, to concede in a manner that showed respect for the Constitution and rule of law.

And we have Joe Biden, who is seen as either equivalent of importance to Barack Obama or just second to Walter Mondale under Jimmy Carter, and now will be the 46th President of the United States in less than a month! Certainly, Biden’s Vice Presidency prepared him for the challenges he will face on January 20, 2021!

All three of these Democratic Vice Presidents in the past half century stand out as successes, and all three also ran for President, and they add to the dignity and significance of the office of Vice President.

The Republican Vice Presidents, at least Agnew, Quayle, and Cheney were, by comparison, true disasters!

Now, Mike Pence, who has demonstrated a complete lack of guts to challenge Donald Trump on anything he says or does, has an historic role he faces on January 6, to go through the ceremonial duty as President of the US Senate, to conduct a formal counting of the electoral votes before a joint session of Congress.

Every one of the Vice Presidents in office at the end of the term from Hubert Humphrey in 1969, through Nelson Rockefeller in 1977, through Walter Mondale in 1981, through George H. W. Bush in 1989, through Dan Quayle in 1993, through Al Gore, in 2001, through Dick Cheney in 2009, and through Joe Biden in 2017, have followed procedure and refused to allow challenges or controversies during that solemn ceremony.

But the odds are good that Mike Pence will allow such characters as Congressmen Mo Brooks of Alabama, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Jim Jordan of Ohio; and Senators Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to delay the counting of the vote as they try to deny Joe Biden his rightful win in the Electoral College and in the popular vote nationally!

If Mike Pence does that, he will be condemned in history on the level of such disgraced Vice Presidents as Aaron Burr and Spiro Agnew!

The Five Words Which Will Sink Donald Trump In November: “It Is What It Is”, Regarding CoronaVirus Pandemic Deaths!

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When the history of the Presidential Election of 2020 is written in the future, it will be clear that the ultimate turning point of the election, of so many controversial moments and statements, will be the five word utterance of President Donald Trump to Jonathan Swan, the young Australian journalist who works for Axios, revealed to the world on HBO two days ago:

“It is what it is”, which regards the CoronaVirus Pandemic Deaths, a total of 157,000 and rising rapidly, as I write this.

It is clear this number will be likely double what it is now by November 3, Election Day, so a total of 300,000 or more deaths!

This will mean in nine months, more than combat deaths in World War II!

Or it will mean more than total combat deaths in World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq combined!

Or it will be 100 September 11ths!

And while Donald Trump played politics and ignored science and medicine, Americans died in tragic numbers, with Trump vilifying and ridiculing Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx and other health experts!

This is the greatest bumbling and failure to react to a major crisis since World War II, far greater than any of the wars waged by the United States since then, and will doom Donald Trump in history to last place among rankings of Presidents, where he will stay for all time, below James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin Pierce, who all, by comparison, look better!

It is now sadly clear that until Joe Biden is sworn in, nothing substantial will be done to deal with the CoronaVirus Pandemic, and there is no magical solution that can take place in a few months, so even with active utilization of science and new strategies and different personnel engaged in the crisis, the likely number of deaths will continue to grow throughout 2021.

Likely, the number of deaths by January 20 will hit 400,000, and with the hope that a vaccine will be created and be available during 2021, hopefully by the end of the first year of the new administration, we will see real progress on ending the pandemic.

But the number of deaths meanwhile will likely likely rise, at best estimate, to 750,000, and could reach one million at the most pessimistic levels!

And the one thing that stands out as worse than any of this, is that Donald Trump has demonstrated that he has no ability to show or express compassion or empathy, and is only concerned about himself!

“It is what it is” will reverberate throughout history as the judgment of the horror of the Presidency of Donald Trump!

“The Forgotten War” 70 Years Later: Still An Area Of Danger And Concern

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On this day, June 25, 1950, 70 years ago, the Korean War began as Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of South Korea.

It is often termed “the forgotten war”, as many Americans seem to think, due to poor education, that Vietnam was the major war right after World War II, highly regrettable that so few know of the sacrifices of American soldiers in that horrid conflict.

The United Nations, under American leadership of 21 nations, entered the war under the US authorization of President Harry Truman, although it was an undeclared war, never subject to Congressional vote, and instead was termed “a police action”.

Some have argued it was an “illegal war”, and that it started the abuse of power of Presidents in sending troops overseas in foreign conflicts, including the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, and many other interventions, often not even known or paid attention to by American news media.

The Korean Conflict, which seems as a more appropriate name since it was not a declared war, went on until there was an armistice on July 27, 1953, and in those 37 months, over 33,000 Americans were killed, and many thousand of more troops wounded. The conflict has never resulted in a peace treaty.

About three million people died in that conflict, the majority of whom were civilians, and it was the deadliest conflict in east Asia, more than the Vietnam War or the Chinese Civil War. All of the major cities of the Korean peninsula, both in North and South Korea, were laid waste, and families were divided permanently for many decades.

The same Communist government that started the war has gone through three generations of leadership–grandfather, father, and now son, and Kim Jong Un seems on the road to provoking a new war with South Korea, which has become very democratic and prosperous.

Every American President has been dogged by the problem of the Korean peninsula, but now even Donald Trump has been bested by the North Korean dictatorship, and it seems likely that Kim Jong Un could be a threat not only to South Korea, but to Japan, and to American territories in Guam and the state of Hawaii, and the entire Pacific Coast of the United States. His development of nuclear weapons makes North Korea a potential threat over time even to the east coast of the United States, including Washington DC and New York City as the key targets, as was the case for Osama bin Laden on September 11, 2001.

So when Joe Biden, God willing, becomes the 46th President in January 2021, he will face the daunting task of, hopefully, preventing a new war, whether nuclear or conventional.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington DC deserves every American visiting, and reflecting on the losses and damage done in the name of saving South Korea from becoming part of a united Communist dictatorship, but the future is gloomy.

As America Reaches 100,000 Loss From CoronaVirus Pandemic In Ten Weeks, Donald Trump Celebrates By Playing Golf And Discouraging Use Of Face Masks!

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This Memorial Day weekend, as we are commemorating the loss of Americans in all of our wars, the nation is reaching 100,000 lost from the CoronaVirus Pandemic in just ten weeks, soon to pass the losses in World War I, and already having lost more than the Vietnam and Korean Wars, and September 11 combined!

And what is Donald Trump doing?

He is playing golf for the first time in 75 days, and discouraging use of face masks!

How much more despicable and unseemly can any President be?

The answer is that no one, not even Richard Nixon or Andrew Johnson, was every as venal and uncaring as the 45th President, an excuse for a human being!

This is a time of great national mourning, and yet one third or more celebrates by breaking all of the rules of wearing face masks, washing hands, and insisting on having “fun” and pleasing every whim and fancy they have, including drinking themselves silly at bars and nightclubs in close proximity to everyone else, and spreading the virus!

It looks as if the refusal, ignorance, and lack of concern about science will cause a massive second wave that we will look back on Memorial Day 2020 and realize it was a small percentage of the ultimate count that will die from this CoronaVirus Pandemic!

But too many are ignoring reality, and acting as if they are on the Titanic before it hit, and most on that ship lost their lives in 1912!

Donald Trump Insured Of Being Ranked Worst President Ever, As He Totally Fails In Crisis Management!

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The issue of Crisis Management is a crucial one in judging Presidential leadership, as what matters more than that in judging a President, or a governor of a state or a mayor of a city, all executive positions where the population depends on the abilities, skills, compassion, and empathy of such leaders.

So on that factor alone, Donald Trump is insured of being ranked the worst President ever, as he totally has failed in the present CoronaVirus Crisis, which may end up considered the greatest crisis since the Great Depression, World War II, and the Civil War!

Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan were unable to handle the issue of division between the North and the South over slavery in the 1850s, helping to lead to the Civil War.

Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding were totally incompetent in dealing with the issue of political corruption in the 1870s and the early 1920s.

Herbert Hoover was unable to resolve the crisis of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, as economic conditions worsened every month.

Andrew Johnson in the 1860s, Richard Nixon in the 1970s, and George W. Bush in the 2000s presided over governments that were highly inept and corrupt in so many ways.

But Donald Trump has been horrendous in all these way—inability to unite the nation in a crisis as with Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan; personally engaged in corruption in a wider way than Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, and Richard Nixon; disastrous policies on so many issues as with George W. Bush; and total ineptitude in a difficult time in national life, as with Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover.

So Trump, without any debate possible, will rank as the absolute worst President we have ever seen in American history! Let us hope that the nation will overcome the CoronaVirus epidemic in decent shape, without too much loss of life, and that no foreign foe takes advantage of our weaknesses to present a threat on the scale of September 11. 2001 or December 7, 1941!

US Attack On Second Most Prominent Iranian Government Leader, The Revolutionary Guard Commander, Makes War Likely, And Not A Brief Or Easily Won War

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Once again, a President has taken a war type move without any consultation with Congressional leaders, as President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of the second most prominent Iranian Government leader, the Revolutionary Guard Commander, Qasem Soleimani, at the Baghdad, Iraq Airport by use of a drone strike.

It seems certain that America will have to send massive forces to the Middle East, at the same time that Iraq will probably demand removal of all US forces. There are bound to be reverberations throughout the Middle East, and it will endanger Americans and other foreigners in the Middle East, and specifically, will likely target Israel for engagement in war.

The thought that Iran might have the capability to strike the United States on the mainland, another September 11 type operation, has to be on the minds of many Americans this morning. It will certainly, at the least, cause heightened alert at airports and other sites in America, and dramatically cut tourism to Europe and the Middle East, and cause massive increases in oil prices that will harm the world economy.

Donald Trump has taken a rash action, and many will think it is to shore up his support for reelection, even as he faces an impeachment trial in the near term.

One must realize that no President has ever lost reelection when America is in the middle of a war, and that fact should sober all Americans.

The effort to remove Donald Trump from the Presidency will continue in earnest, but with growing fear that it will not succeed in the short term or long term.

Having said all of the above, it must also be said that the death of this evil Iranian military and intelligence leader, who committed terrorism on a wide scale by his direct orders, was based on the reality that he had caused the deaths, directly or indirectly, of hundreds of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last generation.

But to have a President authorize the assassination of a foreign leader in another foreign nation is unprecedented, and the full ramifications of this act are far from certain or understandable at this point so soon after the traumatic event, starting off the 2020s!

The likelihood of war, and not a short or easily won war, seems sadly certain, and will further add to the national debt and to the death count of Americans fighting overseas in wars that were avoidable in the past 75 years, including Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan!

78th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, And Now Greatest Security Threat With Donald Trump In Office

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America faces its greatest national security threat since Pearl Harbor, as now we have a President who is a threat to all of us, something no one would have imagined of a sitting President after September 11.

Donald Trump is clearly being manipulated by Vladimir Putin, and is attempting to destroy our constitutional checks and balances and rule of law.

He has a willing accomplice in Rudy Giuliani, who should face arrest, conviction and incarceration, as well as so many people around Trump, including Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

And also, there is the willing Republican Party in Congress, which has no guts to oppose Trump’s outrageous behavior and actions.

So on this anniversary of Pearl Harbor, all Americans who are not compromised need to be active and engaged to prevent the destruction of the American Republic!