The Commander In Chief Who Wasn't

    What An Abysmally Unqualified Person To Command Our Military

 The Russian bounties are not about how any government acts in what it considers its best interest. Comparisons to Iran Contra, Iraq, or even arming Mujahedeen in Afghanistan are only supplemental to this discussion. This is about what happens after a government acts in their best interest to the detriment of their enemy. Russia’s best interest today is to sow confusion and disunity in U.S. politics in order to create a lack of faith in Western institutions. All of this allows Moscow to promote ideologies and processes that support its interests in opposition to our own. Part of that goal is to prevent the USA’s orderly departure from Afghanistan as POTUS is trying to do.

 POTUS and everyone else in that March briefing did NOTHING about Russian bounties, denied knowing about it, then of course blamed Obama for it...after Obama and the other 6 countries suspended Russia from G8. It's about lying, lack of leadership, lack of response, and lack of accountability. It's about an unqualified, failed, Commander In Chief. His lack of action for months was an unexpected gift to Putin, unless it was expected.

 The US administration including the DOJ has stopped, delayed or criticized any steps toward countering military or cyber aggression from Russian, Chinese, Iranian and other actors. The end result is reduced preparedness in protecting our troops, our elections, our intelligence infrastructure, and our populace. That is a complete abdication of the primary responsibility of our government.

 Trump claims to be a “wartime president.” I’m skeptical. My father-in-law was awarded the Purple Heart in WWII, my father and his two brothers served in WWII, my grandmother became a Gold Star mother when my uncle George's ship sank in the Pacific, and I'm a Vietnam combat veteran. Our military and our Constitution demand a Commander In Chief who does not “adhere to our Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” This administration ignored our enemy’s transgressions against our and our allies’ troops, and encouraged authoritarian governments, ethno-nationalists, and kleptocracies extracting resources for personal gain. He criticized, insulted and belittled our NATO and other allies. He invited, even requested foreign meddling in our elections. Because of his craven behavior toward Putin, Xi, Kim, Erdogan, and Assad, this corrupt draft dodger has not earned, does not deserve, and will never have the respect of us veterans and active duty personnel.

 Our Commanders in Chief, all of the previous 44 of them, NEVER mocked or criticized a Gold Star family as did Trump. Trump pardoned a war criminal, and continues to denigrate John McCain, whom he preferred was not captured. He said he was treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who many will remember was actually assassinated.

 Trump even insulted Medal of Honor winners when he claimed to laughter last August 21 that he sought to give himself a Medal of Honor, but decided not to after being counseled against the move by aides. What an abysmally unqualified person to command our military. And no, he will never receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He doesn't even know how to spell it.

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A Third Year Report Card

Let’s review some of Trump’s MAGA accomplishments:

1. Trump promised to bring down America's trade deficit “as fast as possible.” Instead, the trade deficit has hit an all-time high. The United States is now purchasing more goods and services from the rest of the world than we sell abroad than at any time in history.

2. As a presidential candidate in 2016, he said he could completely eliminate the federal debt in eight years. Instead, the federal debt has exploded thanks to Trump and the GOP's $1.9 trillion tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. They're already using the growing debt to threaten cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. You and I are now receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits for which we paid during our entire working lives, only to be threatened by someone who will never use them.

3. He promised to boost the wages of American workers, including a $4,000 pay raise for the average American family. Instead, wages for most Americans have been flat, adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, over the same period, corporate profits have soared and the rich have become far richer, but the gains haven’t “trickled down” (what a lie that is.)

4. His administration said that corporations would invest their savings from tax cuts. Instead, corporations spent more money buying back shares of their own stock in 2018 than they invested in new equipment or facilities. These stock buybacks provide no real benefit for the economy, but boost executive bonuses and payouts for wealthy investors.

5. He promised a tax cut for middle-class families. Instead most Americans will end up paying more by 2027. I didn’t have to wait for 2027 to see my taxes go up.

6. He promised to keep jobs in America and crack down on companies that ship jobs overseas. Instead, his tax law has created financial incentives for corporations to expand their operations abroad. Trump's trade wars have also encouraged companies like Harley Davidson to move production overseas. So he uses one of his rallies to shame the very motorcycles that his followers ride. And they swallow that shit and ask for more.

7. He promised to “drain the swamp” of Washington lobbyists. Instead, he's put them in charge of health, safety, and environmental protections—which has endangered most Americans while increasing corporate profits even further.

8. He wants to strip the FDA of any authority to regulate tobacco. Exactly which hard working Americans will benefit from THAT?

Trump has cheapened his office, instilled distrust in essential institutions of intelligence,  justice and democracy and replaced knowledge and professionalism with ignorance and amateurism. Pence is now in charge of preventing a COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps through abstinence and prayer.

Regarding immigration to the United States: I'm proud to hear that my old friend Akbar will be sworn in as a US citizen next month. He stayed in my home while studying for his master's degree at Case Western, received a job upon graduation, got married and now lives in Houston and is a productive member of our citizenry. I'm irritated on a daily basis when I hear supposedly christian (lower case) people harangue against immigration. The bible was pretty clear on that topic:

Malachi 3:5 – The messenger will bear witness against those who thrust aside the alien.

Matthew 2:13-15 – Jesus and parents flee Herod’s search for the child.

Matthew 25:31-46 – “…I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Romans 12:13 – “Mark of the true Christian: “…Extend hospitality to strangers…”

Ephesians 2:11-22 – “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”

Hebrews 11 – “By faith Abraham…set out for a place…not knowing where he was going.”

Hebrews 13:1-2 – “…show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels…”

James 2:5 – “Has not God chosen the poor in the world…”

I John 3:18 – “…Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

I John 4:7-21 – “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God…”  We love because God first loved us.”

As for putting children in cages: Matthew 25:40-45 – “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

We were all aliens at one time. My Chalfant ancestors came to America with William Penn, so now we have Chalfant, Pennsylvania and Chalfont, Pennsylvania. My mother’s maiden name is Stadelman, her mother’s maiden name is Koch. We went to school with Berardi, Bobinski, Schmitt, Geraci, Durcik, Hamad, with families from all over the world. Now it’s a terrible thing to be from somewhere else, especially some shithole country. Can you imagine what Brother William Fitch or Brother Casper would have done if we had called someone that? Now the President of the United States says it to the cheers of thousands of MAGA hats. Only in America can immigrants call immigrants immigrants.

I don’t believe that it is in America’s best interest to blame and shame entire nationalities for homeless consequences due our own laws, regulations, healthcare costs, and the greed of landlords. It is not the fault of someone from Nicaragua that someone in San Francisco is homeless. How is it that Americans, especially America’s veterans cannot get mental health care here in America, or that they are homeless? It’s not because someone or even thousands of someones from Nigeria, or India, or Venezuela came to America.

Despite Trump’s claim that America is full, it is not. Even Mick Mulvaney said so at the Oxford Union during a trip to England, Mr. Mulvaney announced in his speech that the United States needs more immigrants, lest severe labor shortages and anemic birth rates sap economic growth. “We are desperate, desperate for more people,” said Mr. Mulvaney. “We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth.”

When chicken processing facilities are raided by ICE, it’s the immigrants who get punished. It wasn’t the immigrants who “took” the jobs from Americans, it was the unethical owners who “gave” the jobs to underpaid, exploited workers in order to pocket more money for themselves. Why aren’t they in jail for breaking US immigration laws?

It’s easy to blame nationalities or a nation, or religions, or the youth, or the Boomers, or billionaires, or social media, or globalization, or rap music, or divorce, or teen pregnancy, or guns, or dead war heroes for a country’s economic and structural problems: dictators and authoritarians do it all the time. Jews are blamed for every conceivable economic ill throughout all of history, even in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. The Church held the Crusades to wipe out Islam, and Pope Pius XII allowed Jews to be massacred in Poland and Germany. Today the Pope is pilloried for showing love as the bible demands.

Maduro rails at the US every day, Iran’s two supreme leaders Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei blamed America just like Trump’s rallies blame everyone else, even a gold star family. Shouts of ‘Death to America’ ring out all over the Middle East, yet we love Mohammad bin Salman, send love letters to Kim Jong Un, Xi Jin Ping, and deny that Vladimir Putin wants to harm US democracy. That S.O.B. worked for the KGB: his ENTIRE CAREER is obsessed with taking down America but Trump can’t see why Putin is meddling in our elections. He can’t possibly be that stupid, so what is the real reason he says that stuff and behaves like that?

And we don’t like the leaders of England, Germany, France, Australia, and Canada. WTF?

No one is innocent, especially Major Bonespurs.