“I’ll never apologize. I did the right thing.” (starting the Iran war)
“Nothing bad can happen from what we’re doing.” (reducing the number of childhood vaccinations)
“… not nearly long enough” (describing the USS Lincoln‘s abnormally long deployment)
And so Donald Trump continues his reign as an increasingly demented narcissist-in-chief. Nevermind what the world thinks. Nevermind what parents and doctors think, or the families of military servicemen and women, or the Americans who can’t afford gasoline, food, or medical care. Nevermind that he has usurped Congress’s constitutional responsibility to approve funding for, among other things, wars and construction projects. Nevermind that in the face of a threat to his life, he slipped away to safety and left the entire White House press pool and some of his aides in the decoy plane for a reported rocket-wielding assassin.
No matter. His “improvements” to the White House and Washington continue, and he’s content. Besides, he’s exploiting his presidency to make billions of dollars for himself ($2.2 billion in 2024, according to the BBC).
Someone needs to drop Pres. Bone Spurs on the deck of the Lincoln and leave him there for a couple of weeks … although that’s not nearly long enough.
________
Header image: Trump’s unapproved White House ballroom under construction. (Photo: Reuters)
Addendum, Aug. 18:
I wish I could understand it all, Colorado …
I wish any of it made sense.
But it’s simply madness. And BADness. 🙁
That’s the scary part. It’s not understandable. It doesn’t make sense. And yes, it’s madness/badness — getting worse as he gets older.
There’s one thing I particularly want to be able to grasp: where does the money come from ?
I don’t mean from which proper fund does he steal it for his improper use: I mean, who keeps supplying the trillions of dollars he and his cronies are chewing up ? USA’s debt must now be beyond imagining, but apparently they’re able to simply access more, whenever, without fear of the supply’s ever drying up …
See the BBC link in the post. Most of it last year (what he reported, anyway) seems to have been his cryptocurrency dealings. Plus he’s always selling crap to gullible people — trading cards, steaks, Bibles, health supplements, ties, baseball caps, fragrance, you name it. Then there’s Trump Media (his company), which hosts his blog, Truth, to which he recently began selling “early access.” Biggest of all are the super wealthy private donors, the multimillionaire or billionaire businessmen who donate millions just so he’ll smile on their businesses (ask Google for their names). Musk is the most prominent I can think of offhand. As long as Trump’s president and can grant favors, they’ll be backing him.
Oh, well, that’s where Trump gets his money. As for the billions Congress keeps approving for whatever, it mostly either comes from the US Treasury (our tax money) or just gets added to the national debt, which will never get paid. Somebody once told me it didn’t matter because we just owe ourselves. It’s actually much more complicated than that and I’ve never really understood it beyond paying my taxes and occasionally worrying about the threats to take money from Social Security. You might try asking Google. Even that was more than I really understood.
They are outright looting the treasury in my opinion, and then issue more bonds to get even more money. It is like a hostile takeover, and they are stripping the assets…
Exactly.
I sent a letter to the editor of the Joplin Globe. Here it is, apologies for the length:
The news about the problems aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln brought back memories of the most painful part of my 22 year naval career. Some 11 years as a naval officer and toward the end of the Vietnam war I found myself Navigation officer aboard a heavy cruiser headed for the gun line.
I had motored into San Diego with a wife and 3 young sons in tow two weeks prior to the sailing, the start of a 6-month combat deployment. What I didn’t know was that it would be followed by a 3-month overhaul in Long Beach naval shipyard with only weekends at home in San Diego, and then, another deployment, this time 7 months!
In those days there were no satellite comms or email or video, only snail mail, and a few phone calls during the occasional port visit, usually in Subic Bay, or twice in Hong Kong. My poor wife wrote me every day. I felt the emotional pain and longing so profoundly that I began to regret my career choice, but I persevered. Morale was poor, I was not alone. I heard our chaplain later committed suicide. That war seemed endless, punctuated by body counts of the innumerable enemy. It lasted 5 more years.
When we finally pulled into San Diego after the second deployment, there was a multitude of families on the pier to greet us, but no ceremony was made, no parade, no public praise for what we had been through. Only a sense of profound relief that it was over, at least for us. I hugged my wife and boys and promised myself I would somehow prevent this from ever happening to us again.
Reports of an unprecedented, grueling deployment exceeding 250 consecutive days at sea without a port stop, compounding severe quality-of-life deprivations, food and water rationing, and allegations from military families of sailors attempting to jump overboard have now sparked a public outcry about conditions on the nuclear aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.
Everyone knows bad things happen in war. But, fewer bad things happen when there is time for expert planning. A strategy, publicly understood and backed, is needed, not capricious, impulsive orders from the top. Such orders create chaos.
When asked about the length of the Abe’s deployment, president Trump responded that the deployment was “. . . not long enough.” This demonstrates a total lack of empathy for the sailors’ plight. We are a long way from the days when a famous president said, “The buck stops here,” and when the Defense Department was not called the War Department for a reason.
I think about you every time anything re the Navy gets mentioned (coincidentally, I have both a brother-in-law and an ex who were submariners). I can’t imagine being in the military right now with Trump and Hegseth running things. One knows nothing at all about the military and the other thinks he knows everything. Both are despicable, pathetic human beings. But Trump’s “… not nearly long enough” had me just about putting my fist through the tv screen. After a week of news about conditions aboard the Lincoln, that was his response!?
Since then I’ve even wondered if the Lincoln was left out there that long because, in all the chaos of the Trump administration, it was simply forgotten. Nevertheless, Trump’s response when asked about it should be the epitaph on his tombstone.
Five years after my tour on the heavy cruiser and two more tours which involved sea duty, I was promoted, unexpectedly, to the rank of Commander. I was immediately offered the job of Executive Officer on a ship home-ported in Japan. NavPers was up front about the ship’s situation, the ship was being considered for a port change, whereabouts undetermined, and I would not be able to take my family to its home port.
This was 1975, the end of the war when many of the navy’s personnel were discontented draftees. Knowing an XO’s job entailed personnel problems was a concern but not a problem for me, knowing the Navy’s policy, ever since WW II, was “suck it up or you’re out.” But the prospect of another extended family separation period was a deal-breaker for me. I turned it down, it being that kind of job. I knew that would be the end of my career and any future “career-enhancing” job.
The Trump administration’s attitude about morale and caring for logistics is bound to affect recruiting, wouldn’t you think? Free testosterone therapy won’t help it, I submit. What if they decided it was necessary to bring back the draft? How would that play with the public, compared to the price of gasoline?
If military recruiters have quotas, I imagine a lot of them are in real trouble right now — especially the Navy guys. And certainly testosterone won’t help the sailors on the Lincoln. (Stupid idea in the first place.)
Pretty tough to fight a war if nobody signs up to fight, knowing the conditions they’ll likely face (eg, indifference and incompetence at the highest levels). And a draft right now (sounds like a Hegseth idea) would probably (hopefully) result in Trump’s being ridden out on a rail. Much as I’d like to see that, a draft would be too high a price to pay.
Google tells me it could take at least 20-30 days for the Washington to reach the Lincoln’s position. Sounds like forever, given current conditions on the Lincoln. Perhaps they’ll be ordered home before then.
His behavior is almost unimaginable except if you can see him as a narcissist. What’s equally hard to believe is that very few Republicans (both legislators and citizens) will stand up to his behavior.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have called him a “malignant narcissist” for as long as I can remember, but that doesn’t lessen my outrage when he says something like this. Just when you think he can’t get any worse, he does. And yes, I’m angry, disgusted, and deeply concerned that anyone, Republican or otherwise, elected official or mere voter, condones or simply ignores what he says and does. He was impeached twice during his first term, and should have been convicted and kicked out of office. But now here we are, well into his second term, and there’s even less concern from Congress.
I just heard some clips of the tour he gave of the lawn and construction site, describing how wonderful the finished project will be. People can stroll to the ballroom with their cocktails from the White House type of thing. I don’t believe that he intends to ever leave the White House, and in his mind, this is all his. It is so unbelievably tone deaf the way he brags about how wonderful all of his policies are, when the glaring problems are obvious to everyone else. The latest suggestion that people who oppose his ballroom are disloyal to America is the big tip off; he sees himself as America, and to oppose him is personal and national treason.
I sure would like to order some DoorDash, but now I can’t even trust that the food is safe to eat.
He’s crazy and by the time he leaves office, I’ll be crazy. Now he’s tearing into or selling off parts of our (MY!) national parks, thinks we need roads into our (MY!) national forests to save them, etc. I keep thinking I should stop watching national news, but that would be like knowing the murderer is already in the house and going to sleep anyway.
I finally got over my fear of cyclosporiasis and starting ordering packaged salads again. So far, so good. Hang in there!
Today he issued a new (directive)(policy)(fever dream) about beef and I am just rolling my eyes. Let’s just flood the beef market to lower prices and crush the American cattle industry that is struggling. I think that they need those high prices to pay their expenses…
I have decided to cook everything because… immuno-suppressed… and I don’t think I can trust anything at this point. I did order in Chinese yesterday, and it was yummy!
I know you have to be very very careful and I’m delighted you found something you could really enjoy! Meanwhile Trump better keep his hands off the beef industry. I’ve been seeing stories recently about Colorado ranchers having to sell off some or all of their cattle because all the fires have burned up all their pasture land. They are at or beyond their breaking point and importing beef could easily finish them off.