Pleased to get the perspective of veterans, and patriots (like me!) I am very alarmed by Kegbreath and trump's war madness/whims, the decimation of our military, and their integrity and well-being. Ilene Bilenky. Ret. RN, MPH, US Army Reserve Medical officer
I thank all of you for your service to your country. I also worry about the safety of the troops with such an incompetent leader. Aaron Parnas had news that the military stationed around the war area aren't even getting adequate food. 🇨🇦
His presidency has been compromised from day one, when he took all that money from the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Theil ,Ellison, and many others in exchange for their agendas. Then he sold out to the Saudis, the Qataris, Netanyahu, Putin, Orbahn and various others for his own monetary interests. So much corruption and foreign influence that it is hard to keep track of all of it.
I received an email from Public Citizen@ citizen.org with a petition to sign for kegsbreath the drunk to resign. I signed it but hope I won't face retribution.
Anything to get these morons gone. Two more years of this admin and we will all be bat shit crazy and certifiable if not nuked.
History offers a consistent warning that great powers rarely collapse from a single event, but rather from a gradual erosion of institutional competence, cohesion, and strategic restraint.
From the Assyrian Empire to Babylon, from classical Greece to Rome, from the British Empire to Tsarist Russia and later the Soviet system, the pattern is remarkably consistent: internal fragmentation, politicization of institutions, and the substitution of ideology or personality for governance and expertise tend to precede decline.
The article highlights concerns about the current erosion of professional norms within U.S. defence and foreign policy institutions, particularly the diminishing role of experienced career officials and the increasing influence of political loyalty over institutional knowledge. Whether one agrees with all of the framing or not, the underlying structural issue is worth serious attention: when decision-making becomes heavily centralized around personality and political alignment, the capacity for strategic continuity is weakened.
In historical terms, empires do not typically collapse because adversaries become stronger overnight; they weaken when they lose internal discipline, predictability, and trust—both domestically and among allies. Once external partners begin to view a state as unpredictable, cooperation declines, risk increases, and the costs of maintaining global influence rise sharply.
None of this suggests an imminent or inevitable outcome, but it does reinforce a recurring historical lesson: sustained geopolitical stability depends less on rhetoric or ideology and more on consistent institutions, expert governance, and long-term strategic thinking.
That is the real historical parallel worth reflecting on.
Having been a WW2 history junkie forever.....Trump definatly is a clone of his hero Hitler.....Kankles makes one stategic disaster after another.....like AH
AH.....when the 6th army was holed up in Stalingrad ...AH 'FIRED' the general that pointed out that the Romanians and Italians holding the lines were weak and should be strengthened............Operation Uranus crushed them and the 6th army was surrounded and eventually surrendered..........
From then on German foreces retreated all the way to Berlin.
McTaco is doing his best to destroy the USA and turn it into ashes.
Great report so Miller, trump ,hegseth,kushner ,trump jr,the 4 supreme court judges ,johnson ,bessett ,leivett ,McMahon ,Kennedy, Patel and all the heritage authors need to be A lined up in a firing squad or placecd on a desolate island with the families that suffered death by them.
Agree 100%-our entire government has been hijacked and corrupted by people (I used that word gently) whose only awareness is how much money and valor they can lose in a minute. How do we get rid of them???
Great sentiment, but who and how are we going to bell the cat?
I asked that Q six months ago when it was apparent that the gov't train was going too fast on a curved track and have yet to get an answer.
I have a better sense now what MUST happen, but still have my doubts that we will be like Hungary and vote the cretin out of office...who would have believed that we did ourselves in, not once but TWICE. Even Our Lord will not let us forget that mistake (if, in fact, it was a mistake and not a devious ruse).
Lord, help us in our need. We can't do it alone, especially after our yclept "leader" picks a fight with the Pope.
Wouldn't it be ...refreshing if better/ more serious leaders were readily able to stand for election...without bowing to the preditory big $$$ interests, needed for continued service via multiple election cycles? One candidate may excite the grassroots voters to donate enough to push through a candidate, however, the likelihood of a first term Member of Congress to ...make a notable difference is a rarity in the seniority based, party centric Congress. When the expected instant gratification doesn't happen, the voters who gave those miniscule amounts of $$$, often feel betrayed...and are easy prey for the next election cycle, before the newbie has not even found out where the various meeting rooms are located. Spending every hour on the phone, soliciting every donor, from the largest downward....that result is the only thing that essentially make a new MoC valuable to 'the party, either party!
I am so uninformed on all matters military but here’s a question.
As to the US using gold and platinum against tin, has the US spent billions buying the wrong weaponry, preparing for the wrong kind of wars? Are these Eisenhower’s “military industrial” behemoths feeding themselves with taxpayer dollars?
Because the problem of wrong weaponry predated Trump.
Yeah, our Pentagon (and military culture) is tradition bound and slow to innovate. It's not an unfair criticism to say we are frequently preparing to fight the last war. The nature of our procurement system and the defense industry reinforces this closed-loop system. Why is Trump asking for $1.5 TRILLION for the Department of Defense in the next budget cycle? A: To feed this beast.
I've often thought that it is hard for a newbie President, like Obama, to face down a room of senior military officers, bristling with decorations, and tell them he's now in charge and wants to explore some ideas for change and new directions.
Hard to balance preserving valuable institutional knowledge and experience against the pushing back against being "tradition bound and slow to innovate".
But really, for me, it just comes down to the obscene expense of our defense budget. And still no universal healthcare.
"Why is Trump asking for $1.5 TRILLION for the Department of Defense in the next budget cycle? A: To feed this beast."
Possible Alt-A: Imperialism fueled by megalomania, a Messiah complex, and grift, all while advancing the Project 25/Agenda 47 plan to subjugate the rest of us
The Pentagon specifically requested that several expensive weapon systems be terminated as not useful to the modern version of warfare. The local politicians overruled several of these cancellations, due to the loss of jobs and profits from long-term contracts and military base closures/reductions.
Yep. When our brains go into a fear-survival mode, our future focused, rational problem-solving network begins to shut down. When we are afraid, we are malliable.
It is astounding to me that one seriously mentally ill, utterly unqualified old man is allowed to demand, threaten, strut, bluster, and jerk our country and the rest of the world around--and nobody who is legally obligated by his/her oath of office lifts a finger to stop him--all of them with an R after their names, fearful of losing their own cushy jobs, their lips firmly attached to the plump, diapered backside of a psychiatric degenerate, removing them only to sing sycophantic paeans to His Royal Hiney.
Thank you both for your service and this great conversation. The liar-in-chief is unhinged and dangerous. I pray that the legal system holds out until he's out of office. Denver Riggleman is a great follow, he's also former military. He has the plan they have for stealing the election. Everyone needs to get together to ensure a free and fair election in the mid-terms.
An excellent piece. Thank you. I am a British retired journalist of the centre-left and I have been glued to the so-called US "progressive media" ever since Trump won the last election. It is good to see how it is flourishing and making the truth available to the American public. Voices like yours are vital in these lunatic times.
I'm 78 years old now but after qualifying as a journalist in the late 1960s I worked in local newspapers rather than go to Fleet Street or national TV, like most of my friends. My husband had a good job as a research chemist and my career rightly took second place. I have always been very committed to grass roots newsgathering and contributing my talents (such as they are!) to the community in which I live. I ended up as editor of a local paper in the north of England but was eventually made redundant in 1995 before a management buy-out in which expensive senior editorial staff were disposed of.
I then started my own business producing the fascinating biographies of elderly people whose life stories stood no chance of being published by the big companies. I also covered local history. I did all the editing, design and printing myself, and subcontracted the collation and finishing.
After we bought an old house in France as a second home in 1994 I wrote four books about our experiences there and branched out into publishing similar accounts by other English speakers. These became well-known in this niche market.
In all, I have brought out some 80 titles, of which about 25 are also e-books.
My husband, with whom I have worked in tandem since he took early retirement in 1999, has had poor health over the last six years including colon and liver cancer. I have therefore given up producing new books but I recognise the zeal with which projects like the MeidasTouch principals tackle newsgathering and their insistence on spreading the truth, untainted by commercial considerations. I regard Trump and his poisonous acolytes as a threat to the whole world and feel bound to keep abreast of the news about him.
Pleased to get the perspective of veterans, and patriots (like me!) I am very alarmed by Kegbreath and trump's war madness/whims, the decimation of our military, and their integrity and well-being. Ilene Bilenky. Ret. RN, MPH, US Army Reserve Medical officer
Thank you!
I thank all of you for your service to your country. I also worry about the safety of the troops with such an incompetent leader. Aaron Parnas had news that the military stationed around the war area aren't even getting adequate food. 🇨🇦
His presidency has been compromised from day one, when he took all that money from the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Peter Theil ,Ellison, and many others in exchange for their agendas. Then he sold out to the Saudis, the Qataris, Netanyahu, Putin, Orbahn and various others for his own monetary interests. So much corruption and foreign influence that it is hard to keep track of all of it.
The grift is real.
They seem to have taken over the whole military industrial complex 🤔
And you have not even scratched the surface!
This "presidency" (?) was compromised BEFORE the fool was inaugurated; he brought the stench of his corruption with him to the Oval Office!
Flooding the zone is a feature, not a bug with the Heritage Foundation and the likes of Bannon.
Big words to describe a little man ... psychopathic kleptocrat (consult your dictionary)
Oh, I make full use of the English language. No dictionary required!
I received an email from Public Citizen@ citizen.org with a petition to sign for kegsbreath the drunk to resign. I signed it but hope I won't face retribution.
Anything to get these morons gone. Two more years of this admin and we will all be bat shit crazy and certifiable if not nuked.
Now is the time to band together and be brave. Well done.
I signed it. I'm an old man. If they come after me someday, so be it.
Yep. I am not going to worry about it either. Had to be done.
History offers a consistent warning that great powers rarely collapse from a single event, but rather from a gradual erosion of institutional competence, cohesion, and strategic restraint.
From the Assyrian Empire to Babylon, from classical Greece to Rome, from the British Empire to Tsarist Russia and later the Soviet system, the pattern is remarkably consistent: internal fragmentation, politicization of institutions, and the substitution of ideology or personality for governance and expertise tend to precede decline.
The article highlights concerns about the current erosion of professional norms within U.S. defence and foreign policy institutions, particularly the diminishing role of experienced career officials and the increasing influence of political loyalty over institutional knowledge. Whether one agrees with all of the framing or not, the underlying structural issue is worth serious attention: when decision-making becomes heavily centralized around personality and political alignment, the capacity for strategic continuity is weakened.
In historical terms, empires do not typically collapse because adversaries become stronger overnight; they weaken when they lose internal discipline, predictability, and trust—both domestically and among allies. Once external partners begin to view a state as unpredictable, cooperation declines, risk increases, and the costs of maintaining global influence rise sharply.
None of this suggests an imminent or inevitable outcome, but it does reinforce a recurring historical lesson: sustained geopolitical stability depends less on rhetoric or ideology and more on consistent institutions, expert governance, and long-term strategic thinking.
That is the real historical parallel worth reflecting on.
Indeed. You make great points here.
Having been a WW2 history junkie forever.....Trump definatly is a clone of his hero Hitler.....Kankles makes one stategic disaster after another.....like AH
AH.....when the 6th army was holed up in Stalingrad ...AH 'FIRED' the general that pointed out that the Romanians and Italians holding the lines were weak and should be strengthened............Operation Uranus crushed them and the 6th army was surrounded and eventually surrendered..........
From then on German foreces retreated all the way to Berlin.
McTaco is doing his best to destroy the USA and turn it into ashes.
If only more Americans knew the history of Hitler and the Nazis like yourself. They’d see the similarities.
Great report so Miller, trump ,hegseth,kushner ,trump jr,the 4 supreme court judges ,johnson ,bessett ,leivett ,McMahon ,Kennedy, Patel and all the heritage authors need to be A lined up in a firing squad or placecd on a desolate island with the families that suffered death by them.
Such a great idea. The young boys going to war for what? To satisfy an evil old man and his drunken cohort.
Agree 100%-our entire government has been hijacked and corrupted by people (I used that word gently) whose only awareness is how much money and valor they can lose in a minute. How do we get rid of them???
Simple IMPEACH TRUMP & LOCK HIM UP FOR WAR CRIMES!
Great sentiment, but who and how are we going to bell the cat?
I asked that Q six months ago when it was apparent that the gov't train was going too fast on a curved track and have yet to get an answer.
I have a better sense now what MUST happen, but still have my doubts that we will be like Hungary and vote the cretin out of office...who would have believed that we did ourselves in, not once but TWICE. Even Our Lord will not let us forget that mistake (if, in fact, it was a mistake and not a devious ruse).
Lord, help us in our need. We can't do it alone, especially after our yclept "leader" picks a fight with the Pope.
Yes. We the People must vote in overwhelming numbers for better leaders.
Wouldn't it be ...refreshing if better/ more serious leaders were readily able to stand for election...without bowing to the preditory big $$$ interests, needed for continued service via multiple election cycles? One candidate may excite the grassroots voters to donate enough to push through a candidate, however, the likelihood of a first term Member of Congress to ...make a notable difference is a rarity in the seniority based, party centric Congress. When the expected instant gratification doesn't happen, the voters who gave those miniscule amounts of $$$, often feel betrayed...and are easy prey for the next election cycle, before the newbie has not even found out where the various meeting rooms are located. Spending every hour on the phone, soliciting every donor, from the largest downward....that result is the only thing that essentially make a new MoC valuable to 'the party, either party!
Sad, but a fact of political life... still have to learn how to bell the cat we have and trust in our God to help with the rest.
In God We Trust......Perhaps the Red Scare era needs to be resurrected? AGAIN!
well said
Wonderful column. Thank you.
Grrr “defense contractors bank”
I am so uninformed on all matters military but here’s a question.
As to the US using gold and platinum against tin, has the US spent billions buying the wrong weaponry, preparing for the wrong kind of wars? Are these Eisenhower’s “military industrial” behemoths feeding themselves with taxpayer dollars?
Because the problem of wrong weaponry predated Trump.
Yeah, our Pentagon (and military culture) is tradition bound and slow to innovate. It's not an unfair criticism to say we are frequently preparing to fight the last war. The nature of our procurement system and the defense industry reinforces this closed-loop system. Why is Trump asking for $1.5 TRILLION for the Department of Defense in the next budget cycle? A: To feed this beast.
Many thanks for the reply.
I've often thought that it is hard for a newbie President, like Obama, to face down a room of senior military officers, bristling with decorations, and tell them he's now in charge and wants to explore some ideas for change and new directions.
Hard to balance preserving valuable institutional knowledge and experience against the pushing back against being "tradition bound and slow to innovate".
But really, for me, it just comes down to the obscene expense of our defense budget. And still no universal healthcare.
To be fair, the change in warfare this time was a turn on a historical dime.
"Why is Trump asking for $1.5 TRILLION for the Department of Defense in the next budget cycle? A: To feed this beast."
Possible Alt-A: Imperialism fueled by megalomania, a Messiah complex, and grift, all while advancing the Project 25/Agenda 47 plan to subjugate the rest of us
The Pentagon specifically requested that several expensive weapon systems be terminated as not useful to the modern version of warfare. The local politicians overruled several of these cancellations, due to the loss of jobs and profits from long-term contracts and military base closures/reductions.
So glad I watched. The emphasis on disinformation is so correct. Scare tactics. 😱 That's the weapon of Trumpigula crew.
Thanks
Yep. When our brains go into a fear-survival mode, our future focused, rational problem-solving network begins to shut down. When we are afraid, we are malliable.
I’m not afraid. I am to old for fear. I am livid!!! We have to end this or our country will be taken over by the crazies of this country and others.
💕
It is astounding to me that one seriously mentally ill, utterly unqualified old man is allowed to demand, threaten, strut, bluster, and jerk our country and the rest of the world around--and nobody who is legally obligated by his/her oath of office lifts a finger to stop him--all of them with an R after their names, fearful of losing their own cushy jobs, their lips firmly attached to the plump, diapered backside of a psychiatric degenerate, removing them only to sing sycophantic paeans to His Royal Hiney.
And a pedophile to boot.
We are already in a "dangerous world". When a narcisstic, overbearing fool is the people's choice, well, we need to step up education in the USA.
Added to that, the amount of republican toadies who put trmp and their own impotent positions before this country - a recipe for disaster.
I have zero faith in these people. I believe Iran more readily than these self-serving hypocrites.
Regarding Hegseth…” a boy playing at being a man”. You nailed it! He is pitiful!
Thank you both for your service and this great conversation. The liar-in-chief is unhinged and dangerous. I pray that the legal system holds out until he's out of office. Denver Riggleman is a great follow, he's also former military. He has the plan they have for stealing the election. Everyone needs to get together to ensure a free and fair election in the mid-terms.
🇨🇦 🙏 🇺🇸 💪
Indeed. The whole nation needs to step up and do the right thing here.
An excellent piece. Thank you. I am a British retired journalist of the centre-left and I have been glued to the so-called US "progressive media" ever since Trump won the last election. It is good to see how it is flourishing and making the truth available to the American public. Voices like yours are vital in these lunatic times.
Thank you so much. Who did you report for in the UK?
I'm 78 years old now but after qualifying as a journalist in the late 1960s I worked in local newspapers rather than go to Fleet Street or national TV, like most of my friends. My husband had a good job as a research chemist and my career rightly took second place. I have always been very committed to grass roots newsgathering and contributing my talents (such as they are!) to the community in which I live. I ended up as editor of a local paper in the north of England but was eventually made redundant in 1995 before a management buy-out in which expensive senior editorial staff were disposed of.
I then started my own business producing the fascinating biographies of elderly people whose life stories stood no chance of being published by the big companies. I also covered local history. I did all the editing, design and printing myself, and subcontracted the collation and finishing.
After we bought an old house in France as a second home in 1994 I wrote four books about our experiences there and branched out into publishing similar accounts by other English speakers. These became well-known in this niche market.
In all, I have brought out some 80 titles, of which about 25 are also e-books.
My husband, with whom I have worked in tandem since he took early retirement in 1999, has had poor health over the last six years including colon and liver cancer. I have therefore given up producing new books but I recognise the zeal with which projects like the MeidasTouch principals tackle newsgathering and their insistence on spreading the truth, untainted by commercial considerations. I regard Trump and his poisonous acolytes as a threat to the whole world and feel bound to keep abreast of the news about him.
What an incredible career you’ve had @Anne Loader. We need more like you to spread the truth and educate. Thank you for sharing your experience here.