Seriously, How Is This Man Still President?

So either last week or a month or two ago this President Trump learned Russia and his buddy Vladimir Putin actually put a cash bounty on our own American soldiers over in Afghanistan, to be paid to Taliban members who killed them, again, our American soldiers.

The revelation was bad enough, certainly.

Then we learned our President hadn't done anything about it.

Nothing. 

Did nothing whatever to punish Russia for putting a cash reward for killing our soldiers in the field.

At least as bizarre, if not more so, to this day, this Republican Party President Trump still, still has done nothing. Done nothing to punish Russia in any way.

Stunning.

Thanks, Mr. President.
Thanks, Republicans.

I ask again, how is this man still President?

No one can or does say it any better than an American Veteran.



How long, Republians?

How long, America?

How long?

For All Our Veterans, On Their Day

For Veterans Day, for all our Veterans out there, a list of all the restaurants and businesses offering free or reduced items for you across the city and metropolitan area today.

• Ameristar Casino Hotel Kansas City: Complimentary lunch at Horizons Buffet from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10.
• Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar: A free dish from its “Thank You Meal” menu
• Back Yard Burgers: Free Back Yard Classic Burger
• Bar Louie: Free flatbread or burger
• Barley’s Kitchen + Tap: Free entree
• Blue Moose Bar & Grill: Free entree
• Bob Evans: $5.99 breakfast from a select menu
• Bonefish Grill: Free order of Bang Bang Shrimp
• Buffalo Wild Wings: Free order of wings with a side of fries
• Carrabba’s Italian Grill: Free appetizer with the purchase of an entree and Coca-Cola product
• Chili’s Grill & Bar: Free Old Timer cheeseburger, chicken bacon ranch quesadillas, chili or soup with salad, or Cajun chicken pasta
• Chipotle Mexican Grill: Buy one/get one free
• Chuck E. Cheese’s: Free personal pizza
• Coco Bolos Wood-Fired Grill & Cantina: Free entree
• Cost Plus World Market: 20 percent off entire purchase (alcohol not included).
• Cracker Barrel: Free slice of double chocolate fudge Coca-Cola cake.
• Decadent, A Coffee and Dessert Bar: Free slice of pie
• Denny’s: Free build-your-own Grand Slam
• Dickey’s Barbecue Pit: Free meal
• Dollar General: 11 percent off purchases
• Donutology: Free glazed doughnut from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• Dunkin’ Donuts: Free doughnut
• Famous Dave’s Legendary Pit Bar-B-Q: Free lunch combo
• 54th Street Grill: Free meal (up to $12). Dine-in only
• Firebirds Wood Fired Grill: One complimentary military entrée with the purchase of an entree on Nov. 10.
• Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers: Free combo meal coupon good through Nov. 30
• Golden Corral: Free dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. Nov. 13
• Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria: 15 percent off on Nov. 10 and 11.
• Great Clips: Free haircut on Nov. 11
• Hereford House: Free entrée (up to $20) with the purchase of a second entrée at lunch and dinner. Hours vary per location.
• Hooters: One free meal from a select menu
• Houlihan’s Restaurants: Free meal from a special menu
• Hy-Vee: Free breakfast
• HOP: Free red, white and blue pancakes
• Kansas City Zoo: Complimentary admission
• LaMar’s Donuts: Free doughnut and 12-ounce coffee.
• Little Caesars: Free lunch combo ($5 value) from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• LongHorn Steakhouse: Free appetizer and 10 percent off the total bill from Nov. 10 to 12.
• Main Event Entertainment: Complimentary $10 FUNcard that can be used on all Main Event games, and one free entrée from the special Veterans Day menu.
• Minsky’s Pizza Cafe & Bar: Free 6-inch Philly cheesesteak, fries and a soft drink, dine-in only.
• Muscle Maker Grill: Free meal
• Museum at Prairiefire: All access for veterans and their guests
• O’Dowd’s Gastrobar: Free entree
• Olive Garden: One free entree (five to choose from) with unlimited soup or salad and breadsticks, dine-in only.
• On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina: Free lunch combo
• Outback Steakhouse: Free Bloomin’ Onion and free Coca-Cola drink
• Pie Five Pizza Co.: Free pizza
• Pinstripes, Prairiefire: Free entree up to $20.
• Porto do Sul: Free Harvest Table, for lunch only Nov. 10 and 11.
• Price Chopper: 25 cents off per gallon (or 500 points toward food savings) on veterans’ next fill-up at QuikTrip (up to 20 gallons). Veterans need to bring their Chopper Shopper Rewards Card to one of the stores on Nov. 11 to receive the discounts.
• Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews: Free Red’s Tavern double burger with bottomless steak fries
• Red Lobster: Free appetizer or dessert.
• Rock & Brews Restaurants: Free pulled pork sandwiches Nov. 10.
• Ruby Tuesday: Free appetizer
• Scooters Coffee: Free cup of coffee
• Shoney’s: Free all-you-care-to-eat breakfast bar from 6 to 11 a.m.
• Spin Neapolitan Pizza: Free Mini Mia pizza and salad or soup combo
• Sport Clips: Free haircuts
• Starbucks: Free tall coffee
• Stroud’s, Fairway and Overland Park: Free entree
• Texas Roadhouse: Free lunch from a select menu
• Topgolf: Free basic lifetime memberships if veterans sign up on Nov. 11, as well as 10 percent off gameplay and 20 percent off other memberships.
• Twin Peaks: Free menu item from a select menu on Nov. 13.
• Yard House: Free appetizer, dine-in only.
• YaYa’s Eurobistro: 20 percent off purchase and a $10 bonus card.
• Zarda Hickory Pit Bar-B-Q: Free pulled pork sandwich, side and medium drink from 11 a.m to 2 p.m.

And for a national list:

All the Restaurants Where Veterans and U.S. Military Eat Free This Weekend

Then, additionally, there is this:

All US national parks are free on Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day.

The Attacks and Irresponsibility and Just Really the Insanity That Are All Donald Trump

In the very, very short time this Donald J. Trump has been President, look at all he's come out against.

He's against equal pay for women.

Trump Order Drops Pesky Regulations 

On Equal Pay

He has attacked and keeps attacking women, in fact.

Reinstating 'Global Gag Rule,' Trump Attacks Women

Trump order undoes workplace protections for women

He's against National Parks and National Monuments and so, nature. 

Trump order could undo designation of national monuments

Heck, he's against his own political party and people in it.

Trump attacks McCain and other Republicans

We've seen, this week, he's against National Football League players and they're desire for justice in our nation, a two-fer for him. 

Donald Trump Attacks NFL Players'

Behind Trump’s attack on the NFL football players

Long ago now, he's even attacked our nation's Veterans, for pity's sake.

Trump Attacks America's Veterans

Not done there, he singles out and attacks DISABLED Veterans, as well.

Trump attacks disabled Veterans

He has attacked and keeps attacking the media. 

Trump attacks media in lengthy, combative press conference

Trump threatens NBC licenses after story on nuclear buildup

Not just attacking the media, he has attacked free speech, the First Amendment. This came early this year, in February.

Trump threatens to weaken 

First Amendment protections for reporters

Trump's attack on the First Amendment

Then, he did this in the last 24 hours.

Trump Attacks First Amendment

He's certainly not for clean air nor clean water nor soil.

Trump signs bill undoing Obama coal mining rule

Donald Trump undoes the Clean Water rule

The Trump EPA Wants to Gut California’s Clean Air Rules

There are things he's for certainly. Here's one of them. He's for our local military, across the nation, having military gear. You know, so they can fight us, the American citizens.

Trump to lift military gear ban for local police

He's all for business, that's for sure.

Trump’s Policies Are Already Making Workplaces More Toxic

Another thing he's for and seemingly in a big way is a fight of some kind with North Korea and their President Kim Jong Un. 

U.S. flies bombers over Korea as Trump discusses options

Trump Flirts with Nuclear War

Keep in mind, too, this is only a partial list of what this one man has done and said so far.

So the question is now, when does this roller coaster end? How soon?

And how, exactly?

Republicans, Their AHCA, aka "Trumpcare", at Last

Cut health insurance coverage for 23 million Americans?

Slash Medicaid?

Make it harder for the elderly to get health insurance?

Make it harder for the disabled to have health insurance?

Make it harder for America's Veterans to have health insurance?

Make it harder for women to have health insurance?

Make it harder for families to have health insurance?

Take away the mandate for those with pre-existing conditions to get and have health insurance?

But give yet more tax cuts to the already-wealthy?

Really?

This is who we are?

This is who we want to be?

Tell us how this isn't oligarchy and plutocracy, both.

Fortunately, there is this.

Four GOP senators say they can't vote 

for Republican health care bill

And it only takes 4 Republicans defecting to kill it. There's no telling how many more won't be able to back it, as word of this nightmare gets out.

One last note. Check out what happened at the very cowardly and heartless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office today, too.

Capitol Police drag disabled protesters out of wheelchairs during Trumpcare protests

This is not going to go well. It's not going to go well for them. How every Republican in Congress isn't already running from this thing, this health care nightmare, is anyone's guess.

I will be very, very surprised if this bill of theirs, the Republicans, isn't DOA.

Already.

Links:

Here's the simplest takedown of the Republican scheme to take away health care from millions

Senate's health care bill shreds Medicaid 

and essential health benefits

The people who will be hurt the most 

by Trump's Medicaid plan

Many Republican senators are unhappy about the AHCA draft

Veterans Day

The 1918 truce that halted fighting in World War I went into effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Today, that is commemorated in the U.S. as Veterans Day.

Let's REALLY honor Veterans.

Demand an end to perpetual war.

On This Day, 1965

While we vote, maybe keep this in mind today, too.

Lawrence Joel (February 22, 1928 – February 4, 1984) was a United States Army Sergeant First Class who served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. While serving in Vietnam, as a medic with the rank of Specialist Five assigned to 1st Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Joel received the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor for his heroism in a battle with the Viet Cong that occurred on November 8, 1965. He was the first medic to earn the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam conflict and the first living black American to receive this medal since the Spanish–American War in 1898.

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Virginia.





Links:  Lawrence Joel earns Medal of Honor - Nov 08, 1965

8th Of November, A Tribute to Lawrence Joel, Niles Harris, And All

Lawrence Joel - Wikipedia

Lawrence Joel Medal of Honor Ceremony - YouTube

Memorial Day

Army Rangers in Afghanistan Release Music Video in Commemoration of Memorial Day

First Lieutenants Andrew Yacovone and Justin Wright formed a musical duo called Interstate 10, and this week they released a music video from Afghanistan.

What We've Come to In America

This posting comes from an article yesterday in the Springfield, Missouri News-Leader newspaper. It's a horrible indictment of our health care system, how we treat our Veterans and our nation, overall, generally.

Old man wanted more than money in Branson bank robbery

Joseph Cyrus could barely get the words out.

He knew what he wanted to say, but he didn't want to break down in the courtroom.

Cyrus' lawyer told him it was OK. He could wait until the sentencing hearing in a few months if he wanted. But the 77-year-old Cyrus couldn't wait.

A proud man, Cyrus couldn't go another day without explaining himself.

"I wanted to be caught, your honor," Cyrus said from his wheelchair last month at the federal courthouse in Springfield. "I wanted to get some help from the United States government."

A masked Cyrus robbed the Central Bank on James Epps Road in Branson on Oct. 16, pointing what he says was a plastic BB gun at the tellers.

The reason he committed the crime, he said, was to get access to healthcare in the federal prison system.

Cyrus turned himself in to police a few days after the robbery and pleaded guilty on Nov. 10.

Cyrus gave an emotional speech in the courtroom after pleading guilty, saying he has bad feet and is losing his hearing. He told the judge he recently lost his job and was turned away by a Veterans Affairs hospital.

Cyrus said he woke up the morning of the robbery in his trailer at the Yacht Club Mobile Home Park in Hollister with roaches crawling all over his body.

He asked himself a question as he was eating breakfast that morning.

"I turned around and looked in the mirror, into a mirror that I had in my apartment, and I said 'Why am I doing this?'" Cyrus said. "So I grabbed that mask (and) turned the license plate upside down."

Cyrus drove his pickup truck to the bank, hobbled in, pointed what looked like a pistol at the tellers, ordered everyone into the lobby and made out with almost $31,000 in a reusable grocery bag.

Witnesses at the bank said Cyrus was "hunched over" and appeared to be in pain as he walked out of the building.

Two hours later, Cyrus paid his rent in cash, put a "for sale" sign in his truck and left town. He would later come back to Branson and turn himself in...

...Cyrus said in court he has 16 grandchildren. He said he didn't want them to see him as an old, deaf man too sick to drive a car...

...Kristie Breshears, public information officer at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, said Cyrus' case is not totally unique.

"I don’t want to give the misconception that there are all of these guys lined up to go to prison to get free healthcare," Breshears said. "But do I believe it exists? Absolutely."

Congratulations, America. This is who you are. This is what we've become.

Can we not do anything about this?

Veterans Day, 2015

Remembering World War II, by the numbers. An informative, fascinating, possibly even important video on the people killed in World War II.



Never forget.

The US and Where the Republican Party Wants to Take Us (Guest Post)

Great questions--and facts--on our United States today, from one Wayne Stiles  out on Facebook earlier.

Since when did it become acceptable in this country to toss the weakest of us overboard?

There is a political party dedicated to castrating the poorest among us.

It started out by refusing to extend unemployment benefits at a time when we were hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month.

Then it was cutting off food stamps to these same families. Taking food off the tables of the hungriest and poorest families.

Then the GOP showed how truly despicable they were.

Laws were passed to keep people from feeding the homeless. People were being arrested for feeding homeless families.

Laws passed to make it illegal to sleep ANYWHERE outside. Homeless people were being arrested.

Then the GOP sank to its lowest depths.

It began cutting off help to our veterans and seniors.

Veterans committing suicide at a rate of 200,000 a year. Seniors deciding whether to eat or pay bills. Denying healthcare to them all.

But the worst atrocity is while doing this, the GOP is taking that money and giving it away wholesale to the wealthiest.

Do we change this or not?

Local Story for National POW/MIA Recognition Day

From the New York Times today:

Today, a personal reflection from Victoria, one of your Morning Briefers:

For many years, “Eugene M. Jewell” was just a name inscribed on a metal bracelet that I, like so many others, wore in the 1970s.

Nearly five million similar bracelets were sold by a student group, starting in 1970, to raise awareness about those missing in action or held prisoner in the Vietnam War. Each had a name, a rank and the date of disappearance.

In 1971, I paid $2.50 and agreed not to remove the band until my bracelet’s “name” came home. But the metal dug into my wrist, the war ended, and the bracelet went into a box.

Today, on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, thanks to an Internet that makes us all a little less anonymous, I know that Eugene Jewell was more than an engraving.

He was 24 and a first lieutenant in the Air Force when he took off in an F-4 Phantom fighter jet for a mission over North Vietnam. His aircraft was shot down and lost on Sept. 4, 1965.

The Defense Department says 1,627 Americans who fought in the Vietnam War remain unaccounted for, including Captain Jewell (he was promoted in absentia).

When Captain Jewell was declared missing, his wife was back home in Topeka, Kan., with their 1-year-old daughter, Deborah, and pregnant with their second child.

Last year, Deborah Jewell wrote on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial website:

“It always is a surprise when I read about folks who have/are wearing a bracelet with my Dad’s name on it, and to hear about how their hearts ache for the loss and hurt our family feels.”

Victoria Shannon contributed reporting.

Links:  National POW/MIA Recognition Day in United States

Presidential Proclamation -- National POW/MIA Recognition Day, 2015 | whitehouse.gov

National POW/MIA Recognition Day - Wikipedia

NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY – Third Friday

Pow Mia Day History

One More Thing Congress Needs to Act On

Sure, Congress needs to act and is doing precious little besides legislating to get the wealthy and corporations yet more money or curb women's reproductive rights instead of, say, writing, proposing and passing a jobs/infrastructure bill.

Here's one more thing they haven't yet acted on but need to:

Social Security disability payments 

will be cut by a fifth 

Not only do they need to act on this or risk Americans' payments being cut, they also, this year, made 

On the first day of the new Congress, Republicans symbolically bound themselves to what is certain to be a controversial reform of the federal disability insurance program, which would probably occur near the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Social Security has two components, the disability insurance program and the much larger Old Age and Survivors Insurance program, for which almost all Americans become fully eligible when they reach retirement age. Congress has historically treated them as one system, moving money between one pot and the other if one is running short on funds and the other has plenty of money.

That's the situation now, as the disability pot is expected to be empty late next year. There is enough money in the larger pot to last until 2034, or to keep both programs solvent through 2033, according to the Social Security Administration.

Here's where they made the/our situation worse, and recently:

On Tuesday, however, the House adopted a parliamentary rule that adds a procedural obstacle to reallocating the money.

If Republicans do decide that a transfer is necessary, they can change the rules again easily enough. Still, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.) said that a reallocation would be only a temporary solution that would avoid making real changes to "the fraud-plagued disability program."

"It will actually make the retirement program worse off, and it does nothing to fix the disability program," he said in a statement.

Fraud appears limited to relatively few cases in the disability program, although it is difficult to know precisely how many beneficiaries could be working.

So not only are they doing very little but one of the few things they recently did has made their work possibly even more difficult, more complicated. Terrific.

Meanwhile, check out this information on the elderly in America lately:

Number of seniors facing hunger has doubled 

since 2001

And then, on the heels of Memorial Day when we otherwise honor our nation's Veteran's, there's this:

Bernie Sanders Rips Republicans For Cutting 

Social Security Benefits for 1 Million Disabled 

Veterans

Republicans' nerve and even hypocrisy seem to know no bounds.

So on this, as with so many things, this Congress needs to act.

And they need to do what's right for America and Americans. They need to make certain these cuts in Social Security payments don't occur, at least, and as soon as possible.

Best Way to Celebrate Memorial Day

On This Memorial Day

A story with links to photos from NPR:

It's Not Rude: These Portraits Of Wounded Vets Are Meant To Be Stared At

It's as George McGovern said so rightly and well, all that long ago:

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” 

Senator Blunt Gives Lip Service to Our Infrastructure and the Work It Needs

I saw this, earlier this week, on our own Missouri Senator Roy Blunt's official page:

              Stop right there! There will be no jobs bill.

Senators Blunt, Casey Continue Working To Support Bridges, in Need of Repair in MIssouri and Nationwide

I almost choked.

Not once in the last 7 years has ANY Republican in Congress, in either house, written, proposed or attempted to pass a true, good, strong, helpful jobs/infrastructure bill. Not once. Not one. 

Not one Republican representative, not one bill.

Now, Senator Blunt is trying to rewrite short-term history by saying something different--the opposite, in fact.

Senator Blunt supports infrastructure work like he and his political party show support for our nation's Veterans. Proof? This is from February, last year, 2014:

U.S. Senate Republicans block veterans' 

health bill

And this is from just this last December:

GOP senator blocks veterans' suicide 

prevention bill

The thing is, they don't.

Here's the truth on the infrastructure/jobs bill they could be writing and proposing and that should already, long ago, have been done:

Republicans Have Passed 0 Jobs Bills During Their First 138 Days Running Congress

In their first 138 days in control of Congress, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have passed zero jobs bills. Instead, Republicans passed budgets that would give big tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

All the while, our infrastructure is famously/infamously, it's known, is crumbling and needs updating and improving.

On top of that, as if that weren't enough, Americans need the jobs.

On top of that, all that, the economy needs the boost. We all know all this.

But Republicans?

They'll be damned if they'll have this nation have a successful, thriving economy while they're not in the White House. Nation be damned.

Meanwhile, there's this, not coincidentally:

And who can blame us?

But screw you, America, the Republicans are clearly saying. They're going to do their damnedest to make sure there's no such jobs or infrastructure bill--or good economy--unless or until a Republican is back in the White House.

God and heaven forbid.

I would love to have them prove me and this wrong--and as soon as possible.

Don't bet on it.

Who and What's Bankrupting America?

The corporations and wealthy are bankrupting America, for one, what with all the tax deductions they buy themselves from their---our----legislators, with campaign contributions. They get to write off untold "expenses." Even "Big Oil", one of the most profitable industries in the nation and world, and then they offshore profits, on top of it.

The other culprit bankrupting America?

Look no further than the obscene, bloated, wasteful, nearly completely unaccounted for, utterly immoral defense budget:

On this Veterans Day

For all the Veterans of all wars, let's remember this

and make sure we don't create any more.

Veterans Day, 2014

"I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.” 

--Mohandas K Gandhi