Quote of the Day -- On Trumpism

 

It is revealing how a political movement that claims to be dedicated to the recovery of national greatness has so readily and completely abandoned many defining national ideals. Donald Trump’s promise of American strength has involved the betrayal of American identity.

One of the most important strands of our founding ideology is civic republicanism. In this tradition, the common good is not automatically produced by a clash of competing interests. A just society must be consciously constructed by citizens possessing certain virtues. A democracy in particular depends on people who take responsibility for their communities, show an active concern for the welfare of their neighbors, demand integrity from public officials, defend the rule of law, and respect the rights and dignity of others. Without these moral commitments, a majority is merely a mob.

What type of citizen has Trump — and his supportive partisan media — produced? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) still holds her job in Congress because she is representative of ascendant MAGA radicalism. Those who reflect her overt racism, her unhinged conspiracy thinking and her endorsement of violence against public figures are now treated as a serious political constituency within the Republican Party. Trump has come down firmly on Greene’s side. One participant in the Jan. 6 attack sent a video to her children saying: “We broke into the Capitol. . . . We got inside, we did our part. We were looking for Nancy [Pelosi] to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.” The detail that gets to me? She sent this to her children. She was living in a mental world where vile, shameful things are a parent’s boast. And she saw her actions as the expression of a public duty — an example of doing her part.

From the article:

Trumpism is American fascism

Links:

Michael Gerson - Wikipedia

Fascism | Definition of Fascism by Merriam-Webster

Check Out What These 3 Polls Are Saying Just Now About Trump and America

 Three polls today, from The Hill. What Americans are thinking just now. 

Poll: Majority of voters say Trump has behaved poorly post-election

Poll: 62 percent of voters say country is on the wrong track

Poll: Voters view Biden more favorably than Trump

Just the facts. God bless America.

Have a nice day. Have a nice weekend.

The Trumpster Takes More Unquestionable--and Deserved--Hits Today

There is an excellent and true and very fair op/ed piece in today's Sunday New York Times by Nicholas Kristof American voters should see.

America and the Virus: ‘A Colossal Failure of Leadership’

In its destruction of American lives, treasure and well-being, this pandemic marks the greatest failure of U.S. governance since Vietnam.

One of the most lethal leadership failures in modern times unfolded in South Africa in the early 2000s as AIDS spread there under President Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki scorned science, embraced conspiracy theories, dithered as the disease spread and rejected lifesaving treatments. His denialism cost about 330,000 lives, a Harvard study found.

None of us who wrote scathingly about that debacle ever dreamed that something similar might unfold in the United States. But today, health experts regularly cite President Trump as an American Mbeki.

“We’re unfortunately in the same place,” said Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at U.C.L.A. “Mbeki surrounded himself with sycophants and cost his country hundreds of thousands of lives by ignoring science, and we’re suffering the same fate.”

I can't recommend the piece enough.

Not done there, the Times added this.

R.I.P., G.O.P.

The Party of Lincoln had a good run. Then came Mr. Trump.

Of all the things President Trump has destroyed, the Republican Party is among the most dismaying.

“Destroyed” is perhaps too simplistic, though. It would be more precise to say that Mr. Trump accelerated his party’s demise, exposing the rot that has been eating at its core for decades and leaving it a hollowed-out shell devoid of ideas, values or integrity, committed solely to preserving its own power even at the expense of democratic norms, institutions and ideals...

The final op/ed piece I'll mention here today from the Times is this from Maureen Dowd.

King Kong Trump, Losing His Grip

A steaming mad president is running out of steam.

"Biden, the empath;

Trump, the sociopath."

You can only let King Kong, as Don McGahn, Trump’s first White House counsel, dubbed his former boss, smash up the metropolis for so long.

It seems this President, his White House and administration have all given up, too.

White House chief of staff: 'We are not going to control the pandemic'

Meanwhile, this news hit today.

Members of Pence’s Inner Circle Test Positive for Coronavirus

5 people of the Vice President's staff including his Chief of Staff have now tested positive for the coronavirus. Added to that, the Vice President is continuing to campaign across the nation, in spite of this development.

Pence Denounced for 'Grossly Negligent' Decision to Keep Campaigning Despite Exposure to Top Aide With Covid-19

Vote, folks.  In 9 days or sooner, vote.   And vote blue.

86 45

BYEDON

From Barack Obama---to Donald Trump??

Maureen Dowd poses a great question today in the New York Times:

"How could we possibly, in a brief stretch, have gone from the euphoria of our first black president to the desolation of racial strife ripping apart the country?"

It's from her column.

Bonfire of Trump’s Vanity

And the answer, of course, is racism.

And Donald J Trump.

Thanks, Republicans.

Sprint, and Their Proposed Merger, Take a Hit Today

The Sprint company and the idea of its merger with T-Mobile takes a hit today in the New York Times.

Stop Creating Corporate Goliaths

A little of what they have to say.

Letting T-Mobile merge with Sprint would hurt consumers, workers and the economy

For years, T-Mobile’s chief executive, John Legere, has gleefully bad-mouthed his much larger mobile phone competitors, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, for their high prices and profit margins, and their low-quality service. Decked out in magenta sneakers and T-shirts, sporting long hair like an aging rocker, Mr. Legere promoted T-Mobile and himself to his 6.2 million Twitter followers as renegades — telephonic cool kids.

T-Mobile wooed customers by offering service plans with no long-term commitments, and by paying to free those customers from their old service plans. Rolling your unused data and minutes into the next month? T-Mobile did that, and AT&T and Verizon had no choice but to follow. More recently, T-Mobile vowed to match any discounts offered by competitors.

The fierce competition, and the march of technology, has rapidly reduced the cost of mobile phone service. Since 2009, the average cost of mobile service has fallen by roughly 28 percent, according to the Labor Department’s calculations. In 2017, at the peak of the mobile phone price wars, the Federal Reserve said prices were falling fast enough to meaningfully reduce inflation across the entire American economy.

That’s the beauty of competition. It’s been good for T-Mobile, too. Over the past five years, the company has added more subscribers than its larger rivals.

Now T-Mobile, the nation’s third-largest wireless company, wants to merge with Sprint, the No. 4 wireless carrier in the United States. The combined company would be in the same weight class as the two largest, AT&T and Verizon, with the three companies each controlling roughly a third of the market. Mr. Legere, who scorned the big guys, now wants to be one of them.

The Justice Department’s antitrust division staff has recommended that the federal government go to court to block the merger. That is good advice.

The proposed merger would harm American consumers. It would reduce the choice of service plans, and, over time, it is likely to result in higher prices and less innovation. It would also harm workers in the mobile phone industry, reducing competition for their labor. And it would increase the political power of the combined corporation...

On the one hand, this is coming from none other than The New York Times so it's going to carry some weight. It's certainly going to be on everyone's "radar", so to speak. 

On the other hand, boys will be boys and money buys all, especially in our current national government. This may be a conversation for a while--a few days?--but when all is said and done, the FCC and this administration will do what they will, customers and nation be damned.

Look for the Sprint-T-Mobile merger to go through. We hope not but these things usually don't go for the people.

But thanks, anyway, New York Times, for trying.

What We're Getting With and From This President

Columnist Leonard Pitts puts it very well today.

So here we are, six months later. How time has trudged.

But the calendar does not lie. On Thursday, we will be half a year through the Trump Era. And, contrary to his signature promise, America seems less great by the day. Nor are his other promises faring particularly well.

There is no sign of progress on that border wall, much less any idea how he is going to make Mexico pay for the thing. His promise to preserve Medicaid and provide healthcare for everyone has dissolved into a GOP bill that would gut Medicaid and rob millions of their access to healthcare.

Meantime, the guy who once said he would be working so hard he would seldom leave the White House spends more time on golf courses than a groundskeeper.

But for all that Trump has not achieved, there is, I think, one thing he indisputably has. He has taught us to live in a state of perpetual chaos and continuous crisis. Six months later, the White House commands the same horrified attention as a car wreck or a house fire.

In that sense, last week’s revelation that the Trump campaign, in the person of Donald Trump Jr., did in fact collude with a hostile foreign power to influence the 2016 election was just another Tuesday. Sure, it might have been shocking from the Bush or Obama campaigns. But under Trump, we live in a state of routine calamity.

Besides which, a few days from now, there will be something else. With Trump, there inevitably is. Things can always get worse — and usually do.

And when they can do, we can count on the GOP, that inexhaustible fount of righteous outrage, to stand tall and courageously look the other way. For almost 20 years,the party has never seen a minor episode (“Travelgate”), a sheer nothing (Whitewater) or even an international tragedy (Benghazi) it could not turn into Watergate II. Yet, as credible accusations of treason, obstruction, collusion, and corruption swirl about this White House, the GOP has been conspicuous in its acquiescent silence. It seems the elephant has laryngitis.

But the rest of us can’t stop talking.

Indeed, from the studios of CNN to the bar stools of your neighborhood watering hole, amateur psychoanalysis has become America’s favorite pastime in the last six months. Dozens of theories have been floated, all aimed at answering one question:

What is wrong with him?

But I have come to believe that question misses the point. Sixty-three million people voted for this. And make no mistake, they knew what they were getting. It was always obvious that Trump was a not-ready-for-prime-time candidate, but they chose him anyway. And the rest of us need to finally come to grips with the reason why.

It wasn’t economic anxiety. As a study co-sponsored by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic reported in May, people who were worried for their jobs voted for Hillary Clinton. But people who dislike Mexicans and Muslims, people who oppose same-sex marriage, people mortally offended at a White House occupied by a black guy with a funny name, they voted for Trump.

That’s the reality, and it’s time we quit dancing around it.

This has been said a million times: Donald Trump is a lying, narcissistic, manifestly incompetent child man who is as dumb as a sack of mackerel. But he is the president of the United States because 63 million people preferred that to facing inevitable cultural change. So I am done asking — or caring — what’s wrong with him. Six months in, it’s time we grappled a far more important question.

What in the world is wrong with us?


Links to more of Mr. Pitts columns:

Republican Party has ‘flat out lost its mind’

Mr. President: ‘Just who the hell do you think you are?’

No, Donald Trump isn’t crazy, but he’s not very smart, either

President Trump is an 'F' student

The Complete, Total, Even Outrageous Hypocrisy of This Donald J. Trump

You can't really comprehend the really complete and total, utter hypocrisy and even stupidity of Trump's "Muslim ban"--because that's what it is, let's face it--until you see this very brief (3 minutes, 36 seconds) video from Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times.



And besides his grandfather, think, too, of Mr. Trump's wife.

Besides being a nearly unimaginable hypocrite, the man doesn't know America's own history.

"Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free..."

An Open Letter To Those Who Voted For Trump (Guest Post)

From the Los Angeles Times.

Dear Person Whose Voice Was Heard:

Well, you got your way. The people have spoken. And your guy won. I mean, he won by attracting support from well below half of those who actually voted — long live the electoral college — but still. A win is a win. No shutting down of a freeway in protest is gonna change that. So congratulations.

I have never been more wrong in my life than I was in predicting this election. I didn't think there was a chance in holy heck that Donald Trump could actually become president of the United States. Life will surprise you, though rarely like this.

It will probably come as little shock that I'm pretty upset about this whole thing. Actually, crushingly depressed is a better way to describe it. You know, I'm one of those arrogant liberal elites blinded inside my blue bubble who likes my presidents classy and competent. Crazy, right?

But I digress.

My purpose of this letter is merely to give you a heads up as to what exactly you have voted for here in going with your gut rather than your rational mind. To my mind, you have sided with unvarnished stupidity and hatred.

You've chosen a man who applied for a demanding job he knew nothing about and had never served in political office. Go back to when you were 16 working your first gig at Carl's Jr. and recall all of the mistakes you made. Now magnify that times 50 million in terms of pressure and difficulty and with the entire world watching. It's on-the-job training with the country serving as your shake machine.

Another thing you did is vote into office a person who flaunts without an ounce of self-awareness or irony the most buffoonish, disgusting trappings of American consumption and conspicuous wealth, a man who believes everything can be made exquisite if encrusted in solid gold. The world's enduring image of America is now Richie Rich.

While you can feel secure in the knowledge that you voted in lock-step with the evangelical community, it seems the purportedly devout have profoundly lowered their standards in backing a xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, fear-mongering, hate-spewing serial violator of women. But hey, nobody's perfect, right?

The thing is, you too knew all of this stuff and voted for Trump anyway. You rationalized it with every fiber of your being. You figured the media had it out for him and did everything it could to make him look bad. Plus, all of those women who accused him of sexual harassment and worse were making it up, weren't they?

Your guy may have said he could grab females by the you-know-where, but come on, can't a guy joke around? Anyone who objected was just being politically correct, which in this case meant overly supportive of diplomacy and decency.

You voted for a guy who promised to build walls rather than bridges and launch immigration squads to cleanse the United States of imaginary Muslim terrorists. Because there are already too many foreigners here anyhow, right? And they're taking our jobs, dammit!

So let's again just be clear about what you've elected: A middle-school bully with no respect for humanity or tolerance for anyone who isn't white. You chose to conveniently, willfully ignore — or perhaps applaud — Trump's belief that it's virtuous to use loopholes to avoid paying taxes and even more righteous to entirely shield your returns from public view.

Your choice for president was transparent in his embrace of a fascist dictator named Vladimir Putin and supportive of Putin's influence on the election through hacking and leaks. And here is another news flash: If you're working class, your hero has no use for you. In fact, he thinks you're a sucker.

You know what you've done? You've rolled the dice and endangered all of the social progress we've made in this country over the past 50 years. Congratulations.

Sore loser? Oh you bet I'm a sore loser. The sorest loser ever. So let's get a few things straight:

I'm not interested in unifying for the good of the country any more than you were for President Obama.

I don't want to hear your complaints when your revolution flops on arrival, given how you've chosen the worst imaginable man to lead it.

Don't ask me to heal, accept, embrace, reassess or chill. It's you who screwed up. It isn't my responsibility to cushion the blow.

Good luck. We're all going to need it.

Ray

--------

RAY RICHMOND has covered Hollywood and the entertainment business since 1984. He can be reached via email at ray@rayrichco.com and Twitter at @MeGoodWriter.

Copyright © 2016, Glendale News-Press

Quote of the Day

Fantastic point from Maureen Dowd.

The rest of the world sees this shutdown--and the Republicans--for what it is and they are

(click on picture for easier reading)

 

We need to stop the stupidity, at least, if not the insanity.

 

 

Contact your member of Congress: 

 

Contacting the Congress: A Citizen's Congressional Directory

 

Please.

 

 

Quote of the day--on the internet, computers and us

In theory the Internet, along with its kindred advances, should expand our horizons, speeding us to aesthetic and intellectual territories we haven’t charted before. Often it does.

But at our instigation and with our assent, it also herds us into tribes of common thought and shared temperament, amplifying the timeless human tropism toward cliques. Cyberspace, like suburbia, has gated communities.

Our Web bookmarks and our chosen social-media feeds help us retreat deeper into our partisan camps. (Cable-television news lends its own mighty hand.) “It’s the great irony of the Internet era: people have more access than ever to an array of viewpoints, but also the technological ability to screen out anything that doesn’t reinforce their views,” Jonathan Martin wrote in Politico last year...

--Frank Bruni, New York Times columnist from his article in 

Sunday's paper, Traveling Without Seeing

The Wacko, Wacked-Out Kansas and Missouri Legislatures (guest post)

What I've been saying, time and again, but Barb Shelley of The Kansas City Star says so well:

Strange fixations of Kansas, Missouri legislators

Hey, Missouri citizen. When you woke up this morning and gulped your orange juice, did you obsess about United Nations resolution Agenda 21?

No? Well, you’d better believe your Missouri legislators did. Committees in the House and Senate have OK’d bills that forbid state and local governments from making any land use decisions that might be traced back to the non-binding 1992 environmental resolution.

It may look like a harmless list of suggested ways for communities to conserve natural resources, but none other than Glenn Beck has pronounced it a “global scheme that has the potential to wipe out freedoms of all U.S. citizens.”

Whew! How did a threat like this travel under the radar for 20 years? Fortunately for Kansans, their Legislature passed a proactive resolution aimed at foiling Agenda 21 domination last session.

Increasingly, this is what state lawmakers in these parts do best. They seize a cause from some out-of-state think tank or interest group or nut case movement and impose it on their constituents.

The fixation by tea party legislators with Agenda 21 mostly just wastes time. It’s rather unlikely that any Missouri communities are eyeing “policy recommendations that infringe on private property rights without due process and are traceable to Agenda 21,” as the proposed legislation describes.

But other agendas are much more harmful.

Take the push to lower the state income tax, which is in full throttle in Kansas and picking up steam in Missouri. This drive didn’t come from local business communities. Many local chambers of commerce have publicly opposed income tax cuts, which decimate state services and will likely have to be offset with sales tax increases.

The income tax abolition movement started with the flamboyant Arthur Laffer, who is one-third economist and two-thirds salesman. He found a home for his controversial theories in the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, a group funded by corporate interests and free-market advocates. It holds great sway over Republican legislators around the country.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, whose political career has been entwined with small-government, free-market believers like the Koch brothers of Wichita, is a believer in Laffer and his no-income-tax gospel. Huge Republican majorities in both the Kansas and Missouri legislatures mean there are plenty of lawmakers to crusade for the cause, even though the supposed gains in job growth are hypothetical.

Another example: Legislators in Missouri and Kansas have spent hours debating bills intended to weaken unions.

Why? Most public- and-private sector unions in these states aren’t known for making trouble. In both states, many public-sector employees represented by unions barely earn liveable wages.

There’s been no outcry from businesses begging the legislatures to clip the wings of unions. No, the pressure comes from outside groups. Republican legislators are willing to poison relationships and demean their states’ teachers, public safety workers and others in order to please their out-of-state bosses.

These include the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Tax Limitation Committee, both of which sent operatives to Jefferson City this session to fire up Republican lawmakers. Some of the language in the anti-union bills in Missouri and Kansas is strikingly similar to model bills drafted by ALEC.

There are still plenty of serious lawmakers in Missouri and Kansas who work hard to promote the interests of their constituents and their communities. I’m always relieved to see that a newly elected legislator has served on a school board or city council; they are more apt to realize that ideology must sometimes yield to reality.

Increasingly, though, hard-working public servants are being shoved aside in favor of candidates with the right tea party and tax-hating credentials. Their loyalty is to causes, not constituents. But their causes will pay handsomely to see that they remain in office.

U.N. resolution Agenda 21 poses no threat to the people of Missouri and Kansas. The same cannot be said of the anti-tax, anti-worker, anti-government agendas being pursued by malleable legislators.

Original post:  

Strange fixations of Kansas, Missouri legislators | Midwest Voices

Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/strange-fixations-kansas-missouri-legislators/#storylink=cpy

The Pitch points out that the King--E. Thomas McClanahan--has no clothes

God, I love this:

E. Thomas McClanahan confused by language, science, the world

Kudos to the writer, Scott Wilson and all at The Pitch.

Keep it coming, y'all.

 

 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorses President Obama

This past Sunday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorsed President Barack Obama for President in this Fall's election. A little bit of it:

Editorial: Obama for president: A second term for a serious man

"Four years ago, in endorsing Democrat Barack Obama for president, we noted his intellect, his temperament and equanimity under pressure. He was unproven, but we found him to be presidential, in all that that word implies.

In that, we have not been disappointed. This is a serious man. And now he is a proven leader. He has earned a second term.

Mr. Obama sees an America where the common good is as important as the individual good. That is the vision on which the nation was founded. It is the vision that has seen America through its darkest days and illuminated its best days. It is the vision that underlies the president’s greatest achievement, the Affordable Care Act. Twenty years from now, it will be hard to find anyone who remembers being opposed to Obamacare.

He continues to steer the nation through the most perilous economic challenges since the Great Depression. Those who complain that unemployment remains high, or that economic growth is too slow, either do not understand the scope of the catastrophe imposed upon the nation by Wall Street and its enablers, or they are lying about it.

To expect Barack Obama to have repaired, in four years, what took 30 years to undermine, is simply absurd. He might have gotten further had he not been saddled with an opposition party, funded by plutocrats, that sneers at the word compromise. But even if Mr. Obama had had Franklin Roosevelt’s majorities, the economy would still be in peril.

They go on to point out Mitt Romney's inconsistencies, at least.

The fact is, he--President Obama--is the right man for the job for the next four years.

Links: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-obama-for-president-a-second-term-for-a-serious/article_c5371a41-ab43-5724-96e2-2d23eaa56589.html

http://www.eclectablog.com/2012/10/st-louis-post-dispatch-endorsement-of-barack-obama-hits-the-nail-squarely-on-the-head.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/06/1140995/-St-Louis-Post-Dispatch-Endorses-Mr-Obama-A-second-term-for-a-serious-man

Quote of the day

‎"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."

--Leo Tolstoy

Two bad headlines with negative indicators for the president

First this one:

Economic Fears Hurting Obama, Poll Indicates

Then this:

Public's Opinion of Supreme Court Drops After Health Care Law Decision

This is one crazy, crazy election year, isn't it, folks?

Romney's imploding but the president is eroding.

Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/us/politics/poll-shows-economic-fears-undercutting-obama-support.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120719

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/us/politics/publics-opinion-of-court-drops-after-health-care-law-decision.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120719

Hopeful signs from some Catholics

This is rare, isn't it?

Good news from a Catholic group.

It seems some Irish Priests have gotten together and are pushing for change in their Church:

Priests rise up in quiet revolt against Rome

Hundreds of priests gathered in Dublin this week in defiance of the Vatican. Might they be the Church's salvation, asks Malachi O'Doherty

It reminds me of a now-old joke:

Question: How many Catholics does it take to change a lightbulb?

Answer:

CHANGE???!!!


Anyway it's a fascinating, even hopeful article. If you're Catholic (God forbid--pun rather intended, sorry) or just interested, you might take a few moments to check it out:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/priests-rise-up-in-quiet-revolt-against-rome-16156033.html#ixzz1uU40CXgS

Important column from our own Arthur Brisbane

Former Kansas Citian and Star employee Arthur Brisbane asked what I think is both an important question and a stupid one, all at once, recently in The New York Times. It was: "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?" (link at bottom). I'm sure he/they meant well but it has to be asked, if the newspaper media and PBS and NPR can't be "truth vigilantes" for society, who, exactly, is going to perform that role? This becomes even more important and true as we get more and more dependent on computers and websites for information and current events. We have already been made far too keenly aware of the fact that people only go to sites to reinforce beliefs they already hold, instead of to be told what actually is, even if it disagrees with already-held beliefs. My question is, if not you, NY Times, and again, PBS and NPR, then to whom are we to turn for hard data and "truth", instead of opinion? Link: http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/?pagewanted=all

The Star's website fail

Go to the Star's website--www.kansascity.com--click on the "search" space and type in Thomas McLanahan. You get nothing. It says "0 results for 'Thomas Mclanahan.'" Good site. Not. Apparently it only responds if you type in his entire, official name E. Thomas McLanahan. Way to "get it", Star.

Local columnist so wrong on defense spending

A few days ago, columnist for the Star E. Thomas McLanahan wrote a piece warning that we--the US--need to absolutely keep our defense spending where it is or, as so many Right Wingers do, he warned we'd lose our strength and power and some such rot. Nonsense. He's wrong on so many levels, it's nearly obscene. First of all, we spend so far much more on defense than any nation on the planet, it's already nearly insanity, by itself. We spend approximately 698 billion dollars, annually, on defense and no other nation remotely comes close to spending that much. And that's just what's on the books. It's fairly common knowledge that, actually, we spend far more than that. China, for instance, if they're our next big threat, only spends $114 billion annually, by comparison. I won't tear Mr. McLanahan's article completely apart here (see link below) but will point out that a) if Europe would pick up the tab for their own defense and b) we stop trying to fight WWII, what with outposts still in Italy, Germany and other spots across the world we don't need and finally, c) if we cut the waste and fraud in the defense budget (see link below), we could easily, easily cut the amount we spend by half--as we should--and so, actually strengthen the country. We could apply that amount to both our debt and our infrastructure (health care, roads, highways, education, etc.) We didn't learn France's lessons on Vietnam and we went in. Big mistake. We didn't learn the Soviet Union's lessons on Afghanistan and we went in. Same thing. Now we don't seem to be able to learn the Soviet Union's lessons, again, on huge defense spending, which actually ended up breaking their nation. Could we please learn from history? And soon? >Links: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/27/3104282/defense-cuts-and-the-achilles.html; http://news.yahoo.com/panel-widespread-waste-fraud-war-spending-053533054.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures