I was watching Mike Pence on Meet the Press, and it was suddenly evident that much of the problem is with our current and decidedly crumbling political leadership in Washington. Pence, who has in the past displayed great courage in standing up to Trump, and indeed may have changed the course of history, spent most of his tine talking about how important it was that Trump was standing up to the radical left, not that he as spending most of his time screwing up our democratic political system.
Pence, who should be one of our heroes for what he did after the 2020 election, has become just another hack party member, pushing GOP principles over honesty, morality, and good government. It’s more important to Pence that Trump adhere to GOP policies than it is that he provide good government. Listening to Pence talk about the difference between a criminal and a Democrat, James Talarico, in the Texas election is just depressing. It appears he’s more interested in political position than he is in moral integrity.
This is what’s wrong with this nation under Trump, and we will not recover from Trump if we follow him with a succession of like performers.
What’s really incredible is that Pence does seem to see the problems brought to the nation by Trump, it just doesn’t seem to make any difference to him.
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Todd Blanche is on the ballot, and the only vote belongs to Donald Trump. We’re talking about the Attorney General here, and thank God, there’s a Constitution, because it does provide for vetoes and they belong to congress, and maybe, just maybe, they will finally come through with the decision they have been missing since 2016.
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Watched a completely out-of-control interview of Donald Trump by Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. Just to make it more bizarre, it was held in some structure with a tin roof in the middle of a downpour. The thunderous background noise seemed to egg the participants on to more and more outlandish statements, until they ended up screaming at each other and Trump fled the field.
Was anything constructive accomplished? Are you kidding me? These things happen because Welker just isn’t up to this kind of interview. She just doesn’t have the presence to hold the stage against a blustering, blundering bully like Trump, and Trump just isn’t smart enough to explain and defend his thunderously inept behavior to anyone with a logical mind.
The only reason this interview ended at all, let alone as it did, was because Trump had just enough control to see that he was never going to be able to make a point that was basically unmakeable … why he started a war without knowing the outcome.
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It’s all over the readable news. That’s something Trump supporters know nothing about, but the reality is that Trump has lost the war, is losing the negotiations, and is allowing his disgraceful inability to outmaneuver a bunch of camel drivers to stain the whole nation.
Trump went intro this mess with the 2016 JCPOA firmly limiting Iran’s ability to develop any kind of nuclear weapon. It wasn’t perfect. but it had teeth in the form of inspections, and it also spoke to Iran’s backing of Arab terrorists. Everything seemed fine, the Strait of Hormuz was wide open, and traffic was flowing freely.
Trump stepped in, and in no time at all the JCPOA was gone, the Strait was closed to traffic, and we were in a war that Trump had sworn never to start. That promise went the same way as the more than seven thousand lies he swore to in his first administration.
Iran knows Trump is facing an election at home. They know he is looking at awful numbers under 30% on negotiating the peace, getting into the war and the economy back home. They know the longer they can drag this out, the better result they can expect. Most important, they know the kind of snake they are dealing with. They know Trump will look for the path most friendly to him, not to his country. They will never make a deal that is anywhere near as good for us as the JCPOA. The only way Trump could get something like that now would be to invade full out, with the goal of destroying all of Iran’s infrastructure along with its army and its missile command. This would lead to full-out war crimes, but that’s a whole different can of worms as our war czar, Pete Hegseth, doesn’t recognize war crimes as such as long as it’s us that’s committing them.
Is there a solution? There’s always a solution, but none, it seems, to this problem, as long as you allow Trump or his hand-picked lackeys to negotiate with their fingers on the trigger.
And speaking of which, who the hell is running these negotiations? Well, it’s supposed o be Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner along with JD Vance. A formidable lineup. Yes? No? Well, Witkoff was at the Knicks game the other night. Probably not too many Arab negotiators there, but who knows. They won’t even need Kushner until they get to who owns what and how much to pay for it, and Vance hasn’t figured out how to do his job in a year and a half, so there’s not much hope he’ll master this job any time soon.
I know, all the Trump fans are expecting him to jump in and save the day, but unless there’s a bankruptcy involved, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
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We all know Pete Hegseth isn’t the brightest bulb in the lamp, so when Margaret Brennan asked him a question that had no answer, a least not in the form it was asked, he looked like a hooked fish dangling at the end of a line.
The question had to do with the replacement of U.S. weaponry that had been shipped to Ukraine and a time frame for its replacement. Brennan had demanded a yes or no answer, something that could not answer the question. Of course, Hegseth isn’t smart enough to realize this, so he just stumbled and stuttered until Margaret saved his ass by going on to the next subject, but the point here is, it was terrifying to see just how stupid and inept the result is when the criteria for choosing our leaders is loyalty rather than competence.
There are probably over a thousand command level officers in he Pentagon and it wouldn’t surprise me if at least that many would make a better Secretary of War Defense than Hegseth.