Happy Veterans Day, 2025—Defend Our Guys Against Malign Government

Marine Reconnaissance troop on guard duty, Vietnam

Veterans, Fighting Forces Are Imperiled by Trump, Lindsey Graham, Chickenhawks, and Liars

Commentary

We salute our veterans, and we call out our veterans' enemies today, chickenhawks, who are at it again, crawling out from under rocks mocking virtues of our military forces — service, honor, guarding our freedom.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), always desperate to prove his manhood in his perverted method of chickenhawk acts, celebrates Donald Trump's killing, bringing "death" to the world, (Yahoo).

"[Donald] Trump is my favorite president. We’ve run out of bombs, we didn’t run out of bombs in World War II," Graham noted to celebrate increased killing enacted by the current administration, (Yahoo).

Vietnam veteran Don Kosterman of Fitchburg, Wisconsin
was welcomed home with other Wisconsin-area veterans 
in May 2023. Veterans are honored each year in the
 Badger Honor Flight. 
Don was in-country, Vietnam, 1965-66. 
Don Kosterman is a man of honor.

We need more war, more killing. This is how we honor our veterans and servicemen and women, Trump and Graham believe.

Our federal government now has the Department of War, a new undertaking, but a transformation in name only of the massive national security state erected by Democrats and Republicans.

War president; war footing; strutting egotism, permanent war, and a pathological inability to speak the truth—this is the government we have today to honor our veterans. 

Sixty-four years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about war as an anti-democratic, corrupting domestic force in his Farewell Address (1961), as peace is deterred, and atrocity continues.

Doesn't have to be this way.

Concludes Eisenhower:

"We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."

Vietnam veteran Patrick Newberry of Fitchburg, Wisconsin
was welcomed home with other Wisconsin-area veterans in
April 2023. The veterans were honored during the
46th Badger Honor Flight. Patrick was in-country. Vietnam 1967
(WMTV-Madison) 
Patrick Newberry is a man of honor.

But our current president betrays the presidential oath of office, substituting indecent needs of the terror state of Israel, for example, for the needs of 1.2 million low-income veterans, 40-million other elderly and disabled, whose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP benefits have been fanatically opposed by Trump and Graham.

The world is a free-fire zone for President Trump; and our active-duty forces are sometimes transformed into war criminals by their commander-in-chief.

Billions of dollars for Israel, and a perverse crusade to block SNAP for our veterans the weekend before this Veterans Day, with a late assist to Trump from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). This is the terrain today.

The national security state budget surpasses $1 trillion each year, viewing with suspicion those few seeking elected office and calling out the perils to our democracy of the security state that lives through secrecy and lies, with no accountability. 

Marines like Graham Platner, oyster farmer, and Democratic Party candidate running for U.S. Senate in Maine in 2026 fight back. "I will never, ever vote to send Americans into a pointless war," vows Platner. 

Platner has drawn the enmity of Sen. Chuck Schumer and other liars in Congress for standing for freedom and truth.

Our country is a betrayal to the people who guard our freedom.

As Eisenhower warned:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

Veterans, thank you. 

We as the American people should honor you by ensuring you have the country you served.
---
Anyone ever see a veteran in the days back home from a Honor Flight? It's wonderful; veterans glow with an expression that appears a mixture of pride, solidarity, even elation. 

I think we can match this glory, or at least come close enough, in the performance we demand from those in government.

I know we should try.

Look to independents who reject partisan blinders. Check out Army Green Beret veteran, Valhalla VFT, and other patriotic independents.
 

It’s Time to Out Sen. Lindsey Graham, says John Aravosis

Lindsey Graham celebrating the anti-gay
Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day

John Aravosis has the story:

"It’s time to finally out Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham has had it coming for a while now."

Not because he’s a Republican. But because he’s an anti-gay Republican. And while it’s one thing to be gay and a closet case, it’s quite another to be a hypocrite, an anti-gay gay, someone who uses his power to harm others in the name of 'morality,' all the while knowing secretly that he is one of the others."

Good for Aravosis.

Self-loathing Repulsivecans like Graham have to be called on their craziness when they take aim and harm others to sustain their political power in the sick collection of assorted whacks who comprise most of today's Republican Party.

Turning the Corner in Iraq

Iraq still has many corners.

Rightwing Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just said on Face the Nation that we have "turned a corner" in Iraq, an ridiculous assertion that goes unchallenged by the young Bob Schieffer clone masquerading as a journalist this morning.

Those not vested in the lie that is the Iraq War know fully well that administration liars have been saying this for years now.

Hundreds of examples of corner-turning, turning-point, real-progress, yada yada lies can be listed from the inception of this imbecilic war, but these below ought to suffice:

- Turning the Corner in Iraq, Democrats are ignoring real progress (National Review Online, (April 13, 2007)

From May 1, 2006, ThinkProgress:

President Bush today called the formation of a new Iraqi government "a turning point" after hearing from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld about their weekend meeting with that country’s prime minister designate. (NYT, Bush Hails a 'Turning Point' in Iraq, May 1, 2006)

The 2004 transfer of sovereignty:

BUSH: A turning point will come in less than two weeks. On June the 30th, full sovereignty will be transferred to the interim government. The Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, an American embassy will open in the capital of a free Iraq. [6/18/04]

The January 2005 Iraq election:

BUSH: Tomorrow the world will witness a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom, and a crucial advance in the war on terror. The Iraqi people will make their way to polling centers across their nation. [1/29/05]

MCCLELLAN: The election is a victory for the Iraqi people. It’s a significant step forward for freedom and it is a defeat for the terrorists and their ideology. It marks a turning point in Iraq’s history and a great advance toward a brighter future for all Iraqis, one that stands in stark contrast to the brutality and oppression of the past. [1/31/05]

CHENEY: The basic point, and one I’ve made already that I believe that the elections were the turning point. And we had that election in January — first free election in Iraq in decades. [12/18/05]

All of 2005:

BUSH: There’s still a lot of difficult work to be done in Iraq, but thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East, and the history of freedom. [12/12/05]

CHENEY: I think about when we look back and get some historical perspective on this period, I’ll believe that the period we were in through 2005 was, in fact, a turning point; that putting in place a democratic government in Iraq was the - sort of the cornerstone, if you will, of victory against the insurgents. [2/7/06]

Last year about this time, As Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) said, “When you’ve ‘turned the corner’ in Iraq more times than Danica Patrick at the Indy 500, it means you are going in circles.”