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The new trifecta of the malignant narcissistic anti-family values party

Many years ago it took a very short time for the Know-Nothing Party to prove it knew nothing about democracy. Now we have two billionaire narcissistic nutcases incapable of shame leading a political party that once freed slaves but now is incapable of shame. 

Since the Supreme Court opened the campaign cash floodgates in Citizens United, the Republican Party was purchased by “Never Enough” billionaires at an ideological bankruptcy sale. 

The Know Nothing party morphed out of the American Party in 1855 from the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. It was an “America First” Party (sound familiar?). Its ideology was a real mess of American nationalism, anti-immigration, anti-Catholic, pro-fundamentalist-Protestant, anti-Irish sentiment, anti-German sentiment, pro-populist and sometimes neutral on slavery. It even had a secret wing called the Order of Star Spangled Banner similar to the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Posse Comitatus and other AR-15 loving private militias we have today. 

The Know Nothing Party was dissolved in 1860 and most members returned to the Republican Party. End of History Lesson 103. 

So now we have a thrice-married cult leader as king of our country who wears a red cap with “Make America Great Again” inscribed in white letters, who is so ignorant he knows virtually nothing about his nation’s history. 

He does have a public history of being a sexual predator-defamer and is still facing the charges of harassing and assaulting more than two dozen women. He now has acquired a chainsaw-waving, Hitler-saluting shadow named Elon Musk who is not much on family values either. He has fathered at least 13 children with at least three women. He has banned 20-year-old daughter Vivian from his parentage and household because she is a transgendered person. The feelings are mutual. She hates him. 

Elon: please call the mother of your last baby. She has been trying to get in touch with you since the birth five months ago. 

Musk is also the supporter of the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany, which claims “not all Nazis were criminals" and that the “Holocaust is a mere speck of bird-shit” on the history of German history. 

And whenever the narcissistic Musk wants attention he raises the Hitler salute. He is the perfect companion and shadow for our Lyin’ King.

Our lyin’ king’s statue will replace one of liberty to one for wealth

As I was listening to King Donald the other night lecturing  Congress about waste, fraud and abuse and the invasion of black and brown rapists, killers, thieves and criminals, I thought our malignant narcissist jerk, prick, asshole nutcase might be planning to replace the marvelous Statue of Lady Liberty with a much larger statue of his beautiful self with his ultra-right hand holding up a copy of his $5,000,000 Gold Card guaranteeing  citizenships to white foreign billionaires. 

Naturally, Emma Lazarus’s inscription would have to be changed on the welcome pedestal: from “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
The new inscription will read: “Give me your billionaires and other rich, breathing the scented air-conditioned air, the wealthiest ‘never enough’ masses yearning for more and more, buy this gold card for $5t,000,000 and I will give you entrance to the Golden Age.” 

By the door to the Golden Age, a smaller statue of Elon Musk will be guarding the door with a solid gold chainsaw. Behind the statues will be the Temple Shopping Mall and General Store operated by the Trump Organization filled with high-end stuff such as autographed $1,000 Bibles and $100,000 wristwatches.

By the way, there has been very little discussion concerning a Feb. 3 Lyin’ King executive order directing both the Treasury and Commerce Departments to study the idea of the possibility of having a sovereign wealth and legacy fund in the Divided States of America. Several countries have such funds. 

Norway, as a good example, primarily uses the fund to store profits from North Sea oil deposits and  improve the life of average Norwegians. 

On the other hand, Saudi Arabian and Malaysian rulers use such funds as a personal piggy bank – mostly pig. I think you can guess what grifters King Donald and his chancellor Elon Musk have in mind if one is instituted in this country. Treasury Secretary Billionaire Scott Bessent loves the idea – naturally – and says the financial assets of the DSA are presently worth about $5,700,000,000,000 (that’s trillion!) 

Can you imagine all of those billionaires in Washington government jobs near a slush fund of trillions?  Sheer insanity!

The military needs 150,000 new recruits a year to maintain forces

The Lyin’ King in his harangue to Congress the other night said the Army had recruited its goal of recruits for the first time in 15 years. I had just read a 12-page comprehensive article by Dexter Filkins in the Feb. 10 issue of The New Yorker titled “Half the Battle: Why can’t the U.S. fill its depleted ranks?” where he reviewed the recruiting problems of the Pentagon. 

I have been interested in the draft and why it was replaced by a volunteer force 50 years ago. I had volunteered to join the Marine Corps in 1950 so I wouldn’t be drafted into the Army. The Marines had a special program called Platoon Leaders Class where I could finish college, pass Officer’s Candidate School and then serve a minimum of two years on active duty and six years in the Marine Corps Reserve. 

During college years I spent summers in Marine boot camp and in further training at Parris Island, South Carolina. 

After graduating from Moorhead State, I attended and passed OCS at Quantico, Virginia. I then went on regular active duty at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, spending six months at training bases in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. I was in Havana just before Fidel’s revolution. 

I volunteered to serve another year on active duty. I served my active-duty years as commander of a heavy machine gun platoon, as the commander of a full rifle company, and as the Finance Officer for the 6th Marine Regiment supervising an $80 million budget. 

I was discharged a first lieutenant with the provision, if I were called back in service because of war, I would be promoted to captain. 

It has always been my contention that if a country does not have a draft, then its wars will be fought by the poor. After the draft was dropped, a large majority of our military has been recruited from the poorest counties in the country. Many recruits are simply looking for a good job. 

An Army non-commissioned officer holds the record for being called to serve 14 tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s amazing he survived that personal record.

A quick summary of the Pentagon’s recruiting problems 

Filkins is a very experienced Washington reporter with excellent sources. In his article he reviews many reasons why the recruiters, the Pentagon and administrations have encountered many difficulties in maintaining our military forces at national security levels. I have edited for brevity and added a couple of personal thoughts.

• The military needs about 150,000 recruits a year. Personnel costs have soared trying to keep pace, and eat up about a third of the total defense budget. There really isn’t any chance the military services can get larger. In the middle of World War II, we had as many as 16 million under arms. At the end we had 12 million active military members. We now have a total of 3.5 million under arms while the population has doubled.

• Marines are the smallest of the armed forces except for the new Space Command. It is usually the only force to meet recruiting goals, although the boot camp is the longest and toughest and the most difficult to pass, All services are much smaller than in the past.

• For every trigger puller each service needs many supporting players: truck drivers, cooks, supply officers, tech workers and other skilled members. As an example, the Army has a ratio of combatant to noncombatant of about three-to-one. The Army has a total of 450,000 but only about 100,000 serve in close-combat forces. Some of these forces are near the North Korean border, the Navy patrols the seas around Japan, fight flareups in the Middle East and provide a firewall in Eastern Europe. We have military bases in 50 countries and maintain Special Force units in about 80.

• According to a recent Pentagon study, more than 75% of men between the ages 0f 17 and 24 are ineligible for service because they are overweight, unable to pass aptitude tests, afflicted by physical or mental health issues, of are ineligible because of criminal records.

• During the Vietnam War we had 3.5 million in the armed forces and most of the military came from poor families. We had an “excuses draft,” with many men deciding to go to college if they could afford it – like Dick Cheney who had five  college deferments (Dick had “better things to do!”), like Donald Trjump who paid a doctor to write a certain letter about bone spurs which would provide the Lyin’ King with five deferments, and the sons of congressmen and the rich who could keep  their precious sons “deferred.” 

I have always been convinced that if we had a no-excuses draft we would have fewer wars because the rich and politicians would find a way to curb hostile fire. The question always is: can a country defend itself if not enough people are willing and able to fight?

• Does an all-volunteer service weaken the traditional belief that each citizen has a moral responsibility to serve the country? As a high school and college student, Marine officer, high school teacher and school administrator of draftable and volunteer persons during the Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq, Afghanistan and other “adventures” in countries around the world, I give a resounding “HELL, YES!” 

• The Pentagon made a number of announcements in March. Seventeen Merchant Marine ships which provide fuel and cargo to warships have been taken out of service for prolonged maintenance. Almost 40% of Navy attack submarines are unable to sail because of lack of maintenance personnel. The Navy is short 700 pilots and the Air Force is short 2,000 pilots. Aircraft carriers have been ordered to sail short of as many as 700 sailors out of a crew of 5,000.

Every American citizen should read the article.

A final note: A psychologist described King Donald’s speech as possessing “endless mendacity; the incalculable cruelty and unceasing violence; the assaults on our allies, on the most vulnerable among us, on our rights, on our home – it was difficult to take. The ways in which Donald downed the American people in vile poison that is his vision of America, and indeed of humanity, is something I will never forget.” Author: Mary Trump