James Mattis

The Civil War Was Rigged? Sore Loser Trump Aligns Himself with Robert E. Lee

Posted by on September 9, 2021 at 12:15 pm. 2 Comments :

Watching someone you care about devolve into ever deeper trenches of mental illness can be profoundly painful. So what is like when when watching it happen to Donald Trump, the most despised occupant of the White House in modern times?

Donald Trump, Fox News, QAnon

There is little doubt that Trump holds the undisputed title of America’s Biggest Loser. And after being decisively defeated by Joe Biden, Trump has continued to nurse the delusion that he “won by a landslide” because the election was “rigged.” Never mind that he’s had nine months to offer up evidence of that claim but he and all of his minions have utterly failed to do so.

Sore losers often find it comforting to commiserate with one another in an effort to ease the pain of having to acknowledge the glaring inadequacies that are obvious to everyone else who isn’t among the their glassy-eyed cult followers. And that’s what Trump is doing in a bizarre alt-tweet, posted by his spokes-shill, (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban).

In this official statement by the Former Guy, takes a “bold” stand in favor of the Confederate traitors who fought to secede from the United States so that they could continue to own human beings as property. Trump was triggered by news of the removal of a statue commemorating one of his personal heroes, Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

For the record, such removals are not suppressing history, as the apologists for the Southern traitors often argue. The history remains in books, museums, TV and films, and many other appropriate warehouses of knowledge. Statues are not history lessons. They are tributes. That’s why we don’t have statues of Hitler in public squares to preserve him in historical terms.

Trump’s statement, however, was an unambiguous celebration of one of America’s most committed perpetrators of treason. Trump began by describing how he “watched as a massive crane took down the magnificent and very famous statue of ‘Robert E. Lee On His Horse'” Clearly upset by what he considered to be an offensive act, Trump went on to laud Lee, saying that…

“Robert E. Lee is considered by many generals to be the greatest strategist of them all. President Lincoln wanted him to command the North, in which case the war would have been over in one day. Robert E. Lee instead chose the other side because of his great love of Virginia, and except for Gettysburg, would have won the war. He should be remembered as perhaps the greatest unifying force after the was was over.”

WTF? First of all, Lee’s reputation was the result of decades of propaganda. He didn’t lead the revolt “because of his great love of Virginia.” He led it because he was a slave owner who believed that slavery was condoned, and even advocated, by his Christian faith. Lee told a reporter at the time that “based on wisdom and Christian principles, you do a gross wrong and injustice to the whole negro race in setting them free.”

What’s more, Lee was among eight West Point trained colonels from Virginia in the U.S. Army when the South sought to wage war against the United States. The other seven remained loyal to the Union, while Lee alone chose treason. It had nothing to do with loving Virginia, as Trump said. And Lee was never a “unifying force” after the war. He wanted only to unify the white Northerners and Southerners. He still believed that Blacks were inferior and lobbied to prohibit them from voting.

However, perhaps the most ludicrous claim Trump said in that statement was that “except for Gettysburg” Lee and the South would have won the war. Really? That’s like saying “except for Waterloo Napoleon would have won.” Or “except for 81 million Americans voting for Biden, Trump would have won.” In short, Trump is saying that except for losing he would have won. Duh!

The cult worship of Lee by Trump and his Southern Confederate brethren is entirely misplaced. Historians have debunked the undo acclaim he has been showered with. An essay published in the Washington Post in 2017 set the record straight. In it Lee is described as a “bumbling strategist and the central character in ‘the most successful propaganda campaign in American history.'” Continuing it noted that “Lee’s ineptitude was most damaging at Gettysburg.”

What makes this all more nauseating is that Trump is virtually pining for the Southern victory that he believes Lee earned. His statement went on to say that…

“Our culture is being destroyed and our history and heritage, both good and bad, are being extinguished by the Radical Left, and we can’t let that happen! […] What an embarrassment we are suffering because we don’t have the genius of a Robert E. Lee!”

For Trump – the infamously famous “stable genius“ and bone spur sufferer – to opine on the competence of generals is a joke. He has distinguished himself as a military moron. The generals he appointed while president mostly look upon him with scorn and ridicule, calling him an “idiot” and worse.

Trump’s Defense Secretary, General Mattis, said he made “a mockery of our Constitution” His Chief of Staff, General Kelly, said that he has “poisoned Americans’ minds”. His National Security Advisor, General McMaster, said he was “aiding and abetting Putin.” The only general on Trump’s side, confessed felon Mike Flynn, confirms the Putin charge. But now Trump wants us to consider his assessment of quality military leadership? No sir!

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

OMG! Trump Has Been Whining Incoherently About Being Home Alone for Two Weeks

Posted by on January 3, 2019 at 9:53 am. 1 Comments :

It’s official. The President of the United States of America is a whiny little baby who can’t be left on his own without throwing an infantile tantrum. Actually, Donald Trump will do that with other people around also. But it’s especially noticeable when he is whimpering about his loneliness himself and in public, as he did at his first cabinet meeting of the new year.

Donald Trump, Home Alone

The White House get-together with his sycophantic assembly of bootlickers was an epic mess. Trump lied repeatedly about many subjects. He misrepresented the history of the Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. He said that he fired his former Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis (Mattis quit in protest). After insulting generals who have criticized him, he claimed he would have been a good general. Never mind that Cadet Bonespurs evaded the draft five times. And he went on endlessly about his idiotic vanity wall.

Among the bizarre episodes in this meeting, Trump, sitting behind a “Wall of Thrones” style poster on the table, complained about having been left home alone during the holidays. Although he didn’t go down to his golf resort in Palm Beach, he didn’t explain why Melania or other members of his family couldn’t have been with him at the White House, instead of partying at Mar-a-Lago. “I was here on Christmas evening,” Trump cried. “I was all by myself in the White House. It’s a big, big house.” But that wasn’t the only time that Trump expressed this sense of being forsaken. It began several days before:

Then he posted a video on Twitter where he sobbed that “While I’m at the White House working, You’re out there partying.” And he continued his snivelling in another tweet wherein he described himself as being “in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over.” This plaintive wailing was rather absurd since it was the Republicans, who controlled both houses of Congress at the time, that closed the session. Democrats had no say in the matter.

However, Trump’s relentless whining is just another indicator of how mentally unstable he is and how unfit to perform the duties of the presidency. Of course, he did proclaim with some pride that he is “The Most Fabulous Whiner.” And now he is providing even more proof of it – not that it was necessary.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Donald Trump’s Blatantly Racist Spin About a Poll of Veterans Cites Only the White Veterans

Posted by on December 30, 2018 at 11:23 am. 2 Comments :

At this point in the Era of Trump, it isn’t exactly breaking news when Donald Trump tells another lie. It’s really just the natural state of his psychosis to casually pervert the truth in all things great and small. He does it daily on his Twitter feed as well as his hostile encounters with the press. And in most cases the obvious falsehoods are easily spotted and debunked.

Donald Trump, Military Parade

However, every now and then Trump engages in a fit of dishonesty that is so outrageous it’s hard to fathom what’s going through his diseased mind – or if anything is going through it at all. And one of those fits occurred during his regularly scheduled Sunday morning tweetstorm. While languishing forlornly in the White House this holiday season, Trump found some rare solace in an Associated Press poll. So he blurted out on his Twitter machine that:

It’s generally understood that the military is more conservative than the population at large. Although some high profile leaders have been notably disgusted by Trump, including his ex-chief of staff Gen. John Kelly, who called Trump an idiot, and his ex-defense secretary Gen. James Mattis, whose letter of resignation made it clear that Trump is reckless and ignorant. Trump appointed both of these senior officers with glowing accolades, but eventually fired with them unseemly disrespect for their service.

But the problem with Trump’s citation of this poll is that he’s read it horribly wrong. The sixty-two percent figure that Trump cited is just related to border security, not his approval by veterans in this poll. That number is fifty-six percent. The number Trump quoted is, more interestingly, also his job approval by just white veterans. That’s a disturbing coincidence for someone who is so often associated with racists and racism. In all likelihood, this was deliberate on Trump’s part to imply that a larger level of support than he really has. After all, the opinions of his white followers are the only ones that mean anything to him. For the record, the poll shows that only twenty-two percent of African-Americans in the military approve of Trump. And of course, Trump got and twisted this info from his favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends.

It’s also noteworthy that this poll questioned 115,000 people, of which only 4,000 were veterans. So the numbers reflecting that segment are tiny compared with the overall pool of respondents. And on that matter, Trump didn’t bother to mention the other results in this poll. For instance, overall, 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president. And women, the fastest growing demographic group in the military, disapprove of Trump by fifty-eight percent. Only forty-eight percent of vets say that Trump “has the right temperament to serve as president.” Fifty-eight percent of all respondents say he has “tried to impede the Russia investigation.”

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So as usual, Trump has flagrantly misrepresented reality in order to prop himself up. He has to distort the truth because otherwise there is little he can say that isn’t dreadfully negative about him. But this episode is worse than usual because Trump takes a number that is obviously a specific segment of the veterans community and he tries to pass it off as broader, across the board support. That’s the behavior of a sick and desperate loser who has nothing left but a fantasy world wherein he is universally adored.

Fox ‘News’ Fluffs Trump in the ‘Bone Spurs’ Debate with Ultra-Biased Headline and Story

Posted by on December 26, 2018 at 1:01 pm. 3 Comments :

From the earliest days of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions he has transparently tried to exploit the men and women of the military for his electoral advantage. Never mind that his actual actions were disrespectful, and even illegal (his charities withheld promised funds) as he insulted veterans like John McCain, Gold Star families, and the fallen who he refused to pay tribute to. And until today, Trump had never even visited the troops in a war zone, and only conceded to take the trip after being shamed into it for months.

Donald Trump, Saving Cadet Bone Spurs

Trump’s visit to Iraq today was a blatantly self-serving affair that appears to have been done for the sole purpose of producing a propaganda video of him cavorting with real life soldiers. The video was just a montage of Trump smiling and shaking hands set to a soundtrack of the right’s favorite syrupy paean to patriotism, “God Bless the U.S.A.”

But perhaps the most notable hypocrisy of the Trump era has been his own evasion of military service via a series of academic deferrals and a highly suspicious medical exemption for “bone spurs” in his heel that never prevented him from playing baseball or golf. On Wednesday the New York Times published a story that examined the bone spurs controversy. They interviewed the daughters of the doctor who is reported to have given Trump his medical excuse to deploy to Manhattan’s Studio 54 instead of Vietnam. The story said in part that the daughters of the doctor…

“…say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“‘I know it was a favor,’ said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.”

The Times found that Dr. Braunstein rented an office in the Edgerton Apartments in Jamaica, Queens, which was owned by Trump’s father Fred in the 1960s. The daughter’s claimed that their father received special treatment from the Trumps following his “favor” for young Donald.

So naturally, Fox News rushed in to shield Trump from any of the criticism resulting from the article in the Times. On the Fox News website they published a story with an unfair and unbalanced headline stating that: “New York Times tracks down anti-Trump children of deceased doctor to run uncorroborated Vietnam allegations.”

Wow. That really packs in the pro-Trump bias by the shovel full. First, the story attempts to dismiss what the women said by casting them as anti-Trump, implying they did this to deliberately harm the President. However, they have said nothing about this for decades and only spoke after the Times found them and asked for their account of what happened.

Secondly, the story is not uncorroborated. It originated from an anonymous tip that didn’t include any details or names. The Times then did the legwork to fill in the blanks. So what the daughters told them was, in fact, the corroboration of the original tip.

The Fox News article noted that Trump himself has never provided any details of his alleged infirmity because he said that he didn’t recall them. This from the man who says he has the world’s greatest memory (which he later didn’t remember saying). And Fox wasn’t at all curious as to why there was no evidence that the doctor had ever examined Trump before disqualifying him from military service.

Finally, the Fox News article only solicited two other persons for comments on the story. One was Dan Gainor, of the uber-rightist Media Research Center, who said “I’m surprised the paper didn’t arrange a séance and quiz the late doctor, too.” The other was conservative strategist Chris Barron, whose comment attacked the Times saying that “The New York Times is essentially indistinguishable from a gossip rag you’d find in the super market checkout line.” That’s it. No other quotes were provided from any left of center or neutral sources.

Trump’s recent treatment of Secretary of Defense James Mattis is proof of his disrespect for the military. And an interview he did last month on Fox News (wherein he bashed Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy Seal who helped dispose of both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden) shows that he only supports the military when they bow down to him. But on Fox News Trump is still a hero whose evasion of the draft was a trivial matter that shouldn’t be explored by the real news media. And any attempts to do so will be met with biased retorts that offer zero substance to support their claims, but fit nicely in the Trumpian era theme of fake news.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Donald Trump’s Reality TV Presidency: Defense Secretary is the Latest ‘Acting’ Cabinet Official

Posted by on December 23, 2018 at 11:29 am. 1 Comments :

With all of the controversy and melodrama that emanates daily from the historically chaotic White House of Donald Trump, it’s easy to forget his humble beginnings as the host of a reality TV game show. That was not a recreational pastime for a bored billionaire. It was his job for fourteen years. A real billionaire wouldn’t have had the time for that.


As president Trump has transferred his experience in television playacting to his new job in Washington. And it’s painfully obvious that his skills are utterly inappropriate for his new duties. He spends most of his time watching TV (Fox News) and conducting made-for-the-camera photo-ops with bill signings and human props. His press conferences are a circus wherein he replaces substantive dialogue with insults and rambling incoherence.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trump runs the White House like he would a fictional sitcom about a bumbling chief executive. Many of his senior staffers were actually recruited from television (again, Fox News), and most have little experience for the assignments they’re given. His Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications is the disgraced former president of Fox News, Bill Shine.

On Sunday morning Trump Announced the latest recipient of his “rose” for a critical post in his cabinet. He is making Patrick Shanahan the “Acting” Secretary of Defense. This follows the resignation of Gen. James Mattis, whose departure was motivated by Trump’s recklessness and ignorance. Mattis advised the President that his resignation would be effective February 28, 2019. But now, in a fit of pettiness and ego-pacification, Trump is moving that up to December 31.

What’s more troubling is Trump’s newfound compulsion to replace permanent, senate-confirmed cabinet officials with unqualified “Acting” stand-ins for the real thing. Currently serving in Trump’s pretend regime are an “Acting” Chief of Staff (Mick Mulvaney), Attorney General (Matthew Whitaker), EPA Director (Andrew Wheeler), Interior Secretary (David Bernhardt), and now Shanahan as Acting Secretary of Defense. All to serve our Reality TV Acting “President.”

This means that nearly twenty percent of the President’s cabinet is serving in an “acting” capacity. They have not been vetted or confirmed by the Senate as required by law. The reasons for this include Trump’s lack of knowledge of the sort of qualified people to fill these positions. Also problematic for Trump is the fact that qualified nominees don’t want to get anywhere near this president or his defective, criminally-tainted White House.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So now America is stuck with third rate understudies for governing officials who are likely to be merely surrogates for Trump’s dementia. Mulvaney as chief of staff is the perfect example of that. He’s a rabidly partisan Republican Nationalist who slobbers over Trump now even though he called him “a terrible human being“ just two days before the election. We have to wonder when the country will have competent leadership again that is serving in accordance with the law. But that will probably have to wait until the law catches up with Trump and ousts him from the office he stole with the help of his Russian comrades.

Puerto Rico Etc: The Buck Lingers Here Long Enough for Trump to Find Someone Else to Blame

Posted by on September 13, 2018 at 1:19 pm. 4 Comments :

Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the Carolinas with the anticipation of substantial damage and injury. Everyone on the ground is working furiously to mitigate the worst scenarios, but even the most cautious predictions are troubling. And while the residents of the impacted region are scrambling to secure their homes and families, Donald Trump is scrambling salve his fragile ego.

Donald Trump

On Thursday morning, as the winds were beginning to batter the eastern coastline, Trump felt it was necessary to bang out a couple of tweets that were characteristically all about him:

Our intellectually-challenged president is incapable of grasping the fact that any fatality that was the result of injuries or hardships caused by Hurricane Maria are attributed to it. And the estimated 3,000 deaths were calculated by independent researchers at George Washington University. The Democrats had nothing to do with it. Trump didn’t even bother to explain how Democrats could have produced casualty estimates that were accepted by the Republican governor of Puerto Rico.

However, Trump is well known for his cowardice and pathological aversion to taking responsibility. Puerto Rico is just the latest example. But the incidents of this psychosis are numerous and easy to find. For instance:

  • Trump blamed his own policy of separating immigrant children from their parents on Democrats.
  • Trump blamed collusion with Russia on Hillary Clinton.
  • Trump Blamed his loss of the popular vote on imaginary voter fraud.
  • Trump blamed President Obama’s “illegitimate” presidency on his Kenyan birth.
  • Trump blamed China for starting the “hoax” of climate change.
  • Trump blamed the fatalities from mass shootings on mental illness and gangs.
  • Trump blamed his failure of constructing a border wall on Democratic obstruction.
  • Trump blamed the “pussy-grabbing” Access Hollywood tape on “tampering.”
  • Trump blamed his confession of obstructing justice on NBC’s Lester Holt “fudging” the tape.
  • Trump blamed crime and terrorism in the U.S. on Muslims who entered the country illegally.
  • Trump blamed the nation’s economic problems on foreign tariffs.

Every one of those diversions are unambiguously false. And for virtually everything else that Trump wants to avoid responsibility for, he blames what he calls the “fake news.” Clearly he is fixated on identifying anyone or anything other than himself for what are his own failures. Just like he did when he was a businessman. It’s another symptom of his malignant narcissism that results in casting blame onto whatever handy victim he can stir up.

Conversely, he takes credit for any positive events that take place during his time in office. The economy has been rising for ten years, beginning back in Obama’s first term. But Trump is not only taking credit for all of it, he’s lying about the economy collapsing when he was inaugurated (it wasn’t). He has also taken credit for being tougher on Russia than any other president (he’s not). He takes credit for saving the coal industry (he didn’t). He actually says that construction has begun on his border wall (it hasn’t). And he even tried to credit himself with rescuing the children who he ripped from the arms of their sobbing parents.

This is the behavior of a severely disturbed person. It is someone who fits the description provided by his closest associates in his administration. Like his former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who called Trump a “moron.” And his Defense Secretary, James Mattis who said Trump has “the understanding of a fifth or sixth-grader.” And his White House chief of staff, John Kelly, who called Trump an “idiot.” And his former National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, who said Trump was a “dope” with the intelligence of a “kindergartner.”

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Yet, somehow, most of the Republicans in Congress (and the electorate) continue to defend and enable this dangerously psychotic pretender to leadership. It’s an abdication of their duty and patriotism. And it makes them complicit in the harm that Trump is doing to America and its future. Their slobbering infatuation with, and obedience to, the wannabe dictator Trump is as destructive as anything Trump does himself. And the sooner he’s gone, whether by election, impeachment, prosecution, or resignation, the better.

Trump’s Dangerous National Security Policy Contradicts His Own Defense Sec on Climate Change

Posted by on December 18, 2017 at 4:11 pm. 3 Comments :

In a speech intended to lay out his national security agenda, Donald Trump appeared lethargic and detached. His TelePrompter reading was stunted and his voice was slurred. At one point he said that Russia was tipped off to an alleged terror attack by the “CAA” (aka the CIA). It was a performance that didn’t exactly inspire confidence and strength.

Donald Trump Climate Change

The substance of the speech was a rehash of Trump’s standard “America First” rhetoric and introduced no new initiatives or solutions to ongoing problems. However, there was an omission that is guaranteed to produce severe consequences. Trump left out the risks of climate change from a national security perspective. The only mention of it came tangentially in his proposal that called for “countering an anti-growth energy agenda.” In other words, he’s advocating more production and use of dirty fossil fuels.

Trump’s stubborn adherence to his climate denial position flies in the face of the nearly unanimous conclusions of the scientific community that climate change is a real problem that is caused by human behavior. But scientists are not the only ones concerned about the issue. Defense experts have been warning of the imminent peril posed by the effects of climate change for years. And one of those experts is currently Trump’s Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis. While Trump insists that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by China, Sec. Mattis says that it’s “a real-time issue, not some distant what-if,” and that it’s “impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today.”

Mattis isn’t the first defense secretary to warn of the perils of climate change. The military has been crystal clear for years about the very real consequences of a world where water and arable land become scarce, and nations erupt into chaos and war. A particularly notable warning came from an unexpected source. As reported in Rolling Stone:

“In 2003, under Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, the Pentagon published a report titled ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who is sometimes jokingly referred to within the Pentagon as Yoda — and who was a favorite of Rumsfeld’s — the report warned that threats to global stability posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that of terrorism.”

Let that sink in. Rumsfeld views climate change as more dangerous than terrorism. In fact, six of the past Secretaries of Defense (Mattis, Ash Carter, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, and Rumsfeld) all subscribed to the policy that climate change is one of America’s top strategic risks. And four of the six are Republicans. Nevertheless, Trump insists on stepping out on his own demented ledge to dismiss the informed opinions of these respected leaders in favor of the denial championed by energy lobbyists and their political puppets. It’s a position that is rooted in greed, corruption, and ignorance. And it forebodes a dangerous future for America and the world.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Sorry Trump: House Votes to Affirm that Climate Change is a ‘Direct Threat’ to National Security

Posted by on July 14, 2017 at 4:02 pm. 3 Comments :

Donald Trump is unarguably the most hostile president to the environment this country has ever seen. He is an unabashed science denier who believes that climate change is a hoax invented by China. He petulantly withdrew the United States from the Paris Accords that mobilized more than 170 countries to protect the planet. His director of the Environmental Protection Agency is an avowed critic of the institution and has lobbied to abolish it. Trump opposes development of eco-friendly, renewable energy and supports expanding use of coal and fossil fuels.

Climate Change

That reprehensible record of extremist anti-environmentalism notwithstanding, many of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress just told him to frack off. An amendment to the Pentagon’s budget sought to eliminate language that addressed the threat of climate change. But the amendment failed with the help of some Republicans and most Democrats. As reported by Axios:

“Forty-six House Republicans joined Democrats Thursday to protect language in defense policy legislation that calls climate change a ‘direct threat’ to national security and requires new Defense Department analysis of its effect on the military. The House voted 185-234 against GOP Rep. Scott Perry’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have stripped the language.”

The bill’s author argued that the military has more important matters to deal with and should leave climate change to other agencies. But others pointed out that rising sea levels are already threatening existing military installations. Even more troubling is the fact that global weather patterns are creating disasters that exacerbate regional conflicts. And countries suffering from drought, floods, and resource depletion can become dangerously unstable and vulnerable to extremist insurrections and war.

Opposition to Trump’s climate blindness from within his own ranks is nothing new. Earlier this year his Defense Secretary, James Mattis, openly contradicted his boss. Mattis said that climate change is “a real-time issue, not some distant what-if.” And furthermore, “it is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today.”

Mattis isn’t the first defense secretary to hold these views. In fact, six of the past Secretaries of Defense (Mattis, Ash Carter, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, and Donald Rumsfeld) all subscribed to the policy that climate change is one of America’s top strategic risks. And four of the six are Republicans. Especially notable is Rumsfeld, under whose leadership the Pentagon published a report on the subject. It’s title was “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.” The report warned that threats posed by climate change were even more perilous than terrorism.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

It’s encouraging that a few dozen Republicans joined with Democrats to kill this amendment. But it’s troubling that the majority of the GOP still voted in favor of it. Trump and the Republican Party continue to deny the accumulated wisdom of both scientific and military experts. They support an agenda that advances the interests of oil barons and apocalyptic Christianists. So this victory must be celebrated with a measure of uncertainty and a resolve to keep fighting for positive goals.

Trump’s Defense Secretary Says Climate Change Is a Real Threat to American Interests

Posted by on March 15, 2017 at 3:50 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party has long been a fierce opponent of any efforts to mitigate climate change. Their opposition stands in stark contrast to the near unanimous consensus in the scientific community. But that hasn’t stopped conservative leaders from twisting their heads firmly into the sand on behalf of their fossil fuel benefactors.

Donald Trump James Mattis

Donald Trump is among those who refuse to accept the reality of climate change. He has called it a hoax perpetrated by China. He installed an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) director, Scott Pruitt, who doesn’t think that carbon dioxide is a driver of global warming. And much of his domestic policy is focused on advancing the financial prospects of oil and coal producers. But there are some new fissures beginning to show in the administration. The Huffington Post is reporting that:

“Secretary of Defense James Mattis has asserted that climate change is real, and a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere, a position that appears at odds with the views of the president who appointed him and many in the administration in which he serves.”

Indeed, the new Pentagon chief is directly disavowing the position of the President. He went on to stress that “this is a real-time issue, not some distant what-if.” According to “Mad Dog” Mattis “Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today.”

This is not a particularly new opinion within the walls of the Pentagon. The military has been crystal clear for years about the very real consequences of a world where water and arable land become scarce, and nations erupt into chaos and war. And it isn’t just liberal tree-huggers who have signaled the alarm on climate change. For instance, the Rolling Stone documented this notorious right-wing influencer:

“In 2003, under Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, the Pentagon published a report titled ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who is sometimes jokingly referred to within the Pentagon as Yoda — and who was a favorite of Rumsfeld’s — the report warned that threats to global stability posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that of terrorism.”

Rumsfeld is not alone either. Six of the past Secretaries of Defense (Mattis, Ash Carter, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, and Rumsfeld) all subscribed to the policy that climate change is one of America’s top strategic risks. And four of the six are Republicans.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump has variously said that he would rely on his generals, but also that he knows more than they do. It’s too soon to say which side he’ll come down on with regard to Gen. Mattis’ remarks. Trump is well known for not backing off of any position he takes, no matter how flawed. But if he insists on opposing the accumulated wisdom of six defense secretaries, and hundreds of climate scientists, he will only be digging himself and the Earth’s inhabitants a deeper grave.