. . .
K “Abysmal.”
J “Bleak.”
. . .
K “Disgusting.”
J “Criminal.”
. . .
Your One Word Mid-Year Assessment (June 30, 2025)
Posted in Trump on June 30, 2025 by e-commentary.orgWorld War III. Oh, And Happy “I Have A Bad Feeling About This” Day! Oh, And Happy Late Solstice! (June 23, 2025)
Posted in Trump, World War III on June 23, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “We are in it.”
J “Full tilt boogie.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
“I Have A Bad Feeling About This” Obi-wan Kenobi
MAGA is dead. RI . . . P?
JFK And The Commencement Address At American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963 At 62 (June 16, 2025)
Posted in Kennedy, War on June 16, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “He spoke truth.”
J “And got killed.”
. . .
[See “‘Peace For All Time’: JFK American U Speech at 62” by Peter Kuznick dated June 9, 2022.]
[See the e-commentary at November 23, 1963; Three Score Years Later (November 27, 2023).]
Bumper sticker of the week:
Give peace a small chance
The Donny And Elon Show. Oh, And Happy Friday The 13th! (June 9, 2025)
Posted in Politics, Trump on June 9, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “Think it is staged.”
J “Somewhat. But neither of them are capable of staying on script.”
. . .
K “Trump dons a red Make America Great Again hat while Musk sports a black Occupy Mars t-shirt.”
J “King Trump’s crown is an ordinary baseball hat and Minstrel Muskrat’s regal attire is a t-shirt. They call it ‘cosplay’ because they are play acting their roles in their costumes.”
. . .
J “All the world is a stage that is now dominated by two stooges. One is the world’s most powerful man. The other is the world’s richest man. America is all about power and money.”
K “Keep in mind the fundamental truth. The Problem for decades was overlooked or disregarded. There is no democracy. Trump is not an assault on something that does not exist. Trump is the Symptom of the staggering Problem who has metastasized into another competing Problem. The last election was between Systemic Problem versus Trump Problem. Both candidates were stooges in his and her own way.”
. . .
K “The show must go on.”
J “It must not necessarily go on, but it is going to go on.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
“You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.” Robert A. Heinlein
“For what else is the life of man but a kind of play in which men in various costumes perform until the director motions them off the stage.” Erasmus, The Praise of Folly (1511).
No Kings
U.S.A. Escalates Trump’s War With Russia. Trump’s Budget Turbocharges National Debt (June 2, 2025)
Posted in Debt/Deficits, Deep State, Russia, War, World War III on June 2, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “Biden clearly was not in charge. Trump appears not to be in charge. The U.S.A. escalated and expanded its war with further charges on and charges dropped on Russia. The most powerful faction in his fractured administration is committed to war and making the command decisions.”
J “They are hitting dangerously close to home.”
K “They could hit dangerously close to home.”
J “The fundamental nature of war has changed in two big leaps. First, the use of drones in the Armenia and Azerbaijan war in 2020 voided so many legacy weapons. Second, hiding and moving the drones in mobile innocuous appearing civilian vehicles and using them on civilian infrastructure is a game changer. Technology and technique are rapidly evolving.”
. . .
K “I could end the war in one (1) day. Others have not the ken, the courage or the clear vision to craft a solution. Cease the ISTAR [intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance], no war; continue the ISTAR, war. The U.S.A. elected to escalate and expand the war. One profound and effective way to cease the war in under twenty-four (24) hours is to warn the combatants that every deployed missile will be redirected back to land on its point of origin. And then just do it once.”
J “They could hit close to home.”
. . .
K “And then there is the exploding bodaciously bad budget bill.”
J “At least that action is being done with Congressional approval.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary at Washington Wants War In The Worst Way: Dust Off The IOSAT Or Return To The Status Quo Ante Bellum? (January 24, 2022), A National Potassium Iodide Distribution Program? (September 26, 2022), Not World War Tres. Again. The U.S. Declares War On Russia. Again. Oh, And Happy Thanksgiving! Again. (November 25, 2024), The “New York Department Of Defense Times” Proclaims: “War On!” Oh, And Happy Second [Tenth] Anniversary! (February 26, 2024), World War E / World War III Is 1 [9?] Year[s] Old This Week. Oh, And Happy Presidents’ Day! (February 20, 2023) and the solution set forth in The Cuban Missile Crisis And The Monroe Doctrine Today (February 28, 2022).]
Bumper sticker of the week:
Cease the ISTAR [intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance], no war; continue the ISTAR, war.
Biden’s War With Russia Is Now Officially Trump’s War With Russia. Oh, And Happy Memorial Day! (May 26, 2025)
Posted in Russia, War on May 26, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “We are now one hundred days into the Trump regime. Biden’s War is now officially renamed and rebranded Trump’s War.”
J “Trump must continue the war without hesitation or interruption.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary at Afghanistan: The Usual Lies And Liars. Oh, And Happy I.F. Stone’s Birthday! (December 16, 2019), U.S.A. And Britain Invade Russia (August 19, 2024), Not World War Tres. Again. The U.S. Declares War On Russia. Again. Oh, And Happy Thanksgiving! Again. (November 25, 2024) and Russia Beat The U.S. Europe[an Union] Wants To Do The European Thing And Go To War. Let Them. On Their Own Dime/Euro. Trump Wants To Blow Up The Mideast. Oh, And Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! (March 17, 2025) and one hundred other e-commentaries under “War”.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end and, perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier.” Donald Trump, Inaugural Address.
“When two neighboring countries fight each other, just know the USA visited one.” Nelson Mandela
“Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!” Leo Tolstoy
“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. . . . The only way to combat the murder that is war is to show the dirty combinations that make it and the criminals and swine that hope for it and the idiotic way they run it when they get it so that an honest man will distrust it as he would a racket and refuse to be enslaved into it.” Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter”, “Esquire”, September 1935.
“No one man nor group of men incapable of fighting or exempt from fighting should in any way be given the power, no matter how gradually it is given them, to put this country or any country into war.” Id.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” Smedley D. Butler in a poem in the September 1935 issue of the magazine “Common Sense” that later become a classic.
Principled Nihilism And An American Renaissance? Eliminate And Germinate (May 19, 2025)
Posted in Culture, Society on May 19, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “I read an essay critical of another writer who advanced an insightful analysis of many of society’s problems yet was accused of not advancing workable answers. A prohibition on complaints devoid of answers? I thought about it. That may be the best one can do. Attacking hypocrisy and dishonesty and the like that we do not like with an eye toward eliminating it while also germinating alternative workable ideas is the only course of action.”
J “I have all the answers! Just listen. Yet too often my answers are underpinned by a belief that we can or must change fundamental human nature. That is not going to happen.”
. . .
K “The only way to bring about productive change in America is fundamentally to eliminate not internally reform every major institution. They are fundamentally broken and must be disassembled in toto and rebuilt from the ground up.”
J “It is the individual not the institution. Those limits that nature fixes for human conduct will fix you.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary at Does Any Institution In America Function? Oh, And Happy Friday The 13th! (December 9, 2019), 2020: The Year Of Failed Institutions (And Individuals) (December 21, 2020), Revisiting “Does Any Institution In America Function? Oh, And Happy Friday The 13th! (December 9, 2019)” Four Years Later (December 11, 2023), Time To MAAA: Make America America Again? (September 30, 2024), Fight Or Flight In The Face Of Fear? A Principled Reaction To Stand (November 30, 2020) and Trump: MBA Not MPP: Meat Cleaver Versus Surgeon’s Scalpel (March 3, 2025).]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Eliminate and germinate
“We have met the enemy, and boy oh boy is he and she ever you and me.” Mr. Pogo
“We have met the friend and he is us.” Pogo
“If there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry. And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry.” Dalai Lama
What me worry.
“The whole future lies in uncertainty, live immediately.” Seneca
Graduation Advice: Do Something, Anything (Good) (May 12, 2025)
Posted in Graduation Advice on May 12, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “Do something, anything (good).”
. . .
K “Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’25 . . . do something, anything (good). . . . If I could offer you only one tip for the future . . . do something, anything (good). You have been studying and partying and extracurricularing at a frantic and frenetic pace. Now is the time to . . . do something, anything (good). We are all anesthetized and lobotomized and desensitized. And do not realize it. Unable to act. Unable to think. Unable to feel. Unable to react. Unable to respond. Unable to able. . . . The Smarty Pants phone is not that smart. Spurn and reject and repudiate and put down your false lover – the Fondle Slab – and step back. Stand up; sit in. . . . Your fears are so well-founded; the saber-toothed tiger lurks everywhere and is on the prowl all the time. And breeding. . . . Read “Everything Is A Fight Today.” Please répondez s’il vous plaît. Oh, And Happy Solstice! (June 17, 2024) for a discussion of our plight and the fight today. Listen to Bob [Marley]. ‘Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.’ Free your mind. Yourself. Live, love, learn. Do something, anything (good). Go.”
. . .
K “Wear sunscreen. Wear hearing protection; listen attentively. Wear chainsaw safety chaps; cut with care. Eat dessert: First. Learn to tie a bowline (and a bow tie). Stop, pause, think. Eschew fear. Transcend: Maintain FL 44; Make A Few Discrete Dives And Diversions To TPA (Traffic Pattern Altitude). Find the First Amendment. Plant a garden. Do something, anything (good).”
. . .
J “How about work to ‘Ban the Internet’ as graduation advice for the entire nation to graduate to a more sane and fulfilling existence? Or work to ‘Sensibly license the Internet akin to shortwave radio licensing’ to save the nation?”
K “That works. That is doing something, anything (good).”
. . .
[See the original “Sunscreen Column”, the Wikipedia article “Wear Sunscreen” and listen to “Everbody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”.]
[See the e-commentary at The Möbius Loop Of Stupidity, Dishonesty, Hypocrisy, Incompetence, Indifference, Arrogance, . . . Oh, And Happy Thanksgiving! (November 25, 2019), Graduation Advice: Plant A Garden (May 13, 2024), Graduation Advice: Find The First Amendment (May 15, 2023), Graduation Advice: Transcend: Maintain FL 44; Make A Few Discrete Dives And Diversions To TPA (Traffic Pattern Altitude) (May 16, 2022), Graduation Advice: Eschew Fear (May 10, 2021), Graduation Advice: Stop, Pause, Think (May 18, 2020), Graduation Advice: Learn To Tie a Bowline (And A Bow Tie) (May 13, 2019), Graduation Advice: Eat Dessert. First. (May 14, 2018), Graduation Advice: Wear Chainsaw Safety Chaps; Cut With Care (May 15, 2017), Graduation Advice: Wear Hearing Protection; Listen Attentively (May 16, 2016), TeeVee, The Fondle Slab And L’Internet (May 17, 2021), Stalking The Stalking Saber-toothed Tiger (June 12, 2023) and the advice to youth at Go East, Young Person (August 25, 2014).]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Wear sunscreen. Wear hearing protection; listen attentively. Wear chainsaw safety chaps; cut with care. Eat dessert: First. Learn to tie a bowline (and a bow tie). Stop, pause, think. Eschew fear. Transcend: Maintain FL 44; Make A Few Discrete Dives And Diversions To TPA (Traffic Pattern Altitude). Find the First Amendment. Plant a garden. Do something, anything (good).
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.” Bob Marley, “Redemption Song”
Flee the Mobius Loop
Meditate mudita; repudiate schadenfreude
Répondez s’il vous plait
“We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. . . . We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Sensibly license the Internet akin to shortwave radio licensing
“Don’t do anything, something might happen.” Dr. Milo H. Fritz
Russian Victory In Europe Turns 80. U.S. Defeat In Vietnam Turns 50. Time To Get It? (April 28, 2025)
Posted in Academia, MSM, Professional Managerial Class (PMC), Russia, Vietnam, War, World War II on April 28, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
K “Four score years ago on May 8 / 9, the Russians defeated the Germans and won World War II; since that time the United States has lost every single war it has instigated or inflamed. What an enviable record in the history of empires.”
J “Except Grenada. Do not forget Grenada. A few grenades in Grenada is all that one took. Not really a record worth writing home about. It was more of what the sports world calls a ‘friendly’ competition.”
. . .
K “An entire generation was condemned to slow percolating despair and an utterly pointless collective death. I remember fearing that I was given a death sentence with an indeterminate start date. I found my unburned draft card last year that proclaimed me ‘fit to die’ and recall my low two-digit draft number that said ‘ready to die’.”
J “The idea of a lottery may be the only way to distribute scarce resources. The Fates cut strings; the government plucks a ball out of a bin and decrees who has good luck and who does not. The spectacle is so surreal and perverse and macabre.”
. . .
K “From his first appearances on tv, McNamara struck me as a smug officious pompous buffoon even before I knew what the words meant. And then when McNamara II staggers on the American scene in the guise of Donald Rumsfeld who looks and acts and talks like Bob’s little brother, no one sees it. No one gets it. America does not get it. America does it again.”
J “Oleaginous and hubristic. Look at the outcome. America turned tail and fled Saigon in ignominy in April of 1975. Then America turns tail and flees Kabul in ignominy in August of 2021. Same game plan. Different place.”
. . .
K “At the end of World War II, the US should have proclaimed simply that colonialism is verboten on the planet. Ho Chi Minh sought independence and self-determination for Vietnam.”
J “Without leaders, there is no leadership.”
. . .
K “I had one of the highest scores on the Foreign Service Officers Exam. I was more than eminently qualified to address and resolve the issues. In the interview, I noted that diplomacy is always preferable to war. That was anathema to the State Department clan that absolutely would have none of that. I knew the cards were stacked, the fix was in.”
J “The Pentagon may conduct war games and discover that it will continue an almost unbroken streak, except for Grenada, of taking the silver medal in another war. The Brass may opt for a diplomatic solution over another silver medal.”
. . .
K “Three conclusions. America just does not learn. America just does not learn. America just does not learn.”
J “What if America is incapable of learning? The economic and political and social incentives not to learn are just too great. The economic and political and social incentives to learn are non-existent.”
K “And what passes for Academia is part of the problem. And what passes for the Press in the form of the MSM is part of the problem. And what passes for the Parvenu PMC is part of the problem. Problem plus problem plus problem equal problems. We’ve got problems.”
. . .
K “We are also talking about the war on drugs and the war on poverty and the war on terror and the war on peace and the war on war. It does not end. The goal now is for war not to end.”
J “I can’t fail to advance the contention that there are times when thoughtful and purposeful military intervention is necessary.”
K “It don’t disagree, yet America does not think and embarks on so many thoughtless and purposeless crusades on purpose.”
. . .
K “With all the money given by culpable individuals and corporations, I suspected that Ken Burns would never provide a moral and legal and political truth and reconciliation in his series. He failed.”
J “Everyone is owned.”
. . .
K “America does stupid, etc. over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.”
J “Even when America is given a do over, it does stupid, etc. over and over and over again.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary at American Foreign Policy: 1945 – ____ (July 24, 2023) and Afghanistan: Free Friendlies; Impeach Biden (August 23, 2021) and the many e-commentaries under the Categories on Vietnam and War.]
Bumper sticker of the week:
Tenth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2025 (May 5, 2025)
Posted in Journalism, Pushitzer Prize In Commentary on May 5, 2025 by e-commentary.org. . .
“The envelope please. . . . This year’s Pushitzer Prize in Commentary is awarded to . . . Chris Hedges . . . Sage, poet, moralist, philosopher, historian, he is the soul and conscience of today’s small cadre of honest, concerned and courageous journalists and commentators. For his efforts stirring the pot, asking hard questions, demanding answers, rejecting lies, spotlighting uncomfortable truths, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. And being a model journalist.”
J “He speaks truth.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary on the Commentary Award and previous recipients at Ninth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2024 (May 6, 2024), Eighth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2023 (May 8, 2023), Seventh Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2022 (May 9, 2022), Sixth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2021 (June 7, 2021), Fifth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2020 (May 4, 2020), Fourth Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2019 (April 15, 2019), Third Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2018 (April 16, 2018), Second Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2017 (April 10, 2017), First Annual Pushitzer Prize In Commentary For 2016 (April 18, 2016) and Pulitzers Are Pro-War? Pressing The Pushitzers (April 22, 2013).]
[Please send your nomination for the Pushitzer Prize in Commentary for 2026 and a supporting letter by January 21, 2026 to e-ssay@gci.net and send the entry fee to your favorite charity.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy our economy.” Chris Hedges
Make journalism great again
Make journalism journalism again
Knowledge is not power, but ignorance is powerless
“First they came for the journalists. We don’t know what happened after that.”
“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.” George Orwell
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