John...excellent commentary/review! The 8 war claim is incredibly bogus. Many of Trump's tactics, in my opinion, are downright unethical, criminal and show a disregard for the U.S. Constitution. I am a Republican at heart but did not vote for Trump and have disdain for politicians and those running for office who spout unconditional MAGA support. I guess that make me more of an independent conservative.
I was taught that you should not make a diagnosis without examining the patient, but since I retired over a decade ago, and, since you are so far away, I offer the following:
1. You do not have " Trump Derangement Disorder ". This diagnosis requires the active ingredient of hate.
2. You are progressing from the " Trump Fatigue Syndrome " to the " Trump Exhaustion Disorder " which lacks the element of hate but rates the degree of tiredness on a scale of 1 - 100. A score of 50 - 60 is the transition zone between Fatigue and Exhaustion.
Hmmm, and a 'syndrome' is a set of symptoms and NOT a disorder, no? The MAGA folks throw the TDS darts at anyone who dares to criticize a Trump cabinet member publicly as well as spew there very own hateful attitudes towards us Independents. I hate no one. I just don't always agree.
John, I am one reader who won't leave because of what you say. Nor will I apologize for looking for good in Trump's ideas. There is always good to be found in life and in politics. The baggage street runs both ways. Focusing on negative is as much baggage as is ignoring truth.
My view is that U.S. president works for us, not the other way around. Thus, they should be judged by their job performance, regardless of which party they belong, and regardless of what their political opponents and political fluffers think.
A fair evaluation of that job performance requires single-standards and an adherence to facts. My problem is with those who reject both.
Thanks John. Could not agree more. The difficulty however is identifying solutions to job performance issues. The obvious answer to DJT's negative job performance is to "fire" him. That's not going to happen, and we all know that. Even if he loses both houses this November, he will veto what he doesn't like with little fear of override and use every inch of his presidential reach to do what he wants. At least for my own sanity, finding positive results in actions and comments has more upside until 2028 when someone else will get a shot at running the asylum.
I'm curious if this was your position during the Biden administration, and the Obama administration before that. There's nothing we can do, so let's just focus on the good stuff they're doing?
I'm guessing not. For a lot of folks, it depends on which party's president is in power.
Obedience isn't patriotic, elected leaders are our employees, and we live in a system of divided government, not autocracy. The U.S. Congress is the most power branch of our federal government, and it's also the closest to the people. Public pressure, in many cases, works. Right now, we're on the precipice of many bad things. And with very few exceptions, Republican members of congress are too scared to defy Trump on anything. They could stop a lot of Trump's nonsense today, if they weren't cowards. And it would benefit the country immensely if they did. But they worry they don't have the public backing to do it, and will be primaried out of office, because of GOP voters' cult-like devotion to Trump, and many others remaining silent.
In our system of representative government, I think it's our responsibility to inform ourselves, using truth as our guide, and speak out against what should change.
Damn John, I sent a lengthy response to this note from you but I don't see it anywhere. The short answer is no. Most of what O & B did was not what my conservative mindset would approve. Obama taking out Osama Bin Laden I supported however. I could not then and still can't, find much good regarding Biden's admin. Local papers published numerous submissions of mine pointing out the errors of their ways while I fully recognized there was nothing I could influence about their presidencies.
I think the issue boils down to my belief that history will give Trump much more credit than what you and Bernie feel he deserves. Trump is almost never, if ever, 100% wrong. Thoroughly dislike him if you choose but it would be wise to remember that.
John another comment: The overriding issue regarding DJT for me is that he is rarely, if ever, 100% wrong. That gives me pause whenever I read about some activity he's promoting. For example the Powell issue. I don't like that notion at all but what factor is he's not wrong about there? Regarding his 8 "wars" stopped, the criticism essentially accurate. But in reading what's available via Google, you find the word ceasefire used often. Ceasefire means ceased killing. Trump steadfastly abhors people killing each another. Yes stopping killing is not stopping wars but he's had considerable success getting the killing part stopped or at least significantly reduced. Little is said about that, the focus is on the "lying" about stopping wars.
Very few people on this planet are 100% wrong about things. And most people don't like people being killed by other people. These are very low bars to clear.
I've largely supported Trump's foreign policy on Iran. He's been much better than Obama and Biden were, and I have credited him for his successes on that front (though I'm afraid he's going to blow the current uprising, if he hasn't already).
On Ukraine, the most internationally consequential battlefront on the planet, he has been an absolute disgrace. He's spent the last year trying to romance Putin, and throw Ukraine under the bus (including repeatedly blaming them for the conflict), which has only further emboldened Putin to continue the invasion and kill more Ukrainians. I don't see a bright side on this issue.
Yes John, I am serious about trying to describe my sense about Trump. I have a bias built from working a couple of decades with world class engineers and management, having hundreds of people reporting to me and starting my own business which satisfied every criteria I sat for it including the exit strategy. That does not make me any kind of expert but it does give me perspective regarding good management and what is not.
Good management includes transparency that allows end results to be visible. Neither Obama nor Biden came remotely close to that level. Trump comes much closer. His business success translates into success for how our government operates as well: less is better; fair trade between nations, eliminating waste and fraud and more. His use of tariffs gets both good and not good reviews from equally intelligent sources.
I do not claim knowledge enough to assess Trump's expertise regarding Ukraine, his negotiating tactics, etc. You call him a disgrace which suggests an opinion of Trump essentially no better than that of Putin himself. What's missing from your end is any workable solution.
OK.....gonna spend the rest of today celebrating wife's 80th with daughter and grandsons and likely eating way too much at our Olive Garden....:))
>>Good management includes transparency that allows end results to be visible. Neither Obama nor Biden came remotely close to that level.
If you're defining transparency purely by how often the president and members of his administration speak to the press and field questions, I absolutely agree that Trump has been far better, and far more accessible, than they were. It's not even close.
Beyond that, I'm not sure what you mean. The Trump administration has kept an extraordinary amount of pertinent information from Congress. They've severely limited media access to the Pentagon and DOJ. Trump has shut down investigations into to shady activity he's allegedly been involved with, or may reflectively poorly on him (he's even fired well-regarded investigators in the process). Several times, he has campaigned on releasing information that he fought tooth and nail to conceal once he was in office (from his tax and health records to the Epstein files). It goes on and on.
>>His business success translates into success for how our government operates as well: less is better; fair trade between nations, eliminating waste and fraud and more.
None of this makes sense to me at all. Less is better? He's the biggest spending president in U.S. history (by far), and has added more national debt than any president in U.S. history (by far). He also unilaterally imposed the largest tax hike in U.S. history, and he has been central-planning the U.S. economy to an extent not seen in my lifetime. What's this "less" business you're talking about?
Fair trade between nations? What's been objectively "fair" about Trump's trade policies? They're not even tied to trade surpluses/deficits. They're just based on his whims, and his desire to leverage stuff for himself, at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.
Eliminating waste and fraud? He's done such thing. DOGE was a massive failure, and U.S. spending went up after it.
>>His use of tariffs gets both good and not good reviews from equally intelligent sources.
Which intelligent sources are giving his tariffs good reviews? Anyone from outside of his administration? This has been one rare area where almost 100% of professionals in the field (aka economists) view Trump's policy as a drag on, and net loss for, America (which is easy to do by simply looking at the economic numbers).
>>I do not claim knowledge enough to assess Trump's expertise regarding Ukraine, his negotiating tactics, etc.
That's because he doesn't have any expertise on this, and his negotiating tactic of trying to give Putin whatever he wants (and Putin deciding it's still not enough, and upping his attacks on Ukraine) is an absolute joke.
>>You call him a disgrace which suggests an opinion of Trump essentially no better than that of Putin himself.
Uh, no. Trump is definitely better than Putin. One can be an absolute disgrace, and still not be as bad as murderous war criminal.
>>What's missing from your end is any workable solution.
It's not missing. I've stated it here many times. My 'solution' -- as presented by numerous U.S. military generals and foreign policy experts (some of whom I've spoken to personally on the Reagan Caucus podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@ReaganCaucusAction) is to significantly up our support of Ukraine, and make it as costly as possible for Putin to continue the invasion. There's no perfect solution, but taking Putin out of the drivers-seat, and putting a serious squeeze on him (which can force concessions he so far hasn't been willing to make) is absolutely the right move for Ukraine, Europe, and the rest of the free world.
>>OK.....gonna spend the rest of today celebrating wife's 80th with daughter and grandsons and likely eating way too much at our Olive Garden....:))
One of the things I cannot understand is the divide between you and the 65+ voters I know. It's huge. The conservatives I know dislike the way Trump goes about things but would likely vote for him again tomorrow.
And it's because Trump does what he says he'll do.
You're honest and give credit when it's deserved. But some some of which you mentioned here I either missed of it happened prior to me becoming a reader.
I'm willing to wait to judge Trump and I suspect the current trends upward with important things will continue. He understands what the golden goose is for this country, which is our industrial and energy base. He's rebuilding that. And the tariffs are helping him do that in spite of detractor's notion that tariffs do more harm than good.
Thanks for the response John. I always learn something. And we did have a nice time. 80 only comes once.
HI again. I'm probably guilty of spending more time focusing on what I didn't like about Obama and Biden's activities than I did searching for any good they may have accomplished. Local papers published numerous submissions of mine. I also knew full well there was nothing legitimate I could do about their being in office. The myriad troubles Trump's administration has uncovered and is trying to fix is testament to the depth of b** s**t that had evolved within our government through both Obama and Biden's terms, perhaps even some of his own and before O and B as well.
You rightly accuse Republicans in Congress of essentially being afraid to challenge Trump. Was that not also the case with Biden and Obama democrats? Obama and Holden with the guns issue for instance and immigration issues with Biden/ Pelosi hellbent on becoming permanently in control. Pelosi, Clapper, Brennan and Comey concocting bogus anti-Trump accusations and lying about it. Did Congress do anything about those issues? If so I missed it.
Lack of fulfilling constitutionally assigned responsibilities on Congress's part is equally egregious as Trump's behavior.
The people who accept as gospel that Trump ended at least 8 wars should be able to answer the question - NAME THEM. To be fair, he could claim the Gaza ceasefire, the halting of the shooting between India and Pakistan, but after that, I'm drawing a blank....
John...excellent commentary/review! The 8 war claim is incredibly bogus. Many of Trump's tactics, in my opinion, are downright unethical, criminal and show a disregard for the U.S. Constitution. I am a Republican at heart but did not vote for Trump and have disdain for politicians and those running for office who spout unconditional MAGA support. I guess that make me more of an independent conservative.
Thanks Terrence.
As a fellow independent conservative, I welcome the company.
What is an independent conservative?
A conservative who isn't registered with a political party.
Good job John.
I was taught that you should not make a diagnosis without examining the patient, but since I retired over a decade ago, and, since you are so far away, I offer the following:
1. You do not have " Trump Derangement Disorder ". This diagnosis requires the active ingredient of hate.
2. You are progressing from the " Trump Fatigue Syndrome " to the " Trump Exhaustion Disorder " which lacks the element of hate but rates the degree of tiredness on a scale of 1 - 100. A score of 50 - 60 is the transition zone between Fatigue and Exhaustion.
3. Welcome to the Transition Zone.
Hmmm, and a 'syndrome' is a set of symptoms and NOT a disorder, no? The MAGA folks throw the TDS darts at anyone who dares to criticize a Trump cabinet member publicly as well as spew there very own hateful attitudes towards us Independents. I hate no one. I just don't always agree.
Excellent piece, John. Well written. Aloha, Mike
Thanks Mike.
John, I am one reader who won't leave because of what you say. Nor will I apologize for looking for good in Trump's ideas. There is always good to be found in life and in politics. The baggage street runs both ways. Focusing on negative is as much baggage as is ignoring truth.
Glad you're not going anywhere.
My view is that U.S. president works for us, not the other way around. Thus, they should be judged by their job performance, regardless of which party they belong, and regardless of what their political opponents and political fluffers think.
A fair evaluation of that job performance requires single-standards and an adherence to facts. My problem is with those who reject both.
Thanks John. Could not agree more. The difficulty however is identifying solutions to job performance issues. The obvious answer to DJT's negative job performance is to "fire" him. That's not going to happen, and we all know that. Even if he loses both houses this November, he will veto what he doesn't like with little fear of override and use every inch of his presidential reach to do what he wants. At least for my own sanity, finding positive results in actions and comments has more upside until 2028 when someone else will get a shot at running the asylum.
I'm curious if this was your position during the Biden administration, and the Obama administration before that. There's nothing we can do, so let's just focus on the good stuff they're doing?
I'm guessing not. For a lot of folks, it depends on which party's president is in power.
Obedience isn't patriotic, elected leaders are our employees, and we live in a system of divided government, not autocracy. The U.S. Congress is the most power branch of our federal government, and it's also the closest to the people. Public pressure, in many cases, works. Right now, we're on the precipice of many bad things. And with very few exceptions, Republican members of congress are too scared to defy Trump on anything. They could stop a lot of Trump's nonsense today, if they weren't cowards. And it would benefit the country immensely if they did. But they worry they don't have the public backing to do it, and will be primaried out of office, because of GOP voters' cult-like devotion to Trump, and many others remaining silent.
In our system of representative government, I think it's our responsibility to inform ourselves, using truth as our guide, and speak out against what should change.
Damn John, I sent a lengthy response to this note from you but I don't see it anywhere. The short answer is no. Most of what O & B did was not what my conservative mindset would approve. Obama taking out Osama Bin Laden I supported however. I could not then and still can't, find much good regarding Biden's admin. Local papers published numerous submissions of mine pointing out the errors of their ways while I fully recognized there was nothing I could influence about their presidencies.
I think the issue boils down to my belief that history will give Trump much more credit than what you and Bernie feel he deserves. Trump is almost never, if ever, 100% wrong. Thoroughly dislike him if you choose but it would be wise to remember that.
John another comment: The overriding issue regarding DJT for me is that he is rarely, if ever, 100% wrong. That gives me pause whenever I read about some activity he's promoting. For example the Powell issue. I don't like that notion at all but what factor is he's not wrong about there? Regarding his 8 "wars" stopped, the criticism essentially accurate. But in reading what's available via Google, you find the word ceasefire used often. Ceasefire means ceased killing. Trump steadfastly abhors people killing each another. Yes stopping killing is not stopping wars but he's had considerable success getting the killing part stopped or at least significantly reduced. Little is said about that, the focus is on the "lying" about stopping wars.
I can't tell if you're being serious here or not.
Very few people on this planet are 100% wrong about things. And most people don't like people being killed by other people. These are very low bars to clear.
I've largely supported Trump's foreign policy on Iran. He's been much better than Obama and Biden were, and I have credited him for his successes on that front (though I'm afraid he's going to blow the current uprising, if he hasn't already).
On Ukraine, the most internationally consequential battlefront on the planet, he has been an absolute disgrace. He's spent the last year trying to romance Putin, and throw Ukraine under the bus (including repeatedly blaming them for the conflict), which has only further emboldened Putin to continue the invasion and kill more Ukrainians. I don't see a bright side on this issue.
Yes John, I am serious about trying to describe my sense about Trump. I have a bias built from working a couple of decades with world class engineers and management, having hundreds of people reporting to me and starting my own business which satisfied every criteria I sat for it including the exit strategy. That does not make me any kind of expert but it does give me perspective regarding good management and what is not.
Good management includes transparency that allows end results to be visible. Neither Obama nor Biden came remotely close to that level. Trump comes much closer. His business success translates into success for how our government operates as well: less is better; fair trade between nations, eliminating waste and fraud and more. His use of tariffs gets both good and not good reviews from equally intelligent sources.
I do not claim knowledge enough to assess Trump's expertise regarding Ukraine, his negotiating tactics, etc. You call him a disgrace which suggests an opinion of Trump essentially no better than that of Putin himself. What's missing from your end is any workable solution.
OK.....gonna spend the rest of today celebrating wife's 80th with daughter and grandsons and likely eating way too much at our Olive Garden....:))
Thanks for that background.
>>Good management includes transparency that allows end results to be visible. Neither Obama nor Biden came remotely close to that level.
If you're defining transparency purely by how often the president and members of his administration speak to the press and field questions, I absolutely agree that Trump has been far better, and far more accessible, than they were. It's not even close.
Beyond that, I'm not sure what you mean. The Trump administration has kept an extraordinary amount of pertinent information from Congress. They've severely limited media access to the Pentagon and DOJ. Trump has shut down investigations into to shady activity he's allegedly been involved with, or may reflectively poorly on him (he's even fired well-regarded investigators in the process). Several times, he has campaigned on releasing information that he fought tooth and nail to conceal once he was in office (from his tax and health records to the Epstein files). It goes on and on.
>>His business success translates into success for how our government operates as well: less is better; fair trade between nations, eliminating waste and fraud and more.
None of this makes sense to me at all. Less is better? He's the biggest spending president in U.S. history (by far), and has added more national debt than any president in U.S. history (by far). He also unilaterally imposed the largest tax hike in U.S. history, and he has been central-planning the U.S. economy to an extent not seen in my lifetime. What's this "less" business you're talking about?
Fair trade between nations? What's been objectively "fair" about Trump's trade policies? They're not even tied to trade surpluses/deficits. They're just based on his whims, and his desire to leverage stuff for himself, at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.
Eliminating waste and fraud? He's done such thing. DOGE was a massive failure, and U.S. spending went up after it.
>>His use of tariffs gets both good and not good reviews from equally intelligent sources.
Which intelligent sources are giving his tariffs good reviews? Anyone from outside of his administration? This has been one rare area where almost 100% of professionals in the field (aka economists) view Trump's policy as a drag on, and net loss for, America (which is easy to do by simply looking at the economic numbers).
>>I do not claim knowledge enough to assess Trump's expertise regarding Ukraine, his negotiating tactics, etc.
That's because he doesn't have any expertise on this, and his negotiating tactic of trying to give Putin whatever he wants (and Putin deciding it's still not enough, and upping his attacks on Ukraine) is an absolute joke.
>>You call him a disgrace which suggests an opinion of Trump essentially no better than that of Putin himself.
Uh, no. Trump is definitely better than Putin. One can be an absolute disgrace, and still not be as bad as murderous war criminal.
>>What's missing from your end is any workable solution.
It's not missing. I've stated it here many times. My 'solution' -- as presented by numerous U.S. military generals and foreign policy experts (some of whom I've spoken to personally on the Reagan Caucus podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@ReaganCaucusAction) is to significantly up our support of Ukraine, and make it as costly as possible for Putin to continue the invasion. There's no perfect solution, but taking Putin out of the drivers-seat, and putting a serious squeeze on him (which can force concessions he so far hasn't been willing to make) is absolutely the right move for Ukraine, Europe, and the rest of the free world.
>>OK.....gonna spend the rest of today celebrating wife's 80th with daughter and grandsons and likely eating way too much at our Olive Garden....:))
I hope you all had a good time.
One of the things I cannot understand is the divide between you and the 65+ voters I know. It's huge. The conservatives I know dislike the way Trump goes about things but would likely vote for him again tomorrow.
And it's because Trump does what he says he'll do.
You're honest and give credit when it's deserved. But some some of which you mentioned here I either missed of it happened prior to me becoming a reader.
I'm willing to wait to judge Trump and I suspect the current trends upward with important things will continue. He understands what the golden goose is for this country, which is our industrial and energy base. He's rebuilding that. And the tariffs are helping him do that in spite of detractor's notion that tariffs do more harm than good.
Thanks for the response John. I always learn something. And we did have a nice time. 80 only comes once.
Our, I like your comments
We need to practice safe news consumption - media condoms!
I did think about using that metaphor in the piece. lol.
John D Mc: And what is the price tag on those media condoms? Wouldn't be useful for us females , we filter through it and discard the waste.
Buffoonery
HI again. I'm probably guilty of spending more time focusing on what I didn't like about Obama and Biden's activities than I did searching for any good they may have accomplished. Local papers published numerous submissions of mine. I also knew full well there was nothing legitimate I could do about their being in office. The myriad troubles Trump's administration has uncovered and is trying to fix is testament to the depth of b** s**t that had evolved within our government through both Obama and Biden's terms, perhaps even some of his own and before O and B as well.
You rightly accuse Republicans in Congress of essentially being afraid to challenge Trump. Was that not also the case with Biden and Obama democrats? Obama and Holden with the guns issue for instance and immigration issues with Biden/ Pelosi hellbent on becoming permanently in control. Pelosi, Clapper, Brennan and Comey concocting bogus anti-Trump accusations and lying about it. Did Congress do anything about those issues? If so I missed it.
Lack of fulfilling constitutionally assigned responsibilities on Congress's part is equally egregious as Trump's behavior.
I want your comments on Greenland becoming a possession of the United States
I gave them in this week's No BS Zone.
Confusion exist in the BERNIE mantra with John daily
Confusion exist in that comment.
What the heck is Pres Trump's definition of a "war?"
The people who accept as gospel that Trump ended at least 8 wars should be able to answer the question - NAME THEM. To be fair, he could claim the Gaza ceasefire, the halting of the shooting between India and Pakistan, but after that, I'm drawing a blank....
If any but one is pleasing to me
Everything is whatever Trump says it is.
That's the rule of thumb in that world.
Where do you draw the lines with magical thinking, future reality, and positivity? Eccentricity may play into it. Too much adrenaline rush.
Trump needs to 'win' at any cost- at any, any, any cost. It is frightful, brave, bold and ballsy - effective at times, and with unpredictable results.
Late late, Trump is doing a grand job
Lol.
No killings
I didn't kill anyone.