ARLINGTON FRACAS, A DISAPPEARING ACT, NO INTROSPECTION

Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, pulled his weight to allow Donald Trump to once again continue to show his disrespect and disdain toward the military and their families, by setting up a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. Curious that he failed to mark the first or second anniversary of the Kabul tragedy…busy selling Bibles, knick-knacks, trading cards, and incidental huckstering, perhaps? In spite of the federal law prohibiting the use of the hallowed ground for political or election related purposes, Trump showed up with his usual entourage of staffers, including photographer and videographer who proceeded to capture the former president in a familiar pose, grinning ear-to-ear and thumb’s-up, along with family members of those service members killed by a suicide bomber during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan’s Kabul airport. The grinning doofus clearly has no idea how to behave around fallen heroes, as he stands by the grave of a Marine…it’s all about him! Trump’s team was told he could only attend in his personal capacity, with no staff members, and it is reported that the family members had specifically requested no media coverage…Trump must have missed that, too. A cemetery employee attempted to prevent any filming, but Trump’s goons verbally and physically abused her and continued to collect their footage, which later ended up on a TikTok post as a political ad for his presidential campaign. The Trump campaign officials were informed beforehand that only cemetery officials were allowed to take photos in Section 60, where recent casualties are buried, but the Trumpers bullied their way to get what they wanted. Campaign spokesman, Steven (Luca Brasi) Cheung, maintains nothing untoward occurred and could offer video proof that an unnamed individual having a mental health episode had tried to block the MAGA team during the ceremony…so far, crickets on video proof! Sadly, the victimized cemetery employee declined to press charges against the Trumpers for fear of retaliation.

Trump has a record of insulting the military, denying the late Senator John McCain was a war hero because he had been captured and held for five years in the Vietnam War years. Former aides have confirmed that he called World War I casualties “suckers and losers,” though he continues to deny doing so. And most recently he was condemned for telling a billionaire donor, Miriam Adelson, a past recipient of his largesse in his bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom, that the award was “much better” than the military’s Medal of Honor. He explained to Adelson that her civilian award ranked higher because “soldiers who get the Medal of Honor are either in bad shape from being shot up or they’re dead.” As president, Trump told his chief of staff John Kelly that he didn’t want “any wounded guys” in his Independence Day parade because, “This doesn’t look good for me,” and he had been quoted as saying, “Nobody wants to see that.” A previous visit to Arlington with Kelly to visit the gravesite of Kelly’s son Robert, a casualty in Afghanistan, had him asking, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Last week’s wreath-laying and brouhaha was an attempt by Trump to clean up his past indiscretions and establish some credibility as a champion of our military, but as it turned out, the visit only served to remind the country how little he understands service, sacrifice, and heroism with his campaign stunt. One of the GOP politicians in attendance, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah, is now under fire for using a photo of the Arlington event in his reelection campaign emails, later apologizing for his indiscretion. Semper Fi!

The Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, writes that, “Donald Trump has shown the nation, once again, that he has no shame,” for exploiting the fresh graves of war heroes by using them as props for his campaign…“a deeply dishonorable act by a shockingly dishonorable man.” Robinson believes just because we are accustomed to this kind of behavior from Trump does not mean we should accept it. Just because he has no sense of honor or appreciation of sacrifice does not mean we have to pretend honor and sacrifice no longer exist. Just because ‘Trump is an awful person’ is an old story does not mean we should yawn at this latest demonstration and quickly move on. He adds, “there is everything wrong with that former president using the occasion to generate visual fodder for is bid to return to the White House…his campaign team knew, and he surely knew, this was forbidden.” Robinson refers to Trump’s phony-hillbilly VP sidekick, JD Vance who chimed in by saying, “She [Kamala Harris] wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up? She can go to hell.” Of course, she had said or yelled nothing, only later when asked about the incident did she offer an opinion. And just for the record, Robinson writes that it was Trump who negotiated the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, forcing the Afghan government to release thousands of jailed Taliban fighters in a prisoner swap…to the eventual detriment of our military and the downfall of the Afghan government.

In his defense concerning the Arlington incident, Trump claims he “didn’t need the publicity,” and it’s being blown out of proportion by “bad people in Washington.” Robert Reich writes, “The incident has blown up into a big issue, but not because the Trump campaign erroneously held a political event at the Arlington National Cemetery…it’s blown up because it’s a microcosm of Donald Trump’s moral squalor…his disdain for the law.” Reich feels that abusing and pushing the ANC employee who was trying to enforce the law recalls other instances when the Trump Gang pushed people aside, using violence to get their way…think January 6, 2021. And, that the employee is a woman brings to mind the multitude of ways Trump has employed violence against women, hence the woman’s decision not to press charges for fear of retaliation…she knows! Reich concludes, “The entire incident is also a microcosm of Trump’s utter disdain for morality, honor, and patriotism – the public virtues, the common good. The cemetery is a sacred, hallowed ground. It is considered to be a national shrine. Trump sullied it to achieve his personal goal of the moment: to get a news clip in which he could bash Biden and, indirectly, Kamala Harris. The incident rings the warning bells, rekindles the dark memories, revives the fear. What happened at Arlington National Cemetery was more than an erroneous photo op. It was Trump on full display.” In the meantime, Trump is trying to run away from his actions, pointing to others as the guilty ones, and telling lie after lie to make it all disappear.

And we can bet that Elon Musk is doing his best to assist The Don in making this misadventure disappear…with his “free speech” project on X. Users of the platform saw that a link to the NPR story on the Arlington Cemetery incident was flagged as spam. Clicking on the link, an alert popped up, reading, “Warning: this link may be unsafe,” followed by the URL to the webpage…hardly a malicious or non-factual report by any means! Self-fashioned free speech absolutist Musk has reduced moderation on his platform, terming it a form of censorship, but there seem to be some exceptions to his acceptance of the First Amendment. Last week, a judge in Brazil banned Elon’s social-media platform after a months-long battle over allegations that disinformation was being spread. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ruled that internet service providers must block X for Brazil’s 215M citizens, and that anyone attempting to avoid the ban by use of a VPN would be subject to a fine of 50,000 reais, approximately $8900. Musk and X must comply with court orders to remove some of the named accounts, as well as paying fines, amounting to $3.28M, for his recalcitrance. Make that disappear, Elon!

Bill Maher on HBO’s ‘Real Time,’ commented, “There’s a law, as there should be, at Arlington National Cemetery, where our bravest and greatest are buried, that you can’t take pictures. You can’t use it as a campaign prop. I mean, it’s like when homeless people started making love in libraries. You don’t think there should be a law about it, but you have to. Sometimes you just need a law. So of course, when Trump heard this, he was like, ‘the laws, right?’ And they told him to stop. And he was furious. He said, ‘You are ruining a perfectly good exploitation of a tragedy.’ Then he grabbed some flowers off someone’s grave and said, ‘Send these to Melania!’ When people told him to stop, he just shoved them aside…his goons shoved her. Ever wondered what Donald Trump is like in real life? Tony Soprano, without the introspection.”

Maher also commented on the CNN interview with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Of Walz, he said, “He was just sitting there for a very long time without saying anything…it was like watching ‘Jeopardy’ when one of the players can’t work the buzzer.” All in all, the duo received good reviews for their appearance, but CNN got dragged by most observers for a lackluster presentation, with Dana Bash on the receiving end of the harshest comments. Harris was clearly delighted with Walz’s answers, and was obviously pleased that he had been selected as her running mate. In an interview last week, Jeff Walz, Tim’s older brother who lives in Florida, revealed on Facebook that he had donated to Trump’s 2016 campaign, and appeared to be less than content with his younger brother’s political path. Jeff says, “Tim is not the type of character you want making decisions about your future. I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology,” hinting that he would be open to publicly endorsing Trump’s candidacy. Urged by a Facebook post that he should “get on stage with President Trump and endorse him,” he responded: “I’ve thought long and hard about doing something like that! I’m torn between that and just keeping my family out of it,” adding, “The stories I could tell!” The two brothers are estranged and have not spoken for eight years, cause of the rift being unclear, but opposing political beliefs are at the forefront. The elder Walz once worked in education and was an assistant principal at a Florida middle school, and both brothers have had brushes with the law. Tim has talked about pleading guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving after a drunk driving arrest, and Jeff pled guilty to retail theft from a Walmart store in 2001, as reported by The Tampa Bay Times. Tim can find comfort in knowing that he has rallied other family members to support him and the Harris/Walz ticket.

Viewers of the aforementioned CNN/Dana Bash interview with the Democratic standard-bearers had their questions answered about the hesitancy of the two to do an earlier interview as the GOP had been urging. Neither of the candidates were challenged by the shallow, predictable questions, handled well by the two, but having little value for prospective voters. The first meaningless question about ‘intentions on the first day in office,‘ was viewed as a trap question by Harris who ignored the path toward dealing with Trump’s claim that he would be a dictator on day one, preferring to speak of her overall goal to economically raise opportunity for the middle class. One writer posted that Bash’s questions might have come from the fax machine at Mar-a-Lago, as she referenced an “economic crisis in America,” “a crisis of affordability,” which made the Trump economy attractive to voters. Kamala confidently pushed back about the strengths of the current economy, which Bash snarkily called “Bidenomics,” pointing out that the White House had effectively corrected the mess left behind by the Trump administration. Bash showed no interest in comparing the agendas of the two opposing parties and their approaches to governing, though both Harris and Walz attempted to broach the subjects. Harris responded to questioning about having a Republican in her Cabinet with a positive answer that it would be a good move to bring a new energy to politics, to have a more inclusive feel to move a united country forward. Bash brought out Prosecutor Harris’s demeanor when she attempted to bring up the race card, but the Vice President told Bash to move on, referring to Trump’s “old, tired playbook” that has no place in the election. David Rothkopf of The Daily Beast feels that Harris “rose to every challenge. Her ascendancy is not a fluke. She is well prepared for this moment…and is the ideal person to confront her opponent face-to-face and to let him know the dark era of US politics that he ushered in is now at last about to come to an end.”

Donald Trump, however, is still working on his debate bailout plan, as he attacks ABC News as “unfair,” employing “terrible” journalists, referring to “George Flopadopoulos” and Jonathan Karl as his prime suspects. Anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis are set to moderate the September 10 debate in Philadelphia. The Cowardly Don has repeatedly threatened to bail out of the face-to-face on the “very biased network,” all while whining and complaining that Joe Biden abandoned him, only to turn him over to an opposing woman candidate. Debate rules seem to have been settled upon, but not with much jousting in the past week or so. Trump told Mark Levin on Fox News that he liked to debate and had “won a lot of debates, otherwise I wouldn’t have been president.” He continues to lament his debate with Biden, which was a catalyst for the president exit from the presidential race. “I think I did a very good job, and maybe I did too good a job.” Felon, prepare to meet The Prosecutor! The Kraken has arrived!