Why would anyone oppose Trump's efforts to end the Ukraine war?

We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.

Attributed to Benjamin Franklin 

President Trump is trying to end the Ukraine war, which has brought incalculable misery to both the Ukrainians and the Russians.

I say incalculable because the war's advocates are not telling the truth about military and civilian casualty rates. Nor have they acknowledged the enormous environmental harms caused by the war.

Trump's Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, rattled Ukrainian President Vladimir  Zelensky by observing that Ukraine will probably need to cede some territory to get a peace deal. However, Hegseth was only stating the obvious. 

No credible authority believes Russia will consent to relinquish Crimea. Nor will Vladimir Putin give up the predominately Russian-speaking districts of the Donbas--where fighting has gone on for ten years.

Hegseth also made waves when he said that talking about NATO membership for Ukraine is unrealistic. Again, Hegseth was only stating the obvious. It would be insane to make Ukraine a NATO member now. Indeed, no NATO country is strongly pushing for immediate Ukraine membership. 

Every American should be grateful for Trump's energetic efforts to bring the stupid Ukraine war to a speedy conclusion. Yet, Democratic politicians are spewing vicious vitriol at the President while having no plan of their own to end this disastrous conflict.

Senator Richard Blumenthal's criticisms were particularly odious. He objected to Trump's characterization of Zelensky as a dictator who was doing a "terrible job" of running the war.

"What world is he living in?" Blumenthal asked. 

[Trump's remarks were] not only contrary to the facts and the truth but utterly despicable, a disgusting betrayal of a country that has bled and fought and died for freedom. The president's surrender is pathetic and weak.

Perhaps it was therapeutic for Senator Blumenthal to insult the President, and I'm sure his hissy fit played well with progressive Democrats in New Haven. Nevertheless, what's the Connecticut Senator's plan for ending the slaughter in Ukraine?

Does Blumenthal want the U.S. to follow President Biden's strategy, which was to ship money and weapons to Zelensky in perpetuity?

Will Zelensky's corrupt and venal regime prevail if we keep sending cluster bombs, uranium-enriched artillery shells, antipersonnel mines, Abrams tanks, and F-16s to Ukraine? Or will we eventually stumble into a nuclear war?

I favor putting the Democratic Party's deranged attacks against President Trump aside for a while and supporting his efforts to stop the Ukraine war. There will be plenty of time to slander him as a Nazi after the killing stops.

Senator Blumenthal and cronies

Is Senator Elizabeth Warren auditioning to replace Gilda Radner's Emily Litella on SNL?

To paraphrase Will Rogers, when Elizabeth Warren left Oklahoma for Massachusetts, she raised the IQ of both states.

Senator Warren's unhinged rants at Robert F. Kennedy's Senate confirmation hearing should embarrass all Americans, especially Bay State voters who elected Warren to the U.S. Senate. 

In tones that were almost hysterical, Warren insinuated that Mr. Kennedy would use his cabinet appointment to enrich himself and that his public service over the years was motivated by veniality.  To his credit, Kennedy never lost his aplomb and accused Warren of trying to make him out as a shill.

Warren's shrill and gratuitously combative interrogatories at both Kennedy's confirmation hearing and Pete Hegseth's hearing were appalling and unbecoming of a U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate. 

Indeed, Warren's demeanor reminded me of Gilda Radner's Saturday Night Live character, Emily Litella, the addled and perpetually outraged busybody who raved on about topics she knew nothing about. 

"What's all this talk about youth in Asia?" Emily would ask during one of NSL's weekly paradodies of a national news program. "What's all this I hear about violins on television?"

These hilarious skits would end with the deadpan news anchor (usually played by Chevy Chase) explaining that the issue she was complaining about was violence on television, not violins; and euthanasia, not youth in Asia.

Radner's response, after being corrected, was always a congenial "Never mind."

Everyone agrees that healthcare in America is too expensive and that Americans on the whole are not as healthy as the citizens of other western countries. Moreover, actuarial statistics show that some U.S. demograhic groups are experiencing shorter life expectancies. 

RFK Jr., President Trump's pick to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has innovative ideas about how to solve these problems. Why were  Senate Democrats, with Senator Warren in the lead, so rude and dismissive? 

I would like to think Warren will eventually come to her senses about Mr. Kennedy and apologize for bullying him.  Unfortnately, unlike Emily Litella, I don't think Senator Warren will ever say "Never mind." 

Instead she will continue shaking her fists and pointing her fingers at Americans who strive to be good public servants until the people of Massachusetts have the good sense to vote her out of office.

Pete Hegseth's Senate Confirmation Hearing: Did Senator Elizabeth Warren Get Above Her Raising?

Senator Elizabeth Warren and I have three things in common. We were both born in Oklahoma and have law degrees, and neither of us is a Native American. 

I grew up in Anadarko, near where several Native tribes were settled in the late 19th century: the Comanche, Kiowa, Fort Sill Apache, Wichita, Caddo, and Delaware.  

Riverside Indian School operated a couple of miles from the city limits. In the 1890s, St. Katharine Drexel established St. Patrick's Catholic Mission to educate Native children, and the mission grounds were less than a mile from my childhood home.

Native culture was all around me. The Southern Plains Indian Museum, a federal facility, was located just outside the town, along with the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians. Our movie theatre was named The Redskin before that word became politically incorrect and had a magnificent neon marque.

It never occurred to me to try to get ahead by claiming Native American status, although I'm sure I was probably a lot closer to Native American life than Senator Warren. It would be dishonest to call myself a Kiowa or a Comanche, and it would be ridiculous to make such a claim. After all, my great-grandfather immigrated from England in the 1880s and was already married to a British woman when he arrived in America.

Senator Warren's false claim that she was a Cherokee is water under the bridge. She apologized to the Cherokees for taking a DNA test to prove her Indian ancestry, which was a commendable gesture.

I would not raise the matter if Warren hadn't acted so beastly towards Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. She and her fellow Democratic harpies repeatedly trolled through Hegseth's personal life, suggesting ad nauseam that anyone who had done what they accused Hegseth of doing was unfit to be the nation's Secretary of Defense.

I wish someone would ask Warren if a person who misrepresented her ethnicity to advance her career is fit to be a senator. 

Warren is a citizen of Massachusetts now and probably doesn't reconnect much with her Oklahoma friends and relatives. However, if she were to return to her roots, Oklahomans might remind her not to get above her raising. In other words, don't jettison the core values of your youth and childhood just to get ahead in the world.

Warren's despicable display of self-righteous hypocrisy at Hegseth's confirmation hearing may be acceptable to her Massachusetts constituency, but most Oklahomans find that kind of behavior offensive. They might ask her what good came from her Harvard connections if she forgot the rules of civility and courtesy.