Author: Buck Banks

A Rationale for a Shutdown

Buck Banks

“I want to be very clear about what I am saying here. Donald Trump is corrupting the government — he is using it to hound his enemies, to line his pockets and to entrench his own power. He is corrupting it the way the Mafia would corrupt the industries it controlled. You could still, under Mafia rule, get the trash picked up or buy construction materials. But the point of those industries had become the preservation and expansion of the Mafia’s power and wealth. … This is what Trump is doing to the government. This is what Democrats cannot fund. This is what they have to try to stop.”

— Ezra Klein gives Democrats the rationale for allowing a government shutdown.

An Army of Assassins

Buck Banks


About the “highest and best use of the military” there’s some confusion.
In olden times, we’d save ’em for forever wars and the occasional invasion.
But JD Vance doesn’t give a shit
If some Venezuelan civilians get hit,
‘Cause his “highest and best” military use is extraterritorial assassination.

Rand Paul Schools JD Vance on Extraterritorial Executions

Buck Banks

“JD ‘I don’t give a shit’ Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military.’ Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), on X, tearing into Vance’s defense of the U.S. military’s strike on an alleged drug vessel leaving Venezuela.

We Must Destroy Russia’s ‘War Economy’

Buck Banks

“We must ensure that Russia can no longer sustain its war economy. I am talking about economic exhaustion, which we must achieve — for example, through tariffs on those who still actively trade with Russia. And here we again come back to the United States.”

— German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called Russian President Vladimir Putin “perhaps the most serious war criminal of our time,” while warning against appeasing him, TVP World reports.