Long before iPhones and YouTube, I helped the USofA win the war in Southeast Asia. Stationed in Guam, I was given charge of a room full of highly classified material. If people wanted to see the material, I made sure they had proper clearance and the material was returned, safe and sound.

When I left the service, I turned over all the classified documents and had it verified by an independent audit. Not once did I succumb to the urges of President Joe Biden to take classified documents home or pack them up in my schoolwork headed to Northern Arizona University. And, not once did I succumb to the urges of former President Donald Trump to take some “cool keepsakes” for the man cave.

I tell you all this to lay bare the sad excuses put forth by both presidents to justify the mishandling of classified material.

I chalk up Trump’s silly excuses to Trumpian hubris. He wants to blame the “deep state” for it all. But it is all on him. He should have learned this lesson in kindergarten— don’t take stuff that doesn’t belong to you.

As for Biden, he’s been caught with classified-marked material squirreled away all over the place. First discovered at his office at Penn State, then in his office at his home in Delaware and then in his garage next to his Corvette. When the FBI finally did their own search of his home over the weekend, they found even more. Some of the documents date back to his time in the Senate.

In the middle of this show of incompetence, President Biden said he has “no regrets” about how he handled classified documents.

The only way to have “no regrets” in the wake of these facts rests only in the bliss of senility. No other way to explain it.

Look, here’s the bottom line for me: As a 20-year-old sailor the government held me 100% accountable for the classified material under my care. I expect nothing less from both presidents.

EXORCISM

I will refrain from making fun of Nancy Pelosi for reportedly calling in an exorcist to her home in San Francisco to rid the place of evil spirits. People can hold whatever beliefs they may in this still-free county. I’d only wonder how Nancy holds on to the Rite of Exorcism in the Roman Catholic faith, but completely denies her role in facilitating the deaths of hundreds of thousands of babies post Roe v. Wade.

ONE MORE THING

– Being a mother is like jumping out of a plane with a bunch of people who don’t know how to open their own chutes. So you fly around doing it for them. Then you hit the ground. But you don’t die. You get up and make dinner.

— I stand behind Alec Baldwin (because it is safer).

— It can’t be explained with science, but the cup you drink your coffee out of matters.

Thanks for stopping by and for reading a Battle Born Media newspaper. As always, avoid soreheads, laugh a little, and question authority.

“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick, a Nevada Hall of Fame journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@ gmail. com.