In a vulgar and dreadful confection of cowardice and delusion, President Donald Trump last night at the national podium spoke again about awarding himself the Congressional Medal of Honor, desecrating the particular and patriotic sacrifice of men and women who fight for, and have fought for, America.

"I've always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I'm not allowed to give it myself... If they ever open up that law, I'll be there with you someday," he told 100-year-old Medal of Honor recipient Capt. E. Royce Williams.

The President made his comments during the State of the Union speech, as masked men with guns under the direction of his Department of Homeland Security, kill First Amendment-exercising Americans in the streets, just days after Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch - a Trump appointee to the court - wrote an opinion reining in unconstitutional presidential power exercised by Trump.

“Suppose for argument’s sake that Congress can delegate its tariff powers to the President as completely as Justice Thomas suggests,” Gorsuch wrote. “Even then, the question remains whether Congress has given the President the tariff authority he claims in this case — or whether the President is seeking to exploit questionable statutory language to aggrandize his own power.”

Trump's ugly remark about giving himself the Congressional Medal of Honor - an affront to Congressional Medal of Honor winner John Basilone of Raritan (pictured, above), and other heroes like him, sparked nervous laughter in the congressional chamber even among the President's supporters.

It's not the first time Trump has spoken of bestowing the award on himself.

“I decided to go to Iraq. I was extremely brave. So brave in fact that I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said in Georgia last week, per footage published by ABC News 4. “I said to my people, ‘Am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor?’”

"I wanted to give myself the medal of honor."

By these words alone, expressed with the apparent admission that he needed others to

intervene, Trump - whose MAGA followers stormed and desecrated the United States Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021, resulting in the death of Officer Brian Sicknick of New Jersey, and subsequently received a pardon from him, 1,500 of them, committed a sacrilege against every uniform-wearing hero of this country. And it's another desecrating and demented habit of his, along with abusing power, enriching himself in office, and covering up the Epstein Files.

This bone-spur addled person's lackeys renamed the Kennedy Center after him, thereby denigrating an edifice originally honoring a war hero president.

Don't ever forget this report from The Atlantic:

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

And don't ever forget this: Trump on the campaign trail in July 2015 saying of then-U.S. Senator John McCain, “He’s not a war hero. ...I like people who weren’t captured.”

President Trump should apologize to these people, and to their memory, but of course he won't, because he can't, having never learned a fundamental life lesson, expressed in the book Faith of My Fathers, by Senator McCain, who wrote, “Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles. No misfortune, no injury, no humiliation can destroy it."

Thankfully, America last night had people out there - New Jerseyans, in fact, who understand, who fight for the country, starting with Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who delivered an eloquent Democratic rebuttal to Trump.

A veteran of law enforcement, and a native of Red Bank, Spanberger chose to make the focus of her speech the people of America, not herself.

“Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe, both at home and abroad? Is the president working for you?” she asked, speaking from Williamsburg, Virginia.

From Politico:

The governor contrasted Trump’s record with the Democratic brand, pointing to her own election, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s victory and other Democratic wins in downballot races over the past 12 months.

“Those who are stepping up now to run will win in November, because Americans, you at home, know you can demand more and that we are working to lower costs,” she said. “We are working to keep our communities and our country safe, and we are working for you.”

Speaking of November, Rebecca Bennett of New Jersey, a retired Navy helicopter pilot, in point of fact, wants to flip the CD-7 battleground district currently occupied by Trump apologist U.S. Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. (R-7).

Then there's Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a native of West Orange, New Jersey, who spoke with NBC News’ Tom Llamas about his decision to attend the State of the Union address, "saying he has an obligation, despite other members of his party choosing to boycott. Kelly recently faced pressure from the Trump administration, which sought his indictment over a video in which he and other Democratic lawmakers urged troops to defy orders that may be illegal."

Said Kelly in that interview:

"I think everybody has to make their own choice [about attending the State of the Union]. I made the decision to be in that room [because] three weeks ago this guy tried to indict me and send me to jail. If things worked out for him, I might be sitting in a jail cell right now. I want to show him that he failed. I'm there doing my job. I'm going to listen to every word he says."

We could go on, and on - and even as Kelly decided to attend the speech, U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12) didn't, and made her own statement, alongside her guest, Nedia Morsy, executive director of Make the Road New Jersey.

“Trump’s billionaire first agenda is fooling no one,” Morsy said outside the U.S. Capitol. “Trump is making cuts to healthcare to funnel billions to ICE and surveillance contracts for companies like Palantir. In the face of such blatant greed and hatred, the American people couldn't be clearer - we stand united for an economy that delivers for all of us and a country where we protect our neighbors.”

Governor Mikie Sherrill reinforced and fortified precisely that critical front in the face of Trump's police state designs on the country and on New Jersey.

From Fox News:

The Justice Department [on Monday] filed a lawsuit against New Jersey and Democratic Gov. Sherrill, accusing the state of expanding its sanctuary policies and obstructing federal immigration enforcement through a new executive order.

The complaint, filed Monday, challenges Executive Order No. 12, which prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal immigration officials from conducting secure arrests of criminal illegal aliens inside nonpublic areas of state property, including state correctional facilities.

Said Governor Sherrill - a Navy military veteran - in response to the suit:

"The Trump administration would be better served training its ICE agents to follow the law than wasting taxpayer dollars suing New Jersey for taking measures to strengthen public safety."

Amen.

Because agents behind masks who shoot and kill Americans at point blank range aren't well trained.

But then Trump's the guy who advocated rougher treatment of people in police custody during a 2017 speech in New York, drawing applause, and of course, now he's too busy dreaming, in deranged public fashion, about how to award himself the Congressional Medal of Honor, as he prepares to take the country to war against Iran, and his Attorney General gushes publicly about the greatest president in history while her Justice Department, according to an NPR investigation, "withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor."