TRUMP PART 1

Hello again. It has been a while. I haven’t posted a story on my blog for over 4 months. If you thought about my absence at all you may have wondered if I had just given up. I haven’t. I needed some time for reflection.

Another reason for my lack of enthusiasm about writing in the last few months is that I was out of commission with a bad case of the flu for quite a while. Anti-biotics seems to have cleared that up.

Like many others I was totally floored by the election of Donald Trump in the US. I wondered about writing about this complete asshole. After all, I’ve never received any comments pro or con on things I’ve written in the past about American politics. Putting together a story on Trump wasn’t easy. He has said and done so many awful things over the years it impossible to cram them all into a story. I ended up with over 40 pages on Trump and decided to break it into two parts.

I know that many of my readers prefer stories about growing up in Montreal 60 years ago. I still have a few of those to tell and I plan to post one in the next few months about the close to 2 years I spent at Weredale House, which was also known as The Boy’s Home of Montreal, in the early 1960s. I’ve put it off for years now. The time has come.

The following is my general writing plan for 2017….

#1 up next is story comparing the Canadian and American healthcare systems. I think I’ll stay away from writing about politics after this submission for the rest of the year.

#2 is a story about the decline in the interest in folk music.

#3 will be a story about my time at Weredale House in Montreal.

#4 is about some remembrances of the small town of Gull Lake, Saskatchewan where I got married in 1981, the same weekend as Chuck and Di.

Thanks for reading my “stuff”.

The American Election

Hillary Clinton

It is hard to estimate how many Americans voted for Hillary Clinton simply because she wasn’t Donald Trump. No matter which way one cuts it, it was a lot. Although she lost the election and the electoral vote 306-232 to Trump, she did receive close to 3 million more votes than Trump did.

There are lots of reasons why the majority of Americans don’t like Hillary Clinton. Just her being a Democrat is more than enough for most Republicans. Her base seems to have been the Democratic Party establishment (the money raisers) and a number of older women and some younger women who wanted to see a woman become president in their lifetimes.

The sad truth is that she wasn’t very inspiring to most men. Her pant suit wardrobe looked tired and dated. When she raised her voice in speeches she sounded like a scold. She came across as someone who was out of touch with the times and not at all authentic. Often when she was at a rally she would wave enthusiastically at someone off camera in the crowd. You knew she was connecting with someone with influence and not just some average person. Some older Democrat women liked to tie men's dislike of Hillary to sexism. The fact is a lot of those men would have voted for Elizabeth Warren in a heartbeat.

Hillary voted for the war in Iraq and it took her forever to come around on gay marriage. Over the years it never seemed that she was capable of forming opinions herself without testing the waters. She was always consistent in her support of women’s rights but that is just one issue.

There was never any doubt that Hillary and her husband had used their political careers to secure their financial independence. Most in her party didn’t mind her and Bill being paid millions for writing books. It was the selling out to Wall Street and Corporate America that bothered them. The fact that she wouldn’t reveal what was in the private speeches she had given was chilling. It turned out that she was presenting herself in different ways to different people. She certainly wasn’t the populist she claimed to be.

The Benghazi stuff that the Republicans dragged her through was pure bullshit but her usage of private e-mails to conduct government business mixed with personal matters was sheer arrogance. She thought she was above certain protocols.

The Democratic primaries became a race between Hillary and the avowed socialist Bernie Sanders. It wasn’t quite the cakewalk she expected. She won 34 contests and received close to 17 million votes. Sanders won 23 contests and received just over 13 million votes. Perhaps the most notable statistic was that that Hillary won the nomination with only 55% of the popular Democratic vote, not exactly a resounding endorsement.

Up until Hillary got the nomination there was very little of anything new that she was offering other than a general continuation of Obama’s policies. When Bernie started picking up states the writing was on the wall. There were shades of Obama becoming more popular than her 4 years before.

Bernie Sanders

The chairperson of the Democratic National Committee was a woman named Debbie Wasserman Shultz. As a congresswoman from Florida, she voted against medical marijuana and stricter regulations for pay day loan lenders. She was no liberal. It was pretty obvious to the Bernie Sanders’s wing of the party that she wasn’t impartial and favoured Hillary Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton locked up the Democratic nomination but knew that without the Bernie voters she didn’t stand a chance of becoming president. Many Bernie supporters vowed to stay home or vote for an independent. Some of them did.

Hillary Clinton realized that she was going to have to do some adapting to appease Bernie’s followers. Debbie Wasserman Shultz was removed from her position in the Democratic Party and replaced by Donna Brazile who was certainly not a progressive.

Instead of picking a progressive as her running mate to appease the 13 million that had voted for Bernie, Hillary chose the forgettable moderate Tim Kaine. She did, however, start adopting some of Bernie Sander’s platform.

Hillary Clinton grew up in a Republican family. She once worked for Republican presidential hopeful Barry Goldwater. Social issues in the 1960s changed her political allegiances. Bill Clinton was first elected governor of Arkansas in 1983 and for the last 33 years Hillary, including her time as senator and Secretary of State, has been a political animal spending most of her time with political wonks and the powerful within the Democratic Party.

The Clintons at Trump's wedding.

In a lot of ways she is a traditionalist and thinks in terms of the way things used to be. Here’s an example. At 69 years of age she recalls going to college and at one point taking out a college loan. Back in those days a summer job and living at home could get a student a basic college degree. Tuition was often less than $1000.00 a year. Today the average cost per year for tuition alone is over $12,000.00 a year.

Bernie Sanders’s plan was to provide free tuition for a basic 4 year degree. Hillary’s plan was to reduce interest charges on college loans. The current US student loan debt is 1.3 trillion dollars. She just doesn’t get it.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had 3 debates and by most accounts she won them all. At that point it looked like it would be smooth sailing for her on her path to the presidency. There were, however, a few flies in the ointment. Trump and the Republicans had painted her as being a congenital liar and many in her own party felt the same way. WikiLeaks hacked the National Democratic headquarters and there was a constant drip of behind the scenes petty infighting in the Democratic Party. Anyone who was impartial had to wonder why the Republican headquarters wasn’t also hacked.

It soon became quite evident that the Russians were interfering in the US election. There was no way Hillary was ever going to cozy up to Putin and the Russians. Trump was another matter. 17 US intelligence agencies claimed that not only had the Russians interfered with the US election aimed at Hillary Clinton but they also spread disinformation and created “fake” news.

Right wing websites were also making up shit. They were still making up crap even after the election was over. Perhaps one of the wildest claims was that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor in Washington, DC. One day a Trump follower turned up at the pizza joint with a gun and fired off several shots.

Traditionally in the US, employees and directors of the FBI and the CIA do not voice their political viewpoints. Employees of these agencies are not tied to political wins and losses and many serve a number of presidents.

About 2 weeks before the election, the FBI director, James Comey, a Republican, took it upon himself to hold a press conference to state that the file on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails was not closed and she was still under investigation because the FBI hadn’t yet reviewed the e-mails that were sent and received by her chief of staff. The FBI is not supposed to inform the American public about who they are investigating. A week later Comey cleared Mrs. Clinton but the doubts and the damage was done. It just made more people distrust her honesty.

The Big Night

There is a 3 hour time difference between the east coast and the west coast of the US. The first projections in the election were called at about 7:30 pm EST. The small state of Vermont went to Clinton and Kentucky went to Trump. West Virginia, where they had been promised a revival of the coal industry by Trump, also went for Trump. At about 8 p.m. Clinton picked up Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. At about 9 p.m. EST Trump picked up North Dakota and the huge Republican state of Texas. At 9:30 p.m. EST 7 swing states were too close to call including Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio.

Other uncertain states at 9:30 P.m. EST included Virginia, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin,Minnesota, Nevada, and Utah. The first real shock came at about 10:20 p.m. EST. Ohio, a larger state, went for Trump. Shortly after 11:00 p.m. EST Virginia went for Clinton, easing the pain of the Dem loss of Ohio a bit. It was short lived victory for Clinton as Florida also went to Trump moments later. The writing was on the wall.

By 11:15 p.m. EST Trump had received 222 electoral votes. He only needed 48 more electoral votes to become president. 3 states were going to make the difference in who would be the next president, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. At about 11:30 p.m. EST Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania had dwindled to less than 2,000 votes and less than 20,000 votes in Michigan. It was too little and too late for the Dems.

Tears could be seen on the faces of people at planned Democratic victory parties. Very few Democrats or Republicans expected this result never mind almost all of the political pundits. Trump’s followers were over the moon. They had battled the political establishment in both parties and won. It was soon going to be pay-back time.

Trump ended up with 306 electoral votes to Hillary’s 232. That’s a margin of 74 electoral votes. Hillary lost Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by a total of 80,000 votes. Had she won those states she would have been president. Those 3 states were worth 46 electoral votes. Trump’s total of 306 electoral votes less 46 electoral votes would have amounted to electoral 260 votes. Hillary’s 232 electoral votes plus 46 electoral votes would have amounted to 278 electoral votes. She needed 270 electoral votes to win.

Donald Trump

A Few Notes On The Biggest American Con Artist Of All Time

One thing most Americans can agree on is that there has never been anyone like Donald Trump in American politics. He certainly is different things to different people. Nobody in American politics has ever provided the public with such outlandish statements and opinions.

There are many things that Trump has said over the years that would have cratered any other politician. Many have tried to figure out what makes him tick and how he thinks. What some would see as childish and petty, others see as unfiltered honesty. Honest he isn't.

Here are some of my thoughts about Trump.

#1  Just Why Did Trump Decide To Run For President?

He will be 71 years of age in a few months. Everyone at his age is aware of their mortality. There are not a lot of folks in their older years who have hang gliding as a hobby. Trump knows he only has so many years left. Like a lot of other old farts he has a lot of opinions and believes he has the answers to everything.

Trump has known fame for most of his adult life. He deeply needs to be acknowledged and desperately wants to prove that he is smarter than everyone else. He demands respect and nothing makes him angrier than when he doesn’t get it and he is angry a lot of the time.

The golf courses, the luxury hotels, the branding of his name, were old hat in some ways. To a large extent, his kids were looking after those enterprises. Americans could avoid him and his business endeavors if they chose to if he had remained a civilian but they couldn’t avoid him if he was president. What he could now do and say could have a lot of impact on the lives of everyone in the US and in other countries around the world. By becoming president there was now no way that they could deny him the attention he desperately craves.

Another thing that should be remembered is that Trump doesn’t drink or smoke. Aside from business and golf his main other interest as an adult was chasing attractive women, mostly models from Eastern Europe, and getting laid. Those days are long gone. He hasn’t got game anymore. His looks are gone. He hasn’t got that to sell and as result he has decided to get his ego flattered in other ways.

#2 Intimidation Using Lawyers

Trump is a NYC guy. Back in the “disco” days of the 1970s and early 1980s one of Trump’s best friends was a New York Lawyer named Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn was a “fuck you” kind of guy. Back in the 1950s he was Senator Joe McCarthy’s red baiting right hand man. That McCarthy was shamed and shunned by his own party didn’t bother Cohn at all.  Cohn taught Trump to never admit to be wrong and to never apologize for anything in life, ever. He also showed Trump how the threat of a lawsuit could wither adversaries. Over the years Trump would use lawyers on many occasions to wear out those he had disputes with. Before he died in 1986 of AIDS, Cohn personally handled a number of Trump’s court suits including one against the federal government for over 100 million dollars.

Trump and Roy Cohn, McCarthy and Roy Cohn

In his lifetime, Trump has been sued over 3,500 times. That’s a lot. Most people who sue do so as a last resort. Once lawyers are involved the people that are doing the suing, even if they win, are never going to get anything near 100% of what they are owed. Lawyers always take a huge cut. Whether they win or lose their cases they still lose.

In 1990 Trump and his first wife, Ivana, were mixed up in a messy divorce. She filed a deposition claiming that Trump had forcibly raped her and pulled out some of her hair in 1989. She later recanted. In 1993 a guy named Harry Hurt published a book about Trump called “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives Of Donald Trump”. At the time, Trump was experiencing financial setbacks and wasn’t the big deal he is today. Not a lot of people read the book even though Hurt wrote about the rape in detail. Trump threatened to sue Hurt but he never did. One would think that suing a person who falsely accused them of rape would be an easy slam dunk.

Early in Trump’s presidential campaign the story about the rape came up again briefly. Trump’s lawyers claimed that a man can’t be charged with raping his wife in the state of New York. This isn’t true. They also threatened to sue into oblivion anyone in the media who repeated the rape story. It worked. The story has never been mentioned or referenced on any television program since.

Trump’s present wife, Melania, is currently suing the British owned newspaper, The Daily Mailer, for 150 million dollars for their printing that she was once a paid escort (prostitute). Her lawyer is the same lawyer used by Trump’s pal and tech billionaire Peter Thiel to sue into bankruptcy the website Gawker.

#3 No American Politician Has Told As Many Lies As Trump

Well before Trump’s first speech in his presidential run where he lied and claimed Mexico was sending rapists to the US, Trump was publicly lying about many other things. He has never stopped. The problem is that he tells so many lies it is hard to remember them all. Lying Ted and Lying Hillary couldn’t hold a candle to him.

Here’s a bit of a refresher….

-He claimed to have won the most electoral votes since Ronald Reagan. Bush Jr., Bill Clinton, and Barak Obama all received more electoral votes than Trump.

-He claimed Hillary Clinton gave 20% of the US’s uranium to the Russians. Canada owns the rights to 20% of the US’s uranium and Mrs. Clinton had nothing to do with the transaction.

-He took credit for Wal-Mart creating 10,000 jobs when that decision was made in October 2016. Almost all of the jobs are very low paying.

-He repeatedly criticized Obama for playing golf and said when he was president he wouldn’t touch a golf club. Trump played golf 6 times in his first 30 days in office.

-Claimed illegal voters were bussed into New Hampshire on election day. Not true.

-Claimed the US murder rate is the highest it has been in 47 years. The reality is it is near historic lows.

-Claimed that the delay in having his whole cabinet in place is the longest in US history because of stalling tactics by the Dems. Obama didn’t have his first cabinet in place until the end of April 2009.

-Made it sound like Obama and the US government gave a gift to Iran of 150 billion dollars when the truth was that it was Iranian money frozen in American bank accounts.

-Claimed to be against the war in Iraq from the beginning. He didn’t have anything bad to say about the war until 17 months after it started.

-Claimed 3 million illegals voted in the election. Not true.

-Claimed he had been on the cover of Time Magazine more than anyone else. Trump was on 15 covers, Nixon 55 covers.

-Claimed he had the biggest crowd ever at his inauguration. It wasn’t even close to Obama’s first win.

-Claimed Muslims partied on rooftops in New Jersey after 9/11. Not true.

-Claimed he never said Japan should also have nuclear weapons. Not true.

-Denied he mocked a disabled reporter. The tape says he lied.

-Claimed Hillary wanted to abolish the 2^nd Amendment. Not true.

-Claimed Hillary invented ISIS with her stupid policies. ISIS predated Mrs. Clinton's time as Secretary of State.

-Claimed the US is the highest taxed nation in the world. Not true.

-Claimed 93 million Americans were out of work. Not true.

This is just a brief example of the hundreds of lies Trump has told the American public in the last 2 years.

#4 Trump The Businessman Who IS Going To Save America?

Americans are never going to know how successful Trump has been in business because he won’t let anyone see his tax returns.

There is, however, evidence that he wrote off losses of close to 1 billion dollars in 1 year and by his own admission was at one point over 3 billion dollars in debt. The record shows that he ran all kinds of businesses that failed including his casinos in Atlantic City. It got so bad that no American bank would lend him any money.

His whole business career has evolved around providing some kind of luxury for the very wealthy including very expensive hotels and products. Nothing in his world, including those who he spends time with, has any connection to middle class America never mind the poor. He has no history of being charitable at all in his life. Everything has always been about him alone and his quest for more wealth.

Now, in his early seventies, he is a man of the people?

He has a long history of screwing around those he has done business with. Basically what he has done is steal money from them. He calls it negotiating. If other people had handled their finances the way he has in not paying his debts, they would have found a bailiff’s notice on their residence and tow truck in the driveway.

These days Trump doesn’t finance the buildings anymore, other people do and Trump’s management team runs the place after having his name slapped on the place.The buildings Trump puts his name on can take more than a year to build. Architects, engineers, and labourers are the folks who actually do the building. When the job is completed Trump and his kids turn up for the ribbon cutting. The architect usually doesn’t participate in the ribbon cutting and Trump and his kids give themselves all of the credit.

Trump is so full of shit businesswise that he takes credit for writing a book called The Art Of The Deal like it is the bible for successful business people. He didn’t write the friggin book, a ghostwriter did who later condemned Trump as a petty person who couldn’t concentrate on anything.

Forbes Magazine estimates Trump’s current wealth to be about 3 billion dollars and not the 10 billion he claims. A number of his buildings, including the one he lives in, have lost some of their value in the past year.

#5 The Out Of Control Egomaniac

In the game of poker there is something called “the tell” where one player can pick up on another player’s idiosyncrasies. Donald Trump is like a cornucopia of “tells”, most of which are very childlike. We don’t often see a grown man pout but Trump does. It is one thing to disagree with others but Trump stoops to name calling and cruel descriptions of those he doesn’t like including mocking their appearances. If he finds a perceived weakness in someone he doesn’t like he will relentlessly bully that person. What grown adult does that? He can’t stop bragging about himself and often takes credit for things he had no significant part in. Sometimes, when most of the country is sleeping, he is tweeting away demanding attention. He needs an immediate reaction. He also has an extremely short attention span and often gets into rants not related to the topic at hand. One of his most notable traits is his vindictiveness. He sincerely wants to hurt those he dislikes. He rarely is one to move on and avoid the petty unless of course those he has conquered are willing to bow and scrape. Even then, he often needs to humiliate them one more time as he did with Mitt Romney.

Romney and Trump

Trump is more of a lazy person than he is stupid. He has no desire to deal with the complex at all and there are many complexities in the world. He is quite willing to live his life connecting the dots and erasing them when they aren’t convenient. He is like the poster boy for narcissism. It’s me, me, me, 24 hours a day.

How Did Trump Ever Manage to Become President?

First of all he had a distinct advantage over the competition in his own party. He had years and years of being media savvy. Whether you liked him or not he was often must see TV because he was totally unpredictable. One way or another he was guaranteed to shock his audience. Other Republican presidential aspirants paled in comparison. When he was with them on stage he was always the center of attention. They didn’t stand a chance.

It’s not a big secret who makes up most of the Republican Party. It’s right wing Christians, gun lovers, people who consider any form of socialism to be communism, racists, White Supremacists, and a number of people from small town and rural America who dislike big city liberals who they consider to be snobs.

There are something like 90 million Evangelicals and about 72 million Catholics in the US. That’s almost half the population. Almost all Evangelicals are Republicans and about half of Catholics are Republicans and most are for one specific reason, abortion. They simply won’t vote for any politician who is pro-choice, period.

When Trump was running for president he did what many other Republican presidential hopefuls have done in the past. He pretended to be a religious person even though he had no personal history of ever being religious. 3 marriages? Meetings were set up with the Evangelical leaders at Trump’s penthouse and he visited Jerry Falwell University. He got the Evangelical votes and they got to see the nomination of a right wing Supreme Court judge who could be instrumental in seeing Roe v Wade overturned and the end of legalized abortions in the US.

Trump stoked the fears of NRA members claiming that the Democrats wanted to take their guns away even though Democrats have never attempted to do that. What Trump was doing was fomenting divisive politics, us and them.

Trump recognized that racism is still a big component in America. He is a racist himself. While it is true that outspoken racists are not around in big numbers, they still influence millions of others. For some, being an outright racist can be bad for business. Nobody wants to lose half of their customers because of their racist beliefs. It’s much easier for them to let somebody else be their spokesman.

So…Trump had the anti-abortionists, the NRA, the anti-socialists, and the racists clearly behind him. Altogether they still didn’t amount to enough people to get him elected.

Trump decided early on in his presidential run that he was also going to represent “the forgotten Americans”, the people that were living mostly in Middle America, many of whom had seen plants closed near where they lived and well-paying jobs lost. Trump was going to protect them and make things right again.

Abandoned plant.

None of gullible who bought this horseshit ever seemed to wonder that it was other very rich men like Trump who had sent their jobs overseas in the first place. Still, without these people, Trump would never have become president.

What Were The Main Concerns of The American Voter, Including  Democrats, Republicans, and Independents?

I found this list somewhere on the net a few months ago and wrote it down.

-The economy.

-Terrorism.

-Foreign policy.

-Health care.

-Gun policy.

-Immigration.

-Social Security.

-Education.

-Supreme Court nominations.

-Treatment of minorities.

-Trade policies.

-The environment.

-Abortion.

Some of these main concerns were shared by all voters while others were more in line with political parties. For instance, Republicans tend to be more concerned about immigration while Democrats tend to be more concerned about the environment.

What Were The Major Promises That Trump Made?

Much of what Trump wants to do will require billions and billions of dollars including building the wall, expanding the military, and rebuilding the US infrastructure. Who is going to pay for it when he plans to slash taxes? The obvious place to find some of the money is by cutting entitlement programs and other services provided to the American public by the federal government.

#1 Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.

The estimated cost of the wall is somewhere around between 15 and 25 billion dollars. About 34 million Mexicans and Americans cross the border every year through customs. Those that walk into the US across dessert like areas are a small % of those that enter the US illegally. The US has a huge appetite for Mexican drugs. Most of those drugs come into the US hidden in vehicles.

#2 Get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something “terrific” that is much less expensive.

Before Obamacare, otherwise known as the ACA (Affordable Healthcare Act), insurers could sell virtually worthless plans to those that were hard pressed to come up with the money to pay for insurance. The huge co-pays and deductibles made these plans unusable for the most part.

People who bought their own insurance could be turned away by the insurers if they had -pre-conditions. Many insurance policies had lifetime caps on how much money they would fork out. Children over the age of 21 couldn't be covered by parent's policies.

Most Americans get their healthcare insurance through their employer. The next big group is mostly older people, disabled people, and single mothers receiving Medicaid or Medicare,  Obamacare was set up to cover self-employed people who aren’t part of group buying power, younger people who are buying insurance for the first time, poorer people, and those that the insurance companies wouldn’t provide their services to due to pre-existing conditions.

Every Republican in the Senate and the House has voted to repeal Obamacare over and over again. It’s political philosophy kind of thing. They see Obamacare as creeping socialism from the left with the idea that it would morph into single payer, something the insurance companies don’t want.

The #1 reason for personal bankruptcy in the US is not being able to pay medical bills. The many grief-ridden stories of people suffering because of lack of complete medical coverage leaves most Republicans as cold as a stone. They have their ideology that they aren’t going to break with. Many Republicans also want to erase any trace of Obama ever being president.

A Republican congress has had more than 6 years to come up with an alternative to Obamacare. Whatever it is that they eventually decide on, if implemented, millions of Americans are going to feel a lot more pain in their lives.

#3 Rebuild the country’s aging infrastructure.

Trump wants 1 trillion dollars to rebuild the US infrastructure. On the surface it is a good idea but is should have been implemented 8 years ago but most Republicans wanted no part of it partly because they didn’t want Obama to get credit for it.

There is almost no chance of a Republican congress being willing to add the cost to the national debt. Cutting social programs seems far more likely a way of finding part of the funding. Chances are that an infrastructure program will not help much as far as employment goes in rural areas and small towns. Most of the rebuilding needs to be done in larger cities.

The US is going to find itself with a lot of more toll highways and roads run by private enterprises.

#4 Protect America from Terrorism.

Close to 99% of Americans killed in the US by foreign terrorists died on 9/11. Recently Trump tried to put a temporary stoppage of people coming to America, for whatever reason, from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Sudan. No terrorists from any of these countries have ever killed anyone in the US.  Even including 9/11, Americans have less than 1 in 3 billion people chance of being killed by a terrorist from these countries. Chances of falling out of bed and dying are greater.

#5 Strengthening the military.

Trump plans on spending billions on the military including many new nukes. Currently the US has about 3700 nukes. To put this into perspective, if only 100 US nukes were used, the fallout would block out the sun for decades and the earth’s temperature would rapidly decrease. That’s just for starters.

The US currently spends close to 600 billion dollars on the military each year and Trump wants to add another 54 billion to that number.

The UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Russia, North Korea, and the US all have their own nukes. Belgium, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, and Turkey all share nuclear weapons.

North Korea is a rogue state run by an insane guy. There is no way the US ever wants to go toe to toe with this country because their leader is crazy enough to start pushing buttons.

Russia and China are two other countries that the US doesn’t want to mess with. The Russians know they can do whatever they want in Ukraine and Crimea and that the US isn’t going to step in. For the time being China is more interested in exporting products they make to the US and other countries than they are in taking over other countries.

It is not in the US’s best interest that all Americans have good well-paying jobs. Many in the armed forces are there purely based on economics. Without these financially challenged soldiers the US would be forced to implement a draft.

There isn’t a lot of enthusiasm from most Americans to get the US involved in new wars. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Viet Nam for that matter, didn’t end well. Basically Trump’s spending an additional 54 billion dollars on the military is about trying to scare other countries. People in war torn countries could give a crap about another new US aircraft carrier.

#6 Wipe out ISIS.

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. They are mostly spread out over Africa, The Middle East, and Asia. Only a small % of them are radicalized but that small % is a significant number. It is possible to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq but even if that happens there are a number of other countries they can go to including Yemen and Somalia.

The reality is that Muslims are deeper into their religious beliefs than American Christians are. Christians don’t set aside time to pray 5 times a day like many Muslims do. Less than 50% of American Christians attend church each week.

There are radical Muslims who are willing to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs by strapping a bomb to their bodies. It is virtually unheard of for a Christian to do the same thing.

Every time Trump craps on Muslims in general or innocent Muslim civilians are killed by American forces in their home countries, the hatred for Americans and the West expands.

#6 Drain the swamp in Washington, DC.

Trump loaded up on billionaires, big Republican donors with agendas, and Wall Street brokers to make up his cabinet. He also brought in a number of aggressive generals. This is hardly draining the swamp.

#7 Bring jobs back from China, Mexico, and elsewhere.

The export of American jobs didn’t start in the last few years. It has been going on for 3 decades at least. Some American companies like Apple never manufactured their products in the US. It’s a bottom line thing for Corporate America. Overseas workers can be hired for a fraction of what American workers are paid and without having to pay any costly benefits.

The average monthly job growth rate when Obama was in office was over 100K per month. More and more jobs are temporary contracts and part time work. It isn’t just the number of jobs that are created it is how much they pay.

What Trump never talks about is how jobs have shifted from one US State to another and driven down wages. For example, Tennessee is the US’s 6^th poorest state. Mechanic technicians who work in auto plants in Tennessee average 38K per year in pay. That probably isn’t bad for workers who were without jobs for years, but it is nowhere near the average US household income of 52K.

Another thing Trump never addresses when it comes to jobs is the fact that automation is going to replace more and more jobs in the coming years.

Trump made a big to do about stopping Carrier from shipping jobs to Mexico. The reality is he only prevented some Carrier jobs from going south, for the time being.

#8 Grow the nation’s economy by at least 6%.

6% is a pretty big stretch. Rebuilding the US infrastructure will certainly create more jobs but most of those jobs will be temporary and not long term. If per chance the economy grew by 6% where would that profitability go? The obvious answer is most of it would go to Corporate America and their shareholders. Raising wages is never something Republicans encourage. The proof is that the stock market has been soaring for years now yet wages have hardly increased.

#9 Reduce the 19 trillion dollar national debt.

This one is easy. You can’t cut taxes all over the place and have enough tax revenue to pay for all the things Trump plans to do.

#10 Get rid of The Consumer Protection Act.

Just how much proof does the American public need that Corporate America, and for that matter small businesses, are quite capable of swindling them? Aside from the major US banks having to get bailed out in 2008 with public tax dollars, they have been fined billions of dollars since then for illegal practices with not one person going to jail.

American car manufacturers and foreign car makers in the US have frequently buried serious faults in their vehicles. Many mining operations are operated in unsafe conditions. The list goes on and on.

What could go wrong if there were no protections against these bastards at all? A lot!

#11 Reduce the corporate tax to 15% and cut personal taxes on the wealthy.

The record shows that Corporate America has been making record profits over the last 6 years and more and more wealth has gone to the top 1% while working people have not seen any financial benefit. It is a bit confusing to hear Republicans complaining about taxes being a huge roadblock to prosperity when Corporate America has been making money hand over fist.

A number of American corporations don’t pay any taxes at all and certainly none pay the 35% current rate. Tax accountants have a number of ways to reduce taxes on wealthier Americans.

The Reagan idea of "trickle down economics" has never worked. Anyone who believes it has, is simply an idiot.

UP NEXT:

Trump Part 2

The Trump rogues gallery cabinet, his inner circle, the Russian connection, and all the scary stuff from Trump and company since he was inaugurated.

I expect to have Part 2 posted in 7-10 days.

Once again, thanks for reading my stuff.