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.

November 8th, 2016….The Day America Proves That It Isn’t A Totally Insane Country

I just managed to squeeze this piece under the wire. Tomorrow there will be a lot of fingers crossed around the world.

November 8th.....Boy was I ever wrong. I was counting on 55% of Americans not being totally fucking nuts!

 

By the time you read this the US election will probably have already happened. My prediction is Hillary Clinton will win with about 330 electoral votes, 60 more than the 270 she would need to become president. Millions of Americans on the right will be very pissed off. I also believe that the Democrats will retake The Senate by 2  seats. Congress will still be controlled by the Republicans and they will do anything they can to make things uncomfortable for Mrs. Clinton. They may even try to impeach her.

What The Last Republican President, George W. Bush, And The Republican Party Did To America

Donald Trump and other Republicans have predicted that the US will come apart at the seams if Hillary is elected. Their followers agree. Obama will be leaving office with a popularity rating of around 55% after 8 years in office. George W. Bush had a popularity rating of 32% when he left office and no Republican wanted to be seen with him when the 2012 election was held.

Many Americans have short memories when it comes to the George Bush Jr. years. He went to war with Afghanistan and Iraq when all but 1 of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia. The invasion of Iraq was based on bullshit that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The total cost of the wars is somewhere between 4 and 6 trillion and it was just added on to the US national debt. On the insistence of Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, Bush had the Iraqi army disbanded and without jobs they formed Al Qaeda which later morphed into ISIS.

Bush introduced tax cuts for the very wealthy and corporate America that they didn’t need. Between this loss of government revenue, spending on Homeland Security, and the huge costs of the wars, Bush increased the US national debt by over 100%, about 5.7 trillion dollars in his time in office. He also left a legacy of continued debt for things like the costs of taking care of the wounded and psychologically damaged war veterans. Bush also introduced something called Medicaid Part D that wasn’t funded.

Bush put a guy named Michael Brown in charge of a federal department called FEMA. FEMA was responsible for helping people out who had been hit by natural disasters. Brown’s previous experience had been in breeding Arabian horses. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and FEMA’s response to it was slow and mostly ineffective.

The real shit hit the fan in 2008, Bush’s last year in office. Republicans have always believed in as few regulations as possible when it comes to business. The stock market crashed, the major banks had to be bailed out because of risky practices, major US auto makers were teetering on bankruptcy, hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs and many also lost their homes. It was the greatest US economic downturn since the Great Depression.

 

Obama And Repairing America

When Obama became president the US in 2009 the country was hemorrhaging over 100,000 jobs a month. The banks and the auto makers had to be bailed out. Fixing the US economy was not something that could be done instantly. There were huge costs including extending unemployment benefits. During Obama’s close to 8 years in office more than 9 million new jobs were created.  Unemployment is now under 5%. The US is now almost oil independent. US car companies have seen record sales. The stock market has gone through the roof. More than 20 million more Americans now have health care coverage. On top of all this the US national debt has been decreased by 1 trillion dollars.

What hasn’t seen dramatic increases are worker’s pay cheques. No president can force businesses to pay their employees more nor can they prevent corporations from shipping jobs overseas.

Obama had to work with one arm behind his back. For the last 6 years Republicans have controlled Congress and for the last 2 years they have controlled the Senate. One would be hard pressed to think of 1 thing the Republican Party has done for the middle class or the poor in the US. Perhaps Medicaid Part D but then again it wasn’t funded. Republicans are against bills about increasing the minimum wage or equal pay for women. A number of Superior Court seats have been left empty for years because Republicans refuse to accept a Democratic president’s nominees. One of the biggest roadblocks the Republicans have laid out is the refusal to consider a bill where the federal government would invest in the rebuilding of the US infrastructure. One would think that would be a no brainer considering interest rates have never been lower. It would work for the private sector in providing goods and services and employ millions more people for at least a decade, many in areas of the country where good jobs are hard to find.

Obama pulled most of the US troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. He also had Bin Laden killed, something that George W. Bush became disinterested in doing. The US armed forces no longer have to try to hide body bags coming back to their shores. Gay soldiers no longer have to pretend that they aren’t gay.

 

Gloom and Doom From Trump And The Republican Party?

When you are a party that insists on always giving the very rich and corporate America more and more tax breaks, even the dumbest American might figure out that this is not helping him or her. Distractions are needed. Fear works. The truth doesn’t matter.

Tell the American public that the Dems want to take their guns away. Say that their religious beliefs are under attack. The abortion issue and being against them (whether they believe it or not) automatically gets most of the votes from the 94 million Evangelicals living in the US.

Blaming minorities for problems in the US works has been a tried and true way of getting the Archie Bunker types on the Republican’s side. Every general election cycle the Republicans bring up voter fraud even though the evidence shows that only 30 or so individuals have been prosecuted for voting more than once out of 1 billion votes cast in the US in the last 10 years.

The way Republican politicians describe America’s current and future fortunes is that the country is totally falling apart. It isn’t. .

Trump Blaming The Media?

Trump and the Republican Party love to blame the “liberal” media for being biased against conservatives. It’s just pure bullshit. Most Americans don’t follow the news on a daily basis and those that do tend to watch NBC, CBS, and ABC nightly news. These 3 networks are generally neutral unless Trump says something absolutely crazy. NBC, CBS, and ABC all have Sunday morning news programs like Meet The Press. If anything. Republicans are more than equally represented on these programs. Arizona Republican Senator John McCain has been on more of these political TV shows than anyone else.

FOX News is 100% biased towards the Republican Party. MSNBC is believed by many to a liberal response to FOX. The 3 liberals on MSNBC are Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O’Donnell and each has a daily weekday 1 hour program. Morning Joe is a 3 hour morning TV show on MSNBC with Republican Joe Scarborough as the host. Republicans are well represented on Joe’s program. In fact Donald Trump was getting about ½ hour free of daily air time for months on end before he became totally repugnant. Regular Republican panelists on MSNBC include Republicans Michael Steele, Hugh Hewitt, William Kristol, Steve Schmidt, Mike Murphy, and Nicole Wallace. Trump surrogates get daily exposure on MSNC and Trump’s pals Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Gingrich have all made frequent appearances on the cable news network.

CNN historically has been like a training ground for FOX News. Many former CNN on air personalities now work for FOX including Lou Dobbs, Greta Van Susteren, Howard Kurtz, and John Roberts.

Talk radio in the US is almost exclusively controlled by hosts who are dyed in the wool Republicans. Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and Alex Jones have millions of listeners. It is kind of like a religious following as the same old fears are trotted out on a daily basis justifying the hate of anything remotely liberal. Conspiracy theories are rampant. Not trusting the federal government is a common theme. Being that most of these programs are on in the daytime one might wonder what kind of jobs the listeners have that allows them to listen to the radio while they are working. 

Pretty well every hate group in the US is run by people that vote Republican from clandestine militias to the KKK. The internet is crawling with right wing websites including Breitbart News and The Drudge Report. Right wingers often use Facebook to espouse their political beliefs.

To say the left controls the media is just pure bullshit. Part of being a Republican is to feel like they are victims.

Really Dumb Americans

Americans by and large like to brag about their country. USA! USA! Less than 50% of Americans have passports and most Americans have little interest in any country but their own. They are not a people in general that likes to apologize for anything, Republicans in particular.

-One has to wonder, if Americans are supposedly so very patriotic, why is it that only 57% of them bothered to vote in the 2012 general election? Apparently spending an hour or two once every 4 years to line up and vote is too heavy a burden for them to shoulder. And it isn’t that voters are always restricted to 1 day to vote. They can vote early if they care to in many states.

-Over the years both Jimmy Kimmel and Jay Leno have interviewed people on the street and asked them questions that any high school student should be able to answer and most often they have either the wrong answer or can’t answer at all. One would think they would be embarrassed about being ignorant but they aren’t. For some reason they think it is funny being stupid.

-Most Americans won’t admit that their country has lost wars in Viet Nam. Afghanistan, and Iraq. Commonly they explain the losses as could have, should have, and would have. The irony is some of them say these things while wearing running shoes made in Viet Nam.

-30% of Americans don’t believe in climate change. 53% of Republicans believe it is a hoax. Trump has suggested it is a Chinese plot.

-Americans think that having insurance companies dictate their health care is a natural thing. Most of them don’t realize that they are dealing with a cartel with anti-trust exemption. To many of them, universal healthcare is beyond their comprehension. The fact that universal health care is practiced in every country in the world with a decent economy is not something they are curious about. In a lot of cases in the US, health care insurance eats up 1/3 of peoples’ income.

-For some strange reason many religious Americans believe that their Jesus is mostly concerned about the US and the Deep South in particular, and other countries not so much. The bible’s Jesus was a poor man who walked with the poor and didn’t have old ladies opening envelopes and counting money in church basements. Pastors are living in mansions with 12 bathrooms and flying around in privately owned jets. What would Jesus say? Is he more concerned about people in the wealthiest country in the world or the millions of kids that starve to death in poor countries each year?

-72% of Republicans doubt that Obama was born in the US even though Trump finally admitted he was. Producing his Hawaiian birth certificate and the two birth notices printed in Honolulu newspapers 55 years ago is not enough for them. Most Republicans also believe that Obama has raised their taxes. He hasn’t.

-57% of Republicans believe the Constitution should be dismantled and Christianity be established as the national religion.

-25% of Americans don’t believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

-Most Republicans believe Obama is a socialist. He isn’t. He hasn’t socialized any American business. Bernie Sanders is a socialist. Obama is centrist Democrat.

-The vast majority of Americans are not capable of finding Iraq or Afghanistan on a map.

-The Kardashians, Honey Boo Boo, Duck Dynasty, and Jerry Springer have been watched by millions of Americans and most watchers are not disturbed about what they see. Dying 5 year old girl’s hair and putting lipstick on their mouths and entering these kids in beauty contests seems normal to millions of Americans.

-More Americans can name 2 of the 7 dwarves than 2 Supreme Court Justices. More Americans can name the 3 Stooges than the 3 branches of government.

-35% of Americans believe being gay is a lifestyle choice.

-30% of Americans don’t know what year 9/11 took place.

-29% of Americans believe that an armed revolt against the federal government makes sense.

The list of “stupid” goes on and on.

The Cowardly Religious Right

 

The Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Mike Pence, while governor of Indiana spent money on trying to de-gay gay people. When Trump was heard on tape talking about grabbing women’s pussies, Pence said his religion taught him to forgive those that have sinned. Apparently his religious beliefs don’t include forgiving Hillary Clinton or the Democrats for anything he perceives she has done wrong.

The basis of Christianity is the 10 Commandments. One of the stranger things about Christianity is that you can sin, be forgiven, and then go right back to sinning again. It’s like a free pass.

The most powerful religious entity in the US is the Evangelicals with 94 million followers. Pastors in these churches have simply refused to call Trump out on any awful thing he has done. Most likely it is because Trump has said he is against abortion. 10 years ago when Trump was 60 years of age and a registered Democrat he was pro-choice.

About the only commandments Trump hasn’t broken on numerous times is Thou Shalt Not Kill and Honour Thy Mother and Thy father.

The only time anyone has spotted Trump in a church was at his own weddings.

Not only has Trump committed adultery on a number of occasions so have some of his chief advisors including Gingrich and Guiliani.

Thou shalt not steal has not prevented Trump from not paying taxes and stiffing investors and contractors. Not paying people for goods and services they have provided is simply theft.

-Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Trump lies on a daily business and makes shit up about others that just aren’t factual. Statistics show that Trump has told more lies in his run for president than any other candidate for president in history. Hillary isn’t even close. Its chilling that he has the nerve to call others liars.

-The not coveting stuff. Trump has a long history of displaying jealousies. As a for instance he wasn’t satisfied owning 1 casino in Atlantic City but had to own all of them. The end result was he went into over 3 billion dollars of debt.

-Remember the Sabbath Day. Like most Christians real or fake working on the Sabbath is okey dokey.

-Christians are expected to be charitable. Trump has a charitable foundation with no record of helping any needy group of people. Instead he has used his foundation as a piggy bank.

Not matter what ugly thing that Trump has done in the last 16 months, and there have been plenty of them, the religious right has refused to call him out on anything including the filthy language he uses. Absolute cowards! Would these pastors like their children to talk like Trump or emulate him?

 

Obama and Hillary Clinton are actually practicing Christians but the religious right wants no part of them. There is something very strange about that.

The Hillary Clinton Hate Club

 

Hating Hillary Clinton is a fetish for most right wing Republicans. It isn’t as if she says outlandish things or attacks others viciously.  Right wingers love to think that she is scheming woman doing awful things out of sight of the American public.

When Bill Clinton left office in in January of 2001 he had a popularity rate of 55% in spite of his lying to the American public about his numerous affairs. What kept him popular wasn’t that Americans thought his adultery was a good thing but more that the country wasn’t engaged in any major wars and the economy had been booming for a continued length of time. Most Americans thought that Republican prosecutor Kenneth Starr had gone too far in his investigation of Bill Clinton when he got into semen stains and blowjobs.

There was a lot of empathy for Hillary Clinton at the time and she was parachuted into New York State where she was elected junior senator. Like her husband Hillary often worked with Republicans on political issues. 9/11 happened a few years after she was elected and the loss of 3,000 lives in New York City devastated her and her home state. She chose to listen to George W. Bush and his cronies instead of Ambassador Joe Wilson or the Swedish diplomat Hans Blix and his inability to discover WND in Iraq. When Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, was outed by Bush’s pals, Mrs. Clinton chose to ignore it. It seemed that it was important to her that she didn’t look like an indecisive women when it came to making some country pay the price for attacking the US.

In 2005 the Clintons attended Donald Trump’s 3^rd wedding. Trump was a Democrat at the time and in the ensuing years he had a lot of nice things to say about both Clintons that included saying that she did a good job as Secretary of State.

In 2008 she decided to make a run for president and it looked like she had it in the bag. On a broad scale it became whether the Democrats wanted to see a seasoned woman or a younger black man in the White House. The black man won but Hillary sucked it up. She wouldn’t have another shot at the presidency for 8 years.

In 2009 she became Secretary of State at Obama’s request. She left that office in 2013 after serving for 4 years. She had 3 years to prepare for next and last run for president. Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party were well aware of her goal. There was really good money available for ex-presidents who were willing to give speeches to private groups and corporations and between Hillary and Bill they made over 153 million dollars. It was legal but a bit on the shady side considering they were selling their experience as public servants.

Hillary had been through a lot in her political life and she scared the crap out of the Republicans. They hatched a plot. The Benghazi episode of 2012 where 4 Americans died in the dead of night seemed a good place to start. There would be investigations and hearings about what happened that night that would lead up to laying the deaths at Hillary’s feet. Historically something like Benghazi would have been considered part of “the fog of war”. During Bush’s time as president there had been 13 attacks on American embassies and 60 deaths without 1 single investigation.

The idea was to tie Hillary up for months on end and make her look incompetent. Altogether there were 8 investigations. One might think that Benghazi was right up there with Viet Nam or WW2. Ambassador Stevens’s own sister didn’t hold Hillary at fault. She described her brother as somebody who was infatuated with the Middle East ever since he was a boy and dressed up like Lawrence of Arabia.

Mrs. Clinton wasn’t found guilty of anything including her response to the attack on Benghazi. The 3^rd most powerful Republican in Congress, Kevin McCarthy openly admitted the Benghazi Committee was formed to discredit Hillary Clinton.

Because of the Benghazi investigations America became aware that Mrs. Clinton was using a private server for her e-mails. Most Democrats and pretty well all Republicans found this to be sheer arrogance on her part. The facts are that the FBI, the Republican Party, nor the Russians were aware that she was using a private server. It may have been inappropriate and risky but there is no record of her server ever being hacked. In other words no highly confidential material ever got into the wrong hands.

Next up on the Republicans agenda was The Clinton Foundation. There is no record of the Clintons personally profiting from The Clinton Foundation. They made their money from speeches. Some of the sources that they got money for the foundation may be a bit dubious, particularly from foreign dictatorships, but the money all went to good causes. Yes they hired friends to run the foundation but why wouldn’t they want it run by people they trusted?

85% of the funds collected by The Clinton Foundation go directly to people in need throughout the world. It has been enormously effective are here are just some of the things it has accomplished.

-It has provided HIV/AIDS drugs to 11.5 million people in the world.

-Raised 313 million dollars for R&D into new vaccines and medicines.

-Helped provide better maternal and child care to more than 110 million people.

-Provided treatment for more than 36 million people with tropical diseases.

This is only a partial list of the good works the foundation has done.

On the other hand Donald Trump also has a foundation. The last gift he gave to his foundation was $35,000.00 in 2008. There is no record of Trump donating a dime to the 9/11 charities.

There is one group in the US that particularly hates Hillary and that is white men without college degrees. I have a theory of why this is. They probably remember a girl or two in grade school or high school who was an over achiever and seemed like a goody two shoes. They hated the praise the teacher gave the girl(s) and the attention she got. Often the teacher was a woman and that just made it worse. There are still millions of men in America who have a hard time with women being in authority.

To combat their fear of a woman like Hillary they will go to any lengths to bring her down and destroy her. Some fill their Facebook pages with cartoons of her looking like she is totally unhinged. The strange thing is that these same people can get all warm and fuzzy about a baby, a dog, or a cat.  

 

Dazed And Confused?

The evidence is there. It is often most noticeable in small towns and cities throughout the United States, the abandoned factories with grass growing through the concrete in the once packed parking lots, the boarded up shops with the signage long removed. The busiest business in town now is often the local coffee shop.

There was a time, decades ago, that if going to college wasn’t your thing or not affordable, an American kid out of high school could get a job with a reasonable pay cheque at a local factory or mill. Perhaps even work with his dad.

There are millions of disgruntled blue collar workers across the US. Many feel they have been left behind and they are very angry. They aren’t politicians and weren’t born wealthy. They don’t have any power. It isn’t just the amount of industry that has disappeared in the past 30 years it is the fear of the future. Will they the next to get a pink slip?

They often don’t have many choices. If they are lucky they might be able to get a job working for the city. They may be able to get 10 or 12 bucks an hour at Home Depot. Some of the younger ones leave town and move to a part of the US with a better economy. Other young people in these communities join the armed services almost as a last resort.

Money and the lack of it is the biggest cause of the breakup of marriages. Low paying jobs can affect a person’s self-esteem. There often is profound bitterness and it isn’t just about the availability of decent paying jobs.

The city or town they live in was once almost entirely white. For some time now there have been more visible minorities living in the community. Some are Mexican illegals whose kids are attending local schools. A lot of the illegals will work at labour jobs for very low wages. Usually they are paid under the table in cash and they don’t have taxes taken off of their pay cheques like people with regular jobs do. What are they doing being in the US? They aren’t citizens.

Angry people look for ways to vent and they have found it in talk radio. Mayhem and panic sells. There are lots of right wing radio talk show hosts who are quite willing to fan the flames for a large disgruntled group of people. Blaming the federal government is an easy thing to start with. Racism is another common theme. Sometimes it is masked a bit but the angry mass can recognize the dog whistles. The ideas that religion in the US is under attack or that Dems want to take people’s guns away creates additional fears. Hating Hillary Clinton becomes a passion.

A lot of these people used to be called “rednecks”. They have nothing but distain for anything considered to be intellectual thought. Most of their tastes are quite simple. Beer over wine, Country Music over Hip Hop, NASCAR over Formula 1, jeans and tees over suits, Bar-B-Q over sushi, USA! USA! over humility.

With their fears stoked and being on the bottom rung in terms of personal success, desperation has set in. For some violence is an option. Some have even joined militia groups. It shouldn’t be any surprise that the KKK and other White Supremacists are part this group that wants upheaval instead of the status quo.

So why have they decided to be part of the Republican Party? Because the Republican Party doesn’t care how crazy their followers are as long as they are on their side. The Democratic Party has their progressive base that wants to make America more equitable but they have zero toleration for racists, homophobes, or misogynists.

 

Dispelling The Beliefs Of The Trump Morons

Make America Great Again?

Just what does this mean? What time in America’s history is better than now? Was it The Great Depression years? Was it the 2^nd Word War Years when thousands of American soldiers were killed and rationing was a part of how Americans lived? Was it the 1950s when American kids were taught to hide under their school desks if the Russians dropped a bomb or when Jim Crow laws were still in effect in the US South? Was it the Viet Nam years when 50,000 American soldiers lost their lives? Maybe Trump is talking about the Bill Clinton years when the economy was sound, the debt reduced, and most American soldiers remained within the US?

Illegal Immigrants?

Most Americans would agree that foreigners should not be able to enter the US illegally. It is pretty obvious why there are 11 million and more illegal Mexicans in the US. Even the low wages there are paid in the US, usually under the table, are far more money than they could ever make back home. Mexicans will often do work like picking crops that most Americans would never even consider.

Trump has been all over the place on illegal immigrants over the last several years including stating that he didn’t want to break up families. He opened his campaign by saying Mexico was sending rapists to the US. It was red meat for the rednecks and they ate it up.

Trump’s own wife, Melania, worked illegally in the US before getting her papers. Hundreds of illegal Polish immigrants worked on demolishing the old building that stood where Trump Tower now stands. They were easily identifiable because they didn’t wear hard hats. They worked 12 hour shifts and were paid so purely that many of them lived on the site. Trump’s resort in Florida, Mar-a-lago, has hired hundreds of foreign workers.

Virtually no American business is in any jeopardy if they hire illegal immigrants. 11 million of them aren’t sitting around twiddling their fingers. They work on construction sites, hotels, anywhere that will use them for low cost labour. If they get injured on the job they are out of luck as far as coverage goes. They end up in the emergency rooms of hospitals and taxpayers pick up the tab.

Over 600.000 employers in the US use e-verify when hiring new employees. Many employers want to know if applicants have criminal records. E-verify could be made mandatory and the authorities could be notified if an illegal immigrant applies for a job but the Republican run congress refuses to discuss the matter or making it a criminal offense to knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Republicans have a long history of wanting low taxes for businesses and they and others have no problem with not collecting taxes on illegal’s pay cheques. Let someone else pay is the meme.

Many illegals that pick fruit and vegetables are only needed at particular times of the year. Stricter laws could require them to go back to Mexico when they are not needed. Enforcing a law like this would mean that these workers would not be able to bring their families to the US but they could still send money home improving their family’s lives.

The Wall?

A wall works in Israel but it is a small country. Most illegal Mexican immigrants don’t come to the US by sneaking across barren country in the middle of the night. They simply drive across the border or come to the US under the guise of being tourists. There are about 350 million Mexican border crossings yearly. Trump says that Mexico will pay for the wall and that it will be “huge”. It’s just bullshit. If the wall was 12 feet underground, tunnels 15 feet underground would be constructed.

American Jobs Going To Other Countries?

Maybe Trump’s followers don’t know what the Republican Party they are voting for stands for? The Republican Party has always been on the side of Corporate America and the very wealthy. Corporate America has a long history of not caring about the American worker. Years ago the big US car company’s used to hire people to beat up workers if they went on strike. Mine owners never cared if coal miners got black lung. 100 years ago it was common to find 12 year olds working in mines.

The last Republican to run for president, Mitt Romney, owned a business called Bain Capital. One of the company’s frequent practices was to buy businesses in financial difficulty, sell off the assets, fire workers who had been with the company for years, and ship the jobs and equipment overseas where they could pay the workers lower wages.

Hewlett Packard has call centers all over the world, including India, that service their US customers. Apple i-phones are all made in foreign countries. These are just a couple of examples. Corporate America could give a rat’s ass what happens to people who lose their jobs.

 

A US owned air conditioner manufacturer named Carrier had 56 billion dollars in revenue in 2015. They are very profitable but decided that they weren’t profitable enough and laid off most of their American workers and shipped the jobs to Mexico.

Trump says he would stop this kind of thing if he becomes president. A president doesn’t have the ability on his own to change how corporations run their businesses. It would be very unlikely if Trump became president that he could get congress to change the rules. They have been bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists.

Trump is also a terrible example of keeping jobs in the US. Some of his buildings have been built with Chinese steel. His clothing line is manufactured in China, Honduras, Viet Nam and India. Most of his furniture line is produced in Turkey.

What is a bit confusing is that Trump’s followers blame the federal government and the Democrats instead of the real culprits. The federal government can’t dictate how a corporation runs its business.

Those deserted factories that dot the American landscape and the boarded up shops on Main Street didn’t happen overnight. It goes back 30 years ago and longer. The local hardware store has been replaced by a Home Depot or a Lowes. The neighbourhood drugstore has been replaced by the Walgreen’s chain. The local coffee shop has been replaced by Starbucks. The local grocery store has been replaced by Costco. The local clothing store has been replaced by Wal-Mart.

NAFTA has often been cited as one of the main reasons many blue collar jobs have been lost in the US over the past 20 years. It is estimated that close to 1 million jobs were lost and most of them went to Mexico. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law but most of the votes to get the bill passed came from Republicans in Congress. Democrats voted against it 156 to 102. Republicans voted for it 132 to 43. In the Senate Democrats voted for it 27 to 26 and Republicans voted for it 34 to 12.

 

Wages have been driven down. Wealth has shifted dramatically. In the last 30 years the middle class has lost 30% of its wealth. The 400 richest Americans have more wealth than 61% of the rest of Americans combined. In some ways it is like living in the 1930s again when working people were in distress and went to the movies and saw rich people in tuxedos and furs being driven around in limousines. Things today are not nearly as bad as the Great Depression but millions watch the Kardashians and the Real Housewives of whatever city and some wonder just what value there is in people being so rich that all they seem to do is quarrel with one another about petty things while contributing nothing to society.

Some people like to say that anything is possible in America. A person can sometimes rise from nothing and become very rich. The question that needs to be asked is how rich is enough? Is having endless riches for a few more important than the quality of most American’s lives? It should be in country where people care about one another but sadly it often isn’t.

 The Dems Want To Take Away American’s Guns?

This is more pure bullshit by Republicans and Trump. The Democratic Party has never talked about taking people’s guns away even though there are a lot of people who have guns that shouldn’t. What the Dems have talked about is having guns registered so when the police go to a house on a domestic dispute that they know somewhat what they are dealing with. The Dems are also against guns being sold on-line or from a car trunk without the buyer and seller having to fill out a form identifying the parties in the transaction and a background check being made.

Most Democratic politicians are also against the sale of high powered rifles with large clips that hold up to 100 bullets. These are the guns that have been used in mass shootings including at grade schools and high schools all over the US. You don’t use a rifle like this to shoot wild animals. Who has ever heard of a home owner defending himself from a home invasion by firing off 100 shots in a few short minutes? It just doesn’t happen. 

American’s Religious Beliefs are Under Attack?

This is just more Republican bullshit. Church leaders still have carte blanche to bilk their followers while being tax exempt.

 

Abortion?

Trump has spoken about how an unborn baby of almost 9 months can be ripped out of a woman’s womb. Less than 1% of abortions happen in the last trimester and they occur either because the life of the mother is in jeopardy or because the baby has problems that wouldn’t see it live very long or it is missing things that are needed to sustain a normal life. Women should have the right to control their own bodies.

Trump told MSNC’s Chris Mathews that he thought women who have abortions should be punished.

Trump Speaks His Mind and Identifies With Struggling Americans?

 

The only person Donald Trump identifies with is himself and his enormous ego. Living in an apartment filled with European art and French period furniture is not something most Americans can identify with. There is nothing in Trump’s home that reflects America. Average Joes and Jills don’t have their own bullshit made up family crest either. They also weren’t born with silver spoons in their mouths as he was.

The average working stiff hasn’t declared bankruptcy 6 times or written off a 920 million dollar business loss in one year. If the average working stiff went bankrupt they would find a bailiff’s notice on their house and a tow truck in their driveway within days.

Working American pay taxes but Trump with high priced lawyers and accountants has avoided paying millions in taxes. Many American families have relatives who have served in the US military. Nobody in Trump’s family, past or present, has. The average American doesn’t eat pizza with a fork either. What working stiff wears a suit with a baseball cap?

Where was Trump all those years in helping out the little guy? He left many small contractors high and dry and didn’t pay some a dime. Some of the ones he did pay did not receive all they were owed. Trump’s one concern all of his adult life is getting as much wealth as he could.

The real reason he has run for president is that he can’t get enough attention. At 70 years of age he can’t chase women any more. He’s a jowly old fart now. Could anyone imagine him being locked to the White House for the next 4 years?

The average American doesn’t belong to private golf course or spend their time with billionaires and famous people either.

But this is the guy who is going to lead struggling Americans to a bright future? I don’t think so.

Obamacare?

Trump has promised to kill Obamacare on day 1 if he is elected. His party agrees with him. They promise to replace it with something much better. In 6 years they haven’t been able to describe what it is they are offering other than saying there would be more competition. Maybe they don’t know that there really only 6 major health care insurers in the US and that it is a cartel with anti-trust exemption. No other American business other than professional baseball has anti-trust exemption. They don’t compete. They just divide things up. The biggest Us healthcare insurance company has 75 million customers. They aren’t too worried about competition.

World Affairs?

Trump says he knows more about how to deal with ISIS than US generals. He has figured all this out by watching his big screen TV. Trump has suggested that it might be a good idea that Japan, South Korea, and even Saudi Arabia have nuclear arms. He has threatened to back out of NATO. He scares the crap out of America’s allies. Over and over he has proven that he really doesn’t know much about the world other than where some really nice golf courses are.

In the last few weeks he has mocked the American generals for announcing in advance that the Iraqi city of Mosul would be under siege. He can’t believe that the US military would do this. The fact is that Mosul sits on a flat plain and it would be impossible to hide 30,000 Iraqi troops. Many Iraqis are hostages in Mosul so it isn’t a bad idea that they are prepared for an invasion. Maybe some of them can hide somewhere until it is safe to come out?

He faults Hillary Clinton for the US attacking Libya even though he once wanted to bomb the crap out of the country.

Trump changes his mind on foreign affairs and domestic affairs as a regular pattern. It doesn’t make that much difference when he doesn’t have any power but if he did he could start a war with just a few of his crazy twitters.

Remembering What Trump Has Said In The Last 16 Months

Trying to document the crazy things Trump has said in the past 16 months is a daunting task. It would take up pages and pages here just listing those he has insulted. Here are just a few of the high-lights….