![[Trump Triumphant - Los Angeles Times Political Cartoon by David Horsey]](./jpg/horseybw.jpg)
According to Dictionary.com, a xenophobe is "a person who fears or hates foreigners."
According to Dictionary.com, a sociopath is "a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience."
According to Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote Trump's book "The Art of the Deal," Trump believes there are two kinds of people: those who are of use to him, and those who aren't. "Trump only takes two positions. Either you’re a scummy loser, liar, whatever, or you’re the greatest... He’d like people when they were helpful, and turn on them when they weren’t. It wasn’t personal. He’s a transactional man—it was all about what you could do for him.” Schwartz warns that Trump does not care about America or our people. If he is elected, "the millions of people who voted for him and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows—that he couldn’t care less about them.”
"Lying is second nature to him," Tony Schwartz said. "More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true... He lied strategically. He had a complete lack of conscience about it." The New Yorker reported: "When challenged about the facts, Schwartz says, Trump would often double down, repeat himself, and grow belligerent."
According to Psychology Professor Bart Rossi, "I see [Trump] as a master manipulator. He's deliberate in his fabrication... He knows what he's saying is wrong."
Trump's strategy is to lie so much and so often that the press doesn't have time to call him on one lie before he's on to the next one.
Thomas Wells is a lawyer who once worked for Trump. He writes that lying is a basic part of how Trump thinks and does business. His proposals are based on lies, and because they have no bearing on reality, they have no chance of working.
According to Salon Magazine and The Guardian, most of what Trump says is false. PolitiFact calculates it at 79 percent.
Politico Magazine checked nearly five hours of Trump's speeches, and discovered he lied on average every five minutes.
According to Think Progress, Trump's nomination speech was full of falsehoods.
The Huffington Post reports that Trump has been lying throughout his career, and since running for President his lies have gotten worse. He has lied about the National Football League, Iran, his defunct steak business, and so on.
Among Trump's greatest lies:
According to Time Magazine, Trump made up a story about American Muslims celebrating the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.
"There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations," Trump claimed. "They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down... there were people cheering as that building came down - as those buildings came down. And that tells you something."
The Anti-Defamation League commented: "This seems a variation of the anti-Semitic myth that a group of Israelis were seen celebrating as the Twin Towers fell."
After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, the late terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden planted fake news stories in Arab-language newspapers claiming (falsely) that no Jewish people were killed in the attacks. Trump is repeating Osama Bin Laden's lie, just changing "Jews" to "Muslims."
According to Afghan-American author Tamim Ansary, a war between Muslims and the Western world is exactly what al-Qaeda terrorists want. "Bin Laden... really believes Islam would beat the west," Ansary wrote. "He figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the west, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose. That's even better from Bin Laden's point of view."
According to the Christian Science Monitor, the vast majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are peaceful people who hate terrorism. Only a few thousand sympathize with terrorists. By demonizing all Muslims, Trump is doing exactly what al-Qaeda wants.
According to MediaMatters and The Daily Wire, in 2003 Trump supported invading Iraq. He now claims he opposed it the whole time.
Trump claims to have given millions of dollars to charities, but this isn't true either.
According to MSNBC, Trump went on talk shows for years insisting that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and thus isn't legally President. Trump had no proof of this, because it isn't true. (Obama was born in Hawaii. His father was born in Kenya.) Trump also claimed to have sent a team of researchers to Hawaii to investigate his claims, and that "they cannot believe what they’re finding.” Trump made the whole thing up. There were no researchers, and there was nothing to be found.
Trump's most ludicrous lie to date is that then-State Senator Obama founded DAESH, the Iraqi-Syrian terrorist group also known as "ISIL" or "ISIS." Obama somehow managed to accomplish this from inside the Illinois State Courthouse. "He's the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder of ISIS. He’s the founder. He founded ISIS," Trump insisted. "I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton... I meant he's the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award."
In real life, Obama opposed the invasion of Iraq that led to the rise of DAESH.
Since becoming President, Obama has ordered over 9,000 airstrikes against DAESH.
According to the Daily Mail, DAESH has vowed to kill President Obama. According to Wikipedia, a DAESH-inspired assassination attempt on President Obama was foiled in 2015.
Trump's belief that then-State Senator Obama founded DAESH clearly shows that he knows nothing about the terrorist group, let alone how to defeat them.
Trump also lies about his own record, making controversial statements and then denying he ever said such things.
According to Business Insider, Trump claims "there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day." According to Politifact, Trump made the whole thing up.
It can be devastating to learn that someone you trusted and admired has been lying to you. When that happens, all a person can do is move on with their lives. Continuing to believe a liar after you've learned they've been lying to you makes you complicit in your own betrayal.
Trump circulated a racist graphic with fabricated crime statistics. According to ThinkProgress, the graphic was created by a neo-Nazi.
According to the Washington Post, Trump has called for the reinstatement of racist "stop-and-frisk" laws that don't prevent crime and have been struck down as unconstitutional.
According to the Washington Post, Trump called one of his African-American supporters a "thug" and ordered him escorted out of his rally.
According to the Huffington Post, Trump thinks all the individuals of a specific group are the same. Over his career, Trump has shown prejudice against African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, and Native Americans.
According to CNN, Trump says, if elected, he will order the assassination of innocent civilians who are related to terrorists. "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."
Frankly, killing Robert Lewis Dear's ex-wife, Dylann Roof's parents, or Timothy McVeigh's parents would not do anything to stop terrorism.
Many of us have an estranged relative who's made a mess of their lives. Ordering the assassination of innocent people is illegal and immoral. Is it fair that people be murdered because they're related to the wrong person?
In addition to wanting to murder innocent civilians, Trump also wants to punish women who have abortions.
Trump says, as President, he will order torture. "Don't tell me it doesn't work -- torture works," Trump said. "Okay, folks? Torture -- you know, half these guys [say]: 'Torture doesn't work.' Believe me, it works. Okay? ... I would absolutely authorize something beyond waterboarding."
Torture is illegal and unconstitutional. It violates the War Crimes Act, the Torture Victim Prevention Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, and the Geneva Conventions. Contrary to Trump's claim, torture isn't an interrogation tool -- it cannot make people tell the truth. Torture is a coercion tool -- its purpose is to make people confess to things they didn't do. The only reason to torture someone is to force them to lie. That's what torture's for.
Veteran and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura said in 2009: "I was water boarded, so I know - at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence - every one of us was water boarded. It is torture... It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you - I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."
If torture is not wrong, nothing is wrong. If the government can torture suspected terrorists, it will set a precedent that torture is legal and acceptable -- and it won't be long before the government starts torturing "confessions" out of suspected criminals in order to obtain convictions. What will happen then? Innocent people will confess to crimes they didn't commit in order to make the pain stop, and the real criminals -- or real terrorists -- will get away.
Trump also says that, as President, he would order the looting of Iraqi oil -- another war crime.
According to Dictionary.com, a xenophobe is "a person who fears or hates foreigners."
According to Think Progress, Trump has vowed to deport eleven million undocumented immigrants. According to CBS News, this would be an economic disaster. It would cost $5 trillion over ten years.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, "Trump’s mass deportation scheme would mean arresting more than 15,000 people a day on immigration charges, seven days a week, 365 days a year." Faced with a challenge of that scale, there is no way the government could respect due process for everyone caught up in Trump's net. It's statistically inevitable that the government would accidentally deport American citizens as well as immigrants. It would separate children from their parents and wives from their husbands.
According to the Boston Globe, Trump also plans to deport the children of illegal immigrants, even if those children are themselves American citizens. This is unconstitutional -- a violation of the 14th Amendment.
Trump has also vowed to force Mexico to build a wall across the United States' southern border. Why? He holds the racist belief that Mexican immigrants "are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they're rapists."
Mexican President Enrique Pena, Former Mexican President Vincente Fox, and Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon all agree that Mexico cannot build such a wall, as it would be disastrous for both countries.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, "By Trump's own estimate, his wall would cost $10 to $12 billion to cover only selected segments of the southwest border. Independent experts, however, say that is a vast underestimate. One construction expert predicted the Trump wall would cost at least $25 billion..."
Unless you're Native American, everyone in America is descended from immigrants. Whatever your stance on immigration, deporting eleven million people without due process is not the answer.
According to Common Dreams, the entire "Trump University" school for real estate agents was a scam from the start. According to The Week, the same is true of Trump's presidential campaign.
According to Grist,
"Trump’s budget plan is so mathematically illiterate and extremely right-wing that it would require eliminating all spending on nearly everything the government does.
"Trump has proposed an enormous tax cut heavily tilted toward the wealthy... That’s a 45 percent reduction in projected revenues.
"Roughly half of the federal budget goes to paying for entitlements, which Trump says he won't cut.
"18 percent or so is for the military, including overseas operations. Trump wants to increase both general defense spending and our military actions in the Middle East.
"7 percent is mandatory interest payment on existing debt.
"Taken together these categories account for about 73 percent of the federal budget.
"We already have a projected budget deficit of $426 billion in 2016 and Trump has pledged to balance the budget. So he would need to make spending cuts that not only equal but exceed his 45 percent reduction in revenue. But he can't do that when he can'’t touch 73 percent of the budget.
"This is impossible. His entire tax and budget plan - if the word “plan” can even be applied here - is absolutely mathematically impossible.
"...The U.S. would no longer print money, maintain embassies abroad, negotiate with foreign nations, investigate and prosecute federal crimes, or maintain highway and transit systems, to name just a few things. Enormous segments of the federal government would cease to function or even exist. The U.S. would [become] a failed state."
According to Slate Magazine, Congressional Republicans would probably pass this nonsense.
Republican leaders in the House and Senate have endorsed Trump. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said: "I feel confident he would help us turn the ideas in this agenda into laws to help improve people's lives... But the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement."
According to The Hill, "Ryan 'was consistent' at the private Wednesday meeting, said one GOP lawmaker who backs Trump. 'He said Trump represents the best chance at passing our agenda.'"
(Paul Ryan's agenda includes banning abortion under all circumstances, banning contraception, abolishing Social Security, and abolishing Medicare. According to PoliticsUSA, Trump told Ryan privately that he agrees with him about abolishing Social Security, but admitted he can't campaign on that.)
According to former Trump campaign strategist Stephanie Cegielski, "If you are one of the disaffected voters — one of the silent majority like me — who wanted a candidate who could be your voice, I want to speak directly to you as one of his biggest advocates and supporters. He is not that voice. He is not your voice. He is only Trump's voice.
"...He has no problem abusing your support the same way he cheated hard-working men and women out of millions of dollars, for which he is now being sued.
"We are all angry — and we all have a right to be. But Trump is not our champion. He would stab any one of his supporters in the back if it earned him a cent more in his pocket."
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According to the Washington Post, after speaking negatively of white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke over the years, Trump now claims he knows nothing about him. (The Ku Klux Klan is a domestic terrorist group whose purpose is to prevent Americans with dark-colored skin from exercising their Constitutional and civil rights.)
Trump claims that the judge hearing the "Trump University" fraud lawsuit is "Mexican" and therefore biased against him. (The judge is from Indiana.)
Trump also claims the New York Times is biased against him. "It’s because it’s owned by Mexico."
According to the Huffington Post, Trump gave a speech on immigration with references that white supremacists would understand -- but go unnoticed by the general public.
All of us have faced prejudice in our lives -- because of our skin or hair color, our parents' ancestry, our age, or which church we attend. As a society, our moral responsibility is to overcome prejudice -- not embrace it.
According to Rolling Stone, Trump has been pro-life and pro-choice, pro-gun control and anti-gun control, pro-minimum wage and anti-minimum wage, and so on.
YouTube user PlainSight compiled a five-minute video of Trump contradicting himself on practically every subject.
According to NBC News and Mother Jones, Trump now criticizes the invasion of Iraq and the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq -- moves he agreed with at the time.
According to the Huffington Post, Trump has said that the minimum wage is too low, too high, should be set by the federal government, and should be left up to the states.
Trump doesn't stand for anything -- the only thing he believes in is himself.
Donald Trump is the political, philosophical, and moral heir of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
According to the Washington Post, Trump presents himself as strong, tough, and macho, and blames minorities for America's problems.
Trump doesn't care about the facts. He is intent on spreading fear and describes himself as the only one who can fix America's problems.
According to Salon Magazine, Trump's personality is so grandiose that he thinks (and some supporters think) that his many flip-flops don't matter. He wants to crack down on the free press. He wants to get tough on enemies by committing war crimes. He considers violence an acceptable, normal part of American discourse.
According to The Atlantic, Trump's cult of personality overshadows the political party he supposedly leads. He chips away at the boundaries of acceptable behavior and commands support even as his rhetoric becomes more irrational and violent.
According to NBC News, Trump has threatened to imprison Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "The FBI and Department of Justice," NBC wrote, "have formally closed the inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state. So the notion of a new president seeking to force the re-opening of the case, because a new party is in office, is... unprecedented." According to Mother Jones, Trump has also vowed to imprison her lawyers.
Trump's threat to imprison his political opponents violates the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees due process (the government must charge you with something before imprisoning you.) It also violates the double jeopardy clause (the government can't keep putting someone on trial over and over again on the same charge until a jury gives them the verdict they want.) Moreover, Trump's threat violates the Sixth Amendment (guaranteeing right to counsel) -- for no lawyer would represent a client if they knew the President would throw them in jail for doing their job. What if the President did that to you?
According to Quartz Magazine, as President, Trump has pledged to crack down on journalists who criticize him. This is a violation of the First Amendment.
According to the New York Times, Trump described reporters this way: “These people are the lowest form of life, I’m telling you,” he said, pointing at the journalists covering his rally. “They are the lowest form of humanity.”
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Trump's proposal to "open up our libel laws" is nonsense. The President cannot change the law -- only Congress can. Their report points out that "There is no federal libel law for a president to change" and "Libel laws are constrained by the First Amendment."
According to the Washington Post, Senator John McCain says that Congress would reign in President Trump should he follow through on his illegal campaign promises, and Senator Mitch McConnell says that Trump's lawyers would stop him from breaking the law.
McCain and McConnell served proudly under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2009. During that time, Bush illegally diverted funds from fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan to prepare for an attack on Iraq. Bush illegally spied on Americans without search warrants and denied prisoners the right to fair trials. Bush arbitrarily announced that he would no longer observe the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or the Geneva Conventions -- which was also illegal without Congress' consent. When these things happened, did McCain, McConnell and their peers do anything to stop Bush? No -- they endorsed him for re-election. Did Bush's lawyer Alberto Gonzales try to stop him from torturing people? No, he helped write the Torture Memos that Bush used to claim his crimes were legal.
Likewise, Congress has taken only limited steps to stop the National Security Agency from spying on American citizens without search warrants -- an abuse of power started under the Bush Administration and continued under the Obama Administration. However, no government officials who broke the law in the first place have been prosecuted.
Since Congress did nothing to stop President Bush's abuses of power and has done little to stop President Obama's abuses, it's clear that Congress wouldn't stop President Trump's abuses, either.
As Ronald Reagan said, "Man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."
According to Dictionary.com, a demagogue is "an orator or political leader... who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people."
According to Slate Magazine, Trump is anti-intellectual; his speeches are designed to whip his supporters into an emotional frenzy. He characterizes his opponents as weak.
According to US News and World Report, Trump has mastered the art of media manipulation -- a modern version of the propaganda machine Mussolini pioneered.
According to CNN, Trump attacked Hillary Clinton by circulating an image from an anti-Semitic website. He has since refused to condemn anti-Semitism among his supporters.
According to the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, the Nazi party ruling Germany in the 1930's deported most of their Jewish citizens to concentration camps in other countries. This led to the murder of six million innocent people.
According to Dictionary.com, nihilism is "total rejection of established laws and institutions."
According to NBC News, Trump says we should "cancel the election" and declare him President immediately. "Just thinking to myself right now, we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump, right?"
This is illegal. Trump doesn't believe in the Constitution or one of the most basic tenets of American democractic government: the people's right to elect a President every four years.
What if Hillary Clinton had said that? What if Barack Obama had said that? What if Mitt Romney or John McCain had said that?
After spending his entire campaign insulting people, Trump also says he won't accept the election results if he loses. (!)
If candidate Trump is saying this before he's even elected, what will President Trump say in 2020?
According to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Huffington Post, Trump openly cheated on his first wife with the woman who became his second wife, and continued to pursue women -- including married women -- while married to his second and third wives.
According to Dictionary.com, misogyny is "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women, or prejudice against women."
According to The Telegraph, Trump has spent his entire life demeaning women.
Slate Magazine analyzed Trump's misogyny in depth. According to their research, the only philosophy Trump has held consistently throughout his life is his scorn for women.
According to the Washington Post, Trump bragged that, because he is rich and famous, he can get away with the worst kind of sexual harassment -- and calling his behavior "harassment" is putting it mildly. He refers to women as objects.
According to Slate Magazine, NBC News, and Mother Jones, Trump is a serial sexual batterer.
What if a wealthy, powerful, married celebrity propositioned you and wouldn't take no for an answer? What if he propositioned your wife? Your sister? Your daughter?
The First Lady of the United States commented: "This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior, and actually bragging about kissing and groping women, using language so obscene that many of us were worried about our children hearing it when we turn on the TV.
"...This isn't about politics. It's about basic human decency... To dismiss this as everyday locker-room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere.
"...If we let [Trump] win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they're seeing and hearing is perfectly okay. We are validating it. We are endorsing it. We're telling our sons that it's okay to humiliate women. We're telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We're telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country."
Trump's presidential campaign illegally solicited campaign contributions from foreigners.
According to The Atlantic and the Washington Post, Trump's entire business career has been scandal-ridden. These scandals include refusing to pay his workers, race-based housing discrimination, hiring undocumented and untrained construction workers, and anti-trust violations.
If that's the kind of boss Trump is, is this a man we want as President?
Trump told supporters to attack protesters. If they were arrested, he'd pay their legal fees. "So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously, okay, just knock the hell. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees; I promise, I promise."
Trump is notorious for belittling a disabled reporter and for making sexist comments about a female reporter who asked him a tough question.
According to Rolling Stone and The Atlantic, Trump made a thinly-veiled call for someone to assassinate Hillary Clinton.
We've already had a President who illegally used the powers of his office to bully those he considered enemies. His name was Richard Nixon.
According to the Washington Post, Trump insulted Senator John McCain, a former POW in Vietnam. "He’s not a war hero... I like people that weren’t captured.”
Trump spent a week insulting the parents of a deceased American soldier.
According to the Huffington Post, Trump has disparaged veterans for years, both in his statements to the press and in his business practices.
People who have sacrificed for our country deserve better.
According to CNN, Trump says Saddam Hussein was good at killing terrorists. "He was a bad guy -- really bad guy. But you know what? He did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights. They didn't talk. They were terrorists. Over."
This is the same Saddam Hussein who killed around a million people.
Trump thought it wasn't a big deal that Saddam massacred 5,000 villagers.
According to ABC News, Trump has also praised North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong Un, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. All three are mass murderers.
Trump also admires Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler -- the most evil man who ever lived.
America fought a war to remove Saddam from Kuwait and a second war to remove him from Iraq. Do we want someone who admires Saddam to be our President?
According to CNN, Trump admires Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.
According to Slate Magazine, Trump is playing into Putin's hands. Putin has long supported fascist movements in Western democracies.
According to CNN, Trump doesn't care (and possibly did not know) that Putin had conquered the Crimea -- part of neighboring Ukraine -- in 2014.
According to The Atlantic, Trump says the United States should ignore our seventy-year alliance with Canada and European democracies.
According to the New York Times, Trump says he would not defend our allies Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania if Russia invaded them.
Trump encouraged Russian hackers to break American laws. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing... I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." This is illegal -- a violation of the Logan Act.
Though Trump claims he disapproves of the murders of Russian journalists, he still admires Putin.
According to Newsweek and Mother Jones, Trump has extensive financial ties to the Russian government.
Trump isn't a Russian agent -- he just doesn't care about American interests or our allies. He doesn't care about freedom, democracy, or the rule of law at home or abroad.
According to a Newsweek investigation, Trump's primary source of income is licensing his brand name to wealthy businessmen in other countries. (His licensing income eclipsed his real estate income nearly a decade ago.) Some of these businessmen -- in countries including archrivals Russia and Ukraine -- are on opposite sides of political conflicts. If elected President, Trump could not possibly conduct foreign policy without impacting his own financial holdings.
For instance: "One of his [Trump's] most troubling entanglements is in Turkey. In 2008, the Trump Organization struck a branding deal with the Dogan Group, named for its owners, one of the most politically influential families in Turkey...
"In March of this year, an Istanbul court accepted an indictment of Aydin Dogan, chairman of the Dogan Group, on charges he engaged in a fuel smuggling. Aydin Dogan has proclaimed his innocence, and critics of the action have proclaimed that the indictment was a politically motivated attempt to crush the company that has served as a journalistic opponent of the government."
Turkish President Erdogan criticized the Dogan Group's "...business partner, Trump, for his anti-Muslim rhetoric. In June, Erdogan called for the Trump name to be removed from the complex in Istanbul... That would leave a President Trump in a conflict: Dogan is his business partner, Erdogan is an essential American ally, and they both now are set against each other. Trump might have to choose whether to ignore his partner’s plight or to pressure Erdogan for his own financial benefit.
"This is no minor skirmish: American-Turkish relations are one of the most important national security issues for the United States. Turkey is among the few Muslim countries allied with America in the fight against the Islamic State militant group [DAESH]; it carries even greater importance because it is a Sunni-majority nation aiding the U.S. military against the Sunni extremists. Turkey has allowed the U.S. Air Force to use a base as a major staging area for bombing and surveillance missions against ISIS. A Trump presidency, according to the Arab financier in direct contact with senior Turkish officials, would place that cooperation at risk...
"Trump would be in direct financial and political conflict with Turkey from the moment he was sworn into office... Would Trump act in the interests of the United States or his wallet? When faced with the prospect of losing the millions of dollars that flow into the Trump Organization each year from that Istanbul property, what position would President Trump take on the important issues involving Turkish-American relations, including that country’s role in the fight against ISIS?
"Another conundrum: [Iraq's Kurdish minority are] America’s allies in the fight against ISIS in Syria. [However, Turkish] Kurdish insurgent groups are in armed conflict with Turkey, demanding an independent Kurdistan. If Turkey cuts off the Trump Organization’s cash flow from Istanbul, will Trump, who has shown many times how petty and impulsive he can be, allow that to influence how the U.S. juggles the interests of these two critical allies?"
President Trump would wake up every day and have to choose between acting in the best interests of the United States or bankrupting himself and his family.
The point of Trump's frivolous lawsuits isn't to win. It's to bankrupt his opponents. It works like this:
1) Trump sues a defendant.
2) The defendant is forced to hire lawyers to defend themselves.
3) The lawyers spend years -- and thousands of dollars of their clients' money -- fighting it out in court.
4) The defendant goes into massive debt paying legal fees.
5) Trump loses, but the defendant is destitute, and Trump's still rich.
According to Mother Jones, Trump claims that global warming is a "hoax" created by the "Chinese."
The BBC explains why climate change is happening. The Defense Department considers climate change a threat to national security. Trump wants to pretend otherwise.
Likewise, Trump wants to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, allowing polluters to poison our air, water, and land.
Trump's casinos (and their attached strip clubs) currently hold a record for the largest number of bankruptcy filings filed by any large business in thirty years. According to the New York Times, Trump claimed a loss of nearly a billion dollars on his 1995 taxes.
According to the Washington Post, Trump isn't a bad realtor, but has failed dismally at pretty much everything else he ever tried.
Gawker.com has compiled a list of Trump's many business failings.
Trump isn't rich because he's a good businessman - he's rich because he inherited his wealth. According to Yahoo Finance, Trump would be far wealthier if he'd simply invested his inheritance in the stock market.
If Trump can't run his own businesses, what kind of President would he make?
In a telephone conversation with a reporter, Trump claimed to be his publicist so he could brag about himself.
According to Thomas Wells, Trump, while married, bragged about how popular he is with women.
According to Dictionary.com, a plutocracy is "a government or state in which the wealthy class rules."
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, "The real Donald Trump thinks U.S. wages are too high, and has fought against the unionization of his hotel employees.
"His businesses outsource abroad like mad. Most of the suits, ties and cuff links he peddles are made in China; his luxury line of furniture comes from Turkey; the crystal for his Trump Home line is produced in Slovenia.
"And the real Trump is on the side of the super wealthy. He proposes to cut taxes on the rich from 39.6 percent to 25 percent, and reduce taxes on all business income to 15 percent."
According to the New York Times, Trump's proposals would greatly benefit those who already have extreme wealth and do almost nothing for anyone else.
According to Americans for Tax Fairness, Trump's plan cuts the wealthiest Americans' "top tax rate... from nearly 40% to 33%." It "Eliminates the estate tax, losing [the government] $270 billion. If Trump is, as he claims, worth $10 billion... his heirs alone would inherit between $4 billion and $7 billion more." (The current estate tax only affects people inheriting more than $5.3 million.) Trump's plan "Slashes corporate tax rate by 60%—from 35% to 15%, [losing the government] $2.4 trillion." His plan includes a special tax loophole designed to benefit himself that would cost the government another $1 trillion in revenue.
Trump's campaign announced that "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." This is unconstitutional -- a violation of due process, equal protection, and religious freedom.
Trump's ban includes ambassadors and diplomats from American allies Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. It will be difficult to help the people of Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq -- countries we fought wars to liberate -- if we can't talk to them.
It would also prevent American citizens who practice Islam from returning home after traveling abroad.
According to the New York Times, Trump has also proposed creating a database of innocent American Muslims and spying on American mosques. This is a violation of the First Amendment, which forbids the government from favoring one religion over another. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, "Any such federal action would single out and expressly discriminate against American Muslims, violating the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, as well as the First Amendment’s clauses relating to religion and freedom of expression. Trump’s proposal to implement a national database of Muslims would also result in government retention of records based on how a person exercises their First Amendment-protected activities."
If the government is allowed to discriminate against innocent people for going to church, it won't stop with Muslims. It won't be long before they start discriminating against minority Christian and Jewish groups, too.
According to Dictionary.com, narcissism is "inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity."
According to The Guardian, Trump said: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters."
According to former Trump campaign strategist Stephanie Cegielski, Trump's "... ego has now taken over the driver's seat, and nothing else matters. The Donald does not fail. The Donald does not have any weakness.
"What were once bold — although controversial — statements now seemed to be attempts to please the crowds, not direction to lead this country to a better place.
"Imagine Trump wronged you, even in the smallest possible way. He would go to the grave denying he had ever done anything wrong to you — ever."
According to Psychology Professor Dan P. McAdams, "For psychologists, it is almost impossible to talk about Donald Trump without using the word narcissism. Asked to sum up Trump’s personality for an article in Vanity Fair, Howard Gardner, a psychologist at Harvard, responded, “Remarkably narcissistic.” George Simon, a clinical psychologist who conducts seminars on manipulative behavior, says Trump is “so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there’s no better example” of narcissism."
Congressman Tim Walberg quoted Trump as saying "I am a constitutionalist. I am going to abide by the Constitution whether it’s number 1, number 2, number 12, number 9 ... I am a constitutionalist. I’m going to abide by the Constitution ... It’s so important, and we’re getting away from it. And let me tell you, we have gotten so far away from it, we’re not going to have a country anymore."
The Constitution has seven articles. Trump can't be a Constitutionalist -- he doesn't know enough about the Constitution to have an opinion.
Politico Magazine shows that many of Trump's proposals are unconstitutional. For instance:
According to Business Insider, Trump wants to repeal the 14th Amendment, which guarantees that anyone born in America is a citizen. "A woman gets pregnant. She's nine months, she walks across the border, she has the baby in the United States, and we take care of the baby for 85 years. I don't think so," Trump said.
The Atlantic points out that Trump's vow to imprison Hillary Clinton is unconstitutional. It is up to the courts, not the President, to convict and sentence criminals.
Trump has made no secret that, if elected, he plans to abuse the powers of his office. He has threatened to set the IRS against the Washington Post and to fire any general who refuses to comply with an illegal order. (The Washington Post reports: "The armed forces have a duty to disobey manifestly unlawful orders, but when top civilian lawyers at the White House and the Justice Department overrule the military’s interpretation of the law, few service members persist in their opposition.")
The Constitution exists "to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..." Trump's contempt for women, minorities, and journalists indicates he has no interest in securing justice or the blessings of liberty. His admiration for Putin, Saddam, Kim, Assad, and Gaddafi shows he has no interest in our common defense. His violent rhetoric (including promises to torture people and encouraging his supporters to beat up protesters) demonstrates he has no interest in domestic tranquility.
According to Wikipedia, in 1989, a woman jogging in New York's Central Park was attacked, raped, and beaten within an inch of her life. The police rounded up five teenagers and duped them into pointing fingers at each other. On the basis of those "confessions," the five were sentenced and spent between six and thirteen years in prison. Like many others, Trump was outraged -- and used his wealth to buy newspaper advertisements calling for the five to be executed.
In 2002, an inmate serving a life sentence for a different murder confessed to the Central Park case. DNA evidence proved he was the real criminal, and the so-called "Central Park five" were exonerated.
According to New York Magazine, Trump refuses to accept the conclusive DNA evidence and still thinks the "Central Park five" should be executed.
If Trump's concept of justice is to refuse to believe the evidence and execute innocent people, what kind of President would he make?
According to the Miami Herald, Trump says that he would send American citizens to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they would be tried by military commissions.
The Guantanamo prison was built on the orders of then-President George W. Bush and then-Vice President Dick Cheney by Cheney's old company Halliburton. Its purpose is to imprison accused terrorists -- those captured or kidnapped by American forces. Bush and Cheney built it on our naval base in Cuba so they could claim that, because the prison is not on American soil, the prisoners there have no human rights as outlined in the Constitution. (This is nonsense. The federal government has to treat all prisoners in its jurisdiction according to the law, whether they're in the United States or not.) The point was to imprison the accused forever, without due process -- without any proof, charge, counsel, judge, jury, trial, or sentencing. According to an Army sergeant interviewed by CBS News, there were over 600 prisoners at Guantanamo in 2002 -- but only a few dozen were terrorists. The prisoners were being tortured, psychologically as well as physically.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who was then chief of staff to Bush's Secretary of State, testified that many prisoners had been sent to Guantanamo "without regard for whether they were truly enemy combatants, or in fact whether many of them were enemies at all." Furthermore, then-Vice President Cheney "had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees were innocent." Amnesty International has called Guantanamo "The gulag of our times."
Though Congress has done nothing to facilitate closing the Guantanamo prison, Congress has outlawed imprisoning American citizens there. Trump's proposal is therefore illegal. We shouldn't be treating anyone this way -- let alone American citizens.
At the second presidential debate, Trump told Hillary Clinton: "...If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation... you would be in jail."
Trump's pledge to imprison Clinton and the "Central Park five" (who have all been exonerated) and Clinton's lawyers (who have obviously done nothing wrong) is especially terrifying in this context. Since our legal system has no mechanism to prosecute and imprison innocent people, the only way for Trump to fulfill his campaign promise would be to illegally arrest Clinton, her attorneys, and the "Central Park five," and send them to Guantanamo. Once there, they would be trapped in a "legal black hole." They would wait years before they were even indicted. With Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell firmly behind Trump, it's clear that Congress wouldn't do anything to stop him.
If it seems inconceivable that Trump would jail Clinton at a prison for accused terrorists without charging her with any crimes, remember -- Trump called Clinton "the co-founder" of DAESH.
Since Trump says he will order torture -- and fire any general who refuses to carry out his illegal orders -- he may well order Clinton, her lawyers, and the "Central Park five" tortured at Guantanamo until they'll "confess" to anything in order to make the pain stop.
If Trump can do that to Clinton, he can do it to any of us. He can do it to you.
(According to former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Trump has not been prosecuted for campaign finance violations "Because the Federal Election Commission, charged with enforcing the law, is gridlocked by its Republican appointees." If the Republicans won't stop candidate Trump from breaking the law, they certainly won't stop President Trump.)
According to Everyday Feminism, Trump's performance in the first presidential debate was verbally abusive. "Trump’s language is not your typical political rhetoric," sociologist Elana Sztokman wrote. Trump "uses toxic tactics of emotional abuse – especially emotional abuse aimed at women – in order to put other people down." Some of those tactics are:
According to Snopes, the President of the United States and his four living predecessors all refuse to vote for Trump. Four of the five -- including one of the two Republicans, George H.W. Bush -- will vote for Hillary Clinton.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote that Trump "...is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief."
Republican speechwriter Peter Wehner wrote: "Every one of our 44 presidents has had either government or military experience before being sworn in. Mr. Trump, a real estate mogul and former reality-television star, hasn’t served a day in public office or the armed forces... Mr. Trump has no desire to acquaint himself with most issues, let alone master them... No major presidential candidate has ever been quite as disdainful of knowledge, as indifferent to facts, as untroubled by his benightedness... Mr. Trump’s virulent combination of ignorance, emotional instability, demagogy, solipsism and vindictiveness would do more than result in a failed presidency; it could very well lead to national catastrophe."
Seventy-five retired diplomats agreed. "He is ignorant of the complex nature of the challenges facing our country, from Russia to China to ISIS to nuclear proliferation to refugees to drugs, but he has expressed no interest in being educated," they wrote.
One hundred and twenty-one Republican national security professionals were even more blunt. "His [Trump's] vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle. He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence... His embrace of the expansive use of torture is inexcusable. His hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric undercuts the seriousness of combating Islamic radicalism by alienating partners in the Islamic world making significant contributions to the effort. ...His insistence that Mexico will fund a wall on the southern border... rests on an utter misreading of, and contempt for, our southern neighbor... His admiration for foreign dictators such as Vladimir Putin is unacceptable for the leader of the world’s greatest democracy... He is fundamentally dishonest. ...His expansive view of how presidential power should be wielded against his detractors poses a distinct threat to civil liberty in the United States."
According to CNN, thirty retired Republican congressmen agreed. "Given the enormous power of the office, every candidate for president must be judged rigorously in assessing whether he or she has the competence, intelligence, knowledge, understanding, empathy, judgment, and temperament necessary to keep America on a safe and steady course," they wrote. "Donald Trump fails on each of those measures, and he has proven himself manifestly unqualified to be president. [Trump] insults women, mocks the handicapped, urges that dissent be met with violence, seeks to impose religious tests for entry into the United States, and applies a de facto ethnicity test to judges."
According to the Huffington Post, former Utah Governor John Huntsman and former New York Governor George Pataki have called on Trump to quit the race.
Former Colorado Governor Bill Owens wrote that Trump is a charlatan and a narcissist.
Former New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman wrote: "It is no longer a stretch to compare Donald Trump... to some of the worst dictators in history. Trump... is employing the kind of hateful rhetoric and exploiting the insecurities of this nation, in much the same way that allowed Hitler and Mussolini to rise to power in the lead-up to World War II. The parallels are chilling.
"It is tempting, as Neville Chamberlain did in the face of Hitler’s rise, for polite people to respond to bombastic fascists by quietly ignoring them and hoping they will go away like reasonable people. But people like Donald Trump are neither polite nor reasonable. At times like this, good people must rise up, call out evil for what it is and stand against it.
"Republicans, now is the time to defeat this scourge of our party. We can make America great again by defeating the selfishness, arrogance and bigotry of Donald Trump."
According to the Detroit Free Press, former Michigan Governor William Milliken also refuses to vote for Trump. "This nation has long prided itself on its abiding commitments to tolerance, civility and equality," he wrote. Trump's path "has doomed other governments and nations throughout history. I am... dismayed that the Republican Party this year has nominated a candidate who has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not embrace those ideals."
According to NBC News, conservative newspapers in Detroit, Arizona, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Richmond, New Hampshire, Tulsa, San Diego and Salt Lake City joined USA Today and The Atlantic in urging their readers not to vote for Trump.
Slate Magazine compiled a list of 141 reasons Trump is unfit to be President.
Journalist David Corn writes that Trump is obsessed with revenge. "Following the first presidential debate, [Trump] spent days of valuable campaign time (and hours of valuable sleep time) slamming Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe. At other times during this contest, he could not let go of his feud with Rosie O'Donnell. He [smeared] Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the American-born federal judge hearing a fraud case against Trump University, as a "Mexican" unqualified to preside over this litigation. For days, he derided Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq, after Khizr criticized him during a speech at the Democratic convention. He launched misogynistic attacks against Carly Fiorina and Megyn Kelly. Rather than attempt to unify his party after a divisive primary fight, he threatened to finance future campaigns against GOP rivals... He encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies. And there were the mean and nasty nicknames: Lyin' Ted, Little Marco. Why all the insults, bullying, and grudge matches? There is a reason. Trump... has said numerous times that he is driven by revenge and that it is a basic tool to use in business.
"In a 2012 speech, [Trump offered]: "One of the things you should do in terms of success: If somebody hits you, you've got to hit 'em back five times harder than they ever thought possible. You've got to get even. Get even."
"Iranian sailors make rude gestures at US vessels? [Trump] will shoot them "out of the water." His favorite form of revenge is escalation—upping the ante, screwing 'em more than they screwed you."
A person who is easily baited and drawn in to conflict does not have the temperament of a President. A President must be wise and clear-headed, and make decisions in the national interest. Trump's only concern is making himself look powerful.
Dozens of Christian leaders condemned Trump's immorality on change.org. "Mr. Trump... uses fear to demonize and degrade immigrants, foreigners, and people from different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. He launched his presidential campaign by demonizing Mexicans, immigrants, and Muslims, and has repeatedly spoken against migrants and refugees coming to this country—those whom Jesus calls 'the stranger' in Matthew 25, where he says that how we treat them is how we treat him. Trump has... helped to take the dangerous fringes of white nationalism in America to the mainstream of politics.
"He mocks women and the sanctity of marriage vows, disregards facts and the accountability to truth, and worships wealth and shameful materialism, while taking our weakening culture of civility to nearly unprecedented levels with continuing personal attacks on others, including attacking a federal judge based purely on his Mexican heritage, mocking a disabled reporter, and humiliating a beauty pageant winner for her weight and Latina ethnicity...
"Mr. Trump’s racial and religious bigotry and treatment of women is morally unacceptable to us as evangelical Christians, as we attempt to model Jesus' command to 'love your neighbors as yourself.'"
After Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Trump, a group of his students published a column vocalizing their disappointment. "Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him," they wrote. "He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose.
"A recently uncovered tape revealed his comments bragging about sexually assaulting women. Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense... “We’re all sinners,” Falwell told the media, as if sexual assault is a shoulder-shrugging issue rather than an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America, including our own.
"...We must make clear to the world that while everyone is a sinner and everyone can be forgiven, a man who constantly and proudly speaks evil does not deserve our support for the nation’s highest office."
According to Politico, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney also calls Trump unfit. Romney pointed out: "Insulting all Muslims will keep many of them from fully engaging with us in the urgent fight against ISIS. And for what purpose? Muslim terrorists would only have to lie about their religion to enter the country.
"...Donald Trump lacks the temperament of be president... this is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his marital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity... He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit first amendment freedom of the press.
"Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He's playing the American public for suckers... His domestic policies would lead to recession. His foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president."
Trump chose Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be the next Vice President. According to Raw Story, Mother Jones, and the Huffington Post, Pence signed a law legalizing discrimination against gay Indianans. He wants to outlaw gay marriage and champions "gay conversion therapy" that the United Nations considers torture.
According to the New York Times, an advisor to Ohio Governor John Kasich told them Trump had offered Kasich the Vice Presidency. According to the advisor, Kasich would be the most powerful Vice President in history and would do the day-to-day work of running the government while Trump acted as a figurehead. When Kasich turned down the offer, Trump selected Pence.
Though Trump has both supported and opposed gay equality, the fact that he wants to put one of the country's most noted opponents of gay equality in charge of governing the country indicates how Trump truly feels about the issue. At worst, Trump agrees with Pence; at best, he simply doesn't care.
As noted above, Trump wants to punish women who have abortions. Though Trump has given lip service to exceptions (including rape and medical emergency), Vice-President-to-be Mike Pence is as big an opponent of abortion as he is of gay rights, and believes abortion should be banned in nearly all circumstances. "I long for the day," Pence said, "that Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history."
As part of his crusade against anything related to abortion, Governor Pence wants to abolish Planned Parenthood. According to Mother Jones, "By 2014, Pence had cut Planned Parenthood's funding nearly in half in his state, resulting in the closure of five clinics, none of which ever provided abortions." However, those clinics "did provide STD testing. Soon, Scott County, Indiana, home to one of the closed clinics, became the hub of an enormous HIV outbreak." This is the man Trump wants to become President if anything happens to him.
According to Truthout, Pence signed a law forcing doctors to tell abusive parents if their daughter was seeking an abortion. In cases where the fetus was dying and could not survive long enough to become a baby, Pence's law forced grieving pregnant women to watch an ultrasound of the terminally ill fetus before ending the pregnancy. (Fortunately, Pence's cruel law was struck down in court.)
According to Politico and the Huffington Post, Pence wants to force rape survivors to bear their attackers' children. While in Congress, Pence cosponsored the infamous "Let Women Die" bill that would have allowed hospitals to prevent their doctors from performing abortions even if it was the only way to save a dying woman's life. (Pence has said "I’m pro-life, I don’t apologize for it" -- but his position isn't pro-life. It's pro-death.)
There are several potentially fatal pregnancy complications. The most common is an ectopic pregnancy. (According to WebMD, this happens in about 1 in 50 pregnancies.) If this condition arises, it is physically impossible to save the embryo, and unless the pregnancy is terminated the pregnant woman will die as well. Pence's bill would have sentenced innocent women to die for the crime of getting sick. (In this British case, for instance, a woman suffered from an ectopic pregnancy after a serial rapist attacked her. If Pence's laws had governed the UK, the pregnancy would have killed her.)
What if that happened to you? What if it happened to your wife, your sister, or your daughter?
Trump does not care about America, our people, our values, our interests, our allies, his wives, or his supporters. He cares for nothing and no one but himself.
Legacy Links: [But Today,
I Confess: Political Satire in Verse] | [Obamawatch] | [The Legacy of George W. Bush]
Last updated: October, 2016