Trumpsters

As soon as Trump came on the scene I vowed not to blog on him and the more writings and television spots I saw about him the more determined I became. The longer this has gone on the more I have realized I have nothing unique to contribute so why bother everyone with the same rhetoric?

My change of heart has come because I have realized not voicing my opinions is damaging me physically and emotionally so I am going to write and you, as an American, are free to read or not to read. Hopefully I have contributed something different than everyone else and if not I may at least save myself from an aneurism.

This will involve a couple of things. Foremost on my mind, though not the most important issue is how perplexed I am at the American people. I will be addressing Trump supporters directly here. How can so many of you be enamored with a badly coiffed snake oil salesman? I have no doubt Trump is an intelligent man, but that doesn’t mean he is sane as well. He is obviously manipulative, and has the coldhearted attitude about business that has made American millionaires throughout history “great” by stepping on the backs of others. I do not dare quote here unless I am certain of who said what so I will point out when I do not know .

Having said that, at one point Clinton was talking about how many contractors have complained Trump never paid them. Trump (who was interrupting) was saying things like “well maybe I didn’t like their work” with Clinton replying “Shouldn’t they be paid for their materials and labor” and I believe this is where Trump said “no it’s called good business”. Wow. Even if I did not get the exact quote correct, he did say that. When Clinton stated that Trump had not paid taxes and that could be one reason he would not show his tax returns, he boasted,” That is called being smart”. So, at times we do get some insight into who this man really is   through his boastfulness. He is so in love with himself that he sees his humanitarian shortcomings as something to be proud of.

I do not understand why you (Trump supporters) let him get away with non-answers. When repeatedly asked for his tax return he keeps saying his attorney says not to show it until after the audit and yet each time the person asking for it tells him that is incorrect, he can show them anytime. H* just ignores the whole thing. Are you not suspicious of this?

How did he earn such blind faith? We know he has been in bankruptcy what, 4? 6 times?  His answer to that? He was taking advantage of existing laws and if we do not like it we need to change the laws. So there is no morality mixed with his decisions;  if it’s legal it’s okay.

Why are you, Trump supporters, not more concerned about his temperament? He has made it obvious he cannot let even a small slight go unpunished, he cannot keep his intelligence when he loses his cool ( I am waiting for him to use the old “I am rubber you are glue” bit).  Do his followers see this as strength of character? Do they not see the danger in this when dealing with domestic issues he doesn’t agree with but must deal with, or foreign dignitaries who are straight up assholes? This man was only able to stay composed for the first 10 minutes of a 90 minute debate and then shouted, interrupted, went way, way over time, ignored the rules and the moderator - basically took over the room. That sounds great when you need a best friend to protect you from the school bully, but as the leader of the most influential nation on earth, can we afford that kind of rigidity? Do we want the bully running the school? His “small loan” from his father was a million dollars. This shows his perception of what a dollar is worth, or he is a liar. Actually, he IS a huge liar and when fact -  checked you followers just call it some kind of conspiracy against him. Is this a campaign or a religion? One of my biggest questions is this; when you agree with Trump’s slogan “makeAmerica great again” what EXACTLY do you mean? Define “great” and then tell me when this “great” of yours was. I want specifics because he will have to come up with them. And if you can do it without being a racist or sexist or homophobe I will vote for the man.

I understand the burning need for an outsider. But you have to have someone with experience. Any old outsider is not good enough. Please question yourselves; what makes you think he is an “everyman”? Why do I see you folks talking about how he understands you and your problems and how he is like you? He is the opposite of you. He has never had to struggle, he has no idea what it’s like to decide between rent and electricity. He only relates to you because he can be a bully and talk bad about everyone else. Sorry to say that Trumpkins, but when was the last time anyone in government made you

happy? You keep voting for the wrong party.

Trump will not make you rich.

Trump will not make better jobs.

Trump will not build a wall and keep Mexicans out.

Trump will not bring jobs back to the USA

Trump doesn’t give a damn about you.

But what he will do is what he has already begun to do. Widen the gap between the races, between the law and the people, between you and the rich, between anyone another person hates for no reason. He is divisive and antagonistic and enjoys the power he has over you to make you bend to his will. Do not believe me? Then at his rallies, when he mentions doing violence to dissenters does it happen?  You are his puppets and you do not even see it. Snake oil my friends.

He is a liar. He is a con artist. He is conning you right now. He is a narcissist who buys his wives from a catalog and lusts openly after his daughter.

So please tell me, honestly, I want to know, what, in great detail, makes you think he has the brains for this job? Business acumen is not a measurement of intelligence, if he has a successful business at all. I need a tax return, a financial statement and a look at why he went bankrupt all those times to buy into him being a good businessman. And YOU should demand the same thing! You act like obedient children or his employees. He is trying to win YOUR vote, but you act as if you are desperate for his approval. Stop it! Be the American you so want to be!

What makes you think he has the temperament to be the leader of the free world? This is not a game. This is not The Apprentice. This is a volatile personality ?? (codes?)with his hand on the codes.

Why do see morality in a man who talks of bringing back jobs from overseas but has all his clothes made in Mexico? A man who has openly sexually harassed his own daughter? A man who thinks not paying hard working laborers is a good business decision (hey, it was only a handshake agreement).

Clinton is not perfect. But she is not any less perfect than other presidents we have had and she has a record of a lifetime of service. David Duke (the king of the KKK) supports Trump. The 9-11 Responders support Clinton. That right there speaks volumes.

The remainder of this blog is an excerpt from an article from A PLUS by Isaac Saul. You can read more at A PLUS, A Grain of Saul. I chose this because it sums up many other resource materials, so please do not accuse me of using just one source - this information is public and, in many circles is common knowledge.

Let’s start with a simple but important position: Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person to ever run for president.

Measuring qualifications, of course, is somewhat subjective. She’s never served in the military and never run her own business, something previous candidates have done. But she was a secretary of state for four years, a U.S. senator for eight years, a first lady who lived in the White House, saw the challenges of being president up close and personal for eight years, a first lady of Arkansas, and a law professor to boot. If she were elected, she’d be the first former cabinet member to become president in almost 100 years.

Just months before 9/11, Hillary Clinton became a U.S. senator in New York. She served for eight years in the city and was a key architect of the $21 billion federal aid bill that helped rebuild the city after her term started with the worst tragedy New York had ever seen. But perhaps what she is most remembered for is fighting for the health bill that served first responders in the first 48 hours after the attack. While Donald Trump bragged about his building now being the tallest in New York City, Clinton was fighting the Environmental Protection Agency to admit the air wasn’t safe to breathe. That’s why Clinton has the support of so many 9/11 first responders and survivors: they remember her work as a senator of New York.

But guess what? Google “Clinton health bill 9/11” and you’ll find nothing but results about her nearly fainting outside a 9/11 memorial service, one she attended while diagnosed with pneumonia.

That wasn’t the first time Clinton had advocated for a strong health care bill, though. In 1994, a universal health care bill that Hillary Clinton pushed for had failed as the Clinton administration came into office. Then Democrats lost the House and then lost the Senate for the first time in 40 years. Democrats had essentially given up on health care reform, until First Lady Clinton helped the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). She’s largely credited with getting the bill into law, and it became the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance in three decades.

[Hillary] Clinton has traveled the world advocating a better life for women in places where that concept wasn’t even on the radar.

Today, the bill has resounding bi-partisan support, and 8.4 million children — many of them low-income — are enrolled in its program.

As she mentioned in the debate, her time as secretary of state required everything from traveling to 112 countries and debating peace deals and ceasefires, to negotiating the release of dissidents — men and women who pushed back against authoritarian regimes. What she didn’t mention was just how real that “stamina” was: She set records for travel as secretary of state.

But during Clinton’s time as secretary, she also advocated a powerful, important worldview: that the United States could be a force of good and progressivism across the world, advocating for human rights, development, and equality in nations that may not know any of those things. She pushed for investment and accommodation with Asian powers such as China, who she knows we can share mutual goals with like preventing war in the Asian Pacific and spurring economic growth by investing in the future of technology.

In the beginning of her term as secretary of state, Clinton had to win over President Barack Obama — something that, at the time, was not guaranteed. They had a heated primary battle and many thought they may never mend those wounds. But today, Obama is one of her biggest advocates. Despite publicly disagreeing with her at times, most notably on the specifics of Syrian intervention, he’s come to trust her counsel and had her present for some of their biggest moments in the situation room, such as when she helped him coordinate the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Perhaps Clinton’s greatest blemish on her record is the destabilizing of Libya, which led to the Benghazi diplomatic compound attack. Certainly, it was one of the career bullet points that made me despise her. But despite $7 million dollars spent on Benghazi investigations, 1,982 published pages of reports on Benghazi, 10 congressional committees participating in investigations, 3,194 questions asked in a public forum, Clinton and her administration have been found guilty of zero wrongdoing. No “stand down” call was ever found, one of the cornerstones of the Republican claims. The family of Chris Stevens — the ambassador who became the face of the Benghazi tragedy after he was killed in the siege — has publicly objected to blaming Clinton for Benghazi.

Even more lost in the Benghazi witch hunt is a simple reality: during George W. Bush’s presidency, there were 13 attacks on U.S. embassies that killed 60 people. Yet his career and record were not marred by these. Despite that, Trump and his campaign still thought it should have been brought up in last night’s debate.

Throughout her time in public service, Hillary Clinton has negotiated ceasefires in Israel, put the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Act into law, authored the Pediatric Research Equity Act (which helped re-label drugs to keep millions of children safe), and she got the EU, Russia, China and other world powers to participate in the crippling sanctions on Iran that forced the country to negotiate its nuclear plan out of existence. All while enduring propaganda that thrust Benghazi and the Clinton Foundation — from which there’s also been no evidence of wrongdoing, in fact, quite the contrary — into the public’s mind.

And throughout all that time, Clinton has traveled the world advocating a better life for women in places where that concept wasn’t even on the radar. She’s pushed for paternity leave here in the United States, and became a symbol of women’s rights and women’s progress everywhere. Looking at Secretary Clinton and reading about her accomplishments, it’s tough to think that it was just 100 years ago the U.S. elected the first woman to Congress. That 100 years later, she’s our first female candidate for president to win a primary.

Secretary Clinton, I’m sorry. ... You have accomplished far more in your life as a public servant than just about anyone that’s run for this office...

And what does she get for all of this work? As the debate wrapped up on Monday night, Clinton endured Trump’s threats to mention her husband’s adultery despite the fact he’s had three marriages, and been accused of rapeand is a known adulterer. As she eviscerated him on calling women pigs and dogs, Trump lied about his position on the Iraq War, lied about his reasons for not releasing his tax returns, lied about his belief that climate change is a hoaxcreated by the Chinese, lied about his feeling that pregnancy is an “inconvenience” for businesses, lied during his defense of unconstitutional stop and frisk, lied that crime is getting worse in New York, and then lied when he said his temperament was his greatest quality. And what did Clinton get?

On Fox News, they cut to their political analyst Brit Hume describing Clinton: “The TV audience saw the faces of the two candidates,” Hume said. “And she looked composed, smug sometimes ... not necessarily attractive.”

"Where were you when..." A 9/11 Post

Every generation of Americans has an “I remember where I was when….” story. Each individual person’s memory is unique, but collectively, we all seem to remember the same event as a once in a lifetime memory maker. My parents’ generation has the assassination of JFK as their terror, and their parents remember Pearl Harbor.

Mine has 9-11.

I have a pretty bad memory. Things I remember I remember pretty accurately, but there are a lot of things I forget. September 11, 2001 plays back like a movie in my head whenever I want, yet I really have no story of interest.

I lived in Charlotte, NC and was at work. I worked for a brokerage house so we all had MSNBC on our computers at the beginning of the day. My family was split between Washington DC and New York, my brother-in-law being on his way to a job interview in one of the Twin Towers that morning.

I was on the phone with my sister, who also had the TV on, when the first plane hit. Being typical sheltered Americans, it never dawned on us that this was an attack; we both automatically assumed it was an accident. At this point my memory is blank until the next plane hit. This missing time was probably not memorable, just chit chat with my sister or some boring paperwork to finish for work.

Here is the interesting part for me; when that second plane hit, we both STILL assumed it was an accident. The idea that American soil could be defiled was so far removed from our minds that in the back of our heads we thought two identical accidents was more likely than an attack. It really did not occur to us and I remember both of us saying something like “Jesus, where the hell did they get these pilots”. We laugh at our naivety now.

As the first tower fell, just before I lost my phone connection to my sister (who was in Long Island) she said she felt the reverberation and her lights browned out. Then she was disconnected.

The rest of the morning was sheer panic to me. I didn’t know if my brother-in-law was in one of those buildings (eerily, he changed his mind about the job before he hit New York City and went home) and my father lived as close as you can to the Pentagon.

There were no usable phone lines and no planes in the skies over the US.

I ran into my boss’s office and explained to him that I had to go; everyone I loved was being attacked. He said no, I could not leave. I was in my car within 2 minutes. As I drove I didn’t really know where I would go or what I would do. I certainly couldn’t save them. Shaking violently, I drove home and calmed myself, keeping the TV on for days after that. Everyone I cared about was just fine and have their own stories now.

Every anniversary people swap stories and talk about the terrible loss of life on that day, but that is not how it affected me. Of course I cared about the ones in my life and like everyone else who just will not admit it, in only an abstract way I cared about the victims. I actually cared more about the first responders, the people still alive, who had to risk their lives trying to save others from that hell, and who now are literally dying from their heroism on that day.

In the subsequent days and months the media went wild with the story. It was like the news Santa had arrived. Movies were hastily made and America was soon America again…making a buck however possible. As I watched all this: the sadness, the fear of what this all meant, the national self pity, I began to get irritated.

We the people are lucky to have been born here, a nation so powerful, so influential, that we all sleep soundly at night, knowing that a burglar is probably our biggest thing to fear.

Well America, I have news for us. While we cry in our coffee once again about this event, countries like Ireland and Nigeria and Israel have terrorism as a way of life while we had a brief dance with tragedy. We are so self-centered that it took me a 10 minute google search to find anything on pre-9/11 terrorism outside of the US. We lost approximately 3,200 people that day, many more when you count the firefighters and other first responders who are still sick and dying from that day.

Even 15 years later we still have practically made it National Self Pity Day. I have had loved ones die and I do not revisit their death day like it is a wedding anniversary. By annually commemorating this tragedy, by not rebuilding buildings on that spot with a big “fuck you” sign on it, by making it a shrine, we give our power away. We let them have an emotional victory. We set ourselves up for more acts of terror when we cry while we let this school yard bully take our lunch money.

This martyrdom is a great disappointment to me. I am speaking collectively here. If you lost a loved one on that day then of course you and your family need to do whatever you need to do to cope and heal. What I am talking about is the ambulance-chasing aspect of it by people who had no connections to 9/11, and that is what this is. If you lost no one and you sit in front of your TV and watch footage, you are an electronic peeping tom.

By this time I suspect there are people on their way to my home with torches and pitchforks, coming to kill me, the monster. It gets worse folks.

Has anyone ever sat down and considered WHY this happened? Conspiracy theories aside, I would think that if men were angry enough to create an organization, train for, plan and carry this out, we must have done something incredibly offensive…yet during that time I only once discussed with someone the treasonous idea that we should sit down and think “Wow, we really made these people mad. What did we do and was it our mistake? Can we fix it if it is?” All I hear are battle cries.

Indeed, take a look at the wiki entry on reasons for the 9/11 attacks for many different theories, along with actual facts, as to why we were attacked…it boils down to our occupation of lands where we were not wanted, and sanctions which included food and medications, of which Bin Laden said, “the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known”.

In 1996, Bin Laden issued a fatwa calling for American troops to get out of Saudi Arabia. In the 1998 fatwa, Al-Qaeda wrote: "for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples." And there is a lot more.

I certainly am not saying there is ANY justification for killing or terrorizing people, I am simply saying that if we had smoothed down out hackles and checked our ego that day, we might have at least been able to see their point of view, no matter how twisted. This would have been the first step in communication and perhaps, 15 years later, we would no longer have a growing threat of terrorism. I am not am optimist about our future with radical Islam. I think for both of us the time for communication, understanding and negotiations is long past. We missed the opportunity to be the “bigger person” and as a consequence we have become little, petty people, afraid of anyone who is not from a Judeo-Christian background. We have gone backwards in time as far as race relations goes, both for the brown skinned and, in a spill-over, the black skinned.

So what can we do? I do not have any answers for that question anymore. I think things could be different now if handled better 15 years ago, but there is too much water under the bridge and too much hate created and nurtured on both sides now.

However, we could begin by not commemorating the anniversary of 9/11 each year. I think it is probably a painful reminder to those directly affected by it and another reason for our enemies to see us as malleable, spoiled, ignorant Westerners (You will read why below).

The one subject we should remember has been all but forgotten. The men and women who spent countless hours saving lives, moving bodies and cleaning up after the attacks, who are now suffering and dying from exposure to toxins while they were busy being heroes. (and do not forget, the Americans that died that day were victims, tragic victims, but they were not heroes. The First Responders and the injured who reached out to help others, those were the heroes.)We need to demand our government give these people the care they deserve, provide for their families, thank them in a meaningful way for what they did for us.  Firefighters who worked at Ground Zero are 20 times more likely to die from cancer as those that did not work there. The World Trade Center Health Program stated last year that “over 21,000 people are getting treatment for conditions caused by the toxic and hazardous air following the terrorist attack, according to the program’s administrators.”

In September of 2014, three of the Ground Zero firefighters died of cancer on the same day.

Jon Stewart, formerly host of The Daily Show, has dedicated himself to helping these national treasures, and is responsible for The Zadroga Act, which extended the time limit on healthcare for 9/11 first responders. I believe it is shameful that a television satirist has to push congress to take care of our heroes.

Looking back 15 years ago, our world was a much different place. With every generations’ “I remember where I was when…” story comes the feeling some measure of innocence is lost. This feeling collectively compounds with every subsequent tragic event until it morphs into distrust and disillusionment.

9/11 stands alone because it solidified what were mere feelings before. My step daughter does not remember a time before 9/11.  To her, being frisked and probed and x-rayed at the airport is normal. Being constantly asked for identification for no apparent reason is routine to her generation, while my generation is outraged at the intrusion. We are supposed to be a free nation, one where its citizens are innocent unless proven otherwise, where a certain measure of privacy is expected. Because of 9/11 and the fear we have allowed to take over us, we have gone from government surveillance to marketers who know what you buy so they can customize their ads to your likes and buying habits. What is normal to the younger generation is an outrage to those of us who have memories prior to 2001. That subject alone could be an entire book so I will stop there.

I was raised in a world where there was privacy and freedom. 9/11 changed all that. To me, the most frightening thing about this event is that, where I say, “you may not have that info, that number, search that place or this person even though I have nothing to hide” the current gaggle of 20-30-somethings say “search anything and anywhere you want, I have nothing to hide”. The very idea that freedom and privacy are becoming a thing of the past because people will do anything if they are told it will make them safe, this is an abomination to me and proves we no longer are the land of the free and the home of the brave.