It seems to me….
“The point is that you can’t be too greedy.” ~ Donald Trump[1].
Very few people consider Donald Trump to be a paragon of honesty[2]. He, and his supporters, frequently complain of media bias and he apparently has intimidated the media to such an extent that he consistently receives preferential treatment. When he reads from a Teleprompter without going off script, the media states he appears presidential. If he suggests he might not immediately round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants, he’s moving into the mainstream. His constant scandals, like payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University, are totally ignored.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, given the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation, is presumed to be corrupt. There have been multiple Congressional hearings on Bengasi, each declaring her innocence. The media, at Congress’s insistence, refuse to accept she did not intentionally misuse her e-mail. How can anyone consider media coverage to be fair?
In a manner more characteristic of banana republic politics than is typically endured here in the U.S., Donald Trump, has repeatedly insisted that Hillary Clinton deserves to be in jail even promising that if elected, his attorney general would reopen the books and “take a very good look” at possibly indicting her (having himself concluded her to be “guilty as hell”).
Donald Trump’s business career is a long list of bankruptcies, defaults, deceptions, and indifference to investors, according to regulatory, corporate, and court records as well as sworn testimony and government investigative reports.
His disdain for scientific facts is politically motivated and contrary to scientific evidence. He has displayed an authoritarian derision and apparent contempt for scientific facts tending to base policy on questionable assertions of facts and personality cult. Trump treats scientific facts the way he treats other actualities – he ignores or distorts them whenever it’s convenient.
At a time when we face global challenges, such as climate change, which are considerably more urgent than any other challenge our planet has confronted since the beginning of civilization, he has denied that climate change is real calling it pseudoscience and advancing a conspiracy theory that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive”. When speaking to an audience of West Virginia coal miners in May, Trump complained that regulations designed to protect the ozone layer had compromised the quality of his hair spray. Those regulations, he continued, were misguided, because hair spray is used mainly indoors and so can have no effect on the atmosphere outside. When science is distorted on the campaign trail, those distortions lead to bad public policy and the quality of people’s lives will suffer[3].
Trump was persistent in his “birther” claim that President Obama was not born in the U.S. even long after evidence convincingly showed that to be incorrect and only recently (unwillingly) admitting the truth at the insistence of his political handlers.
He continues to propagate the notion that vaccines cause autism in spite of convincing and widely cited evidence to the contrary.
Trump has stated the Department of Education should be downsized and that the U.S. invests too much money in K-12 schooling. He has suggested that he might appoint Ben Carson, a young-Earth anti-evolution creationist, to advise him on educational reform.
He has called the National Institutes of Health “terrible” and has said that he would eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.).
Donald Trump’s history of misogyny and hatred of women goes back decades, long before any of the most recent media releases, seemingly believing in the ideology that rape culture is characteristic of women “asking for it” merely by being present in a space where males are as well. He was quoted in a 1991 interview with Esquire magazine about women that “You know, it doesn’t really matter what they write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass”. In 1997 Trump stated all women are gold-diggers, “The calculating woman who refuses to sign the prenuptial agreement because she is expecting to take advantage of the poor, unsuspecting sucker she’s got in her grasp”. His disdain for women goes so far that he doesn’t even believe they have a right to use their bodies as they wish calling for females to be “punished” if they have abortions.
Donald Trump thinks Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader than Barack Obama. For Trump, “strong leadership” means authoritarian control. Trump has hailed Putin’s tight control over Russian society stating admiringly that Putin has “great control over his country”.
He obviously would want the same control over American society as Putin has over Russia. That’s why he says he’ll expand libel laws so he can control the press. It’s why he says presidents aren’t bound to decisions of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, so he can disregard the courts. It’s why he wants to vastly expand the military. It’s why he said in his nomination acceptance speech “I am your voice”.
If Trump is elected, it would not be surprising if the House impeached him within his first term and the Senate confirmed the impeachment. It also would not be surprising if he refused to leave office and threatened an armed insurrection. Then he could assume dictatorial control and become his own Vladimir Putin.
Usually the best ways to judge a candidate’s character is to consider past conduct or look at what policies he or she is proposing. Mr. Trump’s record of bilking students, stiffing contractors, and more is a good indicator of how he’d act as president; Mrs. Clinton’s speaking style and body language aren’t. George W. Bush’s policy lies provided a much better handle on who he was than all the personal reporting of 2000. The contrast between Mr. Trump’s policy incoherence and Mrs. Clinton’s carefulness illustrates volumes today.
Yes, Hillary Clinton is admittedly a flawed candidate but Donald Trump is an absolute psychopath.
The national political media and cable networks are attempting to appear to not take sides in their reporting but the result has been an avoidance of actually reporting facts. It is the media organizations who we rely upon to inform us but they have ignored the real scandal that goes at not just who Donald Trump is but how massively corrupted our pay-for-play political system is. They instead are focused on chasing down literally anything that has the appearance of malfeasance in Hillary Clinton’s life however thin it may be.
Journalists need to consider whether they are reporting facts or simply engaging in innuendo. If reports about a candidate’s talk about how something “raises questions”, creates “shadows”, or anything similar, be aware that these are all too often fabrications intended to create the impression of wrongdoing when no transgression actually exists.
That’s what I think, what about you?
[1] Donald John Trump is an American businessman, television personality, author, politician, and the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election.
[2] Krugman, Paul. Hillary Clinton Gets Gored, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/opinion/hillary-clinton-gets-gored.html?ref=opinion&_r=0, 5 September 2016.
[3] Krauss Lawrence M. Trump’s Anti-Science Campaign, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trumps-anti-science-campaign, 21 August 2016.
Lew Bornmann's Blog 
The thing that is most peculiar to Trump is that he does bring up truthful issues rather than hide behind political correctness. It is your choice and opinion which one will you will choose to kiss this election?
https://rudymartinka.com/2016/10/11/king-solomon-political-truthfulness-v-political-correctness/
Regards and goodwill blogging.
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Contrary to what you claim, Donald Trump consistently prevaricates or denies personal facts about himself. Trump’s record shows that he is willing to use innuendo and misrepresentation while demanding the highest level of accurate disclosure by others; his record of public statements is rife with distortions, deceptions, and untruths. PolitiFact found more than two-thirds of his statements to be “Mostly False”, “False”, or “Pants on Fire” which is unprecedented in its evaluation of politicians. Fact Checker agreed finding 60-70 percent of Trump’s comments to be untruthful (Clinton also was somewhat untruthful but only in 10-20 percent of her statements). Trump even refuses to accept or apologize when proven wrong.
It was my choice as to whom to believe, I chose to accept proven facts. Based on those facts, I haven’t any option but to consider Trump as being morally corrupt.
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I believe I could have worded better the point I tried to make about the difference between ‘truth’ and ‘truthful issues.’
I concur with you that both candidates were not saints about their statements you described as “distortions, deceptions, and untruths.”
What I meant about ‘truthful issues,’ especially in the length of time the issues have been ignored by both political parties are the issues of deficit trade balances and immigration.
USA Trade balances have been occurring ever since NAFTA was signed by Bill Clinton in 1987, 30 years ago.
Immigration ever since Reagan granted amnesty in 1973, 43 years ago.
I voted for Obama because he promised in his first run for election to renegotiate trade and ‘forgot’ about his promise after he was elected.
Hillary Clinton would do the same with her pre-election promises, in my opinion, based on this previous post.
Thank you for your comments and opinion.
Regards and goodwill blogging.
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While the opinions you expressed are widely shared and certainly contributed to the election of Trump as President, I totally reject them and consider them mistaken. Election of a populist, such as Trump, represents a slide toward neo-Fascism and a treat to our constitutional democracy. Obama was correct in advocating a swing toward Asia and negotiating the TPP — the terms of which were beneficial to the U.S. rather than negative as claimed by Sanders, Clinton, and Trump.
There is much opposition to international trade agreements as many people think only of the corporations and major past pillars of employment that have moved to other countries resulting in the loss of jobs and income upon which many geographical areas were dependent. That is past history as we have now become primarily an exporter of intellectual property, agricultural products, high-tech (including aircraft) items. Globalization, though frequently vilified by politicians, is generally beneficial to the vast majority of people. Considering only the negative aspects fails to recognize longer term benefits associated from such supposed losses or what can be done to create new and possibly greater benefits instead. Government assistance to those negatively affected by off-shoring or corporate relocation is normally able to compensate for loss of employment or local area economic effect. If promptly addressed, any such impact frequently proves advantageous.
While the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, there currently is a swelling negative political movement toward border restriction and immigrant reduction if not full curtailment. There are additional proposals to deport all undocumented immigrants in the country illegally regardless of the benefit and dependence upon them in many crucial occupational areas. This would be a mistake as the numerous positive benefits of immigration far outweigh any potential disadvantages. While there admittedly are some associated negatives, such as social disruption, they are easily managed politically if there is sufficient motivation to do so.
When immigrants enter the labor force, they increase the productive capacity of the economy and raise the overall GDP. Critics who claim immigrants take away jobs, lower wages, and require financial support for social services do not realize that the jobs immigrants primarily take are those most citizens in the host country refuse to take. Immigrants filling these jobs benefit producers and consumers with resultant gains in overall economic welfare.
Normally, if immigrants enter a new country due to employment preference – they offer skills limited in the destination country. The increase in high-skilled immigration, a pronounced trend since the 1990s, has been linked to innovation, specifically to higher patenting rates among immigrants.
Additionally, the ratio of retired to employed within more advanced nations, such as the U.S., is expected to dramatically increase in the coming decades necessitating significant changes in social welfare systems (i.e., benefits). Immigrants, with their children and younger relatives, would provide a more youthful workforce able to minimize those changes.
Some benefits of immigration are readily apparent. Forty-four percent of medical scientists are foreign born as are 42 percent of computer software developers. Immigrant workers are also overrepresented among college professors, engineers, mathematicians, nurses, doctors and dentists, and numerous other professions.
Immigration provides net benefits. The fact that it has some costs is not a reason to oppose it but rather to manage it.
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