A Few Facts About Donald Trump

   I don’t usually inject politics into my blog, but because of the current sad nationwide circumstances, I must speak out.

Here are some easily verifiable facts:

   Trump had no political experience when he first ran for president, had never held a governmental position, his major fame being the star of a reality TV show. He told male friends that his status as that star allowed him to “grab a woman [associated with the TV show] by the ***sy” when he pleased. When that comment became public knowledge, he dismissed it as “only locker-room talk.”

   Accused by journalist E. Jean Carroll of sexual molestation, he publicly ridiculed and verbally attacked her and she received threats from his followers. In a resultant defamation suit, a jury awarded her $5 million. Trump continued to publicly and viciously defame her and the threats from his followers ramped up, so she sued him again and another jury awarded her $83 million. The Trump hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels has been well publicized. Trump’s third wife, Melania, has been conspicuously absent from his side for some time as I write this. Does anyone blame her?

   After his loss to Joe Biden, Trump called Brad Raffenspurger, Republican Georgia attorney general, and asked him repeatedly to “find” thousands of votes, just enough to reverse the Georgia outcome from Biden to Trump. Brad steadfastly refused and wisely recorded the conversation. Georgia did two complete machine recounts and a full hand recount in response to heavy Republican pressure. Brad and others testified under oath that the numbers came out the same for Biden as the winner each time. Republican Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Baur also testified that Trump pressured him to overturn the Arizona vote, which Biden had won. Rusty refused, sacrificing his own political career. In response to Republican vote tampering accusations, some 60 judges across America ruled there was NO election fraud. Despite this, Trump and many of his followers still claim the 2020 election was stolen. Who, in fact, has attempted to steal that election with every devious means including setting up fake electors? Certainly not Biden.

   Day after day the far-right Fox News Network knowingly broadcast the lie that Dominion Voting Machines had rigged the election in favor of Biden. A court found those claims to be utter fabrications, and fined the channel $787.5 million, the largest settlement against a media outlet in American history. Yet millions among us still trust that network for their news.

   Trump is the first president in our history to refuse a peaceful transfer of power and to fight in every way he could to overturn the certified election results. He went so far as to summon a crowd of his supporters to Washington (“Be there. It will be wild,” he said.), harangue them at length, claiming again that the election had been stolen and that Vice President Pence had been derelict in his Trump-assigned duty to refuse certifying the electoral votes. (Traditionally a mere formality; no vice president has any authority to overturn an election, of course.) Trump sent them, armed and openly hostile, marching on the national Capitol, the seat of our democracy. Among his parting comments was: “. . . if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country left.” Fight they did. Capitol Police officers were overwhelmed, beaten, gassed, bear-sprayed, and severely injured. Police Officer Brian Sicknick died. The mob battered their way in, trashing the place as they went, destroying antiques and artifacts, chasing after the fleeing legislators of both parties, chanting, “HANG MIKE PENCE,” defecating on office carpets and desks. The insurrection went on for three hours, while Trump sat in the White House watching it unfold on TV, ignoring even the entreaties of his family members to call off the violence. The mob only began dispersing when law enforcement was independently gaining control of the situation anyway. Then Trump finally went on TV, telling the rioters he loved them and sending them home. Hundreds have since been convicted in court and are serving sentences. The series of January 6 Committee hearings exposed the sordid details behind the riot, and nearly all the witnesses were Republicans, as were Vice Chairperson Liz Cheney and committee member Adam Kinzinger, both of whom sacrificed their congressional political careers to stand up for the truth. 

   After meeting with the dictator of North Korea, Trump said that Kim was “a nice young man.” Anyone who’d like to know the truth about North Korea and the brutal Kim Un regime should read Star of the North by David John, who researched the subject exhaustively, interviewing the few defectors who’ve made it out alive, even traveling there to see what he could for himself. Kim is anything but “a nice young man.” John’s portrait of that bizarre, oppressive, isolated nation, its ruthless dictator, and the threat posed to world order is chilling.

   John McCain was a decorated Navy A-4 Skyhawk pilot and hero (Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Silver Star). Shot down during a flight over North Vietnam and severely injured during ejection, as a POW he endured five years of deprivation, brutal beatings, and continual torture. Despite his horrific ordeal, during which he nearly died several times, he went on to become a respected Republican U.S. Senator from Arizona until his death. When asked by a reporter about John McCain, Trump said, “I prefer people who didn’t get caught.” Trump also publicly mocked a disabled NY Times reporter in a speech, mimicking that person’s involuntary muscle movements.

   Under Trump’s personal direction, boxes containing hundreds of secret and top-secret documents were intentionally and illegally removed from the White House and taken to his Mar-a-Lago members’ club/Trump residence, where they were put in storage in a bathroom and elsewhere. These documents included classified defense plans, nuclear secrets, and secret intelligence reports from America’s allies. He is known to have shared some of these documents with friends who had no security clearances. It is not known who else may have seen any of the unsecured documents, or what Trump’s motives were in taking them. He refused to turn over the documents to the secure National Archives where they legally belonged, and finally the FBI raided the club and seized them. Trump claimed he’d had the power to declassify any document “just by thinking about it.” As I write this, he’s currently under indictment in Florida on 37 felony counts of violating the Espionage Act.

   Prior to the 2020 election in a phone call to Ukraine President Zelensky Trump asked the man to “look into” former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter for any dirt that Trump could use. Implied was the withholding of aid if Zelensky would not. Republicans have since used Hunter’s admitted indiscretions to attack the whole Biden administration, even though Hunter has no role in it. We may recall that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and paid close personal advisor during the Trump administration, secured a two-billion-dollar deal with the Saudis for his investment firm to manage. What will Kushner’s ongoing fees be from that?

   Trump was recently found guilty of fraud in his New York dealings over many years, fined $355 million plus interest to be paid to the state of New York, and was banned from doing business in the state for three years. Two of Trump’s sons, Donald Junior and Eric, were found complicit in the fraud, each fined $4 million, and banned from doing business in the state for two years.

   For years, Trump refused to release his tax returns. Why? Every other president, including Reagan, Obama, Clinton, the Bushes, and Joe Biden have done this willingly and promptly for all to see. When Trump’s most recent returns were finally leaked, the reason he’d so closely guarded them became clear. For three out of five years, he paid nothing at all. For two of those five years he paid exactly $750 each. Trump’s business career has been littered with massive failures, nonpayment to creditors, and outright fraud. In 2018 in California, for just one more example, a federal appeals court upheld a prior agreement to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits accusing fraud associated with his by-then-defunct Trump University.

   Trump has said, “Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.” Hitler said the same about Jews poisoning the blood of Nazi Germany. Hitler also promised to Make Germany Great Again. The truth is the entire North and South American Continents and Central America as we know them have been founded entirely by immigrants. The only original and true occupiers were the native Indian tribes, the Mayans, and the Aztecs. Every single other living person in the Western Hemisphere is either an immigrant or a descendent of immigrants. The inscription on the Statue of Liberty says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Should we tear down that statue?

   The truth is immigrants have made our nation great. Einstein, one of the finest geniuses who ever lived, was an immigrant. Millions of other immigrants have contributed to our industry and culture over the decades. Many of our cities are named for the places they came from: NEW York, NEW Jersey, NEW Orleans, NEW Haven, NEW Bern, where I live. There are Chinatowns in New York and San Francisco. There’s a Korea Town in New York. There are French settlers in Louisiana. There are hard-working, tax-paying Italians, Irish, Russians, Latinos, Germans, Greeks, Scandinavians, and many other nationalities responsibly contributing to our culture and our world leadership role all across America.

   Immigrants should, of course, be vetted before they’re allowed legal status. When Joe Biden proposed a recent long overdue and comprehensive bill on immigration reform, which gave the Republicans a large part of what they’d wanted, Trump fought it and his congressional supporters dutifully killed it because he wanted to run on that issue himself, condemning Biden and Democrats for not taking action.

   Trump said, “With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office.” Really? Does this include Washington, Jefferson, the Roosevelts, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, and all those other presidents from both parties who worked so tirelessly to improve, promote, and defend our democracy?

   The hard facts are: Donald Trump has proven to be criminally incompetent in business and leadership, morally corrupt, incapable of common empathy, a supreme narcissist, an inveterate liar, and a real danger to our American democracy.

   Each of us must decide whether we want to grant this man the great powers and prestige of the White House once again. You know what my vote will be.

   Please give some good old American common-sense thought to your vote.

Phil