AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP

If Only He Could Understand the Truth

Our president has many challenges on his hands. He will be raked over the coals for the rest of his life about his lack of quick and decisive action on the COVID-19 crisis. Trump’s reactions, rhetoric and repulsive threats at the George Floyd protesters will push away any support he might have with African American voters. He’s sounding more like George Wallace or Richard Nixon than a clown-reality TV star.

Moderate, suburban women don’t like the violent references and chauvinistic tone of the Trump tweets. He will never be able to bring those college educated voters back into his camp. Along with the economy’s long trip back from the brink, which will not happen before the upcoming presidential election, the 45^th President will never have the right answers. The Donald doesn’t have the mind or skill to unite a country. As time goes on, the questions from legislatures, voters and reporters will get more critical. I wonder if his mind is capable of having this conversation with his ego, “Gee, maybe I am a racist.”

As of this day, the coronavirus has taken more than 104,000 people from the United States, but the TV news today is all about protesters and fires and looting and inner-city destruction. Will Donald Trump once again take no responsibility? To be fair, here’s a quote from the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan, “But the seeds of that long day were planted years ago: The press has been attacked and disparaged by politicians for decades, whenever they found it served their purposes to slap around the ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ as Richard Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, once put it. So no, Trump didn’t start this. But he has made it immeasurably worse.”

There must be a political playbook enclosed in glass on the wall of the Oval Office with a sign that says, “In case of populous protests, BREAK GLASS!” We are hearing the same words of the White-House-past coming out of the mind of its present resident. Blame some mysterious outside force? For the life of me, I have no idea why the home addresses of protesters have anything to do with this; they are all Americans. People sometimes travel 3,000 miles to see their favorite sports teams play. Why would Americans traveling to another city to protest police actions of injustice and brutality have anything to do with solving the problem? Us Boomers already know that stunt; it’s classic tricky Dick Nixon.

Sadly, the acidic source of this current rumor came from local sources, the Minnesota Governor and Mayors of the Twin Cities, who were duped by bad data which showed some of those arrested were not from the area. In fact, the protesters were local people. Why does anyone find that unbelievable? I’ll bet, however, we will hear that lie again and again on Fox TV.

When protesters marched outside the White House last Friday night, Trump was quick to use harsh language, threats of violence and warnings about guard dogs to ward off the danger. Oh, how pro-segregation of him! When confronted by reporters about his “looting – shooting” reference, he said he didn’t know where that phrase came from, but deep down inside he knew he went too far. Once again, we see proof that people who disagree with this president make him nervous. He respects only the part of the Constitution that gives us guns, not the part that gives us a voice and a right to protest. By the way, it’s against the law to use the US Military against citizens of this country. Hopefully, someone will point this out to Donald John Trump.

A REAL LEADER WOULD HELP SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. If Trump hadn’t treated Barack Obama so poorly over the years, he could’ve picked up the phone, asked Obama to fly to Minneapolis and do a speech on big street screens to quell the violence and suggest some remedies for the pain in the Black community. Trump can’t and won’t use that resource. Obama put out his own message, but we truly need a message of political unity right now. Won’t happen.

Here’s the real problem, Trump doesn’t have many African American advisors. Yes, Ben Carson holds a place in Trump’s cabinet, but his is not exactly the kind of pro-Black voice needed. Carson claimed that providing a safety net for minorities and unemployed Americans is a bad idea, “That’s not helping those people, and all that you have to do is look what’s happened since the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson. We’ve spent $19 trillion and we have 10 times more people on food stamps, more people in poverty, more broken homes, out of wedlock births, crime, incarceration. Everything is not only worse, it’s much worse.” The most disturbing part of that misconception was his use of the words, “…those people.” There’s no credible person in this administration who will be believed by the African American community.

The letter I would write would be a short one, because that’s the only kind of letter that will work with Trump. Let me give it a try:

Dear Mr. Trump,

Since you became President, you have been saying how you, and you alone, can fix the problems of the United States. Some of those problems, were exaggerations and just part of your political pitch, but when do you graduate? If you think you can solve all problems yourself, why not start NOW?

When do you become the President of all the people of this great country? Kanye West doesn’t represent the African American experience and neither do the anarchists who would rather burn things down than get things done. It’s time for you to take a good hard look at the realities and the challenges, STOP LYING and START LEADING!

You cannot just arrest everyone or shoot everyone or stay in your ideological cocoon. You must step forward, and present solutions to discrimination and lack of equality in America. The poor need to be helped, the sick need to be healed and the voters need to know you can handle the job. Stop making it worse.

Thank you.

Donald Trump is out of sync with his fake announcement that he will get involved with the investigation of a police officer killing an unarmed black man. It’s his bullshit attempt to have it both ways. He wants to throw a few bones of sympathy to the Black community, while continually encouraging the violent tactics of police. Trump is so much like Nixon it makes me want to throw up. His attempt to play both sides can be best summed up with this one infamous line from the Charlottesville incident, “…you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

When Trump was asked recently about COVID-19 advice from Dr. Anthony Fauci, he once again used the “both sides” reference. Trump said that Fauci, “wants to play all sides of the equation.” Trump sees everything that is said about him or his actions as taking a side. He cannot bring people together because he holds a core philosophy that people are either for him, or against him. He will never be a good president, because it’s all about him and will always be about him. Even about what is best for the American people, Trump will always say the wrong things. He obviously cannot Be Best!

If you read this book, you can see why all this happened to us.

The book that tells it like it is…

Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs This weekend, I picked the book and thumbed through some of the chapters, and I re-read chapter called, Take a Knee for America and thought about this never-ending conflict between minorities and the police. It’s not really taking a stand I’m asking you to do, but having a real frank conversation about why some people think they way they do would be productive right now. It’s a book for the moment.

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.

TRUMPED UP CHARGES

Unreasonable Force & American Justice

As members of the baby boomer generation, we learned that peaceful protesting was part of our great country. We had a soundtrack that played in our brains as we marched against the Vietnam War and the astonishing illegal polices of Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Yes, there were fatalities, at Kent State University and Jackson State and 58,220 soldier deaths in Vietnam. We always knew ours was a just cause driven by the love of democracy.

There were a few songs that some said went too far. One of them was Peace Frog by the Los Angeles band The Doors. Some interpreted the lyrics as police brutality against protesters. Doors lead singer Jim Morrison was arrested in 1967 in New Haven, Connecticut and charged with inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. A year later, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley deployed 12,000 city police officers and called in another 15,000 state and federal officers to contain protesters at the Democratic National Convention. The situation then rapidly spiraled out of control, with the policemen severely beating and gassing not only the crowd but news people and doctors as well. The DNC event was completely covered on TV, and when we heard the lyrics of Peace Frog we knew they had to about us.

The lyrics: “There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles… There’s blood on the streets, it’s up to my knee… Blood on the streets in the town of Chicago…… Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven. Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice, Blood in my love in the terrible summer, Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.” Today, are we moving forward or are we repeating history?

When a minority community feels that American justice is based on the color of one’s skin rather than the national creed “All men are created equal,” we have a problem.

A bad president will always make things worse. When Richard Nixon was faced with massive anti-war protests, he discussed using the Teamsters Union to beat up college kids. Because Nixon taped his Oval Office meetings, we learned about a 1971 conversation in which John Haldeman (Nixon’s Chief of Staff) suggested, “I think that they can get away with this–do it with the Teamsters. Just ask them to dig up those, their eight thugs.” Nixon agreed to a plan to beat up protesters, it’s all true, and the word “thugs” was used.

President Nixon condemned those who threw eggs and stones at his limousine in San Jose as “a thousand haters,” and said the time had come when “appeasement of the thugs and hoodlums” in American society must end. When Nixon called a bunch of white college kids “thugs and hoodlums” the white conservatives and labor unions backed him. As I’m sure you remember, Nixon resigned after it was revealed he was involved in a break-in of the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Party and a coverup of that crime. Now, we have Trump.

The recent unrest in Minneapolis expanded to major rioting, looting and burning. At 1:00 AM, the inner bigot in Donald Trump tweeted, “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” I added the boldening. The expression wasn’t a Trump original, once again the Donald has dipped into history for his threat of violence. Even though he claimed he doesn’t remember where the slogan came from, he never acknowledged the racist trope embedded in same.

The phrase was first used by Miami Police Chief Walter Headley in 1967. He promoted police brutality as a deterrent to street crime when he pitched his department’s “crackdown on … slum hoodlums.” It was a threat in 1967 and it is STILL a threat of violence in 2020. Today, Trump not only threatens shooting protesters, but also unleashing “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons,” on those who surrounded the White House. Now, that is close to home.

Twitter’s management has decided that Trump’s tweet is in violation of their policies. Twitter’s response came fast, “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence.” They put their warning in a gray box that hides Trump’s tweet from public view unless a user clicks to see it. In a way, it’s a “let the buyer beware” notice, but some experts believe more will read the “fact-checked” posting.

I know all too well how much pain, death and division President Nixon caused this nation. His words, policies and attitudes were completely out of sync with the growing population of us baby boomers. We forced Richard Nixon out of office, and it’s now time to do the same to Donald Trump.

After massive civil unrest, authorities often attempt to create an US and THEM scenario. The President and State Attorney General are already saying that the protesters are “outside agitators” who were “organized.” We have all been here before, just as Politico has pointed out.

This was Richard Nixon’s routine and Trump and his buddies are now trying it on for size. I ask now, just like I did in the late sixties, “Where are these ‘professional paid protestors’ from? Who is paying them, some external force?” Why can’t our so-called leaders just admit that the countrywide protests were motivated by the brutal police killing of an unarmed African American in Minnesota? Yes, anyone with a cell phone and presence on a social media platform can ORGANIZE A MARCH. However, when mayors, governors and local police say that the locals don’t like what is happening, they imply and bolster a narrative that all protests are just invasion from outside their borders, thus reinforcing the US and THEM theme.

This isn’t about “Black Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter,” this is about AMERICA. This is about our democracy and life, liberty and the pursuit of justice. Trump is just another broke-Dick Nixon and he’s not worthy of the office of President of the United States. He must be removed by Congress, or the 25^th Amendment, perhaps another Impeachment, but most certainly by our votes. If he refuses to leave the White House, he should be removed by force. He’s not above the law and his actions, policies and executive orders prove he truly is America’s #1 THUG!

If you read this book, you can see why all this happened to us.

The book that tells it like it is…

Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs shows how we’ve wasted our GOLD on bad wars and corruption. While GOD is there for many people as a spiritual enrichment and the provider of glowing feelings, the truth is just praying and believing will not change our major arc. We don’t determine who gets a GUN. We aren’t sure if we have paramilitary groups ready to storm the White House or a White Castle. There is no control of weapons. The GOOFBALLS with the power constantly try to manipulate us into spending more money on bombs and tanks and wars. When all of our institutions are infected with neglect and fall in disrepair, we will only have ourselves to blame. This book is not an antidote for the left or right, it’s an accelerant to move the middle off their collective asses to go do something positive for America.

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

Trump’s Pandemic Without a Party

Well, we have made it to the end of another dreadful week. The TV is blaring that more than 100,000 Americans have died by COVID and 40 million people are without a job. We have a black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis murdered by police and riots in the streets. Donald John Trump’s journey to the November election now consists of nothing but lying, manipulating and screaming. Let me answer that age-old political question; no, we are not better off than we were four years ago. The numbers don’t lie and Trump’s meaningless pitch that everything would get better fast didn’t prevent death, keep folks working or pay the bills. He has not made life better for the millions of us waiting for a solution.

It would be different if Trump was living in a vacuum without an example of how to act in a pandemic, but he sees only through the lens of politics. He is so much more partisan than all the previous presidents of my life. All Trump has to do is watch New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to see how a true leader handles communication, facts and empathy, every day. Trump automatically disregards anyone not in his party. The COVID-19 virus has no political party.

Our glowing orange President always wants to be right. Even when an idea is totally dangerous, harmful and untrue, it doesn’t matter. He will just say it. No one is there to correct him, censor him or nudge him in the right direction. To prove this point, Trump keeps referring to the last major virus outbreak in the United States as happening in 1917. It was called the Spanish Flu, and it raged from 1918 to 1920. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. At least 50 million people worldwide died, with 675,000 deaths occurring in the United States. In 1918, the year that the flu was discovered, it is believed to have killed Donald Trump’s grandfather. If our president can’t get that one year right, how can anyone depend on him for any guidance or wisdom?

Donald Trump knows that opening the country early means more people will die. The man claims to care about the grief that this virus has caused, but he lies. He cares only about money, the economy and his reelection. That is the truth. There are many powerful and rich people in America who endorse Trump’s actions and want to let the coronavirus run its course. What does that mean? There is no difference between this attitude of people being expendable and what Timothy McVie said about the children who were killed by his bomb in Oklahoma City. He called them “collateral damage,” and while you might think this is a harsh comparison, death is death and numbers don’t lie.

When Trump said he takes no responsibility for what is happening during this pandemic, I and many others got extremely pissed off. One of the latest media reports, which has the ring of truth, is that Trump has been stomping around the White House wallowing in despair repeating the words, “Why is this happening to me?” I can hear him say it, not because of my political leanings but simply because it sounds exactly like something he would say. I’m willing to wager that he will eventually say it in public. He claims to be the most transparent US president ever but hasn’t released documents Congress requested for their oversight responsibilities. He says he is rich and totally successful but broke the 40-year tradition of candidates releasing their tax returns. He’s hiding something. I don’t care about his wealth; I just want to know who’s involved in his financial dealings.

This global pandemic was never taken seriously by Trump and his “Yes” men and women in the administration. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx were valuable reality checks, but just as we predicted, the President has thrown them aside for actions and words that please his base but don’t cure the disease or soothe the soul of America. Today, he tweeted again, a horribly violent threat to African Americans. He published, on both the official White House Twitter account and his personal account, the words, “… when the looting starts, the shooting will start.” This Tweet Threat was quickly given a warning and admonishment from Jack Dorsey. How can we ever take Trump seriously.

Predictably, we are seeing COVID cases and death going up in those states where people have listened more to Trump than to the experts. This makes it more Trump’s pandemic and shows his inability to be patient and wait for medical and scientific plans to cure the virus. A sad, terrible and tragic aspect of these deaths is that minorities, people with pre-existing conditions and the elderly are being hit hardest. With their lack of mask wearing and reduced social distancing, Trump loyalists will soon be added to that list. What kind of leader sends citizens of his nation into danger? We all will have to pay for this disregard of experts’ advice.

When the Trump sycophants talk about the origins of the COVID-19 virus, they refer to the “Chinese Communist Party” as the evil doer. They are trying to brand the virus as the product of a political party. Trump has tried to blame Obama and the Democrats for the virus, but that ludicrous digression waters down the anti-communist plot constructed by the Neo-Cons in Congress. Donald Trump is bouncing from one idea to the next without a clear, consistent plan. When the press criticizes his administration for not being clear and factual, Trump just blasts out another lie or distraction.

People are dying. People have died. More than 100,000 people have succumbed to this evil virus. There are more and more people who do not trust in Trump. They want answers but all Trump offers is a loyalty oath. If you believe in me, don’t wear a mask. If you are with me, go out into the sun and take back your freedom. If you are backing me you don’t need a federal plan, just pretend that the virus cannot hurt you. With this idiotic advice, Trump also says if virus deaths increase, he will not shut down the economy. It’s perfectly clear that he cares more about money than the pain of Americans.

When more than 600,000 men died in the Civil War, it was to resolve the sin of slavery and to unite the nation. The death was terrible and maybe taught us that we are stronger when we are together, united. What is happening in Minneapolis and around the country with African American protests, have we really cured the divide? It’s Trump fault we aren’t getting closer to that ideal.

When 675,000 people died between 1918 and 1920, we didn’t know what to do. Our medical knowledge and technologies weren’t effective against that curse. What we should learn from that pandemic is it brought three distinct waves of infections and death. We thought it was over but it kept coming back, thus the high number of deaths. Trump thinks it took place in 1917, a year with no deaths, because the virus hadn’t arrived on our shores yet. I hate to say it again, but TRUMP IS THE WRONG MAN FOR THE JOB. The sooner he leaves the White House, the safer America will be.

If you read this book, you can see why all this happened to us.

The book that tells it like it is…

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.

ABUSE OF POWER

Letting Trump Be Trump

Many Trumpers use the term, “Let Trump Be Trump,” and Corey Lewandowski, along with David Bossie, titled their 2017 book with that exact advice. The aphorism is like the well-worn “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” while many modern visionaries say, “Break it, rebuild it and make it better.” In the last decade, more than a few millionaires preached, “Disruption can make you better.”

Here’s a great quote from the book The Traitor Prince by C.J. Redwine, “Power is neither good nor evil. It just is. It’s what people do with power that matters.”

Every American should be deeply concerned about Donald John Trump’s war against freedom and truth. I have never liked the expression “Let Trump Be Trump” because of its cloaked meaning. That construct is often used when someone is so good at what he or she does, they don’t need to play by the rules. When Babe Ruth was drunk or late for a game they would say, “He’s the Babe!”

We don’t need to let Trump do anything; he’s the President of the United States and we have in writing his responsibilities and duties. There’s no mystery here. His lack of cooperation with Congress’ oversight duties is appalling. Be careful, however, before you turn to history to understand what’s happening. The words “dictator” and “king” have been printed in hundreds of newspapers thousands of times referring to a US president. Even George Washington, the first president, was under the microscope by a watchful free press that kept reminding him of his un-royal status.

Donald John Trump is more blowhard and less a solid thinker or credible leader. You know that I am not a big fan of Twitter management, but I may have an ally in Trump when it comes to social media censorship. Donald lost it when challenged by a new Twitter policy of adding fact checking footnotes to his posts. Twitter’s management believes some of what the President says is misleading. Ironically, he went on a tweet storm protesting this action, which only gives more power to Twitter.

In the Trump Executive Order, he suggests, “A small handful of social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the United States. They’ve had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences.” Trump continued, “This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic. When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power.” He’s not going to prevail, but will Twitter back down? And Mr. Big Pants, you do know that “censorship” is un-American in every sense of the word.

Now, this toothless screed won’t do anything other than getting the press all crazy and giving talk shows some material. And, might I remind you, this is happening in the middle of a pandemic that has seriously impacted America. Mr. Trump is not using this battle with Twitter to create empathy. It’s a ploy to take the spotlight off one hundred thousand dead Americans and 40 million US citizens who are now out of work. What a guy!

Because of Dumbo Donnie’s outbursts and cries of “unfair,” you’ll be hearing discussion about Section 230, a provision tucked into the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996. Most internet providers thought it wasn’t much more than a definition, or guideline. In fact, this stipulation came about to protect record companies from recording artist lawsuits claiming lack of control. In fact, the implications go far beyond the original intention.

The Electronics Media Foundation, a non-profit watchdog that focuses on free speech, privacy, transparency and security in electronic media, has a great article on their website about Section 230. It contains this clause, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

This means that online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against libel and defamation suits. This protection is needed because social media sites are not legally classified as publishers, but rather conduits to distribute content. You can’t sue the trucking company that delivers the newspaper containing libelous statements about you. Instead, you need to go after the author and publisher of the content.

Trump is contending that he is being treated poorly and that the factual information Twitter is adding to his posts will interfere with the upcoming election. Maybe now he understands what the Russians accomplished in the 2016 presidential election. Took him a while.

The speaker or publisher of the Facebook and Twitter posts that helped Trump get elected in 2016 were the product of a Russian disinformation campaign, and those bad actors have been charged in court. Trump cannot ignore this fact, his actions against social media today prove his fear of the power of these platforms.

Trump claimed to be the law and justice candidate, but once in power he changed laws to help his friends and cronies. Now, he’s taking a whack at the First Amendment. He used the First Amendment last week to justify his demand that all the churches, temples and mosques open their doors. This week, his fight with Twitter, is just another insecure reaction to being caught in a lie. We all know that press and publicity are Trump’s oxygen, if he doesn’t get enough, he’ll die.

When a newspaper publishes a faulty story, mistake or typo, it will typically print a correction in a future edition admitting the error. Adding background material to anyone’s tweet is a publisher duty and an attempt to correct misleading information. By doing this, one could argue that Twitter is taking responsibility for what is published by their users. This changes their definition.

When Twitter added the fact-check footnote to Trump’s post, they were acting as an editor of the content. Because of their power and influence, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and others there have taken the responsibility to correct a lie. They don’t do that for every tweet, so this it’s clear this action is being taken for only one guy, Donald Trump. They never added a footnote to any of my tweets, and as much as I would like all social media to be wide open, we must ask the question, “What happens when it hurts someone or affects an election?”

Nick Johnson, a rather outspoken FCC commissioner (1966-1973), used to quote an old Scottish saying, “Let me control the writer of the songs of a nation, and I care not who writes its laws.” In today’s world, let me control what people say on social media and I might be able to influence the way people vote. It’s dangerous either way, but somewhere in the rubble can we pull one, simple truth from the ash and breathe life into it? Without truth, democracy dies.

If you read this book, you can see why all this happened to us.

The book that tells it like it is…

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.

A PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Trump’s Big Lies & Little Tweets

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for a good marketing phrase or slogan. Words have always been more dependable than people in my life. When listening to the radio today, I heard a commercial for Lexus, the luxury car manufacturer. It was one of those recently produced spots that focus on how we find ourselves during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ad urged listeners to access their special website. The hook is “People First” and I thought, yeah, that is exactly where our focus should be. Suddenly, a bell clanged loudly in my head.

Donald Trump pitched himself as the president who would put “America First.” It has a nice ring to it, but it is far from an original idea. The phrase was used by Charles Lindbergh in 1941, while he was touring the US as the leading voice of the “America First” Committee — an isolationist group of some 800,000 members who claimed England was trying to drag America into a war. Not only was Lindbergh a known racist, history has shown that his isolationist and anti-global policies would have given Europe, and perhaps even Russia, to Hitler. He was proposing an alliance with Germany during World War II.

Ronald Regan’s 1980 Presidential campaign used the slogan “Let’s make America great again.” Reagan masterfully exploited the anger in the US over crime increases in the inner cities and the happenings in Iran during Carter’s administration. A group of Iranian college students who supported the Iranian Revolution took over the US Embassy in Tehran. The US hostages were held for 444 days and were finally released after Reagan took office.

Trump saw the loss of American jobs to offshore production centers had fired up the long simmering resentment of workers in this country. He also utilized the apparent racist reaction to the African American president who preceded him. The Donald was instrumental in starting a conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in America, therefore not eligible to be president. Trump appropriated the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again” and “America First” from the past. Most intelligent and aware US citizens believe Trump’s thinking is regressive and backward-looking. Trump has zero ability to solve the problems we face. Complaining about a challenge is NOT delivering a result.

The final line of the opening remarks at the Lexus website reads, “During good times and bad, when we take care of people first, the rest will follow.” It’s a standard car dealer pitch, but it contains a clear message. Mankind, or the people of the earth, are indeed an isolated group. As of this writing, we don’t know for certain of any other peopled colony in our universe, so we are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

As Trump concentrates on America First, I am sure he’s not in a particularly good mental place when dealing with all the things he cannot control or dismiss. That’s why the man is hammering out an increasing number of stupid tweets that are totally irrelevant to the crisis at hand.

In the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall, Woody’s character is in a theater line with Annie, played by Diane Keaton. They are both drawn into an overly loud conversation by a pontificating professor. This man claims to know everything about Canadian writer, philosopher and media guru Marshall McLuhan. Woody’s character, Alvy, gets quite irritated, and in one of the best fourth wall breaks in motion picture history, Alvy pulls another man into frame. The man is Marshall McLuhan himself who says, “I hear-I heard what you were saying. You-you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.”

Most people loved the putdown of the arrogant elitist but notice the deeper play on words. McLuhan says, “You mean my whole fallacy is wrong.” Over the years, I have frequently thought of that sentence. Most people base their words and actions on premises, while fallacies are someone’s mistaken belief, especially when based on an unsound argument. Once McLuhan used the word, fallacy, he admitted his proposal was based on bad information. If a president creates a fallacy and bases his administration and every decision on that unsound judgement, how could things possibly go well?

Earlier in the same scene from Annie Hall, the target of the ire was discussing movies when he slammed the great film maker Federico Fellini with this line, “You know, you get the feeling that he’s not absolutely sure what it is he wants to say.” No one knowledgeable about cinema would ever say that Italian director Fellini didn’t know what he was trying to say, rather they would tell you he was demanding the viewer fill in the blanks. There are no blanks with Donald Trump. He has stuffed the heads of his moronic followers with every baseless bit he wants them to believe. Whether what he says is true or a lie simply doesn’t matter. His entire fallacy is wrong.

The President of United States doesn’t understand that people of our world are all one, large collective, and things that happen in Wuhan or West Virginia affect us all. Donald Trump’s open campaign against wearing a virus protection mask has produced yet another divide. Here’s proof, straight from a kid on a beach, “I mean, if he’s not wearing a mask, I’m not going to wear a mask. If he’s not worried, I’m not worried.” And there you have it, folks. The fallacy is that if everyone else is wearing a mask, you don’t need to. It’s much like the drunken logic of, “Well, if everyone else on the road is sober, I’ll be just fine driving smashed.”

Do you remember saying the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school? The words are simple, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Trump talks a lot about the flag and the importance of American patriotism, but he’s missing the point of the pledge. We are not pledging to the president, we are stating our loyalty to the flag and the country it represents and asserting our belief that this country is indivisible. If Trump sincerely believes that America should be first, then he needs to protect all citizens from any enemy, visible or invisible. Never forget “liberty and justice for all.” America starts with “We the people,” not just Republicans or Democrats but all the people. Trump has done nothing to make us more indivisible. To the contrary, he has made us more divided. It’s a big world, and he is a small man. God help us if he gets reelected.

Stop Watching TV and Read a Book

Available now at Amazon

LET’S TALK ABOUT TWITTER

Separate Policies & Rules for Donald Trump

Back in the good old pre-internet days, we had this thing called a “chain letter.” The concept was simple. One person would write a letter and send it to a group of others. Every recipient was requested to send a copy of the letter to a specific number of other people. This was an early exercise in “going viral.” The “chain” theoretically could have created an exponentially growing pyramid, and the concept was exploited by get-rich-quick scams. Chain letters were used by low-tech social groups that the internet eventually killed.

In the early 1970s, we had a lot of social media starts and stops from Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), but the biggest leap came when AOL introduced millions to ICQ in 1997. They bought the patent from an Israeli company named Mirabilis, which had Yair Goldfinger as a founder. Yes, true. The name ICQ was a sound-play on the phrase, “I Seek You.” This revolutionary app allowed young users to instantly communicate via typing with their friends online. Those teenagers are now in their mid-thirties and ICQ was their introduction to social media, which they never stopped using.

I studied and deployed social media to promote my comedy web site, books and blog. I have also advertised on Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes very successfully, other times, “Meh!” The power of targeting people by their interests, posts or political viewpoints has made social media companies billions of dollars. For example, last year Facebook made $70.7 billion, YouTube clocked in with $15.1 billion, and records show that Twitter earned $3.46 billion in 2019. So, they are more than social; they are rich.

That brings us to Donald Trump. In 2009, Trump created @realDonaldTrump on Twitter to promote his brand and TV show, and he has been tweeting ever since. According to the blog, TweetBinder, since 2009 Donald Trump has shared over 42,000 original tweets. With an estimated 80 million followers now, Trump uses his personal twitter account as the official mouthpiece of his presidential administration, along with various personal thoughts, complaints, bitch fests and brain farts. Not all of his 80 million followers love him. News media, political operatives and members of Congress track his tweets just to keep up with the man’s outrageous and questionable words. I won’t miss him when he’s gone from all social media. I truly believe Trump is addicted to Twitter.

Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams created Twitter in 2006. The service grew rapidly, and by 2012 they had more than 100 million users. The original name was “twttr,” and when the service began each tweet was limited to 140 characters. Later, the limit was expanded to 280 characters. Their bird logo and the spelling out of the name Twitter can be seen everywhere, which was one of the main reasons I signed up. The service has 262 million international users with 42% of their users living in the US.

When I jumped on the bird, I was the VP of Marketing for an international software company, which had more than fifty web sites and services and a full complement of social media pages to promote our products and services. Sure, I asked our lawyers to read all the EULA’s (End User License Agreements), but, like most of us I clicked the [Accept] button without reading the rules. My company utilized multiple sites, accounts and pages for each social media platform. Not only were these sites in different languages, but we needed to research which approaches worked best in the various world markets where we operated. This is not uncommon, but I guess it’s more important to the providers than I thought.

In the early social media days, we got away with many things because the platforms didn’t catch us. They were too busy counting their money. Like many of us, I have been on edge during the global pandemic. I’ve lashed out online at people who were making ridiculous statements, presenting lies and aiding Donald Trump in his supreme stupidity. I have been angrier than ever because people I knew were dying from this terrible coronavirus and some of the things I posted were demented, derogatory and dangerous.

Yes, I said some terrible things to and about the new White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, after she went on Fox News and said the virus was a hoax created by Democrats to hurt Donald Trump. While people were dying, she was creating a false narrative to protect fat boy. My tweets screamed at her as she was working in her new job for the President. Right after that, I was suspended from Twitter, and I appealed.

Twitter denied my appeal and banned me for life. They sent me a letter that outlined what they described as “severe violations of their polices and platform manipulation rules.” They claimed I was “artificially amplifying or disrupting conversations using multiple accounts.” Guilty! They claimed I was operating “multiple accounts that interacted with one another in order to inflate or manipulate the prominence of specific Tweets or accounts.” Guilty! Then, they closed the coffin with this sentence, “Please do not reply to this message as this email address is not monitored.” They closed all my accounts and deleted all my content. WTF?

You might be asking, why do I care? Well, I just want to be treated the same as the President of the United States. He employs many accounts, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS being two examples, and he uses many press room accounts to promote his maniacal messaging on the platform. Of course, he’s also in violation of posting messages that promote violent actions — like threatening an entire country with nuclear annihilation — but they look the other way and, under the law, they cannot delete his posts and he cannot block any user from seeing his tweets. They have officially said they will not take down Trump’s tweets accusing MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of murder, even though they know it’s a lie. Trump cannot be censored, but I can.

I openly admit I have also said some bad things about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and some of the ridiculous policies implemented at his company. Their selective censorship seemed to change right after Mr. Dorsey met with Trump in the Oval Office, but I cannot say that on Twitter, only Facebook. Dorsey is not a worthy gatekeeper and he cannot justify his actions.

If I had a big money pouch I would sue Twitter and make this an issue, but any solution would mean Twitter would have to stop their censorship regarding what can be posted and what is verboten. Pure freedom of speech would also protect neo-Nazis and anarchists. Not a good solution. Twitter claim they are not a publisher; they are only a service or platform, yet I was not in control of my account. They claim they aren’t the writer, just the printer, yet they decide what the ink can print. Doublespeak at its finest!

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have the same problem. When protesters in Michigan were waving Nazi flags and holding signs with terrible World War II death camp slogans, I went ballistic and wrote a blog post to condemn them. My post and link to the story were taken off Facebook because I attached a photo of the protestor’s appalling sign to my post. They claimed this was offensive and in violation of their polices on spreading hate. I wasn’t promoting hate; I was pointing out the hate so people could see it for themselves.

So, here is just another failure of algorithms that hold too much power over people. Software code cannot comprehend subtle nuances and meanings and that makes it exceedingly difficult to resolve disputers or ask for clarification.

This is not Donald Trump’s fault, but he is certainly part of the problem, a large, unmovable part. I do believe that when Trump is no longer President, all those official Twitter accounts will remain at the White House. And when Trump reverts to being a private citizen, we can complain about how he uses his account. Maybe then, he will be held to the standards. Until then, I am shooting the bird.

If you read this book, you can see why all this happened to us.

The book that tells it like it is…

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.

SOLDIERS TO FIREMEN TO NURSES

American Memorializes Real Heroes

There are those who think that one’s political opinions can get in the way of true patriotism. This is not true. Any citizen of this great nation has the right to write, publish or comment on whatever they want. Check the First Amendment to our Constitution. The right of freedom of the press gives us freedom of religion and gatherings. The president does not have the right to close churches, or demand they open. Legally speaking, it’s not his call.

Today, we are looking back to the way we view our own countrymen and women. When I was a kid, soldiers marched in parades. Firetrucks were always part of the festivities, and around the area where I grew up, Brentwood, Pennsylvania, the firetrucks were colorful. Brentwood had red trucks, while the neighboring borough, Whitehall, had, yes you guessed it, white trucks. The town of Green Tree, had green trucks. And you wonder why I am the way I am.

My father fought in World War II and had communications responsibilities in Europe. The troops were in charge of raising telephone poles and getting the phone system back up and running in that war-torn land. I was taught to be a patriot and respect America and the flag for which it stands. As I said in my recent book, Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs, I sincerely love my country and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I respect the military and don’t need a draft dodger or goodie-two-shoes flag waver to tell me who I am.

Sometime after World War II, we reluctantly sent more of our finest men to Korea to fight another conflict. That war didn’t result in a full victory, thus we now have a North and a South Korea. Later, we got sucked into another conflict between communists and dictators in Vietnam. We picked the side we believed would help us defeat communism. We were wrong and destroyed a country along with the good name of America. Vietnam veterans have not been treated very well in this country. I am sorry for that.

If you are a younger reader, I would suggest you watch these movies: Apocalypse Now, Born on the 4th of July, Platoon, Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket or spend some time with Ken Burns’ 2017 documentary The Vietnam War. There were more than 365,000 Vietnamese civilians killed in that war, while there are 58,276 names of US troops on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. The war ended when the United States government evacuated embassy personnel and the communists took over Vietnam. That was not our proudest moment. Unfortunately, distrust of the government by our baby boomer generation, plus the general disdain for the war, splashed hard against our vets who came home, many injured, tired and broken. Drug addiction and despair gripped many of my buddies for years. They should be honored. They were asked to do a job, and they did it.

When terrorists from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan entered our country and flew jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, these sites became crime scenes and war zones. The press even called the disaster in New York City “Ground Zero,” as if a bomb had been dropped at the site. That is the original meaning of the phrase. Brave police, firemen and first responders rushed to the burnt and fallen buildings, attempting to rescue people from the rubble. Since many perished, the teams turned to searching for human remains. As time has shown us, many of those heroes got terrible diseases and ailments from working on what they called “the pile” at Ground Zero. After years of fighting for benefits, Congress finally gave them some support and aid. It’s embarrassing that those responders had to fight to get credit and the help they needed. We should be honoring those people every day.

Now, we face another external force that has brought death and depression to many in this country, the global pandemic. As I’m writing this, there are close to 98,000 deaths from this evil virus, close to twice the number of casualties in the Vietnam war. Deaths from COVID-19 virus are now thirty-two times the number of US citizens who died on 9-11. Today we also salute those courageous people who are working endless hours in hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. Thank you for your service.

According to Vox.com, “Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, more than 90,000 healthcare workers have been infected with the virus.” It will probably be a long time before we get verified figures about healthcare worker deaths on the frontline, but it’s interesting that the same Vox article takes the position that we shouldn’t see healthcare workers in the same light as soldiers. You can read it here. I get their point. Soldiers go into war knowing they might die while healthcare workers never agreed to giving their life when doing their jobs. Nurses and doctors should be protected and our government has let them down.

While our present administration effected large increases in military spending, they cut back on funding for healthcare insurance protections, hospital expansions and they allowed the national stockpile of PPE, ventilators and testing equipment to dwindle to dangerous levels. These errors in action and faulty logistical planning can be documented, but this is not the day to hold the government accountable.

This is a day to honor those who did their jobs, saved lives and moved us toward the solution of a horrible global pandemic. When we see our leaders sink to the level of useless bickering, it ruins the American spirit and creates division rather than a united front to win this medical and economic war. Today I can’t help thinking about my father and the five years of his life he gave up helping to save the world from Nazis.

Our damn politicians don’t fool all of us. We see them go into secret meetings and come out with those lugubrious faces, repeating paltry partisan talking points. They are not heroes; they are cardboard cutouts that will fall with the purity of rain. Real heroes don’t ask for praise or keep repeating how exceptional they are. They wake up, get out of bed and do their job. We must honor them with our words and our actions. We shall move forward, with or without those lame leaders who fail to take care of us. If you only listen to those who you agree with, you will never become stronger. The weak may follow, but the truly brave always lead.

COVID 96,000 – AMERICA 0

Trump’s Losing Game Plan

When anger slowly morphs into determination, things get done. Donald Trump has neglected to use his authority as President to manage the global pandemic, clearly demonstrating he is concerned only with protecting himself, not the citizens of America.

A major deflection being perpetrated on America is Trump’s obsession with stopping states from executing plans to vote by mail in the November presidential election. REALLY? This hogwash that there is a massive amount of voter fraud is just another senseless claim from Trump, who believes there are people out to get him. Someone told him that Republicans tend to lose where mail in voting is deployed. That is not true; just look at Florida. The states that do ALL VOTING BY MAIL: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington have no problems or fraud. Those aren’t test cases, they are real states, Mr. President.

On Friday, May 22, 2020, a new study was released showing the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, that Trump endlessly pitched to America and now says he is using, puts anyone taking it at risk of DEATH. This study researched 96,000 coronavirus patients in hospital around world and was published by the prestigious medical journal Lancet. So, the cat is out of the bag. TRUMP IS DEADLY WRONG ABOUT THE DRUG. The strange coincidence here, this report of a study of 96,000 people, came the same time COVID deaths in America went over 96,000.

America has weak federal leadership that has led us to becoming the deplorable, symbolic ground zero in this worldwide plague. Trump will continue to use the excuse of the cupboards being bare when he took office, but his administration did nothing to prepare for the possibility of a global pandemic. He disbanded one White House task force, only to hurriedly roll out another. The Donald has removed regulations, cut science and reduced medical and healthcare funding wherever he could. How do we know this? He bragged about it.

He walks around in public bucking his administration’s own recommendations and flaunting his small mindedness by not wearing a mask. He believes he is above it all and cannot be taken down by the viral menace. Clearly, this is a metaphor for his management and governing philosophy. If he cannot see it, it doesn’t exist. I guess he is from the dark ages.

Trump has declared that if the virus comes back — did it truly go away? — he will not close the country. He would rather kill more people than ever admit he was wrong. Should this inept man get the virus because he’s not wearing a mask, all his gofers and goofballs will say that he’s okay while telling tall tales of a brave man beating an illness no more harmful than the flu. I don’t believe Mike Pence and the Chief of Staff; Kevin McCarthy would be transparent and honest about what was happening. They would just take power and make excuses for Trump.

This could be another of those strange moments where a motion picture predicted real life. In the 1993 movie Dave, the titular character played by Kevin Kline ran a temporary employment agency and had a side gig impersonating the President. The Secret Service requested that Kline’s character, a dead ringer for the president, make an appearance for the president at a Washington hotel. Dave is told it’s a matter of national security, but it’s really to cover up an extramarital affair the real president is having with a White House staffer. Now here’s where it gets good. The president in the movie suffers a severe stroke during the rendezvous leaving him in a coma. The White House Chief of Staff, played by Frank Langella, convinces Dave to continue impersonating the president. When Dave challenges them by asking why the Vice President couldn’t just step in, they say the VP is mentally unbalanced.

I won’t spoil the movie’s outcome for you, but I recommend you watch this work of predictive art. What would happen if Trump got sick? When UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson came down with COVID-19, not only was the country on the precipice of a constitutional crisis, but it challenged their lack of succession protocol and order.

President Donald Trump wants to paint a picture of winning, while being challenged by medical professionals with the question, “At what cost?” His answer back to those who question his advice in a crisis is, “What do you have to lose?”

This brings us to the story of Elizabeth Fleischman, who was a pioneering radiographer and one of the inventors of the X-ray. Fleischman, because of her close work and exposure with the new technology, died in 1905. X-rays killed her. But wait, there’s more.

On September 6, 1901, the Pan-American Exhibition was taking place in Buffalo, New York. One of the exhibits on display there was an X-ray machine. President William McKinley was attending, and shot by a young anarchist who fired two bullets. One superficially punctured his sternum and the other dangerously entered his abdomen. The operating doctors weren’t sure they found and removed all the slugs, so someone suggested employing the X-ray machine to determine if there were more bullets in his body. Experts warned the doctors that internally blasting metal fragments with X-rays could kill the president. The doctors heeded the advice.

The story doesn’t have a happy ending. After being on the mend for a while, McKinley succumbed to his wounds on September 14, 1901. Someone could have said to the doctors, “Hey, what do you have to lose?” and convinced them to plough ahead with use of the X-ray. Even if they had located another bullet and extracted it, there is no guarantee McKinley would have survived.

The anarchist immigrant who killed McKinley, Leon Czolgosz, was convicted and executed in an electric chair on October 29, 1901, another use of electricity.

We know now so much more than they knew then. When Donald Trump ignores science and medical facts, he endangers not only himself but all Americans. Our president is less about defeating the virus and more about opening the economy. We are not winning to the degree Trump wants us to believe. We still have a lot to lose. Perhaps the next President will make us great again.

If you read this book, you can see why all this happened to us.

The book that tells it like it is…

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.

DO WE REALLY CARE?

Kill a Bunch of Weak People, Get Back to Normal

I hate the coronavirus and all that it has done to our country and world. I am ashamed of Donald John Trump, our supposed leader. This crisis has revealed his lack of understanding about basic scientific principles. What he and his minions say to the press and their constituents is so partisan and stupid it makes me sick, not like pandemic sick, rather mentally agitated and anxious. So now I will lay down some thoughts to end another week of this global crisis, so that one day when I look back I will be able to say, okay, you did see it, and you reacted. I also want my kids and grand kids to know exactly what I thought about this damn mess.

We should all just stop watching the news and go about our business, but what business might that be? As I walked out of Walmart today, carrying a package of paper towels and some disinfectant, the term “Faustian bargain” came to mind. This is what we have. This is where we’re at.

A Faustian bargain is a mythical pact whereby a person trades something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, such as personal values or their own soul, for worldly or material benefit, such as knowledge, power or riches. It’s like the pact made in the Broadway show and motion picture Damn Yankees, in which a man sold himself to the devil so his team, the Washington Senators, could beat the New York Yankees and win the pennant. That man gave up the love of his life to see his team at the top. Let me explain why this is exactly where we are right now in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Satan-like creature who is tempting us with his Faustian bargain is the President of the United States. Donald Trump has been told over and over that with a strong economy he cannot be defeated in the election, and like the man selling his soul in exchange for a team win, Trump will do anything to achieve reelection. I am not exaggerating when I use the word anything.

As Donald Trump attempts to remake America according to his image and thought processes, he fails to understand that family, morality and kindness are more fundamental than people wearing red MAGA hats. He attempts to stir up the independent nature of some people with his LIBERATE tweets, but short of a future civil war what is the value of that contradiction? He told us the coronavirus was bad and we would have to stay safe, but then complained about his own advice. He is in an argument with himself and he truly doesn’t know what to do.

Trump’s Faustian bargain is pushed by his sycophants and miscreants who manipulate him and control his inner bully. These scoundrels don’t give a shit about whether people die or not, they care only about high ratings for their demigod. Trump pushed hard for states to open way before they should have, but that is not the real bargain. His deal with the devil is trading peoples’ lives for an economic return that will satisfy his drive to stay in power.

One reason he doesn’t wear a mask is purely a case of vanity. He slathers orange makeup on his face every morning because he thinks it makes him look better. He wastes tons of time making sure his comb-over hair looks simply perfect. He dresses in the same kinds of outfits every day because he’s insecure about his weight, and he surely believes that long ties, big blue suits and baggy pants make him look thinner. They don’t. He feels that wearing a mask would make him look weak, inferior and vulnerable. He’s the classic control-freak with low self-esteem. Deep down inside he knows he’s a fake, thus his many attacks based on the word “fake.”

There are those who will say that I am being cruel using the words “Kill a Bunch of Weak People, Get Back to Normal,” but that is the precise nature of the bargain Trump has taken. He’s pushing hard and lying more and more to get what he wants. He’s in a quandary. If people believe he’s negligent, his numbers will stay low and he will be a one-term president. If he doesn’t push the economy out of this padlocked state, the conservatives and rich donors will let the negatives fly to his detriment, and he will not tolerate that well. He has no built-in self-protection from criticism and does not think clearly when he’s angry. How did he ever become president?

When a demonic and destructive hurricane whipped through Puerto Rico, Trump was asked for help from the Mayor of San Juan. 2,975 people lost their lives when Maria leveled much of their island. Trump attacked the Mayor verbally, and when he arrived to see the damage, he unleashed his vindictive vitriol and blamed the government of Puerto Rico for the damage. These are the acts of a mean, uncaring human. And to prove this more, Trump commented while touring a plant making ventilators in Michigan yesterday, “We’re not going to close the country if there’s a second wave!” He’s just going to let you die.

The question in the title of this piece is real. Do we really care? When I see the headline: More than 1,200 pastors say they’ll defy California’s state order and resume in-person services, it’s clear these people do not have the safety and health of their flocks on their minds. Recently, a family held a funeral service in Albany, Georgia with a wonderful turnout of more than 200 unmasked, closely huddled people. Within weeks, the coronavirus spread throughout that county of 90,000 people, which now has 135 virus victims.

I get it. We are religious. We are brave. We believe God will protect us, but it’s immoral for a religious leader to promote the gathering of souls only to have them get infected and die. Read the Holy Bible. It’s not a political decision, it’s a public health decision. Protect your flock and be a good shepherd. The First Amendment was written by men who cared about the living and honored the dead by protecting their spirits. Stop producing UNNECESSARY DEATH. Perhaps that should be written on the arrest order for Donald Trump.

HISTORICAL BLANK STARE

The Legacy of the Trump Debacle

President James Polk described one of his generals, Zachary Taylor, in a diary entry. Polk wrote, “I am now satisfied that he is a narrow-minded, bigoted partisan, without resources and wholly unqualified for the command he holds!” I think of Donald Trump and wish I had written that sentence. What do YOU have to lose, democracy, freedom or just your life?

I’m a real history freak and love to return to the past and read the details of how presidents handled the crises and calamities of their eras. Sometimes it gives me comfort that everything is going to be alright, but other times I can only guess what the great leaders of our history would say about Donald Trump. I am sure Andrew Jackson would laugh at him, even though Trump claims to be a big Jackson fan. The circus we are living through with Donald Trump would have been seen by Abraham Lincoln as nothing short of an alien invasion. No, Donald, none of them would have respected you.

Some hope arises when we realize that many presidents were accused of grabbing power, disregarding the Constitution and trampling the balance of power between the three branches of government, but we are still here. America is stronger than any one man, but it’s not unreasonable to distrust a human who has been given that much power. It can go to their heads and they don’t always do what is right.

There is no question in my mind that when “real” historians write the book on Trump, there will be little positive evaluation of his work. He will be mocked and taunted by the truth of the facts that will be revealed after he leaves office. What we do know about Trump for sure is that he never graduated from candidate to president. Time will reveal that this president kept lots of people around who will be indicted as thieves and liars. Perhaps they will say it’s just politics, but when the body count is put in writing, Trump will look like a lying James Polk or a naïve Herbert Hoover, not Lincoln, Kennedy or Obama.

Here’s something from the History.com website, “Many historians rate America’s 15th chief executive, James Buchanan, as the most inept occupant of the White House due mainly to the fact that he took no action to unite a country sharply divided over the issue of slavery and did nothing to stop Southern states from seceding in the lead-up to the Civil War.” It’s important to point out here that 620,000 soldiers were killed in the war between the states, which to this day remains the greatest number of deaths in all US wars. In the Dread Scott decision, which came along shortly after Buchanan’s inauguration, the US Supreme Court ruled that African Americans were not, and never could become, US citizens, and the federal government couldn’t outlaw slavery in its territories. Historians believe that Buchanan manipulated this decision, thinking questions of slavery would be resolved forever.

When reading old headlines such as this, “Trump Sows Division and Confusion as Anxious Country Edges Toward Opening,” future historical archeologists will dig through layers of past posts, articles and speeches to find the truth. The complaints by pundits and political rivals that Trump avoided taking the full leadership role a president should during a global pandemic, will be blasted onto the pages of books and articles. As happened with Buchanan, some will say that state’s rights seemed more important than the federal government taking responsibility during a crisis.

In the history of the United States, presidents have lied to start land-grabbing wars — that is how we got Texas, New Mexico and California. They have lied about dirty deeds, such as secretly facilitating the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. President Ronald Reagan hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, where he had picked a winner. Reagan claimed not to know anything about it, and those who helped him cover up the lie were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. The man who wrote those pardons? Current Attorney General William Barr.

The death count of COVID-19 will show many people we need a President who understands science and doesn’t disregard expert warnings of danger. The blank stare we get from many of those truth-challenged jackasses in the White House disprove the notion that Trump will hire “the best people.” THAT IS ONE BIG LIE.

Donald John Trump is a deceiver and complainer. He doesn’t get much done because few want to work with him. His word means nothing and his vacillation on so many issues has prevented positive results from all his diplomatic efforts. We get zippo from the man. North Korea has the bomb, Putin has done nothing good for America and Trump’s good friend Chinese President Xi Jinping is now the reason Trump failed to act quickly enough on the pandemic. This Trump guy is unbelievable, NO, REALLY, UNBELIEVABLE!

This just in: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinians will no longer abide by previous agreements made with Israel. Yes, they just tore up all the agreements for 25 years, I guess one of those “best persons” in the name of Jared Kushner doesn’t know what he’s doing. Totally unqualified for the job his father-in-law assigned him. Nepotism and cronyism are the dual cancers on this presidency.

The bad programs and poorly conceived policies of the Trump Administration have not protected us economically or medically. He spent so much time fighting Obamacare that he failed to understand how it would have helped during a health crisis. He accuses his political rivals of endless picadilloes which pale in comparison to the disastrous, divisionary decisions he’s made as President.

We have witnessed Trump ignoring warning signs, hyping bad drugs, promising imaginary stockpiles and promoting goofy ideas like mask cleaning machines. The idea that a quick blast of UV light will kill any viruses lurking in a room is foolhardy. Trump doesn’t know enough to know what he doesn’t know, but that will never stop him from declaring himself an expert.

The Donald ignores experts on the issues and spouts claims that sound as crazy as the sales pitch of an 1800s elixir salesman before taking the money and running. It happened to my grandfather, who was sold a bottle of medicine that was supposed to rejuvenate his teeth and leave them stain-free. After the salesman left town, my grandfather proceeded to burn the enamel off all his teeth with the elixir he bought. That old phrase “let the buyer beware” didn’t help his attitude when all his teeth had to be pulled.

Trump is like that salesman, ready to leave town right after he bags all the bucks. His handling of this global pandemic will be part of his legacy, forever. Maybe people will forget he was impeached, but I’m sure no competent historian will ignore the large number of people who died on his watch. Donald Trump is worse than James Buchanan, and far more dangerous to our country than Richard Nixon. Remember, Nixon resigned before going through an impeachment trial. Even after losing the election, Trump will have to be removed from the White House biting, frothing, screaming and resisting departure. Trump is an immoral criminal and an embarrassing America catastrophe. The clock is ticking, fat boy.

If you read this book, you can see why all this happened to us.

The book that tells it like it is…

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.