Donald Trump and Hate

The United States democratically elects its president and the majority has spoken through the ballot box. The losers must accept the will of the majority.

I am deeply disappointed with the results. Donald Trump is the poster child for hate, misogyny, and discrimination. His election tells me more about America than about him.

I fear for the fate of minorities and the handicapped in this nation under a Trump presidency. I have personally experienced discrimination and sympathize with all who have had to live in a world of hate.

I see Adolph Hitler in the words of Donald Trump. Asians, Jews, Latinos and Muslims are the likely targets of a President Trump.

A rebellion is unlikely. A massive emigration of minorities from the United States is a possible outcome. Certainly the entry of minority peoples to America will be significantly smaller than in previous years.

My likely new home will be Canada – if they will take me.

The United States is the Envy of the World

Donald Trump’s closing argument in tomorrow’s election: “The U.S. is ‘the laughingstock of the world.’ Trump is absolutely wrong.

The United States is the envy of the World.

The United States has a more millionaires (over 8 million) than any other country in the world. Second place is China with 2 million.

The United States has the universities that are the most desired schools to obtain a higher education.

Latin American nations have all tried to emulate the United States form of government. Most Europeans learn English in the hope that they will have a better opportunity to visit a stay in the United States. Most country leaders, including dictators, call themselves “president” in the hope of convincing their populace that they were selected by them and that they are legitimate leaders.

The rest of the world looks to the United States to help with their challenges caused by floods, earthquakes, tornados, and other natural disasters. The United States is known as the country that tries to help in every way.

United States government always do the right thing? No! But this country tries to help the least fortunate.

Inside this country there is a large gap between the very rich and the very poor. The middle class is struggling. Education and health care are issues that are in need of major attention. Infrastructure has deteriorated substantially. We do have free and fair elections that provide the representatives to address those problems.

Wherever you travel in this world you see McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Kentucky Fried Chicken stores. American music and movies are emulated throughout the world. Do you suppose the people of other countries laugh at what has been built here or do they have some envy?

Finally consider that the U.S. immigrant population stood at more than 42.4 million, or 13.3 percent, of the total U.S. population of 318.9 million in 2014, according to ACS data. Between 2013 and 2014, the foreign-born population increased by 1 million, or 2.5 percent.

Does this sound like a country that is “the laughingstock of the world?”

Trump can’t make the rules for news media

The following letter appeared in today’s Los Angeles Daily News. It reflects my opinion.

Media are just reporting the truth about Trump

Of all the irrational attacks by Donald Trump supporters on the Daily News Opinion page, the most ridiculous is that the media supports Hillary Clinton.

From the beginning, Trump has treated the selection of president of the United States as a reality show in which he makes the rules. He has mocked the people and the processes of democracy with name-calling, unproven allegations (“birther” slurs against the only black president, among others), threats that he’ll use the office for payback against his opponent and anyone else who has stood up to him, and the accusation that the voting process is a fraud if he doesn’t win.

He has created a new uncivil war in a country that has aspired to be “one nation, indivisible.” He has truly made America hate again. If the media reports on his activities truthfully, he calls foul and threatens them.

The only media that could possibly report him as he is are the National Enquirer, the Star and the Globe. The rest are constrained to reporting factually the nearly $1 billion income claimed loss to avoid taxes, the sexist and racist comments and charges, the bankruptcies, the fraudulent “university.”

Reporting the truth is also an American way, Mr. Trump.

— Jacqelen Ruben, Woodland Hills, California

The Man Who Cannot Accept a Loss

The essence of this is that Donald Trump is always the winner. Anyone who is selected over him has won by some illegitimate means.

In three different years, Donald Trump claimed the Emmys were stolen from him when he hosted The Apprentice.

Donald Trump has been saying the election is rigged since the primaries were in play.

That claim has been a continuing part of his campaign almost from the beginning. He claimed that the allocation of candidates to the GOP convention were set up in a way of denying him the nomination. Obviously he was wrong. He simply did not understand the way the delegates were won.

Thus today he is still saying the very same thing. He blames everyone but himself for his lagging poll numbers.

If the election is rigged then I ask a few questions.

If you know you can’t win, why are you continuing to campaign?
If the election is rigged how did George W. Bush get elected? The media and the Democratic Party were no different in the year 2000.
Since you say you can’t win why should anyone vote for you? After all those voting for you are wasting their time.

Now after doing fairly well in tonight’s final presidential debate he refuses to say he will concede the election if he loses. That is going to be a big problem for the Republican Party. And the nation too!

Americans have always believed our elections are honest. This is not a third world country where losers have not accepted the results and in some instance refused to relinquish power.

Trump has tried to deny the Obama presidency from its beginning by claiming that President is not a natural born American. His insistence that the election is rigged could give his followers a rallying claim to delegitimize a Clinton presidency.

Transcript from the debate:

CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. Trump, I want to ask you about one last question in this topic. You have been warning at rallies recently that this election is rigged and that Hillary Clinton is in the process of trying to steal it from you.

Your running mate, Governor Pence, pledged on Sunday that he and you — his words — “will absolutely accept the result of this election.” Today your daughter, Ivanka, said the same thing. I want to ask you here on the stage tonight: Do you make the same commitment that you will absolutely — sir, that you will absolutely accept the result of this election?

TRUMP: I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time.

What I’ve seen — what I’ve seen is so bad. First of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt, and the pile-on is so amazing. The New York Times actually wrote an article about it, but they don’t even care. It’s so dishonest. And they’ve poisoned the mind of the voters.

But unfortunately for them, I think the voters are seeing through it. I think they’re going to see through it. We’ll find out on November 8th. But I think they’re going to see through it.

WALLACE: But, sir, there’s…

TRUMP: If you look — excuse me, Chris — if you look at your voter rolls, you will see millions of people that are registered to vote — millions, this isn’t coming from me — this is coming from Pew Report and other places — millions of people that are registered to vote that shouldn’t be registered to vote.

So let me just give you one other thing. So I talk about the corrupt media. I talk about the millions of people — tell you one other thing. She shouldn’t be allowed to run. It’s crooked — she’s — she’s guilty of a very, very serious crime. She should not be allowed to run.

And just in that respect, I say it’s rigged, because she should never…

WALLACE: But…

TRUMP: Chris, she should never have been allowed to run for the presidency based on what she did with e-mails and so many other things.

WALLACE: But, sir, there is a tradition in this country — in fact, one of the prides of this country — is the peaceful transition of power and that no matter how hard-fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign that the loser concedes to the winner. Not saying that you’re necessarily going to be the loser or the winner, but that the loser concedes to the winner and that the country comes together in part for the good of the country. Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?

TRUMP: What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense. OK?

CLINTON: Well, Chris, let me respond to that, because that’s horrifying. You know, every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is, is rigged against him.

The FBI conducted a year-long investigation into my e-mails. They concluded there was no case; he said the FBI was rigged. He lost the Iowa caucus. He lost the Wisconsin primary. He said the Republican primary was rigged against him. Then Trump University gets sued for fraud and racketeering; he claims the court system and the federal judge is rigged against him. There was even a time when he didn’t get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a row and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged against him.

TRUMP: Should have gotten it.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: This is — this is a mindset. This is how Donald thinks. And it’s funny, but it’s also really troubling.

WALLACE: OK.

CLINTON: So that is not the way our democracy works. We’ve been around for 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections. We’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them. And that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election. You know, President Obama said the other day when you’re whining before the game is even finished…

(APPLAUSE)

WALLACE: Hold on. Hold on, folks. Hold on, folks.

CLINTON: … it just shows you’re not up to doing the job. And let’s — you know, let’s be clear about what he is saying and what that means. He is denigrating — he’s talking down our democracy. And I, for one, am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of position.

TRUMP: I think what the FBI did and what the Department of Justice did, including meeting with her husband, the attorney general, in the back of an airplane on the tarmac in Arizona, I think it’s disgraceful. I think it’s a disgrace.

WALLACE: All right.

TRUMP: I think we’ve never had a situation so bad in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

Donald Trump has set the stage for calling Hillary Clinton an illegitimate president. That is something he tried to do to Barack Obama with his “birther” movement. Such claims could be at worst a revolution. More likely it will make the Republicans look like fools if they support his views. This could end the American democracy.

“What have you got to lose?”

This second debate and the November election is all about Donald Trump. You are either for or against him. It is Donald Trump’s election to win or lose. Votes for Hillary Clinton are really vote against Donald Trump. Trump has put himself front and center.

The first 30 minutes of the second presidential debate was VERY nasty. Donald Trump’s effort to deny he is an abuser of women was a failure. I cannot imagine that any women in America is willing to support him based on his comments about a Miss Universe contestant and the video recording of him on a bus at Universal Studios in Studio City. Billy Bush has been suspended from the Today Show based on that tape.

Examples started from the first question asked by Anderson Cooper:
“You called what you said locker room banter. You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals. That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?”

TRUMP: “No, I didn’t say that at all. I don’t think you understood what was — this was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologize to my family. I apologize to the American people.”

Later in the debate

TRUMP: “Well, you owe the president an apology, because as you know very well, your campaign, Sidney Blumenthal — he’s another real winner that you have — and he’s the one that got this started, along with your campaign manager, and they were on television just two weeks ago, she was, saying exactly that. So you really owe him an apology. You’re the one that sent the pictures around your campaign, sent the pictures around with President Obama in a certain garb. That was long before I was ever involved, so you actually owe an apology.”

The remainder of the debate saw Trump hold his own against Hillary Clinton. Some have thought one of them won the debate but to me it was a tie.

Both Trump and Clinton may have liked each other at one time (the Clinton’s were at Trump’s last wedding) but it was obvious that they have developed a real hatred.

Donald Trump’s response to the American Muslim women looking for a reason to support him was not given a shred of response that would encourage her to give him any support. Likewise the Black man was not given any reason to give him support. In both cases Trump was short on details on how he would reach out to those communities.

Hillary Clinton smiled through the entire debate and remained unflapped by Trump’s attacks.

I doubt that many people changed their view of these candidates as a result of watching this debate.

I predict Donald Trump will win the election. The reason is that Hillary Clinton has offered nothing new. Many people have lost their jobs. Trump may not bring them back but “What have you got to lose?”

The Astonishing Donald Trump

Name calling is a trade mark of Donald Trump. He uses name calling to further his political ambitions (crooked Hillary, lying Ted, etc.). He makes fun of people with disabilities, calls women names, and thinks that Mexicans are mostly rapists and drug dealers.

Donald Trump’s history of remarks about women is not something that he stopped doing a decade ago. Just this past week he tweeted in the wee hours of Friday morning, August 26. The impulse-control-deficient Republican nominee let loose a torrent of tweets, calling former Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado “disgusting” and accusing her of having a sex tape.

Then there were Trump’s remarks about Megyn Kelly, a Fox News anchor, after she questioned him about his derogatory remarks she said the GOP hopeful had made about women, from “fat pigs” to “dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”

So without listing anymore of Trump’s commentaries my question is When has Donald Trump stopped making crude remarks about women?

The answer is he has not stopped making remarks about women. Perhaps the latest reaction of some leading Republicans will begin to have an impact on the Trump campaign. He has been dis-invited to a Wisconsin event on Saturday, October 8. Jason Chaffetz, a leading Republican congressman from Utah and Utah’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert having both withdrawn their support for Trump.

I do not agree with the conservative views of most Republicans but I do respect their insistence on the upholding of their moral views. Donald Trump has to be an insult to them.

When Facts, history, logic don’t matter

As an Independent I find my self listening to the words of some conservatives even though I think of myself as a progressive. Thus I do read Charles Krauthammer’s columns. The following column appeared in this morning’s Los Angeles Daily News. We all know that Mr. Krauthammer is no friend of Hillary Clinton but he is obviously no fan of Donald Trump. Like a moth Donald Trump took the bait laid out by Hillary Clinton. Can you imagine what a Vladimir Putin would do to Donald Trump?

By Charles Krauthammer, September 20.2016

And now less than six weeks from the election, what is the main event of the day? A fight between the Republican presidential nominee and a former Miss Universe, whom he had 20 years ago called Miss Piggy and other choice pejoratives.

Just a few weeks earlier, we were seized by a transient hysteria over a minor Hillary Clinton lung infection hyped to near-mortal status. The latest curiosity is Donald Trump’s 37 sniffles during the first presidential debate. (People count this sort of thing) Dr. Howard Dean has suggested a possible cocaine addiction.

In a man who doesn’t even drink coffee? This campaign is sinking to somewhere between zany and totally insane. Is there a bottom?

Take the most striking moment of Trump’s GOP convention speech. He actually promised that under him, “the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon – come to an end.”

Not “be reduced.” End.

Humanity has been at this since, oh, Hammurabi. But the audience didn’t laugh. It applauded.

Nor was this mere spur-of-the-moment hyperbole. Trump was reading from a teleprompter. As he was a few weeks earlier when he told a conference in North Dakota, “Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything.” Everything, mind you. “I will give you what you’ve been looking 50 years.” No laughter recorded.

In launching his African-American outreach at a speech in Charlotte, Trump cataloged the horrors that he believes define black life in America today. Then promised: “I will fix it.”

How primitive have our politics become? Fix what? Family structure? Social inheritance? Self-destructive habits? How? He doesn’t say. He will it. Trust him, as he likes to say.

After 15 months, the suspension of disbelief has become so ubiquitous that we hardly notice anymore. We are operating in an alternate universe where the geometry is non-Euclidean, facts don’t matter, history and logic have disappeared.

Going into the first debate, Trump was in a Virtual tie for the lead. The bar for him was set almost comically low. He had merely to (1) suffer no major melt-down and (2) produce just a few moments of coherence.

He cleared the bar. In the first half-hour, he established the entire premise of his campaign. Things are bad and Hillary Clinton has been around for 30 years. You like bad? Stick with her. You want change? I’m your man.

It can’t get more elemental than that. At one point, Clinton laughed and ridiculed Trump for trying to blame her for everything that’s ever happened. In fact, that’s exactly what he did. With some success.

By conventional measures – poise, logic, command of the facts – she won the debate handily. But when it comes to moving the needle, conventional measures don’t apply this year.

What might move the needle is the time bomb Trump left behind.

His great weakness is his vanity. So central to his self-image is his business acumen that in the debate he couldn’t resist the temptation to tout his cleverness on taxes. To an audience of 86 million, he appeared to concede that he didn’t pay any. “That makes me smart,” he smugly interjected.

Big mistake. The next day, Clinton offered the obvious retort: “If not paying taxes makes him smart, what does that make all the rest of us?”

When gaffes like this are committed, the candidate either doubles down (you might say that if you can legally pay nothing why not, given how corrupt the tax code is) or simply denies he ever said anything of the sort.

One of the remarkable features of this campaign is how brazenly candidates deny having said things that have been captured on tape, such as Clinton denying she ever said the Trans-Pacific Partnership was the gold standard of trade deals.

The only thing more amazing is how easily they get away with it.

Hillary Clinton Won the First Presidential Debate

I watched the entire debate and have read the transcript. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump struck a blow that was the equivalent of a knockout. Lester Holt did an outstanding job.

That being said Donald Trump wasted his time repeating the same things he has said repeatedly during his campaign. He brought nothing new to the table. He provided nothing to explain his contention that jobs would be returning to America after renegotiating NAFTA or how he would induce companies to return their manufacturing from China and other Far East nations. He never mentioned the wall he plans to build on our southern border. Those are his two biggest reasons to obtain the presidency.

This counter argument is a great example of how the debate went.

CLINTON: And maybe because you haven’t paid any federal income tax for a lot of years. (APPLAUSE)
And the other thing I think is important…
TRUMP: It would be squandered, too, believe me.

Or this:

CLINTON: And when we talk about your business, you’ve taken business bankruptcy six times. There are a lot of great businesspeople that have never taken bankruptcy once. You call yourself the King of Debt. You talk about leverage. You even at one time suggested that you would try to negotiate down the national debt of the United States.
TRUMP: Wrong. Wrong.
CLINTON: Well, sometimes there’s not a direct transfer of skills from business to government, but sometimes what happened in business would be really bad for government.
HOLT: Let’s let Mr. Trump…
CLINTON: And we need to be very clear about that.
TRUMP: So, yeah, I think — I do think it’s time. Look, it’s all words, it’s all sound bites. I built an unbelievable company. Some of the greatest assets anywhere in the world, real estate assets anywhere in the world, beyond the United States, in Europe, lots of different places. It’s an unbelievable company.
Hillary Clinton continued hitting him throughout the one hour and 40 minute debate in the above manner.

Trump’s reference to law and order were, in my mind, an attack on minorities.

HOLT: All right, Mr. Trump, you have two minutes. How do you heal the divide?
TRUMP: Well, first of all, Secretary Clinton doesn’t want to use a couple of words, and that’s law and order. And we need law and order. If we don’t have it, we’re not going to have a country.
Law and order is really the code words for continuous harassment of minority people in the United States by using programs such as Stop and Frisk.

One of the most powerful moments of the debate came when the conversation focused on the so-called birther debate following Trump’s recent acknowledgment that President Barack Obama was born in the US — a fact that has been evident for years. With Trump standing just a few feet from her, Clinton blasted him for perpetuating a “racist lie.” “He has a long record of engaging in racist behavior,” Clinton said as Trump shook his head.

Hillary’s best line was “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And, yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. And I think that’s a good thing.”

Both campaigns will undoubtedly raise lots of money after the debate and supporters of each candidate will continue holding their views. Mr. Trump may have learned a lesson about preparation and we might see another Donald Trump in two weeks at the second debate.

The Impact of Technology on Blue Collar Workers

We are about to select a new American president in a world that is rapidly becoming more technically advanced than anyone could have imagined in the year 2000. Remember that as the year many of us were concerned that clocks would stop, power grid systems might fail, and commercial aircraft might fall from the sky. Of course none of that happened. What has happened is the rapid advance of technology and a globally connected society. Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” (Published April 5, 2005) was not only a recognition of a changing world economy but the need for America to look forward and plan for the new economy.

Take just one new technology, autonomous (self driving) cars and trucks, that is predicted to be launched by the year 2020 to 2025 and consider the impact and you will understand that no one – no president of the United States – can stop the impact on the public in either the United States or other countries.

Don’t Tell The Teamsters: But Driverless Trucks Are Already Here. Driverless trucks are operating in an Australian mine. When those trucks arrive in America the Teamsters will fight with everything they have to stop those autonomous trucks. Feather bedding will be a prominent part of their strategy. There are currently 900,000 active working Teamsters in the United States and Canada. There are approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States, according to estimates by the American Trucking Association.

What will all those families that rely on those truck driving jobs do when they are replaced by self driving trucks? As a nation we have not looked forward. We have looked back. Technology’s impact on the trucking industry is simply one example of the changing work environment.

Donald Trump promises to bring back the jobs that have been lost due to out sourcing. It is not clear what will motivate the return of jobs other than tariffs that could start a trade war.

Hillary Clinton says she will propose investing in infrastructure, manufacturing, research and technology, clean energy, and small businesses. The costly $787 billion spending bill that President Barack Obama signed into law soon after taking office had little effect. It was argued that it was insufficient.

In all of the Trump and Clinton ideas there is no consideration of the future.