Trump Shouldn’t Be President

One of the standard bloviating points for Republicans is to talk about "supporting our troops" and "supporting our men in uniform."  When it comes to putting words into action, with a few exceptions Congressional Republicans never follow through.  Be it sending troops to war without proper equipment and armor as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan or cutting veterans' benefits (or somewhat similarly cutting funding to the State Department for security and then whining and throwing conniption fits over Benghazi), Republicans time and again confirm the old axiom that "talk is cheap."   Of course, Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, has taken dishonesty and disrespect for our members of the military to new heights as he displayed utter callousness toward the widow of a young soldier, Sgt. La David T. Johnson, who was killed in an ambush in Niger - for Fox News viewers, Niger is a country in West Africa.  

Perhaps I take such things more personally than Der Trumpenführer who never served in the military (thanks to questionable deferments) or ever had family members in the military.  While, thankfully, I did not lose a family member, we came very, very close when one of my sons-in-law was badly wounded in Afghanistan on his THIRD deployment to that hell hole.   He languished for three days at Bagram Airbase before he was finally flown out to Germany (and then to Texas) to receive much needed medical care only after Democrat U.S. Senator from Virginia, Mark Warner's office got involved at my request.  Frankly, I am over the lying and dishonesty of the majority of Republicans when comes to supporting and respecting our men and women in uniform.  Der Trumpenführer could whine and tweet about NFL players "disrespecting our troops" yet his callousness and broken promises toward gold star families speaks volumes.  

A piece in the Washington Post looks at the situation of Sgt. Johnson after Trump lied about his unacceptable behavior.  Here are highlights: 

The mother of a soldier killed in an ambush in Africa said Wednesday that President Trump “did disrespect my son” with remarks in a condolence telephone call.

Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, told The Washington Post that she was present during the call from the White House on Tuesday to Johnson’s widow, Myeshia Johnson. She also stood by an account of the call from Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) that Trump told Myeshia Johnson that her husband “must have known what he signed up for.”

“President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband,” Jones-Johnson said.  Trump lashed back at Wilson. He denied her account in a Twitter message Wednesday.

But as is always the case with Trump, the family of Sgt. Johnson are not alone in the disrespect and mistreatment they have received at the hands of the foul individual in the White House.  A piece Talking Points Memo looks at Trump's broken promise to Chris Baldridge, the father of Army Cpl. Dillon Baldridge, killed in Afghanistan.  Here are excerpts:

Another simply bizarre new thread in the Trump bereavement call story. The Post called the families of service members who’ve died in the line of duty since Trump became President. There were some good stories, some bad; some had never heard from the President. There were a lot of what you might call Trumpian moments. But the really bizarre story was his conversation with Chris Baldridge, the father of Army Cpl. Dillon Baldridge, killed in Afghanistan. 

Trump told him he’d send him a personal check for $25,000. Not standard and complicated, inasmuch as presumably the President isn’t going to cut everyone a check. But it’s not unprecedented. I believe I remember that there are records of President Obama sending sums of money to private citizens who were struggling.  But then Trump forgot about it.

Trump apparently told Baldridge he’d have the White House staff set up an online fundraiser for Baldridge too. But then nothing happened.

So it certainly sounds like the check was sent after the Post started asking questions, in other words, sort of like how the Niger calls shook out.

The bottom line is that Trump is unfit for his office in so many ways that it is difficult to count them all.  Worse yet, as these stories underscore, he doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself.  If working class whites who voted for Trump think he gives a rat's ass about them, they are utter and total fools.   When Trump attacked Khizr Khan before the 2016 presidential election, anyone decent and moral should have known all they needed to know about Trump and should have voted for anyone other than Trump.

Trump Camp: Khan Doesn't Deserve Title Of Gold Star Parent

Despite the polls that indicate that one of Donald Trump's biggest self-inflicted wounds has been his on going attacks on the Khan family, Trump's New York co-chair has launched a new attack claiming that Khizr Khan does not deserve the title of "Gold Star" parent.  The foulness, indecency and plain insanity of Trump and Carl Paladino, his New York co-chair is breathtaking. The simple facts are that Humanyun Khan was a U.S. Army Captain who died saving his men and civilians.  His parents lost their beloved son.  Anyone who questions the parents' right to be called "Gold Star" parents is not only morally bankrupt but also mentally unbalanced.  Talking Points Memo looks at this disgusting attack.  Here are excerpts:

The co-chair for Donald Trump’s campaign in New York is defending the Republican nominee's attacks against the Khan family, saying that Trump does not have to respect or refer to Khizr Khan as a "Gold Star parent" because he is "a member of the Muslim Brotherhood."

In an interview with "Imus in the Morning" interviewer Connell McShane, surfaced by BuzzFeed News, Carl Paladino said that focus in the election has unnecessarily shifted negatively to Trump, despite having an "un-indicted felon," presumably Hillary Clinton, in the race and a supporter of hers, Khan, being undeserving of the title of "Gold Star parent."

“We’ve got an un-indicted felon as his opponent and you’re talking about Khan, about him making a remark about this man,” he said.

“All right, I don’t care if he’s a Gold Star parent," he continued. "He certainly doesn’t deserve that title, OK, if he’s as anti-American as he’s illustrated in his speeches and in his discussion. I mean, if he’s a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or supporting, you know, the ISIS-type of attitude against America, there’s no reason for Donald Trump to have to honor this man.”

Paladino, who made a failed bid for governor of New York in 2010, went on to say that he does not feel that Trump should change his rhetoric in any way and that no one can be sure that President Obama is not a Muslim. 

I'm sorry, but Donald Trump is human sewage!!

Is Trump Alienating Military Communities?

Here in Virginia the key to carrying the state in state-wide elections is to win in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, the home of a huge military population.  Earlier in the Week the Virginian Pilot carried an editorial slamming Donald Trump's attacks on and slights to the military and individuals such as the Khan family who have lost loved ones in the line of duty.  Here are highlights:

[T]there comes a time when principle must take precedence over partisanship. That time is now.

Khizr and Ghazala Khan moved to the United States in the 1970s. He is a lawyer by trade, and they are now residents of Charlottesville. In 2004, their son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, a native of the United Arab Emirates and a graduate of the University of Virginia, was killed while serving in Iraq.

The family’s sacrifice, like those of other fallen soldiers, is incalculable and can never be repaid, even by a grateful nation. But it might have gone unnoticed by most Americans were it not for the Khans’ decision to speak on Thursday evening at the Democratic National Convention.

In a powerful address, Khizr Khan took aim at Donald Trump, assailing the candidate’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States and questioning what he has done in service to this nation.  They were pointed words. And they found their mark, drawing the ire of the notoriously thin-skinned Trump.

Finally, when asked by George Stephanopoulos about Khan’s charge that he has sacrificed nothing, Trump responded, “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.

It’s despicable to compare difficulties in business to the loss of a loved one on the battlefield. And it’s unconscionable for a politician to malign a Gold Star family in order to deflect criticism.

[T]hose who represent Hampton Roads, home to so many men and women who willingly march into harm’s way on our nation’s behalf, cannot be silent.

If he wins in November, Trump will be commander in chief of the armed forces. He will be entrusted with the power to send troops into danger.

To treat one family’s sacrifice so dismissively and cavalierly calls into question his fitness for that role. A man who cannot summon the humanity to empathize with the Khans has no place in the Oval Office.

A piece in the New York Times suggests that a growing number of military families and voters may be reaching the same conclusion about Trump's unfitness for office.  Imagine an impulsive man, with no empathy for others recklessly putting the lives of our military men and women at risk on a whim. It's terrifying.  Here are highlights from the Times:

Mr. Trump’s grating comments about the armed services have plainly become an obstacle to courting voters he must convert if he is to overtake Mrs. Clinton in the polls.

For some Republicans and independent voters intrigued by Mr. Trump, his conduct around the military remains a sticking point. In Colorado Springs, near the Air Force Academy and the headquarters of the United States Northern Command, Marianne Quast, the mother of an Air Force veteran, said she had been drawn to Mr. Trump’s bluntness earlier in the campaign. Now, Ms. Quast said, she resents Mr. Trump’s disrespectful language about the military, including his response to the Khans and his joke about the Purple Heart. She said she trembled at the thought of her son serving under such a volatile president.

“I’d honestly worry about a third world war. All those poor kids still serving. God forbid we elect Trump,” Ms. Quast said. She added, “Clearly Trump has no respect for veterans, no matter what he says.”

Mr. Trump has continued to face reproach from prominent veterans in elected office this week. Mr. McCain released a searing statement on Monday invoking his own family’s long history of military service to denounce Mr. Trump’s comments about the Khans. On Wednesday, Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he could not vote for Mr. Trump.

Advocates for veterans have spoken out against Mr. Trump. The Veterans of Foreign Wars called his comments about the Khans inexcusable.

In some pockets of the extended military community, Mr. Trump has become a source of disagreement among friends.

In Portsmouth, Bill Pierson, a V.F.W. and American Legion volunteer, said he believed strongly in Mr. Trump and would give him the benefit of the doubt on a handful of ill-advised remarks.

But Phil Young, a 27-year veteran of the Army and the Marines, walking alongside Mr. Pierson, was uneasier about the Republican nominee, sharing reservations that underscore the roadblocks confronting Mr. Trump. Mr. Young, 61, said he was a registered Republican but was still undecided about his vote. “The Purple Heart thing didn’t endear him with me, and also what he said about John McCain being a P.O.W.,” Mr. Young said. He added, “I find what he says about the military interesting, considering that he never served.”

Let's hope a majority of military families in Hampton Roads decide that they do not want to put their lives or the lives of family members in the hands of a narcissistic madman. 

Michael Gerson: It’s Not Too Late to Dump Trump

Are some Republicans and conservatives finally rediscovering morality and their own consciences? Based on some of the latest columns by conservatives calling on the Republican Party leaders to dump Donald Trump, such seems to be the case.  The final tipping point seems to be Trump's attacks on the Khan family, although his outright lies about why he is positioning himself to skip the presidential debates and the issue of refusing to release his tax returns may be helping the much belated recognition that Trump is incapable of changing his behavior and constitutes a threat to the nation.  First, Michael Gerson has a piece in today's Washington Post making the case for dumping Trump.  Here are highlights:  

Leaders such as [Martin Luther] King believed that history has an arc, determined by the appeal of freedom and the Author of freedom. And their vision of human rights became an inseparable part of the American story: a nation that declared high ideals, then was judged by them, and now is motivated by them to expand the circle of inclusion, protection and promise.

I happened to visit the National Civil Rights Museum at the same time that a presidential candidate was attacking the mother of a fallen American soldier by employing an anti-Muslim stereotype (“maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say”). Donald Trump went on to assert that the soldier’s father, Khizr Khan, had “no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution” — a statement that proved Khan’s point.

My point here is not that Trump is a classless, egotistical sadist — though that case is strong. It is that Trump’s view of nationalism is based on culture, ethnicity and exclusion. It does not even matter if suspicious outsiders have made what Abraham Lincoln called “so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” Their faith, in Trump’s view, is foreign and immediately associated with stereotypes of oppression and violence. The same is true with Mexican ethnicity, which Trump has identified with sexual aggression and murder. Trump is not merely indifferent to the language of racial and religious inclusion; he is actively hostile to the premise.

Leaders who support Trump — members of Congress, conservative thinkers, figures of the religious right — do so for a variety of reasons. But whatever their motivations, they are encouraging an alternate and degraded version of the American story. . . . And Trump’s America is defined as the familiar nation of decades past, which was largely white and Christian.

In fact, the United States is the model for the world when it comes to integrating Muslims and people of other faiths into a pluralistic society. Rather than recognizing this achievement, Trump would undo it and foster the kind of conflict he warns against.

But there is even more at stake. Those who support Trump are setting the Republican Party at odds with the American story told by Lincoln and King: a nationalism defined by striving toward unifying ideals of freedom and human dignity. Is this what the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, the chairman of the Republican Party and so many other good people intended when they entered politics? Is this how they define their soul’s high purpose?

In his last public address, the night before his murder, King mused on mortality, saying that he would die “happy” and “not fearing any man” because he was sure of his life’s mission, which included “standing up for the best in the American dream.”

Which Republican leaders can now rest in that confidence? It is not too late to repudiate.

Gerson is not the only one to recognize that there is something more important at stake than a GOP victory in November: the soul of America is at stake.  In a column over the weekend,  Jennifer Rubin, another conservative columnist with whom I typically disagree made a similar call to Republican leaders to dump Trump.  Here are highlights:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and vice-presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana (R) knew what they were getting into when they climbed aboard the Donald Trump bandwagon. They had watched him insult minorities, POWs, the disabled and women. They had seen for themselves how utterly ignorant he was about basic policy concepts. They knew he lied about big and small things (e.g., falsely saying he opposed the Iraq War, reneging on charity pledges until shamed by The Post). They knew he’d stiffed and swindled Trump U students. They never should have backed him; they were abetting a vile individual attaining the country’s most powerful office, for which he was patently unfit. Pence went a step further in agreeing to be his running mate, and now travels around the country cheer leading for Trump.

Now Trump demeans two Gold Star parents. When slammed, he does not apologize or retract the remarks. . . . . The world-class narcissist claims to be worthy of the same sympathy (I sacrificed too!) as the parents who lost their son. 

If Pence had a modicum of dignity or decency, he would tell the American people, “I made a terrible mistake. Mr Trump is so morally bankrupt and of such shabby character that I could not possibly serve with him.” Failing to do so, the same should be said of Pence.

In his interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Trump also revealed he did not know Russia had invaded Ukraine. (Putin’s “not gonna go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down.”) When George Stephanopoulos told him it already had, he repeated the Kremlin’s talking point that the people of Crimea wanted Russia to invade.

The offices of Ryan and McConnell wouldn’t comment on Trump’s slur against Ghazala Khan or ludicrous claim he’s “sacrificed” just as the Khans have. . . . . They know this but they are abdicating moral leadership because they cannot possibly justify their support of Trump. In their silence, they condone Trump and stand with him. They should be standing with the Khans.

Republicans’ refusal to un-endorse Trump puts their own character and judgment in doubt. It is fair to say that the Republicans who cheer him on — not Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), who refused to — are signing their own political death warrants.