Sunday, May 15, 2016

22 Reasons Principled Conservatives can Never Vote for Donald Trump. By Robert A. Hall
(And Hillary is just as bad, though it's a toss up which will be worse for the country.)
Feel free to forward or post.



I'm a lifelong Republican. I was a volunteer for Nixon at 14, and for Goldwater at 18 before joining the Marines in August, 1964 and headed to Vietnam. In 1968, I was a college student and supported Nixon. In 1972, I graduated from College in June and was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in November, defeating a Democrat incumbent by nine votes out of 60,000 in a 4-1 Democrat district, last won by a Republican in 1938. I was reelected four times, even being nominated by both parties in 1976. In 1982, I was the Republican whip when I decided to retire undefeated. I have campaigned for many Republicans since. I have never voted for a Democrat for President. I will not vote for a life-long liberal this year, not Hillary, not Bernie, and certainly not Trump.

The Donaldcrats say that by not voting for Trump, I am handing the election to Hillary Clinton (or, long shot Bernie Sanders). It is not #NeverTrump that is handing the White House to Hillary. When he dropped out, Rubio was leading Clinton by 5%, while Trump was trailing her by 11%. Before the Indiana Primary, Kasich was leading Clinton, Cruz was trailing her in the polls by 2.9% and Trump was trailing her by 11.2%. It is not principled conservatives who cannot ever vote for a know-nothing blowhard with a meretricious character and no firm principles except self-aggrandizement and self enrichment, whose every statement and promise, like Obama's, comes with an expiration date, who are "handing the election to Hillary." It is the Donaldcrats who voted to make this life-long liberal with a bias for big government, an aversion to transparency, a contempt for the truth and a past record of shady dealings the GOP nominee who have handed the election to Hillary. (Trump's promises, like the now-discarded promise to self-fund, have the self-life of unrefrigerated milk.)

I believe the numerous references in this essay prove that Donald Trump has only two core values, and anything else can and will be discarded in service to them. They are self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment.

Trump recently declared that, “This is called the Republican party, it’s not called the Conservative party.” That may be the single-most accurate statement he’s made in the course of the campaign. But if the Republican party isn’t conservative, what does it stand for? http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435273/donald-trump-liberal-conspiracy-theorist

Trump now says he doesn't need conservatives. Fine, I am a conservative, so he doesn't need me. Why are the Donaldcrats now demanding I vote for a man who doesn't need or want my support?

Trump: I Have Principles, Don't Need Conservatives to Support Me

I don't expect to change any minds. A retired Marine on my list stated truthfully. "Trump supporters do not care about any detractors. Not one." Exactly. They are exactly like the Obama supporters in 2008 and 2012. They don't care how many times his lies are exposed, how many times he changes his positions, how many promises he breaks. To the Obots, Obama is the godhead. To the Donaldcrats, Trump is. He could come out for disbanding the military, making abortion mandatory, and an 80% flat tax, and they would still be voting for him.

But I felt compelled for the record to lay out the reasons, based on his own actions and statements, as to why I have held Donald Trump in disdain and contempt as long as I have known anything about him, and why I would never vote for him for Town Board, never mind President. Though this is long, Trump supporters, especially Republicans reluctantly getting into bed with Trump for party unity, should read it in order to be prepared for the bombshells the media and the Democrats will throw at him. Every Trump supporter will be branded as supporting all of all he items below, forever. The Trump campaign, and even more so if there is a Trump Presidency, will be the graveyard of reputations.

1. Donald Trump is an apple that didn't fall far from the tree. The family fortune was started in a whorehouse.

Donald Trump's grandfather ran Canadian brothel during gold rush, author says
Friedrich Trump amassed 'substantial nest-egg' from Yukon hotel before heading to New York

2. Trump carried on the tradition of using, discarding and demeaning women.

Trump publically cheated on his first wife, Ivana, with Marla Maples, whom he called a "good piece of ass."
Excerpt: That April, Ivana began to tell her friends that she was worried about Donald’s state of mind. She had been completely humiliated by Donald through his public association with Marla Maples. “How can you say you love us? You don’t love us! You don’t even love yourself. You just love your money,” twelve-year-old Donald junior told his father, according to friends of Ivana’s. “What kind of son have I created?” Trump’s mother, Mary, is said to have asked Ivana. However unlikely it seemed, Ivana was now considered a tabloid heroine, and her popularity seemed in inverse proportion to the fickle city’s new dislike of her husband. “Ivana is now a media goddess on par with Princess Di, Madonna, and Elizabeth Taylor,” Liz Smith reported. Months earlier, Ivana had undergone cosmetic reconstruction with a California doctor. She emerged unrecognizable to her friends and perhaps her children, as fresh and innocent of face as Heidi of Edelweiss Farms. Although she had negotiated four separate marital-property agreements over the last fourteen years, she was suing her husband for half his assets. Trump was trying to be philosophical. “When a man leaves a woman, especially when it was perceived that he has left for a piece of ass—a good one!—there are 50 percent of the population who will love the woman who was left,” he told me.

And it was rumored that he cheated on Marla with his Third wife, Melania: Donald Trump's Early Life and Wives Ivana, Marla & Melania
Excerpt: Many believe that Trump's third wife, Melania, is nothing more than an extension of Donald's ego. Melania was born in Slovenia as Melanija Knavs, and is a former model known for having more than her fair share of plastic surgery. People have also speculated that Donald was probably still married to Marla when he began seeing Melania, as it is known that they met and began dating in the late 1990s. As soon as he divorced Marla, Donald began promoting Melania's modeling career and taking her on television shows with him, which resulted in many modeling offers for her. The couple married in 2005, and the wedding received extravagant press coverage as the event seemed to be attempting to recapture the glory and expense of Donald Trump's first marriage to Ivana. Melania has some formal education but does not seem very interested in applying her talents, unlike Ivana.

Here’s when Trump BRAGGED in his book about his MULTIPLE AFFAIRS with wealthy married women!
http://therightscoop.com/heres-when-trump-bragged-in-his-book-about-his-multiple-affairs-with-his-friends-wives/
Excerpt: In The Art of the Deal, Trump boasted about bedding other men’s wives.
“If I told the real stories of my experiences with women, often seemingly very happily married and important women, this book would be a guaranteed best-seller,” he wrote.

Donald Trump Said A Lot Of Gross Things About Women On “Howard Stern”
Excerpt: Trump has a history of making crude remarks toward women. He reportedly said of his ex-wife Marla Maples, “Nice tits, no brains,” and more recently, he has called Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly a “bimbo” and a “lightweight” and said she had “blood coming out of her wherever” during the first GOP debate.

Draft dodger Trump says sex in the Eighties was 'his personal Vietnam' during Howard Stern interview in 1997
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3451452/Trump-says-sex-eighties-personal-Vietnam-Howard-Stern-interview-1997.html
Excerpt; Donald Trump told shock jock he felt 'lucky' not to have picked up an STD. He said having sex in the 1980s was 'dangerous' and 'scary, like Vietnam.' 'It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier,' he said. Stern said Trump compared a vagina to 'a potential landmine' in private. Trump avoided military draft age 22, because of bone spurs in both heels. Republican front-runner revealed he's 'not into anal' on Stern show in 2004. He also discussed Melania and Ivanka Trump's toilet habits in bizarre chat.

Donald Trump is the Mussolini of America with double the vulgarity. Republicans are right to fear demagoguery of the one candidate who makes Hillary Clinton look electable

Trump’s bogus claim that he never said ‘some of the things’ claimed by Megyn Kelly
The Pinocchio Test: Trump should think twice before challenging the research of a major news organization. There is ample evidence for each of the slurs against women uttered or tweeted by Trump. Perhaps he has a point that he attacks once he is provoked, but there is little doubt that the over-the-top language cited by Kelly was correct. Four Pinocchios.

3. Trump is not a good person.

Trump: 'Why Do I Have to Repent or Ask for Forgiveness If I Am Not Making Mistakes?' (Video)
http://www.christianpost.com/news/trump-why-do-i-have-to-repent-or-ask-for-forgiveness-if-i-am-not-making-mistakes-video-141856/

Excerpt: Following Donald Trump's appearance last week at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, CNN's Anderson Cooper sought out clarification on Trump's assertion that he's unsure if he ever asks God's forgiveness. ... When further asked about repentance again by Cooper, Trump said "I think repenting is terrific." "Why do I have to repent or ask for forgiveness, if I am not making mistakes?" asked Trump. "I work hard, I'm an honorable person." In talking about his Iowa appearance, Trump said, "We were having fun when I said I drink the wine, I eat the cracker, the whole room was laughing."



Missing from Trump’s list of charitable giving: His own personal cash

For Donald Trump, it’s always about control

Excerpt: In June 2009, Richard and Shelly Hewson paid the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, an educational venture owned by businessman and now–presidential candidate Donald Trump, $21,490 for classes that promised to teach them how to flip homes for profit. They ponied up the high price “because we had faith in Donald Trump,” Richard wrote in a January 2015 affidavit. “We thought that if this was his program, we would be learning to do real estate deals from his people who knew his techniques.”

A neuroscientist explains: Trump has a mental disorder that makes him a dangerous world leader

Here are 3 times Donald Trump behaved like a sociopath towards workers

Donald Trump on Protester: ‘I’d Like to Punch Him in the Face’
He's a bully too.

Donald Trump Says His Supporters Should ‘Hit Back’ At Protesters More Often

'In the old days, he'd be carried out on a stretcher': Trump says he'd like to punch protestor 'in the face'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3459653/I-d-like-punch-face-Trump-complains-protester-s-gentle-treatment.html#ixzz48mMdz9Hm 


How a convicted felon nicknamed ‘Joey No Socks’ covered Donald Trump in stars
Excerpt: Joseph Cinque, the academy’s president and CEO, personally presented the award to Trump in Scotland. It was one of many similar honors Cinque has bestowed upon him in the past decade. Cinque, who has been described by the academy as one of Trump’s “dear friends,” is also a convicted felon who reportedly survived a murder attempt, was associated with the infamous mob boss John Gotti and went on to earn the nicknames “Joey No Socks” and “the Preppy Don.” Trump recently held one of the top three slots on the organization’s board of trustees, with the ostentatious title of “Ambassador Extraordinaire.” Members of Trump’s family and multiple executives at his company, the Trump Organization, have also sat on the academy’s board of trustees, which selects award winners. Cinque runs the academy out of his apartment on Central Park South in Manhattan, just blocks from Trump Tower. In a conversation with Yahoo News on Thursday morning, Trump denied he had any involvement with the ratings group, which has bestowed numerous five- and six-star ratings on his properties.

Report: Trump Did Business With Vicious Mobster ‘Fat Tony.’ Yes, Really.

Excerpt:  As David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who won the award for reporting on the American tax system, has detailed, Donald Trump has had strong ties to organized crime, building his famous Trump Towers and Trump Plaza apartment building with the help of mafia kingpins Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano.  A federal investigation found a federal investigation showed the Trump Plaza apartment building’s construction was aided by racketeering.
We Investigated, Donald Trump is Named in at Least 169 Federal Lawsuits
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/we-investigated-donald-trump-is-named-in-at-least-169-federal-lawsuits/

Tale of Trump and Partner in Azerbaijan Real Estate Project
Excerpt: The Trump camp's screening skills are important as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee turns to selecting a running mate. They would only become more crucial if he won the White House. Then, Trump would have to name more than 3,600 political appointees to senior government positions, including critical jobs overseeing national security and the economy. In the Azerbaijani case, Garten said the Trump Organization had performed meticulous due diligence on the company's partners, but hadn't researched the allegations against the Baku partner's father because he wasn't a party to the deal. "I've never heard that before," Garten said, when first asked about allegations of Iranian money laundering by the partner's father, which appeared in U.S. diplomatic cables widely available since they were leaked in 2010. Garten subsequently said he was confident the minister alleged to be laundering Iranian funds, Ziya Mammadov, had no involvement in his son's holding company, even though some of the son's major businesses regularly partnered with the transportation ministry and were founded while the son was in college overseas. Ziya Mammadov did not respond to a telephone message the AP left with his ministry in Baku or to emails to the Azerbaijan Embassy in Washington.

Cowards, Pimps and Enemies: A Trump Presidency
Excerpt: But for those generals who oppose Trump–or anyone who opposes Trump–beware the enemies list. President Trump will cultivate an enemies list like Green Giant plants peas: Lovingly, efficiently, with care and precision. A huge field of peas, erm, enemies. Cross him, and you immediately find yourself planted in it. And for those who find themselves there, having been previously in the coward or pimp lane, it will suck. Trump will classify his enemies with endless taxonomies, constantly keeping track of who is dangerous, who is to be bribed, and who can be exploited. He’ll assign nicknames to the most notable among them. We’ll think “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary” are quaint pet names compared to what he’ll do with his true enemies as president. And if we think that President Obama’s use of lawfare, the power of the administrative state, and his pen and phone are terrifying, we ain’t seen nothing yet when Trump is president.


State attorneys general who dropped Trump University fraud inquiries subsequently got Trump donations


USA TODAY exclusive: Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills


141 Things Donald Trump Has Said and Done That Make Him Unfit to Be President


16 Years Ago, William F. Buckley Wrote This About Donald Trump And It’s Eerily Accurate
4. Trump demeans Veterans (especially our POWs) as well.

Donald Trump Likens His Schooling to Military Service in Book
Excerpt: Donald J. Trump, who received draft deferments through much of the Vietnam War, told the author of a coming biography that he nevertheless “always felt that I was in the military” because of his education at a military-themed boarding school.
Mr. Trump said his experience at the New York Military Academy, an expensive prep school where his parents had sent him to correct poor behavior, gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” That claim may raise eyebrows given that Mr. Trump, now a Republican presidential candidate, never served in the military and mocked Senator John McCain of Arizona, a decorated naval aviator, for his captivity of several years during the Vietnam War. “He’s not a war hero,” Mr. Trump said in July. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

Trump is, 'Invincible in Peace, Invisible in War," as Sen. George Hill of Georgia described shirkers after the Civil War. He talks fight, but used deferments to avoid military service.
Excerpt: The 2-S classifications are Trump’s student deferments. The first two covered his time at Fordham University in the Bronx, and the second two allowed him to stay in school when he transferred to study business at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, as Tigar wrote in his 1969 article, any college student who asked could get a student deferment. When he graduated in 1968, Trump’s classification shifted to 1-A, or "available for service." Had that stood, Trump would have been drafted. But Trump had a physical exam in September 1968. He had taken one less than two years earlier that did not disqualify him for service as we can tell from his 1-A classification in July 1968. However, his second physical was followed in October with a new classification, 1-Y. That designation put him near the bottom of any call-up list. It meant he would only be drafted if there were a national emergency. (Trump and I are the same age. But I volunteered for the Marines and volunteered for Vietnam when my outfit was scheduled for a six-month cruise of the Caribbean.)

Donald Trump Wanted Vets Kicked Off Fifth Avenue
Excerpt: Instead of debating his presidential rivals Thursday, the GOP frontrunner is hosting an event ‘to raise money’ for veterans. That’s rich, say the disabled veterans he tried to eject from the street outside Trump Tower.

How Trump spent the war years

How the military is preparing for the possibility of a very different kind of Commander in Chief.
Excerpt: Many of the veterans who called the hotline—855-VETS-352—say they were sent to an automated voicemail message telling them to email the campaign. Those who reached a live human were similarly instructed to send an email, or to mail their medical records to campaign headquarters at Trump Tower. It soon became evident that Trump had no actual plan in place to help anyone who contacted him through the hotline. Calling it a “publicity stunt,” one veteran wrote on PopularMilitary.com, “We are not sure what the estimated wait time is, but it is probably safe to say you should hold on to your [Veterans Affairs] card for now.” This perfunctory effort was perhaps to be expected, since Trump has a long and colorful history of showing disrespect toward men and women in uniform. He did not serve himself, avoiding the Vietnam War via four education deferments, followed by a medical deferment for bone spurs in his feet. (His campaign notes that Trump received a high number in the draft lottery and was unlikely to ever be called up.) But on numerous occasions, he has dismissed the experiences of those who did. 

Four months after fundraiser, Trump says he gave $1 million to veterans group

Excerpt: As recently as last week, Trump’s campaign manager had insisted that the mogul had already given that money away. But that was false: Trump had not. In recent days, The Washington Post and other media outlets had pressed Trump and his campaign for details about how much the fundraiser had actually raised and whether Trump had given his portion. The candidate refused to provide details. 

5. In fact, running for President is the first time Trump has expressed any desire to serve his country.

A former staffer claims the Trump campaign was a protest. Others say it was to enhance the Trump brand: An Open Letter to Trump Voters from His Top Strategist-Turned-Defector
Excerpt: Even Trump's most trusted advisors didn't expect him to fare this well. Almost a year ago, recruited for my public relations and public policy expertise, I sat in Trump Tower being told that the goal was to get The Donald to poll in double digits and come in second in delegate count. That was it. The Trump camp would have been satisfied to see him polling at 12% and taking second place to a candidate who might hold 50%. His candidacy was a protest candidacy.

Why is Trump running for president?
Excerpt: Real estate mogul Donald Trump has informed the Federal Election Commission, as required of presidential candidates, that he is worth more than $10 billion. It appears what his campaign is largely about is embellishing his name and brand, not only for fame, but for profit as well. ... Exhibit A is a Post story about the Trump International Golf Club in Puerto Rico. Although the club has filed for bankruptcy, the story says, Mr. Trump "put no money down but took a cut in the annual revenue" without risking any of his own capital. One of his sons, Eric, an executive in the Trump Organization, is quoted: "We made many millions of dollars on it but never invested a dime."

6. Trump is a know-nothing, with no firm position on anything, except that Trump is great and should be President

The massive flip-floppery of Donald Trump, explained in 113 seconds


Trump vs. Trump Debate


Ad Shows Donald Trump Has The Best Words
Excerpt: “I went to an Ivy League school.  I’m very highly educated.  I know words.  I have the best words,” says Trump in the beginning of the ad.  It then cuts to a montage of Donald Trump using various profanities in his public speeches, and is censored appropriately, of course.

Trump: When I get to Washington, I’m Going to Become Part of the Establishment so I can Make Deals With Democrats (VIDEO)


20 times Donald Trump has changed his mind since June

Trump: Everything I Said – “Just a Suggestion”

A Full List of Donald Trump's Rapidly Changing Policy Positions
Excerpt: While most presidential candidates craft detailed platforms and spend years trying to sell them to voters, GOP front-runner Donald Trump sometimes takes up two or three contradictory policy positions in the same week — or even the same interview.

Donald Trump Doesn’t Know What the GI Bill Is (or Anything Else)

Trump’s word salads conceal his ignorance
I don't agree. it's not concealed for anyone who looks. I've thought for decades that Trump's ignorance rivaled his arrogance. Read these responses to questions.

The ignorance of Donald Trump

Donald Trump's Latest Ignorance Is Just Breathtaking

Trump Is the Ignorant Candidate Ignorant Americans Deserve
Excerpt: The GOP front-runner is wildly uninformed when it comes to foreign policy. ... Donald Trump's inconsistency on foreign policy has the Washington punditry in a tizzy. ... Sadly, a major reason for this is that the American public is as ignorant about foreign policy as Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s shocking ignorance, laid bare

A transcript of Donald Trump’s meeting with The Washington Post editorial board
Unbelievable. ~Bob

Donald Trump once backed urgent climate action. Wait, what?


7. Trump lies more than any candidate I have ever seen, even more than Hillary

Lyin' Donald: 101 Of Trump's Greatest Lies

Politifact rates only 12% of Trumps statements as True or Mostly True

Trump’s hyping of National Enquirer ‘scoop’ on Ted Cruz’s father
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/05/03/fox-friends-gets-exclusive-trumps-hyping-of-national-enquirer-scoop-on-ted-cruzs-father/?tid=a_inl

What Could Go Wrong with a Trump Presidency? Let’s Count the Ways
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435816/donald-trump-presidency-what-would-happen-really
Excerpt: What, they ask, could go so wrong in a Trump presidency? Here, then, is an attempt to realistically assess what a Trump presidency would look like. My biases are clear up front: I don’t trust Trump. I don’t trust his promises, because he has shown no willingness to hold to them. I don’t trust his ideology, because he proclaims that his guiding star is his own self-assurance. I trust Trump to be Trump: a man of convenience, a thinker of no great depth, a reactionary with no constitutional understanding and a willingness to maximize executive power.

A Study On How Often Donald Trump Lies–Complete With Proof


8. But Trump is a great businessman, right? Wrong.

Excerpt: A pattern emerges. Donald Trump is a habitual liar, and the thing about habitual liars is that they lie habitually. In a testy exchange with former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Trump insisted that he’d never gone bankrupt, and that claims to the contrary are a lie. That’s the Trump magic right there: Lying about your business history is one thing, lying that your critics are lying about it is another. Trump has a peculiar way of speaking about bankruptcy: He has a deep aversion to the word itself. He speaks of “putting a company into a chapter” without ever answering the implicit question: “Chapter of what? Moby-Dick?” The answer, of course, is the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, to which Trump has taken recourse at least four times over the course of his business career. 

How Trump Bungled the Deal of a Lifetime
Excerpt: Fueled by a slew of bank loans in the late 1980s, Trump absorbed an airline, a football team, a landmark hotel, a bunch of casinos, a yacht, and other nifty stuff -- almost all of which he eventually lost because he couldn’t juggle the debt payments. He overcame those setbacks, but the man who emerged from that mess wasn’t really a dealmaker anymore. Kept afloat by his wealthy father’s funds and his own gifts for self-promotion, Trump became a reality TV star, golf course developer and human shingle who licensed his name on everything from real estate and vodka to mattresses and underwear.

Trump Worth $10 Billion Less Than If He’d Simply Invested in Index Funds

Donald Trump didn’t write ‘The Art of the Deal’

How Donald Trump Made Millions Off His Biggest Business Failure
Excerpt: From mid-1995 to early 2009, Trump served as chairman of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (renamed Trump Entertainment Resorts in 2004), and held the CEO title for five years (mid-2000 to mid-2005). During Trump’s 13 years as chairman, the casino empire lost a total of $1.1 billion, twice declared bankruptcy, and wrote down or restructured $1.8 billion in debt. Over the same period, the company paid Trump—essentially Trump paying himself—roughly $82 million by Fortune’s estimates, collected from a dizzying variety of sources spelled out in the company’s proxy filings, as varied as payments for use of Trump’s private plane to fees paid directly Trump for access to his name and marketing expertise.

Donald Trump is probably not a billionaire
Excerpt: Over the last 48 hours, the latest attempts to derail Donald Trump’s candidacy have focused on the presumptive nominee’s tax returns — more specifically, what is or isn’t in them. On Tuesday night, Trump told the Associated Press he would not release the returns prior to November because he is currently under audit by the IRS, a 180 reversal from his position on the matter back in January, when he said he would be releasing his returns. However, 24 hours later, he characteristically changed course after being criticized on the matter by Mitt Romney. “I’ll release,” he told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Hopefully before the election I’ll release. And I’d like to release.”

Remember When Trump Said That Romney Should Release His Taxes?

What Trump didn’t say about his four big business bankruptcies
Excerpt: Yet missing from Trump’s retelling is that all four bankruptcies were high-profile embarrassments for his name-brand American empire. Amid some of the proceedings, the mogul poured in millions of dollars from his personal fortune to keep the restructurings alive. To secure better deals or more time to pay off debts, Trump forfeited lucrative ownership stakes and allowed bankers, lawyers and bondholders to feast on his empire. In one deal involving hundreds of millions of dollars in debts he had personally guaranteed, he agreed to sell his airline and mega-yacht, and he allowed bankers to stipulate how much he could spend every month.

Top 10 Donald Trump Failures
Excerpt: Trump Airlines. Trump Vodka. Trump Bankruptcies. Trump Mortgage. Trump: The Game. Trump Clothing Line made in China. Trump Casinos.

Donald Trump was a stock market disaster



I Survived ‘Trump’ Magazine—Barely
Bills went unpaid. They turned off the electricity. Our paychecks started bouncing. I got cancer and they canceled my health coverage. Here’s what it was like to work for Donald Trump’s failed magazine.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/donald-trump-magazine-employee-confessional-bankrupt-2016-214155#ixzz4HL9YvVw5 
9. Trump has supported far left Democrats and leftist policies for decades

Trump on Hillary
Trump: Hillary Clinton is a terrific woman, works hard and I like her. I like both her and her husband very much. They are terrific people.

Flashback 2012: Trump Endorses Hillary
Excerpt: TRUMP:  Hillary Clinton, I think, is a terrific woman.  I mean, I'm a little biased because I've known her for years.  I live in New York. She lives in New York. And I've known her and her husband for years and I really like 'em both a lot and I think she really works hard and I think she, again, she's given an agenda that's not all of her, but I think she really works hard, and I think she does a good job.  And I like her. VAN SUSTEREN:  She says she's out at the end of this term. Do you think we're gonna see her again running for office? TRUMP:  I think so.  I think, you know, assuming she's healthy, which I hope she will be, I think she probably runs after the next four years, I would imagine. VAN SUSTEREN:  You support her? TRUMP:  I don't want to get into this because I'll get myself into trouble -- VAN SUSTEREN:  That's why I asked you, to see what kind of trouble. TRUMP:  I just like her.  I like her, and I like her husband.  Her husband made a speech on Monday at Mar-a-Lago, and it was very well received.  And he's a -- he's a really good guy, and she's a really good person and woman.

Now Trump says Hillary is crooked.

Trump gave at least $100K to Clinton Foundation

Trump Praised Hillary on Iran in 2007, Blasts Iran Deal Today
Excerpt: Back in 2007, Trump praised Hillary Clinton among the presidential candidates then as someone who could make a good deal with Iran. "Hillary's always surrounded herself with very good people," Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in 2007. "I think Hillary would do a good job."

Bill Clinton called Trump ahead of his 2016 launch
I'm sure Bill had the best interests of the Republican Party at heart in pushing Trump to run.
Donald Trump Speaks On Obama &; 50 Cent Show 2008!
Excerpt: Trump: (Obama's) speech was great last night. I thought it was inspiring in every way. And, hopefully he’s going to do a great job. But the way I look at it, he cannot do worse than Bush.

Excerpt: Sharpton and Trump forged an unlikely friendship over Atlantic City boxing deals that has lasted for decades, through ups and downs. Even as the Tawana Brawley scandal unfolded and Sharpton faced a 67-count indictment involving how he used funding for his youth organization, Trump remained a prominent supporter of the agitator, numerous sources close to the two men tell National Review.

Trump: Obama 'absolutely right' on executive pay cap

Most of Donald Trump's Political Money Went To Democrats — Until 5 Years Ago


Donald Trump Praises Obama, Hillary and EPA Chief Lisa Jackson

Trump on Obama. By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Excerpt: April 15, 2009 is largely seen as the birth date of the Tea Party movement. Here’s what Trump was saying that day about President Obama: TRUMP: I think he’s sort of a guy that just has a wonderful personality, a good speaker, somebody that people trust. And I also think that the comparison with his predecessor is so different -- it’s so huge that it really has made a great impact on people. I think that he’s really doing a nice job in terms of representation of this country. And he represents such a large part of the country . . . I think he’s doing a really good job. Now, the sad part is that he can’t just do a good job. He’s got to do a great job. Because if he does a good job, that’s not good enough for this country. That’s how bad the country has become. KING: Do you assess him as a champion? TRUMP: Oh, yes, he’s a champion. I mean, he won against all odds. If you would have looked -- when he first announced, people were giving him virtually no chance. And he’s just done something that’s amazing.  He’s totally a champion. (In the founding days of the Tea Party, Donald Trump was exactly what they were fighting against . . . and now some of those adherents have embraced him fully. --Jim Geraghty)

TRUMP DONATED $50,000 TO RAHM EMANUEL'S MAYORAL BID
Excerpt:  Real estate billionaire Donald Trump gave Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel $50,000 in December 2010, just months before hinting to the media he is seriously contemplating a bid to be the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nominee.

Trump: I Gave Money to Pelosi, Reid Because I’m a Business
Excerpt: When host Jake Tapper asked Trump about Hillary Clinton attending his wedding and his political contributions to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to help recapture Congress in 2006, Trump said, “We have gridlock in Washington, for instance I’ve helped Nancy Pelosi. I’ve helped Reid. I’m a business.” (Contributing to candidates expecting some favor in return is considered a quid pro quo and is illegal. ~Bob)

15 Reasons Trump Is a Liberal — and a Lunatic Conspiracy Theorist
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435273/donald-trump-liberal-conspiracy-theorist
Excerpt:  must confess that I’m mystified as to why so many Republicans are utterly convinced that Donald Trump will be a better president than Hillary Clinton. Trump, of course, makes it easy for them to delude themselves, because each time he begins to sound like Noam Chomsky, he’ll immediately pivot to mimic Rush Limbaugh, and he never stops talking long enough to be pinned down. But which words matter? Which words can we trust? The answer, of course, is none of them. 

Trump has supported nearly all of Obama’s economic policy agenda

10. Trump has no firm position on Abortion

Trump defends Planned Parenthood on ‘Meet the Press’ better than any Democrat could…
http://therightscoop.com/trump-defends-planned-parenthood-on-meet-the-press-better-than-any-democrat-could/

Trump on Planned Parenthood: 'I am a truth teller'
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/donald-trump-truth-teller-planned-parenthood-super-tuesday-220090#ixzz48lerrHAv 
Excerpt: "Look, Planned Parenthood has done very good work for many, many -- for millions of women," Trump said in a news conference Tuesday night. "And I’ll say it, and I know a lot of the so-called conservatives, they say that’s really ... cause I’m a conservative, but I’m a common-sense conservative." (The Great Businessman apparently doesn't know that money is fungible. if you give them money for A, they can then shift their other money to B. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Donald Trump told Mark Halperin yesterday that his sister, a federal judge, would be a “phenomenal” Supreme Court justice. He also said that “we will have to rule that out now, at least.” If he ever becomes president, let’s hope he rules it out permanently. Maryanne Trump Barry came up in my book The Party of Death for writing one of those heated judicial decisions in favor of giving constitutional protection to partial-birth abortion.

He said that he was 100% pro-choice, including partial birth abortions. But this year he ran as a pro-life candidate.

Donald Trump Reverses Interview Statement About “Some” Punishment For Women Who Have Abortions If They’re Banned

Donald Trump: Don’t Change Abortion Laws, “The Laws are Set, We Have to Leave it That Way”

11. Trump wants to weaken the First Amendment to protect politicians from the press

Donald Trump: We're going to 'open up' libel laws
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-libel-laws-219866#ixzz48leAJpVB 
And he was so dumb he told this to the editorial board of the Washington Post.



Trump Says Freedom of the Press Must Go Because He’s ‘Not Like Other People’


12. Trump is not a Conservative and not a Republican

After screaming for a real conservative for years, will Republicans nominate a liberal?
Excerpt: Outside of immigration, Donald Trump is a liberal. Outside of immigration, Donald Trump is to the left of Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and at times he’s even to the left of Hillary Clinton. Immigration is Donald Trump’s Republican stance. On just about everything else, he’s running as a democrat. His supporters don’t see it that way. They usually fall into one of two camps: those who believe he’s a conservative because of his immigration stance and those who are switching to his populist narrative and not worrying about conservatism anymore. The first group gets something of a pass since they’re simply being misled by Trump’s incredible sales pitch and his unwillingness to offer details about his policies.

Donald Trump is not a traditional Republican — including on some big issues

Excerpt: Saturday’s GOP debate finally clarified the Donald Trump phenomenon. After months of dominating the polls and millions of words of analysis, the grueling slog of the primary race is finally bringing the facts into sharp relief. Donald Trump isn’t a revolutionary. He’s not a conservative. He’s not even a populist. He’s a Democrat.

Donald Trump is a counterfeit Republican. By George F. Will

Andrew Breitbart on Trump in 2011
Excerpt: “Of course [Donald Trump’s] not a conservative. He was for Nancy Pelosi before he was against Nancy Pelosi . . . Celebrity is everything in this country. If these guys don’t learn how to play the media the way that Barack Obama played the media last election cycle, and the way Donald Trump is playing the media this cycle, we’re probably going to get a celebrity candidate.”

From Immigration To Guns To Abortion, Donald Trump Must Reckon With His Progressive History. By Eric Owens
Excerpt: With that failed presidential run and with public appearances galore, Trump has established a sustained record of habitually inconsistent political positions which clash dramatically with the current tide of American conservatism. An in-depth study of Trump’s declared views on issues ranging from immigration to abortion to taxes to socialized health care shows that, in many ways, he would find a cozy home in progressive Democratic circles. In the first of two installments, The Daily Caller focuses here on immigration, abortion and gun control. Related: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/26/from-high-taxes-to-socialized-health-care-donald-trump-must-reckon-with-his-rich-progressive-history/

Trump Once Said Of Guns: “Nothing I Like Better Than Nobody Has Them.” And he slammed Republicans for walking “the NRA line.”


Trump Has Never Voted In A Republican Primary
Excerpt: A search of the New York state voter rolls shows that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has never cast a vote in a Republican presidential primary election in the state in which he has long been a resident. Trump’s official voting records, obtained by the Daily Mail, show that the 69-year-old billionaire failed to vote in any Republican presidential primary dating back to 1989. ... Trump has changed his party affiliation at least four times in the last 16 years — an average of once for each presidential election.

Trump Has Succeeded in Convincing Conservatives to Discard their Principles Overnight. By Charles C. Cooke
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423397/donald-trump-supporters-discarded-conservative-principles
Excerpt: Since he jumped self-confidently into the political limelight, Donald Trump has been quite the upside-down man. Customarily, primary seasons permit each party’s voters to indulge in a rational process of elimination: First, they discover which candidate most closely agrees with them on policy, and then they ask themselves whether that person is capable of representing their ideas in public. This time around, however, this process has been disastrously inverted, a solid portion of the Republican party’s balloters having decided first who they want to speak on their behalf, and then, as if t’were a mere afterthought, wondered what he might end up saying. That their pick lacks any sort of conservative message at all does not seem to have mattered in the slightest. “We want that guy,” a host of voters have determined. “Whatever he believes, he says it so well.”

Michael Reagan: Trump is no Reagan Republican
Excerpt: Mr. Trump, I knew Ronald Reagan. And you’re no Ronald Reagan! Of course, I am stealing that line — with a twist. Donald Trump shouldn’t mind. He’s been stealing my dad for his own purposes. Trump frequently invokes Ronald Reagan’s name to defend his sudden, 180-degree switch from being a life-long, pro-Clinton Democrat to a Reagan Republican. 

Is Donald Trump Conservative? Here’s the Rundown

You Hate It From Barack Obama. But You Love It From Donald Trump.

Why Liberals Should Love Donald Trump. By Robert A. Hall

Donald Trump: Rock-Ribbed Conservative

13. Trump has no firm position on healthcare, but seems to favor having everybody paid for by the government, like Bernie Sanders. At least some days.

Donald Trump on healthcare: if you like your plan, you can keep it
Excerpt: There’s many different ways, by the way. Everybody’s got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say because a lot of times they say, “No, no, the lower 25 percent that can’t afford private. But–” ... I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now. ... They’re going to be taken care of. I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people. And, you know what, if this is probably– ...the government’s gonna pay for it. But we’re going to save so much money on the other side. But for the most it’s going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies and they can have their doctors, they can have plans, they can have everything.

Trump gets down to business on 60 Minutes
Excerpt: Scott Pelley: Universal health care? Donald Trump: I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now. Scott Pelley: Make a deal? Who pays for it? Donald Trump: The government’s gonna pay for it.

Trump on healthcare

Donald Trump Wants to Repeal Obamacare, Replace It With Obamacare

Donald Trump really said this: I like the Obamacare MANDATE
http://therightscoop.com/donald-trump-really-said-this-i-like-the-obamacare-mandate/

15. Trump is ignorant on foreign policy and the military, which is very scary.

Donald Trump Would Not Rip Up The Iran Deal
Excerpt: Unlike most of his fellow rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, real estate mogul Donald Trump would not rescind President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. “I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘We’re going to rip up the deal.’ It’s very tough to do when you say, ‘Rip up a deal,’” Trump said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”


Donald Trump: I consult myself on foreign policy, ‘because I have a very good brain’
Excerpt: Likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said Wednesday that he consults with himself on issues like foreign policy because he has “a very good brain.”

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he talks with “consistently” about foreign affairs, Mr. Trumpresponded, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” Politico reported.

Trump's Updated ISIS Plan: "Bomb The Shit Out Of Them," Send In Exxon To Rebuild

Trump: We have to take out ISIL members' families
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/trump-kill-isil-families-216343#ixzz48ljVh5d8
That's a war crime. The military will not deliberately murder children, though, alas, children are often victims in war.

How the military is preparing for the possibility of a very different kind of Commander in Chief.
Excerpt: Meanwhile, when Trump has weighed in on national security questions, his remarks often reveal either ignorance or disdain for military expertise and the codes of conduct that govern the armed forces. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me,” he boasted in one speech, adding, "I’ve had a lot of wars of my own. I’m really good at war." ... “He completely misunderstands the military profession that he would head if he were the president,” said Robert Killebrew, a retired colonel who served in the Army for more than 30 years. Others were less polite. In a pair of ads produced by the American Future Fund, a retired Special Forces commander named Michael Waltz calls Trump a draft-dodger who “hasn’t served this country a day in his life,” and a Vietnam veteran, Tom Hanton, says that Trump’s quip about POWs was “the most infuriating comment I think I’ve heard from a politician in my entire life.” One former Marine infantry officer described Trump to me as a “fake-bake-ing chicken hawk” whose “knowledge of the Middle East could be trumped (sorry) by your average Georgetown sophomore.” Trump’s chosen foreign policy advisers—which include a 2009 college graduate who touted his experience in the Model U.N. on his online résumé and another who used Kanye West lyrics to make arguments on his foreign policy blog—have only stoked these anxieties. “Weirdo nobodies,” was how one military historian characterized them to me. “They’re probably the least qualified group of foreign policy and national security advisers I’ve ever seen or even heard of,” said Richard Kohn, an expert in civil-military relations and retired professor at the University of North Carolina.

Military Strategist Explains Why Donald Trump Leads—And How He Will Fail

16. Trump actually has no firm position on immigration, his signature issue

Here's A Full Timeline of Donald Trump's Immigration Positions


Trump supported path to citizenship, said Romney was “mean-spirited” on immigration

That Time Donald Trump Had A Meeting With DREAMers And Said “You Convinced Me” On Immigration

Donald Trump Empire Sought Visas For At Least 1,100 Foreign Workers
Won't matter at all. His supporters don't care what he has said or done in the past, they love what he said today. And if, as so often happens, he says something different tomorrow, they love that too. After all, "he tells it like it is" and that changed daily.

Trump Campaign Admits His Call for a Wall is Just a Suggestion
Excerpt: Here is one of Donald Trump’s spokesmen, Barry Bennett, going on CNN to debate Donald Trump’s policies. Instead, what he says is that Donald Trump is making suggestions. The spokesman says that Trump’s proposals to ban Muslims and to build a wall are just suggestions, not really proposals. In fact, the spokesman points out that Trump’s words don’t matter. He actually admits this. “This words matter stuff is ridiculous.”

WHO KNEW? TRUMP FAVORS AMNESTY FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
Excerpt: I would get people out and then have an expedited way of getting them back into the country so they can be legal. . . . A lot of these people are helping us . . . and sometimes its jobs a citizen of the United States doesn’t want to do. I want to move ’em out, and we’re going to move ’em back in and let them be legal. (Also note that he buys the “jobs Americans won’t do” justification for large-scale, low-skill immigration:)

Trump Tower Got Its Start With Undocumented Foreign Workers

17. Like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, Trump is opposed to free trade


What Donald Trump Doesn’t Know about U.S. Trade
http://www.nationalreview.com/us-trade-trump-gets-it-wrong?target=topic&tid=

How Donald Trump is running to the left of Hillary Clinton
Excerpt: That’s not the only area where the presumptive Republican nominee sounds like Sanders, who is challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination. On a series of issues, including free trade and foreign military intervention, Trump is effectively running to the left not only of his own party but also of Clinton. ... “NAFTA has been one of the great economic disasters. Who signed it? Clinton. Clinton,” Trump said Saturday at a rally in Lynden, Wash. He was referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was actually signed by George H.W. Bush but was implemented through legislation signed by Bill Clinton.

No, Mr. Trump, NAFTA Was Not a ‘Bad Deal’
Excerpt: First, the U.S. has added 31 million payroll jobs since 1994, or 29 million workers (depending on which methodology one uses). Second, average hourly earnings, adjusting for inflation, are 43 percent higher than in 1994. Third, U.S. manufacturing output has reached record highs, and part of the reason is that so much global trade consists of intermediate goods in fantastically efficient supply chains. You may have read about Trump’s complaint that China is “killing us” because of bad trade deals, but he also complains about Japan, one of our closest allies. Trump seems unaware that the U.S. has no trade deals at all with China; nor does he seem to know that the Trans Pacific Partnership does not include China. Trump is even questioning trade with our friends in Canada, which is like complaining about jobs being “lost” to Oregon. Today, America imports about $10 billion worth of goods from Japan every month, while exporting $5 billion, yielding a 2-to-1 trade deficit in goods. So? As our patron saint, Adam Smith, wrote centuries ago, “Nothing can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade.” Has protectionism helped Tokyo? After decades of such trade imbalances, America has prospered while the Japanese economy has stagnated. Today, output per person is 20 percent higher in the U.S. than in Japan.

Tariff disaster offers a lesson on the folly of protectionism. By Thomas Sowell
Smooth-Hawley, signed by Hoover against the advice of 1,000 economists, collapsed world trade and locked in the depression.
18. Trump is economically ignorant

Top 1 percent gets biggest tax cut under Trump plan. By Catherine Rampell 
Excerpt: What was that about soaking the rich? Here’s the distributional impact of Donald Trump’s tax cuts, according to the Tax Foundation (a nonpartisan, business-backed research organization):

Trump's Tax Plan: So Terrific That It Would Add More Debt Than Obama's Seven Years In Office
Excerpt: For a man who is running to “make America great again,” Donald Trump’s tax plan is exceedingly expensive. According to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, Trump’s plan would add trillions to the national debt, more than the current sum added after seven years of President Obama’s policies (via Weekly Standard):

Trump’s Tax Cuts Would Add $24.5 Trillion to the Debt

It’s Time to Fear the Trump Dollar
Excerpt: Among Donald Trump’s more ridiculous statements lately is his claim that should he win in November, he may attempt to pay down the debt by printing more money. This may seem stunningly simplistic. But it’s actually not. In fact, printing money, otherwise called monetizing or debasing a currency, is an attempt to cure the ills of debt straight out of antiquity. Unfortunately, history proves it’s been a poor effort at that. This is ultimately an inflationary policy prescription: paying down the debt with cheaper currency.

Trump Surrenders On Minimum Wage; 'I Don't Know How You Live On $7.25 An Hour'
Excerpt: In an interview with left-wing CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last week, Trump expressed openness to federal mandates to raise the existing minimum wage. In earlier debates with his former Republican competitors for the GOP’s presidential nomination, Trump expressed resistance to such proposals.

Stephanopoulos Calls Trump Out for Backtracking on Tax Plan, Minimum Wage Position He Presented in the Primary
http://www.tapwires.com/2016/05/09/stephanopoulos-calls-trump-out-for-backtracking-on-tax-plan-minimum-wage-position-he-presented-in-the-primary

Kathleen Parker: Rules are for breaking
Excerpt: It should be obvious to all by now that Donald Trump knows nothing of what he speaks. His disastrous economic ideas are but the latest in a litany of nonsensical proposals. Yet, and still, his supporters — that Republican base so carefully nurtured by the very GOP operatives and politicians who now find its members so distasteful — proclaim his supremacy with such bracing observations as, “Well, at least he’s got [spheres],” or “At least he speaks his mind,” or “At least he doesn’t suck up to anybody.” These selections from the morning mail share a common element — “at least” — which seems apt enough, though “the least” seems more to the point. Trump was the least of so many other Republican candidates who offered governing experience, knowledge and even, in some cases, wisdom.

19. Trump lied about self-funding his campaign

Longtime Trump friend seeded pro-Trump super PAC with $1 million
Excerpt: Casino mogul Phil Ruffin, a longtime friend and business partner of Donald Trump, gave $1 million last year to a super PAC supporting the real estate tycoon's presidential run, just two weeks after the group was formed. The seven-figure contribution from Ruffin, who owns the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, made up the bulk of the $1.74 million that the Make America Great Again PAC raised before shutting down, according to new documents filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. The super PAC closed up shop in October after The Washington Post reported on multiple ties between the organization and Trump's official campaign. 

Self-Funded’ Trump Is Seeking to Raise Money From Political Donors
I grew very tired of the Donaldcrats telling me Trump couldn't be bought because he was self-funding. It was another lie. ~Bob

Paging Trump’s Wallet
Excerpt: “By self-funding my campaign, I am not controlled by my donors, special interests or lobbyists. I am only working for the people of the U.S.!” When asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough whether he would “change possibly … and start taking money in the future,” Trump said, “No, no.” But we already knew that because of all those self-funding quotes. Nevertheless, he’s now hired a hedge fund manager as his national finance chairman and started scheduling fund-raisers. He’s working out an arrangement with the Republican Party that will allow him to accept megadonations. Presumably from people who have no special interests whatsoever but just happen to have $300,000 on hand.

Donald Trump is OWNED by Every Bank on Wall Street

20. Donald Trump lied when he promised to release his tax returns.

Excerpt: This most recent distraction — the revelation that Trump impersonated his own, imaginary publicists on the phone for several years in the 1980s and ’90s, confessed to it then, and denies it now — freshly illustrates his well-established flair for drama and deception. It also ratchets up a little the Fremdscham that he stirs in those who, as Rachel Lu put it the other day, “remain un-hypnotized” by his antics: They feel his embarrassment, and all the more so because he does not, or pretends he doesn’t. Instead of correcting course, he doubles down and rubs the public’s nose in it. ... Carswell suggests that we keep our eye on Trump’s failure to release his returns. Others, including Paul Krugman, suspect that the reason he’s stonewalling is that the returns show him to be poorer than he lets on. In his book TrumpNation (2005), Timothy L. O’Brien wrote that “three people with direct knowledge” of Trump’s finances estimated that his net worth was between $150 and $250 million. Trump sued O’Brien for defamation, insisting that he was a billionaire, and lost in court.

Donald Trump: My tax rate is "none of your business"
Excerpt: On the heels of recent calls for Donald Trump to release his tax returns, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is standing firm in his position that he would not make the documents public before an IRS audit is complete. ... While every presidential nominee since 1976 has released their tax returns, Trump said that before 1976, it was a "secret thing." (Of course, no one knows except Trump and the IRS - which can't say - if he is really being audited. He has lied about this issue in the past. ~Bob)

Trump’s false claim that ‘there’s nothing to learn’ from his tax returns

Donald Trump’s Evasions on Taxes
Excerpt: Mitt Romney — the 2012 presidential nominee who released his returns after Mr. Trump and others demanded it — points out how little data exists with which to gauge Mr. Trump’s fitness for office. Mr. Trump has no record of military service. He has never held elected office. Born wealthy, he took over his father’s business and built a spotty track record. Disclosing his returns might enable Mr. Trump to support one of his main claims on the presidency: that he’s a negotiator so skilled it has made him a billionaire. ... Mr. Trump now says he won’t release his returns because he’s being audited. Such concern didn’t stop President Nixon from releasing several years of returns in 1973 — even though the Internal Revenue Service subsequently determined that the president owed nearly $500,000 in back taxes. (Mr. Nixon’s famous comment, “I’m not a crook,” didn’t refer to Watergate, but to rumors about tax avoidance, which turned out to be accurate.)

Donald Trump Promised to Release His Tax Returns in 2011

Is This Why Trump Won’t Release His Tax Returns?
Excerpt: Hours later, he told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren that he’d “like” to release his returns before the election, but can’t because of an ongoing IRS audit. For the record, that’s a bogus claim that no self-respecting reporter should allow Trump to get away with making, since the IRS itself debunked it in an on-the-record statement back in February.

21. No one knows where Trump stands on Transgender use of bathrooms. Including Trump.

Trump: States, Not White House Should Decide Transgender Bathroom Issue
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Trump-Sates-White-House-Transgender-Bathroom/2016/05/13/id/728668/#ixzz48lONxKxP 
Excerpt: His comments on Friday were slightly different than they were during an April town hall on the "Today" show, when he commented that when it comes to North Carolina's bathroom law, he would have left things as they were, rather than pass a law requiring that people use bathrooms based on the sex listed on their birth certificates, because "there have been very few complaints the way it is."

Excerpt: "It's a new issue and right now I just don't have an opinion. like to see the states make that decision," he said in a phone interview on Fox and Friends. Trump said last month that he did not agree with North Carolina passing a law stating that people must use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender at birth

22. Donald Trump is a big-government guy.

Excerpt: In Trump's beloved Kelo case, you may recall, the thing called "economic development" didn't actually lead to any, and the working-class homeowner really did love the house that was bulldozed by the government at the behest of a wealthy developer. Trump's endorsement of the Supreme Court's 5-4 expansion of the constitutional phrase "public use" to include private development is not surprising, given his line of work and prior reliance on the goliath-vs.-David practice. And his assertion that conservatives (let alone libertarians, or progressives like Bernie Sanders) just need the subject "explained" better to them is not just condescending, it's ignorant: Kelo  sparked a widespread public backlash, and its economic-development rationale has been massively unpopular for a decade. For good reason.

After 9/11, Trump Took Money Marked for Small Businesses
Excerpt: But it's worth remembering that amid Trump's flowery praise for his city, the real-estate mogul took advantage of taxpayer-funds designed to help struggling small-business owners in Lower Manhattan affected by the attack.

The Supreme Court Is Not a Sufficient Reason to Vote for Trump. By Ian Tuttle

The Supreme Court Isn't a Sufficient Reason to Vote for Trump. By David Frum

Voting Trump because of the Supreme Court isn't enough. By Travis Hale

Filling Supreme Court vacancies isn't a good enough reason to vote for Trump. By John Yoo and Jeremy Rabkin

Excerpt: In fact, Republican presidents have filled 12 of 16 Supreme Court vacancies since 1968. Only four of the those confirmed were truly conservative jurists (William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.), with the rest either outright liberals (John Paul Stevens and David Souter) or moderates (Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, John G. Roberts Jr.).  Trump’s outbursts won’t persuade the Senate to embrace more conservative nominees, where Reagan’s sunny optimism and George H.W. Bush’s patrician decency failed.


4 comments:

  1. Great job Bob. It couldn't be any clearer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If Trump wins, it will just prove that none of that mattered. People want to send a VERY CLEAR MESSAGE to Washington and The Establishment of both parties... they just want CHANGE... they want them raccoons to be GONE!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. But a vote for neither is equivalent to half of a vote for Trump. Sir, you are a hypocrite!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is no lesser of these two evils! By Robert A. Hall
      http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2016/06/there-is-no-lesser-of-these-two-evils.html

      People continue to attack me because I will not vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. One recently said that was half a vote for Trump! (Why not half a vote for Clinton?)

      People are saying that by not voting for Trump, I'm handing the election to Clinton. (So I guess that by not voting for Clinton, I'm handing the election to Trump?) When they dropped out, Rubio was doing 16 points better, Kasich was doing about 8 points better, and Cruz was doing about 8 points better against Clinton than Trump. In my view, if anyone handed the election to Clinton, it was the Trump primary voters who insisted on supporting him despite these numbers. Especially as we told them that principled conservatives could not vote for him. We were telling the truth, something that must come as a shock as their candidate lies to them so often. Apparently they thought we were lying too.

      I believe in voting for the lesser of two evils, I really do, because the alternative is to be governed by the great of two evils. But in the case of Trump versus Clinton, I cannot discern which is the lesser of two evils. Both are, I believe, evil beyond my ability to discern nuances. Both Trump and Clinton have spent their careers in self-enrichment and rent-seeking. Both are proven and inveterate liars. Both are odious people with meretricious characters that I have despised for decades. Both are deeply flawed morally. Clinton has a sense of entitlement to rival a black hole. Trump has such a virulent cast of narcissistic personality disorder as to make Obama look self-effacing. Both are life long liberals, though Trump has started talking like the liberals' caricature of a conservative since he announced. But I ask you, is it more likely that a person tells you his true views when he is running for office, or when he's not.

      If its true that we know how bad Hillary will be, moving the country further towards to coming fiscal, economic, social and political collapse in her pursuit of power and vast wealth, it is also true that, with his vast ignorance on every subject a president needs to know about, his childish bullying and fits of spite, no one knows what Trump may do or say on any given day. Least of all Trump. I cannot use my vote to make either of these people President when I don't believe either is fit to be the Flint Water Commissioner.

      My essay, "22 Reasons Principled Conservatives can Never Vote for Donald Trump." http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2016/05/22-reasons-principled-conservatives.html
      Could as easily be written about Hillary Clinton. There is plenty of material there.

      But I console myself with the knowledge that I'm 70, not that well, and that "It doesn't matter who you vote for in November"
      http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2016/05/it-doesnt-matter-who-you-vote-for-in.html

      I now think only divine intervention can save the Republic. ~Bob

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