Trump's Legacy

This is a Facebook response to a comment made by a couple of friends. I want the entry here, in anticipation that Facebook will take this down because it's "favorable" of Trump. I've removed the names of the people I responded to for their privacy.

My friends, I’m going to respectfully disagree with some of what you’ve posted here. But first, let me share what we do agree upon.

1. The unlawful breaching of Capitol security, the vandalism of buildings and offices within the Capitol complex was wrong. I condemn the actions and behavior in the strongest way. This is not what law abiding American citizens do. It is a stain on our national fabric that will be very hard to remove. Yesterday will be a permanent part of Trump’s legacy. What Biden does to heal the nation will be his. Time will tell whether that’s a good or bad one.

2. Those who perpetrated the actions yesterday should be found and punished to the full extent of the law.

3. I earnestly hope and pray this is the last of time any peaceful protest turns violent in our country or anywhere. Perhaps, since there is a Democratic president, the media will be less inclined to stoke racial hatred should there be another “Trevon Martin event” in the coming four years. We’ll see.

4. In a way, I’m relieved Trump is leaving office. I wish he’d’ve been more “Presidential” in defeat, but he wasn’t. If he’s going to continue on the track he’s taken since November, it’s best that he leave office.

Now, where we disagree:

1. While Trump has been wrong to push the meme of a fraudulent balloting processes and election chicanery of stealing the election from him, election fraud and voter tampering has been committed. The DNC cleverly “altered” the laws through litigation and fiat in several battleground states to change the laws so what once was fraud was now legal. But the changes they made are still unconstitutional.

2. Apparently, you and I live in alternate realities regarding the events of recent years. Democrats have not considered the last three elections where a Republican won as a legitimate electoral victory. Do you remember the chad chasing that went on in Florida in the 2000 election? I do. They fought that election to the Supreme Court. They fought the 2016 election in court too. They threw a “fit” when they lost. The only difference is a friendly media obscured their churlish behavior and said it was the “right of Americans” to debate and challenge the results. What they thought was ok to do then, they condemn Trump for doing now.

This is how I remember the last four years:

It was Democrats of 2016 who called for Trump’s impeachment before he took office.

It was the Democrats of 2016 who refused to attend Trump’s inauguration.

It was the Democrats of 2016 who refused to accept his election at all. They and the media have said, since he won in Nov. 2016, that he “stole the election” through Russian tampering.

It was Hillary Clinton’s Election committee who financed the Steele Report: a dossier compiled by a discredited British Intelligence agent for the purpose of impugning the character of a presidential candidate. The report was thoroughly discredited and refuted. The FBI admitted it was all lies.

In fact it was the DNC which colluded with Russia in 2016. That British agent got much of his information from Russian operatives. Actually, I think Putin played both sides against each other for sport.

Using this debunked data, the Obama administration’s FBI, CIA and Cabinet secretaries unmasked members of Trump’s campaign staff with the intent of weakening his election bid.

It was Obama’s FBI which broke the law by failing to tell President-elect Trump that one of the people he planned to bring on as a consultant was under criminal investigation. They kept it silent and then accused him after Trump took office to damage Trump.

It was the political appointees in the Obama FBI and Department of Justice who overrode the recommendation of the field agents who interviewed General Flynn. The agents found no cause for further investigation: they said Flynn had done nothing wrong. But James Comey and Andy McCabe overrode that and pursued a criminal attack against him just to injure then President-elect Trump. They destroyed Flynn to get Trump.

The discredited Steele dossier was the centerpiece of Mueller’s investigation of Trump.

It is a fact the Main Stream Media (MSM) has waged an unrelenting attack on Pres. Trump for as long as he’s been a presidential candidate. I’ll grant he has been his own worst enemy and his tweets have been astounding at times, but that still doesn’t change the fact their attacks on him have been incessant, malicious, and politically motivated. The past four years have revealed the MSM to be little more than propaganda organs of the DNC. There is no other honest way to define them.

It was Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook which actively censored and “fact checked” away any information critical of Biden prior to the election. Did you know that Facebook’s head of fact checking is now on Biden’s presidential staff? Talk about a conflict of interest! What Russian hackers were accused of doing in 2016, those three tech companies actively did in 2020.

If you’re going to condemn Trump for his “womanizing” you’d better be condemning Joe Biden too. Jill Biden’s ex-husband, Bill Stevenson, claims Joe and Jill had an affair while she was still married to Bill. The affair ended their marriage. Joe denies it, Bill doesn’t. No surprise there. Then there’s Tara Reed who accuses Biden of pressing her against a wall and “reached under her clothing and penetrated her with his fingers.” Seven other women have made similar accusations against him. You haven’t heard of it because Biden is a Democrat and the MSM is running interference for him. Let’s not forget the serial dalliances of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy. Nor should we overlook the efforts of Hillary Clinton to use her husband’s power to destroy Bill’s accusers/victims.

If you’re going to condemn him for “race baiting” then you must also condemn President Obama for doing worse with regards to Trevon Martin and Ferguson, MO just to name two incidents where presidential comments inflamed racial tensions. You’ve been lied to by the hostile press about Trump’s Charlotte attack comments. I heard Trump’s complete statements; they were reported out of context to distort his tepid condemnation of racial hatred into a sanction of the crimes that were committed. 

If you’re going to condemn Trump for building the wall, you must do so knowing it was supported by the Democrats until Trump supported it.

If you’re going to condemn Trump for splitting families at the border, you must also condemn Obama for initiating the practice.

If you’re going to condemn Trump for lying, you must condemn Obama and Hillary for lying about what happened in Benghazi, Libya when the ambassador and three special force members where murdered there by terrorists. It was not some YouTube video which incited the attack. It was about a secret arms trade with Syrian rebels that went bad. And contrary to the news, the Navy was able to respond with an air attack. It was not approved by President Obama.

The racial tensions in this country should be blamed not on Trump but on the MSM. If you think it has been an honest arbiter of the truth, then it is you who is not connected to reality. Just one of my evidences of their journalistic malpractice is the case of Nick Sandman. Both CNN and the Washington Post, plus possible others have settled out of court for their deliberate vilification of an innocent high school student. They attacked him because he chose to wear a MAGA hat while touring the Lincoln Memorial. They saw it as an opportunity to paint Trump supporters in a bad light and it has cost them millions of dollars. (I’m guessing about the amount, I don’t really know.) If that’s not enough, consider the movie Richard Jewell. Another innocent man was destroyed by the media in the name of ratings even when they knew they were lying about him.

Nothing has been said of the peace accords Trump brokered between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain. They are historic. These alone should’ve earned Trump a Nobel Peace Prize, but they wont.

Nothing positive has been said about the repatriation of American businesses. Many jobs have come back from overseas. They did because of Trump’s renegotiating NAFTA and the PacRim trade agreements.

Nothing positive has been said of the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. On close examination, the accord had the US foot the carbon footprint bill for China and India. Both countries are major polluters and have the economic capability to take care of themselves without US assistance.

Nothing has been said about the unprecedented growth in US wages and the record low unemployment rates due to his administration’s regulatory changes and the tax reformation act he signed into law. Of particular note is the record low unemployment rate of minorities and women. Covid was an unexpected event, had it not occurred, one can only guess how much better the economy would be now.

Unlike the five preceding presidential administrations (Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama) no new “wars” were started by Trump. The ISIS caliphate was virtually destroyed and several high-profile terrorists are now dead. But you don’t hear about that other than unfounded accusations that he’s causing political instability in the world.

Nothing positive has been said about Trump’s insistence that the other NATO partners pay their agreed upon share of the cost of funding NATO. They are paying more now, but all you hear is how he’s disliked overseas.

The pro-life movement has not had a better champion than Trump’s administration in decades.

This list just scratches the surface of the good things he has done, but you don’t hear about them because it goes against the MSM’s goal of attacking Trump in everything they do and say about him.

Please don’t accuse Trump supporters like myself of living in a world of alternate facts. As a college trained journalist, I know what to look for and can tell good journalism from bad journalism. I can tell when the reporter is injecting his opinion into what should be a factual news story. I can tell when they are presenting an opinion piece as news. I can tell a friendly, softball interview from an adversarial, go-for the throat interview. I can tell when a reporter isn’t listening to an answer but fishing for a soundbyte. Good journalists are hard to find today: most are wannabe opinion writers on a mission to impress their editors. There are just a few reliable news agencies; hardly any in the US. Facebook and Twitter are NOT reliable news sources. Anyone who listens or reads just them is at best ill-informed.

That said, I’m relieved he’s leaving office. His behavior after the election has convinced me he needs to go. But that doesn’t mean I’m “happy” about who’s replacing him. If you paid attention to the democratic primary debates, you will know neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris are angels. You’ll never hear about it now because a complicit media will never treat them as they treated Trump. For myself, I voted for the policies Trump supported rather than for him. 

I fear for our nation. The Democratic Party is about to have sole power of the government as they did when Obama became president in 2008. A list of harmful changes are now on the table as it were. Those that are enacted will help institutionalize a permanent Democratic electoral majority. Others, if enacted, will fundamentally weaken the republican nature of our government which will weaken our constitutional rights and liberties. 

These changes are:

1. Adding new states to the union to increase the Democrats’ structural majority in the electoral college.

2. Adding additional justices to the Supreme Court to tilt its bias back to judicial activism.

3. Weakening or bypassing the Electoral College which will destroy one of the major protections of small states (population-wise) from the large states’ avarice and greed.

4. The “Green New Deal” which will destroy our nation’s energy independence.

5. Forgiveness of student debt which will transfer that debt to the taxpayers.

6. Single-payer (government provided) health care could become a reality. (While I agree there are some severe problems with our health-care system, this is not the solution you are looking for.)

7. Further liberalizing abortion access and resumption of abortion funding paid to Planned Parenthood.

8. Destruction of the nuclear family and traditional marriages through redefining these relationships with gender neutral terms.

They also have the social media corporations and news organizations as brazen proponents of a progressive political agenda. Maybe Biden will be “strong” enough to resist them, but that seems unlikely. The only thing that gives me hope for the future at this time are the prophetic statements of President Nelson that the Lord’s work will not be stopped and that those who stay on the covenant path will be “prospered in the land.”

In closing, know that I love the two of you and your families dearly. I hold you as close and good friends. I acknowledge this has been a trying time for our nation. 2020 has been the perfect storm of a terrible disease, a very partisan, even tribal election season, and racial unrest. My hope is that 2021 will be better. I wish you all well.

My November Vote

In the grand scheme of politics in these United States, I’m a virtual nobody. I do vote, so that makes me somebody for a few minutes in November when I vote, but the rest of the time, I’m a political nobody. I’m OK with that.

With the political and social turmoil embroiling our country now, I do feel a compelling need to let people know how I feel about the upcoming election. I’ll be honest here: I am NOT voting FOR Donald Trump. At the same time I am NOT voting FOR Joe Biden. The truth is, I’m not voting FOR any one person at all.

 

“So you’re not voting this year?” You ask. Au contraire mon ami. I am most certainly going to vote in November. I want to make it clear I am not voting “for” any person. The ONLY person whom I feel safe voting “for” would be Jesus Christ. I have absolute trust in His ability to make wise decisions. I would vote for Him. No one else.

Instead I am voting “for” principles.

I’m voting for the defense of the unborn child. Too many children are killed each year by the likes of “Planned Parenthood.” Children which could otherwise be adopted. This is a travesty that must be stopped.

I’m voting for the appointment of strict constructionist judges. Many of the social problems we suffer from today are the result of activist judges “legislating from the bench.” That is not what the Founding Father’s intended.

I am voting for reduced government involvement in my life. I’m mindful of history that shows what Pres. Gerald Ford once said is very true. He said, “a government that can give you everything you want has the power to take everything you have.” I don’t want that kind of government. If it means it can give less stuff away, so be it. I don’t want it to take any more of my stuff than necessary.

I’m voting for a government that respects the rule of law. Though to be candid, I don’t see that principle in effect very many places at all.

I’m voting for a government which allows the free market to decide “winners” and “losers” in the economy. “To big to fail,” or “protected groups deserving special consideration” is anathema to me. No one gives me a special break when it comes to bills I have to pay or qualifying for a position in a company. Why should anyone else?

I’m voting for the right to defend my property and person. This summer has shown the police can be overwhelmed by events and out of touch politicians. (Yes, I'm thinking of you Jenny Durkan.) While I’d much rather they do the job, when they can’t I want to be able to defend myself.

I’m voting for equal representation at the ballot box. It’s scary to think that enough dead people have voted to change the outcome of elections. That shouldn’t be.

I’m voting for elections to be limited to those who actually have skin in the game of government. I pay taxes, so I have a right to make my voice heard at the ballot box. I am passionately opposed to letting people vote who don’t pay taxes or contribute to the system.

I’m voting for a better, choice-driven education system. Public schools in America, especially in inner cities are absolute failures. The practice and laws which deny parents choice in where their children attend school, must be abolished. Let the free-market work to make schools better.

I’m voting for a foreign policy where the interests of my country are not for sale to foreign powers.

I’m voting for a color blind government. Laws shouldn’t favor or punish anyone simply for the color of their skin. Laws that discriminate against someone on the grounds of the color of their skin or race or where they live should be altered or abolished.

I’m voting for smaller government. The smaller the government, the less power it has and the less appealing it is to those who lust after power. We have enough masters as it is. I don’t want overlords.

I’m voting for a government that keeps a level playing field in the world of business and finance. I’m against the cozy relationships between government agencies and large businesses, non-profit foundations, private interest groups, lobbyist and trade unions.

I’m voting for the right to keep my money from being sent to a trade union I don’t want representing me.

I’m voting for a government which doesn’t punish me for wanting to live the precepts of my religion. (Obviously there are limits here, a “religion” that condones honor killings for some perceived abuse should not be allowed to do such things.)

Yet, since voting requires voting “for” a person, I will vote for someone. But the person I vote for will be the person who I think will best represent these interests.

Election Reflections

This post has nothing to do directly with religion or the Book of Mormon. But it's something I wanted to say and put out there just the same.

It's 0-dark-thirty in the morning. I didn't go to bed till about two this morning listening to Trump's acceptance speech. In an election that was as memorable as it is historic, this was not the end to the day I expected. A "republican" won the White House and the Republican's maintain control of not only the House but the Senate too. So, what are my thoughts?

I'm reminded of the impression I had one early morning riding a bus to work several years ago. As I sat amongst the sleeping commuters on the express bus going over the Point of the Mountain, I had the impression come to me that it was these people who would save the country. These were the people, regular people like myself, who would do the amazing and wrest the future of our country from a descent into tyranny. They would be the ones to carry the Constitution away to safety as it hung by a thread.

Did I just witness that? It's to early to tell. But this much I'm pretty certain of: the vile stench of the Clintons will not likely ever sully the White House again. For all Trump's weaknesses, they pale in comparison to the Clinton's brazen wickedness. The American electorate has spoken and saved us from her being in office. Maybe it's not the saving of the Constitution I'd hoped for, but I'll take this big step in the right direction.

Lest you think me deluded, consider these facts:

1.    Trump spoke of women in lewd terms. He's accused of groping many. Bill Clinton raped, groped, and abused women, some of whom were his political supporters WHILE IN OFFICE. His wife then defamed and destroyed them politically and socially in the name of her political aspirations. Who is worse?

2.    Trump is accused of working the tax laws to his advantage to avoid paying taxes to the IRS. Well, duh. Is that wrong? Compare that to the lost records of the Rose Law Firm and all the other shady, half-told evasions of the law which is THE Clinton legacy. While Trump used the laws to his personal advantage, the Clintons broke laws. And when they hid or destroyed the incriminating evidence, they relied upon political sycophants to protect them. Which is worse?

3.    Has Trump's business decisions destroyed the lives of other people? Sadly, yes. Compare that to the lives of US Service men and an Ambassador who lost his life because of decisions Hillory made and recommended to President Obama. Both are bad. Which is worse?

4.    Some of Trump's comments are divisive. But what of Obama's excoriation of the police? Can we say we're more united now as a nation after eight years of President Obama's pontification and involvement in race relations? Granted he's not up for re-election, but Hillory was his heir apparent. Do you think she would've been different? Not at all. Who's worse?

5.    Does anyone like Obamacare? I for one am hopeful it will now be repealed and thrown out on the dustbin of awful ideas. I am hopeful now that the coal industry in America will be revitalized. I'm hopeful the Keystone pipeline will be completed. That America will take good steps towards energy independence. I'm hopeful the strangling regulations and executive orders of the last eight years will be repealed and done away with. I'm hopeful we will see appointees to the Supreme Court and to all the lesser courts who will be more interested in defending the law than in legislating new law from the bench. Before the Trump victory and the Republican victories in the House and Senate, I had no hope for any of that.

What I do know is the American people, the little guys like me and those riding on that bus so long ago, spoke yesterday and changed the direction of this country. Given the course she was on, I'm pleased. I can live with that.