I never thought much of Donald Trump in the past, nor did I watch any of his TV shows. I guess, like most Americans, I let the media define him for me. Then came the brouhaha over illegal immigrants and John McCain. I too accepted the media’s interpretation of his words, at first. Big mistake. Then I dug down and discovered what he actually said and put it in context.
I realized the media, lead by the NY Times, was doing a hatchet job on Trump with lies and innuendo, just like they do with most Republicans and especially conservatives. Politicians should never be candid only politically correct to satisfy the media. Trump’s candid remarks, may at times be a bit troubling, but they certainly are refreshing. They certainly are not nearly as bad as the hate filled commentary of our liberal President and his allies. Of course, the media never mentions that or their bald faced lies.
I have gained a lot of respect for Trump as a result. He has gone way up in my opinion. Would I vote for him against Hillary? Of course. But then I would vote against her anyway for almost any other human that breathes. The guy who mows our lawn for example. If Obama and his far left cohorts haven’t already destroyed this country, Hillary would most certainly apply the coup de gras.
Here’s some of the reasons:
Politics - The New York Times - HJ Note: I have marked all of the lies of the NY Times by marking them bold italics. My own comments, corrections and clarifications are in italics.
Donald Trump Says John McCain Is No War Hero, Setting Off Another Storm (NY Times lie. He never said that or anything similar.)
By Jonathan Martin and Alan Rappeportjuly 18, 2015
AMES, Iowa — Donald J. Trump has made his name in politics with provocative statements, but it was not until Saturday, after the flamboyant businessman turned presidential candidate belittled Senator John McCain’s war record, (Another NY Times lie. He never belittled his war record.) that many Republicans concluded that silence or equivocation about Mr. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric was inadequate.
Mr. Trump upended a Republican presidential forum here, and the race more broadly, by saying of the Arizona senator and former prisoner of war: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” (The NY Times lied big time when they added their own words, He’s not a war hero. Trump did not say it.)
Mr. McCain, a naval aviator, was shot down during the Vietnam War and held prisoner for more than five years in Hanoi, refusing early release even after being repeatedly beaten.
Mr. Trump and Mr. McCain have been engaged in a war of words over the past week, since the Arizona senator said that Mr. Trump was riling up “crazies” in the party with the inflammatory remarks about illegal immigrants from Mexico.
Yet Mr. Trump’s comments on Saturday drew condemnation from his rivals and senior officials in the party at a scale far greater than the response to his portrayal of Mexican immigrants as rapists. (That last is patently untrue. He did not portray Mexican immigrants as rapists. He said that there were rapists and other criminals among the illegal Mexican immigrants. A statement that is true. The NY Times deliberately left the term illegal out.) The response was an indication of the reverence many Republicans have for military service and sacrifice. But it was also something more: their best opening yet to marginalize Mr. Trump. (Another NY Times deceptive trick. Every politician of any persuasion tries to “marginalize” every one of their opponents every chance they get.)
After weeks when many of them treaded lightly around Mr. Trump, who once again Saturday refused to rule out a third-party run, Republican leaders seized the opportunity to unambiguously speak out against a candidate they see as effectively hijacking their primaries. (Trying to win is not hijacking.)
Yet for all the outrage among party elites, some attendees at the Christian conservative conference where Mr. Trump made his comments were not nearly as offended, a reminder of the chasm between the Republican power structure and its grass roots. (Not so, it’s a reminder that some of the attendees actually listened to the remarks and did not accept the NY Times edited version, which the rest of the media immediately picked up and repeated verbatim without checking the facts.)
With his attack on Mr. McCain, Mr. Trump, whose caustic (factual) language about immigration has lifted him in early polls, created a new, revealing litmus test for how the Republican presidential hopefuls are handling the bombastic real estate mogul.
Several of Mr. Trump’s Republican opponents immediately denounced his comments, and one said the remarks disqualified him from the presidency. (They must not have heard the actual comment but accepted the NY Times revision of his words as gospel, which it certainly was not.)
“Donald Trump owes every American veteran and in particular John McCain an apology,” said Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, upon taking the stage. Mr. Perry argued that Mr. Trump’s comment made him unfit to be commander in chief. (He too must not have heard the actual comment but accepted the NY Times revision of his words as gospel. Methinks he could have damaged his chances by speaking out without checking the facts.)
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that anybody serious about being president would not be disrespectful of prisoners of war, and predicted that the early nominating states would render an unmistakable verdict on Mr. Trump’s candidacy. (If that happens, the lies of the NY Times and the rest of the media will be largely responsible, as usual.)
“Here’s what I think they’re going to say: ‘Donald Trump, you’re fired,’ ” Mr. Graham said to laughs and applause.
For Mr. Perry and Mr. Graham, both retired Air Force officers who have struggled to get traction in the race, Mr. Trump’s comments represented an opportunity to highlight their own military service and demonstrate to primary voters that they would not tolerate any impugning of a veteran. (Trump did not impugn McCain, even though the NY Times lied and said he did.)
As telling was the difference between how Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas reacted to Mr. Trump. Both are running aggressively in Iowa and pursuing the sort of conservative voters who are now considering Mr. Trump.
Mr. Walker, who leads in early Iowa polls, had previously resisted criticizing Mr. Trump. But in a sign of how quickly Mr. Trump’s provocation reshaped the expectations of how candidates should treat him, Mr. Walker immediately changed course after Mr. Trump questioned Mr. McCain’s military record. (He did not question McCain’s military record. Another NY Times lie, repeated by Walker, a bad mistake, trusting the NY Times.)
“I unequivocally denounce him,” Mr. Walker said at a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa. (He too, must not have heard the actual comment but accepted the NY Times revision of his words as what Trump said, which it certainly was not.)
Mr. Cruz, who poses a threat here on Mr. Walker’s right, was more cautious. He told reporters before his remarks here that Mr. McCain is “an American hero,” but added that he would not “say something bad about Donald Trump.” (He may have been one of the few who actually listened to Trump.)
Mr. Cruz’s reluctance to confront Mr. Trump was perhaps best explained by the reaction to Mr. Perry’s denunciation: While many in the crowd applauded, the ovation did not last long and nobody in the audience of nearly 3,000 stood to show their approval. (They must have heard Trump correctly.)
“It was not important to me,” said Rose Kendall, an attendee from Burlington, Iowa, of Mr. Trump’s comment on Mr. McCain. “He said that because John McCain talked him down.”
Many Democrats noted that there had been far less opprobrium for Mr. Trump after he began his candidacy in June by saying of Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people.” (All of which is very true of illegals. Note the NY Times did not say illegal immigrants. This makes the quote a lie. The quote has also been edited and not reported correctly.)
Republicans also treated the businessman more delicately in the 2012 campaign, when Mitt Romney, the party’s nominee, sought and publicly accepted Mr. Trump’s endorsement even after the businessman had questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States. (A question that has never been adequately answered and certainly not proven.)
Speaking to reporters after his turn on stage, Mr. Trump tried to soften (Trump said clarify, NY Times said soften, the meanings are quite different) the remarks, saying that any United States veteran who was a prisoner of war was heroic. He also shifted his comments to assuage (appease, mollify, pacify, placate, NY Times word meanings) veterans, saying that Mr. McCain had failed to address their needs. (Trump has worked to support veterans.)
“I’m with the veterans all the time,” he said. “I consider them heroes.”
Asked about his own military draft status, Mr. Trump, 69, said that he received medical deferments from the Vietnam War because of a bone spur in his foot. Mr. Trump could not recall which foot was afflicted.
Yet Mr. Trump’s awkward and ill-suited remarks about religion and marriage here may have done more damage to his candidacy, at least with Christian conservatives. (The man is too candidly honest about his beliefs and person to be a politician. Unlike politicians, he does not cater to the PC crowd. Also, he’s one of those hated businessmen, a capitalist.)
“I’m a religious person,” Mr. Trump offered. “I go to church. Do I do things that are wrong? I guess so.”
Mr. Trump also struggled to answer if he had ever sought forgiveness from God, before reluctantly acknowledging that he had not. “If I do something wrong, I try to do something right,” he said. “I don’t bring God into that picture.” (If he were a true politician, especially a liberal one, he would never have been so candid admitting that, or any of the admissions that follow. This is quite refreshing in anyone seeking elective office. If he behaved like virtually all politicians, he would have lied and given the PC answer to appease the media. I really like that in him.)
And Mr. Trump raised eyebrows with language rarely heard before an evangelical audience — saying “damn” and “hell” when discussing education and the economy — while also describing the taking of communion in glib terms. “When we go in church and I drink the little wine, which is about the only wine I drink, and I eat the little cracker — I guess that’s a form of asking forgiveness,” Mr. Trump said. (Candid once more.)
If all that was not enough to roil the button-downed crowd, he also described his three marriages in starkly frank terms, conceding that he had difficulty finding a work-life balance.
“It was a work thing, it wasn’t a bad thing,” Mr. Trump said. “It was very hard for anybody to compete against the work.”
Despite his marital problems over the years, Mr. Trump said that he was always available to his children and that he did his best to have dinner with them on most nights even when his work was grueling. He worked hard, he said, to instill good values and steer them away from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.
“I was actually a great father,” Mr. Trump said. “I was a better father than I was a husband.”
It was these comments, not his attack on Mr. McCain, that prompted the most muttering and unease in the audience.
“Well, I was turned off at the very start because I didn’t like his language,” Becky Kruse, of Lovilia, Iowa, said of Mr. Trump, not mentioning his comments about Mr. McCain. Ms. Kruse said she likes Mr. Trump’s hard line on immigration and came to the event considering him. “I was not too impressed,” she said, noting Mr. Trump’s comment about not seeking God’s forgiveness. “He sounds like he isn’t really a born-again Christian.” (He said he was a Presbyterian. He never ever professed to be a “born again Christian.”)
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A version of this article appears in print on July 19, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: No Hero, Trump Says of McCain, Stirring Outrage. (More lying words by the NY Times.)
A last HJ comment: It’s a sad commentary that Americans get by far the largest portion of their news from the media. For most Americans, the media defines people, events and opinions. Few people bother to check the accuracy of the nightly news or ever hear about the things they deliberately do not mention. I should more accurately say deliberately suppress. I have also noted that apologies and corrections for erroneous front page stories are always buried deep in the bowels of later editions, never given front page status. This is especially true if the correction is beneficial to Republicans, conservatives or any on the right, or detrimental to Democrats, liberals or any on the left.
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Letters to the editor, St Augustine Record, July 25, 2015
Threat’s not immigrants, It’s Ann Coulter’s vitriol
Editor: On July 13 Ann Coulter pounded out another inane and vitriolic column against illegal immigrants. Out of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants (more like 20 million) in our country, she managed to select about a dozen alleged murderers, rapists, drug dealers and burglars as proof of the overwhelming crime wave emanating from immigrant people who are not her idea of deserving. (She said illegal immigrant, he did not. Big difference.)
She and Donald Trump may rant and rave about these people. However, I doubt if they have any first-hand knowledge of them and their families: their wishes, anxieties and dreams.
I do!
For the past 12 years, I have worked as a volunteer in a farming community largely populated by Mexican immigrants. (Legal or illegal?) I have literally met thousands of these folks and have gotten to know many families quite well. They are no different from the Italian, German, Irish, Oriental and various religious groups that left (their countries) for a better life. Their kids are as American as apple pie, with the added benefit of a second language. The people I have met are hard-working, honest and family-oriented. I am sure somewhere in their community there are some law breakers. Doesn’t every community have its share?
But the hate-filled paragraphs of Ann Coulter are meant to inflame, not to inform. This column was particularly misleading and mean, covering millions of innocent people with a broad brush of evil. Comparing immigrants to ISIS is the true evil. (No, it did not compare immigrants to ISIS. It compared illegal immigrants to ISIS. A completely different meaning.)
HJ Note: If he had been referring to legal immigrants, he may have been right, but Coulter and Trump were referring strictly to illegal immigrants. The actual crime statistics of that group are appalling and well documented. Of course the media hides those facts routinely. But then since illegals saw nothing wrong with breaking the immigration laws to get here, why should they then see anything wrong with breaking other laws they wish to abrogate? What’s an occasional robbery, drug deal, murder or rape anyway? No big deal. They do that all the time in Mexico. (Or Venezuela, or Honduras, or Columbia, etc. etc.) I responded with my own letter to the editor.
Editor: On July 25 you published a letter from Al Moser berating Ann Coulter and Donald Trump for their comments about illegal immigrants. About illegal immigrants he said, “They are no different from the Italian, German, Irish, Oriental and various religious groups that left (their countries) for a better life. Their kids are as American as apple Pie.” That’s balderdash. There is one huge, obvious and irreconcilable difference. They are illegal! They are criminals who disobey our laws to get here and stay here. They are clearly scofflaws. The high school kids in California who took down the American flag, stomped on it, and raised the Mexican flag, cursing in Spanish and shouting “Atzlan (most of the southwest, TX, NM. AZ, and CA) is Mexican.” as well as all the members of MECHA, are certainly not, “as American as apple pie.” Sure, there may be some illegal immigrants who might become good American citizens, but they still broke the law to get here. That’s a monstrous insult, a slap in the face to all the legal immigrants like the Italian, German, Irish, Oriental and others including Mexicans and Latin Americans who did obey the law, entered the country legally and applied for citizenship. Ask them what they think of illegal immigrants.
