The Mess That Is: trump

Ben White of CNBC and Politico wrote an article that hits home with the mess that is trump.  America voted wrongly, first by even having this guy win the GOP primary and worse by way of the Electoral College (not popular vote by over 2 million votes) making him president.

he (not capitalized on purpose) sends up smoke screen tweets to get people to not focus on real issues, like his business dealings around the world. he will get special treatment from governments related to permits, discounts, favors to further his businesses around the world, likely become richer not caring about any American (not just white Americans) but not caring about anyone but his narcissistic self. How do people not see this?  How do other republicans not see this? How does the American people not see this?  Are we really that dumb of a country or are we just apathetic to caring for this country? I would argue that trump supporters care nothing about this country nor the people who inhabit it.  If they did they would have never voted for trump at any point in this election cycle.

he is a LOSER! Being a billionaire doesn't make him a winner, it just makes him rich while belittling and stepping on the poor and middle class. He will continue to do the same throughout his short tenure as president.  We all know he is going to f*ck up and be impeached by the sane republicans who despise him along with democrats who loathe him. If I was a senator or house representative, I would keep my distance from him, let him run his existence into the ground and start anew.

How does one, even during transition, turn away security briefings particularly in the light of heightened terrorism and domestic security challenges, like the one at Ohio State? There needs to be a million person march on Washington during the inauguration, no, lets make that 2 million to show the number of popular votes he lost by and the LOSER he is.  The people are NOT with you trump. They voted against you and you said it yourself, the Electoral College is a sham. If the Electoral College is to do the job intended for the Electoral College, as checks and balances, if the people go haywire and vote for a lunatic, which they have, then maybe the faithless electors will stand up and overturn the election. With trump, they certainly have a case to do so.

If the transition is a mess the administration is going to be in complete shambles, beyond a mess and the people who will pay are the American people.  What a shame! The mess that is: trump!

Incompetence At The Helm

The headlines continue to roll in of incompetence and the governing inconsistencies of trump will continue for the next 4 years, MAYBE!  Lets see what we have been missing and what the trump supporters have been ignoring.

"President-elect Donald Trump’s decision last week to nominate Betsy DeVos, a Michigan billionaire and conservative activist, as his education secretary has caused great consternation in parts of the education world — those parts that are deeply concerned about the future of public education."

The “King of Bankruptcy” is likely going to become the United States secretary of Commerce. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to pick billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, a businessman who made his money and got the nickname buying up fledgling companies in distressed industries such as steel, coal, and textiles.

"Another superrich, conservative businessman will likely join the Commerce team as deputy Commerce secretary: Todd Ricketts, son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts and Cubs co-owner. "

"Donald Trump's disavowal this past week of white supremacists who have cheered his election as president hasn't quieted concerns about the movement's impact on his White House or whether more acts of hate will be carried out in his name.

Members of the self-declared "alt-right" have exulted over the Nov. 8 results with public cries of "Hail Trump!" and reprises of the Nazi salute. The Ku Klux Klan plans to mark Trump's victory with a parade next month in North Carolina. Civil rights advocates have recoiled, citing an uptick in harassment and incidents of hate crimes affecting blacks, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, gays, lesbians and other minority groups since the vote."

"Trump falsely claims 'millions of people who voted illegally' cost him popular vote."  trump, even with winning, opens up the door to suggesting millions voted illegally. I hope they all voted AGAINST him and this election can be overturned!

Other disastrous cabinet picks include Michael Flynn, National Security Adviser; Jeff Sessions, Attorney general (maybe one of the worst), Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo for CIA director, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for ambassador to the UN. Basically, it comes down to being up trump's ass until the brown turns your head into a chocolate lollipop. Some of these folks were even against trump at one point but since nobody wants to be bullied by him and don't want to stand for their own principles (Nikki Haley), they conceded for their chance to be part of a disastrous trump administration, political suicide for them.

Trump has already gone back on many of his campaign promises because those promises were just a show to him, a reality show that had no substance, just a "tell them what they want to hear" monologue (because there was no dialogue) of a narcissistic, billionaire who is not for all Americans but for a select few white rich nationalists, white supremacy being the cornerstone of his campaign.

And how about raising taxes on the middle class and poor? Here ya go trump supporters!

"President-elect Donald Trump's proposals would modestly cut income taxes for most middle-class Americans. But for nearly 8 million families -- including a majority of single-parent households -- the opposite would occur: They'd pay more.

Most married couples with three or more children would also pay higher taxes, an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found. And while middle-class families as a whole would receive tax cuts of about 2 percent, they'd be dwarfed by the windfalls averaging 13.5 percent for America's richest 1 percent."

And how about climate change? 

"Trump still thinks climate change is "a bunch of bunk" http://huff.to/2g7D69Q "

Of course, i could go on and on but a new day will bring more tales of the absurd, more defensive tweets about how he won the popular vote, more disastrous cabinet picks, more billionaires (so we drain the swamp of politicians and fill the swamp with billionaires who not only know nothing of politics and diplomacy and statesmanship, but cares little or nothing about the poor Americans (i.e. the 99%) they asupposedly serve. Sad!

The Media: Biased Against Trump? Not!

Some people say that the media was openly biased against trump.  The opposite is actually true. trump is stupidly, smart and as a reality "star" and celebrity, he knows that any press is good press and that bad press is sometimes the best press. All of us, media and voters alike, took the bait. Everything that trump did and said, which was mostly negative, turned into a headline, a discussion, a debate, an outrage. People would tune into the news outlets or social media just to see what stupid thing he said or did today and since he did or said something stupid everyday, he was getting all the attention. The news media was biased toward him, not against him.  I will even take responsibility for giving him all of my attention  and most democrats should as well.  Just look at our Facebook posts or tweets and one of my blog posts, they were always focused on the negatives of trump (just what trump supporters loved), not what Hillary could do for the country. Those who did not vote for trump never made the case FOR Hillary, they were always making the case AGAINST trump while trump supporters were doing both, making the case FOR trump and AGAINST Hillary. I listened to CNN everyday driving to an from work.  Their conversations, until the very end, were mostly about the wacky stuff that trump said or did. They were not making any of it up because there was always a video or audio or tweets of him doing it, hence, the stupidly smart approach of trump. It got CNN talking about it but when they did, they always had a balanced panel - trump supporters and Hillary supporters - to discuss it. Chris Cuomo of CNN moderated these panels of biased supporters quite well always calling to task their views or support when required. The other thing I noticed was that Kellyanne Conway (whom I despise) and some of the surrogates like Rudy Giuliani were also on news media outlets much more than Hillary's people, of course, to manage whatever stupid thing trump said or did. Of course, there were other biased agencies; FOX News has always been a conservative's haven for republicans, more biased than any of the large news outlets.  And, how about Breitbart News?  Who, you say? Well now you know in an unfortunate way that Breitbart is one of the largest media outlets in the country, home of the European populist movement and now the American alt-right movement, where America's new chief strategist Steve Bannon serves as executive chairman, a white nationalists news source and one condoned by the KKK and American Nazi's. If that isn't biased toward trump, I don't know what is.  I'm an NBC news guy and they do seem to lean blue. Chuck Todd, of Meet the Press, is one of my favorite political analysts.

trump makes his own headlines, the news media doesn't make them up, at least the large, main news outlets. They don't make things up in a biased way. The reporting appears biased because trump does and says such stupid things, the outlets can't help but to report it and talk about it.  There are so many headlines each day that show the narcissism, ugliness, cowardly, stupid words and acts of this man or his surrogates  that I can't keep up with them all. Sometimes it is even the lack of words that baffle me, like not having a strong denouncing of the spike in hate crimes in America due to his ugly rhetoric during the election or not denouncing the recent "Hail Trump" video by the Alt-right national policy institute leader Richard Spencer.

The media was not biased against trump. It gave all its attention to trump as did we and this is where it got us.

The Following

After this ugly election cycle, I have vowed to follow politics more closely through the people in politics, the people who analyze politics, the organizations and structure of political systems, decisions from U.S. and state capitols all in relation to the human condition, human decency, human interaction, and making the country (and hopefully world) a better place to live.

As much as I will strive to be bipartisan, likely, I will be highly critical of trump purely for what he stands for and for what his cabinet is shaping up to be.  To me, at the moment, he will be known as trump and referred to in this blog as trump.  I will not give him the respect of the title of President. I will not capitalize his name and make it a marquee name like his many properties and businesses until earns that respect, which likely will never happen from what I have seen from day one.

I'm a non-affiliated voter although after this election, I will likely vote more blue than red due to what red supporters stood for behind trump. I will share my opinion, however critical, for both the red and blue.  When either stand for a united america (neither do right now) and do something right, even if it is trump, I will recognize that as well.

Frankly, I just need an outlet because my thoughts are consumed on every run by what has happened politically over the last year and most recently by this debacle of an election.  I don't want my thoughts consumed by it so I need an outlet.  This is it, good or bad.

My next post will be one that I posted two weeks before the election.  It was, and really still is, my case against trump. I do think I understand more, though, why people voted for him and it will be on me to dig deeper, understand more, and keep the pressure on this administration.

Why Lunacy Fringe 1600? It is because it is where lunacy will live for the next 4 years; 1600 is the address.

Blind Leading the Blind: The Case Against trump

It has been a long time since I have been on a run and didn’t think about this election. Frankly, I don’t think I have ever been engaged this much in an election.  It’s not because that it is so exciting, it is because of what is at stake for America.  America is at a crossroads and one of the roads leads us down a dangerous path.  Like a runner on the trails, be smart about the trails you take and to where the path leads. You also cannot run these treacherous trails blindly.  Generally, this blog is about running but my two monikers are Runners Thoughts and In The Moment Running. My Runners Thoughts are not always about running so going forward I will share the thoughts I have while running whether they are running related or not.

Before I get into the topic of the election, I should provide a little information about me. I am registered as an unaffiliated voter, 56-year-old white male, Christian, and college-educated with a graduate degree in computer science so I am highly analytical. I live in Durham, NC. Being registered non-affiliated or independent, normally I would look at candidates for all offices with more objectivity because I don’t believe every issue is black and white, left or right. Normally, I might vote republican for one office, democrat for another.  I would say I am more of a moderate on issues seeing both right wing conservatives and left wing liberals dangerous to our society. In this election, I will NOT vote for Trump and will not support anyone who has endorsed or supports him nor will I respect anyone who does. I respect their right to have their own opinions (although Trump wouldn’t respect those that do if they differ from his) and respect that our free republic allows us to openly discuss our opinions and vote for who we want. This is the case against Trump put into the perspective of our own lives. In essence, are we OK with what he represents? I would argue that we are not but many of Americans are not putting it into perspective.

Here are the questions I would like everyone to answer and then note how Trump responded either on documented video or audio:

1)      If my child, brother, sister was physically or mentally challenged, would I allow another adult to make fun of them in gesture and spoken words?  Would this be OK with me? Are there any circumstances where this would be OK? Trump demonstrates this is OK.

2)      If my child was bullied in school, made fun of for the way they looked, the way they talked, or the way they ate, etc. Would you let this pass and laugh with the bully? Would this be OK with you? Trump shows that bullying is OK.

3)      As a veteran or the family of a veteran where your serviceman comes back from deployment with PTSD, seeing and experiencing some of the most horrible visions of war. Would you consider him/her weak, that he/she cannot take it? Trump says yes, they are weak people.

4)      If your serviceman was tortured, endured and persevered after being captured by the enemy, would you consider him/her a hero? Trump would not, he only likes those who aren’t captured.

5)      If your serviceman was killed in action, no matter what your ethnicity or religious believes, a person who fought for the freedom of this country, would you like people to make fun of you? Trump did this.

6)      If your daughter goes on a date and the boy/man looks at her and says, “eh, do you know what you look like? you’re not my first choice.” Would that be OK with you? If the boy/man grabs her, hugs and kisses her without permission, would this be OK for your daughter to be treated like that? It is OK for Trump. Then, if it is the boy’s word against your daughter’s word, who do you go with? Trump says the women are all liars and he can do all he wants with them!

7)      If someone says, “look at MY African American” over there. Considering slave ownership, would this be an OK phrase by anyone, let alone a presidential candidate? Trump said it. If your daughter or son or grandchild marries an African-American, would this be OK to say to them? It appears Trump’s OK saying it to them.

8)      Are all Mexicans rapists and drug dealers? Trump thinks so.

9)      Would you like to live in Russia under Putin and communist rule? Trump thinks Putin’s leadership is stronger than our leadership and likes the way he rules his country.

10)  Do you enjoy violence, hatred, and degrading people? Trump says he loves physical and verbal fights and he has proven he degrades people. He has incited violence against a competing candidate. One of his supporters brought a Hillary doll to a rally with a noose around its neck. Another NC republican, supporting Trump says she should have a bullseye on her picture on the Rifleman magazine.

11)  Do you believe that if your sports team doesn’t win, or you don’t win the lottery, or you don’t win playing a simple game of cards that they are rigged? Anytime you don’t win, it is rigged?  That is Trump, if he is not winning it is rigged, if he is winning, then it is legitimate. Conversely, he thinks accusations against Bill Clinton are all true, yet none against him are. If the election is rigged as Trump says it is, why vote then? Stay home on election day. Of course, he said to vote on November 28^th.

12)  Would you love your email or your internet browsing history hacked by the Russians? Trump advocates for Russia to be hacking our email.

13)  Would you like to see a nuclear war, a bomb that falls onto your family, or worse, near enough your family where they suffer from radiation poisoning for years? Trump wants to escalate nuclear war and on the word of the President, nukes must be fired within 4 minutes. Do you want Trump to be 4 minutes away from annihilation of our country or another?

14)   Do you love to be insulted for anything and everything? Is bullying OK with you? Here are the 282 people, things, places Trump has insulted during his campaign.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html?_r=0  He has NO policies; he ONLY has insults. He will insult you, your family, your beliefs at the drop of a hat, even before it hits the floor.

15)  Do you hold Christian beliefs? Look back through this list, do one of these insults fall in line with your Christian beliefs? I doubt it, so why would any Christian vote for Donald Trump? It is hypocritical at best and dangerous at worst. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for the devil, saying that the devil is who you support, not a loving Jesus or all people, not a loving Jesus who helps the poor, not a loving Jesus who forgives sins. I am sure if you were to ask Trump if he is a sinner, the answer would be “no” which all Christians know that we are all sinners. He is the antichrist rising.

16)  Do you remember any of Trump’s policies or the phrase “grab ‘em by the pussy’?  I am sure it is the pussy comment that you remember because he has not spoken about policy except through rhetoric. He knows nothing about policy and his surrogates little more.

17)  Why does Putin want Trump to win? It is because Putin knows that Trump is a dumb-ass and knows nothing about running a country, that he would do stupid things which would give Putin and other countries the opportunity to seize on America, that the people he surrounds himself with also cannot govern and are extremist to divide America as opposed to unite America. We have all heard united we stand, divided we fall. With Trump it is divided we fall!

18)  Do you consider yourself racist, a bigot, sexist, one that promotes violence and hatred and thinks America is a horrible place? If so, you identify with Trump. Look in the mirror and say, I am a racist, bullying bigot and despise everyone but myself until it is convenient in my own interest to like someone else.

19)  Do you think a rich billionaire with a silver spoon in his mouth cares anything about you, knows yours struggles, and seriously wants to help you and your family? Trump is about Trump and only about Trump and this election is about his ego and narcissism. He cares nothing about you or this country, only about Trump.  Do you know his kid has an entire floor to himself at Trump Tower? Can he possibly understand a child living on the street, homeless?

20)  Do you think Trump is not a politician? You are voting for him because he is anti-establishment? Trump is the worst kind of establishment and the worst kind of politician. He believes that his entitled ways of life allows him to do anything he wants because he is famous and rich. He said it on the audio, that he can grab ‘em by the pussy, kiss them whenever he wants, have them whenever he wants. He said he can walk down 5^th Ave and shoot someone and his followers wouldn’t care. Would you care? Do you care?

I could go on and on because there is so much fire under the feet of this devil who will lead us into hell. I am up at 3:30 AM finishing this because of the disgust I feel for this person and the need to just get it out. But my real fear is the support he has that shows the true ugliness of America. True colors come out in intense times and win or lose, we have seen the true colors of America and they “ain’t” pretty.

He really (in his reality show self) is a deplorable person (won’t even call him a man) without a care for humanity and decency of any kind. If elected, it will be the worst thing for America in my lifetime and will show the ugliness of our country. He is blind to what a decent human being is, knows nothing of the issues of America, has no policy statements of substance, and will turn on you (individually or the American people) instantly when it benefits him. He is leading the blind, the people who can’t see through all of this, who defend his ways and actions with their own rhetoric and lies. He is by far and away the worst candidate ever for the presidency but scarier than that is that he has nearly half of voting Americans following him.

Also, note that this is not a pro-Hilary post. Although I voted for her (as well as every democrat on the ticket since I lost all respect for republicans supporting Trump) she is not without her issues and baggage. However, her issues and baggage are not in the same universe as Trump’s.  And frankly, I am sick of hearing about emails because that is all the fight against her has been about. Hell, our government and businesses get hacked on a regular basis. Edward Snowden gave all our secrets to the Russians anyway. Do you really think classified emails are truly secret? Yes, it is sad that these two candidates are what we have as viable Presidents of this GREAT country but truly I tell you, there is only one of these two that has the temperament, decency, humanity, knowledge, leadership, empathy, sincerity to be President and in NO WAY is it Trump!! I'm with Her!