Let me just begin by prefacing thus: there are a LOT of reasons to attack John McCain. For simple starters he’s a RHINO – which for politically illiterate is an acronym meaning “Republican In Name Only” – who has made a career out of splitting the difference by betraying conservatives. I voted for him in the general election, because my alternative was a backstabber or the damned devil, but no way was that turd my primary vote.
So there are a LOT of ways that a reasonable person could reasonably attack John McCain. Heck, one of those ways involves the very category of “prisoner of war” that Donald Trump attacked McCain on. Certainly Trump had every right to go after John McCain for saying that 15,000 American citizens living in McCain’s own state of Arizona were “crazies.”
But for the official record the way that Donald Trump viciously attacked John McCain simply for BEING a prisoner of war is beneath the pale of decency or dignity. And Donald Trump seriously needs to be fired by every decent American for his stupid idiotic indecency.
Donald Trump said the following about John McCain:
Luntz: “He’s a war hero. He’s a war hero …”
Trump: “He’s not a war hero …”
Luntz: “He’s war hero.”
Trump: “He is a war hero …”
Luntz: “Five and half years in a Vietnamese prison camp …”
Trump: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured. So he’s a war hero …”
Luntz: “Do you agree with that?”
Trump: “He’s a war hero, because he was captured, okay? I believe, perhaps, he’s a war hero. But right now he said some very bad things about a lot of people. So what I said is John McCain, I disagree with him that these people aren’t crazy.”
Okay, Trump had his say. But here is something called the ACTUAL DAMN FACTS as to how John McCain became a P.O.W.:
On October 26, 1967, McCain was flying his twenty-third mission, part of a twenty-plane strike force against the Yen Phu thermal power plant in central Hanoi[102][103] that previously had almost always been off-limits to U.S. raids due to the possibility of collateral damage.[101] Arriving just before noon, McCain dove from 9,000 to 4,000 feet on his approach;[104] as he neared the target, warning systems in McCain’s A-4E Skyhawk alerted him that he was being tracked by enemy fire-control radar.[105] Like other U.S. pilots in similar situations, he did not break off the bombing run,[62] and he held his dive until he released his bombs at about 3,500 feet (1,000 m).[106] As he started to pull up, the Skyhawk’s wing was blown off by a Soviet-made SA-2 anti-aircraft missile fired by the North Vietnamese Air Defense Command’s 61st Battalion,[101][104] commanded by Captain Nguyen Lan[104] and with fire control officer Lieutenant Nguyen Xuan Dai.[101][104] (McCain was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for this day,[100] while Nguyen Xuan Dai was awarded the title Hero of the People’s Armed Forces.[101] Decades later, Soviet Army Lieutenant Yuri Trushechkin claimed that he had been the missile guidance officer who had shot McCain down.[107][108] In any case, the raid was a failure, as the power plant was not damaged and three of the Navy planes were shot down.[104])
McCain being pulled out of Trúc Bạch Lake in Hanoi and about to become a prisoner of war,[109] on October 26, 1967.
McCain’s plane went into a vertical inverted spin.[110] Bailing out upside down at high speed,[111] the force of the ejection fractured McCain’s right arm in three places, his left arm, and his right leg at the knee, and knocked him unconscious.[111][112] McCain nearly drowned after parachuting into Trúc Bạch Lake in Hanoi; the weight of his equipment was pulling him down, and as he regained consciousness, he could not use his arms.[105] Eventually, he was able to inflate his life vest using his teeth.[105] Several Vietnamese, possibly led by Department of Industry clerk Mai Van On, pulled him ashore.[113] A mob gathered around, spat on him, kicked him, and stripped him of his clothes; his left shoulder was crushed with the butt of a rifle and he was bayoneted in his left foot and abdominal area.[105][111][112] He was then transported to Hanoi’s main Hỏa Lò Prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton” by American POWs.[114]
McCain reached Hoa Lo in as bad a physical condition as any prisoner during the war.[114] His captors refused to give him medical care unless he gave them military information; they beat and interrogated him, but McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth[115][116] (the only information he was required to provide under the Geneva Conventions and permitted to give under the U.S. Code of Conduct).[104] Soon thinking he was near death, McCain said he would give them more information if taken to the hospital,[115] hoping he could then put his interrogators off once he was treated.[117] A prison doctor came and said it was too late, as McCain was about to die anyway.[115] Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care,[115] calling him “the crown prince”.[114] Two days after McCain’s plane went down, that event and his status as a POW made the front pages of The New York Times[92] and The Washington Post.[118] Interrogation and beatings resumed in the hospital; McCain gave the North Vietnamese his ship’s name, squadron’s name, and the attack’s intended target.[119] This information, along with personal details of McCain’s life and purported statements by McCain about the war’s progress, would appear over the next two weeks in the North Vietnamese official newspaper Nhân Dân[104] as well as in dispatches from outlets such as the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina.[120] Disclosing the military information was in violation of the Code of Conduct, which McCain later wrote he regretted, although he saw the information as being of no practical use to the North Vietnamese.[121] Further coerced to give future targets, he named cities that had already been bombed, and responding to demands for the names of his squadron’s members, he supplied instead the names of the Green Bay Packers‘ offensive line.[119][122]
It’s not like John McCain did a Bowe Bergdahl and abandoned his fellow soldiers to seek out and subsequently provide aid and comfort to the enemy. John McCain is a combat veteran who had honorably served his country in time of war in 22 previous missions before being shot out of the sky, terribly wounded, and pulled out of a lake where he nearly drowned. He was easily taken prisoner because his arms were too injured to move and one of his legs was useless. The obvious implication is “JUST WHAT THE HELL WAS THE GUY SUPPOSED TO DO?”
Let me ask some follow-up questions of Donald Trump:
1) Are you seriously telling me that you possessed – in spite of your own lies about dodging the draft and your five damned deferments – that you possessed far superior fighter jet aviator training such that there is no way you could have ever possibly been shot down out of the sky by an anti-aircraft missile? Is that your story, The Donald? That had it been YOU in that cockpit the man who repeatedly obtained deferral after deferall rather than serve in the war that you insinuated John McCain was some kind of coward for having actually FOUGHT in you would have used your superior hair weave to duck and dodge the missiles that took McCain’s aircraft out??? Because you are Trump the CHUMP if that’s your testimony, you worthless boastful punk.
2) Is it your suggestion that John McCain would have been braver had he done what YOU would have done – because YOU’RE the one who dodged fighting in a war with your superior skills in compiling an impressive number of student deferments – and by simply refusing to serve in the first place??? Is THAT what you’re saying? That cowardice is the better part compared to valor??? Are you saying that at the first sign that you were being tracked by enemy radar, that you would have bailed on your mission as John McCain failed to do because unlike you he actually IS a war hero???
3) Or maybe you’re suggesting to us that had it been YOU that had been shot down by a missile, had it been YOU who were shot down “in as bad physical condition as any prisoner during the war” – that you would have tied your ridiculously expensive business-suit’s accompanying necktie around your head like the businessman-version of Rambo and killed 10,000 North Vietnamese with your bare hands as you crawled your way to the border on your ruined knee??? Maybe THAT is what you’re saying, you pathetic little turd???
But actually I think what Donald Trump is really telling us is that 4) Trump the Chump looks at Adolf Hitler and says, “Now there is one awesome badass great LEADER!” Allow me to provide illustrations of what I mean before I explain myself further:
Regarding Adolf Hitler: the Führer had a nasty habit of giving orders to his soldiers such that “Every man shall fight or fall where he stands.” He REPEATDLY ordered his units to die fighting rather than surrender or even merely withdrawal rather than be overrun. As one US military analysis of Hitler’s “leadership” we have the following typical statement (see page 22):
Hitler’s unrelenting policy of no retreat at Stalingrad cost thousands of German soldiers’ lives. According to James Duffy, “It was a policy of fanatical resistance. On October 14, 1942, Hitler issued this order to his troops: ‘Every leader, down to squad leader must be convinced of his sacred duty to stand fast come what may even if the enemy outflanks him on the right and left, even if his part of the line is cut off, encircled, overrun by tanks, enveloped in smoke or gassed.’”
One of Hitler’s own generals said of his “leadership”:
And there were, for Hitler the commander, some deeper flaws as German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein observed: “He was a man who saw fighting only in terms of the utmost brutality. His way of thinking conformed more to a mental picture of masses of the enemy bleeding to death before our lines than to the conception of a subtle fencer who knows how to make an occasional step backwards in order to lunge for the decisive thrust. For the art of war he substituted a brutal force which, as he saw it, was guaranteed maximum effectiveness by the will-power behind it…. Despite the pains Hitler took to stress his own former status as a frontline soldier, I still never had the feeling that his heart belonged to the fighting troops. Losses, as far as he was concerned, were merely figures which reduced fighting power. They are unlikely to have seriously disturbed him as a human being.”
Another German general, Alfred Jodl, described “Hitler’s almost mystical conviction of his own infallibility as leader of the nation and of the war.” Which I personally see fitting Donald Trump to a “T” when you listen to Trump’s idiotic and fanciful statements that he’d build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it or from a position of weakness and debtor (WE owe THEM trillions of dollars) somehow end up owning them because of course he’s just that darn great.
‘The armed forces have lied to me and now the SS has left me in the lurch. The German people has not fought heroically. It deserves to perish.
‘It is not I who have lost the war, but the German people’.”
So under a Hitler – and yeah, under a Trump the Chump – you pretty much have two choices as a soldier: die fighting or just die. Otherwise you’re a coward.
Now, Hitler said he couldn’t fight because he might get merely wounded instead of killed and then be captured:
“He said that he could not go out and die fighting on the barricades as he was afraid of merely being wounded and captured by the Russians. He would therefore shoot himself.”
And we couldn’t have that, could we? So he ordered his men to die rather than give one inch of ground while he himself cowered in the concrete bunker that the millions serving him were ordered to die to protect. And then there’s Trump the Chump, who in spite of his four student deferments before finally managing to find some doctor who was willing to say that Trump was too much of a pathetic little physical wuss to serve, that somehow John McCain should have died fighting in spite of having just sustained terrible wounds after being shot out of the sky by a missile.
I think it’s 4), myself. Not that the other three make Trump look like anything other than an outright idiot, but personally I find 4) the most terrifying indictment of Trump the Chump of all of the above.
Under a Trump the Chump Führer-in-chieftainship, if President Trump the Chump orders a fascist-style banzai charge, you run into machine gun fire screaming and you die. But what you are NOT allowed to do under ANY circumstances possible is to allow yourself to be captured for any reason under the Rising Sun.
LAURENCE REES: And how can we understand the reasons for what you call the ‘suicidal mentality’ of the Japanese?
AKIRA IRIYE: Some people trace it back all the way to the feudal ethos. I think it seems to be a combination of two things. One is belief in Japanese national uniqueness, again this is an insular mentality, summed up in the sense that Japan is a unique country unlike any other country that can do things that no other country can do, and things like that. And this sense of uniqueness is combined with the Emperor worship. Again this is rather a recent origin: in the 1870s and 1880s the government decided to rally national opinion around the image of the Sacred Emperor, because this Emperor system seemed to be a long living line of Emperors; that is the longevity of the imperial line. Japan was unique and you died for your country but in fact you died for your Emperor, everything was in the name of the Emperor. In war, in battle, [soldiers] fought for the sake of honouring the Emperor, that kind of thing. That is one, mental attitude.
And the second reason is a more material kind of reason. That is that the Japanese army is much more poorly equipped. So the Japanese say, well, maybe we’re not as good in producing so many weapons as the Americans, but we have this spiritual aspect to it, that we can fight not simply with guns, but we can fight with our spirit. That spirit is the spirit of our selflessness and this is nothing that is part of your fighting. You know this famous exhortation not to be taken prisoner of war because they say to be taken prisoner of war is a shameful thing. Why? Because it shows that you have not fought till the very end. To fight to the very end is to honour the Emperor and to show that you can compensate for meagre weapons by using yourself, perhaps as a human shield, or in a suicide attack.
For these reasons I think even as early as the Russian/Japanese War you get lots of Japanese casualties because they believe in it, that death in battle is an honourable thing. I would think that there were so few Japanese prisoners of war taken by the Russians because they either committed suicide or they just fought to the very end before the Russians could capture them. The same is true in the 1930’s as well. I think you brought dishonour to your family and to your parents if you were caught prisoner during the war, so for these reasons I think there is a sense that the war is never finished until the last man dies. And the last man dies because that’s what they’re supposed to do.
LAURENCE REES: How can we understand here in the West this phenomenal cultural pressure on the individual to conform?
AKIRA IRIYE: I think there is no question about that. I think a kind of collective mentality, or collectivist mentality, and also the idea that you are a member of this family, and what you do brings dishonour to your parents, but not only that, to the Emperor too. This is the whole idea of the nation as one family with the Emperor as the Divine Head. So whatever you do you are bringing either honour or dishonour to the Emperor. There’s nothing in between. So to die is more honourable than to live. I think the conception of life and death, things like that, are maybe at the basis of this. No individual thinking here. Of course there were people who were not that way, but they would not be able to express their opinion more clearly or more frankly during the war because of the mentality of wartime Japan.
Under the Western and American concept of warfare, you are ordered to place yourself at risk. You are ordered into harm’s way. You are ordered to fight the enemy. But in the face of certain death, you are NOT required to die. Americans are individuals, not herd animals. You fight honorably, but you have the right to surrender when you have no other option but certain death.
But Trump the Chump’s remark which was tantamount to an assertion that every single prisoner of war was somehow a failure has nothing whatsoever to do with the Western or American concept of a soldier honorably serving on a field of battle; it is straight out of Hitler and it is straight out of Imperial Japanese fascist emperor-worship.
So under Emperor Trump, you die fighting for the glory and honor of “The Donald.” A Trump the Chump cannot understand why you would not be willing to take a few hundred bullets for him.
To allow a Donald Trump to be anywhere NEAR the office of the president of the United States is simply evil. We fought a terrible war to kick people like Donald Trump out of their dictatorships.
And the man is so pig-headed that he cannot admit that he made a mistake any more than the CURRENT DISGRACE-IN-CHIEF contaminating our White House.
Allow me to now point out that this isn’t the first incredibly wrong thing that Donald Trump has said. What Donald Trump said about illegal immigrants was beneath the pale of dignity, as well.
Understand, I am fiercely opposed to illegal immigration. I believe that we should be fighting with everything we’ve got to dismantle a system whereby people are encouraged to essentially put themselves at the head of the line ahead of all the people trying to enter America from all around the world LEGALLY by ignoring our laws and just flooding into this country. BUT my beef is NOT with the people coming into America, but with ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. Whereas Trump the Chump personally demonized the character of pretty much nearly ALL illegal immigrants.
Allow me to contrast my own belief about illegal immigrants vis-à-vis the system tolerating and even encouraging illegal immigration from a prior article to Donald Trump’s vindictive statements:
Let me assure you of something: if Hispanic illegal immigrants voted Republican, you would see the rabid, poison-dripping FANGS of Democrats come out in a spirit of rage and hate unlike nothing you’ve ever seen on the faces of Republicans as they went completely poop-flinging nuts over the invasion of our border.
I attend a church that has an English and Hispanic congregation. And I regularly take part in ministry to Hispanics, quite a few of which are here illegally. As a true Christian, I DON’T hate illegal immigrants. I realize as a moral human being that if I were a poor Mexican or Central American living in a completely failed state the way these people are, I would come to America too – either legally or illegally. I recognize that for many illegal immigrants, work is a good thing that they are grateful for. And that they send a lot of the money they earn home to their families. These are virtuous things. What I rabidly despise is a cynical and dishonest liberal ideology that wants to politically benefit from these poor people’s misery and ignorance. I blame the left for its hostility to America as they seek to cynically grab further political advantages by exploiting these people. Liberals are like drunken braggarts in a bar, buying drinks for everyone in order to be popular and then refusing to pay the tab when the bill comes. America cannot afford to continue living so wildly and wickedly beyond our means. We are going to completely economically and socially collapse because of the vile wickedness of Democrats. And then you will see suffering as you have never seen before – suffering that Democrats forced upon the America that they destroyed.
I believe, therefore, that we ought to treat the illegal immigrants who are coming here as human beings. And that we should protect our nation, protect our borders, protect our culture, protect our way of life by controlling our borders and enforcing our laws.
You see the difference? I recognize that many, MANY illegal immigrants are good and decent people whose ultimate crime is to give themselves and their families a better life than they could ever get in the pathologically broken system that is Mexico and much of Central America. Are there terrible criminal illegal immigrants? Okay, yes. But on the same token, are there terrible criminal LEGAL immigrants? Yep. And for that matter, are there terrible criminal native-born American CITIZENS? Oh, you betcha, there are.
My theory on illegal immigration is that we need to profoundly reform our SYSTEM. We need to begin by first changing the law that BROKE our system: the 1965 law that “reformed” our system that had previously favored immigrants with vital job skills that this nation desperately needed in order to maintain the best industrial base in the world to one whose central purpose was reuniting families. Should we have a system that emphasizes more doctors, more engineers, more mechanics, more skilled workers, more trained people who can help build America, or should we bring in every single family member of the immigrants who are already here? Democrats broke our system by preferring the latter over the former. And that inaugurated a flood of immigration that has NOT made America better, but worse, not richer, but poorer. We certainly also need to aggressively patrol our borders and deport the people who should not be here.
But we shouldn’t demonize the millions of people who came here seeking a better life. And I believe that if I were a Mexican and my country was broken the way Mexico was broken and America gave me a chance for building a better life for my family, I would come here to. And no I would NOT be a “rapist” for doing so, contrary to Trump the Chump.
As a conservative and as a Republican, I demand that we continue to make a distinction between being “anti-illegal immigration” versus being “anti-immigrant.” And I believe Donald Trump stupidly crossed a line and should have apologized immediately rather than “doubling down” as is apparently the only trick of this one-trick pony.
If you exclude Donald Trump’s giving since 2012 – when he decided he was a “Republican,” Donald Trump has actually given more money to the DEMOCRAT Party over the previous 26 years. Prior to 2012, Trump gave $581,350 to DEMOCRATS versus only $497,690 to the GOP. But even when you factor in Trump’s total giving, the man hardly stands as a genuine Republican. Politifact acknowledges that “Trump has actually been relatively evenhanded in doling out cash to the two parties” and that “The difference in donations is almost entirely captured in Trump’s recent giving” when Trump went from 1989 to 2012 giving MORE to Democrats to giving $463,450 to Republicans against $3,500 to Democrats. Personally, I would just assume that my Republican president hadn’t only been one for three years and had been a Democrat prior to that.
The man clearly is NO spokesman for the Republican Party or Republican Party values. And as just one shining example of the hypocritical and opportunistic demagogue that Trump the Chump truly is, he actually attacked Mitt Romney’s very moderate position on illegal immigration as “mean-spirited” in 2012. Which may mean that while he isn’t the racist he’s coming off as being, what he in fact is is a dishonest demagogue who will say whatever the hell will get him the attention that this arrogant blowhard narcissist clearly seems to need.
Donald Trump needs to be made to shut up and go away. And yes, anybody who actually thinks that this fool ought to be president IS certainly a “crazy” from this point on, if he or she wasn’t one already.
Tags: anti-immigrant, deferments, Donald Trump, illegal immigration, John McCain, P.O.W.s, prisoners of war, Vietnam War
Start Thinking Right 
July 20, 2015 at 2:59 pm
Michael :
Donald Trump ; a HUGE political Bully with no respect for anything or anyboby but a good deal that will add to his wealth . he shows NO respect for other peoples positions and education and backgrounds and work for this country .
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks ! and all that comes out of the mouth of ” BIG Bully Trump” is ignorance and narcissism , wich demostrates insecurity and , while he may be a smart man , he is a FOOL with a big mouth and a lot of money in the bank instead of wisdom – God’s wisdom .
that is the MOST important thing that a leader needs to lead the country in to the right direction.
I dont care how smart you are ! The devil is smart too. and HE wrote the Art of the evil deal back in the garden of Eden so it doesn’t matter . Jew or gentile , Democrat or Republican , if you lack of the wisdom and love of God you are just a plain stupid fool! and without the fear of God i would say your knowledge is worthless.
G.F.
July 20, 2015 at 8:48 pm
I could care less about what McCain did to become a war hero. That was a long time ago. The man that I see before me now is a traitor. He is a progressive liberal and has helped liberal Democrats destroy this country. He is just like Boehner, McConnell and all the rest of the RINOs. These scum bags need to be deported. I would gladly trade a few illegals in place of them. Maybe what Trump said was a little insensitive, but I rather enjoyed the lashing that he gave McCain, who I think deserved it. Actually, I agree with about everything Trump has said so far. So, actually, McCain was calling me one of the crazies.
Say what you want about Trump, but he is not being restrained by political correctness nor is he letting the MSM whip him around. I wish I could say that about any of the other contenders – republicans have become pathetic, scared little wimps. Trump is saying things that are resonating with millions of Americans like me and he doesn’t back down. Personally, I like Ted Cruz. He is a real conservative, extremely intelligent and a good debater, but I just don’t seeing him getting the nomination. I am sure we will end up with another RINO like Jeb Bush for the nomination. We have lost the last two elections because of a RINO and this includes McCain in 2008.
The other Republican hopefuls don’t like Trump because he is addressing issues that they don’t even want to touch and he is rocking the boat with his non PC approach. Like his position or not, like him or not, he doesn’t mince words, doesn’t cower down to the media or the PC crowd and, quite frankly, this is an extremely breath of fresh air, something that I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Now, if some of the more qualified contenders would do this, then this country might stand a chance, but I don’t see this happening and we will end up with another run-of-the-mill RINO like McCain.
July 21, 2015 at 1:42 am
FMC,
So let me get this straight: you’re actually AGREEING with Trump – and as I think I documented, with Adolf Hitler and with the Japanese fascist imperial mindset – that anyone who is captured is basically a loser and some kind of coward?
This isn’t about John McCain: I stipulate immediately at the beginning of this article that John McCain has a LOT of baggage. This is about the temperament of a man who views himself as commander-in-chief material. This is about a president who literally thinks according to his own remarks that the only soldier that’s a good soldier is one who will literally choose DEATH for his emperor rather than submit no matter how impossible the odds. This is about the abandonment of an individualistic mindset on the part of our military and the embrace of a collectivist mindset in which our soldiers are to be screaming banzai chargers into machine gun fire or be regarded as some kind of failures.
Either that is what we are talking about, or Donald Trump needs to apologize with the most abject humility and say he was wrong, DAMN WRONG. Yesterday.
I submit that if you want a president who “doesn’t back down” no matter how wrong he is, then you ought to be pretty happy right now. Because that’s EXACTLY what you’ve got in Obama.
And I hate to get in your face, FMC, but I’m calling you a crazy too if you believe that a man who was shot down by a missile on his 23rd combat mission, who was forced to eject upside down, who broke both his arms and severely injured his knee, who was dragged out of the water nearly drowned and beaten to within an inch of his life, is somehow a loser for being captured, whereas a man with five draft-dodging deferments would have won the war all by himself but if he hadn’t been too busy washing his hair or whatever the hell his excuse was for sending John McCain to fight in his place.
Donald Trump’s remarks were downright UGLY about the American soldiers, sailors, Marines and Air Force POWs who suffered for their country as no one else has even come CLOSE to suffering.
I’m rather surprised at you, FMC. Not only for the above – but for the engine Donald Trump is to the Republican Party. He is turning the Party against itself. And there are a lot of people who disagree vehemently with the wisdom of Jesus, but one of the things Jesus said is that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The very disagreement that WE’RE having is evidence that Trump is turning the party against itself.
I’m amazed that so many conservatives think that a guy who gave more money to the Democrat Party over the previous 26 years up until 2012 is a “conservative.” I’m surprised that your view of “conservative” means supporting Hillary Clinton in campaign after campaign: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/donald-trump-donations-democrats-hillary-clinton-119071.html
One of the things that the conservative experts are seeing in the polling is that Donald Trump is actually taking ALL the wind out of the most conservative candidates such as Ted Cruz. And the longer Donald Trump stays in the race, the more likely it actually is that a Jeb Bush RHINO WILL be the guy who ends up stealing the Republican nomination. Jeb Bush will survive but quite a few of the most conservative candidates will be forced out. And they will have been forced out by Donald Trump.
You don’t like RINO’s??? Well, here’s a good article that describes how your support for Trump will likely GET you a RINO. http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/newsdesk/trump-jeb-bush-walker-split-vote-20150715
I personally doubt very much that Donald Trump will ultimately be the nominee for the simple fact that he will have to provide a LOT more documentation of his assets than what amounted to his evidence-free assertion that he is worth more than $10 billion. Which for the record contradicts what he said just a month before when he claimed it was $8.7 billion. I have a feeling that when it is time to release actual financial statements that would send people to prison if they are not accurate, Trump will find some reason to drop out just like he did four years ago. Much the same way he found some reason five freaking times not to serve in a war he demonized a man who served honorably for being captured and tortured in.
And what is going to be left of the Republican Party after Trump burned the bridges down and how many conservative candidates who could actually WIN are going to be in a race that without Trump they might have been able to stay in?
If Trump does NOT drop out, my prediction is that he will run as a third party independent. And then he will be the man – with your support – who ensured Hillary Clinton gets to be president.
It is not good and it is getting worse by the minute.
July 21, 2015 at 8:23 am
First, let me get this straight: I am not endorsing Trump. I stated that my man is Ted Cruz – that is the one that I want to see get nominated. Yes, Trump was wrong in what he said about McCain and I never said that McCain wasn’t a war hero; however, McCain has fallen a long way since those days and I am disgusted with him.
McCain started all this, despite what Trump said in retaliation. Every election we have to watch Republicans destroy each other and it is usually the ones with true conservative ideas that get destroyed.
Since Trump announced he is running, the main thing, and about the only thing he has talked about is immigration. His views on immigration are right in line with mine as far as securing the border and only letting the decent, law abiding Mexicans migrate into this country legally. He has taken this topic and has not played patty cake with it. The reason his poll numbers are so high right now is because many Americans like myself are disgusted with what is going on with the border. If conservatives like myself even discuss it, we are branded racists and this is absolutely absurd. In fact, you called Trump a racist. I have listened to his speeches and their is nothing that he said that is remotely racist. I am sick of this PC crap!
Now do I support Trump? Not as a contender, but I do support what his stance is on the border and immigration. Like I’ve said before, I support CRUZ and Cruz has some good ideas about the border, too, but Cruz is against Obamacare and for smaller government. Trump hasn’t said much of anything about his stance on other issues. Like you, I don’t think Trump has a chance. For that matter, I don’t think Cruz does, either, but that is who I want. I do not want Trump – I want Cruz…. But, as I stated in my previous post, we will end up with no Cruz and a RINO. The Republican establishment does not like Cruz, because, remember, Cruz is Tea Party and the establishment cannot tolerate true conservatism.
Now, if whoever gets the nomination takes a strong stance on securing the border and immigration, then I think they can take the White House. You can tell a lot about the contenders who have attacked Trump because of his stance on the border and immigration, because they are pro illegal immigration and amnesty and somehow want to benefit politically from the illegals, just like the Democrats, even though I don’t know how that is even possible.
July 21, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Let me make it clear – I do NOT want Trump to be President. I do however love the unvarnished truth (his version at least) not being nuanced on every tiny political poll.
And no, you do not have all the facts. There is much evidence, although not completely conclusive in my opinion, that suggests that John McCain’s daddy covered up what REALLY happened to McCain in Vietnam. A Pulitzer Prize wining journalist investigated and found that not only did his captors dismiss the “torture” notion, we have FILM of McCain walking off an aircraft in great health (prior to the famous Nixon footage on crutches) .
Maybe Trump is on to something here – http://www.unz.com/article/mccain-and-the-pow-cover-up/
July 21, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Not sure this link posted – http://www.unz.com/article/mccain-and-the-pow-cover-up/
A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist thinks McCain was not tortured at all.
July 21, 2015 at 12:50 pm
FMC,
Let me also get something straight: I have never much liked John McCain. He has made a career out of sabotaging conservatives. I did NOT vote for McCain in the 2008 primary and groaned when he became the nominee (I voted for Rick Santorum in the primary). The only guy I thought could have been worse than McCain was Romney. So of course he became the NEXT nominee.
McCain started this. Okay, I agree. So clearly there must have been only ONE option available to Donald Trump: to personally demonize EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN PRISONER OF WAR. Because that IS what the man did!!! I am simply telling you the FACT that you cannot read the story of how John McCain was captured and in any way, shape or form say he was somehow a failure for being captured. Because EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN P.O.W. IS A FAILURE BY THAT STANDARD.
I demand that you read the account of John McCain’s capture and explain to me in detail precisely what he did on October 26, 1967 when he was captured where you can possibly defend Donald Trump’s vicious attack. Because Trump did not merely attack John McCain’s record as a senator or his RINO status, etc; Trump that on October 26, 1967 John McCain became a failure. He was a “hero because he was captured,” but Donald Trump “likes people who weren’t captured.” You know, much the same way I like my Navy SEALs to all have super powers and fly around bullet-proof while wearing blue tights and a red cape.
And EVERY SINGLE CONSERVATIVE NEEDS TO TURN THEIR BACK ON TRUMP AND BOO HIM UNTIL HE APOLOGIZES FOR HIS SLANDER OF ALL AMERICAN P.O.W.s. And I am shocked that you somehow don’t comprehend that.
I also am dead-set against illegal immigration. But there are – like everything else – two ways to be for or against something: a good way and a bad way. In this article, I tried to lay out the ONLY way to go after illegal immigration that doesn’t bring the Republican Party down. I actually KNOW people who are illegal immigrants or have illegal immigrants in their families as a result of being a part of the Body of Christ. I’ve met some of these people. There are a LOT of illegal immigrants who took the ONLY option available to their families by coming here. I mean, put yourself in their shoes: you have no job to support your family, you live in a broken country dominated by corruption. Your family is in danger where they are. You can either come to America and get a job so you can move them somewhere safer or you can let them be killed knowing that the system in Mexico will do nothing. I DON’T BLAME THESE PEOPLE!!! What I DO blame is I blame the system that the Democrat Party has cynically and wickedly “fundamentally transformed” into a Democrat vote machine. While the RINO Chamber of Commerce has looked the other way so they could get more cheap labor. What I DO blame is the broken federal system that WILL NOT enforce our borders. I would be thrilled if the next Republican president put the MILITARY on the border and aggressively patrolled it. I want to shut down the problem of illegal immigration. The OTHER way, the bad way, the way that Trump took – and which the media has framed as “the Republican position” – is to be ANTI-immigrant. They’re all bad people. They’re rapists.
The problem is that there are a lot of people who like me have met some of these people and no they’re NOT rapists.
The Republican Party is going to go down in ruin if they go the way of Donald Trump and begin personally demonizing people because they want to come to America.
This is a situation where we have to love the sinner – in this case the illegal immigrants – and rabidly despise the sin that is our entire immigration system. We need to FIX that broken system.
By the way, I am ALSO NOT for amnesty. I am not for letting the people who came here jump to the head of the line ahead of the ALSO good people – and yes, the BETTER people – who legally applied to come here and followed the law. I am not for illegal immigrants being able to receive drivers licenses, etc. While I believe that we shouldn’t be kicking down millions of doors, I also believe that any crime – ANY crime or any infraction – committed by an illegal immigrant ought to get that person deported.
Is Donald Trump a racist? Well, the funny thing is I don’t think so. But the REASON I say Trump isn’t a racist is because the man is an outright abject hypocrite slandering demagogue. You need to go back just three years to see what the same Donald Trump did to Mitt Romney when he tried to take some kind of sensible stand against illegal immigration: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/26/donald-trump-mitt-romney-immigration_n_2193252.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
So my question is which Donald Trump are you even TALKING about? But one thing is for certain: by Donald Trump’s 2012 standards, Donald Trump in 2015 is one maniacal, mean-spirited RACIST. Oh yes, he is.
It’s kind of like if Hillary Clinton suddenly started talking like Ronald Reagan in a way: I mean, what kind of fool would you have to be to trust her? And so my next question is why support a man who has until recently been a LIFELONG supporter of the Clintons??? http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/donald-trump-donations-democrats-hillary-clinton-119071.html
So, back to what Trump said about McCain, vindictively attacking not the Senator who has a lot to deservedly attack, but to attack the man who was shot out of the sky by a missile and who came to the ground terribly wounded. All this by a man who obtained five deferments so he would NOT get shot at in Vietnam. I find that personally incredibly offensive. And I cannot for the life of me understand why you wouldn’t.
And it merely reveals a pattern about Donald Trump: whenever the man is criticized by anyone for any reason, he gets beyond rabid. There IS no legitimate criticism of Donald Trump in Donald Trump’s mind. Anyone who says anything negative about Donald Trump has to be targeted and destroyed – and every part of that person’s life. Jonah Goldberg pointed out just today that Donald Trump is a bottomless pit of narcissistic insecurity that cannot allow any of his opponents to have any legitimacy whatsoever. And so it’s slash and burn on a toxic level we’ve never seen. Which again reminds one of Obama and HIS thin skin.
So we see it again right away: Trump giving another candidate’s cell phone number. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-gives-out-lindsey-grahams-cell-phone-number-120414.html It was just a vindictive, petty, vile little stunt from a pathetic man. And that article I link to just underscores the viciousness of any race that has a Donald Trump in it.
So that leads me to my final point: you like Cruz? Well, good. Cruz is the man I would vote for if the California primary were today. So again, why do you support Donald Trump given the fact that the candidate that is MOST HURT by Donald Trump staying in the race is Ted Cruz???? http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/insiders-ted-cruz-hurt-most-by-trump-candidacy-120277.html
Cruz is actually a much better, much better candidate, much more articulate speaker, than the media propaganda would reveal. He just needs a damn chance to get a little attention. Which he won’t get as long as we’ve got a campaign based on the antics and then the histrionics and then the responses to Donald Trump.
July 21, 2015 at 2:43 pm
“So that leads me to my final point: you like Cruz? Well, good. Cruz is the man I would vote for if the California primary were today. So again, why do you support Donald Trump given the fact that the candidate that is MOST HURT by Donald Trump staying in the race is Ted Cruz???? http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/insiders-ted-cruz-hurt-most-by-trump-candidacy-120277.html”
I don’t support Donald Trump, but I do support the same views on immigration. Just because I agree with him on some things doesn’t mean that I support him as a presidential candidate or as a person. In my view, right is right.
However, I don’t think it was right how he handled the McCain deal, even though I enjoyed someone getting right back up in McCain’s smug little face. McCain basically said that anyone who wants to secure the border and get tough on illegal immigration is crazy mad and this really pisses me off! Yeah, Trump should have taken it to him on that level and made him eat his words about how much of a dirty little RINO he is and left it at that.
Yeah, Trump has grabbed the spot light for now, but his antics and narcissism will get the best of him and he will be done. Does this hurt Cruz? Well, only if this goes on for a long time and I don’t think that it will. Actually, I think there is a chance that all this could help Cruz once Trump is gone. Trump has already struck a chord with a lot of people who have strong views on immigration and this is evident by the poll numbers and this could help Cruz emerge because he himself is staunch on immigration and does not fear backing down from the establishment. That is one of the reasons that I like Cruz. Heck, I kinda admire Trump for his willingness to not back down to the media or the establishment, also, but that is about as far as it goes there.
Anyway, we could argue about this stuff for days and it will accomplish nothing. I guess if we don’t see eye to eye on this issue, then we will just have to agree to disagree. I am just glad you didn’t use insect mind or cock roach soul in referencing me lol even though I like those two phrases. I always have enjoyed reading your blog and look forward to your next article.
By the way, I just seen four gunships fly over my house and that was a beautiful sight to see, those majestic but lethal birds.
July 22, 2015 at 10:22 am
Hey, speaking of Ted Cruz. Yesterday, while trump dominated the media, Cruz manifested and he should get some much needed exposure now as the immigration debate is still red hot.
Apparently, he interrogated the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a heated exchange. It was vintage Cruz at his best. The issues being discussed were quite shocking.
In case you haven’t seen or heard, you can read the article and see the exchange yourself:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/21/watch-as-ice-director-is-forced-to-tell-ted-cruz-hes-absolutely-right-after-he-disputes-her-claim-during-hearing/
Go TED!
July 22, 2015 at 3:33 pm
FMC,
I supposed this is about the most ANY conservative can possibly hope for when we have an argument with ANYBODY: “Well, at least he didn’t call me a ‘roach.'” Or, you know, a racist. Or an obstructionist. Or whatever the other side is calling us.
The bottom line for me is that I completely agree that John McCain is a turd and has been a turd since he was elected US Senator. At one point before the 2008 election, I had vowed that no WAY was I going to vote for McCain – and then was forced to eat my words and hold my nose like I’d never held it before and vote for the guy because Obama was so much worse it was beyond unreal. It would have been perfectly appropriate for Trump to go after McCain to call 15,000 of his own state residents and fellow U.S. citizens “crazies.” And point out that McCain has ALWAYS viewed actual conservatives as “crazies” as he’s made backroom and backstabbing smoke-and-mirrors deal after backroom and backstabbing smoke-and-mirrors deal to appease the left by stabbing the GOP in the back.
But that’s not what Trump did. Instead, Trump went after the ONE thing that made it utterly immoral for him to go after McCain: and in doing so he insulted the honor of EVERY SINGLE prisoner of war. Because if you can read the account of how John McCain became a prisoner of war and blame him for becoming a prisoner of war, then therefore EVERY SINGLE P.O.W. is a failure and a coward. McCain didn’t feel from battle (the way Trump actually DID); he’d been in 22 missions. And on that 23rd one he went in anyway knowing the enemy had him targeted.
So Trump was like a rabid dog who went after every single honorable U.S. veteran who was or ever COULD HAVE BEEN taken prisoner. And I tried to point out that that is a fascist, emperor-worship thing to do. And Trump needs to be reviled for that.
The fact that Trump hasn’t already apologized is every scintilla as disgraceful as Obama taking FIVE DAYS to lower the flag to half mast when five servicemen were gunned down like helpless victims because they were serving their country in one of Obama’s “gun free zones” were only CRIMINAL AND TERRORIST MURDERERS are allowed to have guns. Do the right thing TODAY, you turds.
I heard one analyst saying that Trump had turned the GOP primary into a crash car derby. Anybody who crashes into Trump is going to get smashed up and it’s like Trump doesn’t care – because he’s NOT going to ultimately stay in this race – he’s driving in a junker and everybody else who is actually trying to become the Republican nominee is driving a Ferrari. And Trump is just smashing fellow Republicans up and he doesn’t really care what happens to his campaign because he’s only in this for himself and for publicity. And the thing is, the media LOVES to listen to Trump take an extreme position and then put a microphone in the rest of the Republican’s faces and demand they respond. You know, the same way the rest of the media is sticking a microphone in Hillary Clinton’s face and demanding that she defend Planned Parenthood for violating all medical ethics to manipulate babies in a mother’s womb so they can better harvest the body parts for the sickest and most disgusting kind of profit.
Oh, wait. They’re not doing that. The game only works one way. Which is another way of saying that every time Trump opens his mouth, he is dragging down the entire party because the entire party is being held accountable for every one of Trump’s statements in a way that would NEVER happen on the other side.
And he isn’t just ignoring Reagan’s 11th Commandment that “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Trump is the ANTI-Reagan. And anybody who likes Reagan needs to revile Trump for that.
The longer Trump stays in this race and turns the Republican primary into a circus freak show that the media can exploit to undermine the credibility of the rest of the party, the worse it will be. And in particular the worse it will be particularly for Ted Cruz as all the oxygen that would have gone to him gets sucked up by Trump’s moonwalking mouth.
We’ve obviously got a lot of the same values, FMC. But there are places where I draw the line with ANYONE regardless of what party they claim to belong to and Trump went WAY over that line with what he said about not John McCain but about P.O.W.s because he prefers his heroes not to be captured.
You know what? I prefer my heroes to not have been killed. Hell, on Trump logic, if you’re killed in action, you’re a loser. Because Donald Trump is the real hero for taking five deferments when other men were dying for their country. The fact of the matter is that in a perfect world, no American serviceman would EVER be captured. Or killed. But in reality – and particularly in WAR – things have a tendency to go wrong. And there are going to be men who are going to get killed in action and there are men who are going to end up as prisoners of war.
And if you’re a Donald Chump who got five deferments to get out of fighting the very same war you’re attacking McCain for having been captured in, DON’T YOU DARE DISHONER THOSE MEN WITH YOUR DISGRACEFUL MOUTH.
As for illegal immigration, it is a proven fact that Donald Trump was on the OPPOSITE SIDE of this very issue when he demonized Mitt Romney as “maniacal” and “mean-spirited” on illegal immigration just three years ago. Trump is NOT telling us what he really thinks; he is just a blabbermouth saying whatever the hell he feels will generate the most heat and garner him the most attention as he sucks up free publicity.
As for my own BTW, I take my camera with me on all my hikes, and every time I see a gunship flying out of or into nearby 29 Palms, I take as many pics as I can.
Democracy needs people who are willing to stand up against fascists and fight for the right to be free.
July 22, 2015 at 3:46 pm
FMC,
I like Ted Cruz because he is a Christian – which I submit Donald Trump clearly indicated he is NOT given the fact that asking God for forgiveness is an INTRINSIC PART of Christianity – he is a conservative, he sticks to his principles, he’s an articulate debater who can explain and defend his positions, and he won’t back down.
At this point, he’s the guy I most like. With the one I second most like being Scott Walker (the way he took on the unions was AWESOME).
But I want a guy in office who will on his very first day in office sign away every single fool thing Obama did during his entire presidency, rather than some mealy-mouthed wuss who is going to allow Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America to stand as a way to appease the rabid left.
The best two executive orders a Republican president could sign would be to sign one that criminalized the Democrat Party as a terrorist organization and then sign the second one called the “Hunt Every Democrat Down With Dogs and Burn Them Alive Order.” You know, while pointing out that Obama signed 213 executive orders versus his two, so by the Democrat Party’s arguments that Obama signed fewer than Bush that Bush was therefore more fascist than Obama. I’d like to hear the next Republican president say, “Since Democrats only care about the total number of executive orders rather than the sweeping scope of those orders, they clearly won’t mind it when they’re screaming in agony in burning trees surrounded by snarling dogs when I issue two and only two executive orders during my entire presidency.”