Tag Maggie Haberman

I’d like to say just a few words about the happenings of this week

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

Oh, Auntie Em, I had the most amazing, wonderful dream…

Things didn’t exactly turn from black and white to Technicolor while I sat up until 2:00 a.m. watching election returns, but at one point just after midnight I remember saying to my wife, “You know, this is fun!”  I hadn’t had this much fun during election returns since the last time I anchored the broadcast, almost forty years ago.

Watching the defeat of an evil empire of Christian nationalist, law-and-norm-ignoring fascists, even if it turns out to be only temporarily, the strongest emotion I’ve felt – am still feeling, almost three days later – is schadenfreude.  I know my mom (maybe yours too) would have gently scolded that’s it’s not nice to take pleasure in the suffering of others; I like to think that Elsie Joan would have allowed some grace in this case, where the “others” in question are people who have been so aggressively contemptuous of so many of our laws and of their fellow men that they deserve little sympathy.  I think they got what they deserved.

For your reading pleasure and historical backgrounding, here is a free link to the New York Times article with the inside story of how the Trump Administration went out of its way to shoot itself in the foot and make it possible for the lost-in-the-desert Democrats to complete a thorough and humiliating ass-whipping of a president and a party that felt they were bulletproof, all can’t-touch-this I dare  you to come against us.

It seems obvious to me that this election was a referendum on TFG in the sense that people have been so angry, and so offended, at what he and his black-hatted henchmen have actually done since January 2025.  At how they have failed to do things they promised that won them new political support in the last election.  At how they have actually gone about doing some of the things they did do in ways that appalled most everyday Americans (remember DOGE?).  At how they have made clear their disdain for the rule of law and even for the participation of the representatives of the American people in the House and Senate.  It turns out the post-election Associated Press polling backs that up.

People couldn’t get beyond the realities of life in Trump’s America: the Iran war and the senseless tariffs that combined to raise prices for us all while alienating our allies around the world; the barely-trained vigilantes ICE dispatched not to round up “the worst of the worst” but to terrorize immigrant society and kill a few American citizen protesters in the process; the unprecedented corruption and self-dealing; the self-aggrandizing efforts of a tawdry real estate developer to memorialize himself in our nation’s capitol – including the interminable gilding of everything that didn’t move out of his way – and the most godawful sycophants who were tiny-hands-picked by Trump himself as candidates (so bad that even staunch conservatives just couldn’t stomach them – yeah, I’m looking at you Ken Paxton).

Yesterday I read another interesting explanation behind the enormous vote “against Trump” not only all across the country, but especially from Black and Hispanic voters: they were responding to the Republicans assault on voting rights.  That is, Trump’s pressure on states to redraw their Congressional district lines ahead of schedule – because, he said, Republicans were “entitled” to more seats due to their winning margin in 2024 (that’s not ever a reason why lines are drawn the way they are) – led to the elimination of many majority-minority districts across the country.  And the litigation over that effort led to a Supreme Court decision that further gutted the Voting Rights Act, ruling that political  gerrymandering is perfectly legal so long as it isn’t intentionally racist.  Justice Samuel Alito further ruled that drawing districts designed to elect  racial minorities constituted “intentional race-based conduct” and that’s a no-no.

Many advocates feared the worst: Between the 2024 and 2026 elections, Republican-led states reassigned over 25 million people, or roughly 7.5 percent of all Americans, into different congressional districts. One report concluded that “the only realistic path” for Democrats to avoid decades of Republican rule—and for Black voters to have any shot at electing candidates who represent their interests—would be “a rare ‘blue wave’ election scenario” where “voters turn out at overwhelming rates.”

Tuesday was not just a wave. It was a tsunami. Preliminary data from the University of Florida Election Lab indicates that approximately 48.8 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2026 midterm election, making it the second-highest midterm turnout in over a century. Other early reports indicate that Black voter turnout in particular soared, rivaling the numbers of Barack Obama’s first presidential run.

And Black folks are mad as hell: In a poll of 700 Black women shortly before the election, for example, 87 percent said that the nullification of the Voting Rights Act and the surge of racially discriminatory attacks on the franchise made them more motivated to vote. A New York Times analysis of 2026 midterm trends shows that 91 percent of Black voters supported Democrats—a considerably higher amount than that of any other racial group.

Republican elites underestimated Black voter turnout and overestimated their own level of support. Now, instead of collapsing, Black representation is expected to remain relatively steady in Congress. Black candidates made historic inroads in statewide elections for offices like the Senate, which are not affected by redrawing individual district maps; and in the House, Black candidates won many contested seats, gerrymandering be damned.

Hey, would you look at that: actually voting makes a difference.

The results we saw in this week’s election were not just thanks to an overwhelming response from voters fed up with TFG and his sycophants in the Administration and in Congress.  Writing in Slate, Richard Hasen reminds us that thousands of people have been working, for years, to be ready to fight if Trump carried through on his threats to steal the election.

There were legitimate concerns Trump would go further [than he ultimately did], such as by seizing ballots or voting machines while states were tabulating ballots and certifying results. People also worried he would invoke the Insurrection Act or declare a national emergency as a pretext for a federal election takeover. He publicly said he wanted a federal takeover of elections in Democratic states. His administration refused to categorically rule out sending ICE officers or other agents to the polls, or to abstain from messing with state election certifications.

That none of this happened is a testament to the very hard work that has been underway for years. It was not just one individual or group that saved American democracy. Civil rights lawyers, who have been in the trenches for years fighting for voting rights, pivoted to fighting against attempts to steal elections. Nonprofit election protection organizations mobilized civic, business, and religious leaders to bolster support for threatened election officials. Foundations and voters stepped up to fund this intense work. Democratic and Republican election officials conducted war games, considering what to do if the DOJ showed up with warrants for ballots or to arrest election administrators. Citizen groups mobilized in case ICE agents showed up at the polls. Courts decided emergency election cases, often on absurdly compressed timetables, and judges across the legal and political spectrum held the line. Journalists relentlessly explored the weak spots in how elections are run, pressed the Trump administration for answers, and reported fairly about the risks. Voters turned out in droves and named democracy as one of their primary concerns, along with corruption, for their votes. They rejected election deniers who wanted to run elections in 2028.

Are you like me, have you noticed since the votes have been counted we’re seeing a few leaders of MAGA World seem to be maybe trying to find their way back out of the wilderness and into the good old Grand Old Party, the one that up until 2016 thought Trump the candidate was thoroughly unqualified to be president and an embarrassment on top of that, but who changed their tune by the time he finished his hostile takeover at the 2016 Republican Convention?  People like Ted Cruz.  Back then Cruz was strongly anti-Trump (and acted pretty provoked when Trump insulted Cruz’ wife) until after the convention; since then he has been a strong and verbal backer of the Republican in the White House.  That, in and of itself, is not unusual: for a politician, there isn’t much future in being a vocal opponent of your party’s leader.  Cruz is ambitious, and not stupid.

But if you go so far as to defend Trump’s claim to have won the 2020 election (in the face of absolutely zero pieces of evidence to prove it), if you defend his decision to start an unprovoked war, if you generally want it known that you and he are asshole buddies, and then within hours of your boy suffering a generational “ass-kicking” (his words, not mine) you can’t piously blame the war for your party’s loss like you had nothing to do with it.  If Cruz disagrees with Trump on important stuff, and I believe he does, it would have been nice to see some of that political courage when it meant something.  Same thing for other Republicans.

Here in Texas, every Republican running statewide on the ballot Tuesday (Cruz wasn’t on this ballot) was beaten badly, including our three-term governor and lieutenant governor; Democrats will also take control of the state House of Representatives (but not the State Senate).  I find it telling that as Republican legislators consider how they will approach governing our state without their party having a stranglehold on all the offices, some are panicking.  Like Brian Harrison, who is so fearful of the scary Democrats having some power that he’s calling on Republicans to change the rules of the game: to use the time between now and the next governor’s swearing-in in January “to restore separation of powers and limit the emergency powers that Governor-Elect Hinojosa is set to inherit, which would allow her to destroy liberty in Texas by executive fiat.”

So, the Republican legislature was just fine with destroying the separation of powers so Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick do whatever they wanted without oversight, but we can’t trust a Democrat not to “destroy liberty” in Texas?  Who believes this crap?  What a pathetic bunch.

I am mindful that this enormous win at the polls for Democrats does not end the fight.  We still have as president the man who’s been stuffing bribe money into his own pockets while promising to end a war he started (and then not doing it), who thinks imposing tariffs on imports does not mean Americans pay higher prices for goods (it does), who doesn’t think he himself has any responsibility for his party getting its head handed to it at the polls (he does), who thinks his eye for design is high class (it is not), and who just today selected as his new White House chief of staff the one adviser who is most responsible for all the crap ICE has pulled since January of last year.  (Of all the terrible aides in this White House, why pick the one who sleeps hanging upside down to be in charge?)  Even if this Administration doesn’t try to stop Democrats from taking control of Congress in January, and I say that is not a given no matter what they’re saying now, we’ll still have two more years of this guy in charge.  Maybe we can take some pleasure in watching his minions defending their past actions when they get to testify before Congressional committees.  Now that’s entertainment!

Walking the talk

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

For starters, they did ask—many times, starting before his term was even over, so don’t give me that “all they had to do was ask” bull.

The federal government tried and failed repeatedly for more than a year and a half to retrieve classified and sensitive documents from former President Donald J. Trump before resorting to a search of his Mar-a-Lago property this month, according to government documents and statements by Mr. Trump’s lawyers. (emphasis added)

The documents, including an unsealed, redacted version of an affidavit from the Justice Department requesting a warrant to conduct the search, make clear the lengths to which the National Archives and the department went before officials pursued a law enforcement action to recover the material.

The FBI knew that Trump had documents at his home in Florida that he was not supposed to have: he had already given them 15 boxes of official material in January of this year, and the FBI and the National Archives suspected there were more documents in Florida that should be returned to the government and that Trump was obstructing their efforts to retrieve them.  Why they thought that is undoubtedly in the redacted parts of the affidavit, parts we haven’t seen but which the federal magistrate judge did read and consider before approving the search warrant.

the affidavit states that the National Archives spent six months in the latter half of 2021 trying to get more documents. And then the FBI got involved. The Post…reported that all this year, Trump resisted handing much of anything over, to the point where his allies feared he was “essentially daring” the FBI to come after them.

Trump was also warned before he even left the White House that taking any official documents with him, let alone national secrets, was illegal under the Presidential Records Act. And even Trump’s attorneys agreed that the former president needed to give the documents back…

(snip)

Included in the paperwork with the affidavit was a formal notice that the redacted memorandum was being released. In it, the Justice Department writes that the redactions are necessary to protect “a broad range of civilian witnesses.”

“This language suggests that people inside Trump’s former administration, or at Mar-a-Lago, are providing information to the FBI,” [former federal prosecutor Barbara] McQuade said.

The redacted affidavit itself suggests that the investigation includes detailed monitoring of Mar-a-Lago to find out how many boxes of official material were still there and where they were being stored.

To be clear: the classified status of some of these documents is only part of the issue.  The laws make clear that no former president is permitted to take control of these types of records—”mere possession of these documents is a crime under some of the statutes cited in the affidavit, whether or not they are classified.”

Trump filed a legal motion this week, arguing that, as president, he had the right to declassify any classified documents and that his continued possession of the material was based on “executive privilege.” A judge should have no problem dismissing both arguments. First, while a president can declassify documents, there is a process for doing so; at the conclusion of the process, the special classified tabs and markings would be removed. Yet the tabs and markings are still on the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. Second, mere possession, much less declassification, of some documents, such as those marked OCORN, must first be approved by the originating agency. That doesn’t seem to have been done either. Third, a president—certainly an ex-president—has no executive privilege to hold documents that properly belong to the National Archives.

If you think about it, Trump’s argument that he had declassified the classified documents…doesn’t help.

https://twitter.com/grantstern/status/1563208809773813760

On top of which, the whole “I raised my magic hand and the documents were declassified” argument has a distinctly “what excuse do they have today” air about it.

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1562091922625368065

These actions by the FBI and the Department of Justice are reassuring: federal law enforcement is walking the talk about no one being above the law.  And to those who’ve been clutching their pearls for almost three weeks now at the audacity of the government for having the nerve to search the home of a former president, I think the best and easiest response is to say, we’ve never had any reason to believe that any other former president had ever committed acts that would call for government action like this.  But this guy has.  And if you’re straining to keep up with all the other investigations involving the former guy, here’s some help.

https://twitter.com/147Operation/status/1562181784552480768

2020 vision

Pat Ryan Leave a comment

If we were to treat this like a “regular” election between “regular” candidates, it would be sensible to compare the candidates’ core beliefs and positions on important issues.  The problem with that, in this case, is not only that Donald Trump is not a regular candidate, he has no core beliefs or strong positions on any issues.

Very important to remember (and I’ve been harping on this, I know): Trump lies.  About everything.  Virtually every word out of his mouth.  There is no good reason to believe anything he says.  The Washington Post Fact Checker documented 20,000 lies by Trump as president, and that was back in July.  (As they say, the hits just keep on coming.)   If in any moment Trump needs his audience to think that he believes A, because he thinks the audience members believe A, he will say he believes A.  If in another moment he needs another audience to think he believes not-A, he will say he believes not-A.  It doesn’t matter to him whether he really does like A or actually prefers not-A, or if he’s even given the whole A/not-A dichotomy any real consideration: he will say anything if he wants it to be true in that moment.  What’s more, he thinks we are too stupid to realize that he has taken both the position of A and not-A at one time or another.

Also important to remember is that Trump has demonstrated he is not good at presidenting.  I mean being president of the USA—don’t even talk about his record of business bankruptcies.  He touts his handling of the economy, but he denies that he took office with an economy that was in pretty good shape and managed not to screw it up.  (By the way, the stock market is not “the economy.”)  He quickly reminds you about passing a tax cut bill…one that primarily benefitted the already-wealthy, AND which he doesn’t want you to remember is only temporary, AND WHICH was contributing to a big increase in government debt even before pandemic relief.

Oh yeah, the pandemic.  Any government effort to protect Americans from an insidious virus that was spreading across the country and killing thousands of people a week would have started by asking people to isolate themselves, and that was what forced so many businesses to temporarily close and shocked the U.S. economy back in the spring.  Once medical researchers identified the transmission path AND a simple and efficient way to block it—yes, the mask—a good president (and governors and mayors) would have been working like hell to get people to voluntarily help themselves and their neighbors by wearing the damn mask.  Other countries did, and they did not suffer the rates of infection and death that America has; they have not suffered the economic hardships that we have.  Trump’s willful mismanagement of the government’s response to COVID-19 is likely to be his legacy: his public denial of the problem, which contributed to the expansion of the problem, which led to more than 9 million infections and the deaths of more than 213,000 Americans (so far) along with the prolonged weakening of the economy.  You’ve probably heard: a third wave is already underway.

(Recently I read a woman’s complaint about wearing the mask; she feels she should not have to do that because “they have already taken so much away from us.”  Honest to god, lady: no one set out to take anything away from you.  There is an attack against our country underway right now, and our best response to the threat—which will help protect you, your children, your neighbors—calls for you to make a tiny sacrifice.  Why is this a problem?  It almost couldn’t be any easier.  Also: who is “they?”)

Very important to keep in mind—maybe most important—is that Trump does not believe in America, or its Constitution, or the rule of law, or our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or in racial or gender equality, or supporting the sacrifices of our fellow citizens in the armed forces, or in any type of service to country.  He doesn’t believe in Truth, or Justice, or the American Way.  He says he does, but he doesn’t.  (Remember, Trump lies.)

He ran for president as a publicity stunt, and was as surprised as anyone when he (barely) won.  He has used the office to enrich himself and his businesses, he’s alienated our allies, and he’s used the government itself to attack protesters and political enemies—he was impeached for doing that!  He wasn’t removed from office for it because he has also, somehow, managed to drag the Republican Party and a lot/many/most (?) of its leaders down to his level.  They talked themselves into believing that protecting Trump is what “real Americans” want them to do, because…why again?  Because with Trump as president they will get judges who will incorporate their political and religious beliefs into American law?

There was an ad on television the other day (please, Jesus, end the TV ads!) in which the candidate looked sincerely into the camera and told me “this election is about getting our economy moving again.”  No; no, it’s not.  I understand why you say that, and that would be a very good thing to get the economy back up to speed…also, to be able to go to a restaurant or a ballgame again, or even back to the office.  But no, that’s not what this election is about.

This election is about saving the United States of America from the chaos and fascism and authoritarianism that is undoubtedly right around the corner if Donald Trump wins re-election.  Even if Joe Biden is not everything you want in a president, he is one thing you need in a president: he is not Donald Trump.  He is a patriot, and he will govern with the best interests of this country at heart.  Just ask these Republicans:

You could also ask yourself, when was the last time I remember a president promising me that the next election was going to be rigged…unless he wins?  The last time a president running for re-election, and his political party, spent so much time making it harder for people to vote, and laying the groundwork to overturn the results?

https://twitter.com/DrGJackBrown/status/1321552411035533313

He’s a clown…a cartoon.

Vote him out of office next week.  Do it for America.  A landslide may not be enough—let’s make it an avalanche that will also defeat whatever nonsense he pulls to try to ignore our votes and hold onto office (and stay out of jail).  That will make America great again.

Furlough Journal: The good, the bad, and the stupid

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

Surely this is happening all around the country, as we’re in the fifth week of a totally avoidable shutdown of parts of our federal government.  (Including the part that employs me.)  But I know it’s happening here in Houston, because this morning Houston’s Leading Information Source tells me it is.  Of the 800,000 or so federal employees who are out on furlough and learning to do without paychecks—because, essentially, a girl on Fox News challenged the manhood of our tiny-fingered president and that led him to renege on his commitment to sign a bill funding the government—more than 200,000 of them are in Texas and 30,000 of those in the Houston area.  It’s heartening to read about the local businesses taking action to help neighbors and customers who are strapped for cash.

There are restaurants offering free meals to federal employees; pharmacies charging discounted prices on prescriptions; banks waiving late fees or allowing customers to miss a payment with no penalty; a credit union offering interest-free loans to furloughed workers to cover their missing paychecks; phone and internet companies and utilities offering payment plans.  I’m keeping a list of these good neighbors so I can patronize them in the future, and maybe take them up on their offers if I have to as we wait to see where this unprecedented national hostage-taking leads us.

In the meantime, what’s being done to end this nasty situation and get us back to our normal routine of overeating and underexercising, staring blankly at cat videos, and worrying about whether our favorite social media influencers are getting enough online attention?  Well, after more than a month of not even talking about a single damn thing that the president hadn’t already said he would agree with (BTW, why should that be a concern with a president who never keeps his word?), the leadership in the Unites States Senate plans to take a couple of votes it already believes are doomed to failure.  But at least they’re trying, right?  Because that’s what a co-equal branch of government charged by the Constitution with providing checks and balances on the other branches of government is supposed to do, not act like it has no authority or free will or good judgment of its own and shout over and over again “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”.

The White House appears to have come to a complete and safe stop about any and all other issues—except for the president’s yes-I-will-oh-no-you-won’t fight with the House speaker over a State of the Union speech next week, and the president’s laughable “threats” to the family of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen that have given Cohen a laughable excuse to cancel his scheduled testimony on Capitol Hill about…what was it again?  Oh, yeah, about his financial crimes and possibly the campaign finance law violations in which he implicated his former boss.  Good times.

But there is some targeted action in the Senate intended to keep this jackassery from happening again in the future, and for that I am very glad if not downright giddy:

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1087907909391077376

He’s playing you for a fool; don’t prove him right

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

To everyone who is pissed off at what America’s political system has devolved into, let me say, I get it; I’m with you.  It shouldn’t too much to ask for a political and governmental system that can get things done, that treats people fairly, and that will be about protecting the freedom of all its citizens.  I get it that you want something better; so do I.  But just because you hate Hillary Clinton is not a good enough reason to turn power over to an ignorant, truth-impaired narcissistic megalomaniac with the attention span of a two year old.

Donald Trump is a liar.  I don’t mean that in the sense that all politicians shade the truth in order to put things in the best light–the one that shines on themselves; I mean to say that Trump lies to us.  All the time.  About things that matter, and about things that don’t matter.  He just does.  He may not even see that he’s making this shit up as he goes along, but he says whatever will make him look good in the eyes of the people he’s talking to…and if that’s not true, if it contradicts what he told the crowd yesterday or the day before, no matter.  It’s as if he doesn’t think anyone will remember.

But we do!  And telling the truth matters, or it should, to all of us.  Regardless of what you think of Clinton, do you really want a president who lies consistently, if not constantly?  (“I know you’re lyin/Cause your lips are moving…”)  He lies when it’s convenient, he lies when he’s caught in a lie, he lies to promote himself, he lies when telling the truth would be just fine…he lies to try to persuade us all that the world of his imagination is the real world we all inhabit together.  He lies.

The New York Times has a long list of Trump’s lies…31 from just this week!  They’re broken down into “Tales About Himself,” “Unfounded Claims About Critics and the News Media,” “Inaccurate Claims About Clinton,” “Stump Speech Falsehoods” and “Esoteric Embellishments.”  I won’t bother with the most famous ones; others include:

◊He said a supportive crowd chanted, “Let him speak!” when a black pastor in Flint, Mich., asked Mr. Trump not to give a political speech in the church. (Fox News interview, Sept. 15.)
–There were no such chants.
◊“You see what’s happening with my poll numbers with African-Americans. They’re going, like, high.” (Speech in North Carolina, Sept. 20; made same claim in Ohio, Sept. 21.)
–Polls show him winning virtually no support from African-Americans.
◊“Almost, it seems, everybody agrees” with his position on immigration. (Remarks in Texas, Sept. 17
-Most Americans oppose his signature positions on immigration.
◊The presidential debate moderators “are all Democrats.” “It’s a very unfair system.” (Fox News interview, Sept. 19.
–Only one, Chris Wallace of Fox News, is a registered Democrat.
◊He said it “hasn’t been reported” that Mrs. Clinton called some Trump supporters “deplorable.”  (Speech in North Carolina, Sept. 20)
–It would be difficult to find a news organization that didn’t report her remark.
◊Mrs. Clinton destroyed 13 smartphones with a hammer while she was secretary of state.
(Speeches in Florida, Sept. 15 and Sept. 19.)
–An aide told the F.B.I. of only two occasions in which phones were destroyed with a hammer.
◊Mrs. Clinton is “effectively proposing to abolish the borders around the country.”(Numerous speeches, including in Texas, Sept. 17.)
–She is not even proposing to cut funding for the Border Patrol.

 

Look at the publications that have endorsed Clinton.  It’s not just The New York Times, it’s places that haven’t endorsed any Democrat in generations: The Cincinnati Enqurier has endorsed the Republican candidate for a hundred years, and although it has problems with Clinton it still said no to Trump:

Trump is a clear and present danger to our country. He has no history of governance that should engender any confidence from voters. Trump has no foreign policy experience, and the fact that he doesn’t recognize it – instead insisting that, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do” – is even more troubling. His wild threats to blow Iranian ships out of the water if they make rude gestures at U.S. ships is just the type of reckless, cowboy diplomacy Americans should fear from a Trump presidency. Clinton has been criticized as being hawkish but has shown a measured approach to the world’s problems. Do we really want someone in charge of our military and nuclear codes who has an impulse control problem? The fact that so many top military and national security officials are not supporting Trump speaks volumes.

The Dallas Morning News feels that “Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest.”

Those are real shortcomings [for Clinton]. But they pale in comparison to the litany of evils some opponents accuse her of. Treason? Murder? Her being cleared of crimes by investigation after investigation has no effect on these political hyenas; they refuse to see anything but conspiracies and cover-ups.

We reject the politics of personal destruction. Clinton has made mistakes and displayed bad judgment, but her errors are plainly in a different universe than her opponent’s.

Trump’s values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best. His serial shifts on fundamental issues reveal an astounding absence of preparedness. And his improvisational insults and midnight tweets exhibit a dangerous lack of judgment and impulse control.

The Los Angeles Times:

Donald J. Trump, a billionaire businessman and television personality…has never held elected office and has shown himself temperamentally unfit to do so. He has run a divisive, belligerent, dishonest campaign, repeatedly aligning himself with racists, strongmen and thugs while maligning or dismissing large segments of the American public. Electing Trump could be catastrophic for the nation.

I can’t sign on with someone who says, seemingly with all sincerity, that he will deport many millions of people from this country–but can’t explain how he plans to accomplish it–and that he will make another country pay for our border security–even after the leaders of that country say they will not and you can’t make me–and that he knows more about fighting foreign terrorists than the military professionals–really, how do you know that?–and lies about, well, he lies about what feels like everything else.

The only thing I can think of that Trump possibly has in his favor is that he is not Hillary Clinton.  When the campaigns started rolling last year, my hope was that certainly the Democrats wouldn’t nominate Clinton: there had to be other, better, trustworthy candidates, and I don’t want to have to listen to the litany of conservative freakout about her all over again.  But Trump’s not being Clinton isn’t enough, not when what he is turns out to be so disqualifying.

The biggest lie is right there on the front of his stupid cap: no matter what he says, no matter what stories he makes up to tell you what he thinks you want to hear, no matter how he tries to appeal to the lesser angels of our nature, the fact is America is great and always has been.  Because of its people, and the ideals that we try to live up to, this is a great country.  I didn’t say it was perfect, but Trump is lying to our face when he insinuates that America is anything less than great, and that he is the only person who can fix it.  It’s time to call him out to his lying face.