By Eric Lindenbusch
Bonners Ferry
Mike, I think I’m beginning to understand another reason why Donald Trump has been so successful in the real estate business. You and others have allowed him to live completely rent-free in your heads. You have the same degree of obsession with him as Captain Ahab had with Moby Dick in Herman Melville’s famous 1851 novel.
Where is it getting you? Are you winning friends or influencing people in a positive manner? Are you changing minds and hearts?
I actually don’t mind you or anyone in journalism keeping a close eye on Trump and his activities.
Here’s what’s bothering me, though. I am not aware of you devoting even a single solitary word, spoken or written, to express concern about Joe Biden’s appalling lack of ability to serve as the most powerful head of state in the entire world – the nuclear codes in his sole control. So for the sake of your more regular readers here, and for that of basic fairness and balance, kindly allow me to share the following by syndicated columnist Victor Davis Hanson in the aftermath of the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life.
Had Joe Biden’s 81 million votes in 2020 come from 81 million individual American citizens, each of whom were legally registered to vote, and each of whom voted one and only one time, our current national problems wouldn’t be quite so serious.
In fact, Trump might not even be the GOP nominee now. But they did not. The Left stole the 2020 election. If the Left hadn’t gotten away with it, Trump right now would be a lame-duck president serving his final term in office, with less than six months until his Oval Office departure. As it is, you may now look forward to Trump, and possibly J.D. Vance, serving as president until January 20, 2029 – barring a second and successful assassination attempt, of course.
I strongly recommend, as someone trying to show compassion, that you no longer allow Trump to live rent-free in your head, just as I’ve done regarding Joe Biden.
Go live your life. Count your blessings. Give thanks.
Be a watchdog when it comes to Trump, but don’t obsess over him 24/7, the way Captain Ahab did in his continual, sulfuric thoughts over Moby Dick. Because it really looks like Trump is going to be in our midst for awhile longer.
By Mike Weland
Publisher
I have been asking Trump supporters for almost 10 years now to tell me logically and with reason what they see in Donald that instills such fervid and near-religious faith in him, and I thank you for this attempt. It’s better than most, but still far short of the mark.
No, I am not winning friends or influencing people. That’s not my intent. I’m sounding an alarm, and a credible one.
Indulge me two brief asides.
My mother, born in Bavaria in 1940, was the wisest woman I ever knew, but I never could reconcile her lifelong adoration of Adolph Hitler with the stark black and white images I watched as a small boy on our tiny black and white television. Trains full of emaciated corpses, of the camps and ovens that constituted television programming there in the early 1960s. I never could understand how a nation could revere such an evil man, how a chain of missteps and misconceptions could lead him to power and so unleash his worst tendencies on people he professed to love and lead.
One image I saw several times on that little TV was of two immaculately uniformed men chatting amiably as they walked in the country, two beautiful but terrified young women, both nude, both trying in vain to maintain their modesty, walking ahead.
The women, I sensed, knew what lie ahead, yet still did their best to maintain a vestige of decency … of dignity. Even when they stopped and turned when ordered to face their executioners.
Two puffs a smoke from pistols casually drawn on that snippet of silent film, dark spots blossoming on the pale skin of each of two young women.
Only then did their hands fall, their modesty lost as they slumped and fell backwards from view. The camera panned forward, the grassy field giving way to the edge of a pit. Relentless, the lens closed in and opened up on an abyss piled deep with pale young bodies, the two so recently alive and beautiful just two forms indistinguishable in a jumble of hundreds of corpses.
A few years later, mom and dad, allowing me to take $10 of the $40 in my piggy bank, took me to a small town carnival. A gentleman in a tent caught my attention, an array of treasure laid out behind him. It was an Instamatic camera that caught my young eye, complete with flash cubes and a couple rolls of film. I had to have it.
I don’t remember the specifics, but somehow, that guy knew, and he played me like a fish. “Oh!” he’d commiserate, you were so close you almost got it! I know better, but I know how much you want this and I want you to have it even more … here’s what I’m gonna do …”
I whined so hard after the last of that $10 crossed from my hand to his dad drove me home so I could grab up the $30 left in my piggy bank earned from a full summer of selling TV Guide door to door.
I still don’t know how that carny got that last $30, or what he said to convince me I was winning when it was clear I’d already lost … a few days later I saw that very camera in a glass case at Gibson’s … $7.95. I just knew I’d been had, that there were people who’d rather trick the gullible than earn honestly, take rather than give.
Ahem, Eric, sorry for the soliloquy. Suffice to say I am sensitive to and dislike cult leaders and conmen, I dislike that they abuse the trust of my neighbors and I revel in identifying and exposing them.
Donald Trump is both a conman and a cult leader, quite possibly as good or slightly better than Adolph himself, whom Trump admittedly emulates.
First, I will refute your contention that Trump is or was a successful businessman … he isn’t and wasn’t. Had he not won the presidency in 2016 and been afforded taxpayer dollars for him to host official government business at his properties, I’m convinced he’d almost certainly have lost those properties to bankruptcy.
And here I will admit that’s my opinion … I have no objective fact upon which to validate that assumption. Not because facts are unavailable, but because I have no access, in this instance, u to the one salient ingredient missing in every defense of Trump I’ve seen to date … evidence.
What’s bothering you, I fear, isn’t that I’m not disparaging Joe, it’s that I’m not confusing subjective assertions with objective fact, speculation with evidence. That what I am asking is that Donald Trump be treated as the constitution demands as regards justice — equally.
He has not. He has been held as being above the law long before his supreme court’s appalling decision that he should be. Far from being persecuted by his enemies using the justice system as a bludgeon, he has been shielded from justice at every turn thus far, which is an injustice to every U.S. citizen and yet one more angle in his attack on the constitution he once laid his hand on and swore to uphold.
I will allow you to share the Hanson video with a challenge … show me one piece of evidence he offers. That he’s a syndicated columnist is impressive … Alex Jones is impressive as a pundit, too. Fox, the National Enquirer and OAN offer truthful and legitimate news, pro wrestling and cock fighting are legitimate sports. False equivalence is a legitimate ploy in debate.
I’m struck by how adamantly Trump asserts his opinion and bewails how terribly he’s oppressed before the cameras on the street while he says nothing in court during proceedings against him … clear indication he knows truth from a lie and the consequences thereof.
I’m sorry, sir, but your missive offers nothing objective to convince me that Donald John Trump is anything other than a con man and charismatic liar, a very impressive cult leader adept at persuading the gullible they’re two cents away from winning a one cent prize to walk away counting their hard-earned life savings.
You assert I should spew equal venom at Biden as I do at Trump. You have the Fairness Doctrine skewed, but I’ll briefly indulge you. As a journalist, I have to differentiate between hearsay and evidence every time I am writing an accusatory article lest I be accused of libel. That’s why you seldom read of criminal accusations before a case is opened in a court of law, which requires the establishment of probable cause.
The list of criminal and ethical accusations against Trump is too long to cover here, but let’s look at a few, condensed from Wikipedia for convenience.
Mueller Report – In January 2017, an assessment was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence asserting that Russian leadership had favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over rival candidate Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally ordered an “influence campaign” to harm Clinton’s electoral chances and “undermine public faith in the US democratic process.” Released in March 2019, the Mueller report resulted in multiple indictments, guilty pleas and convictions against a number of Trump associates involving Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election between Trump and Hillary Clinton, and a number of Russians were indicted on charges related to election interference against the Democratic National Committee. Attorney General Bill Barr released a redacted version of the report to make it sound as if it exonerated Trump. It didn’t. “If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that,” Mueller testified at a May, 2019 hearing. “We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime … A president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view – that too is prohibited.”
First Impeachment: In January 2017, an assessment was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence asserting that Russian leadership had favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over rival candidate Hillary Clinton, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally ordered an “influence campaign” to harm Clinton’s electoral chances and “undermine public faith in the US democratic process.” An impeachment inquiry found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection. In furtherance of this scheme, President Trump conditioned official acts on a public announcement by the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of politically-motivated investigations, including one into President Trump’s domestic political opponent. In pressuring President Zelenskyy to carry out his demand, President Trump withheld a White House meeting desperately sought by the Ukrainian President, and critical U.S. military assistance to fight Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. The first impeachment of President Donald Trump occurred on December 18, 2019. On that date, the House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
As the articles of impeachment moved to a vote before the full House and referral to the Senate for trial, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell met with Trump’s attorneys, later stating, “Everything I do during this I’m coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this … I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers.”
“I’m not an impartial juror,” he said later. “This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision.”
Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham said, “I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here … I will do everything I can to make [the impeachment trial] die quickly.”
The Constitution mandates senators to take an impeachment oath, in which by Senate rules is stated, “I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.”
Impartial justice was not done as the Senate voted along party lines February 5 to acquit, with Republican Mitt Romney voting with Democrats and Independents to find Trump guilty of abuse.
The Big Lie: On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden won election to the presidency with 51.3-percent of the popular vote, but even before the count was in, Trump was propagating “the Big Lie,” a propaganda technique described by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf to describe how people could be induced to believe so colossal a lie because they would not believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
Trump’s legal team brought 63 lawsuits alleging voter fraud, rigged voting machines and communist conspiracy. Each lawsuit failed.
“This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence,” Pennsylvania U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann, a Republican, ruled in dismissing one of those cases. “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”
His legal challenges concluded, Trump refused to concede or let up, resorting to ever more flagrant tactics flouting both legal and ethical standards. Among other efforts to overturn the election to his favor, he and his supporters called on two GOP members of the Wayne County, Michigan, board of canvassers, pressuring them to refuse certifying election results, making attempts to have local law enforcement officers seize voting machines, and pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes.”
Trump and 18 co-defendants were indicted on a plethora of felony charges in Fulton County Superior Court, four accepted plea deals and pled. While the defense has yet to argue on merits of the case, they have successfully tied the case up until December, when a Georgia appeals court will determine if prosecutor Fani Willis is qualified to continue as prosecutor after hiring her boyfriend to help with the case, creating a possible conflict of interest.
When those attempts failed, he put pressure on his vice-president, Mike Pence, to refuse the certification on January 6. Which led to …
Insurrection and Impeachment II: No need to cover the background regarding January 6, 2021, suffice to say that Trump once again slipped away unscathed and unaccountable.
““Former President Trump’s actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as GOP Senators overlooked both their oaths of office and to sit as impartial jurors, instead kneeling before the altar of Trump in hopes of pat on the head. “Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”
Buck passed, justice perverted and the separation of powers clause of the U.S. Constitution violated. And his wild train ride running roughshod through our judiciary shows no sign of slowing, the engines stoked nonstop by high-ranking sycophants and MAGA Republicans who still profess to stand for truth, justice and the American way.
I hear often I ought to cover Biden’s shortcomings, misdirection being another useless tool in the belt of a group bereft of truth or good judgment with which to frame a credible argument. For what? What are the accusations, and who is making them? Where is the evidence, the probable cause?
Ahab was relentless to the point of obsession in pursuit of that evil whale, Moby, who took his leg while Ahab and his crew fought valiantly to take the behemoth’s life. Maybe I seem obsessed with Donald Trump, full of hate toward him, but I’m not. In general, I just dislike conmen who take by ruse and subterfuge from people who are my neighbors.
I especially dislike cult leaders who abuse with impunity the blind trust of those enthralled. But I think the leading factor may be that I hold my freedoms dear and the constitution that establishes those freedoms and rights to all her citizens in the highest esteem. I take the oath I first took as a young man to protect and defend that constitution, that grand idea, seriously, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Donald Trump is that threat, a clear and present danger, bolstered and emboldened by the many who so blindly believe him.
“They’ve launched one witch hunt after another to try and stop our movement, to thwart the will of the American people,” is just one more in a string of lies widely believed. “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you.”
No, they are not, Donald. They are coming after you. Because you are not above the law, not beyond justice, not yet. We the voting citizens of this nation, seeing clearly the threat you pose to our nation, our government, our freedoms, have one last chance to mete the justice you so richly deserve.