By George Smith

Fraud.*

That is a one-word description that fits President Donald Trump.

His entire life, from his first business dealings back in the early ‘70s, is rift with examples of brazen acts of fraud.

With his father Fred, he fraudulently evicted people of color from family apartment buildings in order to populate the buildings with people of European descent.

Moving on to more recent examples:

— The Trump Foundation was ordered closed, the non-profit was fined and its assets ordered distributed to charitable organizations because of “fraud”, i.e., personal use of foundation funds.

— Trump’s I’ll-make-you-rich business, Trump University, was ordered closed and had to pay $25 million in restitution to former students. The reason? Fraud.

— The New York attorney general just filed financial fraud charges against the president based on a years’-long investigation. The portrait those efforts have painted is consistent: Trump engages in systematic financial fraud,not just aggressive use of tax sheltering, but straight-up criminal fraud, and counts on lax-to-nonexistent enforcement to make his crimes pay.

Last month, ProPublica online news service found huge discrepancies between the figures Trump has cited for the profitability of two Manhattan buildings given to lenders and what he reported to city tax authorities. As you might guess, Trump tells lenders he’s rich and tells the government he’s poor. An accounting professor called it “versions of fraud.”

ProPublica has another report showing Trump has run the same scam for Trump Tower. In 2011 and 2012, Trump told a lender that his rooms were 98.7 percent and 99 percent occupied, but told the city it had just an 83 percent occupancy rate.

Clever? Isn’t that the word one could use for finding a complicated tax shelter, or taking full advantage of what the law allows?  It’s just clever until you get caught, then, it becomes just at criminal fraud.

— Before Trump became president, it was his company’s common business practice to threaten to sue subcontractors after complaining about “sunstandard work” if they didn’t settle for a smaller settlement amount. Time and time again, on projects around the world, subcontractors reported examples of hatchet-job fraud and strong-arm tactics used by Trump.

— To Christians, Trump’s blatant attempt at making himself more appealing to evangelicals by marching to a church near the White House for a Bible-holding photo op should have set off alarm bells as an in-your-face example of religious fraud. Christian values do not exist in this president; he has no empathy, no charity in his heart for others, no forgiveness, he attacks the less fortunate among us and does not exhibit a single characteristic of living a life filled with compassion and love.

—Still on the horizon will be investigations into the president’s tax returns, which, when matched up with subpoenaed bank records, will make for interesting reading.  

Donald Trump is a fraud, in his business dealings, in his administration of his duties as president, in his heart.

The United States of America deserves better.

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By George Smith

I respect the office of the president of the United States. The status of that office and the powers given to it are guaranteed by the timeless words in the Constitution.

That said, President Donald Trump is simply an office placeholder, a fractious hiccup in the spasming of the nation’s inner workings. He is a danger to the security and future of the Unitrd States.

Trump, despite him constantly pushing blame for every negative anomaly toward others, is his own worst enemy. Simply put, he cannot keep his mouth shut; when he opens it, a cascade of malignant ignorance pours out like water in a Rocky Mountain stream after a spring thaw.

In one breath, he claims vote-by-mail in Florida is perfectly acceptable, while having his campaign sue the state of Nevada for gearing up its vote-by-mail efforts.

A creature of strong beliefs (which change as often as Mattress Back Beulah changes sheets), Trump sees nothing wrong with uttering a statement that screams “LIE!” as it slides off his tongue. 

The president cannot be as smart as he proclaims or as smart as his followers apparently believe, if 1. He believes his lies, and 2. He doesn’t think about his statements being checked for accuracy.

If I could pick the next president of the United States, Joe Biden woukd not be my first choice. That said, when it the choice is between  President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the choice is clear…Biden gets a vigorous nod.

This nation cannot stand another four years of abject incompetence, malevolent corruption, constant erosion of the nation’s institutional moral fiber, profiteering attacks on the environment, childish personal attacks and vindictive actions on opponents and the media, open-faced graft and corruption and in-your-face toadyism by appointed officials supposedly representing the residents of this nation.

The president’s intent is to reshape the face of government into an autocracy, democracy be damned. Trump knows best and those that do not agree are targeted to be squashed like  cockroach. 

This is not the picture of the country in which I grew up, nor is it a place I want for my children and grandchildren.

Trump has fostered a climate of mistrust snd division across the nation and far too many people are buying into his my-way-or-the-highway,  pulpit-pounding spiel. It’s a them-vs.-us battleground with the presudent changing the face of the “them” to suit his personal agenda.

If you follow Trump blindly and buy into his I-am-the-greatest-at-everything!  ballyhoo, the nation’s future as a democracy, as the shing beacon of freedom in the world, is endangered.

Trump and his minions are slicing and dicing the United States into tiny pieces. If re-elected, the nation’s future is not just bleak, it is in doubt.

Read. Research. Analyze. Think.

You hold the nation’s future in your hand.

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By George Smith

Do-these-Trumpuppets-ever-think-before-they-speak? headline of the day:

“Mnuchin on $600 unemployment benefit: We can’t be ‘paying people more to stay home’”

Does he ever listen to himself? I agree that $600 a week in unemployment benefits for taxpayers is too much if a worker was making $300/$500 a week before the pandemic hit.

That was the result of a knee-jerk solution to a problem that was not well thought out. Our elected officials from both parties simply blew this crucial stimulus assignment.

Trying to be honest, practical and fiscally conservative, BobJean and I should not have been included in the first round of stimulus checks. We received $1,750; we spent it to help stimulate the economy, but with our Social Security and monthy baby retirement stipends, we could make it fiscally without government assistant.

(Note to those preparing to hurl snark: Yes, we cashed the check and will cash the next one, if it comes. We will spend it to help stimulate the economy.) 

The mere fact we received federal aid showed how ill-prepared the government was in dealing with this pandemic amd how billions in wasted tax dollars were mailed or directly deposited because THERE WAS NO PLAN for equitable and logical federal aid distribution.

And, sadly, in the past three months, no new, more realistic plan has been devised.

Sad. Just sad. And that is as good a one-word assessment of this irresponsible and bumbling administration as can be written.

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