Mom, I have to start out by saying what an AMAZING woman you are. And while this quote is not yours, it’s become my guiding force as an adult, “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.” – Lieutenant General David Morrison (Australian Army). It signifies the strength you and Dad gave my brother and I, to stand up to injustice and always protect the less fortunate. Thank you for instilling those values in both of us, I’m forever grateful.
Peggy has known you ALL of her life and she too knows what an amazing person you are, with a kind heart and generous soul. Therefore, I hope my words yesterday didn’t stain that.
Now, on to Dennis’s comments... you went after the wrong person yesterday... literally. You didn’t take the time to realize that my mother is not the one that posted the picture of the tweet from Max von Essen. IT WAS ME! Instead of paying attention to detail, you went on a tirade and tried to mansplain your interpretation of political affairs to my mother, who quite honestly doesn’t need or deserve that. When reading your comments, it felt as though I had just hit play on the stereo to hear all of the Republican talking points, as if you took line after line from the Republican playbook written by Trump, his administration, his supporters and by FOX News. You asked my mother what news outlets she watched, as if I’m sure you felt she only watched CNN. Well, I personally don’t watch the news, AT ALL. I read and I listen to objective talk radio. I’m also the type of person that takes all of your comments, and forms an opinion based on factual information, so here are my opinions....
There are countless ways Trump has degraded the office of presidency, for one, as of January 2020, he’s lied 16,241 times. All politicians lie, I agree with that, but not to the overwhelming level Trump lies. After Trump was elected, he lied about the crowd size at his inauguration, said it was the biggest crowd ever and from then on, he’s continued to lie... A LOT. Trump has praised a congressman who body slammed a reporter, he’s degraded more women in power than any other president has, but it doesn’t just end with women, he degrades men as well, if they don’t agree with his views. Trump has said, in his own words, that “there were fine people on both sides”. NO, there weren’t fine people on both sides. Nazis aren’t fine people! Trump has threatened to strip security clearances from his critics, all while making sure his SIL, Jared Kushner received his through improper channels. And while many people call The Mueller Report, a witch hunt, it surely found a lot of witches! While the MR wasn’t used in the impeachment proceedings of your president, it did find that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election “in sweeping and systematic fashion” and produced an assessment that Trump was involved in committing crimes, which could result in impeachable offences. In fact, there were 10 instances of obstruction of justice (Trump asked James Comey to let Michael Flynn go, then the firing of James Comey, the reaction to the continuation of the Russia investigation, the attempts to oust Robert Mueller and his efforts to remove him, the efforts to curtail the Russia investigation, his attempts to stop the public from seeing the evidence, his efforts to bring back Jeff Session to take control of the investigation and lastly Trump telling Don McGahn to deny that he wanted the special counsel removed). The MR also produced 37 indictments and guilty plea deals (George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, 13 Russian Nationals and 3 Russian companies, Richard Pinedo, Alex van der Zwaan, Konstantin Kilmnik, 12 Russian GRU officers, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone). I can continue with more examples of Trumps degradation of the office he holds if you’d like. I have more, many more!
Nancy did not start the “crime-less” impeachment. Your president did, by calling on a foreign government to help him with his own political purpose to be re-elected. He not only called on Ukraine, but he obstructed justice by not allowing many with 1st hand knowledge to testify and he called on government agencies to withhold crucial documents. However, there were several witnesses who defied the president’s orders to not testify, and they are the ones who became the real hero’s in this whole process. He’s been impeached, he’ll always be an impeached president and that will not change. He was not convicted and removed from office due to the Senate, but keep in mind, just because he was not convicted doesn’t make him any less guilty and guilty he is. And your claim that he “kept more promises than any president in recent memory”. You do remember that he flipped his party affiliation because he couldn’t win the election as a Democrat. This president has actually flipped his positions more than any other president in recent history.
Regarding the tweet by Max von Essen, while you may not like what his tweet said, it doesn’t make it propaganda or untrue. Trump HAS sexually assaulted women, 17 to be exact. One of his assault victims, E Jean Carroll has recently asked for Trump’s DNA for evidence in her case. He HAS mocked the disabled, not my opinion, but fact and on tape. The link you shared from 600amtheanswer.com clearly shows that. In the video, Trump is referring to Serge Kovaleski, who is disabled. You can try and spin it to say that at the beginning of the video, it doesn’t appear from what you’re seeing that Kovaleski is disabled, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually not and it doesn’t mean that’s not what Trump’s intent was on that stage in Florida. Trump HAS torn children from their parents. In fact, in November 2019, there were 69,550 being detained from their parents, which is more than any other country. Trump DID HAVE Michael Cohen pay off a porn star on his behalf, which lead to Cohen serving a 3 year prison term in Federal prison. Trump DID insult a gold star family, the family of Capt. Humayun Khan who died while serving our country in Iraq. Again, not opinion, but fact and on tape. Trump DID call Nazis fine people and your claim that he condemned Charlottesville is an outright lie. He didn’t! Once again, not opinion, but fact and on tape. Trump DOES deny science. He rejected the climate assessment based on thousands of climate studies, involving 13 different federal agencies, he withdrew the US from the Paris climate treaty which was signed by nearly all nations to reduce fossil fuel emissions, and he replaced Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which reduces emission from US power plants. There’s more, I can keep going with this one too but those are a few examples. Trump DID steal from his charities, which resulted in him paying $2 million in damages to those 8 charities involved. Trump DID start a fake university and because of multiple lawsuits, it is now defunct. Trump settled the 3 lawsuits brought against the “university” and the Trump organization in November 2016 for a total of $25 million dollars.
You mentioned to my mother that she should try realclearpolitics.com as a reputable news source because they give both sides to issues of the day. But that’s not actually true. I rely on Media Bias Fact Check to source my information. They give RCP a mixed rating for factual reporting “due to use of multiple sources who have failed fact checks”. They do lean Right Center, but I wouldn’t rely on them for factual information. In fact, I always use mediabiasfactcheck.com, factcheck.org or politifact.com.
To sum this up, it is my opinion based on the examples I’ve given that there is no longer an objective moral compass and complete lack of situational ethics and our country deserves better than that.
And that is how my response ended. Again, I’m sure it went in one ear and out the other but at least I can say, I tried to make sense of it all.
