Vetting Donald Trump by Donna Gardner see note please
http://www.educationviews.org/vetting-donald-trump/
This column is from 2015 and exposes the hypocrisy of the so called “family values” of the Reverend Jerry Falwell Jr. rsk
I well understand the frustration that Americans feel with Obama and with Congress. I feel the same frustration. I also know from history that whenever there is a vacuum of leadership, someone will fill that void; and when people get to the desperation level where they feel they have no control, they will latch on to anyone who appears to offer them that leadership.
Remember that Obama promised Change, and the public latched on to him. Obama has certainly brought Change – in fact so much Change that the Great American Way is becoming almost unrecognizable!
Donald Trump has used the same approach by resoundingly convincing people that he will bring Change, and he has wisely chosen the areas in which a large percentage of Americans desperately want Change such as unlawful immigration and the disastrous deal with Iran.
Trump, who knows he must lean to the right to get elected in the Primaries, has even gone so far as to name conservatives Trey Gowdy as his Attorney General and Sarah Palin to serve in some official capacity in a Trump administration. Would he really follow through on these appointments if he ended up in the White House?
Of course, we must also remember that Donald Trump floated Oprah Winfrey (a New Age spiritualist) as his possible Vice President back in 1999 when he was considering a run for President as a member of the Reform Party. He justified his choice by saying that she was talented and was a friend of his — as if that qualifies a person to be Vice President who is a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
Donald Trump has also stated that Bill Clinton is his favorite President. What does this say about Trump’s judgment when he excuses the philandering and disrespectful way that Bill Clinton has treated multiple women? How could Trump possibly heap praise on Bill Clinton who is involved up to the gills with possible corruption at The Clinton Foundation and its questionable practices?
CHARACTER COUNTS
Americans got fooled two times when they elected Obama as President based upon his emotion-packed campaign rhetoric. America must never make that mistake again.
A Presidential candidate’s character and life experiences do matter. It is those and his ideology that end up driving the policies which he puts into place when he gets into the Oval Office – the things that he will “fall on the sword” to implement. It is his life experiences, value system, and ideology that dictate to him the type of people from whom he will take counsel and those whom he will appoint to his Cabinet and to the Supreme Court.
In fact, the character and life experiences of a President’s wife are also important because of the influence she has on him and upon the world as America’s First Lady.
Young people and many adults look to the President and his wife as role models; and whatever image they create eventually directs our culture and our public policies.
WHAT ABOUT DONALD TRUMP?
Question: What sort of a person is Donald Trump? What life experiences has he had that would impact the decisions he might make if elected President?
I respect those Republican Presidential candidates who have refused to criticize Donald Trump; but we as voters leading up to the Primaries have the duty and responsibility to vet carefully each Presidential candidate.
Please take the time to verify my research. I have included the links to help you. Then decide for yourself whether Donald Trump is someone whom you can trust to lead our country.
With his proclivity for foreign-born wives and his constant emphasis on judging the worth of people by how wealthy they are, could he be trusted to put wise, Godly counselors around himself in the White House?
What kind of people does Donald Trump consider to be his “friends”? Are they the type of people who would bring dignity and trust to the Office of the President of the United States?
Donald Trump is a man who came from great wealth but believes himself to be a self-made man. He seems to be a Narcissist who shares the very same characteristics that Obama has. How much does Donald Trump really know about The Constitution upon which our laws are built? Once in office, would he try to force his will upon our country in the same way he does as the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company instead of following the Rule of Law as found in The Constitution?
Can we trust Donald Trump and what he says?
DONALD TRUMP AND DRAFT DEFERMENTS
The following information has been taken from 7.18.15 — “Deferments Helped Donald Trump Dodge Vietnam” – TheSmokingGun.com — http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/deferments-helped-trump-dodge-vietnam. The article also includes links to the actual copies of Trump’s various Selective Service records.
Since Donald Trump has indicated that he does not believe Sen. John McCain is a war hero captured in Vietnam, here is what TSG has documented about the way Donald Trump avoided military service:
Donald Trump is the son of a very wealthy real estate developer and received four student deferments followed by a 1968 medical deferment that came a few months after he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Asked about the last of his five deferments, Trump said that his disqualifying medical condition was a bone spur in one of his feet (he could not remember which one).
…Despite Donald Trump’s claim this week that he avoided serving in the Vietnam War solely due to a high draft number, Selective Service records show that the purported presidential aspirant actually received a series of student deferments while in college and then topped those off with a medical deferment after graduation that helped spare him from fighting for his country…
However, Selective Service records reveal that Trump, the fortunate son of a multimillionaire real estate baron, took repeated steps to avoid serving in Vietnam.
By the time his number (356) was drawn during the December 1, 1969 draft lottery, Trump had already received four student deferments and a medical deferment, according to military records on file with the National Archives and Records Administration.
In fact, the December 1969 draft lottery occurred about 18 months after Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied business at the Wharton School. So, while claiming that he would ‘never forget’ being at Wharton watching the draft numbers being drawn, the 64-year-old Trump seems to have misremembered, as candidates are fond of saying.
Trump obtained his first two Class 2-S student deferments in June 1964 and December 1965, when he was student at Fordham University in the Bronx. He was briefly reclassified as 1-A–or ‘available for military service’ — in late-November 1966, but that classification was switched back to 2-S three weeks later.
Another 2-S deferment is dated January 16, 1968, just months before his graduation from UPenn (to which he transferred following his sophomore year at Fordham).
Following his UPenn graduation, Trump–no longer qualified for a 2-S deferment–was again briefly classified as available for service on July 9. However, three months later, on October 15, his classification was switched to 1-Y, which was given to men deemed qualified for military service ‘only in time of national emergency.’
The 1-Y classification came a month after Trump underwent an ‘Armed Forces Physical Examination,’ according to Selective Service records, which note the results of the exam as ‘DISQ.’ While the military records do not further detail why Trump was granted the 1-Y deferment, a 1992 biography of the businessman by journalist Wayne Barrett reported that Trump received a medical deferment following the September 17, 1968 exam.
Trump’s 1-Y classification stayed in effect until February 1, 1972 when it was changed to a 4-F classification (which covered registrants not qualified for military service). The change in classification was likely prompted by the military’s December 1971 decision to abolish the 1-Y classification.
DONALD TRUMP’S FIRST WIFE — IVANA
Donald Trump has been married three times and divorced twice. His first wife Ivana gave him the name ‘The Donald.’
Ivana Zelníčková is a native of the Czech Republic. At the age of six, she began competitive skiing, later qualified for the Olympics, immigrated to Canada, began a modeling career which led her in 1976 to New York City where she met the real estate mogul, Donald Trump. (2015 – “Ivana Trump Biography” — Biography.com — Ihttp://www.biography.com/people/ivana-trump-9542158 )
In 1977, Donald and Ivana married and had two sons and one daughter. All three are presently officials in Trump’s company. (7.30.15 – “Donald Trump” — Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump )
Ivana and Donald had severe marital problems, and his ex-wife Ivana Trump once used the word “rape” and felt “violated” to describe a violent incident between them in 1989:
Ivana Trump’s assertion of ‘rape’ came in a deposition—part of the early ’90s divorce case between the Trumps, and revealed in the 1993 book ‘Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump.’
The book, by former Texas Monthly and Newsweek reporter Harry Hurt III, described a harrowing scene. After a painful scalp reduction surgery to remove a bald spot, Donald Trump confronted his then-wife, who had previously used the same plastic surgeon.
‘Your f*** doctor has ruined me!’ Trump cried.
What followed was a ‘violent assault,’ according to ‘Lost Tycoon.’ Donald held back Ivana’s arms and began to pull out fistfuls of hair from her scalp, as if to mirror the pain he felt from his own operation. He tore off her clothes and unzipped his pants.
‘Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months. Ivana is terrified…It is a violent assault…According to versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘he raped me.’
Following the incident, Ivana ran upstairs, hid behind a locked door, and remained there ‘crying for the rest of night.’ When she returned to the master bedroom in the morning, he was there.
As she looks in horror at the ripped-out hair scattered all over the bed, he glares at her and asks with menacing casualness: ‘Does it hurt?’
…When Lost Tycoon was about to be printed, Donald Trump and his lawyers provided a statement from Ivana, which was posted on the first page of the book…
‘[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a “rape,” but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.’
…The 1990 divorce case between the two Trumps was granted on the grounds of Donald’s ‘cruel and inhuman treatment’ of Ivana.
The settlement, under which the Trumps agreed on the division of assets, was finalized in 1991. Her divorce involved a gag order that keeps her from talking about her marriage to Donald Trump without his permission.
According to Business Insider, Michael Cohen (Donald Trump’s lawyer) threatened the Daily Beast reporters if they dared to publish their 7.27.15 article even though it was based upon factual sources. Here is Michael Cohen’s statement which resembles the same type of bullying done by Obama and the various Chicago-style Mafia people who surround him:
‘I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know…So I’m warning you, tread very f*** lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f*** disgusting. You understand me?’
‘You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word rape, and I’m going to mess your life up…for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet…you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it.’
…’Though there’s many literal senses to the word, if you distort it, and you put Mr. Trump’s name there onto it, rest assured, you will suffer the consequences. So you do whatever you want. You want to ruin your life at the age of 20? You do that, and I’ll be happy to serve it right up to you.’ (7.27.15 – “Donald Trump’s Lawyer Goes Nuts on Reporters for Writing Controversial Story About Trump and His Ex-Wife” – by Harrison Jacobs — Business Insider — http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-wife-ivana-2015-7 )
DONALD TRUMP’S SECOND WIFE – MARLA MAPLES
Marla Maples and Donald Trump began an affair in 1985 while Trump was still married to Ivana Trump. Donald first met Marla at a celebrity tennis tournament in Atlantic City. Marla was 21. Donald secretly began romancing Marla while he found ways to ditch Ivana and his three children, Donny (19), Ivanka (15), and Eric (13). Unfortunately, the affair became public when word came out that Trump’s empire ‘was overextended by junk bonds and easy bank loans. By 1991 he faced $1 billion in debt and had lost his Trump Shuttle and 282-foot yacht, the Trump Princess.’ (5.19.97 — “The Donald Ducks Out” –by Karen Schneider – People — http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20122177,00.html)
Ivana discovered the affair in 1991 and confronted Marla on a ski slope in Aspen, Colorado. The public argument was reported by the news media and led to Ivana’s filing for a divorce from Donald in 1992.
According to an article published on 7.25.15 in The Daily Beast, even though Donald was dating Marla, he was also seeing other women. In fact, Donald in the early 90’s used to ask his ladies “to swing by the doctor for an AIDS test before he’d wine and dine them.”
…According to an early ‘90s Associated Press article, Trump—then a ‘newly eligible bachelor’—talked about how he asked women to agree to an AIDS test at his doctor’s office before he would take them out on a date.
…Trump made his comments shortly after his divorce from Ivana Trump was finalized, and after he had been seen out on the town with TV personality Marla Maples and then model Carla Bruni.
‘I have been known to say that to women,’ the real estate mogul and notorious womanizer told Newsday when asked if he actually asked potential lovers to test for STDs. ‘It’s one way to be careful. There are a lot of ways. I’m saying, take all of those ways and double them, because you will need them…It’s very scary out there.’ – (7.25.15 – “Trump Used To Test His Dates For AIDS” — by Asawin Suebsaeng – The Daily Beast — http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/25/stay-classy-trump-used-to-test-his-dates-for-aids.html )
At one point, Marla cut off contact with Donald. Then several days later, she showed up with a $250,000 engagement ring; and she stated to People that she and Donald’s marriage was going to be built on trust with no pre-nuptial necessary.
The couple postponed their wedding plans at least five times. Then in early 1993, Maples became pregnant; and a few months later, she told Donald to marry her or else. Tiffany was born on Oct. 13, 1993; and two months later on Dec. 19, 1993, Donald and Marla got married with a pre-nuptial in place.
Not long after their marriage, their disagreements began to surface over such things as the 65,000 square foot Mar-a-Lago which Marla wanted to make into a family retreat; but instead Donald turned it into a private country club (cost: $75,000 initiation plus $6,000 a month).
When Trump had his 50th birthday party at Trump Tower, he invited hundreds of guests while Marla wanted to have dinner alone with him.
With Donald obsessed with business and surrounded by other gorgeous, voluptuous women, Marla turned to her mother for companionship which Donald highly resented. On June 8, 1999, Marla and Donald got divorced. (7.29.15 — Wikipedia – Marla Maples — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marla_Maples) and (5.19.97 – “The Donald Ducks Out” – by Karen Schneider – People — http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20122177,00.html
DONALD TRUMP’S THIRD WIFE — MELANIA
On April 26, 2004, Donald proposed to Melania Knauss, a native of Slovenia. They got married on Jan. 22, 2005, on the island of Palm Beach, Florida, with the reception at Mar-a-Lago. Melania wore a $200,000 dress made by the house of Christian Dior; and the orange, butter-cream-filled cake weighed 50 pounds and was covered with 3,000 roses.
On March 20, 2006, Melania gave birth to a boy named Barron William Trump who is Donald’s fifth child. (7.28.15 – “Melania Trump” – Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melania_Trump )
In June 2015 when Donald blasted Jeb Bush for being such a big supporter of Common Core, Melania told Donald “to lay off Jeb Bush”; and Trump unfortunately appears to have taken her advice with few if any mentions of Common Core/Jeb Bush since. (6.28.15 — “Donald Trump’s Wife Wants Him To Lay off Jeb Bush” – by Geoff Earle — New York Post — http://nypost.com/2015/06/28/donald-trumps-wife-wants-him-to-lay-off-jeb-bush/ )
CAN WE VOTERS TRUST TRUMP TO STAND FOR CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES?
We voters must always remember that to win the Primary, Trump has to move to the right to get conservative votes. He has no proven voting record of his own by which we can judge him. Because of his own life experiences, should we really count on Trump “falling on his sword” to support pro-life issues, abstinence education, traditional marriage, and other conservative principles?
When CNN asked Trump to explain how he could possibly support traditional marriage having been married three times and divorced twice, here is what he said:
The real estate mogul revisited his socially conservative views on abortion and marriage with awareness that they are difficult for many to understand given his personal history.
‘I’m (for) traditional marriage,’ he said.
When asked how Trump reconciles the notion of ‘traditional marriage’ with his personal history of being married three times and divorced twice, Trump conceded the point. (6.28.15 – “Donald Trump Talks Immigration, Gay Marriage and ISIS” – by Eugene Scott — CNN – http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/28/politics/donald-trump-immigration-gay-marriage-2016/ )
MY CLOSING THOUGHTS
I personally like some of the positions Donald Trump has taken against illegal immigration and the Iran deal. I appreciate the fact that he has taken a position against Common Core. I believe he knows a great deal about business issues; however, it still concerns me that he himself has spent wildly and that his corporations have had to file bankruptcy four different times.
My biggest reservations are that Trump does not seem to live out the conservative principles in his own life, and “his walk does not match his talk.” How could we depend upon him to make the gut-wrenching decisions that are going to be absolutely necessary in this next Presidency to drag our country back from the slippery slope upon which Obama has placed us? Not only are we more than $18 Trillion in debt, but our culture is so saturated with the social justice agenda that the future of our children and grandchildren is at stake.
We must vet each of these Presidential candidates very carefully; and when we are satisfied that we have found the one upon whom we can place our trust, we need to educate those voters around us.
OUR CHOICE – TED CRUZ
My husband and I have already made our decision after spending many months vetting each candidate. Our choice is Ted Cruz because of his proven record and the courage he has already demonstrated to take a principled stand. Ted Cruz has no secrets because he has had the courage to reveal all in his book, “A Time for Truth.” ($12.05 on Amazon.com — http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0062365614/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1_har_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1438322825&sr=8-1&keywords=a+time+for+truth%2C+ted+cruz)
After reading Ted Cruz’s book, we believe more than ever that he has been equipped by God with the experiences to lead our country back to the Rule of Law and away from the lawlessness this present administration has implemented.
Each of you will have to make your own decision about the person you plan to support for President, but please do not wait too long to vet candidates’ backgrounds and life experiences. Please do not be misled by what they say in the midst of the “Silly Season” just to get votes.
Donna Garner
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