Covfefe: 51 Reasons Why To FIRE Donald Trump This November

My original intention was for an article titled "101 Reasons Why to Vote Trump Out of Office", but was told no one would want to read that many reasons. I actually came up with more than 200 reasons, including a vast library of insulting tweets. Then a friend gave me some good advice. Democrats and Liberals are already against Trump, so there is no need to preach to the choir. Target this article to the Conservatives and Republicans. The ones who are wondering if they should cross party lines to get rid of this president. Remind them why they would want to do this. If you are a Democrat, already a Nevertrump Republican, or an independent who has already decided not to vote out Trump in the next election, don't bother reading this. It will only make you angry. As for the rest of you, I can't say you will find everything listed here a reason to vote him out of office. Maybe some you are willing to overlook, and some you are even in favor of. But I am sure there is enough here to convince you he doesn't deserve a second term.

Originally the protest in Charlottesville were over Confederate statues the local government wanted removed from public spaces. A Neo Nazi group saw this as an opportunity to recruit new members, and staged a rally, which consisted of them marching down a street at night carrying Tiki torches and chanting anti-semitic slogans. This in turn brought in a bunch of counterprotesters to Charlottesville who showed up to denounce them. One member of the Neo Nazis drove his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing a woman.

Unanimously politicians denounced the Neo Nazis, both for the murder and for stirring up trouble with their racist march in the first place. But Trump remained silent, refusing to denounce the Nazis. When finally pressed on the issue, he appeared to take the Neo Nazis side by claiming the altercation was the result of troublemakers on the counterprotesters side, later claiming that "There were fine people on both sides".

Diplomatic manners are very important. Presidents need to follow them while on state visits in order not to insult the other nations leaders, who we most likely will need a favor from some time in the future. Yet Trump is either incapable of learning it, or simply refuses to do it. In layman's terms, he acts rude to other heads of state. Whether shoving the prime minister of Montenegro out of his way during a photo op at a NATO event, or walking in front of the Queen of England while she was inspecting the military at another photo op, or all those times he has insulted heads of state on twitter. As he is representing the United States during these state visits, his rudeness makes us look rude. In the future we very well may need the country we insulted to vote on a U.N. resolution, to side with us during a war, or to agree to a trade treaty. Not very likely if their leader hates us.

Each year about 70,000 people sneak into the United States seeking to live here without following the proper legal path to citizenship. Of course, the legal path at best takes years of jumping through bureaucratic hoops, and most likely will not be successful. Unless you are rich, which means you can skip the line and become an instant citizen. We have an open border with Canada, meaning God knows how many white English speaking illegals crossed into America and stole our jobs. We have no problem with Canadians. It is the poor, uneducated Spanish speaking Native Americans from Mexico and further South the Xenophobes want to stop, the ones that have little chance of stealing any decent jobs. The only ones willing to take the low paying non union jobs natural born citizens refuse to do, such as picking crops. It is these red skins seeking asylum here that Trump's base wants kept out of their America. So to appease his base, Trump ordered the asylum seeking families "illegally " crossing our boarders to be separated and sent to different detention camps. That is how over 13,000 South American children ended up in kiddie concentration camps.

Statues honoring Confederate generals were erected during the Jim Crow era of the South. While I agree with the argument that once a statue or monument is erected it should be protected as both an historic artifact and as artwork, I would only go that far with my argument. After all, these are statues of slave owners, erected by racists who were pining for the return of the Old South and it's slavery. Trump goes beyond that, claiming the removal of Confederate statues are an attack on our culture. Basically giving legitimacy to the Confederacy. Furthermore, he has refused to allow bases named after Confederate generals to be renamed. He has even gone on to denounce NASCAR for banning the Confederate flag from their events. No president of the United States has ever taken the side of the Confederacy. Donald Trump appears to be the first.

An alarming 35% of the persons he appointed as cabinet members and heads of government agencies had conflicts of interest. In other words, the policies they decide to carry out could enrich them, or they were lobbyists who's clients would benefit from their policy decisions. While it isn't unusual for a president to ignore conflict of interest protocol, there are usually no more than a couple of violations.

The working poor and middle class have been paying too much in taxes. That's a fact. The Republicans have been campaigning on cutting taxes for decades, but their tax cuts have always been for the rich with just minimal tax relief for everyone else. And usually those tax cuts come with the elimination of deductions, which means the middle class usually ends up paying more when they are factored in. Trump's tax cut benefitted himself and the rich tremendously, while many workers ended up seeing less of a return. Worse, the fine print of the tax bill raises taxes on everyone but the rich in ten years. Of course, cutting billions in taxes for the rich and big corporations means less money for the government to spend, and Trump tried to balance the budget by cutting 1.7 million from Medicare and food stamps, which even the Republicans couldn't back. But let's put this in perspective. The rich, who already have ten times or more the wealth they can ever hope to spend in a lifetime, got trillions in tax relief, which the poor and working class have to pay for.

Trump may insist the Russian probe was a Democratic political witchhunt, but it was initiated by the Republicans when they controlled both the House and Senate. And for a good reason. Russia had sought to manipulate the outcome of an American election and appeared to succeed. Serious questions needed to be answered. How effective was Russia in manipulating voters into choosing their preferred candidate? Were there agents for Russia operating in America? Were Americans colluding with Russia? And why did the Russians believe it was important for Trump to win, and did they have leverage over Trump that would make him a puppet for Putin? The question over if Trump participated in any collusion didn't get added to the list until he had the original investigation shut down. The Republicans brought in Robert Mueller, who had an impeccable record and was a full fledged Republican that they could trust. If Trump was truly innocent of collusion then he should have allowed the probe to go forward. Instead he made himself look guilty by obstructing the probe, causing it to drag on for months. And he continued to badmouth Mueller, who graciously refused to charge Trump with obstructing his investigation and instead left it up to the Republican party whether to pursue an impeachment or protect Trump.

When the probe was initiated, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself. Both for the benefit of the Republican Party which didn't want to be seen as interfering in the investigation, and because the law dictated that Sessions recuse himself. Of course Trump wanted Sessions to end the Russia Probe, which he was warned by Republicans not to do himself or face impeachment. ( In retrospect, Trump probably could have fired Mueller and order the probe closed and the Republicans wouldn't have had the guts to impeach him. ) Sessions reward for obeying the law and refusing to shut down the Russia investigation? Trump campaigned against him in the recent primaries, the possible reason his opponent who Trump endorsed won. Jeff Sessions was the first Republican to endorse Trump during his presidential run in 2016, and for a while, the only establishment Republican to back him. He has been nothing but a supporter for Trump, even publicly calling him a great president as Trump campaigned against him. His only sin against Trump was not publicly breaking the law for him, which was probably in Trumps best interest if the Republicans were serious about impeaching him if the Russian probe was shut down. If this is how Trump treats his friends, imagine what he plans for his real enemies.

Ever since it's passing, the Republican Party has vowed to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. However, there has developed one slight problem with that plan, and that is millions of formerly uninsured Republicans signing up for Obomacare because they couldn't afford anything else, and they don't want their health coverage taken away. So for the past four years the strategy was to "Replace and Repeal", meaning before the Republicans strip America of Obamacare, they need to have a different affordable care act of their own ready to replace it so Americans wouldn't end up uninsured. The failure of the Republicans to agree on a replacement had saved Obamacare from repeal. But that hasn't stopped Trump, who prefers to repeal without replacement, making multiple attempts to end Obamacare. The latest being a lawsuit before the Supreme Court. Repealing Obamacare would not just be devastating for the millions who suddenly find themselves uninsured, but would be devastating for the Republican Party who would all be held responsible for their constituents loss of affordable health insurance. But Trump cares little about political backlash against Republicans, nor how many Americans would be stuck without any healthcare. He just wants it gone no matter what, just to stroke his own ego.

The reason for the existence of Black Lives Matter is that police across this nation seem to think African Americans are expendable. Too often unarmed black men, woman, and even children, are shot to death or killed while in the custody of police, occasionally in cases where the individual killed was completely innocent of any crime. On top of that, millions of African Americans are harassed, beaten, arrested, teased or threatened with weapons every day just for being suspected of criminal activity. They even have been shot to death in their own homes. The latest victim, an innocent woman, didn't even make it out of the bed she had been sleeping in when the police shot into her apartment. Do police shoot white people as well? Yes. But usually only if they are brandishing a deadly weapon, have been told many times to drop it, and are acting aggressively towards the police. The incident that sparked the recent BLM protests was a police officer deliberately kneeling on the neck of an African American until he was dead. George Floyd's crime? One of the $20 Bills he used was counterfeit. Most of America, including a majority of whites, are in favor of the BLM movement. But not Trump. He calls the phrase "Black Lives Matter" hate speech, and has claimed that more unarmed white people are killed by police than black people. And according to police reports, that just isn't true. This means that either Trump is woefully ignorant of one of the most important political issues of our generation, or believes that people of color deserve to be assumed criminals and shot by police.

Whether you believe the Russia Probe was politically motivated by anti Trumpers, or justified by already existing evidence of Russian interference in the election and a President that was acting very suspicious, the one thing we can all agree on was that Mueller did uncover criminal acts by Trumps cohorts that deserved punishment. Michael Flynn even confessed to having lied to FBI investigators about meeting with Russian ambassadors prior to Trump being sworn in to office. He was set to be sentenced when Trump ordered his charges dropped. Roger Stone had been convicted of lying to the FBI on several occasions and of threatening witnesses. Convicted by a jury on all counts, he was sentenced to 40 months in prison. Trump had his sentence commuted so he wouldn't need to serve a single day. Trump made it clear. If you break the law for him then he will protect you from punishment. If you don't break the law for him then he will politically destroy you.

Protecting his friends who broke the law for him went further back than this year. According to former FBI director James Comey, Trump tried to pressure him to stop investigating Michael Flynn. He also pressured Comey to drop the Russia investigation altogether. And when he didn't, Trump ordered him fired. Initially saying it was because of Comey's handling of the investigation against Hillary Clinton and her e-mails, but later admitting it was because of the Russia investigation.

Honesty is a trait we expect from our presidents. Not that they never lied. Even George Washington lied on occasions. ( BTW, that whole story about him chopping down the cherry tree and telling the truth about it to his father.... complete lie. Fabricated by Mason Locke Weems in 1806. ) But we expect their dishonesty to be within reason. Not with Trump, who lies are a daily event. Perhaps his most memorable lie was this whopper. His claim that his inauguration drew a crowd larger than any before. Which just wasn't true. I mean, this was an event that was covered live on every television network. You could clearly see that fewer people showed up than for the past presidents. Aerial photos proved that the crowd size was less than half of the crowd that showed up for Obama. And yet Trump instructed his press secretary Sean Spicer to open his press conference with a statement that the inauguration was the biggest in history. To a group of reporters who covered both Trump and Obama's inaugurations and knew for a fact that wasn't true. To lie about policy is one thing. But to insist something is true that so clearly isn't true, is madness. Forget wanting your presidents honest. You don't want them making really dumb lies then doubling down on them

The Travel Ban. Trump's ban of from 7 Muslim countries entering the United States for 90 to 120 days, instituted to appease the xenophobes in his base. But for fiscal conservatives, it meant the loss of millions of dollars as thousands of refuge and foreign nationals who had already been vetted would have to repeat the process at the U.S. taxpayers expense. It also meant terrible publicity for the Republican Party early on in the term which most likely cost them votes in the midterm elections. Like I said, the refugees and foreign nationals who were scheduled to enter the United States when the ban took effect had already gone through an extensive multi year vetting process to determine if they had any terrorist ties. Some of those denied entry into the United States were children, including infants. Much of the travel ban was shot down by the courts as unconstitutional. The cost to the U.S. economy was staggering. About $15 billion in tourism, $185 million of revenue lost to the airline industry, about $700 million lost to colleges for their foreign exchange student programs, not to mention the taxpayers cost of defending the bans in court and re-vetting the same foreigners. And not including money lost in lawsuits as foreign tourists sued over the money they lost by having the ban enacted without warning after they had paid for their trips to America, many who were turned back at the airport just after arriving. Total cost for this spur of the moment publicity stunt estimated at nearly $20 billion.

The Black Lives Matter protests attracted many looters and anarchists who took advantage of the situation and did their best to turn protests into riots, causing a lot of injuries and destruction of property. However, not all gatherings of protesters broke out in violence. Most mass protests ended without incident. The mob of protesters in front of the Whitehouse on June 1st, 2020 were non-violent, confirmed by live coverage of the protest by an Australian news crew. That non-violent protest ended when, without warning, national guardsmen and park police began firing what the Whitehouse would later claimed was technically not tear gas into the crowd, and began dispersing them by beating them with batons. Even the Australian news crew ended up being clubbed live on television before they had a chance to move out of the area. While the protesters were violently being dispersed, Trump was giving a speech kin the rose garden claiming he would call out the national guard against all protesters across the country if the state governors themselves didn't put down the protests. Then, once the protesters had been driven off, Trump crossed the now cleared street to the front of a church and awkwardly held up a bible for a couple of minutes. The constitutional rights of hundreds of Americans violated just so Trump could have pictures of himself holding up a book that teaches non violence.

The simplest thing a president can do is pick a staff. Very simple. Find people with credentials in the position needing to be filled, which Washington is full of. Having a stable staff shows how good your management skills are. Not so at the Whitehouse which had a record amount of turnovers, resulting from firings, forced resignations and those resigning out of protest. Trump prefers to call those resignations firings for doing a lousy job. If you were to believe Trump, he is surrounded by incompetence, all of who are solely responsible for any of his administrations failures. Boy, does he like to throw his staff under the bus when he makes a mistake he can't blame Obama for. Where most staff turnovers peak around 45% for two term presidents, Trump's is closer to 90%, and he hasn't completed his first term. This leaves only two possibilities. One, we believe Trump is telling the truth and the staff he let go was sub par. But that means more than half of the people he personally picked and hired were mistakes. Or they were perfectly reasonable at their jobs, and Trump is one of those bosses that prefers firing staff on the spur of the moment. Both which call into question his ability to manage.

Bone spurs kept Trump from being drafted into the Vietnam War. While Trump avoided going to war with doctors notes and his father's political connections, John McCain was being held as a prisoner of war. McCain would spend five and a half years as a prisoner, much of the time being tortured by his captors. He had passed up a chance of being released in 1968, insisting that the men who had been captured before him get released before he was. He would not be released until 1973. There was little doubt McCain was a hero. Unless you are Trump, who during his run for president stated that he doesn't consider soldiers who get captured to be heroes. As president, Trump continued to denigrate McCain's war record, and continued to insult him at rallies a year after McCain died.

Trump won the 2016 election via the Electoral College, which gave him the victory even though Clinton got 3 million more votes. Not satisfied with his victory, Trump began claiming he had also won the popular vote, and that the 3 million votes Clinton received over him were fraudulent. The Democrats had apparently stuffed ballots with 3 million votes, but inexplicably in blue states that Clinton was expected to win and not in the battleground states that would have handed her a victory. Continuing to insist the Democrats stuffed the ballots using illegal aliens, Trump initiated an investigation which concluded that no mass ballot stuffing had occurred at all. The investigation itself cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

Another investigation that ended up costing the taxpayers millions was an attempt by Trump to prove that Obama had wiretapped him when he was a candidate. Obama supposedly even went as far as rigging Trumps microwave oven to act as a spy camera. I am sure that whoever initial began this rumor said that Obama was using microwaves as part of his surveillance, which supposedly acts like X-ray vision. The investigation turned up nothing. Candidate Trump was neither bugged nor microwaved nor surveilled in any way.

During the Cold War, we were often reminded how lucky we were to live in the United States because those Commie countries has secret police that could arrest you without a warrant and imprison you indefinitely without any trial. Those arrested were the few brave souls who dared speak up against the government. That was something that happened in Communist countries. Not in the free world where we lived. That all came to an end in late July of 2020, when protesters in Portland were surrounded by armed men in uniforms, put into vehicles and driven off to internment facilities without being charged with any crime. Trump freely admits these are his own federal police, and that he is targeting BLM protesters in cities with Democratic mayors, with plans to send his secret police force to New York City, Chicago and other cities he deems liberal. His justification is to protect federal property from lawless protesters, and is targeting cities where he claims the state's governor has failed to do anything to stop the angry mobs. But the arrests his police made were caught on video, and those arrested were not committing any crimes at the time of their arrests. Rounding up dissidents in the name of protecting the country is exactly what the Communist and dictators used as an excuse for their secret police. And while this is something the courts will strike down as unconstitutional ( even the judges Trump installed will surely strike this down, ) just the idea that a president has attempted a secret police force in America, and used them to target protesters should make you worry what he would attempt if given a second term.

Before Trump took office, one of the biggest threats to America was North Korea developing their own nuclear weapons and long range missiles. Trump swore he was such a negotiating genius that he could solve the crisis where Obama couldn't. Four years later and Trump didn't so much as solve the crisis as sweep it under the rug. North Korea is still developing nuclear weapons, and currently has the ability to launch warheads against the East Coast. After threatening North Korea with our own nuclear arsenal, then calling Kim Jung Un by the nickname "Little Rocketman" for a few more months, Trump had a peace conference with Kim where he basically gave in to a couple of North Korea's demands, then claimed the crisis was resolved. While evidence shows that North Korea is still developing nuclear weapons, Trump claims Kim Jung Un is one of his best friends, and a great guy, despite Kim being a ruthless dictator who starves and kills his own people.

Trump likes to boast how he kept his campaign promises. Which is definitely not true when it comes to the transgender community. During his 2016 campaign he courted the transgender vote by saying he would champion transgender rights. Which worked on former Olympic champion and Cold War hero Bruce Jenner, who had just transgendered into Katlin. Jenner's support for Trump was a major endorsement for the LGBT community, many who believed Trump's campaign promise. However, it did not take long for Trump to turn on the LGBT community. Obama era laws designed to protect the rights of transgenders were rolled back. And then came Trumps executive order banning transgenders from the military, which basically dishonorably discharged all transgenders serving in our military. I am not going to dwell on how discrimination of transgenders is wrong, or treating any service person like this after they were willing to put themselves in harm's way for our national security is wrong, because I am sure many reading this article are probably bias against anyone from the LGBT community and probably support discrimination against them. What I will point out is how easy Trump betrayed the transgenders who supported him. This shows his indifference to his own supporters, which he has no problem with betraying should it mean gaining political points with the rest of his base. Or betray his entire base once he no longer needs them.

The Global Warming theory was simple. Some gasses, like Oxygen, only absorb a little heat from the sun's rays. Other gasses, like Carbon, absorb a lot of heat. So the more carbon in the atmosphere, the more heat the atmosphere absorbs. And thanks to humans burning a heck of a lot of fossil fuel, the carbon in the atmosphere increases every year, leading to warmer temperatures worldwide. Already we are seeing what appears to be extreme weather caused by the warmer atmosphere, and almost everyone in the scientific community agrees that carbon emissions must be drastically reduced, or else things could get really bad. Crops failing on a global scale, millions of people dying and coastal cities being flooded bad. Most of the nations of this planet took the threat of global warming serious enough that they all signed a treaty, called the Paris Agreement, where each nation agreed to reduce their own carbon output. Well, Donald Trump pulled America out of the Paris Agreement. His reason: because he says Global Warming is a liberal hoax. Even Republicans are no longer denying the existence of Global Warming, although they still argue about how much of a threat it is. The undeniable evidence is happening right now. Yet Trump still believes most of the scientists on this planet are lying, and global warming is a hoax. As if almost all the scientists of this planet are lying for no good reason. We have become the only nation refusing to do anything to reverse global warming. And if it becomes the nightmare scenario scientists warn about, history will blame the United States regardless of how much carbon we actually contributed to the sky.

Classified information is for the eyes of our intelligence agencies, government officials with clearance and the president only. Leaking it not only allows our enemies to know what we know and what we are spying on, but allows them to work out where that information came from and which persons are actually agents working for the United States. Or gives away our surveillance abilities and technologies. For some reason Trump doesn't grasp this concept no matter how many times his advisors explain it to him. So you get incidents like inviting paying guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort to sit at his table while he orders the air force to bomb an airfield in Syria, or tweeting out an image from a classified satellite of a destroyed launchpad in Iran that gave away we had surveillance satellites over Iran, or the incident in May of 2017 where Trump blurted out a classified report to Russian diplomats visiting the oval office which burned the identity of an Israeli spy. In response to criticism of Trump leaking classified information, he defended himself by saying the President of the United States has the legal right to share classified information with whoever he or she wants. Which is true, but is completely missing the point of keeping classified information classified.

Republicans take pride in their party being fiscally conservative. It is the Democrats who believe in taxing and spending, not them. And the one thing fiscal conservatives will not vote for is an unnecessary eleven billion dollar boarder wall with Mexico. The Democrats are dead against the wall, so there was never any chance of it getting approved. That is why for a record thirty four days Trump shut down the government, refusing to open it unless his boarder wall was financed. The shutdown ran through the holiday season, meaning federal workers weren't paid, yet were still required by law to work. Eventually Trump backed down without a cent going to his wall.

America couldn't fight ISIS. The war in Iraq had depleted much of our volunteer Army, many who were required to stay on for additional tours of duty than what they had signed up for. Americans wanted our soldiers out of Iraq, so a policy was made to train an Iraqi army so that country could fend for itself, while Americans forces would be reduced. Having to return to fight the growing threat of ISIS would mean instituting a draft to replace the soldiers killed, injured or dismissed from the Iraq war. The only other alternative was to find allies who would do most of the fighting. Those allies were the Kurds, a large ethnic group who's territory ranges through Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, but as to date have no official country, and are often oppressed by the countries who rule over their lands. The Kurds didn't want to be ruled by ISIS, and had hoped if they fought to eradicate ISIS that the United States would help them obtain land of their own to call their own country, perhaps the Northern section of Iraq. Almost all of the fighting against ISIS was done by the Kurds, out of which more than 11,000 Kurdish soldiers died. But then came a phone call to from Turkish president Erdogan asking Trump to withdraw American troops from Syria. It had been known all along Turkey saw the Kurdish army as a threat, and the only thing keeping them from attacking them was the presence of the American army. That is until Trump agreed to Erdogan's request, withdrew all American troops, and stood by and allowed Turkey to decimate the Kurdish army. Aside from this being a terrible betrayal of our own allies, it weakened America in that region, allowing Syria and Russia to become allies with the surviving Kurds, and letting everyone else know that America can't be trusted as an ally. And despite Trumps declaration that ISIS was defeated, it is still present in the region, still capable of rebuilding stronger than ever, and there are no longer Kurdish forces to fight them should they come back.

So apparently at a meeting discussing the quota of refugees allowed to immigrate into America from each country in 2018, he complained that we were allowing too many dark skinned people from what he called "shithole countries" into the United States, and wanted to encourage more immigrants from white countries like Norway. Trump has denied saying this, and despite confirmation those words were said from sources who were present during the meeting, I will say this is currently unconfirmed. But it does seem to be in character with his tweets and policies that are anti poor immigrants of color, and pro rich educated white immigrants. Most troubling was his tweets directed towards congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilham Omar, claiming they had no right to complain about American policies and should go back to the countries their families came from and fix them instead. Adding "If you are not happy here then you can leave.", which is an attitude towards Americans of color that should not be tolerated from a president.

We are not supposed to treat our allies like enemies. You don't threat to pull out of N.A.T.O. unless the other character countries pay a higher percentage of the costs. This is forgetting N.A.T.O. was America's idea in the first place, allowing our military bases throughout Europe in case of a World War with Russia, which put nuclear targets on the charter members. You don't levy tariffs against the EU and Canada. You don't insult their leaders in tweets. Trump has treated our allies abominably. Take the recent decision to pull the military out of Germany. It has been there since the end of WWII as a deterrent against Russia invading the free half of the country. We spent millions protecting Germany, and they in turn allowed us to put our first response missile bases there. Removing the armed forces currently leaves one of our NATO allies vulnerable to a Russian attack. Our allies are the countries we expect to fight with us in wars, vote with us at the U.N., allow us to continue flying our military aircraft over their airspace, and generally be our friends instead of our enemies. They don't need to continue being our allies if we are treating them like enemies.

Trump has done so much that would have impeached previous presidents. To think, Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair with an intern just 10 years ago. That was how low the Republicans set the bar for impeachable infractions back then, only to raise the bar sky high for Trump. Had the Republicans not felt obligated to protect Trump, one of the infractions both parties could have teamed up on for a legal impeachment was profiteering. Basically the law says no sitting president can use his office to make money for himself. Which Trump doesn't seem concerned about. The most blatant instance is at his own building. Apartments and offices are rented by the U.S. government for whenever Trump decides to spend the night there, so that the Secret Service and military brass can be nearby. Heaven forbid Trump should offer the space for free, or at the least allow them to book rooms across the street at the less expensive Four Seasons Hotel. Instead he demands the taxpayers reimburse him for those rooms, which comes out to about $24 million a year. Any other president pulling this stunt would have been impeached, which is why no other president before Trump has ever dared fleece the American taxpayers for millions of dollars.

In June of 2020 The New York Times reported that sources within the Trump administration were claiming he was ignoring intelligence reports of Russian officials offering a bounty to Taliban fighters on every American soldier they killed, most likely in order to derail the peace talks Trump's people were having with Taliban to end the Afghanistan war. At first Trump claimed the article was fake news, then claimed he had never been briefed on the topic. However, it came out that Trump had been briefed in February, yet neither took any punitive measures, nor even spoke out against Russia. Instead he advocated for Russia to be invited back to the G4 summits.

Imagine one day you find out you are not American. Perhaps your parents came to this country when you were an infant. Perhaps you were sent to this country as an orphan, adopted, but the parents who adopted you neglected to tell you that you weren't a citizen. You were not born in America, and didn't realize this until you were an adult. Under current immigration laws you are considered an illegal alien, having committed a crime you never realized you committed, and are subject to deportation. One of the few things most members of both parties agree on, is that illegal aliens without criminal records, who were brought here as children and raised as Americans, should have the right to earn American citizenship. But not according to Trump. Once again appeasing the xenophobes who elected him, Trump ordered an end to the Dreamers act a d DACA. He claims his rationale for deporting illegal aliens is because most of them are criminals and Americans need to be protected. But the aliens who qualify for DACA were raised here, have no criminal record, and are no different than anyone born here. Sending them back to a country they have no memories of and probably don't speak the language is just mean spirited.

We act as if there is something sacred about our national anthem. But it only dates back to 1931. Prior to that our national anthem was ( unofficially ) America The Beautiful. The act of standing at attention to the National Anthem during sporting events dates back to World War II as a moral booster, and then made a permanent fixture during the McCarthy era when your loyalty to America was constantly in question. In truth, the tune started out as a rowdy song of various dirty lyrics sung in bars before it was jokingly added to the Francis Scott Key poem. The United States founding fathers would have never approved of this country having a national anthem, which then was more of a theme song for monarchs than countries. However, they would have approved of using the National Anthem for protest, specifically, kneeling during the Anthem instead of standing. NFL players kneeling during the anthem was meant to protest this nation's acceptance of police misconduct and brutality against minorities, specifically young black men who were constantly suspected of being criminals because of their skin color. That is, until Trump intervened and practically forced the NFL to adopt a policy that forbade kneeling. I am sure there are a lot of you that still buy into the Star Spangled Banner being sacred, and anyone daring to kneeling during it showing disrespect for America. But would you rather the athletes protested during the game? Say, a quarterback stopping and kneeling instead of running into the end zone? What makes our country better than any other is our freedom to protest. Take away that freedom and we have lost our only advantage.

Speaking of police misconduct, Trump went as far as encouraging it during a speech to police officers in 2017. Pointing out that when suspects are arrested, the officers putting them in police cars often put their hands above the suspects head to prevent them from bumping it on the door of the car, Trump suggested they should do the opposite and not be nice to those being arrested. Of course, the problem is that many suspects turn out to be innocent. As for the truly guilty, having an officer assault them during an arrest would only work to their advantage during the trial. A jury is less likely to believe officers who assaulted the suspect after he was handcuffed, and more likely to find the defendant not guilty. Regardless, a president should not be encouraging the crime of police brutality at all, even against gang members who are obviously guilty.

Early during the space race between The United States and Soviet Union, one of the few things both sides agreed on was that outer space would neither be claimed nor militarized. Whichever country planted their flag on the moon first would not claim it as their territory. The borders of every country ended at the edge of the atmosphere, and anything off of Earth would be claimed for all mankind. This would go on to become an international treaty in 1967 which all the nations agree that space can only be used for peaceful purposes. That agreement ended wit Trump, who insisted America should have a Space Force, which would send an arm of the military into space to protect what Trump deems U.S. assets. There are several things wrong with this, including possibility of this setting off an arms race in space. Or that once countries begin claiming chunks of space as their territory, satellites, space stations and exploration ships would be prevented from freely orbiting the Earth. Or that if some of these space armies were to actually fight over who owns the moon, Mars or some random asteroid, it would certainly result in a real war back here on Earth. But perhaps the biggest reason why creating a Space Force is a terrible idea, is that we are now committed to spending thousands of billions of dollars in order to build outer space military bases, and to keep them staffed. Remember, it cost around $150 billion in today's dollars to put Neil Armstrong on the moon, and that was just two people staying in a small lander for a couple of days. Even if the military never actually goes into space, and no bases are built, creating the space force has cost this country millions of tax payer dollars so far, which all goes to waste once the next administration eliminates the Space Force.

Puerto Rico is basically our 51st State. One of our many territories ( including Washington D.C. ) that are still awaiting statehood. But even if it isn't yet an official state, the people there are American citizens, and are entitled to the same protections that the other 50 states get. Unfortunately they got very little of that from Trump, whose response to sending aid after Hurricane Maria devastate the island was slow and inadequate. His response was to blame and insult the mayor, then to claim it was harder to respond to Puerto Rico because it is an island. And while this was going on, Trump was advocating that Puerto Rico should be sold to another country so the U.S. would not need to spend any money on rebuilding it. He eventually did demonstrate his concern for the island by going there for a photo opp where he threw rolls of paper towels to a crowd of starving people.

The Republicans said that they drew a line in the sand, threatening that if Trump fired Robert Mueller during his Russian investigation, that they would impeach him. Given how they protected him from impeachment since then, I suspect that if Trump had fired Mueller and ordered the investigation closed that after a day of silence the Republicans would have almost unanimously backed Trump, even though this was their probe being conducted by their man, who was not going to indict Trump unless he uncovered undeniable evidence Trump had knowingly colluded with Russia. But as it turns out, line in sand or not, Trump did fire Robert Mueller. The order was intercepted by Whitehouse council Donald McGahn, who delayed its implement until he could talk Trump out of doing it. Most likely convincing Trump the Republican line in the sand was real, and they had the backbone to oust him should he cross it.

Trump has shown great indifference to the law, even after his people explain to him what he is doing is illegal. For example, under the law every single document, including any notes given to him, are supposed to be archived. But Trump prefers ripping them up and throwing them away. Eventually staffers gave up on explaining to him why this is illegal, and began undoing the crime by digging through his trash and taping the documents back together. A more recent example for his disregard of the law happened after a boycott was launched against the brand GOYA when the president of the company praised Trump. Not very smart when your customer base is Hispanic, and a significant number of them currently hate Trump. Ivanka responded to the boycott by posting a picture of her modeling a can of GOYA beans, and was promptly reminded that it was illegal for Whitehouse officials to endorse any products. Instead of allowing his daughter to apologize and remove the picture, Trump posted a picture of himself on Instagram in the oval office with several GOYA products on his desk giving the thumbs up sign. Legally, no sitting president can be convicted of committing a crime. That loophole in the law should not be openly abused by any president, which it never has been in the past. Deliberately ignoring the law and doing whatever you want is not something you want from any president.

You know why past presidents avoided trade wars? Because the collateral damage is always the economy. And ultimately both sides agree to a trade treaty that was not much different than the previous trade treaty. Of course Trump is convinced he knows more than anyone, so began a trade war with China. In theory, the trade war would damage China's economy, which would be the incentive for them to stop the war by agreeing to Trumps terms on a new trade deal. In reality, there would be mutual damage to both economies, and the authoritarian government of China was more than willing to allow it's own people to suffer the consequences of the war. It ended up not only damaging our economy, but caused a selloff at Wall street that caused stock markets worldwide to crash, bringing the world on the brink of a recession. Many American industries and especially American farmers, suffered the consequences of the trade war. The end result, a deal not much different than what already existed, with the only major difference being China agreeing to honor American copyrights, which was already covered by international law. But nothing worth wrecking our economy. Especially considering the world economy was weakened just prior to the coronavirus pandemic, making it fragile enough to topple companies that could not handle the damage from both a trade war and pandemic back to back.

The amendment Obama made to AFFH was simple. Under AFFH the federal government gives local municipalities money to create housing. However, some municipalities prevent the poor and minorities from moving into this federal funded housing. And in some cases using it for urban renewal programs that drive minorities out of neighborhoods by sizing their properties using eminent domain, and replacing their homes with government housing which is only offered to middle class whites. The Obama rule stated that the federal government would no longer fund these obviously racist housing programs, and that any municipality requesting AFFH funds must first prove no housing discrimination will occur under their project. This year, to shore up his waning support in suburban neighborhoods, Trump got rid of that rule. The HUD secretary Ben Carson gave the reason for the rules removal as hard to prove compliance with causing funding to neighborhoods that need it to be held up for years. Which is a perfectly reasonable explanation for removing the rule. That is until Trump announced the real reason for it's removal in a tweet: "I am happy to inform all the people living their suburban lifestyle dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood. Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden HFFH rule. Enjoy." So basically, we are back to using our tax dollars to discriminate against the poor and minorities.

Our intelligence agencies are our first defense against our enemies. If they are planning anything against our country, it is our spies who will find the plot out before it can be implemented. Many a brave agent has given their lives protecting our country, or ended up in foreign prisons where they refused to divulge any classified information or acknowledge they worked for the CIA or any other agency. So it was more than shocking when, after a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Trump stood next to him in a press conference saying he believed him when he said Russia didn't interfere in the 2016 election, and that basically our intelligence agencies who all agreed it had happened, were all liars.

Another time Trump publicly rejected our intelligence agencies was with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a vocal critic of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Requested to go to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul over issues with his passport, he never came out. Intelligence agencies uncovered that Salaman ordered his death, and Jamal did come out of the embassy, in pieces. Some of the princes personally guard were later arrested and convicted of the murder. However, not only did Trump refuse to believe that the prince was responsible, but blocked the U.S. from sanctioning Saudi Arabia. To this day Trump has nothing but praise for the murdering dictator.

The 14th Amendment clearly says that anyone born within the United States is a United States citizen. Donald Trump wanted to end birthright citizenship, claiming he had the authority to override the amendment with an executive order. Basically he thought it was wrong that parents who were not American citizens could give birth in this country and the child would be automatically a citizen. Especially parents who were illegal aliens. Aside from it being wrong to strip citizenship from a child just because his parents aren't citizens, there are two major problems with this idea that should trouble even the xenophobes. One is that if being born in America no longer makes you a citizen, then what does? Because ending birthright citizenship not only strips it from the children of foreigners, but from everyone. Which would mean everyone not deemed a citizen could be denied the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to due process, or any other constitutional right. It would be up to the government, and most likely the president, to determine who qualifies as a citizen, and who they don't want as citizens, which would be anyone critical of the government. The other problem, you have a president who believes he has the authority to change amendments in the constitution, which is something anyone should be concerned about.

I couldn't do this list without including this incident. It was nothing illegal or a disastrous policy. But it is a red flag. Trump's first cabinet meeting, which he televised. It opened with Trump praising himself as basically doing a better job in his first 100 days than any other president in history, which included the easily fact checkable lie That he had passed more legislation In his first months in office than any other president. He then suggested they go around the table so that everyone could introduce themselves, which began with VP Mike Pence, who had words of praise for the president. Then one by one each cabinet member recited a prepared speech where they praised the president. No president, not even George Washington who was idolized by his peers, ever had members of his staff line up and praise him in front of the press.

Renewable energy. The harnessing of energy that already exists rather than burning fossil fuels. Using solar panels, wind turbines or water turbines instead of fossil fuels. Not only reducing pollution to zero, and eliminating a major cause of global warming, but no longer paying the expense of drilling for or mining fossil fuels. Oil costs $40 a barrel? Well, sunlight is free. So, who would be against renewable energy? Anyone making money from fossil fuels. And apparently Trump as well. He has denounced all renewable energy, and on several occasions has accused wind turbines of causing cancer. Beyond that, he has used his presidential powers to do everything he could to hurt renewable energy, which many say has set back the American renewable energy industry by years, and in some cases has nearly bankrupted some companies. Think about that next time you have to pay your electricity bill.

And yet another red flag moment who some claim was impeachable. As Hurricane Dorian was making it's way up the eastern seaboard, Trump tweeted that four states, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, were about to be hit by the hurricane. Shortly after the Birmingham office of the National Weather Service tweeted that Alabama, which was in the Midwest and not on the eastern seaboard, was in no danger of being hit by the hurricane. Not wanting to admit to making a mistake, Trump continued to insist that Alabama was in danger. Then a few days later, displayed a National Hurricane Center map of Dorian taking a path towards Florida's panhandle. The cone of uncertainty did not extend to Alabama on the original map. Someone crudely added an extra part of the cone on the map with a sharpie marker, extending it to part of Alabama. It should be pointed out that this map, which was an earlier prediction of Dorian's possible path made a week prior to the eventual forecast of turning up the East Coast, didn't show it heading towards North or South Carolina, and that it would be impossible for Dorian to hit all four states as they were in two different directions. Eventually the president pressured the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration to release a statement that remnants of Dorian could have hit Alabama. Critics of Trump pointed out that the law forbids the altering of a NHC map by government officials, and if Trump had extended the cone with a sharpie, then it was grounds for an impeachment. However, considering how he got away with more serious stuff, I doubt he would be impeached for doodling on a map. But not admitting to a mistake, then forcing the weather bureau to change their weather models to back up that mistake is a red flag.

The Impeachment. Did you think I was going to leave this nugget out? But let's get it clear what drove the Democrats to impeach when, as a party, they were better off keeping Trump in office rather than removing him. Removal would just replace Trump with another Republican president, Pence, who would not have a low approval rating during the next election, and could run as incumbent in the two elections to follow. Strategy wise, keep Trump in, allow his divisive politics and insulting tweets create another blue wave among independent voters in the fall, then vote him and a lot of other Republicans out of office. But his phone call to Volodymyr Zelensky was something that couldn't be ignored. Whether you thing Trump committed a crime, or that he made the phone call in such a way that it technically wasn't breaking the law, the facts are that he tried to pressure a foreign leader to initiate a criminal investigation against his opponent. And there was also the matter of obstruction. Even if the impeachment investigation was completely a political witch hunt, the constitution clearly stipulates the president has to turn over any relevant documents and witnesses. Instead, he not only fought Congress in court over the documents, but barred Whitehouse employees from testifying, basically threatening them with prison should they testify. Once again, this is not if you think what Trump did was illegal, or if he successfully used loopholes to skirt the law. It's if you want a sitting president to use his office like this.

You could file this on under criminal, or stupid, or both. After being told multiple times soliciting the interference of a foreign government in our elections was illegal, after having Mueller clear him of collusion with Russia, then immediately get in trouble for the Ukraine call, Trump announced to several reporters that he not only wanted Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, but wanted China to investigate them as well. Once again, any other president could have been impeached for the China comment. At the least it was a really dumb joke to make when facing impeachment for asking the Ukraine to do the same thing. Worse than that if China did announce an investigation and Trump used it in attack ads.

Here is another stupid and possibly criminal thing to do during an impeachment inquiry. There had been multiple ( and still unproven ) accusations that Trump had used the power of his office to steer clientele to his resorts, violating the laws against using the office to enrich oneself. But there was little doubt Trump was about to commit such a crime when he announced that the G7 summit would be held at the golf resort Trump National Doral Miami. Republican leaders had to talk Trump out of holding it there, explaining they could not defend him against Impeachment if he deliberately committed another offence. How many times did someone explain to. Trump that he can't hold ANY official government events at his resorts or hotels?

Iranian general Quassin Soleimani was an enemy of the United States, who had orchestrated several attacks by militias and terrorists organizations against America and its allies. But there was a reason why this nation never ordered a drone strike against him. And that is that it could have resulted in an all out war with Iran, costing tens of thousands of American lives. That was something Trump didn't seem to care about when on the spur of the moment he ordered Quassin assassinate. When the leaders of Iran threatened to retaliate, Trump threatened them by saying he would target and bomb cultural sites, which happened to be a violation of international law. Translation: if Iran retaliated for America assassinating their top general, then Trump would target their holy sites. Luckily Iran was reluctant to get into a war with the United States, so lives on both sides were spared. But we could have been in the midst of an all out war with Iran right now, just because Trump decided three years into his first term to call an air strike against the general of a country we were not at war with.

I could have done an entire 50 list on just Trump's mishandling of the Coronavirus. But let's just look at the highlights. He was briefed on the virus threat in January of 2020 but did nothing. When he finally did respond, it was only to ban Chinese from entering the country, but not to quarantine the American businessmen and tourists arriving from China who were the most likely to spread the disease here. For the first month of the outbreak he declared it a Liberal hoax, claimed it was no more dangerous than a common flu, and continued to hold rallies despite warnings those rallies could potentially spread the disease among those attending. He continuously proclaimed the virus was either defeated or about to vanish. He claimed there was enough Coronavirus tests for everyone, when there wasn't, and did everything he could to suppress testing so the official number of infections would stay low. Refused to use the Defense Production Act to make American manufacturers produce protection gear or ventilators, then when some companies on their own began producing these items, Trump took full credit. Refused to produce a national plan for dealing with the virus. Promoted hydroxychloroquine as a cure, even after being told clinical trials showed it was not only ineffective against COVID-19, but had life threatening side effects. Suggested injecting cleaning fluids could be another cure. Tried to force the Republican Party to hold a packed convention instead of a viral convention. Attacked the doctors on his own taskforce as incompetent or liars when they refused to back his claim Coronavirus was defeated. Did his best to force schools and businesses to reopen despite the danger. And politicized wearing masks and social distancing, helping to encourage most of his base to refuse to do both because it supposedly violates their constitutional rights. Need I say more? Because I could mention a lot more instances of how his mismanagement has turned this country into ground zero for COVID-19.

....which would have been #101 in the original article as planned. And that is, The Wall. Full disclosure, I am completely opposed to a Southern border wall. It is a racist symbol, considering we have an open border with Canada which allows their white, educated English speaking citizens to cross over here and actually take jobs from Americans. Meanwhile everyone South of our border, all descendants of the Native Americans who were on this continent thousands of years before the Europeans, are told they aren't wanted here. And this symbol of racism against Spanish speaking Native Americans would cost a fortune. In a country that can't afford to pay its teachers a decent salary, hasn't been able to finance its infrastructure for decades allowing it to crumble, and doesn't have the money to solve the housing crisis, among other things we can't afford, spending tens of billions on a wall is unthinkable. Also, putting up a wall would not only lock them out, but lock us in. As what happened with the Berlin wall. If America should ever become a dictatorship, fleeing to Mexico would no longer be an option. But I am not arguing against the wall as a reason not to vote for Trump. I am arguing that his failure to build a wall is reason enough not to reelect him.

The wall was his platform in the 2016 election, which he began by calling Mexicans immigrants mostly rapists and murderers, and needed the wall to protect our nation against them. He promised what sounded like the greatest wall the world has ever seen. And not a single American taxpayer would pay for it. Trump said he was such a brilliant negotiator that he could get Mexico to pay for the entire wall. Well, four years later and no wall. There has been a 93 mile section of fence erected, 90 miles of which were replacements for a pre-existing fence using replacement funds already in place prior to Trump taking office. So basically only 3 miles of fence has gone up so far, none of which Mexico has paid for. And not a single section of the amazing wall Trump campaigned on has been erected. Just erecting the enforced fencing for the entire Mexican border would cost around $20 billion. An actual physical concrete or stone wall could cost in the hundreds of billions. As a developer, Trump was well aware of how much the wall he said he would build would cost. He knew that Congress would never fund it, even if both the House and Senate were completely Republican. He also knew there was no chance in hell Mexico would agree to pay for it. And even if they did agree, only had the money for a few miles, not the entire 1,933 miles of border we share with Mexico. Which means either Trump lied about the entire wall, or is delusional enough to think he can get it built.