₦airaland Forum

14. A thin skin does not work for a president.

“The politicians have again chosen this presidential pigmy as their nominee.” So said the long-defunct New York Herald about Abraham Lincoln, now nearly everybody’s choice for our nation’s best president. Consider the statement when George Washington left office: “the time is now arrived for the source of all misfortune of our country… [to be] reduced to a level with his fellow citizens.”

U.S. presidents, all of them, have had their critics, and in our land of wonderful free speech, the critics get to have their say. Thank goodness. That Donald does not do well with criticism is not really open to debate. Ask Megyn Kelly (“third-rate talent”), Rosie O’Donnell (“nice little fat Rosie,” “total loser”) or Elizabeth Warren (“Pocahontas”) or for that matter virtually any of his recently vanquished adversaries: Cruz, Kasich, Rubio or Bush, in just the first tier. Even the one most like him (now apparently looking for a post-New Jersey job with him), Chris Christie felt his sting when he suggested Donald was “thin-skinned.” He just can’t let anything go ever. He obsesses even when he wins.

Republicans who broke “the pledge” to support him, they “should not be allowed to run for office again.” In Donald’s world, disagreeing with him has to have a consequence ― a serious one ― and pursuing this goal is worthy of effort and energy, even when it makes no difference.

Do we really think our president has time for this? Do we really want a man with such sensibilities and such an authoritarian bent in charge of, say, the FBI or the IRS? Does the concept of “secret police,” a favorite of leaders of this type elsewhere, seem too extreme? Probably, yes. But if I was Donald, I would float it with one of his “people are saying” declarations. There, I just used his trick. See how easy it is.

13. Sophomoric speech tricks don’t work ― at least not with most of us.

Says Donald, “I am not going to talk about” the libertarian VP candidate’s alcoholism. “I refuse to say... I cannot stand to say... that I cannot stand the sound of Clinton screaming into the microphone all the time.” You just did, Donald. We get it that with these statements, even you know you are on shaky ground so you are trying to play it both ways. Doesn’t work. Nor does your even more insidious, not-so-clever trick of attributing to others wild accusations that even you are afraid to make, but that you want to advance.

How about when discussing the Orlando massacre, “there are a lot of people that think [President Obama] doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it I happen to think he just doesn’t know what he is doing, but there are many people that think maybe he just doesn’t want to get it. He doesn’t want to see what’s really happening. And that could be.”

Who are these “people” who have placed the president on the side of the terrorists? Perhaps the same people who, with Trump, saw the masses in New Jersey celebrating the destruction of the twin towers, or those convinced Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster, that Ted Cruz’s father was working with Lee Harvey Oswald to kill President Kennedy, or that President Obama was not born in the United States nor did he graduate from Harvard or Columbia.

Two possibilities. The likely one: “lots of people are saying” is just Trump code for “I want to now float something so outrageous” even red-faced Donald can’t get it out without this qualifier. Or perhaps the “lots of people” is a select group, the closed loop of the loyalists who attend his rallies that heard it from him!

12. The emperor and his clothes.

Donald says he knows more about the military than anyone else. Why? Because he went to an expensive prep school where they wore uniforms and sometimes marched? How about, “I know more about ISIS than the generals.” Please, can some real soldiers evaluate this?

Donald says America never wins anymore. Compared to whom, and at what? No doubt we have problems. Democracy is messy. Witness the present campaign, and the long slow recovery from the 2008 recession has not included the middle class nearly enough. And, yes, trade in a world that is now fully connected and integrated is hard to figure out. But by what measure is America, as Donald tells us, a “disaster”?

How do you actually say and believe, “This country is a hell-hole. We are going down fast.” Compared to whom? Mexico, China or his most bizarre new favorite, Russia, that he tells us “beat us all the time ... because our leaders are stupid”? Give us a break.

11. Temperament, demeanor and character are important.

In many ways, Donald represents the very worst in all of us, or at least many of us. He is all about continuous gratification. He is the petulant child who wants his way. He is the selfish teenager with no big picture yet. He is the spoiled young man of privilege with the “right” race and religion, education, good looks, and family fortune to succeed easily, and who looks down on others lacking in any of the above who do not.

He is a man who thinks it is okay to call someone fat or ugly or stupid or to make fun of a person with a disability. He is the collector of trophy wives and trophy properties, the guy who wins, or so he thinks, because he has the most toys.

10. We could not be the great country we are without the First Amendment, but our media may kill us.

The media is not Donald’s enemy as he keeps announcing from the stage. It may be the enemy of the rest of us, however. It sure feels like it lately. The air time Donald gets, and his ability to phone in his rants (especially with the cable media) is nothing short of, to use one of his words, “disgusting.”

Donald, who lives by polls and ratings, understands it is ratings and not news worthiness that dictates what is on the airwaves. Donald dominates almost every news cycle, simply by being more outrageous than anyone or anything else. The “false equivalency” created by point-counterpoint talking heads then makes over-the-top positions seem legitimate. It is reality TV writ large and it is very out of control.

9. Success does matter.

Donald Trump’s business success is greatly exaggerated and his skills limited. Donald Trump is a great salesman and a showman/promoter in a league only with PT Barnum. This we can give him. He has also been very good at making his name a brand and selling its use. For a while, he had some pretty high TV ratings by telling out of work celebrities they were fired. However, even in his own playing field, ask any large New York real estate developer, of which—surprise, surprise—he is not one, at least not as to large (14th in New York City on the latest list), and you will learn his successes are few.

Four business bankruptcies (1991, 1992, 2004 and 2009), the Plaza Hotel, Trump Air, all three casinos (a couple times) the steaks, the water, Trump Centre in New Jersey that I worked on, Manhattan’s West Side rail yards (where buildings do bear his name as a consolation), the much-hyped $35,000 get-rich scheme Trump University ― all failures by any measure except of course to Donald, who “has no regrets, whatsoever.”

Then there are basic business ethics: 3,500 lawsuits, the fact that he has penchant for not paying bills fully or on time, or that he calls himself the “King of Debt” ― a king made rich by running up debt, then renegotiating it. Is this the skill set we want for the president?

Even with Trump’s fabled net worth, always exaggerated by billions more than others calculate, one has to wonder if his true net worth wouldn’t be just as much if he took his considerable inheritance from father Fred and just passively invested it. We’ll never know from Donald ― certainly not from those tax returns he won’t release.

8. We need to be careful with “tough.”

Donald Trump said of a protester at one of his rallies, “in the good old days they would have carried him out on a stretcher.” His world reveres this brand of toughness. This toughness is not about the strength it takes to use restraint or to make really hard decisions. It is about “punching that guy in the face,” or at a minimum, saving face ― his.

I will resist the temptation to belabor the nuclear codes point again, and rather just query do we really want a thin-skinned president who, as he suggested, if a government leader (Castro) was not on the tarmac to meet his plane, “would turn around Air Force One and come home.” Or one who when confronted with the fact that whether or not his careless re-tweet of a white supremacist-created Jewish star and dollar bill-backed attack of Hillary Clinton was anti-Semitic, can’t even just give one of those non-apology-apologies, “I am sorry if I offended anyone.” A “tough-guy” who instead declares major newscasters stupid and sick and makes it all about the media who dare to criticize him, with never a word to David Duke and the ugly element high-fiving him and resending his initial offensive post.

Whether or not the post was intended to even more firmly entrench this segment of support, Trump demonstrates his version of tough, one that glorifies his opinion and his being right over all else. Nowhere in his world can tough be humble, respectful, restrained or diplomatic.

7. The new vocabulary we are adjusting to is not a good one.

Xenophobe (intense dislike or fear of people from foreign countries); misogynist (strong prejudice against women); nativist (preference for established inhabitants as opposed to immigrants); fascist (authoritarian and dictatorial); bigot (intolerance for those with a different opinion); demagogue (inflaming passions based on popular desires not on rationale arguments); dystopian (describing a place, typically totalitarian, where everything is unpleasant and squalid); racist (oh, you know what this one is).

We have all had to get the dictionary out to understand many of the not household terms that had to find their way into print to describe the unique phenomenon that is Donald Trump. The scary thing is that these strange words are at least close to the mark. What happened to statesmanlike, well-qualified, or even brilliant, as words we can use to describe people we want to elect to high office? Haven’t heard any of these associated with the Donald.

6. Reading is good. So is studying.

Donald Trump recently told us that he does not read much. We know from the recent revelations by Tony Schwartz, his ghost writer on The Art of the Deal (yes, I do have my copy from when it first came out, autographed with Donald telling me to “keep up the great work”), which Donald says is second only to the Bible as the must-read book, that he certainly has not written a book ― at least not that one.

Even though for many years I owned a bookstore and would not let my kids watch TV on weekdays to help them become readers, I do not believe you must read to lead. I do believe, however, that those who seek to lead us need to study hard, seek to gain wisdom from others, and try to master very complex ideas and relationships. I think being president is hard. I am glad that after a long day, President Obama retreats to his private study almost every night for 3 or 4 hours of quiet study... and reading.

Any fair interpretation of Trump’s many bizarre statements and flip-flops makes it clear he has not the slightest inclination to read or study. In his own words, he makes decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I already had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have lots of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.” It is a special and unique form of arrogance to think you could even consider being literally the leader of the free world without doing the work to deeply understand the job.

5. Words matter.

Everything is not a “disaster,” “stupid” or a “disgrace.” Neither is it “tremendous,” “huge,” “fantastic” or “amazing.” Everyone is not a “loser,” “low energy” or a “bimbo.” Talk of former presidents being liars ― or his favorite, “a disaster” ― and foreign dictators being great leaders does not advance the discourse.

Americans are mostly not prudes, but vulgarity from the dais, peni-s size allusions, reveling in sexual conquests, menstruation-based criticism and crass insults of every shape and form just does not cut it from a president. We have children.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6yodO1DNY

4. The devil IS in the details.

“Winning so much we will get tired of winning,” “Make good deals with China,” or even “Make America great again” are slogans that don’t actually say anything. We are not stupid; share some details with us, so we can figure out whether you know what you are talking about. For Donald, however, in the few instances when specifics do follow, like perhaps the 1,000-mile, 35-55 foot wall or the deportation of 11 million immigrants, the details never come.

Never are we told that to build the wall, even to the lower 35 feet, (by actual construction estimates) would cost $25 billion dollars, even if you could get the land to build it (most of the border Trump wants to wall is in the middle of a river and land in many cases could not even be secured for a fence).

His magic to make Mexico pay for it? The only suggestion I have heard is take it out of remittances from folks mailing money back home or one of his “45 percent tariffs.” How is that going to work for the Americans sending the money to relatives or all of us paying 45 percent more for Mexican-made merchandise or the American company doing the manufacturing? How about the fact that the wall would do little to stop illegal immigration, more of which is “overstays” of visitors than “over the border” and likely will generate few, if any, jobs for the folks Trump has whipped up into a xenophobic frenzy.

Then let’s take the deportation and just focus on the big stuff. How exactly do you round up and deport 11 million people? Is he going to use stadiums and nationalize cruise ship lines? Who will be doing the rounding up, certainly not the police, the army perhaps? The children left behind? How about the fact that American farms, restaurants, not to mention landscaping and construction labor jobs will go unattended? Vital jobs for sure, but are these the jobs that Trump plans to provide for his “real Americans” to make America great again?

3. U.S. presidents are by design not kings.

The Constitution makes them share power. Donald Trump who uses the “I” word more than anyone who has ever aspired to the job, has a brazenly authoritarian bent. He wants to be a “strongman,” not a president.

One has to wonder what would happen if he actually had to govern or make one of his deals in a zero sum world of politics where the other side just says no. What then of his notoriously short attention span, temper or non-stop need to tweet his every frustration?

2. It is actually not all about the candidate.

“It’s amazing how often I am right?” “I alone can fix this.” “I have a big brain.” “I advise myself.” “I am very, very rich.”

Donald really said all these things. His ego seems to know no bounds. When Donald feels insulted by someone, he obsesses without control. He fusses, he fumes, and he says unbelievably inappropriate things. He is in his glory when he can bully his way to a result he covets.


Did you ever notice that those real people stories other candidates are always telling about someone they just met, struggling with a difficult problem, are just not in the Trump lexicon? He keeps telling us he is all about winners. I guess these folks don’t qualify. Said another way, Donald Trump doesn’t play well in the sandbox with others.

First, he has his own ideas as to who can be in the sandbox with him. He also wants to run the sandbox. He is the kid who gets his way or stomps off in a huff. What happens when he figures out, even our nation’s highest office is not all about him? Do we want him with the codes to nuclear weapons?

This is the periodical trump trash thread. Check back for occasional updates.

Today's update: 20 Reasons Why Trump Is The Worst Of Humanity

1. The man lies all the time. Trump is a Bull-Sh[b]i[/b]t Artist

Like the skilled liar he is, he does it with impunity. “I watched in Jersey City, NJ when thousands and thousands of people were cheering as the World Trade Center collapsed.” “The last quarter the gross domestic product was less than zero.” “The number of illegal immigrants in the United States is 30 million, it could be 34 million.” “ The Mexican government forces bad people into our country.” “The unemployment rate may be as high as 42 percent.”

All these things have been said by Donald, actually often yelled by him, and many times over and over in front of large crowds. How about the whopper, “Crime statistics show blacks kill 81 percent of white homicide victims”? One has to wonder why this lie would be conceived, much less told. Donald Trump says all of these things forcefully, so they must be true. But they are not!

Unambiguously, they are what is described as “pants on fire” untruthful, as in, not a shred of truth. In passing, you have to ponder whether yet another of Donald Trump’s oft made statements about the fervor of his Christianity and the Bible being his favorite book are also not grounded in truth. Clearly, “thou shall not lie” is not his favorite of the Ten Commandments.

BUHARIISCURSED:
fake gaddamn pictures

Hate is not healthy

Adminisher:
Trump himself said he knows the US system. He did not become a billionaire by being an outsider. People are ignorant. The only clean guy is Bernie Sanders

so majority of his supporters are either dumb, and just robots. i pity americans

They will just laugh over it and drink beer on our misery. Its just the poor people here in this forum that will break sleep and sweat from their yanshh over this matter that i pity.

cosby02:
This is same thing Nigerians taught about Buhari/APC.... Story for the gods.

Dont compare nigeria with the u.s. Things are much different there. So you expect trump to come in and stand against the NWO agenda? are you for real?

Trump's antic has gotten to an alarming level. Things are going to get really ugly. There was a prediction last year that he may be assassinated. Just saw this piece and the rumor seems to be getting up to gear with everyone now painting a dark aura around him

William J. Bennett, Host of Bill Bennett’s Morning in America Show, William J. Bennett, is one of America’s most important, influential and respected voices on cultural, political, and education issues. Bill Bennett – what he said:

Interesting take on Trump

They will kill him before they let him be president. It could be a Republican or a Democrat that instigates the shutting up of Trump. Don’t be surprised if Trump has an accident. Some people are getting very nervous: Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Jon Corzine, to name just a few.

It’s about the unholy dynamics between big government, big business, and big media.They all benefit by the billions of dollars from this partnership, and it’s in all of their interests to protect one another. It’s one for all and all for one.

It’s a heck of a filthy relationship that makes everyone filthy rich, everyone except the American people. We get ripped off. We’re the patsies. But for once, the powerful socialist cabal and the corrupt crony capitalists are scared. The over-the-top reaction to Trump by politicians of both parties, the media, and the biggest corporations of America has been so swift and insanely angry that it suggests they are all threatened and frightened like never before.

Donald Trump can self-fund. No matter how much they say to the contrary, the media, business, and political elite understand that Trump is no joke. He could actually win and upset their nice cozy apple cart.

It’s no coincidence that everyone has gotten together to destroy The Donald. It’s because most of the other politicians are part of the a ood old boys club. They talk big, but they won’t change a thing. They are all beholden to big-money donors. They are all owned by lobbyists, unions, lawyers, gigantic environmental organizations, and multinational corporations. . .like Big Pharma or Big Oil.

Or they are owned lock, stock and barrel by foreigners, like George Soros owns Obama or foreign governments own Hillary with their Clinton Foundation donations.

These run-of-the-mill establishment politicians are all puppets owned by big money. But there’s one man who isn’t beholden to anyone. There’s one man who doesn’t need foreigners, or foreign governments, or George Soros, or the United Auto Workers, or the teacher’s union, or the Service Employees International Union, or the Bar Association to fund his campaign.

Billionaire tycoon and maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help. That means he doesn’t care what the media says. He doesn’t care what the corporate elites think. That makes him very dangerous to the entrenched interests. That makes Trump a huge threat to those people. Trump can ruin everything for the bribed politicians and their spoiled slave masters.

Don’t you ever wonder why the GOP has never tried to impeach Obama? Don’t you wonder why John Boehner and Mitch McConnell talk a big game, but never actually try to stop Obama? Don’t you wonder why Congress holds the purse strings, yet has never tried to defund Obamacare or Obama’s clearly illegal executive action on amnesty for illegal aliens? Bizarre, right? It defies logic, right? First, I’d guess many key Republicans are being bribed. Secondly, I believe many key Republicans are being blackmailed. Whether they are having affairs, or secretly gay, or stealing taxpayer money, the National Security Agency knows everything.

Ask former House Speaker Dennis Hastert about that. The government even knew he was withdrawing large sums of his own money from his own bank account. The NSA, the SEC, the IRS, and all the other three-letter government agencies are watching every Republican political leader. They surveil everything. Thirdly, many Republicans are petrified of being called racists . . . so they are scared to ever criticize Obama or call out his crimes, let alone demand his impeachment. Fourth , why rock the boat? After defeat or retirement, if you’re a good old boy,you’ve got a $5 million-per-year lobbying job waiting. The big-money interests have the system gamed. Win or lose, they win.

But Trump doesn’t play by any of these rules. Trump breaks up this nice, cozy relationship between big government, big media, and big business. All the rules are out the window if Trump wins the Presidency. The other politicians will protect Obama and his aides but not Trump. Remember: Trump is the guy who publicly questioned Obama’s birth certificate. He questioned Obama’s college records and how a mediocre student got into an Ivy League university. Now, he’s doing something no Republican has the chutzpah to do. He’s questioning our relationship with Mexico; he’s questioning why the border is wide open; he’s questioning why no wall has been built across the border; he’s questioning if allowing millions of illegal aliens into America is in our best interests; he’s questioning why so many illegal aliens commit violent crimes, yet are not deported; and he’s questioning why our trade deals with Mexico, Russia and China are so bad.

Trump has the audacity to ask out loud why American workers always get the short end of the stick. Good question! I’m certain Trump will question what happened to the almost billion dollars given in a rigged no-bid contract to college friends of Michelle Obama at foreign companies to build the defective Obamacare website. By the way, that tab is now up to $5 billion. Trump will ask if Obamacare’s architects can be charged with fraud for selling it by lying. Trump will investigate Obama’s widespread IRS conspiracy, not to mention Obama’s college records. Trump will prosecute Clinton and Obama for fraud committed to cover up Benghazi before the election. How about the fraud committed by employees of the Labor Department when they made up dramatic job numbers in the last jobs report before the 2012 election?

Obama, the multinational corporations, and the media need to stop Trump. They recognize this could get out of control . If left unchecked, telling the raw truth and asking questions everyone else is afraid to ask, Trump could wake a sleeping giant. Trump’s election would be a nightmare. Obama has committed many crimes. No one else but Trump would dare to prosecute. He will not hesitate. Once Trump gets in and gets a look at the cooked booksand Obama’s records, the game is over. The gig is up. The goose is cooked. Holder could wind up in prison. Jarrett could wind up in prison. Obama bundler Corzine could wind up in prison for losing $1.5 billion of customer money. Clinton could wind up in jail for deleting 32,000 emails, or for accepting bribes from foreign governments while Secretary of State, or for misplacing $6 billion as the head of the State Department, or for lying about Benghazi. The entire upper level management of the IRS could wind up in prison.

Obamacare will be defunded and dismantled. And Obama himself could wind up ruined, his legacy in tatters.

Trump will investigate. Trump will prosecute. Trump will go after everyone involved. That’s why the dogs of hell have been unleashed on Donald Trump. Yes, it’s become open season on Donald Trump. The left and the right are determined to attack his policies, harm his businesses, and, if possible, even keep him out of the coming debates. But they can’t silence him. And they sure can’t intimidate him. The more they try, the more the public will realize that he’s the one telling the truth.

jamesibor:
Trying to save someone at the end stage of cancer?

You can only provide the person with palliative care paying more attention to pain control and comfort so he or she dies with dignity.

They apparently knew there was no remedy as they must have been told so by doctors. There was no need to raise that money.

Trying to save someone at the end stage of cancer? - how did you know? who told you? linda?

I bet you will be ashamed of this your comment.

So if linda writes that a lizard is not a lizard but a lion, you will regurgitate it and affirm it hook line and sinker.

What a shame bro!

Hello Seun,

I think you need to start purging your mods in this business section.
We have been trying to write about helping hands international and warn people about it's perceived scammy process but anytime we try we get banned. Is this not the same nairaland that stands against scammers and fraudsters, then why shutting the mouth of whistleblowers who try to expose them? Are the moderators members of helping hands so they will clamp down on anyone who tries to expose them? why is the antispam programmed to ban anyone who tries to expose them?

This is a very bad precedent and i urge you to do everything in your power to question your moderators and question their integrity.

cc: naijacutee, puskin

FreeSpirited:
That's how to identify a sex starved guy. they are the ones doing that

@Yarduni: is the money making secret still available?

It's surprising we have very young pervs here. I don't want any mofo to masturbate over my pic. That's what they do when start calling you out.

F#*k derailing. it's only teens that do such nonsense

Liars for frontpage

Why are Randy boys drooling over girls pics now? Don't you know you bring yourself so low when you see a comment and then because you see (f) you go on and check the profile and then come back to tell the whole world how beautiful she is.

Dundee, don't you know you just made her scared and then she goes on to change her profile? Guys stop being idiotic for once and beauty is just it, it doesn't need your praise kid.

Everywhere is just dark in abuja and constant power cut is the order of the day.
I have urgent work to do and my generator is down, no inverter or solar, so does anyone know where i can get free light in abuja to work?
any place i could go to now and use my laptop?

please urgent...

r231 if you can help me to front page so i get quick response

This thread is proof against jonathan and the wailers

OP try and edit the title - Felicitates not Facilitates