Why we need to be able to trust our President

For 200 years, our country has built a reputation of trust.  When we committed to support our allies, they could take that to the bank.  This week, President Trump abandoned our Kurdish Allies and left them to die unprotected.   AND TODAY, SOME OF THEM DIED.  This is not a petty tweet insulting someone.   This is not “Trump being Trump”.   These Kurds put everything on the line to help us defeat ISIS.  AND WE LEFT THEM TO DIE when we no longer needed them.   200 years of our hard-earned reputation of trust – trust earned with the blood of millions of Americans – has been shattered by the disgraceful act of a despicable man.

The situation in Syria between the Kurds and Turkey appears to be more complicated than most people realize.   Both Turkey and the Kurds have worked with us to defeat ISIS.  There are many factions in the middle east that hate each other, and allegiances seem to shift often.  The presence of U.S. forces in the area not only helps in the fight against ISIS, but helps keep the peace between our allies as well.  In this case, it appears that the presence of only around 100 U.S. troops was what was preventing Turkey from attacking the Kurds.

Perhaps there was a good reason for his actions. Maybe some top-secret intelligence that we, the public, do not have access to made this decision necessary. This is why it is so important to have a President that we can trust.  Because he has access to the intelligence, we depend on him to properly understand it and make the correct decisions.   Ordinary U.S. citizens do not have access to the intelligence needed to fully understand the situation, let alone be able to make the proper decisions on how to deploy our military and/or diplomatic corps. 

But Donald Trump has proven himself to be untrustworthy and unfit.  While many of his lies, tweets, and actions are petty and relatively harmless, or even designed just to troll the media and his distractors, their cumulative effect is to destroy the public’s trust that we must have in our president. 

If we can’t believe what he says about easily verifiable facts, how can we be expected to believe him about matters of grave concern, such as this week’s decision to abandon our allies in Syria?

LOST: Accountability & Integrity in the GOP

I am a proud Republican. I have been a Republican all of my life. I voted for Reagan and both Bushes. I have never donated a single penny to a Democratic Candidate. 

The Republican Party was founded on a set of values and principles which are expounded in our Republican Creed, and exemplified by our greatest leaders, including Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. 

“Our great President Dwight D. Eisenhower has counseled us further: "In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people's money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative."
--- 1956 Republican Party Platform

I will wholeheartedly support any Republican candidate whose actions and words reflect the values on which our party was founded.  In the past two years, I have made financial donations to most of our local representatives, including Dickie Bell, Emmet Hanger, Ben Cline, and Steve Landes. I have marched in parades. I joined the local Augusta County Republican Committee in an effort to make a difference.

But my honor and integrity are not for sale.  Period.

I feel that it is our duty, as Republicans, not only to support our elected officials while they govern using the values and principles of our party, it is also our duty as Republicans to call them out and hold them accountable when they fail to live up to our values and principles.

Sadly, there are very few TRUE Republicans left in leadership positions in the Republican Party today. 

Today’s GOP party leaders and elected officials are failing us miserably. Corruption is running rampant at every level of our party. Our GOP leaders speak often of our Republican Creed, but their words ring hollow. Their actions do not even come close to what our creed requires. 

What’s worse, when anyone speaks out against what they want to hear, they are immediately labeled as “liberals”, “closet Democrats”, or RINO’s.  The real irony is that it’s today's GOP leaders that are the real RINO's.   And they have the gall to call us true Republicans RINO's!

This week was just another example of the corruption that pervades our party. There can be no defense when a sitting President calls the leader of another country and asks them to investigate his chief political rival, and to coordinate that investigation with his personal attorney. 

The transcript released by the White House itself reveals our President doing just that.

This disgraceful action cannot be blamed on the Democrats. It cannot be blamed on the media. It cannot be blamed on the whistleblower. It cannot be blamed on Adam Schiff. It cannot be dismissed because of “all the things he has accomplished as President.” 

Richard Nixon accomplished much during his presidency. He established trade with China. He created the Environmental Protection Agency. He signed into law both the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act. He started the process of getting us out of the Vietnam War. He balanced the budget. He established OSHA. Voting age was lowered by Constitutional Amendment during his watch, and he supported the ERA amendment. He won re-election by one of the widest margins ever: 520 electoral votes to McGovern’s 17 votes.  He carried FORTY-NINE states!

But when it was revealed he obstructed justice, our own Republican Leaders did their duty and held him accountable..

It’s time for our current party leaders and elected officials to step up and DO THEIR DUTY as well.  

OH, YEAH:  Our Republican Party Platform used to say this as well: 

“We believe that basic to governmental integrity are unimpeachable ethical standards and irreproachable personal conduct by all people in government. We shall continue our insistence on honesty as an indispensable requirement of public service. We shall continue to root out corruption whenever and wherever it appears.”