An independent voter who has been a member of the Republican Party forwarded the following message from retired judge and former veteran Howard Manning. It is lengthy, but worth the read.
“DONALD J. TRUMP : A JUDGE STRIKES BACK
What does Donald Trump, the man, possess that causes the MAGA millions in the United States to continue to worship him without regard to his record, conduct and continuing vituperative attacks, especially on court judges and staff?
Who is Donald J Trump and why do so many hard working Americans venerate a 78-year-old born with a silver spoon in his mouth?
In actuality, Donald Trump has done almost nothing good, nothing that most Americans do, sometimes every day. He never served in the military, nor pushed a wheelbarrow, mowed a lawn, walked a mile or played a team sport. He’s never changed a tire or built something with his hands and probably never polished his shoes or hammered a nail or screwed in a light bulb or built a campfire, or swum a mile in an indoor pool.
Further, he’s never worked on an assembly line, pumped gas or picked or barned tobacco, used a bush ax, dug a ditch or cranked a lawn mower, or flipped hamburgers. He’s never taken the wheel of an 18 wheeler, talked on a CB radio, driven a pickup or tractor or poured concrete.
Trump has never lifted a heavy burlap bag filled with wheat or oats or an armful of firewood, walked 5 miles for charity or run even a 5k race. He’s never pitched a tent or cooked on an outdoor fire, never earned a life saving merit badge, or like millions of Americans enlisted in the armed forces, joined the Peace Corps, a police force, the FBI or a volunteer fire department. Trump has never worn a uniform or stood watch on a naval vessel or an army base.
He’s never gone into a housing project and talked with poor people, never been in a coal mine or a brick factory, never climbed a mountain, never hiked the Appalachian Trail, never worked in a WalMart or waited in line to get food for a starving family. He’s never picked vegetables with migrant workers or labored in a chicken processing plant or ridden a horse on a Montana ranch.
He has never driven a car into Jiffy Lube, never changed the oil in a car or changed a tire, eaten saltines and a can of pork and beans with construction workers, never waited tables, or worked a 12- hour shift in a retail store. He’s never been a CNA in a nursing home, or a teacher or mentored a struggling student. He’s never driven a delivery truck, restocked grocery store shelves, cast a shrimp net or worked on a commercial fishing boat, or in a crab house or seafood processing plant. He’s never peeled a shrimp or cracked an oyster or cooked a pig all night. Trump never rang a Salvation Army bell at Christmas in winter or participated in Toys for Tots or took an angel from the Angel Tree.
In short, Donald J. Trump has done nothing, never served anybody but himself, never given back and does little other than to covet praise and lash out at those who don’t heap it on him.
Trump is skilled and prolific at abusing others. He said of U.S. Senator John McCain, a prisoner in a North Vietnamese prison for 5 years, “He’s not a war hero. He wasn’t a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” He referred to US servicemen killed in combat in WWII and buried in France as “losers.”
As President he shied away from visiting our wounded warriors in Walter Reid, but he wanted the military to put on a dictator-like parade for him in DC.
Trump, who never served in the military, excoriated General Mark Milley former Chief of Staff accusing him of treason for not deploying the armed forces to help in his insurrection on January 7, 2021. Milley should be executed, Trump said.
Trump called COVID “a badge of honor.” He suggested that coronavirus could be controlled by ingesting Clorox. He’s proclaimed, ‘The beauty of me is that I’m very rich,’ and, ‘Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?’ Trump defended the white nationalists who protested in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, saying there were ‘some very fine people on both sides’ of the rally which left one woman dead. ‘I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,’ Trump said at a campaign rally in Iowa.
So, what is it about Donald J Trump that is redeeming to his MAGA cohort? In their eyes, he is a fighter. He is willing to stand up to the ‘establishment’ and ‘drain the swamp.’ In reality, though, Trump is little more than a spoiled rich boy who throws tantrums when adoration by others falls short. Worse, he promises harm to those he believes to be his enemies.
If elected President of the United States for a second time, Donald J. Trump has promised retribution against anyone who has in any way opposed him. That includes those who have appeared ‘disloyal,’ spoken out, or investigated or brought legal process against him.
Trump has declared war on the United States Constitution, as well as the Rule of Law, the Department of Justice and anyone who opposes his agenda of revenge. It an agenda driven by ‘getting even’ and fueled by deep-seated narcissism, paranoia and a grandiose, pathological sense of self-importance.
Of special concern are his vitriolic attacks on our third branch of government: The judiciary. This includes courts of law at every level, judges, court staff, attorneys general, and law enforcement. The very tenets of the rule of law put in place by the founding father to protect U.S. citizens from government overreach are under his attack.
Trump declared in his 2016 escalator ride announcement for President that Mexicans were little more than gangs and rapists. Ironically, earlier this year, he was found by a civil jury in New York to be a sexual abuser and ordered to pay a huge sum in damages to the female victim he abused in a clothing store dressing room. The trial judge later declared that he had raped his victim.
Had this incident occurred in North Carolina, where there is no criminal statute of limitations for sexual assaults, if Trump had been found guilty in criminal court, he would be serving an active prison sentence. He would also have been required to register as a ‘sex offender.’ Instead, in New York he has been ordered to pay a multi million dollar judgment which he has appealed :
Trump is now under criminal indictments in two state and two federal courts. He has viciously attacked the judges (except his appointee in Florida) and court personnel. Once again, Trump has proven himself an unconstrained belligerent bully when it comes to attacking the courts. Judges have issued gag orders which have done little to rein in his fury. William Shakespeare described him best, as a fool who is ‘strutting his hour upon the world stage full of sound and fury signifying nothing.’
Judges often find themselves squarely in Trump’s bullseye. Even though they are sworn to impartiality follow the law and facts, frequently they must make rulings that favor one side or another. In Trump’s warped sense of reality, these rulings are often viewed as personal attacks on him and him alone. What follows are blistering verbal attacks against the judges in his civil and criminal cases, confirming an old southern saying: ‘A guilty dog barks the loudest.’
Now, Americans are again being asked to elect Donald Trump president, despite his repeated threats to rid the country of ‘vermin’ and others he perceives as his personal enemies. Trump has threatened to round up undocumented immigrants and put them in camps :
Trump also promises to eliminate opportunities for equitable health care opportunities and to gut social security, Medicare and other programs that help the poor and middle class which include many of his MAGA followers. These wild and unsustainable threats are not only beyond belief, they represent yet another threat to America’s core values.
I’m an 80 year old retired Superior Court judge who served on the North Carolina bench for 22 years. I practiced law for 54 years and served four years as a U.S. Navy lawyer. I am now disabled and confined to a wheelchair, but, like millions of others, I feel it is my duty and obligation to stand up to egotistical, megalomaniac thugs like Donald Trump.
Despite claims of the MAGA minions who blindly follow Trump and his absurd claims and promises, millions of conscientious Americans know better. These are the men and women who have worked hard to build and sustain this country and who, I believe, are smart enough to see through the preposterous charade being foisted upon them by this dangerous potential dictator.
Trump’s caustic rhetorical rants and pernicious threats bring back terrifying images of the Third Reich. America lost 141,000 servicemen in Europe alone during WWII, fighting this abhorrent ideology. These are the men and women Trump disparaged as ‘losers.’
In the end, it is Trump himself, in his rude and truculent behavior, who best personifies a loser. As Captain Woodrow Call, Texas Ranger, said in Larry McMurty’s novel Lonesome Dove, following the terrible beating of an Army scout, ‘I hate rudeness in a man. Won’t tolerate it.’
Neither should we, especially when it comes to abuse of the judiciary and those who staff our courts.
Yet the question remains. Why do millions of hard working Americans continue to worship Trump, despite the abhorrent, hateful, tyrant that he is and could become.
Every voter, including Trump’s MAGA followers, must now stand up and say ‘no’ to Trump at the ballot box. We can and we must. Our democracy, our constitution, the Rule of Law, and life as we know it in the United States hang in the balance.
Know this, despite my age and infirmities, I would happily debate you anytime, Mr. Trump, even though you lack the courage to do so just as you have avoided to engaging in public debate with any Republican challengers these past months.
Name calling, insults and epithets are not debate, they are a coward’s tactic to avoid honest, intelligent confrontation. Ultimately, and soon, the people of America, including its judges like me, must and will call you out for the sham that you are.
My offer stands.
Judge Howard Manning, jr.Retired NC Superior Court:”
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