To 'Reaffirm the Importance of Religious Freedom,' Obama to Visit US Mosque With Extremist Ties

The White House announced on Saturday that President Obama will be visiting a Baltimore mosque on Wednesday—the first time he’s done so in the U.S.  The intended purpose, according to the White House, is to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.” 

“The president will hold a roundtable with community members and deliver remarks, where he will reiterate the importance of staying true to our core values — welcoming our fellow Americans, speaking out against bigotry, rejecting indifference, and protecting our nation’s tradition of religious freedom,” a White House aide said.

But the choice of visiting the Islamic Society of Baltimore is raising eyebrows, given the mosque’s history of extremist ties.

The ISB is part of a network of mosques controlled by the Islamic Society of North America, “a Muslim civil rights group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror case. Several executives with that organization were convicted of sending money to aid the terrorist group Hamas,” The Daily Caller reports.

Furthermore, Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh, who served as the mosque’s imam on two separate occasions for a total of 15 years, was a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan during the 1970s. He also went on to co-found the Muslim American Society in Falls Church, Virginia, which is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. His shady history does not end there, however.

While in Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as a regional director for the Islamic American Relief Agency. That group’s parent organization is the Islamic African Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department says provided funds to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

After leaving Baltimore, el-Sheikh served as imam at the infamous Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church. That mosque has a lengthy roster of known terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Its imam during much of the 1990s was Mohammed al-Hanooti. He was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people.

Of all the mosques in the Washington area, thisis the one chosen by the Obama administration to be the first the president visits in the states? 

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said the choice is “insulting” to American Muslims.

“It’s disgraceful that this is the mosque he’s picked to be the first to visit,”Jasser said on “Fox and Friends” Sunday. “This mosque is very concerning … Historically, they are basically a radical, extreme mosque and not representative of the modern Muslims in America.”

Judd Gregg: Rowing into the debt storm

By Judd Gregg - 02-01-16 06:00 AM EST

Just when most of the presidential candidates would have you believe that the water is safe; that the debt is under control; that federal fiscal policy is on the mend with lower deficits; along comes the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to tell you that it is not so.

The most recent projections from the CBO are so startlingly bad that they must be restated and highlighted.

The CBO tells us that the deficit will rise this year by $100 billion. That is a lot, even by Washington’s profligate standards.   

But this is not even the really bad news.   

The CBO projects that deficits will continue to rise every year going forward. The deficit in 2025 will be $1 trillion.

This will cause the national debt to rise to $23 trillion by 2026. By that point, the debt will have risen from today’s level of 74 percent of GDP to an astonishing 86 percent of GDP.

These numbers are generally indigestible to most folks. It is difficult to get a real grasp on such enormous sums. This may be why virtually no-one who is running for president talks about the issue.   

In fact, the two main Democratic candidates — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton —have between them proposed an additional $20 trillion in new program initiatives, with virtually no serious proposals to pay for them.  

On the Republican side, who knows what Donald Trump’s ideas will cost? Clearly he doesn’t. Even the more rational conservatives have proposals that will add to the debt on a static scoring basis.

It seems implausible to claim that one is going to lead America to a better place while ignoring the elephant in the room: the national debt and its enormous growth.

Those numbers do not change through grandiose rhetoric or good intentions. Altering our trajectory is going to take some serious and bipartisan work.   

In New England, there is an old fisherman’s maxim when heading into stormy weather at sea: “Pray to god and row towards shore.” Our federal government is rowing out to sea. The coming storm is not going to be pretty.  

At some point — and if the CBO numbers are anywhere near right, it will be in the not too distant future — we as a nation will have a fiscal crisis of potentially apocalyptic proportions.

The practical effect of continuing to run up deficits and debt at this rate will be a significant disruption of global confidence in our economy and our currency.  

This will crowd out investment in the job-creating private sector, since more and more funds will be needed to finance the public sector. 

It will also quite possibly mean tax rates that will completely disincentivize people from taking the risks and making the decisions that generate greater economic activity.  

It will, most dramatically, mean that the standard of living of all Americans — but especially those in the middle class — will drop.

All this will happen so long as we ignore clear facts regarding where the federal government’s fiscal policies are headed — facts that have now been stated bluntly and definitively by the nonpartisan CBO. 

The water simply is not safe. We should be rowing towards shore.  

The hope, of course, is that the dialogue of the presidential election, which currently ignores this obvious threat, will change. Optimists suggest that when all the political bloviating has passed and the next president is actually in office, he or she will step up to address this issue.  

Think again.

Unless the folks who want to lead us discuss the reality of our massive debt problem during their campaigns, there will be no immaculate enlightenment on Inauguration Day. 

That has never happened before and it will not happen within the next 12 months either.   

The next president has to set out the path for improvement now, or his or her presidency will have no path to follow.  

You cannot grab effective ways to address the debt out of thin air. It takes leadership to define the issue and propose ways to address it. And most of the ideas need to be vetted during the campaign, so that the president has a mandate to put them into practice upon taking office.  

None of this is occurring. For it to happen, candidates would need to be forthright with the American people about the problem and the various ways we might get our nation back on the right fiscal track.

Instead, it appears we will simply keep rowing into the storm until at some point the boat is swamped. 

We will all pay a dear price for having ignored the obvious. 

Judd Gregg (R) is a former governor and three-term senator from New Hampshire who served as chairman and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and as ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee.

Anger Undermines American Opportunity

American Spectator - Monday February 1, 2016

When I read about how angry Americans are, about how angry they are at Washington or at Wall Street, and how they want to turn the country on its head to work out their anger, I think of my beloved father, the late economist, Herbert Stein.

My father’s father was a skilled tool and die maker at Ford and at General Electric. They had not little money but they were not on welfare. My father, at 15, entered Williams College, the finest small college in America at the time. He worked at every job he could find. One of his jobs was to wash dishes at a fraternity that did not admit Jews. That was in the early 1930s.

When I asked my father, many years later, if he felt angry about that, he answered, “No. I felt happy that I had a job that allowed me to go to such a great college in the middle of the worst depression in history.”

He wasn’t angry. He worked. He became famous and gave my sister and me the finest educations there were, and then I worked, and my wife worked. And I got to send my son to a good school. I have a great life aside from overeating.

Many people became much richer than I am. I was endlessly and pitilessly discriminated against in Hollywood because I am a conservative.

I’m not angry about it. I am grateful every day that I get to live in this miracle of God that we call America. As Proverbs says, “Time and chance happeneth to all men,” and I eat too much.

So, I read about the men and women who are angry and I have a few thoughts.

Politicians are not going to solve your problems. In this country, right now, anyone who is willing to learn a skill, is in good health, is willing to move, and is willing to work can get a job. So, I don’t get the anger of the unemployed. In this country, in many states, right now we pay people more than most starting teachers earn to be unemployed. I don’t feel sorry for them sucking off the taxpayers’ purse and then demonstrating about how they’re mistreated.

Bernie Sanders may tax the billionaires more to pay for universal health care and I am totally with him on that one. But people who prefer to complain than to work are still going to be a mess.

I don’t get it when people say they demand to be middle class. No one has a right to be middle class. You’re supposed to work and save to be middle class. If you think that Donald Trump is going to wave a wand, build a wall, and make you middle class, you are in for a shock.

There are no magic bullets coming from Washington no matter who’s living in the White House. And you can tax Wall Street all you want but that Wall Street that Bernie hates so much is vital to raise capital, allocate capital, help you prepare for your retirement, and give you liquidity when you need cash. Raise taxes on the rich all you want. I’ve been pretty much drummed out of the club for wanting higher taxes on the rich. But, you tamper with the Wall Street machinery for raising capital and providing liquidity and retirement solutions at your peril.

As I’m writing this, though, I realize that I, too, am angry in fact. I’m angry at fifty years of pitiful mis-education that has failed to explain how great American freedom is. I’m angry at the crank teachers who teach that socialism, a totally failed system, a system that leads to tyranny, is a solution to humans’ problems. I’m angry, furious, at the PC lunatics in my state of California who have forbidden students to describe the USA as “the land of opportunity” or “a place where anyone can succeed…” because it might hurt the feelings of the people who have not succeeded.

In an effort to charm the people who are still (I hope) working their way up, or those too lazy to work at all, we are throwing away an honest description of this country and throwing away the most precious gift in the Constitution — Free Speech. Much worse, we are throwing away the great gift of gratitude.

The people who run down this country are not really to blame, though. They’re so mis-educated that it’s sick. It’s a sort of mental defect to look out at the freest, most prosperous large nation in the world, and say it’s rigged. How is it rigged? By making college students who took out loans pay them back? Don’t we all have to pay back our loans? Do you get your loans forgiven if you smoke a certain amount of pot?

How is it rigged? Because some people who took chances and built businesses are rich? That’s a good thing. It’s not rigging anything. That’s how life always works and if you really want to see wild disparities in well-being, try all powerful government societies.

We have it so good here in America. Not always and there are cycles and fluctuations. But overall, I just don’t get the anger — except at people who are too damned uneducated to realize how freaking amazingly good we have it here.

If we really believe any of the politicians’ promises about miracle cures, we are in for disappointment. If we throw this glorious country and our freedoms — especially the freedom to speak — away for a fantasy Marxist Utopia, it’s tragedy.

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After Seemingly 87 Years of Foreplay, Campaign 2016 Gets Ready for Political Netflix and Chill

The Resurgent - Monday February 1, 2016

by Erick Erickson

It seems like it has been over eighty-seven years since the heavy petting began between candidates and voters. The dating has seemingly been longer and more expensive than prior Presidential campaigns. Today in Iowa, the first votes finally begin for Campaign 2016. This does not bring about the end of Campaign 2016, but the actual beginning when voters have their say. Tonight, at 7pm CT, voters for both parties will enter caucus rooms with other voters, hear pitches from candidates, then vote. Republicans will do it by a closed ballot and Democrats by an open ballot.
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Islamic ‘Instruction’ in our Public Schools

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Richard Butrick

The Thomas More Law Center, which is a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has filed (1/27/16) a federal lawsuit on behalf of former Marine, John Kevin Wood, and his wife, Melissa, who refused to allow their teenage daughter to be subjected to Islamic "indoctrination and propaganda" in her high school World History class. The lawsuit was filed against the Charles County Public Schools, the Board of Education, and the Principal and Vice-Principal of La Plata High School located in La Plata, Maryland.

The Woods' daughter was forced to profess and to write out the Shahada in worksheets and quizzes. The Shahada is the Islamic Creed, "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." For non-Muslims, reciting the statement is sufficient to convert one to Islam. Moreover, the second part of the statement, "Muhammad is the messenger of Allah," signifies the person has accepted Muhammad as their spiritual leader. The teenager was also required to memorize and recite the Five Pillars of Islam.

Among the "facts" that the students had to learn are the following:

Islam, at heart, is a peaceful religion

To Muslims, Allah is the same God that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism.

Radical Islamist fundamentalists are opposed to Western civilization's way of life and imperialist pursuits

Jihad: a holy war waged on the behalf of Islam as a religious duty; a personal struggle in devotion to Islam, especially involving spiritual discipline

No where (sic) in the Koran does it say you will go to paradise if you martyr yourself with a suicide bomb.

To comment on the first two.

Islam, at heart, is a peaceful religion

True if the pre-Medina (Muhammad's first battlefield victory) verses are cited

Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best, who have strayed from His path, and who receive guidance. (16:125)

Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel (evil) with what is better. (41:34)

False if post-Medina verses are cited:

But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. (9:5)

Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (9:29).

Historically, blatantly false.

In fact, right after Mohammed's death (632), Caliph Omar launched the Muslim conquests: Syria was conquered around 636, Egypt 641, Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire, 650. By the early 8th century, all of north Africa and Spain to the west, and the lands of central Asia and India to the east, were also brought under Islamic suzerainty. All by the sword. The laughable disclaimer is that all were first offered conversion to Islam or dhimmitude (jizya) and therefore they chose to be conquered.

To Muslims, Allah is the same God that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism.

This can be given the short shrift. The God of Islam is an Old Testament-based God: a vengeful, unforgiving, controlling God who demanded obedience and submission. What Islam adds is world domination. By contrast the God of the New Testament is a God of love and forgiveness. As an Old Testament-based God, Allah cares not a whit for your heartfelt beliefs or love. It is submission and obedience or punishment. Even the "fact" sheet from La Plata got that one right:

Islam: submission to the will of Allah

Muslim: one who has submitted

But the real problem in high school education is the presumption that students should be educated (indoctrinated?) by being given the Board of Education version of the most accurate distilled truth -- that students can't handle controversy. How about being given the pros and cons of claims made about culture and history. Fine. Present the claim that Islam is the religion of peace. But then give the arguments pro and con. The idea that a fair-minded committee should feed the students the final distilled version of the truth is a recipe for indoctrination, not education.

To end on a humorous if woeful note, one of the positive points about Islam the students at La Plata high school had to "learn" is the following:

Islam is a peaceful religion and they treated conquered nations with kindness and respect.

© 2011 AmericanThinker

Trump Listens

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Trump Listens

Douglas Schwartz

Donald Trump changes positions on issues more often than he changes underwear. He is not a principled conservative, not even close. He displays a pathological need to be loved. He cannot be depended upon to follow through precisely on the numerous proposals he has floated. Many are mutually contradictory. He was for welcoming Syrian refugees before he was against them. He was for staying out of the ISIS mess before he called for bombing them. He was for funding Democratic politicians before he decided to run against them.

None of this matters to those of us supporting Trump. Trump is surging because he is such a good listener. Videos from the opening days of his campaign are unwatchable narcissism. But he listened. He obviously was immediately schooled and took those lessons to heart. Trump is a mirror, reflecting the concerns of the center. The center is much further to the Right than the bipartisan establishment is willing to admit, including to themselves.

Trump has been careful to narrow his platform to a small list of significant concerns, rather than attempting to be all things to all people. The narrower his agenda, the broader his electoral appeal. He does not stray from core, existential concerns of the majority. Healthcare, guns, defense, veterans, jobs, trade and taxes. And especially the corruption of the financial/political/media class. Rather than straddling the fence on a long line of issues, Trump targets a compact list of voters' primary concerns. He is a centrist in the mold of Nixon, reelected with 60.7% of the popular vote, or Reagan, both reelected in 49-state blowouts, the only ones to accomplish this feat.

Trump listens to those ignored for decades. He hears our existential angst and relates. We have been sitting across from him at the negotiating table since June. Trump closes a deal faster than anyone. He stated the Iran negotiations could have concluded in a day, a week at most. (A strong argument can be made that the quality of any agreement is inversely related to the time spent in negotiation.) Closing a deal entails identifying the other party's needs and meeting them, or making them feel this is true. Negotiators are flexible. The art of the deal consists of the ability to listen and possess the imagination to craft a framework acceptable to both sides. The counterparty must not leave the table with the sense the deal has been adversarial. In the ongoing electoral negotiation Trump has rapidly identified our needs and displayed the flexibility to fulfill them.

Trump adheres to the principles of Marketing 101: Make a personal connection with the customer; convince him you are his friend; listen to his problems, offer a solution. Contrast Trump's strategy with the single-digit candidates. Kasich incessantly reminds us he is the son of a mailman (something only an Establishment member feels a need to emphasize), then veers into a ditch by rattling off a list of achievements, an approach devoid of marketing appeal. Bush lacks any coherent strategy, content to rely on the Consultant Class and their faith that appending an exclamation point to his name constitutes marketing brilliance and compensates for mediocrity. Carson's support plummeted once it became clear he never took Marketing 101. Integrity and intelligence are swell, but can't carry a presidential candidacy.

Trump appropriately touts attending Wharton. With Trumpian braggadocio, Wharton states it has "the largest, most cited, and most published marketing faculty in the world." "Wharton began teaching and researching marketing before the field even existed, initiating courses in 1909." They clearly know how to market themselves. Branding earned Trump billions; now he applies identical tactics to politics. Wharton professors will spend the remainder of this century using his campaign for case studies.

Is Trump just another lying politician? What sets him apart is a willingness to confront corruption and convince us he will vanquish it. Sarah Palin enjoyed success following this route, in Alaska and nationally. Bernie Sanders treads the same path. When Trump reminds us Ted Cruz has no friends in Washington, this shrewdly preempts Cruz from adopting the mantle of a leader who can negotiate and coerce a corrupt Congress into reform.

No one, including Trump, knows how his tax reform plan will manifest. We only know it will be yuuge and reverse decades of Congressional corruption. Details are irrelevant. Voters have confidence in Trump's negotiating prowess and commitment to advocate on behalf of national, not special interests. When a small minority controls the political agenda and enriches itself to the detriment of the majority, voters will inevitably stampede to the first viable alternative. The issue uniting voters beyond economic or even security concerns is our abhorrence of corruption. Sanders and Trump supporters unite in revulsion to overt, gratuitous corruption. 

Trump is accused of being poll obsessed. All of us are in election years. Trump listens to us, and polls provide the best way of listening to the electorate. Contrast this to a deaf Congress and administration, flipping us off, disdainful of their abysmal poll ratings. The establishment of both parties long ago tossed their base under the bus, ran over them, put it in reverse and drove back over them. If Sanders is denied the Democratic* nomination, much of the party's base will skip the election (or support Trump) while only the GOP establishment (a distinct minority of the party) is sidelined by a Trump candidacy. Simple math ensures a Trump landslide.

Trump promises to cleanse the Washington/Wall Street/internationalist axis stables. He markets himself as an outsider. Despite his wealth it appears he sincerely perceives himself this way. He was born unassimilated Outer Borough and never fully abandoned his roots. Each time the Establishment rejects him, his popular appeal increases. When Chris Matthews sides with Trump against the GOP establishment, a political tsunami is building, destroying all blocking its path. 

(*Sanders is no Democrat. He despisesthe party and runs under its banner as a convenience. He has accomplished a hostile takeover, infiltrating the corpse. His ascendancy underscores the party's decrepitude.)

© 2011 AmericanThinker

Trump screws everyone but himself

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Ed Lasky

As we approach the Iowa caucus one line of criticism seems to be sticking to Trump, but it is only one example of his modus operandi: enrich himself at the expense of the people. Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner reports that one ad critical of Donald Trump is resonating with Iowans as the primary battles begins in earnest:

In addition to asking about presidential preferences, the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll asked voters if they were bothered by certain information about the candidates. By far, the most bothersome bit of information tested about either candidate: "Donald Trump supports the use of eminent domain to take private property for public or private projects, with compensation to the landowners." Presented with this information, 60 percent of Republican voters said it bothered them, compared with 35 percent who said it did not.

Eminent domain is a big issue in Iowa, where projects involving the government seizure of private property have drawn the ire of farmers. As my colleague Al Weaver reported last week, Trump touted the use of eminent domain in an area where farmers have been protesting a proposed regional airport that would involve land seizures. Driving around Iowa over the past few days, I've noticed a number of signs on farms on the side of the road reading, "Stop Eminent Domain Abuse."

But Trump's defense of eminent domain goes beyond even situations in which it's being used for public use. As a casino owner, he tried to use government power to take away the home of a wealthy widow for a fraction of what she had been offered for the property in order to build a limo parking lot for one of his Atlantic City properties.

Donald Trump deployed all his forces and political connections to try to take away the home of a then-elderly widow, Vera Coking, where she had lived for decades. Corking's lawyers charged that when she resisted, his construction crews continually vandalized her house. Trump exercised his pull with the government to use eminent domain to try to evict her and take over her house. Vera fought back in the truest American tradition and the Superior Court of New Jersey ruled against Trump and his friends in the government agency that tried to take the house from Vera. She later called Trump "a maggot, a cockroach and crumb". Trump has subsequently fictionalized this true blight on his record by telling a lie about what had transpired that, of course, burnished his own shameful record.

In a previous column of mine (Is Trump a Democrat?) I also pointed out that his stance on eminent domain was just one reason to question his bona fides as a conservative. Abuse of eminent domain is also one more example that his primary role has been that of a crony capitalist -- the antithesis of being for the little guy. He has routinely used the tricks of he crony capitalist trade, including supporting the bailout and stimulus boondoggle that American taxpayers will be paying off for decades to come (but that helped save his -- or his dad's -- real estate empire) and currying favor with Democrats, including the Clintons -- plying them not just with fulsome praise but showering money on them and their so-called foundation.

Indeed, his entire history belies his claim to care about anyone other than himself.

This abuse of the little guy is part of pattern with the billionaire heir from New York. Columnist Ross Douthat suggested in "The Way to Stop Trump" that critics focus on how often he has screwed the little guy as con men are wont do to do. Qhen Trump started appearing at conventions to pitch get rich quick deals I was often puzzled. Was he so greedy that he would collect millions from the gullible who fall victim to this sort of hucksterism? Apparently the answer is ye -- -or maybe he just so loves the spotlight he calculated the spillover effect would help him sell Trump cologne, Trump hotels and casinos and Trump Air and whatever doodads and shtick he pasted his name to over the years, Douthat pointed out other examples of the con man who suckers people out of their money -- and in the months to come their votes. He counsels the campaign strategy for other GOP candidates to follow, and that we can count on the Democrat nominee to use if Trump gets the Republican nod.

Tell people that he isn't the incredible self-made genius that he plays on TV. Tell them about all the money he inherited from his daddy. Tell them about the bailouts that saved him from ruin. Tell them about all his cratered companies. Then find people who suffered from those fiascos - workers laid off following his bankruptcies, homeowners who bought through Trump Mortgage, people who ponied up for sham degrees from Trump University.

What was Trump University? It might as well have been named Screw U. That venture was a scam that took many millions of dollars from people who were fraudulently promised Trump would run a real estate program that would make them rich. The reality, as outlined by New York's Attorney General: people were fleeced:

According to Schneiderman, more than 5,000 people paid Trump University some $40 million, a quarter of which went straight to Trump himself. "Mr. Trump used his celebrity status and personally appeared in commercials making false promises to convince people to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn't afford on lessons they never got," Schniederman said in a press release. In the filing, he accuses Trump University of "deceptive acts and practices," false advertising, "operating an unlicensed private school," refusing to provide mandated refunds, and other misdeeds.

Nine specific allegations were charged, andthey do not make pleasant reading about the man who supposedly stands up for the little guy, but actually only cares about the man who looks at in the gilded mirrors that no doubt line the walls of his numerous mansions and high-rise condos.

Trump has latched onto the care of veterans to build support -- and they well deserve it because our nation has treated veterans shamefully over the years. But how truthful are his claims of concern? His much heralded Trump charity has barley supported them, despite his claims to the contrary. His Donald J. Trump Foundation (couldn't he name it after his parents, the source of his wealth?). Emily Canal of Forbes reported of this miserly history:

The Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated $5.5 million to 298 charities between 2009 and 2013 (the most recent year available), according to the non-profit's 990 tax forms from those years. Of that, only $57,000 has been donated to seven organizations that directly benefit military veterans or their families, Forbes found. Wounded Warriors was not among the organizations Trump's foundation gave to in that time period.

Some veterans say that the billionaire has been AWOL when it comes to helping veterans. "Donald Trump is not a leader in veterans' philanthropy, unless he's donated a lot of money that nobody knows about," Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told the New York Times in July. "We were founded in New York. We are headquartered in New York. I've been here 10 years, and I don't think I've ever even seen Donald Trump."

Trump has converted his business failures into clever triumphs over the banks and investors who entrusted their money to him. He used bankruptcy laws to escape responsibility for his debts. That option is sometimes is necessary for individuals -- that is why the laws exist. But has anyone pointed out that these actions have harmed the little guy to benefit the billionaire? Who were his investors? Pension funds of workers, retirement plans, 401K owners, and shareholders who owned stock in the banks he left holding the bag for his mistakes. Did any bank executives ever lose their jobs -- ever get the message "You're Fired" for trusting Trump?

Incidentally, didn't he take delight as Theodore Roosevelt might say whenever he humiliated people on his television show by dressing them down publicly and then delectably declaring "You're Fired"? Who can have fun firing people? Didn't Romney get excoriated by Democrats by foolishly announcing he liked firing people when hey didn't perform? Romney's statement was misused by Democrats but the damage was done. There are dozens of dozens of clips of Trump gleefully firing people on national television. Anyone who has ever been demoted, criticized, or fired by a boss -- or had a loved one suffer such indignities -- will be bombarded by stories of Trump making life miserable for the little people he has fired on his show (and off his show, too).

How many people were laid off by Trump over the years? One can rest assured that Democrats will have a field day should Trump win the primary or run as a third-party candidate. No doubt they are salivating now.

So Iowans and all people should be forewarned. You are entrusting your precious support and vote for a man who has fraudulently represented himself as someone standing up for the little guy. In reality, he has only cared about the man whose name he emblazons on every item he could. His campaign is not about you -- it is about him. And he will screw you, as he always has done.

© 2011 AmericanThinker