Trump's Big CON: Broken Campaign Promises, LGBTQ Edition

UPDATE III:  "Welcome to the United States of Anarchy.

Health-care legislation languishes without presidential leadership. The Senate fails to pass a measure crafted by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, fails to pass an outright repeal and even fails to pass a proposal to go back to the drawing board.

Huge majorities in Congress, declining to bless President Trump’s love affair with Vladimir Putin’s regime, vote for new sanctions against Russian officials; legislation passes the Senate, 98 to 2, and the House, 419 to 3. The veto-proof rebuke to the president seizes a foreign-policy function from an unreliable commander in chief.

As the deadline looms to avoid a default on U.S. debt, Susan Collins (R-Maine), a Senate committee chairman, is heard on a hot mic saying she’s “worried” about the president’s stability and calling his administration’s handling of spending matters “just incredibly irresponsible.” She says she doubts Trump even knows how the budget process works.

Trump, baffling and alarming allies, goes on the attack against his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who was an outspoken supporter of Trump’s candidacy. Trump clearly wants Sessions to resign, but Sessions is ignoring him. Sessions’s former colleagues in the Senate back him over his boss — and they hope Trump isn’t crazy enough to start a crisis by firing Sessions and then special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Meanwhile, the president continues to sow chaos with perpetual distractions. He fires off a tweet Wednesday morning announcing he is banning transgender people from serving in the military. The tweet apparently catches even the Pentagon by surprise and draws rebukes from pro-military Republicans who argue that all able-bodied, patriotic Americans should be allowed to serve.

And the ship of state sails on, rudderless. This is what it might look like if there were no president at all: stuff happens, but nothing gets done."

Read the Washington Post, Welcome to the United States of Anarchy.

UPDATE II:  "From Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is up for reelection in one of the reddest and most socially conservative states in America:

I don't think we should be discriminating against anyone. Transgender people are people, and deserve the best we can do for them. I look forward to getting much more information and clarity from military leaders about the policy the President tweeted today.

Senator Hatch Office
@senorrinhatch

Senator Hatch's full comments on the issue of transgender Americans in the military. #utpol
11:43 AM - Jul 26, 2017 " [Twitter link added.]

UPDATE:  "For decades leading up to President Trump’s Wednesday tweets announcing a ban on transgender people in the military, the businessman-turned-politician has approached the LGBT community on nonideological terms.

Trump’s relationships with LGBT people, and his evolving positions on issues, have been transactional, according to people who have interacted with him, focused largely on how the community might affect his interests in the moment.

Only a year ago, candidate Trump presented himself as a social liberal seeking to move the Republican Party left on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

He vowed that he would do more than Democrat Hillary Clinton to protect LGBT people. He defended the rights of Caitlyn Jenner, the country’s most well-known transgender advocate, to use whichever bathroom she wanted in Trump Tower. And he added 'Q' to his discussion of the 'LGBTQ community' in his Republican National Convention speech to show he was in the know.

'People are people to me, and everyone should be protected,' he told The Washington Post in a May 2016 interview.

But circumstances have been changing since Trump entered the White House. . .

Trump’s tweets on Wednesday delivered yet another a victory to the political right — including many House Republicans whose support he needs for his policy agenda — while surprising many Republican LGBT activists who had hoped he would end the culture war within the party.

Those familiar with Trump say his stances aren’t contradictory, but rather illustrate the consistency of his instincts to shape his views depending on the moment.

'I don’t believe Donald Trump has an personal animus toward LGBT individuals,' said Gregory T. Angelo, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, which represents gay conservatives and allies. 'This smacks of politics, pure and simple.'"

Read the Washington Post, ‘It’s not my thing’: A history of Trump’s shifting relationship with the LGBT community.

Think about it, the announcement show The Donald has no principles, or empathy.

For the sake of political expediency, The Donald will say or do anything, and he cares nothing about the lives he destroys in the process.

If his supporters had any character, they would be ashamed.

"During his campaign, Mr. Trump promised to “do everything” to protect members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. But his administration’s small-minded and ignorant policies toward transgender people — first students, and now service members — are doing just the opposite."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s dishonest betrayal of America’s transgender troops, which noted that The Donald "claimed that he had consulted “with my Generals and military experts” before deciding that transgender individuals would not be allowed “to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military” — a reversal of the policy adopted by the Obama administration. In fact, Mr. Trump appears to have made his decision hastily, interrupting an ongoing Pentagon review and taking key military and congressional players by surprise. He asserted that allowing transgender personnel to serve would result in “tremendous medical costs and disruption” — though careful studies and the experience of other nations have shown just the opposite."

So why do it, and do it now?

It serves as a distraction to The Donald's many other problems.