Bill Maher has a repeating segment on his Friday Night tv program, which takes a satirical look at life, entitled, “ I Don’t Know it For a Fact…I Just Know It's True .” The Atlantic published a Jeffrey Goldberg article yesterday which is a scathing indictment of the President and his true feelings about America’s military. Mr. Trump, according to Goldberg’s sources, said military vets were ‘losers and suckers.’ Apparently, he has no concept as to why a young man or woman would serve their country because, in his view, there is nothing in it for them. Only Goldberg has knowledge of the people who claim to have direct information on Mr. Trump’s statements; I Don’t Know it For a Fact…I Just Know It's True.
To Trump supporters, explain why I should doubt Mr. Goldberg…
Trump has disparaged a Gold Star family, in-turn dishonoring their dead heroic son, Captain Humayun Khan. According to reporter Gabe Sherman of New York Magazine when an adviser warned Mr. Trump that he had insulted a Gold Star family, Mr. Trump responded “ what’s that ?” I Don’t Know it For a Fact…I Just Know It's True.
In one of Mr. Trump’s strangest moments (an oxymoron), he tweeted Christmas Morning of 2013 that “ The new Pope is a humble man, very much like me, which probably explains why I like him so much!” Odd that the man who now enjoys the adoration of the evangelicals found it necessary to compare the Pope to himself as if to validate the Pope’s bona fides; I Don’t Know it For a Fact…I Just Know It's True.
When Myeshia Johnson widow of fallen U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson reported that the President struggled to remember her husband’s name during his condolence call, the response was predictable. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL.) who was witness to the call was later called an “ empty barrel” and a liar by then Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly. Kelly, I believe, was sent out by the President to insult, and belittle Wilson’s accomplishment for her role in the dedication of an FBI building, while at the same time disputing her recollection of the Johnson call; I Don’t Know it For a Fact…I Just Know It's True.
I am sure a lot of Americans were floored by the thought that an American Commander-in-Chief would call men who have lost their lives on the fields of battle ‘losers.’ I am sure many are dismayed that the Commander-in-Chief who thinks the bloody body parts that have decayed like timeless memorials marking their dedication to the country are ‘suckers.’ I am the son, father, brother, and nephew of three generations of soldiers, airmen, and navy veterans. I search every year on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day to balance the indignities of being black in America with the lives lost and the blood… shed by my relatives and others for America.
Despite it all, I have never spent a day not being proud of their service. When men and women die in far off wars and the reasons they leave their wives, husbands, and children behind was for the great American experiment, I honor them. Free and fair elections are a unique feature of Democracy and interfering with that sacred right spits in the face of the dead, the current President seeks to bastardize that right; I Don’t Know it For a Fact…“ So, let them send it[mail-in-ballots] in and let them go vote. ”…oh wait, we do.
Vote in 2020 for Change.