What had been billed as a forum on foreign, military and veteran’s affairs, the first ever Commander-in-Chief forum instead turned into an embarrassment for two of the three forum participants. Both NBC moderator Matt Lauer and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump proved they were clearly out of their league.

That NBC would pick Matt Lauer, the host of the network’s Today Show, to moderate the first onstage meeting of the two main presidential candidates was also a major embarrassment for the network itself. Trying to pawn off a TV personality more adept at interviewing the Kardashians as a serious journalist makes one wonder whether the network looked at the forum as a political event or simply a one-hour entertainment special.

In a limited time format, where each candidate had roughly 25 minutes to answer questions, Lauer spent nearly half of his time with Clinton on an issue that the FBI has put to rest … the Clinton “email scandal.” Even as she tried to give detailed answers to Lauer’s questions, Clinton was continually cut off by the moderator.

When it came time to question Trump, Lauer lobbed one softball after another at the former reality TV star and purported billionaire. Lauer did not fact-check Trump and never once called him out for his outrageous falsehoods during the town hall event. Specifically, Trump insisted that he never supported the war in Iraq and pointed to an Esquire interview from 2004 to prove that he was against it from the beginning.

The Iraq War began in 2003. Trump is on record as having been in favor of what turned out to be one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in U.S. history.

Trump was given free reign by Lauer to trash our President, our generals and our armed forces while singing the praises of Russia strongman, Putin. Instead of calling Trump out on such shockingly traitorous remarks, Lauer teed-up the next softball question.

A moderator, as a ref, has every right to be tough on his people. But a good ref knows to be fair to both sides of the contest. Lauer never asked “email” level questions of Trump. Lauer should have asked Trump to explain his attacks on a Gold-Star family, or the five deferments that kept Trump from serving his country.

Matt Lauer was not a good ref. He may be a good interviewer of celebrities but last night’s forum had only one television celebrity … the other participant was a qualified candidate seriously looking to be our next commander- in-chief.

Photo | Doug Mills/The New York Times

While some national polls show a close race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the more important Electoral College map shows a decided edge to the former secretary of state. Barring some act of God, Hillary Clinton will be our nation’s 45^th commander in chief and first Madam President.

But a Clinton blowout in the Electoral College, coupled with a narrow win in the popular vote, would nevertheless be a bad thing. Donald J. Trump, for both the good of our country and that of the world, needs to lose in the biggest popular vote landslide in modern presidential history.

A humiliating loss is the only way for our country to heel from the cancer Trump has spread throughout our great nation over the past 15 months. A crushing defeat is the best way for all the peoples of the world to be reassured Americans have not gone completely loco. It needs to be made abundantly clear that Trump’s appeal to racists, sexists, misogynists and xenophobes was limited to a narrow group of intolerant Americans.

Republicans, over the years, but especially during the Obama presidency, have been hell-bent on fear mongering and political gridlock. This strategy has caused the public to grow frustrated and lose confidence in the institutions of government.

Today, the very fabric of our society seems to have been pulled apart. Many people have come to believe the government no longer works for them. This has forced the public to lash out in unexpected ways … with devastating consequences. This is what has led to the rise of a horrible political candidate, and human being, … Donald Trump.

For the good of all things decent, Trump not only needs to loss the election but he also needs to be humiliated at the polls. The Trump brand needs to become synonymous with losing on an epic scale, as in “that candidate got Trumped!” The name that was once associated with style and glamour needs to be permanently attached to gutter politics at the lowest level.

If the unimaginable were to happen (Trump wins in November), it would send shock waves throughout the world. It would pose the single greatest security threat to our nation and to an increasingly fragile planet. But even a narrow lose would powerfully proclaim that all those underhanded political tactics of creating gridlock and sowing the seeds of frustration and division are still successful strategies.

The GOP would not, once and for all, learn its lesson.

We need a decisive Trump repudiation in order to return our political system to balance and restore public trust in our government. An annihilating defeat of one of our nation’s greatest con artists would not only dispatch a dangerous demagogue, but it would also go a long way toward restoring the proper functioning of our democracy.

Photo | dailykos.com

It seems as if any product you buy these days comes with a warning label. Whether it’s a drug, a children’s toy or a folding chair, warning labels caution us against possible risks associated with the use of a product. For the most part, warning labels are mandated by law to protect the consumer.

Donald Trump should be required by the Federal Election Commission to carry a warning label, or disclaimer, printed conspicuously across his forehead: WARNING: Everything I say is subject to 100% reversal. Anything that comes out of my mouth, which has any relationship to the truth, is purely coincidental.

One of Donald Trump’s biggest campaign promises has been his unequivocal, unambiguous forced deportation of the nearly 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

At a primary campaign rally in Iowa on November 12, 2015, Trump could not have been clearer:

“I’m tougher on illegal immigration than anybody. That’s what I’m saying we have to take people that are here illegally and we have to move them out and you know what, it’s going to be done, it’s going to be done, it’s going to work and now even the other candidates are saying, ‘you know what, I think he’s right.’ They don’t know, we have to do it.”

Trump’s tough stance against illegal immigrants was a major draw for the many Republican voters who made him their party’s nominee. They bought into a product (Trump) that called for no amnesty, no pussyfooting, no exceptions and no way Jose.

But now that Trump is his party’s presidential nominee, there is a “softening” (some might say reversal) taking place on his no compromise deportation stance.

During a town hall meeting yesterday hosted by Fox News, Sean Hannity asked Trump if he would change current parts of the law to accommodate law-abiding citizens or longtime residents who have raised children in the U.S.

“There could certainly be a softening because we’re not looking to hurt people,” Trump answered. “We want people — we have some great people in this country.”

“So you have somebody who’s been in the country for 20 years, has done a great job, and everything else,” Trump said. “Do we take him and the family and her and him or whatever and send him out?”

How this new kinder, gentler approach resonates with Trump’s diehard supporters remains to be seen.

Trump supporters beware! If Trump can “soften” on something as fundamental to his campaign as mass deportations, nothing Trump says or has said is safe. What’s next – a softening on TPP? Will the huge wall be scaled down to a decorative fence?

Photo| cnn.com

While things have not been looking rosy for Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, 2016 promises to be a year loaded with political firsts no matter who ends up occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Of course, if Hillary Clinton wins in November, she would be the first female president. She would end a nearly 230-year streak of men as commander in chief and America would finally join a growing group of nations that have had a woman at the top.

Just as interesting, a Hillary win would give our nation its first male “First Lady.” No one really knows what Bill Clinton would want to be called if he makes his way back to the White House, but he has jokingly suggested, “First Lad” or “First Mate.” Or he just might take a page from the Sarah Palin playbook when, as Governor of Alaska, she often referred to her husband as Alaska’s “First Dude.”

If Trump can parlay his incredible run in the Republican primary to the Oval Office, he would become the first billionaire president. Of course, without Trump revealing his tax returns, we have no way of knowing if the billions Trump talks about are assets or liabilities.

But the most interesting political firsts would come if Melania Trump becomes our nation’s next First Lady.

Melania Trump would be the first First Lady born and raised in a former communist country, Yugoslavia. She would also be only the second First Lady born outside the United States, the first being Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was born in England.

Melania would also be the first First Lady who is the third wife of a President.

But strangely enough, she would not be the first First Lady to have worked as a model. Pat Nixon did so, on and off, in New York and Los Angeles before her marriage to Tricky Dick. Betty Ford, before marrying our 38^th president, Gerald Ford, was contracted as a professional runway and print ad model in New York.

Though Melania would become the country’s third First Lady model, she would be the first to have posed in the nude.

And just now, to the shock of some, it is being reported that Melania worked as a high priced “escort” for the few years she lived in the U.S. before she met Trump … not that there’s anything wrong with that! How a woman chooses to support herself is nobody’s business but hers.

Our founding fathers were wise men. There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents a “sex worker” from assuming the title of First Lady.

Photos | theweeklyobserver.com, washingtontimes.com

Another day, another shake up at Trump headquarters. This latest reshuffling by Trump, however, finally wipes away any doubt about his intention of ever securing the White House. The end game has been revealed.

Ever since he became the Republican presidential nominee, the talk has been about Trump acting more presidential; about pivoting from the divisive primary campaign rhetoric to a more inclusive general election mode. As we all know, the turnaround never came. Talk swirled that Trump was deliberately sabotaging his election chances.

And now we have the hiring of Stephen Bannon, chairman of the Breitbart News website, as Trump’s new campaign manager. This coming only one day after announcing Roger Ailes, former head of Fox News, as a campaign “advisor.”

Most people are familiar with Fox News, otherwise known as the official Republican propaganda network for the past twenty years. But not many people know of Breitbart News, a right wing online website founded in 2007. Making no apologies for its conservative, fringe worldview, it attacks establishment opponents (both Democratic and Republican) and traffics in conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other Democrats — as well as some Republicans it views as the enemy.

Think of Breitbart News as Fox News on steroids.

Trump joining forces with Bannon and Ailes is a marriage made in conservative media heaven. It all makes so much sense!

“Talk radio, Fox News and the conservative web sites created space for an outsider like Trump to storm the GOP citadel,” Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, told CNNMoney. “Now Trump, having tried — not very hard — to kiss and make up with the GOP establishment seems to be reverting to the media guerrillas who initially gave him the microphone and the push he needed.”

The much longed for Trump pivot has finally come, but it is not what establishment Republicans had hoped for. Look for Trump, under the tutelage of Bannon and Ailes, to become even more harsh and divisive. The hope will be to lose the presidential election, blame it on “the establishment” for rigging the election process, while building up Trump’s base of mostly angry white working class voters.

This strategy will supply the viewership base needed to give flight to a new conservative media empire controlled by Trump and his two associates. A truly brilliant move on the Donald’s part! People have said Trump has always wanted to be a media mogul like Rupert Murdoch.

Watch out, Fox News, your days of cable dominance may be numbered.

Photos | variety.com, thinkprogress.com, nbcnews.com

It is becoming more apparent by the day, Donald Trump will not be the 45^th president of the United States. How can I be so sure? The easy answer is to just look at the electoral map. Trump currently trails Clinton in all 11 states identified by pollsters as Electoral College battlegrounds. A few of those states, such as Virginia and Colorado, already seem beyond Trump’s reach.

But beyond the brutal reality of the electoral map, which points more and more to a Clinton landslide, Trump will not be our nation’s next commander in chief because he does not want the job. Since securing his party’s nomination, Trump has shown no desire to build the type of coalition needed to win a general election.

Whether consciously or not, Trump is doing an excellent job at self-sabotage. He is stuck in permanent primary campaign mode. By appealing to a base of angry white, working class males, Trump just continues to preach to the choir.

But what happens to Trump’s loyal band of mostly lower-middle class white voters from the Rust Belt and South once he is gone? Where will all that highly combustible anger and fear we’ve seen on the nightly news, and at Trump rallies, go once the base is left without a viable political outlet?

A true political leader would take his army of dedicated disciples and continue to lead the movement.

Donald Trump is not a political leader.

This year’s Republican presidential candidate is nothing more than a two-bit con man, the P.T. Barnum of 21st century American politics; a gifted impresario able to spot a sucker a mile away.

Trump, at the most generous best, is a mediocre political agnostic. He has no core political philosophy or set of beliefs. The art of discussing, or crafting, policy is neither his forte, nor his passion.

Following what will most certainly be a humiliating loss in November, Trump will abandon his loyal followers and go back to a life of ease, luxury and golf. He’s more Gordon Gekko than Che Guevera.

Perhaps a new leader for this large group of angry, white disaffected voters will emerge? Perhaps a new political party will be formed to organize this posse?

The fear is that, like some “Bernie or Bust” supporters who turned against their leader, calling him a fake and a fraud once he endorsed his former opponent, Trump’s well-armed “Second Amendment” stalwarts may turn into an unregulated militia that won’t take lightly being deceived once again.

Photo | politicususa.com