71 LPH: Trump’s Amazing Plan To Defeat ISIS September 7, 2016 We all know Trump has a secret plan to wipe out ISIS shortly after he takes office. He loves his country, but not enough to have shared the plan when first conceived, to wipe them out a year earlier. Patriotism has its limits. And we assumed he wouldn’t share the plan with Hillary if SHE wins because — well, again, patriotism has its limits. But we’ve been assured it’s an incredible secret plan because, for one thing, Trump “knows more about ISIS than the generals, if you want to know the truth.” Yet now, as you’ve doubtless seen, he has REVEALED his plan! (I’m posting this early, before tonight’s 8pm Eastern time NBC commander-in-chief forum, in case he should change the plan in the meantime or make it secret again.) Here it is: Immediately upon assuming office, he will summon his generals and give them 30 days to come up with a pan to defeat ISIS! Trump’s secret plan is to ask the generals what to do. Even though he knows more about ISIS than they do, “if you want to know the truth.” So let’s talk a moment about the truth. Trump lied about having a secret plan to defeat ISIS (or maybe had one but secretly decided, upon reflection, it was a dumb plan), but it helped him win the primary, and he’s all about winning. Lying and going bankrupt and suing people and buying politicians is the way he rolls! It’s The Art of the Deal! Never mind that he lied about writing that book and that Tony Schwartz, who wrote it for him, calls him a sociopath. Politico checked one Trump’s hour-long speeches and found 71 lies. He was rattling along at 71 lies per hour. That may not sound so bad, because we’ve all hit 80 or 90 on an open stretch of highway; but this isn’t miles per hour, it’s lies per hour. More than a lie a minute! “Lying is second nature to him,” Schwartz told The New Yorker. “More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.” And — while we’re doing metrics — what about the 3,500 lawsuits he’s been involved with? Over 30 years, that comes out to one every three days. And that doesn’t even count the legal actions he managed to prevent, like the ones in Florida and now, we learn, Texas, charging Trump University with fraud. A lawsuit every three days! Can you imagine all the depositions he’s endured over the years? Fortunately, he has “one of the best memories in the world” — a claim, he stated in the course of one such deposition, he can’t remember having made. More than one lie a minute. A lawsuit every three days. A candidate so unfit for the Presidency that the Dallas Morning News just endorsed a Democrat for the first time in more than 75 years: There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November. We recommend Hillary Clinton. We don’t come to this decision easily. This newspaper has not recommended a Democrat for the nation’s highest office since before World War II — if you’re counting, that’s more than 75 years and nearly 20 elections. The party’s over-reliance on government and regulation to remedy the country’s ills is at odds with our belief in private-sector ingenuity and innovation. Our values are more about individual liberty, free markets and a strong national defense. We’ve been critical of Clinton’s handling of certain issues in the past. But unlike Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has experience in actual governance, a record of service and a willingness to delve into real policy. Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest. In Clinton’s eight years in the U.S. Senate, she displayed reach and influence in foreign affairs. Though conservatives like to paint her as nakedly partisan, on Capitol Hill she gained respect from Republicans for working across the aisle: Two-thirds of her bills had GOP co-sponsors and included common ground with some of Congress’ most conservative lawmakers. As President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state, she helped make tough calls on the Middle East and the complex struggle against radical Islamic terrorism. It’s no accident that hundreds of Republican foreign policy hands back Clinton. She also has the support of dozens of top advisers from previous Republican administrations, including Henry Paulson, John Negroponte, Richard Armitage and Brent Scowcroft. Also on this list is Jim Glassman, the founding executive director of the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas. Clinton has remained dogged by questions about her honesty, her willingness to shade the truth. Her use of a private email server while secretary of state is a clear example of poor judgment. She should take additional steps to divorce allegations of influence peddling from the Clinton Foundation. And she must be more forthright with the public by holding news conferences, as opposed to relying on a shield of carefully scripted appearances and speeches. Those are real shortcomings. But they pale in comparison to the litany of evils some opponents accuse her of. Treason? Murder? Her being cleared of crimes by investigation after investigation has no effect on these political hyenas; they refuse to see anything but conspiracies and cover-ups. We reject the politics of personal destruction. Clinton has made mistakes and displayed bad judgment, but her errors are plainly in a different universe than her opponent’s. Trump’s values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best. His serial shifts on fundamental issues reveal an astounding absence of preparedness. And his improvisational insults and midnight tweets exhibit a dangerous lack of judgment and impulse control. After nearly four decades in the public spotlight, 25 of them on the national stage, Clinton is a known quantity. For all her warts, she is the candidate more likely to keep our nation safe, to protect American ideals and to work across the aisle to uphold the vital domestic institutions that rely on a competent, experienced president. Hillary Clinton has spent years in the trenches doing the hard work needed to prepare herself to lead our nation. In this race, at this time, she deserves your vote. Amen, brother.