The Commentariat -- October 4, 2016
The veep debate begins at 9 pm ET tonight. Wired has a list of ways to watch.
Presidential Race
Brian Beutler explains to dimwitted voters why voting for a third-party candidate is not "sending a message" to Clinton or Trump; it's threatening to give Trump a much better change to win the election. Also too, the third-party candidates are kooks. CW: Unfortunately, most dimwitted voters don't read the New Republic.
Washington Post Editors: "If he wished, a President Donald Trump could carry out -- or at least order -- many of the most extreme proposals he has tossed off during the election campaign.... Two aspects of Mr. Trump's worldview appear deeply rooted and consistent over a number of years. One is his disregard for traditional U.S. alliances, from Mexico to NATO to Saudi Arabia and Japan. The other is a strong and somewhat mysterious attachment to Russia's Vladimir Putin. If Mr. Trump were to act on those instincts, he could transform the world, very much for the worse.... The election of Mr. Trump would likely bring about the end of the era of American global leadership that began in 1945.... A new, cynical, self-interested America would emerge, ready to use walls, boycotts, assassination and torture to achieve its aims, and to partner with like-minded regimes such as Russia. For those who believe in traditional American liberal values, the world would become a much colder -- and more dangerous -- place." -- CW
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Donald Trump on Monday defended his aggressive use of tax laws that likely resulted in him not paying any personal income taxes for nearly two decades, crediting himself for 'brilliantly' working the system. 'As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors and my employees. I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly -- I have brilliantly used those laws,' Trump said during a rally in Pueblo, Colorado. 'I have often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required, like anybody else, or put another way: to pay as little tax as legally possible. And I must tell you, I hate the way they spend our tax dollars.'" For more of Trump's fractured history, read on. -- CW ...
... Steve M: "I know this is ridiculous.... But this is the kind of rebuttal to the Times story that will keep a lot of middle-of-the-road voters from concluding that Trump has disqualified himself -- this BS sounds plausible and civic-minded." -- CW ...
... CW: Trump is definitely persuading Trumpbots, so it's reasonable to think Trump is right that other voters will buy the bull. Ellen Cushing of BuzzFeed talked to attendees at a Trump rally, & they were all convinced that Trump was a "good businessman" who followed the good practice of writing off bad debt caused by "bad times." -- CW ...
... ** Russ Buettner & Chales Bagli of the New York Times: 1990 "was the beginning of Mr. Trump's reckoning with a decade of rapid, debt-fueled expansion. The eclectic empire Mr. Trump had built with leverage from his father's brick-and-mortar fortune began to fail, generating enormous losses and bringing him to the brink of personal bankruptcy. The full magnitude of the financial hemorrhaging was a closely held secret until this weekend, when The New York Times published portions of Mr. Trump's 1995 tax records that showed business losses of $916 million.... A review of public records and interviews with those who were present makes clear that it was decisions Mr. Trump made at the helm of his business empire during the 1980s that led to its nearly imploding." During this period, his father again provided funds to keep Donald out of the poorhouse. So did other family members. Read on, to the end. ...
... CW: A "genius", Rudy? More like your ne'er-do-well younger brother who sleeps on your couch, cleans out your fridge, asks to "borrow" cash & mocks your "lifestyle." Writ large. ...
Drew Harwell & Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "The disclosure [of a small portion of his 1995 tax filings] also raises new questions about the degree of Trump's personal financial involvement in the Trump Organization's first four bankruptcies. Though he has repeatedly drawn a distinction between the company's bankruptcies and his personal finances, the tax documents indicate he may have used losses stemming from his bankruptcies to benefit his personal fortune." CW: Exactly. Trump made the decisions that led to the bankruptcies, then used the companies' insolvency to claim a yuuge tax deduction for himself. Trump's suggestion that the organizations' failures were "somebody else's fault" is one among thousands of Trump's attempts to redirect blame for his own bad judgment. ...
... David Cay Johnston, in the Daily Beast, sussed out how "Trump dumped the real costs of all this [mismanagement of his casino businesses] on investors who saw gold in his brand name, but who lost everything even as he was paid tens of millions of tax-free dollars.' Bonus: "Last May, Trump revealed that he took on debt with no intention of paying it all back, which strikes me as fraud. 'I've borrowed knowing you can pay back with discounts,' he told CNBC in May, boasting 'I've done well with debt.'" Read the whole post. CW: There's a reason Trump calls Clinton "Crooked Hillary." It's a projection of who he is. ...
... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Trump has 'a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,' the campaign said in a statement." Rudy Giuliani repeatedly made the same claim in Sunday show interviews. "... even if you buy the argument that Trump had a 'fiduciary duty' to investors..., the leaked documents in question were portions of Trump's personal income tax returns, not any corporate or partnership income tax returns. So there were no investors to let down." -- CW ...
... New York Times Editors: "For more than a year, Donald Trump has said his genius as a businessman makes him uniquely qualified to fix the country's problems. We can dispense with that fiction now that we know that he claimed a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax returns. Such a mammoth loss amounts to an epic failure, not runaway success.... Legal or not, this is the kind of [government] handout no ordinary citizen could hope to get.... During the first presidential debate, Mr. Trump called his tax avoidance 'smart.' What he's justifying is a tax code that allows the extremely wealthy to shift the burden to everybody else, especially working Americans.... Incredibly, the Trump campaign argues that because he knows how to game the tax system he should be trusted to reform it. There is ... plenty of evidence that he would confer even more tax advantages on himself. Mr. Trump has not proposed closing the real estate developers' loophole. Instead, he would make the code more favorable for his interests by proposing to cut the rate for limited liability corporations and partnerships -- the entities in which he holds his real estate assets -- to just 15 percent from ordinary income rates.... He's built his millionaire's lifestyle on debt, tax avoidance and other people's money. From bankrupt casinos to a so-called university, he milked them for all he could and left workers, students and taxpayers holding the bag." -- CW ...
... Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Dylan Byers of CNN: The anonymous tipster who sent Trump's tax documents to the New York Times also sent them to the New York Daily News, but the Daily News could not verify the documents. CW: This tells us a couple of things: (1) The Times is "the paper of record" because it has far more resources than other news outlets; it sent its reporters to Florida to get verification from Trump's tax preparer & to clear up a major question about the original document, which appeared to be doctored. (2) The Daily News followed the journalistic practice of not publishing a story based on an unverified tip, unlike many online "news" outlets.
Paul Waldman: "... if you picked 'veterans' in the 'Who's Donald Trump going to offend today?' pool, you're in luck." ...
... Cowardly Draft Dodger Rips Veterans Suffering PTSD as Not Tough Enough. Ema O'Connor of Buzzfeed: '"Donald Trump on Monday suggested to a room full of veterans that soldiers who return from war suffering from PTSD are not 'strong' and 'can't handle it.' The GOP presidential candidate’s statement came during a Q&A at the Retired American Warriors PAC.... After saying there are around 22 veteran suicides a day, Trump explained to the room of veterans what PTSD was. 'When people come back from war and combat and they see maybe what the people in this room have seen many times over, and you're strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can't handle it.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: So the coward who supported the Vietnam war but got multiple deferments to hide from combat for some foot thing which he can't remember now, "explains" PTSD to a room full of combat veterans, and furthermore, lets them know that some of them, according war hero Donald, just don't measure up. Trump, of course, is combat tested because he went through the Sex Wars of the seventies. Poor guy. So brave. All those unmade beds! And so wonderful of him to lecture soldiers who saw actual combat about the fact that they're wusses. The worst thing? There are plenty of combat veterans -- with and without PTSD -- who will dishonor their brothers and sisters in arms by voting for this disgraceful piece of shit.
But, But ... How Will I Pay My Legal Fees?? David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. "The New York attorney general has notified Donald Trump that his charitable foundation is violating state law -- by soliciting donations without proper certification -- and ordered Trump's charity to stop its fundraising immediately.... James Sheehan, head of the attorney general's charities bureau, sent the 'notice of violation' to the Donald J. Trump Foundation on Friday, according to a copy of the notice provided by ... Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D). The night before that, The Washington Post reported that Trump's charity had been soliciting donations from other people without being properly registered in New York state. According to tax records, Trump's foundation has subsisted entirely on donations from others since 2008, when Trump gave his last personal donation. This year, the Trump Foundation made its most wide-ranging request for donations yet: It set up a public website, donaldtrumpforvets.com, to gather donations that Trump said would be passed on to veterans' groups." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: Can this poor guy EVER catch a break? I mean, that money from veterans is already earmarked for good causes. The BEST causes. Another trip to Europe for Ivanka, another animal killing safari for Little Eric, rare collectible Nazi paraphernalia for Junior (Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps leather overcoat). Cellulite removal for Melania (why she hasn't been seen in forever...), and now this! C'mon! ...
... Paul Waldman: "If Schneiderman were a woman, Trump would be going on 'Hannity' tonight to tell everyone he's fat." -- CW
Will He or Won't He? I want to do the next debate, but everybody is talking about the mike. -- Donald Trump, to the New York Times, October 1 ...
... Steve Benen: "... by some measures, the only person preoccupied with the subject is Trump himself.... He... appears to be looking for an excuse. It's hard to imagine Trump bowing out of the next debates, but then again, it was hard to imagine quite a bit about Trump's candidacy, and yet here we are. The fact that he's hedged at all -- 'I want to do the next debate, but ... suggests there's at least some question about the Republican's plans." -- CW
** Jobs, Jobs, Jobs? For the Chinese, Yes. Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek: "... Trump has been stiffing American steel workers on his own construction projects for years... A Newsweek;investigation has found that in at least two of Trump's last three construction projects, Trump opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers rather than United States corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin." -- CW
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump said Monday that 'race riots' are happening every month.... 'We're a divided nation, and each week it seems we're getting more and more divided,' Trump said at a rally [in Pueblo, Colorado]. '[We see] race riots on our streets on a monthly basis. Somebody said don't call them race riots, but that's what they are. They’re race riots. And it's happening more and more.'" -- CW
Other News & Views
Cold War Redux. Michael Gordon & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia over the protracted conflict in Syria, accusing the Kremlin of joining with the Syrian Air Force in carrying out a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged city of Aleppo. Anticipating the end of the talks after repeated warnings from American officials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia responded by withdrawing from a landmark arms control agreement that calls for each side to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium, a material used in nuclear weapons." -- CW ...
... Dictators Do the Darndest Things! Wait til Trump gets to be one. J. Weston Phippen of The Atlantic: "Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew Monday from a post-Cold War agreement with the United States in which both countries agreed to get rid of plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Putin accused the U.S. for failing to stand by its side of the agreement, and for the heightened tension between the countries over the Syrian civil war. The deal was originally signed in 2000 and renewed in 2009. Putin said he was now suspending cooperation because of 'the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation.'" -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: I don't doubt that the horrifying bombings of Aleppo are among Putin's are among his tactics to influence our November elections.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A short-handed Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request from the Obama administration to reconsider a major immigration decision, dooming for now President Obama's plan to spare millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. The court also declined to hear more than 1,000 petitions seeking reviews in cases that had piled up during the justices' summer break. Among them were ones concerning what college athletes may earn, the Washington Redskins' trademarks and a campaign finance investigation in Wisconsin. Adhering to its custom, the court did not give reasons for turning down the cases. The request that the justices rehear the immigration case came after a deadlock in the case in June. The administration's petition seeking rehearing said a matter of such importance should be resolved by a nine-member Supreme Court, which 'should be the final arbiter of these matters through a definitive ruling.'" -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: Mayor Charles Wasko of York, Pennsylvania, has a passion for posting incendiary racist & xenophobic material on social media. "Probably the most inflammatory one was about President Obama. It shows a picture of actor Clint Eastwood in the film 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' and a noose. 'Barry, this rope is for you,' the caption says, referring to a nickname for the first black president. 'You wanna bring that empty chair over here!'" Despite horrified reactions to his postings & calls for his resignation, Wasko won't quit & he promises to keep on posting. -- CW