Notification From The Speaker

Sometimes things fly under the radar- even on "Face the Nation," as was the case Sunday.

Donald Trump has said he would like to implement "stop and frisk" nationally, a sentiment seconded by his running mate. However, given issues of constitutionality and the lack of a national secret police force (so far), a President Trump would be unlikely to be able to have much of an effect on police procedures in local communities.

The Republican nominee has vowed to impose "extreme vetting" of refugees attempting to relocate to the USA. However, it is unclear how, if at all, such a policy would differ from current procedure.

Determining the direction of a Trump Administration- other than an active effort to turn Americans against each other- is nearly impossible. As these Washington Post reporters explain it

To fight the Islamic State terrorist group, Donald Trump would “bomb the s--- out of” their oil fields or “bomb the hell out of ISIS.” Or maybe neither of those things.

The GOP presidential nominee has called for “very few troops on the ground,” but also 20,000 to 30,000 troops. Or he might just let Russia handle the fighting.

He proposed banning all foreign Muslims from entering the United States until we “figure out what is going on” with terrorism. Or maybe just people from certain countries.

Trump has signaled a retreat from the free trade policies of his predecessors but, given that as a businessman he is a champion of outsourcing, and he has not specifically advocated labor or environmental protections, it is unlikely his actions would even approach his rhetoric.

As Salon's Simon Maloy pointed out at the time, in a radio interview in March Trump said of Social Security and Medicare that Republicans "want to really cut it, and they want to cut it very substantially, the Republicans, and I'm not going to do that."

It seems to be attracting little attention,  but Donald Trump- privately- has changed his tune, assuming Paul Ryan is not engaged in wishful thinking.  Asked about the GOP nominee's spending plans- including for "entitlements"- Speaker of the House Ryan maintained

Congress writes these laws. Congress is the one that writes the laws that puts them on the president’s desk.

And our Congress is offering very specific solutions. And I know, from talking to Donald Trump repeatedly about these things, that we have someone that is going to work with us on putting these reforms in place.

So, I have every bit of confidence that we have a president we can work with to get these things done. I know for a fact Hillary Clinton’s not for any of these things. So, to me, it’s a pretty clear choice.

And I know, from talking to Donald Trump repeatedly about these things, that we have someone that is going to work with us on putting these reforms in place.

Ryan didn't say what "reforms" he had in mind. However, given his past support for privatization of Social Security (below, speaking to the Atlas Society in 2005) and the approach toward Social Security and Medicare in the GOP platform, we have a pretty good idea.    "Of all the many reforms being proposed," one plank read, "all options should be considered to preserve Social Security." A tax increase, which would most effectively preserve Social Security benefits, of course was ruled out. Medicare is to be slashed as crafters of the platform, choosing their words judiciously, recommended the federal government "set a more realistic age for eligibility in light of today's longer life span."








Donald Trump once labeled Social Security "a Ponzi scheme" and recommended it be privatized. And now the most powerful Republican in the nation (a confirmed Ayn Rand acolyte) says Donald Trump, who earlier in his campaign pretended he was not hostile toward earned benefits, is "someone that is going to work with us on putting these reforms in place."

There aren't many courses of action- especially in regard to the most controversial proposals- we can predict with any degree of certainty about a Trump Administration. But when it comes to those things the GOP leadership disparagingly refers to as "entitlements," we have a very good idea, indeed.









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Blunder

One of Hillary Clinton's advantages pursuing the Democratic nomination was the perception, based in part upon her experience in public service, experience running for the presidential nomination, willingness to compromise her instincts for political expediency, and a strong base of middle-aged women, was that she would run a stronger campaign against the Republican nominee than would anyone in sight.

She has put those advantages to rest. The reaction to the FBI report was irrational and overwrought and many otherwise healthy adult men and women do come down with pneumonia. It happens.

Major unforced errors, however, shouldn't be made by public officials who have been to a few rodeos.

If you've been around the block a few times, you know not to denounce voters, and especiallly not to paint a word picture with the likes of "basket of deplorables," even if your figure (50% in this case) is actually low. And if the words "just to be grossly generalistic" pass the brain-mouth barrier, you know to slow down and transition promptly to another subject.

Alas, that is not the only error Mrs. Clinton has made since she was nominated. (And couldn't these have transpired during the primary season instead?)  But really, Hillary? She forfeited the possibility of getting the nod from the Fraternal Order of Police, which concluded her opponent

“understands and supports our priorities, and our members believe he will make America safe again.”

Trump responded to a 12-page questionnaire from the FOP and then met with its leaders last month in Trump Tower, the union’s executive director, Jim Pasco, said Friday. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton did not respond to the questionnaire until weeks after the early August deadline had passed, Pasco said, which did not give the FOP time to distribute her answers to state lodges across the state, and the union did not meet with her.








Chuck Canterbury, president of the nation's largest police union, maintained Trump "has seriously looked at the issues facing law enforcement today. He understands and supports our priorities and our members believe he will make America safe again," suggesting both that Mr. Canterbury is enthralled with one of the candidate's campaign slogans and that he skipped class when his third grade English teacher taught the meaning of "seriously."

The president of the Philadelphia Guaridan Civic League blasted the endorsement, arguing "His campaign has been too divisive. It's sexist, it's racist, it's (about) bigotry. They even mock disabled people."    If Trump is to be believed, FOP members have been unable to prevent "a more dangerous environment than frankly I have ever seeen, and anybody in this room, has ever watched or seen." He attributes this to President Obama, who has other responsibilities, but police officers are on the front lines and, in Trump's telling, appear to be colossal failures.

Notwithstanding the candidate's inferences, crime is not down, police are neither powerless, stymied, nor mere bystanders in the extraordinary drop in crime the past quarter century. But that doesn't excuse his opponent from failing to seek the endorsement of their union. And Hillary Clinton plows ahead while inexplicably spearheading arguably the worst campaign of any major party presidential nominee in the past half-century.








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Integrity Is Such A Fleeting Thing

A post on this blog on July 21 was entitled "For one day, Ted Cruz stood above all."  Cruz had incurrred serious wrath at the Republican National Convention by suggesting "If you love our country and love your children as much as I know you do, stand and speak and vote your conscience" rather than automatically casting a vote for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.







Evidently someone had hacked into my computer that day because I could not have been so foolish (or short-sighted) to argue "as for integrity, he showed a lot more than the other politicians in Cleveland."

Whatever integrity there was in that Texas politician's character had a short shelf life, for now he has written on his Facebook page a long message which includes

After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
I’ve made this decision for two reasons. First, last year, I promised to support the Republican nominee. And I intend to keep my word.

Second, even though I have had areas of significant disagreement with our nominee, by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable — that’s why I have always been #NeverHillary.

Salon's Sophia Tesfaye notes "On the day that he dropped out of the race, Cruz took his criticism of Trump to a new level, accusing him of being a 'pathological liar,' a 'serial philanderer' and an 'utterly amoral' “bully."   Evidently, the bullying of Ted Cruz, if not by Trumpites, has worked. Urged by Texas Republicans to challenge Cruz when the latter's seat comes up in 2018, U.S. Representative Mike McCaul only a few days earlier had said of the Senator "I think what he did at the convention turned off a lot of people. I mean, he pledged to support [Trump]. He broke his word."

Of course, Cruz's pledge to support whomever his Party would nominate for President came before the Senator's wife was attacked by Donald Trump and before Trump accused the Senator's father, Reverend Rafael Cruz, of hanging out with Lee Harvey Oswald. Such assaults are generally not expected, especially one so nasty as against the Senator's wife, nor so bizarre as directed at the father.

The news of Cruz's about-face inspired a Princeton University roommate, Craig Mazin, to tweet "to understand why Ted is doing this, first make sure to begin every thought with 'I am supposed to be President.'"  Blood may be thicker than water but thinner than ambition. In the Cruz-Trump faceoff over their wives, the Texan had referred to Heidi Cruz as "the love of my life." Up to a point, apparently.









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The President Of Income Inequality

There is no love lost between Dr. Jill Stein and supporters of Hillary Clinton. There also is no love for either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump on the part of the Green Party candidate for President.

Recently, Dr. Stein sat for an interview with Politico's Glenn Thrush, who observed "her contempt has a more cutting quality when she talks about Clinton" than about Trump.  Stein's criticism of  the GOP nominee has a "ho-hum" quality about it as the Green

pointed to his position-hopping on a range of issues, which she cast as erratic rather than calculating — from his fuzzy Iraq positions over the years, to his brief “softening” on immigration last month, to his decision (on the day we spoke) to suddenly renounce birtherism after five years of banging a drumbeat of lies.

It's difficult to determine whether Trump's flip-flop-flip on various issues is in fact due more to being calculating than being erratic, and the truth may lie somewhere in between.  Still, Trump's apparent conversion on Barack Obama's birthplace, followed by the explanation "Well, I just wanted to get on with — I wanted to get on with the campaign. A lot of people were asking me questions,” suggests that he is crazy (or erratic) like a fox..

Trump was against the war in Iraq before he was against it before he was for it, not unlike his enthusaistic support for NATO military action in Libya before he was against it. But that is in the past and the only consistency in his position on immigration is the wall, which never will be built, and on Mexicans, whom he does not like.

Stein believes Trump's shifting positions indicate he "may have a problem with mental health." Yet, there are some issues on which he has been fairly consistent, ones which not coincidentally bear on Trump as wealthy businessman. He has not wavered in his opposition to a federal minimum wage- any federal minimum wage- nor in his antipathy toward unionization. In a radio interview in February he maintained

We've had great support from [union] workers, the people that work, the real workers, but I love the right to work.  I like it better because it is lower. It is better for the people. You are not paying the big fees to the unions. The unions get big fees. A lot of people don't realize they have to pay a lot of fees. I am talking about the workers. They have to pay big fees to the union. I like it because it gives great flexibility to the people. It gives great flexibility to the companies.

Unions by law must negotiate wages and benefits not only for their own members, but also for non-members, who pay reduced fees or none at all.  "Right to work laws" are intended to undermine unions, thereby undermining wages and further shrinking the middle class.

Trump vows to rescind Dodd-Frank, halt all new financial regulations, eliminate most regulations (including food), and opposes the estate tax, as he explained at the Detroit Economic Club in early August.  Rolling Stone reported

"American workers have paid taxes their whole life, they shouldn't be taxed again when they die," Trump said Monday. What Trump calls the "death tax," and what is more widely known as the "estate tax," is worth an estimated $25 billion a year. Doing away with it would only benefit the children of the very wealthy (for individuals, the first $5.45 million are exempt; for couples, the first $10.9 million) — like Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany and Barron. (The Los Angeles Times dusted off a good breakdown from 2009 of the pros and cons for the occasion.)

The corporate tax rate currently sits at 35 percent; Trump proposed cutting it to 15 percent Monday. That break would also, presumably, benefit the more than 500 businesses in which Trump claimed a large ownership stake in his financial disclosures last year.

Keith Olbermann observes

The Republican Party has actually nominated for president an irresponsible, unrealistic, naive, petulant, childish, vindictive, prejudiced, bigoted, racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, fascistic, authoritarian, insensitive, erratic, disturbed, irrational, inhuman individual.

Whether disturbed or naive. Trump certainly isn't irrational, notwithstanding Stein's suspicion or Olbermann's comprehensive bill of particulars against the candidate.  Whatever he does on race, immigration, war and peace, gay rights, reinstating torture, or press freedom, there is little doubt Donald Trump will do when it comes to preserving and strengthening the rights and privileges of the ruling class, to which he proudly belongs.

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Pullling The Rug Out From Under Clinton's Message

We probably will never again see a presidency like the Obama presidency, with undying opposition from one Party and unyielding support from the other.

As Jonathan Capehart put it four years ago, the Republican Party's steadfast opposition to Barack Obama did not begin in October 2010 when Senate Majority Leader McConnell declared "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Nor did it begin on inauguration night 2009 when some congressional Republicans met and agreed to demonstrate persistent opposition to the President's legislative program.  It occurred earlier- during the transition period- when incoming vice-president Biden, he says, was told by seven GOP senators that McConnell had demanded unified resistance because "we can't let you succeed in anything. That's our ticket to coming back."’ 

The most visible and controversial (albiet not most significant) manifestation of GOP obstruction has been "birtherism," relentlessly pushed for 5+ years by the man who not coincidentally became the Republican nominee for President.

Now Donald Trump has tried to soften his image to  gain acceptance among mildly conservative, osensibly independent voters by asserting "Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period."

There is nothing new under the sun, and nothing new to demonstrate the already obvious, that Obama was born in the 50th state, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.  Nothing recently unearthed has persuaded Grump that the fellow was born in the USA. He was lying then or he's lying now.

Hillary Clinton doesn't want him to get away with it, to erase history, not without some apology or acknowledgement that he was so wrong for so long.  She tweeted "expressing zero regret for years of pusing a racist conspiracy theory, Trump again appointed himself judge & jury on #POTUS's citizenship."

Simillarly, Seth Myers doesn't want the "centerpiece of Donald Trump's political career" to be disappeared from history by fiat.  He explained

You don't get to peddle racist rhetoric for five years and decide when it's over. We decide when it's over  and  it's certainly not over after a thirty second statement in the middle of a hotel commercial... Obama wasn't born here is your #1 hit. Saying you got it from Hillary is like Springsteen saying he wrote "Born to Run" because he heard Bon Jovi saying it once.







That's the way it should be and probably would be if not for disagreement from a corner of the Democratic Party occupied by a man whose blind support from Democrats has matched the blind opposition he has received from Republicans.   On Saturday the Associated Press reported

President Barack Obama is joking that there’s an extra spring in his step now that the “whole birther thing is over.”

Obama is speaking at an annual dinner for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. The dinner comes a day after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reversed himself on his long-held and false view that Obama was not born in the United States.

With an air of sarcasm, Obama says that the Islamic State group, North Korea, poverty, climate change — none of those things weighed on his mind like the validity of his birth certificate.

The president says the end of talk about where he was born will be a boost for him in the home stretch of his administration, and adds: “In other breaking news, the world is round.”

"In other breaking news, the world is round."  Ha-Ha! We all laughed. Without a Democrat, Republican, or media member noticing, President Obama contradicted the Clinton campaign.

On November 2, 2010 Obama labeled as a "shellacking" the defeat of congressional Democrats that day, signaling to Republicans and the nation that whatever progressive agenda the Democrats had in mind had been repudiated at the polls. Republicans never have understood that President Obama has never wished to offend them while Democrats never have understood that Barack Obama, whether for selfish or patriotic reasons, will throw them overboard in a New York minute.

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Illusion About Trump

It must be asked: who are these people?

Who are these people who are so divorced from reality?

They include a presidential candidate and a former corporate executive- a medical doctor and an extremely successful and wealthy corporate executive.

We begin with Dr. Jill Stein, who has told Politico's Glenn Thrush

Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won’t. … Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars faster, to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his.

We move on to former General Electric CEO Jack Welch. He supported Ted Cruz for the GOP nomination but now has second thoughts about the Texas senator after (and because) of the most decent act in the latter's public life, refusing to support the vulgar talking yam who threatended to out Mrs.Cruz as someone who once had an emotional problem.





Evidently

“Basically, I want a strong economy that creates jobs,” Welch told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“This is a binary choice. You either take the Republican agenda or you take the Democratic agenda,” he continued. “The Democratic agenda is Obama-plus stated over and over again.”

Regulations are also “choking” American businesses, Welch said, adding that President Barack Obama plans to increase regulations in the final months of his presidency. He also conceded that Trump, as president, may have to negotiate with Congress, meaning his proposals could get watered down before they’re enacted.

“Well, it will be a negotiation with Congress. But this is his position and I like his position, and he’ll have to negotiate with Congress because Congress might not wanna reform EPA as much as he does and that’ll be a negotiation,” Welch said. “OK, that’s a fact of life.

Let's be clear. If Hillary Clinton proves so unpopular that Donald  "he's not a war hero; he's a war hero because he was captured" Trump is elected, the GOP will increase its majority in the House of Representatives and almost surely retain control of the Senate.

It wouldn't be pretty. Little negotiation will prove necessary and little would take place.

Donald Draper reported that shortly after John Kasich dropped out of the GOP race in May, Donald Trump Jr. spoke to a senior advisor to the governor, who was asked whether  he had (Draper's words) "any interest in being the most powerful vice-president in history."  Then

when Kasich's adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father's vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?

"Making America great again" was the casual reply.

Governor and former United States Representative Mike Pence was not selected to moderate the Republican ticket, to bring the already-solid GOP state of Indiana into the Trump column, nor for of any hiddent anti-Establishment tendencies.  He was a shout-out to the Christian right and to the GOP establishment because he always has been a reliable supporter of the Party's agenda to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few.  Unlike the others on the short  list- Chris Chris and Newt Gingrich- Pence never would go off the rails.  buck anyone on Team Republican.

Mike Pence never would buck anyone on Team Republican, now headed by Paul Ryan. Donald Trump believes in little other than whatever contributes to the Trump family fortune. The opportunity of Paul Ryan, an Ayn Rand acolyte,  to cut Social Security, Medicare, anti-hunger programs and a wide swath of the social safety net (as well as revoking the Affordable Care Act) would be greatly enhanced. Hillary Clinton has been largely a supporter of fracking. Paul Ryan denies climate change, Dr. Stein.

Fire up Air Force One.  A Trump Administration would bring about changes helpful to billionaire Jack Welch, though not because there would be any "negotiation with Congress." The Trump camp's discussion with Governor Kasich's camp provides the template. Nothing gets watered down while Trump (accompanied by Melania) flies around the world "making America great again," stopping in Washington, D.C. only to sign whatever Paul Ryan puts in front of him.

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Not Finished

On Friday, Donald Grump declared "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period." He added "Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it."

The claim that "Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it" has been repeatedly and thorougly debunked. But he also didn't 'finish" the controversy. It was definitiviely finished by President Obama when he furnished his long-form birth certicate. It actually was finished long before that, by common sense.

Nor did Grump's remarks last week put an exclamation point or, as he would have it, a period onto the reality. At an event arranged by the Congressional Black Caucus' Political Action Committe, Representative Gregory Meeks of Florida responded "To lie and say that the birther movement was started by Hillary Clinton and he was finishing it,that he was born in America, and then walk off- has got to stop."

The organization, which has endorsed Clinton and does not consider attacks on Barack Obama's origin amusing, does not intend to let it die.  Still, Trump might have been able to get away with it. Fortunately, in steps veteran GOP strategist Alex Castellanos to remind us that there are indeed "deplorables" who want to exploit this issue for all the divisiveness it's worth.  On "Meet the Press" he stated

And by the way, well, there isn't-- there's an answer here. I think the big question about Obama is not where he was born or his faith. The big question about Obama has been-- has he considered himself more of a globalist than an American? There is an otherness to this president. And people have tried to exploit that politically in different ways. The Clinton campaign tried to exploit it this way, the way their strategists said, by saying his lack of American roots is an issue.

No. When campaign strategist Mark Penn raised the issue, it evidently was rejected by Hillary Clinton if it even got to her.  No doubt somewhere in Oregon, New Mexico, and North Carolina there is a Democratic voter who thought the campaign should go with that isse. And there exist Democrats (and Republicans and Independents) who believe broccoli causes cancer. But they don't constitue a movement.

There is no duality between "globalist" and "American." There are quite a few globalists in American politics, including both major party nominees in at least the last seven presidential election cycles. They are most noticeable now by their support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, including many Democrats and most Republicans. That does not make them un-American- only misguided.

Castellanos didn't have to pop off to make it clear that the Trump campaign doesn't want birtherism to end. They want it to continue among Trump's base supporters (who of course are not deplorable), most of whom are partial to the notion. Bashing Obama vaulted Trump to legitimacy in their eyes as a presidential candidate, just as it did for Ben Carson after he condemned the President at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast.

It ends when I say it ends, demands Donald Trump as he takes no responsibility and blames his opponent. But it doesn't end because he declares it at an end. The chickents have not come home to roost, but they may have started the journey.













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