We've Seen This Before

"Did any of you watch the debate last night? Well, I'm not sure you've never seen anything like that before."

So Hillary Clinton told the audience at her rally at Wayne State University in Detroit the day after the second presidential match.   Alert Politifact: a "pants on fire" statement has been made.

Or perhaps Mrs. Clinton simply forgot the vice-presidential debate less than a week earlier, which bore a striking resemblance to the Trump/Clinton event in St. Louis- only in reverse.

Following Monday night's battle, Chris Matthews suggested that Donald Trump had controlled the debate.   There was an element of truth in that.  Consider the exchange in which the GOP nominee charged

If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse. Mine are words, and his was action. His was what he’s done to women. There’s never been anybody in the history politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women. So you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton was abusive to women.

Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously. Four of them here tonight. One of the women, who is a wonderful woman, at 12 years old, was raped at 12. Her client she represented got him off, and she’s seen laughing on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped.Kathy Shelton, that young woman is here with us tonight.

So don’t tell me about words. I am absolutely — I apologize for those words. But it is things that people say. But what President Clinton did, he was impeached, he lost his license to practice law. He had to pay an $850,000 fine to one of the women. Paula Jones, who’s also here tonight.

And I will tell you that when Hillary brings up a point like that and she talks about words that I said 11 years ago, I think it’s disgraceful, and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.

In response, Clinton contended "what he's just said is not right," then mentioned Michelle Obama, the latest video starring Trump, the Khans, Judge Curiel and birtherism. There was no defense of herself or her husband.

A moment later, Trump accused Clinton of starting the birther movement, rigging the primary she ran against Bernie Sanders, and of being "the devil."  He topped it off with promising "to get a special prosecutor, and we're going to look into" the e-mail matter- and then he said she "ought to be ashamed of yourself."







Thus accused of felonies, the former Senator and Secretary of State responded by stating "everything he just said is absolutely false, but I’m not surprised."    When Grump alleged "If you did that (erase e-mails) in the private sector, you’d be put in jail, let alone after getting a subpoena from the United States Congress," Clinton eventually replied (between interruptions)

OK, Donald. I know you’re into big diversion tonight, anything to avoid talking about your campaign and the way it’s exploding and the way Republicans are leaving you. But let’s at least focus… on some of the issues that people care about tonight. Let's get to their questions.

At another point, Clinton maintained "it’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country," to which Trump responded "because you'd be in jail."  Clinton let the matter be dropped.

Matthews labeled it, in the fashion of Muhammed Ali's famous approach to his fight with George Foreman, "rope-a-dope."  The Democrat, according to polls, won the debate.

That was of a piece with Pence being declared, consistent with polls, of having "won" the first debate. And he did it as Clinton did with her debate.  If Trump controlled Monday's debate- as he did, to some extent- Senator Kaine clearly controlled the debate against Mike Pence.   Kaine consistently and stoutly, defended his running mate's record and policies and challenged Pence to defend his own running mate's business record, offensive statement, and odd policies.

Choosing not to do so, Pence sat back and was was passive and relatively polite.  For Matthews and some others (including many survey respondents), that was statesmanlike.   Kaine decisively won on points; Pence won on style.  Kaine, the aggressor, was slammed for interrupting Pence too often, not unlike Trump being criticized for stalking his opponent on the debate stage.

The roles of Democrat and Republican were reversed in St. Louis. Demonstrating yet again that she is far more presidential than her opponent, Mrs. Clinton stayed above the fray, at one time even adding "I am reminded of what my friend, Michelle Obama, advised us all: 'When they go low, you go high.'" (She repeated the quote and attribution in Detroit Tuesday.)

When the Democratic nominee lamely claimed "Well, you've never seen anything like that before," she was largely reprising her passive, inoffensive role of the previous night. However- aside from the Trumpian lies- we had seen something quite like it before, and one can only hope Hillary Clinton is possessed of the self-awareness to realize it.
















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"Faith Leaders" Faithful To A Political Agenda

Public Policy Research Institute recently found that 69% of white evangelical Protestants support Donald Trump while only 19% of the same group support Hillary Clinton.

That won't change with the release of the audio of a 2005 conversation on an "Access Hollywood" bus when he said, in part, "I did try and f--- her. She was married."

Anyone who isn't aware of Trump's views about women, sex, and morality isn't about to start paying attention now.

So, too, with the "Declaration by American Evangelicals Concerning Donald Trump" posted on Change.org, by the New York Times reports, a "group (which) includes African-American, Asian, Hispanic and white evangelical Christians, and it says that the news media and the polls are overlooking nonwhite evangelicals."

Noting "we will inevitably disagree about which political stances come closest to the heart of God for our nation," the signers maintain

the candidacy of Donald J. Trump has given voice to a movement that affirms racist elements in white culture—both explicit and implicit. Regardless of his recent retraction, Mr. Trump has spread racist “birther” falsehoods for five years trying to delegitimize and humiliate our first African-American president, characterizing him as “the other” and not a real American citizen. He uses fear to demonize and degrade immigrants, foreigners, and people from different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. He launched his presidential campaign by demonizing Mexicans, immigrants, and Muslims, and has repeatedly spoken against migrants and refugees coming to this country—those whom Jesus calls “the stranger” in Matthew 25, where he says that how we treat them is how we treat him. Trump has steadily refused to clearly and aggressively confront extremist voices and movements of white supremacy, some of whom now call him their “champion,” and has therefore helped to take the dangerous fringes of white nationalism in America to the mainstream of politics.

They acknowledge "Hillary Clinton is both supported and distrusted by a variety of Christian voters" and "whether we support her "is not the question here." Still, they add

Mr. Trump has fueled white American nationalism with xenophobic appeals and religious intolerance at the expense of gospel values, democratic principles, and important international relationships. He mocks women and the sanctity of marriage vows, disregards facts and the accountability to truth, and worships wealth and shameful materialism, while taking our weakening culture of civility to nearly unprecedented levels with continuing personal attacks on others, including attacking a federal judge based purely on his Mexican heritage, mocking a disabled reporter, and humiliating a beauty pageant winner for her weight and Latina ethnicity—to give just a few examples.


*******************************************************************************

And so began my post of the early afternoon of Friday, October 7, when it was interrupted by news of the videotape.

The Declaration, I would have said (and still say), captures accurately and eloquently the nature of Mrs. Clinton's opponent, as well as of his campaign and its impact on American society.

I would have argued that neither the evangelists' remarks nor the news of Trump's sexual efforts would have an impact on the votes of evangleical voters because of abortion.   Following the candidate's controversial remarks in April on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Trump's campaign issued a statement including "he will change the law through his judicial appointments and allow the states to protect the unborn."

Donald Trump is officially pro-life, and that is that. His running mate, chosen in part because of an appeal to "people of faith" who believe in their way or the highway, is genuinely in favor of forced birth. His selection merely reinforced Trump's appeal to individuals convinced that God is dead-set against a woman's right to choose and in favor of "religious freedom," the right to discriminate when invoking "God's word."

It didn't take much, and no more than that, for most prominent evangelicals to line up behing Grump, and they're not deserting him now.  It turns out that neither personal piety, traditional values, nor "family values" ever meant much to this crowd. Corey Robin recognizes

this tape shouldn't be used to delegitimate Trump; he's already done that six thousand times over, and I doubt anyone will be surprised by what he says here. What it should be used to delegitimate is the Christian Right, the overwhelming majority of which—according to the latest polls—is standing with this man who stands for everything they claim to oppose. Rather than discredit Trump, this tape should destroy that movement, its leaders, and the cottage industry of enabling journalists and academics who've told us for decades that we need to take "people of faith"—by which they mean the Christian Right—more seriously.

There have been religious voices speaking out against the GOP nominee, more vociferously now, but they have come- not coincidentally- from Utah, Mormon Central. While never explicitly making the claim, most Christian evangelicals strongly implied that the Kingdom of God superceded the importance of Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. The mainstream media bought it hook, line, and sinker, giving the lie to the charge it is the "liberal media."

We don't yet know for sure how the latest outrage will play with the base of culturally religious voters, though I believe it will change very few minds.  However, the impressive (albeit not complete) embrace, even now, of Donald Trump by leaders of the Christian right should be regarded as a teachable moment.  Finally we know and must emphasize that most Christian right leaders (one of them a month ago, below) are more right (conservative) than Christian.












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Run, Donald, Run

The big question at this moment is : will Donald Trump drop out of the race?







The Wall Street Journal's John Harwood tweets: "Roger Stone, asked if any chance Trump will heed GOP officials' calls to quit presidential race: No."  On MSNBC this morning,  Harwood said that campaign co-chairperson (anyone remember Kellyanne Conway?) implied there is no chance Trump will  quit.

In 1972, Senator and Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern won a grand total of 37.5% of the popular vote and 17 electoral votes.  In 1984, former Vice-President, Walter Mondale almost duplicated the feat, garnering 40.6% of the popular vote and only 13 electoral votes.

They are remembered in history as fine Senators and failed presidential candidates, and Mondale additionally as a vice-president.

If Donald Trump leaves the presidential race, he will not be remembered as just another failed presidential canidate, like Mondale, McGovern, or Bob Dole. His legacy will be as a big loser.

And not only as a loser. There is the matter of Trump Univesity, in which Judge Gonzalo Curiel- the Mexican born in Indiana- has ruled that Trump will face trial for civil charges of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.  Justice may be blind, but a President Trump would  do better facing accusers than would a private citizen Trump.

Far from release of the damaging video coming at the worst possible time for the GOP nominee, it has come at the best possible time.  He has been given warning of a topic sure to be raised, probably at the beginning, of Sunday night's debate.   With Ailes, Conway, and othes advising him, Trump should be able to come up with a response sufficient to get him past the debate and on to next week without this story dealing a lethal blow.

He would do well to take the advice of one of his surrogates. Harwood has tweeted "ex-GOP Rep Kingston on what Trump should say at debate about tape: 'I was in the shadow of that Hollywood crude culture.'"  He might even launch an attack on "Hollywood" generally. Despite the infatuation of the American people with popular culture, including that from that industry, it has worked for Republicans in the past.    He already knows one of the questions, however it is worded.  It is up to him whether it is a high, hard one or a hanging curve.







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Of Stern And Trump

The history of Donald Trump and Howard Stern, of appearances by the real estate mogul on the radio program of the perpetually overrated shock jock, is one of using and being used.  And in at least one instance, it is a case of cowardice on the part of Stern himself.

You can't fully blame Stern for wanting to set the record crooked about a controversial conversation he had with a man who may become the next president, whose vindictiveness and authoritarian tendencies have been on full display.

"Nothing! I said nothing new," protested Stern on his program on October 3.  "And so I emailed Trump and I wanted to explain to hin, uh, that is not what I said.

But it, uh, was what he said.  Stern was exorcised by the CNN headline reading "Howard Stern says Trump backed Iraq War in 2002."  Unfortunately for Stern and Trump, the day after the presidential debate, the radio host had in fact stated on his program

I was up late watching the debate.   I hung in until about 10:30 almost, heard my name mentioned, and I went to sleep. It was kinda thrilling. Yeah, oh yeah. Well, it always comes up because, you know, Trump was on our show years ago and said yeah, you know, he was kind of for the Iraq war, us going into Iraq. He was saying he really wasn’t for it, and so they were forced to mention my name. Yeah. It was cool. Good promotion.

The Hill's Joe Concha, spinning the story in Trump's favor, wrote "later interviews before the war and as it began show Trump voicing a need to 'wait for the United Nations' before invading and stating 'the war is a mess' in its first week of operations."

But as Fred Kaplan pointed out, on October 10, 2002 Trump's current opponent argued on the floor of the US Senate

... the question is, how do we do our best to both diffuse the threat Saddam Hussein poses to his people, the region, including Israel, and the United States—and, at the same time, work to maximize our international support and strengthen the United Nations.”

She went on to say that there was “no perfect approach to this thorny dilemma” and that “people of good faith and high intelligence can reach diametrically opposing conclusions.” But, she concluded, “I believe the best course is to go to the United Nations for a strong resolution” that calls “for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded” from Saddam.







There was little difference in their thinking as Mrs. Clinton went on to vote for a resolution which did not advocate invasion but authorized the President to launch one if he found it "necessary and appropriate." Though he wished the President had gotten the United Nations more involved, Donald Trump supported the invasion. Hillary Clinton apologized and Donald Trump boasted. and Howard Stern is still a coarse and crude coward.








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Pence: You're On Your Own, Buddy

The year before he died, the late, great Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Nelson wrote

Republican Sen. Dan Quayle, clashing with Sen. Lloyd Bentsen on Wednesday in a vice presidential debate that focused on Quayle's qualifications to be President, compared himself to former President John F. Kennedy and insisted that, if necessary, he would be prepared to assume the presidency.

The 41-year-old Quayle said age alone was not the only measure of fitness for the Oval Office. Stressing his four years in the House and eight years in the Senate, he maintained that he had "as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency," a comparison that led to the most dramatic moment in the 90-minute debate.

'Served With Kennedy'

"Senator," the 67-year-old Bentsen shot back, glaring at Quayle, "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Quayle, tight-lipped and chafing, interjected: "That was really uncalled for, senator."

The Bentsen-Quayle confrontation, televised nationwide from Omaha Civic Auditorium, about Kennedy could prove crucial to the election between the presidential candidates, Vice President George Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.








As shown repeatedly since then as an example of a great moment in political debates, Bentsen humiliated Quayle in what was thought  might "prove crucial to the election between the presidential candidates,"  GHW Bush and Michael Dukakis.   The final election tally: Bush 53.4%, Dukakis 45.6% with Bush scoring 426 electoral votes and Dukakis only 111. (This was back when the Electoral College tilted Republican.) And Senator Lloyd Bentsen never became President Lloyd Bentsen.

On several occasions on Tuesday night, Senator Kaine challenged Governor Pence to defend a statement or policy of Donald Trump, which the governor wisely avoided doing. Grabbing the low-hanging fruit, Pence secured a "victory" by taking the easy path of criticizing Hillary Clinton while eschewing the hard, politically risky role of defending his own running mate. On Monday, an aide to the Senator reportedly had asked  “Is Mike Pence going to aggressively defend his running mate when he hasn’t necessarily been inclined to go on full defense [in the past]?” The answer turned out to be a resounding "no."

Among the two Democratic nominees and the two Republican nominees, Mike Pence currently is the least unpopular and could win an election held today against any of the other three.   "If Kaine and Pence had been debating for an Ohio Senate seat," Matthew Yglesias slightly exaggerates, "any fair-minded person would have to conclude that Pence won in a landslide." But he is not at the top of the ticket and is not vying to be part of a winning ticket in 2016.

Pence established himself as the leading GOP candidate- for the little that's worth- for the 2020 presidential nomination (assuming the Trump loss Pence is banking on), Tim Kaine denounced Trump and boosted his own running mate, who is running for President. Mike Pence already has determined that he's on a sinking ship, and he's not going down with it.







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Male Supremacy

The right-wing media, and Hot Air's Larry O'Connor specifically, should learn something from Rush Limbaugh. When you're told that someone saw you with your pants down, simply claim the charge came from a lying hack because you did not have your pants down.  O'Connor would say "the complainant was looking at me sideways and din't realize that the pants were only partially down, and that was only because I was sold the wrong size."

On ABC's This Week, Rudy Giuliani said Donald Trump is

a genius at how to take advantage of legal remedies that can help your company survive and grow. I want a man who’s a genius at figuring out how to take this country, that’s -- moving in the wrong direction, where we’ve had a basically jobless recovery, where we’ve had growth of less than 2 percent for two years. That’s pathetic! Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her e-mails.







Limbaugh knew to defend Giuliani, attack the messenger, and get out. After claiming "It's not what Rudy Giuiani said. It's not what Rudy Giuliani meant," he slammed the media by adding

They know it. They just don't care. They think they can pull all these tricks and most people will never spot it; most people, if they do spot it, won't care.

The media thinks most people agree with them anyway. The media thinks that most people hate Rudy and hate Trump just like they do, and so they don't care. They don't care if you see them lying through their teeth, misrepresenting, out of context, whatever. They get away with it far more than they're ever held accountable, so why should they stop? "Did Rudy Giuliani really mean to say Donald Trump would make a better president than Hillary Clinton because he's a man? ...

Wisely, he never answered the question, and should have advised O'Connor, who remarked

Gee, that’s kind of an important modifier at the end of the “woman” reference, isn’t it?...

Giuliani was clearly contrasting Trump’s business acumen with Clinton’s sordid track record in public service which continues to languish under the cloud of suspicion and multiple FBI investigations. He referred to her as “a woman” while conducting the comparison because, well, she’s a woman.

 O'Connor proceeded to replace "woman" with "man" in the quote, arguing that it would not have been strange if "reoriented to male-specific pronouns."

He was wrong, confused, and confusing. and Amanda Marcotte ate him up and spit him out as she explained

Oh dear, someone was out sick the week their English teacher taught sentence diagramming, or they would know that the “and” in Giuliani’s sentence separated two independent clauses. In fact, Giuliani’s statement might have read better as two separate sentences, since the first clause really needs a question mark at the end of it:

“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman?”

“And the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her emails.”

The “and” is just an artifact of the spoken language, which tends to be littered with more conjunctions that more formal writing.

Whether it takes a genius to avoid paying federal income taxes as long as Donald Trump probably did, it does not take one to figure out why Rudy Giuliani is one of the GOP presidential nominee's most enthisiastic advocates







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Same Old Contempt For Americans

Introducing his guest, former New York City mayor and Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, CNN's Jake Tapper observed "The New York Times published a story revealing that the paper had seen pages from Donald Trump's 1995 tax returns, which suggested a near-billion-dollar loss, a deduction so huge, it could have allowed Trump to not pay any federal income taxes for as long as 18 years."

Giuliani's defense of his candidate fell along three lines: 1) he has a "fiduciary responsibility" to "run his business at his lowest possible expense;" 2) he would be foolish not to take advantage of "every deduction and legal opportunity;" 3) if he paid more taxes, banks would sue him for "mismanaging" his businesss;" 4) the man is a "genius."

Although there are better terms to describe his fleecing of Americans, Trump may in fact be a genius (sort of). But he certainly is a hypocrite.... and something more significant.

Judd Legum has the lowdown on Trump's tweets (hashtags and recipients omitted below) over the past few years about federal income taxes:

- Barack Obama who wants to raise all our taxes, only pays 20.5% on $790k salary.
- Facebook billionaire gives up his U.S. citizenship inorder to save taxes. I guess 3.8 billion isn't     -   - enough for The Ral Saverin. He's taking off to Singapore but will continue to enjoy the fruits of the U.S.
 - Trump is an American that will pay many more taxes in one year than you pay in your entire life.
- Successful people work their asses off to make it, only to be punished by heavy taxes which are then squandered recklessly."
   - If amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The washington post scam is saving it!
   - You know what is the worst part of Barack Obama's Tuesday speech playing class warfare- we paid for it with our tax dollars.
   

Nonetheless, probably the most revealing, tweeted, on February 23, 2012. was (emphasis his) "HALF of American's don't pay income tax despite crippling govt debt."

Obviously faux populist Trump, who has bragged "I love debt" and "I am the king of debt," cares no more about the accumulation of debt than he does about the outcome of the Romania v. Portugal womens' playoff soccer game in October.    However, it is telling that the GOP meme of lazy Americans not paying taxes lives on in his perspective

"In fact, 44 percent, 45 percent of America doesn't pay income tax,"  Giuliani told Tapper, mimicking Trump's tweet of a few years earlier.  We recall GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney four years ago caught on video maintaining

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.   All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.

And I mean the president starts out with 48, 49 percent … he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax.

These statements by the likes of Romney, Giuliani, and Trump ignore

the reality of federal excise taxes, state income taxes, and variety of other taxes that are often less avoidable than the federal income tax. Indeed, as the Brookings Institution found, "When looking more specifically at middle-aged workers with jobs, 96 percent paid federal income or payroll taxes" (emphasis in original)." 

As one Forbes columnist explained in the wake of Romney's remarks (graph via McClatchy)

The vast majority of non-income taxpayers fall into three categories:

17 percent includes students, people with disabilities or illnesses, the long-term unemployed, and other people with very low taxable incomes. Also included would be people like our soldiers in foreign wars who are exempted from paying income taxes while they are on active duty in a war zone.

22 percent of people who did not pay federal income taxes in 2009 are people aged 65 or older who have modest incomes (and do not have earnings).

61 percent are working people who pay payroll taxes but are not paying income taxes.

Donald Trump probably has been skirting income taxes for years and should be pummeled for it. The greater problem, though, is that he is the newest incarnation- albeit a particularly crude, uninformed spokesman- of standard GOP elitism.








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