The Power Of Positive Lying

Start your week with a good laugh. Politico reports that on Monday morning

“Remember, Republicans are 5-0 in Congressional Races this year. The media refuses to mention this,” the president wrote on Twitter. “I said Gillespie and Moore would lose (for very different reasons), and they did. I also predicted ‘I’ would win. Republicans will do well in 2018, very well!”

Democrat Jimmy Gomez won the election to fill a vacant House seat in California's 34th District.  The President's assertion otherwise may have been simply a mistake by a deeply ignorant man. However,

Despite Trump’s claims that he predicted the respective losses of Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in Virginia and senatorial candidate Roy Moore in Alabama, the president was outward in his support for both candidates. Trump endorsed both and implored voters to support them via Twitter. In Moore’s case, Trump recorded a robocall on behalf of the GOP candidate and stumped for him at a rally in Pensacola, Florida, just across the Alabama state line.

In Gillespie's case, Trump did not express doubt about the Virginia Republican's candidacy until after his Election Day defeat.

Trump didn't predict that either would be defeated. Had he done so, it would have been a tactical error, especially for a guy who believes in the "power of positive thinking" scam.





Trump didn't predict that either would be defeated. Had he done so, it would have been a tactical error, especially for a guy who believes in the "power of positive thinking" scam.

Trump actually may have precipitated a Moore defeat.  Exit polls showed an even split between voters who approved of the President's performance and of those who did not, while far opted for "strongly disapprove" than "strongly approve."

Moreover, Moore was headed for victory before Trump gave his full-throated endorsement of the disgraced former state supreme court justice on December 4.  Later that day, Chris Cillizza wrote for CNN

In Moore, Trump sees a kindred soul. And now, with Moore bouncing back in polls and seemingly with the momentum in his race against Democrat Doug Jones, Trump wants to be in on the Alabama race so he can claim credit if Moore wins.

Donald Trump may have privately predicted Roy Moore would lose, but if so only because he figured his endorsement would tank the Alabama Republican.  Alternatively, he's a flat-out lying weasel.

Trump Pro-Murder?

In a telephone interview on "Face the Nation" in August, 2015

'The hedge fund guys didn't build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky,' Trump said.

'They are energetic. They are very smart. But a lot of them - they are paper-pushers. They make a fortune. They pay no tax. It's ridiculous, ok?'

Trump's comments were referring to the so-called 'carried interest loophole' - a provision in the tax code which allows private equity and hedge fund managers pay taxes at the capital gains rate instead of the ordinary income rate.

Many fund managers are in the top income bracket, but the capital gains tax bracket is only 20 percent.

While these individuals are also required to pay an additional 3.8 percent surtax on their net investment income, this total rate is still far lower than the 39.6 percent rate that top wage earners must pay on their ordinary income.

'Some of them are friends of mine. Some of them, I couldn't care less about,' Trump said.

'It is the wrong thing. These guys are getting away with murder. I want to lower the rates for the middle class.'

A few days later, he would confirm his position, telling John Heileman and Mark Halperin "I would take carried interest out."





It appears Donald J. Trump is in favor of letting murders get away. "These guys are getting away with murder," he told Heileman and Halperin. Yet, in the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017 which the President has pledged to sign

Another missing item: President Trump’s promise to get rid of the carried interest loophole. “Carried interest was unfair, and it’s gone,” Trump said last spring.

But that odious tax break isn’t gone. It’s just been tweaked a little.

Under current law, when managers of private equity funds, venture capital funds and hedge funds reap a share of their investors’ profits, they pay taxes at the low rate that applies to capital gains, not the higher rate that applies to ordinary income.

Under the new law, the fund managers still get that break, as long as they hold the underlying investment for at least three years. Tax experts say most of the managers who claim the loophole won’t find that to be a problem.

Generously, Trump could be given a break. He actually said carried interest was unfair, and "it's gone" is spoken of in the present, rather than the future, tense.

On second thought, he's a flat-out lying weasel.




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What's The Matter With Trump (Part Infinity)

Fresh off denouncing the Federal Bureau of Investigation,Donald Grump spoke at the graduation ceremony at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, declaring "what the hell is going on in Chicago?"

Whatever is going on in Chicago, we know what is going on with Donald Trump, as it always is: demagoguery.

Ingratiating himself with police officers (as he does with everyone when face-to-face), Trump blustered

I want to send a message today to those who threaten violence against our police:  We will protect those who protect us.  And we believe criminals who kill police officers should get the death penalty.  (Applause.)

Scenario 1:  Police officer who repeatedly engages in domestic violence assaults his wife when she, using the pistol registered to her husband, shoots and kills him.

Scenario 2: Man who repeatedly engages in domestic violence assaults his wife- who in this case, happens to be a police officer. She uses her revolver and finishes him off.

Donald Trump says both women should get the death penalty, presumably after a fair trial. Both individuals, one of them herself a police officer, were longtime victims of domestic abuse.  Perhaps either or both should be punished, which a jury generally determines. But the President of the United States of America believes both women, including the police officer, should be executed.





He wasn't done. He boasted

To any member of MS-13 listening, I have a message for you: We will find you.  We will arrest you.  We will jail you.  We will throw you the hell out of the country.  (Laughter.)  I mean, somehow, I like it better than jail.  Jail we have to take care of them.  Who the hell wants to take care of them?  (Applause.)  You know the jail stuff is wonderful but we have to pay for it, right?  (Laughter.)

Tough guy. He wants murderous gang leaders arrested and thrown out of the country, after which they can return to to the USA to deal drugs, rape women, and force children into prostitution. Of course, given Trump's distaste for most things American, that might appeal to him.

The President remarked also that

The Department of Justice has also announced more than $98 million in grant funding to help your local police departments hire desperately needed new officers.  Also, just as I promised, we are allowing our local police to access surplus military equipment — something the previous administration, for some reason, refused to do.  (Applause.)  Explain that one.  Explain it to me, please.  Never understood that one.  Somebody out there can explain.  Anybody want to stand up and explain it?  It’d be tough.  (Laughter.)

I can explain it, and I don't even have to stand up to do it.  American cities, already beset by strained, contentious relationships between the minority population and the police, shouldn't have to confront the likes of battlefield rifles, grenade launchers and tracked armored vehicles.  Such things have their places, such as in catastrophic climactic events (which are never, ever caused by climate change). However, if police have them, they will be used, as they were against Iraq war veteran Jose Guerena, a former Marine.

So what the heck is going on with Donald Trump? The usual demagoguery with with a cup of ignorance and a dash of bravado.

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Sorry. The Money Is All Gone.

In floor debate in late November, Senate Finance Committee chairperson Orrin Hatch, who worked with the late Senator Edward Kennedy to create the Children's Health Insurance Program, assured Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown "We're going to get CHIP throught. There's no question about that. I'm going to see that it gets through."

Politico's Haberkorn reported Friday that the Utah Republican stated “We’re going to take good care of CHIP. I can’t tell you exactly when, but we’ll get it done.”

With Republicans in favor of the program and Democrats completely committeed to it, CHIP will sometime in the near future be reauthorized.

Still, Haberkorn added

House Republicans on Wednesday released a spending bill that would fund CHIP for five years but pay for it with cuts to Obamacare and other programs that Senate Democrats would not support. The bill would need Democrats' help to get through the Senate.

Nice little program you got there- it would be a shame if something happened to it.  The GOP is quite willing to fund children's health care- provided that it can chip away at the social safety net elsewhere.

The hostage may be released, but the GOP is bound and determined that a heavy price is paid. It is, after all, the secondary motive for a disastrous tax bill, the primary motive being to please the Party's donors.  Hatch himself gave it away when in the largely empty chamber with Brown, he contended

We're going to do CHIP. There's no question about it in my mind. And it's gotta be done the right way. But- the reason CHIP's having trouble is that we don't have any money anymore. We just add more and more spending and more and more spending and you can look at the  rest of the bill for more and more spending.





"It has to be done the right way... we don't have any money anymore," remarked the Senator who unreservedly voted for the GOP tax plan, targeted to increase the debt by something north of $1 trillion. Excited at the pospect of slashing Medicaid, Speaker Paul Ryan at a conservative event in March bragged to the editor of the National Review "Sending it back to the states, capping its growth rate. We have been dreaming of this since I have been around, since you and I were drinking at a keg.”

Shortly before triumphantly pushing through his chamber the Corporate Tax Cut Sham of 2017, Ryan maintained at a town hall meeting "You cannot get the national debt under control, you cannot get that deficit under control, if you don’t do both — grow the economy, cut spending."  Ryan had commented in a radio interview . "Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking."

Frankly, the Speaker dares not utter the words "Medicaid" or "Medicare," and while more detached than Hatch, he's a little more subtle, or at least wonkier. So carrying water for Ryan, Politico's Alberta and Bade characterize the Speaker's goal as "entitlement reform," in which he "tackles what he sees as the systemic problems with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid." Charlie Pierce recognizes “'what he sees as being systemic problems' with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are that those programs exist at all."

Senator Marco Rubio echoes Ryan's call that Congress "structurally reform" earned benefits. More candid than the Speaker or Hatch, the Florida Republican stated

The only way you are going to deal with the debt is you have to do two things. ... You have got to generate economic growth because growth generates revenue. But you also have to bring spending under control. And not discretionary spending. That isn’t the driver of our debt... The driver of our debt is the structure of Social Security and Medicare for future beneficiaries.

The good news is that individuals currently elderly probably will be left somewhat, relatively, unharmed. Perhaps Hatch and his merry band of oligarchs with a daddy complex will "take care" of people now in retirement age or close to it because elderly people vote. Health care for children also- to whatever extent- will be provided. But all those people in between better hold onto their wallets. The Republican Senate and Republican Senate are coming for you- unless, of course, your parents leave their $11 million estate to you when they die.




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It's Only Americans They Don't Like

Donald Trump isn't to blame. Sure, he did say that John McCain is considered a hero only because he was captured: that he felt like a soldier by being able to avoid venereal disease while bed-hopping in about New York City in the 1970s; and that he "loves the poorly educated." But when other conservatives disparage, or demonstrate their contempt for, Americans, they themselves should be held accountable.

Sean Hannity, perhaps the most virulent supporter of President Trump in the media, has a lot he should be held accountable for.  Talking recently to a former Navy SEAL and Federal Air Marshal about terrorist attacks, he remarked

If you have a gun pointed at your head, what you do, if you have a gun at your back, if you have a gun at your chest. If somebody pulls out a blade- which can be more deadly than a firearm in some curcumstances if somebody's (sic) trained in the use of that blade.

Hannity wanted to make the point that guns really are not all that deadly, as if Stephen Paddock had the skill to rain dozens of  knives down onto that crowd to kill those 58 persons at the country music concert in Las Vegas. Luckily, Sean further enlightens us about how victims themselves are responsible for being murdered as he continues

You're telling people that they have got to understand what this is about for them and what they need to know and how they're going to deal with evil if  it confronts them in life... The average person walking through the streets of New York City, they've got their headphones on or in their ear or they're text-walking or they're talking on their phone with zero situational awareness.

He's pretty clear here: it's not some people or some irresponsible people. It's the average person who is acting irresponsibly and begging to be attacked. Mercilessly, he adds "where do you sit in restaurants, I mean, there are certain little things that yo can do to increase your safety odds that if something happens- even a movie theatre for crying out loud."

Understandably, people may want to cry out loud listening to Hannity blaming (potential) victims for the crimes of those who would do them harm, as if the normal response to a the question of a maitre d', a waiter, or a cook of "where would you like to sit" is "where I'm least likely to get shot."

But while it's not surprising that a Trump enthusiast would get into the business of bashing Americans, it's discouraging that it's becoming more common among individuals not immersed in politics. Shortly before Lindsey Vonn injured her back while training for the Winter Olympics scheduled for St. Moritz, Switzerland in February, she had told CNN's Alpine Edge

Well I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the president (because) I take the Olympics very seriously and what they mean and what they represent, what walking under our flag means in the opening ceremony.

She aded "I want to represent our country well. I don't think that there are a lot of people currently in our government that do that." Responding to a question about being invited to the White House,  she stated "Absolutely not. No. But I have to win to be invited. No actually I think every US team member is invited so no I won't go."

Tweeting "Anti-Trump Olympian Lindsey Vonn Just Injured in Ski Accident," a Trump enthusiast received 189 likes and dozens of people expressing their glee.  At least 33 of the latter cited "karma," which suggests the distrust many Trumpists have for science or rationality.

Sixteen people cited "MAGA" in their hashtag, their twitter handle, or simply as a message to those who presumably don't want to make America great again. That, too, is telling:  an athlete asserts "I hope to represent the people of the United States" and "I want to represent our country well" and Trump supporters, including this Fox News host, are appalled.





In an Instagram message, Vonn herself wrote

It is hurtful to read comments where people are hoping I break my neck or that God is punishing me for being "anti-Trump." We need to find a way to put aside our differences and find common ground in communicating. 

Vonn wants to find that common ground. And most of the people somewhat on the left, including newly-elected Doug Jones, also do. However, their critics instead aim to remake America in their idealized image with a boosterish, even hucksterish, nationalism. That is the idea of America they love- even as they are not fond, not fond at all, of their fellow citizens.




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The President Of The One-Track Mind

You've all seen this tweet, sent by President Trump twelve hours before polls closed in an election I had totally wrong:


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!
8:03 AM - Dec 12, 2017

Amanda Marcotte replied with with three tweets, one of them

Amanda Marcotte
@AmandaMarcotte
Trump supporters, this morning: Step one, read Trump saying Gillibrand would do “anything” for donations, chuckle merrily to yourself while making a rude sexual gesture. Perhaps say something lewd about her to a friend or your wife.
1:21 PM - Dec 12, 2017

Indirectly, Marcotte- not specifying Trump as the recipient of the sexual favor- inadvertently laid the groundwork for Sarah Huckabee Sanders' slick, albeit crassly dishonest, defense of her guy during her Tuesday news conference. Responding to a question about "sexual innuendo" Sanders claimed

I think that the President is very obvious, this is the same sentiment that the President has expressed many times before when he's exposed the corruption of the entire political system. In fact, he's used similar terminology many times when talking about politicians of both parties, both men and women. And certainly in his campaign to drain the swamp. The system is clearly broken, it's clearly rigged for special interests, and this president is someone that can't be bought, and it's one of the reasons that he's President today.





Sanders cleverly misinterpreted Trump's tweet, which Marcotte already had misinterpreted.  The President's spokesperson shifted the argument to one about "politicians of both parties" allegedly being corrupt and implied that they beg for money from special interests.  After the follow-up question, she remarked "politicians repeatedly beg for money, that's not something new."

But Trump had not referred to Gillibrand specifically or special interests generally.  Instead, he spoke of one particular individual who approached one person specifically: someone who would come to my office "begging" for campaign contributions... (and would do anything for them).

The President said nothing about other politicians and nothing about any doing things for a myriad of special interests. He said she came to him for money and would do anything for it. It's his fantasy, one not uncommon among men who both long for and ridicule practitioners of the oldest profession.

American Urban Radio reporter April Ryan tried to meet the Administration halfway, choosing not to say that Trump had employed sexual innuendo but merely that it had been interpreted that way.  "Are Democrats owed an apology," she asked, "for their misunderstanding of the tweet this morning because they, including the Senator, think it's about sexual innuendo?"

The proper answer- given Sanders' denial(s)- would have been "we cannot be responsible for misinterpretation of the President's statement."

Of course, Sanders chose not to defend the boss but to attack his skeptics. She replied "only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way," thus demonstrating a) she is extraordinarily sexually naive; b) she is a ruthless, crude defender of someone more ruthless and crude than most of us ever have met or heard about; or c) the Administration, valuing only victory and strength, cannot be reasoned with, only challenged and defeated.

I vote (b) and (c).  In 2013, Donald J. Trump told Celebrity Apprentice contestant Brande Roderick, a former Playboy playmate, "it must be a pretty picture you dropping to your knee." Some things never change.







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Franken Must Go- If....

It was six days- nearly a week- ago that Bruce Bartlett, having had enough, tweeted

The issue is not whether charges against Franken are true; I assume they are & charges against Trump are also true. But I don't hear progressives demanding that Trump resign, only that Franken resign. It's the double standard that the left enforces on itself that drives me crazy.

On Sunday, December 10, Kirsten Gillibrand became the fifth US senator (all Democrats) to call on Donald Trump to resign or consider resigning as President because of the allegations that he has harassed and/or assaulted numerous women. She had been preceeded by Vermont senator Sanders, New Jersey senator Booker, and Oregon senators Merkley and Wyden, though Ms. Gillibrand was notably the first woman to have asked Trump to step down.

Still (as they all realize) Donald Trump won't resign, so their pleas will prove of very limited value. That is, unless they take that emphatic advice from Bartlett, who served Presidents Reagan and Bush 41.  On the same day as his other tweet, Bartlett had remarked "Democrats are so stupid. The obvious thing to say about the Al Franken business is that he will resign the day Trump resigns."

This plan is brilliantly simple. There is no concern that President Trump will call their bluff because Trump still would refuse to resign. Althoug at that point, Democrats would need a response, if Alabama voters do the predictable today (Tuesday), they have one begging to be used: Franken will resign once there is an ethics investigation of Senator-elect Roy Moore.

This would box in Senate Majority Leader McConnell, who otherwise is unlikely to initiate an ethics investigation because of the bad publicity it would engender for the GOP.  He could accept the Democrats' challenge, in which case well-publicized, possibly lurid, hearings would do his Party no good.  Alternatively, he could stubbornly refuse an investigation.  Not only could Democrats then use a Senator Moore as a campaign weapon (which they are expected to do anyway,) but McConnell's refusal would throw upon the issue greater attention because it would be coupled with the Franken matter.

Bartlett believes the Democratic Party is "stupid" because it demanded that one of its own, Al Franken, resign with no questions asked. But when members of the Congressional Black Caucus, singed by pressure on John Conyers to resign, alleged a double standard, other Democratic pols took notice. When that was coupled with a recommendation from seven female Senators that Franken resign, the Party had no choice. The base would not be denied.





But Democratic members of the House and the Senate, especially blacks and women, are not fond of President Trump.  There likely would be little pushback from anyone in the Party if the  resignation of one (of 100) Senators was linked to that of the President of the United States. The Party wasn't necessarily stupid by pressuring Al Franken to go back to Minnesota. Nonetheless, if in the wake of calls for President Trump to resign they don't link the two, Bruce Bartlett's characterization would be proven accurate, and clearly so.




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