2016 July 30^th

This morning on Fox and Friends, Tucker Carlson, who passes for the program’s resident intellectual, was holding forth about the email hacking of various Democratic groups. Reverend Mike Huckabee was available to comment about this and Carlson invited him to do so. (Exactly why the former governor of Arkansas and failed presidential candidate should be expected to be knowledgeable about email hacking was not explained.)

Huckabee, whose daughter is employed as a Trump surrogate, was quick to give his views on the matter: Huckabee made it clear that he could not understand why only the Democratic emails were being hacked; he was quite specific, declaring that the Republican Party’s candidate’s communications were not involved and he didn’t understand why. It is possible that Huckabee’s knowledge base does not extend much beyond the Arkansas state borders.

The hacking was probably done by Russian national authorities and it was done specifically to discredit and degrade Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The emails were leaked on the eve of the Democratic convention at the perfect time to cause the maximum disruption by Sander’s supporters whose enthusiasms sometimes border on the irrational. Putin recognizes that Trump’s willingness to disregard our NATO treaty obligations make it well worthwhile to do what he can to help Trump win the election and that’s just what he’s doing. He makes no secret of his enthusiasm for Trump.

Trump encourages Putin; he says that if the Russians can capture and release those 30 thousand Clinton emails, they’d be well rewarded. Then after his handlers reigned him in he said he was just being “sarcastic.” No Donald, that isn’t being sarcastic; when you claim after being hammered by Clinton at her convention you will no longer be “Mr. Nice Guy” that, Mr. Trump, is sarcasm.

Fox and Friends brought a Trump surrogate forward to tell us about the differences between the campaign’s vice presidential picks, Indiana’s Governor Pence and former Virginia Governor Kaine. We learn that Governor Pence, who governed Indiana from 2013 to 2016, produced a considerable increase in the state’s employment over that period; Governor Kaine, who was governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, was quite ineffective because his state lost jobs steadily over his tenure. Because of this the Trump flack claimed that Pence had been the much more effective governor.

But wait, from 2006 to 2010 when Kaine was governor of Virginia, national unemployment rose from 4.7 to 9.8 percent. This was the result of the Bush recession when we were losing as many as 900 thousand jobs a month. No mention of this by the Trump flack and certainly no mention of this circumstance by “Fair and Balanced” Fox News.

 Pence, who had much better employment data, began his governorship in 2013 when unemployment was 8 percent and he watched it drop to its current 4.9 percent. Could the increase in Indiana jobs have been due the improvement in the national economy? That possibility would never be suggested by Fox News.

2016 July 29^th

Both conventions are over and we are reminded of “Macbeth” and the lines ending, “…It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” but what if it isn’t? Now that the odds makers have had time to make their adjustments, how have the election odds changed as a result of the conventions? The Brits, who can bet on American elections, have no political interest in the outcome, but they do have a monetary interest in getting the odds right. Paddy Power is one such outfit with a large online presence. The odds they give on the election have not changed noticeably because of the conventions. Hillary Clinton is still the odds on favorite to win. A two-dollar bet on her to win will earn you just one dollar if you’re right. (An odds on bet is one in which you can win less than you risk.) For Donald Trump the odds are 13/8 meaning that you can bet eight dollars and if you are right you’ll win 13 dollars. In sum, Paddy Power is still reasonably sure that Clinton will win.

Peggy Noonan, the very long time columnist for “The Wall Street Journal” tells us that Trump’s acceptance speech “was neither eloquent nor lofty, but it was powerful.” Then she goes on to say “Trump’s speech was important. He is a vivid figure and for year has elicited strong reactions. By now he’s exhausting. We have Trump fatigue.” So what was so powerful about Trump’s speech? Perhaps that will take another column.

She writes, “Does he want a ban on Muslims? No. ‘We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism…’” Compromised by terrorism? Who decides? Do we ban immigration from France where there have been many terrorist attacks? Noonan does not mention this change from Trump’s initial ban, “…until we can find out what the hell is going on.” Does Trump believe that we now know “what the hell is going on” and so he changes his immigration criteria? Will he jump back to his first ban tomorrow, or maybe next week?

A high point of the convention was a talk by Khizr Khan, a Muslim whose son was killed while serving in Iraq. He pointed out that Trump’s ban on Muslim immigrants would have kept his family from coming to America. He said that Trump needed to read the Constitution, particularly the sections on liberty and freedom. He pointed out that Trump had risked nothing and lost nothing for his country.

Sam Clovis the co-chair of the Trump campaign was quick to deny that Trump had banned Muslims from the country. Clovis, a retired Air Force bird colonel, claimed that Trump had just wanted a pause on the immigration of Muslims. So Colonel Clovis, how long must a pause be before it becomes a ban? It seems obvious to most of us who speak English that this “pause” is a ban as long as it is used to stop Muslims from entering the country.

Of course Trump is not yet President and if Paddy Power’s odds are right, his presidency isn’t all that likely.

2016 July 28^th

The Democrats are having an excellent convention; the high profile speakers, from Vice President Biden, to President Obama, to Secretary Panetta, and on and on, have all given great presentations. But these fine speakers have been outshone by the Democrat’s not so secret weapon, Donald J. Trump.

Trump played to a raucous and adoring crowd in Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the same time the Democrats were holding forth in Philadelphia. The President presented a much more up-beat picture of the country than Donald Trump has given us. Trump claimed that the President was “out of touch” because, as Trump pointed out, 70 percent of those recently surveyed  thought we were going in the wrong direction.

The survey question, “country going in the right/wrong direction” goes back to the seventies. While 70 percent of the people now believe the country is going in the wrong direction, when President Obama was running for his first election in October of 2008 that number was 91 percent. There was a time when the country’s citizens thought the country was going in the right direction. On February 26, 1999 just after President Clinton was acquitted in his famous impeachment trial, only about 30 percent thought we were going in the wrong direction.

The whole issue of polling citizens to ask them if the country is going in the “right “ direction lumps together those who believe it is going in the wrong direction because social programs are hopelessly inadequate with those who believe it is going in the wrong direction because we are subsidizing welfare queens who are taking advantage of the system. The result is that there will always be a substantial group who believe the country is “going in the wrong direction.” The answer to that question really tells us very little about the mood of the electorate.

Then we have those WikiLeaks emails: There is some evidence that Russia had penetrated the DNC computer system and that their IT folks were responsible for these emails appearing at just the right time to throw a “spanner in the works” of the DNC’s convention. The emails detail the stupid bias the DNC had when they clearly favored Clinton during the primaries.

The bromance between Trump and Putin is an established fact. Putin wants the disintegration of NATO and Trump does not favor our continuing to support our treaty obligations there, It’s all about the money you see. NATO countries that don’t pay what Trump believes they should might not be defended. Putin loves that idea and will do what he can to see Trump elected, including a little email hacking. Trump has encouraged Putin’s efforts suggesting that Russia should jump right in there and get more of those emails. But then there was a lot of blowback and Trump let it be known that he was just being “sarcastic.” That fooled no one with the possible exception of Bill O’Reilly and other Fox News types. (Fox showed Leon Panetta being booed but didn’t get around to showing Panetta’s smashing assault on Trump’s Russian connection. So much for “fair and balanced.”)

2016 July 27^th

President Obama held a press conference with Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto yesterday. The President provided some relevant facts about our relationship with Mexico and about our situation here at home. These facts nicely cut through the bluster we have lately heard from The Republican’s chief bluster boy. I quote the President below:

“Mexico is our third-largest trading partner. We sell more to Mexico than we do to China, India, and Russia combined. Every year, millions of tourists and businesspeople and friends and family cross our border legally. Every day, $1.5 billion in trade and investment crosses our border -- and that's trade that supports over a million jobs right here in the United States. On a whole host of issues, from our shared security to climate change, Mexico is a critical partner and is critically important to our own well-being. We’re not just strategic and economic partners, we’re also neighbors, and we're friends, and we're family -- including millions of Americans that are connected to Mexico by ties of culture and of language.

A reporter challenged the two Presidents to respond to the Republican presidential nominee who called, once again, for a wall. Isn't Trump's success an indictment of your Presidency, he asked Obama. And how do you partner with a person that you’ve previously compared to Hitler and Mussolini, he asked Peña Nieto. Here is the President’s reply:

“. . . this idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn’t really jibe with the experience of most people. I mean, I hope people, the next morning, walked outside and birds were chirping and the sun was out, and this afternoon people will be watching their kids play in sports teams and go to the swimming pool, and folks are going to work and getting ready for the weekend.  And, in particular, I think it is important just to be absolutely clear here that some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week just don’t jibe with the facts.  So let’s take two specific examples. When it comes to crime, the violent crime rate in America has been lower during my presidency than any time in the last three, four decades. And although it is true that we’ve seen an uptick in murders and violent crime in some cities this year, the fact of the matter is, is that the murder rate today, the violence rate today is far lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was President -- and lower than when I took office. We’ve just gone through a tragic period where we saw both a tragedy in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, and then the insanity and the viciousness of people targeting police officers. And we are all heartbroken by that, and we're all troubled by how we can rebuild trust, support law enforcement and make sure that communities feel that they are being fairly policed. But the fact is that the rate of intentional killings of police officers is also significantly lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was President. Those are facts. That's the data. When it comes to immigration, I think Americans expect that our immigration process is orderly and it is legal.  And we have put unprecedented resources at our border.  Well, it turns out that the rate of illegal migration into the United States today is lower by two-thirds than it was when Ronald Reagan was President.  We have far fewer undocumented workers crossing the border today than we did in the ‘80s, or the ‘90s, or when George Bush was President. That's a fact. So the one thing that I think is important is -- obviously there are going to be different visions about where we should go as a country -- how we can provide jobs, how we can make sure that our kids are able to get the education they need to succeed in the 21st century, how do we deal with our budget, how do we make sure our tax system is fair, how do we deal with very real issues around growing inequality or wages that have not gone up as fast as we want, and the real pressures that a lot of families feel. But we're not going to make good decisions based on fears that don't have a basis in fact. And that, I think, is something that I hope all Americans pay attention to.  America is much less violent than it was 20, 30 years ago And immigration is much less a problem than it was not just 20, 30 years ago, but when I came in as President.  That doesn’t mean we have solved those problems, but those are facts. I think that covers just about everything -- oh, you had some question about my approval ratings being high and right track-wrong track.  I think if you look at almost every year, under every President over the last -- I don't know -- 20, 30 years, you're going to be hard pressed to find a year in which the majority of Americans thought we were on the right track.  Maybe because all the good things that are happening in America don't get reported on a lot. So I don't think that's actually unusual.  But I appreciate you bringing up the fact that my poll numbers are doing okay.” So that’s the word from the POTUS himself; unsurprisingly he said it far better than I could have paraphrased it. Think about it!

2016 July 26^th

Cal Thomas tells us that Donald J. Trump’s acceptance speech hit some high notes. Then we find that he is critical of Trump’s delivery, the speech at 75 minutes was too long and it was not “well-modulated,” read, he shouted too much. The content, however, he found satisfying.

He tells us that 69.3 percent of those surveyed believe that we are on the wrong track. “Crime and violence are serious concerns.” Of course they are serious concerns; when aren’t they serious concerns? Politicians, particularly Donald J. Trump, who has been reading his own speeches, produce this “concern.” He has admitted that he gets his information from “the shows” so we have a nice feedback loop.

The facts are very different; FBI statistics show a steady decline in violent crime both in this country and in other developed countries. The death of police officers are the lowest in 50 years. This information is readily available to anyone with a computer and the wit to google the FBI article. That might be too much to expect of either Donald J. Trump or Cal Thomas. Trump’s only hope in this election is to convince a chunk of the population on two issues: the first is that this country is in terrible shape, ridden with crime and unsafe for people to walk the streets; the second is that only he, Donald J. Trump, can fix the problem.

There are corollaries; those in power are ineffective. (How else could this terrible situation have developed?) Bad trade deals are responsible for low wages. Never mind the rise of automated machinery and other labor saving procedures. (A machine can now assist a surgeon in the removal of your prostate, considerably reducing the time required.) We are being taken advantage of by our allies who aren’t “paying their fair share” of the mutual defense cost. Even Senator Cotton a rabid opponent of the President and a hawk on defense, has pointed out that these treaties are not “business deals.”

Thomas tells us that, “Poor children are trapped in failing public schools and Democrats won’t let them escape. Trump and his running mate promise school choice.” The first sentence is nonsense. Each state has a different method for handling so called charter schools. In this state, any child who wishes can attend a charter school, so what is this nonsense about Democrats not letting children attend charter schools? Students already have school choice…at least they do in Michigan.

On another topic: Stuart Varney, a Fox News reader, was recording the White House press secretary’s answer to a question about Michelle Obama’s speech to the convention. Among other things, she pointed out that slaves had built the White House and that her children could now play on the White House lawn. Josh Earnest, the press secretary was asked if Mrs. Obama’s remarks about slaves building the White House had been divisive. Earnest said, simply, “No,” and moved to the next question. Varney was apparently amazed that there had been no extended conversation. Of course Mrs. Obama’s remarks might well have been divisive…for folks backing David Duke, former KKK wizard, for Louisiana’s senate seat. But who cares?

2016 July 24^th

One year ago, exactly, this blog contained the following comments on Donald J. Trump:

July 24^th 2015

Today we’ll talk about the Trump phenomenon. Only in America can money and bombast produce a viable candidate for the Presidency. There are about 500 billionaires in this country, many of them richer than Donald Trump, none of them as wiling to brag about their wealth and none of them, except Trump, running for office. There about 1500 people with a net worth of more than 500 million dollars; they can also be described in the same terms Mr. Trump uses to describe himself, “really, really rich!”

It is the nature of capitalist free-enterprise systems, so the economists tell us, to increase the difference between the ends of the wealth continuum. The average salary for the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies is about 10 million dollars annually.  My paper this morning advertised a number of jobs paying 18 thousand dollars a year, .0018 of the top CEO’s pay. Once before the country was at the mercy of wealthy individuals, people who controlled various trusts. Then President Theodore Roosevelt began his “trust busting.” Vertically integrated trusts had achieved a stranglehold on the economy and Roosevelt released that stranglehold.

Money now controls our government; there are seventeen registered lobbyists for every legislator. These lobbyists sometimes write the legislation which their employers want enacted. If the legislator behaves himself, cooperates and does what he’s told, he can eventually look forward to his own lucrative career as a lobbyist. The system is set up to perpetuate the system; the result even includes an insistence on a pledge of no new taxes. This pledge is required of new legislators by Grover Norquist, a powerful, if unelected, factotum. The pledge increases the protection of the wealth of the already wealthy and requires the government to go ever deeper into debt; it guarantees that the wealthy are immune from any debt repayment obligation. Any criticism of the system raises the cry of “class warfare.”

The current spectacle is hardly surprising; the result is that a wealthy real estate mogul, who admits contributing to every politician who might be able to increase his wealth, is now claiming that he will do great things if elected. He has already said that he would build a wall along the border with Mexico…and make Mexico pay for it. When asked how he would make Mexico pay for it he says his questioner must wait and see. He claims that Mexico is “sending” its felons and “some good people” to this country. How Mexico can “send” any of their citizens anywhere he doesn’t say.

He has the trappings of wealth and the bluster of arrogance and that combination has enormous appeal to many on the right…and some on the left. He also takes pains to criticize his Republican opponents as well as his Democratic ones. This also appeals to his audience who rarely hears anyone lashing out indiscriminately at politicians. His wealth allows him ignore the normal rules of political combat. Those in politics are now reaping what they have sown. Heaven help us all!

2016 July 23^rd

Now we have a complete playbill; the cast of characters in this tragedy are now all known; Tim Kaine, the Spanish speaking, certified “nice guy,” is Clinton’s VP pick.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is not jumping with joy about this. Kaine is well qualified to become President if he needs to; he has been a Senator, a Governor, the head of the DNC (Surely the most challenging of all his previous positions.), but he is also a fan of the Trans-Pacific Partnership which is unpopular with the Bernie wing of the party. Likewise is his friendliness toward the banking industry and his personal views on abortion.

To add to the angst of the Bernie people, the right wing has released some emails the DNC sent in an attempt to scuttle Bernie’s chances in West Virginia and Kentucky. There were two of these featured on “Fox and Friends” this morning. The attempt was made in one of these emails to make much of Sander’s religion, or lack of it. I doubt that the fact that Sanders was Jewish, or perhaps an Atheist, would come as a great surprise to anyone. On the other hand, the scathing attitude of Debbie Wasserman Shultz toward Sanders and her obvious bias against his candidacy is shameful. Not only that, but it does not help Clinton for Wasserman Shultz to alienate Sander’s supporters and this she has surely done. This was a stupid move.

Trump has been quick to jump in to this email controversy and also to try to besmirch Senator Kaine. Kaine received some gifts that Trump maintains were inappropriate if not illegal; they weren’t of course, because there is no evidence at all that the giver got any favorable treatment in return.

Trump is in some trouble on several fronts, none of which is getting much press at the moment but that will change once the Clinton campaign gets started: There is that pesky issue of “Trump University.” The State of New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman shut down this bit of fraud. (As an interesting sidelight, Florida’s Attorney General, Republican Pamela Bondi was considering joining this action against Trump until she got a 25 thousand dollar contribution to her re-election campaign from him, whereupon she decided there just wasn’t enough evidence to proceed.) The hoodwinked students who were bilked out of thousands of dollars to learn Trump’s secrets of real estate success want their money back. They’ll get it too, if they live long enough.

How about Trump’s income tax returns: Trump hasn’t submitted them to the public because he says he can’t submit them while he is being audited. The IRS says being audited is no problem if Trump wishes to disclose what he has submitted. It might not be a problem for the IRS but it might be for Donald J. Trump. We’ll also hear more about this from the Clinton campaign.

The author of Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” has come forth to tell us that he, Tony Schwartz, is actually the author of this book. An infuriated Trump is suing Swartz for 10 million dollars plus all the royalties Swartz has received so far. There is an article in “The New Yorker” by Jane Mayer telling us about Swartz’s experiences dealing with Trump while he was trying to get enough information to write the book. The article makes the spectacle of Trump as President even more frightening.

2016 July 22^nd

We have heard Trump’s acceptance speech and it is not, remotely, “Happy days are here again.” It is more like the “health care provider” who, after looking you over, prescribes a number of herbal concoctions that only he/she sells. You must take them as directed and you will feel better…eventually. You will, however, feel poorer immediately!

Trump’s stock in trade is selling people the reduction of fear, the standard offering of demagogues ever since the beginning of demagoguery. For this to be maximally effective, the demagogue must create fear, or increase whatever fear already exists. Trump has done this very well. He has had to lie or greatly mislead his followers to do it. He claims that crime is increasing in our cities. It has increased this year in four major cities but it has been steadily decreasing in this country since 1993. What does Trump say about those FBI statistics? Why, he says that the FBI is misleading the public, that their statistics are biased.

Trump warns us of the terrible ISIS attacks we will have, particularly if Hillary Clinton is elected. So far this year we have had about 57 people killed in what authorities claim are ISIS inspired attacks. Fifty people were killed by lightning strikes last year.

Flying, as most everyone knows, is safer than driving. After 9/11 many people were afraid to fly so they drove instead. Andrew Shaver, a Princeton Ph. D. candidate, sites a study which found that because of the increased fear of flying after 9/11, the increase in automobile accidents resulting from increased driving exceeded the lives lost in that terrorist attack. Terrorists kill people to instill terror so Trump hammering away at the awfulness of these ISIS attacks helps only…ISIS, and of course Donald Trump. Trump’s ranting against Muslims also has the effect of marginalizing them in this country just as they are in Europe. Most law enforcement people, Giuliani excepted, are not happy about that.

We haven’t ignored the threats from ISIS. The FBI claims that a number of attacks have been intercepted, and there may have been some attacks credited to ISIS that ISIS did not support until they could take credit for the attack after it happened. The Pulse nightclub is a case in point. There should be a distinction between an ISIS inspired attack and an ISIS enabled attack.

Another attack today, this time in a mall in Germany has left eight dead. Once again this attack looks like it was from a group of right-wing extremists rather than ISIS but it is too early to tell; it doesn’t matter, this attack, like the others will add credibility to Donald Trump’s claim that we need him to keep us safe.

Some time ago Trump claimed that he could stand on a popular street corner and shoot someone and it wouldn’t cost him any votes. He’s right, of course, but doesn’t that say more about his voters than it does about him?

2016 July 20^th

The Republican Party has officially declared Donald J. Trump their nominee for President of the United States. This is an historic event because Trump has never been elected to any other political position, nor indeed, has he ever run for any other political position. He has managed to defeat the many other aspirants for this honor largely from his prior TV fame, from the force of his personality and from his promises to “make America great again.”

He has cleverly taken advantage of the fact that people in the middle class and below have seen stagnating wages, job loss and grim prospects for much financial improvement. He has focused the anger of this group on immigrants and on trade treaties that he claimed has cost jobs. His rallies, attended by thousands, are carefully scripted, although Trump speaks from no script. He says only those things that draw applause and those phrases are often repeated over and over.

His plans are vague: he will build a wall along our southern border to keep out undesirables (read Latinos). He makes absurd claims that we are admitting thousands and thousands of Syrian immigrants with no examination of their background. No one holds him to account for these absurdities nor do they point out that his remedies are often unconstitutional. His rally audiences are delighted to listen to whichever bit of nonsense he produces to entertain them and draw their applause.

Unfortunately for Trump many Republicans see him accurately as the demagogue he is. Bill Kristol, the editor of the influential Weekly Standard, is straightforward, he says, “The GOP is in the grip of a vulgar demagogue.” Other high rollers in the Republican establishment are of the same mind. The list of prominent Republicans “unfortunately with other plans at the time of the Republican convention” could make for another Republican convention. The only previous Republican presidential nominee in attendance is Bob Dole and he believes that Trump should apologize to John McCain for refusing to call McCain a war hero. Senator Dole will have a long wait.

Trump has made it clear that he has no love for the Republican establishment and they return the favor. He is running his campaign on the cheap and it shows, Monday was an absolute debacle…from insulting Ohio’s Governor Kasich to the feeble attempts to draw attention away from poor Melania Trump’s sections of plagiarized speech. Now we have a low level staffer finally coming forward and claiming responsibility for the Melania disaster.

If Trump can’t run a convention without looking like an idiot how do we expect him to run the country? Why give him the chance?

2016 July 19^th

The first day of the Republican Convention is over and we have seen a premier spectacle of mismanagement. All the Democrats have to do is point to this disaster as an example of what’s in store for the country if we elect Donald J. Trump.

It began with a group who wanted to see a roll call vote on a rules issue. The chair asked for a voice vote and then ruled in favor of the anti-roll call pro-Trump forces. The Colorado delegation walked out and many other delegates were upset by the high-handed way the “leadership” handled this protest.

Ohio’s Governor John Kasich will not be attending the convention even though it is in Cleveland. Governor Kasich, a very popular governor, has many differences with Donald Trump. Trump claims that Governor Kasich is upset because Trump beat him so badly in the primaries and that is why he is staying away from the convention. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign director, took pains to vilify this popular governor for his failure to appear at the convention and cheer for Trump. This willingness to alienate Governor Kasich and the many people in Ohio who admire him is, frankly, stupid. No Republican has won the White House in modern times without winning Ohio and vilifying Ohio’s popular governor won’t help Trump win Ohio.

Of the Monday night speakers a former Navy Seal, Marcus Luttrell, was the most effective for his impassioned patriotic plea. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was noteworthy for the volume of his oration in which he enthusiastically supported the police and condemned the recent spate of police killings. He did not get around to mentioning the killing of black men by police. That does not seem to be any concern of Giuliani or of the convention. It might account for the miniscule percentage of African American votes going to Trump.

The evening’s highlight was a speech by Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s wife. Mrs. Trump did a creditable job reading her speech from a teleprompter in her heavily accented English. Her effort here was to soften the offensively hard edges that Trump usually presents to the public, an image that says, “This is all about me.” He came on stage to introduce his wife in a swirl of soft backlighted stage smoke, ever the showman.

Melania Trump’s performance was quickly shown to have many elements in common with a similar speech given in 2004 by Michelle Obama. The segments in question have been shown side by side and shown over and over again. There is no doubt that portions of Mrs. Obama’s speech were plagiarized. This is an appalling slip-up on the part of an understaffed presidential campaign, a campaign which should have made sure these plagiarized phrases did not appear in Mrs. Trump’s speech.

Trump’s campaign manager, the same Paul Manafort who earlier had attacked the Governor of Ohio for not attending the convention, jumped in to make a fool of himself once again. Manafort, and the rest of the various staff people and the Trump political supporters now claim that no plagiarizing took place, that these parallel identical phrases “just happened.” Oh yes, and this outcry of plagiarism was all the fault of Hillary Clinton who lives in horror of any other strong woman.

Donald Trump is upset, very upset-- so we are told. Subjecting the candidate’s wife to the charge of plagiarism is a firing offense. Whether or not Manafort can save his job by claiming that no plagiarizing occurred and therefore no sin was committed might work. Does anyone believe Manafort will last until the end of the week? But then who could Trump get to replace him...maybe Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband, or maybe Ivanka herself. Anyone would be better than Paul Manafort. Stay tuned!

2016 July 17^th

We will hear much ado about the Republican Convention in the next few days. The platform has been co-opted by the far right of the Party; James Dobson of the Family Research Council is in the driver’s seat. There are some parts of Dobson’s platform with which Trump is certainly not in agreement: Foremost is the Republican Party edict, ala Dobson, denying women abortion under any and all circumstances, including rape, incest and the mother’s life. Trump, on the other hand, is on record as permitting these exceptions. How will this be resolved? Will Trump discover a belittling name for Dobson; Dumbo Dobson comes to mind, but I’m sure Trump needs no help with his unique brand of name calling.

There are other issues with the platform as well: With its sharp move rightward under Dobson it is not surprising that the platform opposes gay marriage. In this case, Trump agrees with them. He favors traditional marriage…well no, after all he has been married three times, with at least one child from each marriage, so it would be more exact just to say that he opposes gay marriage. The Republican Platform and Donald Trump may be on the same side of this issue, but the majority of the American people are on the other side. The latest Pew Research poll shows that 65 percent of Americans support gay marriage and that percentage has been increasing.

Then we have a novel counter-factual position: the platform asserts, with no supporting evidence other that its regional popularity, that coal is “clean energy.” They also want “religion to be a guide when legislating,” OK, who needs the First Amendment anyway? There should be no restriction on the sale of the infamous AR-15 and its look-a-likes; nor any restrictions on the magazine capacity of these weapons. Thus does the pro-life party advance its pro-life agenda.

The platform does recognize an immediate public health crisis: it is pornography; not the Zika virus, not MERSA, not cancer, but pornography. I have trouble envisioning anyone dying of pornography but then I’m not a real doctor.

On another and totally unrelated…but still interesting topic: My friend has a son who is employed by the World Bank. He is based in Turkey and flies all over that part of the world analyzing businesses subsidized by the World Bank. He survived the recent nastiness, both the airport massacre and the attempted military coup. He was recently assigned to investigate a business in Gaza. He flew in to Israel without incident, took in some of the typical tourist venues and then picked up another World Bank employee, a Palestinian woman, and headed for Gaza. At the border his colleague, the Palestinian woman was obliged to leave the vehicle, walk across the border and then re-enter the vehicle. The Israelis, whom we subsidize to the tune of 3 billion a year, feel this regulation is necessary for their country’s security.

2016 July 18^th

The Republican National convention has begun. So far it is orderly; no AR-15s are in evidence and the Ohio national guard has not been called out…yet. The featured evening speaker will be Mrs. Trump, most recently seen posing provocatively for the cover of GQ, although that gig was well before her marriage to “The Donald.” I’m sure Melania Trump, right now, is nervous as a cat in a dog pound at the thought of reading a teleprompter speech on the opening night of her husband’s presidential convention. Anyone would be.

The list of speakers for this convention is not inspiring, not inspiring because no one has ever heard of many of them. Nor are most of us interested in what they have to say because we already know that it will consist of fulsome praise for Donald Trump and vitriolic criticism of Secretary Clinton and President Obama. Isn’t praising our group and demonizing theirs the purpose of political conventions?

Both sides do this. Remember “The Missile Gap;” that was John Kennedy’s attempt to tarnish the Eisenhower administration with allowing America to fall behind Russia in their respective abilities to end civilization. There was no missile gap and the evidence now is that Kennedy knew it at the time. No matter; it worked.

Much is made of the fact that Americans are not happy with the direction the country is taking. How can that be surprising given that the Republican Party and their TV arm, Fox News, have spent millions trying to convince us that we are in serious trouble. The whole point of running for election for the party out of power is to hammer away at how awful everything is…and how we will make it better. Perhaps you’ve heard the slogan “Make America great again.” Of course we have problems. Race relations are certainly deteriorating. We have nervous, fearful, poorly trained cops killing black men; in one case shooting a fleeing black man multiple times in the back as if at target practice. Then, perhaps in retaliation, we have groups of wholly innocent police officers being deliberately murdered.

What an opportunity for the right wing, and they were quick to seize it. Newt Gingrich on Morning Joe, this morning, blamed it all on President Obama. Newt was sure that he could say what he pleased on that program and no one would ask him to explain if what he said contradicted known facts.

An elderly woman I see occasionally when I walk our dog told me this morning that she is sure the country is coming apart. She expects that we will soon have a dictatorship and that martial law will be declared. She is frightened. The right wing propaganda has worked but not as they expected because she is no fan of either Donald Trump or of Hillary Clinton.

2016 July 16^th

In the “Times” book review (July 17^th 2016) that we get weekly, there is, at the top of the “non-fiction” list, “Crisis of Character” written by Gary J. Byrne and Grant M. Schmidt. This book by a former secret service agent and his co-author is designed for the many customers seeking another hatchet job on Hillary Clinton. Save your money.

Much of the book is about Bill Clinton and his sexually magnetic attraction for women; Hillary is not mentioned favorably, but most of the book is devoted to the author’s difficulties as a secret service agent. For the many Clinton haters this will be a magnet for their money. (Be aware that there is also a well-regarded mystery writer named Gary J. Byrnes. Co-author Grant M. Schmidt has yet to make much of a mark in the literary world and his effort here won’t help that.)

There are plenty of books unfavorable to Donald Trump, although none was written by insiders because Trump requires a non-disclosure pledge from all close employees. Trump’s dealings with the New York mob that controlled much of the construction industry would make good reading. Nicky Scarfo, a union boss, could do a great expose. But then that would also expose “Little Nicky.”

Books like “Crisis of Character,” whether about Clinton or about Trump, certainly don’t budge the candidates’ true believers; nothing will budge a true believer. If you look at the attendees at a Trump rally, his weakness as a candidate is obvious; the faces at the rally are all white. Trump’s appeal to minorities is nearly non-existent. “That is my African American over there,” said Trump as he pointed to a single black face in his crowd. Buchanan says Trump should not apologize for such insults. Buchanan is right; If he apologized for such remarks he would do nothing but constantly apologize and no one would believe that his apologies were sincere anyway. In addition, he would risk losing some marginal fans and he would surely gain none.

This election is about who can be portrayed more negatively. Few people are really voting for Donald Trump, they are voting against Hillary Clinton. Similarly, many votes for Clinton are really votes against Donald Trump. Many voters have an absolute horror of the candidate from the other party winning the election. Clinton’s negatives, though they are many, cannot persuade the Trump despisers to vote against her.

Clinton’s advantage is that Trump’s negatives continue to build because he cannot resist making an outrageous comment if it will produce the audience applause to which he is addicted.

2016 July 15^th

As expected, in response to the deaths in Nice, France, we have some comments by American politicians. Newt Gingrich’s remarks stand out for the sheer idiocy of their content. Gingrich wants to deport all Americans “who believe in Sharia law.”

There is no excuse for this silliness, but consider Gingrich’s position. He has been making nice (with occasional lapses) to Donald Trump in the obvious hope of becoming Trump’s running mate and lending some genuine political smarts to Trump’s campaign. That isn’t going to happen; Mike Pence, the Governor of Indiana, who infamously authored Indiana’s “Religious Freedom” law, has received the royal nod. (The religious freedom law allowed businesses to refuse service to people based on their sexual identity.) Now that Trump’s vice presidency slot has closed, so has Gingrich’s last chance for national relevance. He is 73 years old and it is inconceivable that any other platform permitting his grandstanding will come along.

Newt Gingrich has seized this opportunity to obtain again, however briefly, the national stage by suggesting the deportation of Muslims, or anyone else, who believe in Sharia law. Gingrich knows perfectly well that any such action would be unconstitutional, and that’s why his comments are political grandstanding. He made this ludicrous announcement on Hannity’s Fox News program and Hannity quickly agreed that Gingrich’s remedy was the right thing to do. Who is surprised?

Trump was also quick to declare just how tough he’d be on Muslims coming into the country. He’d make it really tough. Exactly what would he do that isn’t being done now? He wasn’t asked by O’Reilly, and so he didn’t volunteer. Trump is a master of the vague statement.

This degree of international upset is exactly what ISIS would like to see happen...if they had engineered this massacre in Nice. But maybe they had nothing to do with it. The driver of that truck was not on the lists of ISIS suspects maintained by the French police. OK, that means very little. ISIS, usually quick to claim responsibility when they are responsible hasn’t claimed any responsibility, thus losing a powerful recruiting tool. This was a lone individual. How many lone individual ISIS attacks have there been in France? The perpetrator has been identified and he was a petty criminal, a thief whose wife recently left him taking their children with her.

The killings at the Orlando nightclub frequented by gays were dedicated by Mateen, the perpetrator, to ISIS. There is no evidence that any ISIS official even knew about Mateen’s plan, much less helped him carry it out. There is evidence that Mateen, a Muslim, was gay. This sexual orientation conflicted with his Muslim beliefs and alienated him from his homophobic father. Perhaps he believed he could recover his lost merit by slaughtering as many gay people as he could; perhaps ISIS really had nothing to do with that slaughter, except to provide justification after the fact for a conflicted mind.

Does the fact that the Nice killer was Muslim mean his attack was the work of ISIS? When we find priests who are pederasts, do we blame Christianity?

2016 July 14^th

The question of the week is whom will Donald Trump pick to be his running mate. Let’s review the bidding, or in any case the most popular bids. The leading candidate is the Governor of Indiana Mike Pence. Mike has had a lot of recent face time with Trump because, it is said, Trump’s plane was grounded overnight in Indiana. Whether this increased familiarity actually helped Pence no one will know. Pence brings some baggage with him, baggage that might be to Trump’s advantage with the evangelicals. Pence was responsible for the notorious “religious freedom” act. This act allowed any merchant who had an attack of conscious when considering a service to any same sex couple to refuse to provide the service. This meant a baker could refuse to provide a wedding cake for a gay couple’s wedding. Could this allow an innkeeper to refuse a room to a mixed race couple? Who knows, but that is certainly a possibility Here is a comment: Gov. Pence signed the measure during a private ceremony just before 10 a.m. Thursday morning. Members of the media were not allowed to even be in the waiting area of the governor’s office, the Indianapolis Star reported. I guess Pence was not very proud of his accomplishment.

Moving along we come to Speaker Newt Gingrich. The Speaker was officially reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for using a tax-exempt organization for political purposes and for lying to the committee. Given Trump’s ethical problems (Think Trump “University,” his personal fleecing machine) Gingrich’s ethical challenges are small potatoes indeed. Still, there are his three marriages, his notifying wife number one of his terms for a divorce while she was in a hospital recovering from cancer surgery, his admission that he cheated on wife #2 with Calista, wife #3, and his recent negative comments about Trump himself. His background as a sexual adventurer should give him the possibility of matching Donald Trump’s stories. Trump claims his many bouts of venereal disease were equivalent to service in Viet Nam.

Chris Christie is also under consideration for the honor of joining the Trump ticket. Governor Christie also has several tons of baggage. To begin he is not a popular governor. Many citizens of New Jersey are backing him for Vice President just to get him out of the state and to get someone else in as governor. His approval rating hovers around 25 percent. Being a Governor of a state does require no little work but Christies has been spending a lot of his time making nice to Donald Trump. There is another problem for Governor Christie: Ivanka Trump’s spouse, Jared Kushner, who plays a prominent role as an advisor to Trump, might have a problem with Christie. When Christie was a prosecutor, before he was governor, he prosecuted Kushner’s father for some naughtiness and sent his daddy to the slammer. Could that bias Jared Kushner against Christie?

At times like this we look to unbiased predictions, namely our friends at Paddy Power, the Brit’s betting outfit that will let you wager on US election outcomes. Paddy is no longer taking bets but when they last did a few hours ago, Mike Pence was the favorite at 1/3, meaning wager three dollars and if you’re right, you win a dollar. The next in line is Gingrich at 5/2, meaning a two-dollar bet will win you five dollars if you’re right. Betting obviously favors Mike Pence, who, if he wants it, will go down in flames with the Donald.

2016 July 13^th

Today we go back a full year to July 12, 2015, to see that little has changed. Here are my comments in the blog about Donald Trump on that day:

July 12^th

There was no detritus yesterday; sometimes those pesky little electrons refuse to cooperate. Today we have the spectacle of Donald Trump’s Phoenix, Arizona, appearance. Mr. Trump gave what seemed to be an impromptu seventy-minute speech. I say impromptu because his talk wondered around like a mentally challenged child looking for a ball lost in a hayfield.

Mr. Trump’s flacks describe this as a “massive rally.” What else would a Trump rally be but “massive?” Consider that Trump’s rally drew about 5 thousand people from Phoenix, a city of 1.5 million people. Bernie Sanders drew 7.5 thousand people from Portland, Maine, a city of about 65 thousand people, and Trump is crowing about his drawing power?

Trump has been an equal opportunity supporter of political causes. Up until 2010 he had given slightly more money to Democratic political candidates than to Republicans. He even supported Rahm Emmanuel’s bid for Mayor of Chicago and Harry Reid’s 2010 Senate run against Sharon Angle. Trump claimed that he was too smart to contribute to candidates who had no chance of winning, so of course he contributed to some Democrats in solidly blue states. That’s nonsense because in Reid’s case the race was very close and could have gone either way. I’m sure that Trump’s financial interests in Las Vegas had not a thing to do with his contribution to Harry Reid.

Trump, as most everyone knows, was the birther-in-chief. He is not, even now, satisfied that Obama was born in the United States. He just doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Who can blame him; if you aspire to the presidency, your previous absurd beliefs are best disregarded. Besides, he has new absurdities.

He is a climate change denier. He will probably wait until the seawater starts sloshing into his International Beach Resort hotel lobby in Florida before he recognizes the problem. He will surely support Governor Rick Scott’s ban on even the term “climate change.” Next Trump will favor a ban on George Orwell’s “1984” because reading that book will open the public’s eyes to the insanity of the Florida Governor’s position.

When asked about SCOTUS decision on gay marriage Trump, in an interview, asserted that he favored traditional marriage. Jake Tapper, the interviewer, then asked him how having had three wives comported with “traditional marriage.” Trump admitted that Tapper had a good point (What else could he say?). Then blamed himself because his demanding businesses kept him involved “22 hours a day.”

Trump is the ultimate snake oil salesman. “What! You’ve used this fine product and had no relief? Dear lady you must be patient. Here, I’ll give you a ten percent discount if you buy a case of Dr. Trump’s salts. It will last you for a month;” giving him adequate time to get out of town. But Trump isn’t leaving and for that all liberals can be thankful.

P.S. And now a year later, what has changed?

2016 July 12^th

George Will tells us that, “America has now slouched into the eighth year of a recovery that demonstrates how much we have defined recovery down.” Of course Will could have said that we have now had a gradual eight year recovery from the most disastrous recession America has suffered since the Great Depression. Of course Will much prefers to see the economic glass half empty as long as we have a Democratic President holding the glass.

Will delights in pointing to recent job growth numbers to support his contention of sub-par growth: The economy created just 38 thousand new jobs in May. If Will had waited until the June numbers came out, he would have lost this nice talking point, for the economy created 287 thousand jobs in June.

Will is desperately trying to make the economy look just awful. He says, “Homeowners and the 10 percent of Americans who hold 81 percent of the directly and indirectly owned stocks (the stock market is 160 percent higher than its 2009 lows) are prospering Those whose wealth comes from wages are losing ground.”

According to a Gallup poll, in 2015 55 percent of Americans were invested in stocks either directly or through their retirement plans. Before the market crash, a drop that took the market indices down 50 percent, that figure was 61 percent. If you saw your retirement investments or 401 k plan decline by 50 percent almost over-night, you might be reluctant to jump back into stocks. Now the market is making new highs almost daily. That won’t last, but the market’s angst over Brexit and other issues has subsided.

The wage stagnation problem remains and that problem has a strong political component. The Wall Street Journal maintains a web site that will tell you what percentage of wage earners fall below any annual figure you enter. According to that web site if we enter 17 thousand dollars a year, (that’s a wage of just $8.17 an hour), 20 percent of all wage earners will earn less than that. If you are married and earn that hourly wage you are eligible for food stamps. Republicans are opposed to raising the government’s minimum wage of 7.25/hour. And some believe that there should be no minimum wage legislation at all. Senator Rand Paul and his father, Ron Paul, both believe that we should have no minimum wage.

It appears that conservatives rail against the sad case of wage earners pay stagnating, while simultaneously blocking any effort to increase the take home pay of those wage earners at the bottom of the ladder.

2016 July 11^th

Mona Charen today tells us “Middle East problems can’t be blamed on George W. Bush.” Charen claims the charge that, “His crimes cost 4497 American and at least 160 thousand Iraqis killed, offended the Muslim world and led to the rise of ISIS.” Charen claims, “The problem with this account is that jihadism predated Bush by decades.” Of course it did, but ISIS did not and the Caliphate did not. Charen sites the bombing of a Berlin café that killed two American service men and wounded many others; and she mentions the blowing up of Pan Am flight 109 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing about 270.

Does this woman know that Muammar Khadafy sponsored these two atrocities? Does she know that this madman, the Libyan strongman who Hillary Clinton was helpful in removing from power, is now considered a “good guy” by those who want to blame Clinton for Libya’s subsequent political disintegration. Charen says not a word about Khadafy’s role in these atrocities or about Clinton’s role in eliminating Khadafy.

Charen opens her piece by telling us that ISIS is “on quite a roll.” Then, paradoxically, she describes a “neighbor” who was intercepted by the FBI before he could launch a planned “Fort Hood” style attack. A thwarted attack is an example of ISIS on a roll? But wait! Charen tells us that in spite of a long and horrific list of ISIS’ crimes, and Obama’s assertion that ISIL is contained, “The perception world-wide is that ISIS is successfully holding territory and expanding—thus earning the right to call itself a caliphate.” If that is the perception worldwide, it is wrong. My guess is that this particular perception is only Mona Charen’s personal point of view.

This caliphate, the territory that ISIS controls and where Sharia law reigns, is shrinking; it is certainly not expanding. Consider that in March of this year ISIS retreated from Palmyra, an ancient city and one of their prizes. Then in April they were driven out of Hit where previously ISIS had executed many who had opposed them when they initially captured the town. On June 27 Falluja fell and this caliphate continued to shrink. Now troops from Iraq with US air support are about to retake Mosul, the capital of this so-called caliphate.  But for Mona Charen all these losses are really ISIS continuing to expand? Hey, that’s what the woman says.

Finally Charen just has to take some smacks at President Obama; among other complaints is Obama’s “rapprochement” with Cuba and stiff-armed Israel. Charen does not comment further on our rapprochement with Cuba. We can only assume that she finds this change in our ineffective 50-year-old policy toward Cuba disturbing for reasons she will not specify. The stiff-arming of Israel is curious given that the Obama administration presents Israel with a gift of about 3 billion dollars a year. No one in Israel bothers to thank us for that, nor does Charen believe we deserve any thanks for our generosity.

2016 July 9^th

George Will’s column yesterday was titled, “Sobering evidence of social science statistics.” Will sites the “Coleman Report,” a huge study of over 3 thousand schools and 600 thousand students. Will claims that this report was released by the Johnson administration on the July 4^th weekend in 1964 “hoping to bury it.”  Then Will writes, “From 1938 when the electorate rebuked Franklin Roosevelt for his plan to pack the Supreme Court… Republicans and conservative Democrats prevent(ed) a liberal legislating majority.” Well, Will is half-right; that election ended Roosevelt’s sheer dominance of the nation’s politics. But the Supreme Court “packing” had much less to do with that vote than the increase in the unemployment rate to 20 percent. Except for the Republican politicians, most voters were surely more concerned with the retreat in in the economic recovery than with the Supreme Court. Will, however cannot stand to miss an opportunity to belittle Roosevelt.

The “Coleman Report,” was an investigation mandated by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, (Can Will imagine any such investigation being authorized by the current Republican dominated Congress?) At the time of the report, the received wisdom was that the more money a school had to spend, the better the student’s performance.

Will quotes the report, “One implication stands out above all: That schools bring little to bear on a child’s achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of an independent effect means that the inequality…carries along to adult life.” Then Will says, “...their baton of brave and useful sociology has passed to Charles Murray…” Murray and Herrnstein were the authors of “The Bell Curve.” This is another effort to diminish the effects of environment and its methodology has been heavily criticized.

So what do critics have to say about Will’s primary pitch, the Coleman Report?
Coleman found poverty and minority status to be more predictive of student achievement than just differences in school funding, a finding frequently distorted to suggest that “research shows school funding doesn’t matter in achievement.” Coleman never said that. Even what he did say is heavily the result of the kind of data analysis he did.

In simplest terms, the statistical procedure of the Coleman Report relies on a problematic stepwise analysis of variance approach, which makes strong assumptions about which factors are fundamental causes of achievement and which are of secondary significance. Coleman assumed that family influences come first, and that school factors are to be introduced into the analysis only after all effects that can be attributed to the family are identified. Accordingly, the first step of the statistical analysis assesses how much of the achievement variation across schools could be attributed to variations in family background factors. Only after these background factors are fully accounted for is the second step taken—a look at the characteristics of the schools that make the biggest difference in determining the variation in student achievement.

This approach privileges family background over any indicators of school resources or peer group relationships, as it implicitly attributes all shared variation to those variables included in the first step of the stepwise modeling. For example, if parental education and teacher experience are both strongly related to achievement, and children from better-educated families attend schools with more-experienced teachers, then it will appear as if teacher experience has little effect while the effect of parental education is magnified. The first step, looking at just the relationship between achievement and parental education, actually incorporates both the direct effect of parental education on achievement and the indirect effect of the more-experienced teachers in their schools. When the analysis gets to the point of adding teacher experience to the explanation of achievement, the only marginal impact will come from the portion of variation in experience that is totally unrelated to family background.

So Mr. Will, is this criticism from some left leaning outfit determined to trash any study that right wingers can present to defend spending as little as possible on education? No, not really; here is the author of this critique and his affiliation.

Eric A. Hanushek is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

2016 July 8^th

We begin today with one of my favorite right-wingers, Dr. Thomas Sowell. His column asks, “What are we really celebrating?” His answer, although not said specifically, seems to be ignorance. Early in his rant he writes that, “There was no question then that the United States was “exceptional” however much the smug elites of today—including our President—try to dismiss the idea.” If Sowell is saying that President Obama has not declared America to be great, exceptional, wonderful, or the equivalent he is lying. Here is a quote from President Obama’s speech to The Business Roundtable, “America is winning right now. America is great right now.” These remarks were to rebut Thomas Sowell’s prize presidential candidate, Donald Trump, whose theme is “Make America Great Again.” These remarks by President Obama do not fit the image that Thomas Sowell is trying to paint of the President and so they are to be ignored.

Sowell is upset that the Justice Department “…threatened prosecution of anyone who made inflammatory statements about Muslim boys accused of raping a 5 year old girl.” He sees these comments as infringing on the rights of people to make inflammatory statements. The law here is not obvious: While the First Amendment’s guarantees may be protected, inciting to riot is a different story.

Sowell pushes ahead on his riff about, “Such high handed use of government powers has become increasing common during the Obama administration. But an apathetic and uninformed public voted him a second term.” Not really, they were well enough informed  to understand the flim-flam that Mitt Romney tried to pull off. We do recall the tape of Romney’s comments to his high roller buddies about the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax and who would never vote for him. It is true that almost 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax. They pay no income tax because their income is beneath the level at which income tax payment is required. Many are retirees whose only source of income is Social Security. This is a situation that neither Thomas Sowell nor Mitt Romney will ever have to worry about nor will they ever understand.

Another factoid Sowell doesn’t mention, and neither does Romney, there are 78 thousand filers with incomes of 211 thousand dollars to 533 thousand dollars who also pay no federal income tax. Is it possible that some of them were in the room of high rollers Romney was talking to that afternoon?

2016 July 7^th

Mr. Trump has, once again, allowed his ego to overwhelm what little good sense he has, and it is, indeed, very little good sense. Prior to his Cincinnati speech yesterday, the FBI head, James Comey, had given Trump a gift never before given to any candidate for the Presidency. While Comey did not find grounds to prosecute Secretary Clinton he did spend a considerable amount of time verbally lacerating her for failure to properly guard state secrets on her private email server. Ever alert to politically opportunities, Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, rose to suggest that Secretary Clinton should not be given the usual security briefings offered to Presidential candidates because she couldn’t be trusted to keep that information secure. Hey, a little political posturing will help Ryan improve his creds with the Tea Party types.

With this scathing report in hand, what did Donald J. Trump emphasize in his Cincinnati speech? He did talk about “Crooked” Hillary’s difficulties, but for just a very few minutes. He reserved most of his time to focus on the personal slights he had endured from Chuck Todd who is now “sleepy” Chuck Todd. No one seems to know why Trump was calling him “sleepy.” I thought Trump’s low energy slot was adequately filled by Dr. Ben Carson, the superbly relaxed neurosurgeon,…at least until Carson came around to being a Trump fan. Perhaps Trump is responding to Chuck Todd’s edict that Meet the Press will not accept Trump’s tweets, phone calls or other freebee appearances. Whatever the reason Trump felt challenged by Chuck Todd, Trump felt compelled to spend a considerable amount of time at his rally ignoring Secretary Clinton’s peccadilloes and lambasting a TV commentator with whom he was unhappy.

Trump just riffs at most of his rallies; this one included. He prides himself on his refusal to use a teleprompter. Most of his utterances at these rallies do not consist of diagramable sentences;, perhaps he sees conventional English as  just too politically correct.

He did return to another issue best left for dead, the Star of David in one of his bits trying to trash Clinton. The star had been replaced by a simple circle and most political pundits had decided to move on…but no, Trump wanted to talk about it some more. He claimed to be upset that the star had been removed because it wasn’t a Star of David at all and he would have been delighted to defend its use.

When he had this gift from the FBI with which to hammer Hillary Clinton, why would any sane candidate spend time defending the indefensible? The answer is, of course, that no sane candidate would do that.

To add to this line of chat, Trump has now suggested that even if he wins the Presidency he might not be willing to serve. He claims he’ll have to wait and see how he feels about it after he wins. What a candidate!

2016 July 7^th

Mr. Trump has, once again, allowed his ego to overwhelm what little good sense he has, and it is, indeed, very little good sense. Prior to his Cincinnati speech yesterday, the FBI head, James Comey, had given Trump a gift never before given to any candidate for the Presidency. While Comey did not find grounds to prosecute Secretary Clinton he did spend a considerable amount of time verbally lacerating her for failure to properly guard state secrets on her private email server. Ever alert to politically opportunities, Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, rose to suggest that Secretary Clinton should not be given the usual security briefings offered to Presidential candidates because she couldn’t be trusted to keep that information secure. Hey, a little political posturing will help Ryan improve his creds with the Tea Party types.

With this scathing report in hand, what did Donald J. Trump emphasize in his Cincinnati speech? He did talk about “Crooked” Hillary’s difficulties, but for just a very few minutes. He reserved most of his time to focus on the personal slights he had endured from Chuck Todd who is now “sleepy” Chuck Todd. No one seems to know why Trump was calling him “sleepy.” I thought Trump’s low energy slot was adequately filled by Dr. Ben Carson, the superbly relaxed neurosurgeon,…at least until Carson came around to being a Trump fan. Perhaps Trump is responding to Chuck Todd’s edict that Meet the Press will not accept Trump’s tweets, phone calls or other freebee appearances. Whatever the reason Trump felt challenged by Chuck Todd, Trump felt compelled to spend a considerable amount of time at his rally ignoring Secretary Clinton’s peccadilloes and lambasting a TV commentator with whom he was unhappy.

Trump just riffs at most of his rallies; this one included. He prides himself on his refusal to use a teleprompter. Most of his utterances at these rallies do not consist of diagramable sentences;, perhaps he sees conventional English as  just too politically correct.

He did return to another issue best left for dead, the Star of David in one of his bits trying to trash Clinton. The star had been replaced by a simple circle and most political pundits had decided to move on…but no, Trump wanted to talk about it some more. He claimed to be upset that the star had been removed because it wasn’t a Star of David at all and he would have been delighted to defend its use.

When he had this gift from the FBI with which to hammer Hillary Clinton, why would any sane candidate spend time defending the indefensible? The answer is, of course, that no sane candidate would do that.

To add to this line of chat, Trump has now suggested that even if he wins the Presidency he might not be willing to serve. He claims he’ll have to wait and see how he feels about it after he wins. What a candidate!

2016 July 6^th

Why is paranoia rampant in our species? Is that begging the question? Not really, because it is obvious that humans are inclined to be suspicious of “the other.” It doesn’t matter what the other has done, it is surely a violation of the law, or of ethical standards of behavior, or of decency, or of good judgment…take your pick.

The Trump campaign is not known for its veracity; consider the bit about Ted Cruz’ dad being involved with the Kennedy assassination.  They came out recently with a little visual showing Secretary Clinton against a background of hundred dollar bills. So far so good, but then a few uncomplimentary words were scrawled on a red Star of David right next to her picture.

That sure got everyone’s attention and the star was quickly replaced by a simple red circle. Too late, too late; the ACLU, the Anti-Defamation league and assorted other watchdog groups, including the Clinton campaign were condemning this outrageous anti-Semitic ad.

Of course the ad was a blunder. The lame defense offered by the Trump campaign’s Paul Manafort, was that this star was not the Star of David at all but was a sheriff’s star. That just didn’t work; if it was so innocent why remove it so quickly?

The notion that Donald Trump is anti- Semitic is absolutely ridiculous! His daughter, on whom he dotes, is married to Jared Kushner, a very observant Jew and she would never have married him without her father’s approval. Kushner has also become an important advisor to Donald Trump, so, on balance this Star of David issue was simply a slip-up by some underling.

Trump has not bothered to reject the support of neo-Nazi hate groups, and other associations of people who think likewise, so there is credibility for those suspicious of Trump’s motives. 

The Attorney General, Loretta Lynch’s plane was on the tarmac and so was President Clinton’s plane. They obviously know each other, and given the blistering 108 degree heat in Phoenix, their conversation moved to the cabin of the Attorney General’s plane.  Bad move because Hillary Clinton’s emails were, as they spoke, being examined by the FBI, which the Attorney General supervises, for any evidence of wrongdoing that could lead to an indictment or to an arrest.

The result of the meeting was predictable: Right wing commentators were sure that this meeting was evidence that the fix was in, that the former President was using this meeting to pressure the Attorney General to let up on efforts to investigate Hillary Clinton’s emails. They were unable to accept the idea that these two grandparents could spend more than half an hour talking about their grandchildren. Something shady was going on. Why not? Hadn’t Clinton been skirting the rules with her in-home server?

In both the Trump, Star of David issue, and the tarmac meeting between the Attorney general and the former President, the suspicious folks were not inclined to be charitable. They knew the prior behavior of both principles and that made it easy to believe the worst and that’s just what they did. We are a species inclined to paranoia; once so inclined, it doesn’t take much of a shove to get there.

2016 July 5^th

Cal Thomas decries “identity politics,” by which he means people who would vote for Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman. I wonder if identity politics also describes people who would vote for Trump just because he is a Republican. (Surely no one would do that.)

Commenting on Clinton as the first woman President, Thomas says, “Must we go through the entire list of firsts…many cheering the first African American President are insincere or disingenuous. Otherwise they would have applauded the advancement of other African Americans like Gen. Colin Powell, Justice Clarence Thomas, Rep. (one term) Alan West and conservative women like Sarah Palin and former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina…”

Poor Cal, if he had bothered to look he would have found that General Colin Powell was a supporter of Barak Obama in the last election. He is a very liberal Republican that some believe would be more at home as a Democrat. Those who supported the President did indeed support General Powell and vice versa.

As to Justice Clarence Thomas, there is evidence that this curious addition to SCOTUS who has rarely asked a question or strayed from the shelter of Alito or Scalia, was a controversial pick. Another black attorney, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual advances and her accusations were echoed by other women attorneys. One woman attorney claimed that if Thomas interviewed  you, you were being inspected for physical qualities not legal expertise. The smallest majority of Senators ever to approve of a SCOTUS appointee approved Thomas; never mind, Cal Thomas believes we should “applaud his advancement.”

How about Alan West, another African American we should applaud according to Cal Thomas. West served just one two-year term in congress from Florida. His history is interesting. He was court marshaled by the army and forced to retire because of his abuse of an Iraqi detainee he subjected to a fake execution, firing his pistol inches from the man’s head. His badly flawed judgement continued in Congress, which could account for his very brief career there.

That Cal Thomas presents us with conservative women like Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina as examples of politically prominent Republican women deserves no comment.

His exclusions are worth noting: First is the fact that the first woman nominated to be the Vice President of the United States was Democrat Geraldine Ferraro. That was sometime before and with considerably better credentials than Governor Palin. Of course you can’t expect Cal Thomas to know that, or to mention it if he did know it.

His most glaring omission is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This was a highly intelligent black woman who served in the George W. Bush administration. Instead, he spends much ink pushing Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s Ambassador to the UN, a considerably lesser light and a much lesser intellect. Kirkpatrick supported military dictator ships, particularly Argentina’s, because she preferred their violent abuse of human rights to the possibility of communism. She even supported arming the contras, an impeachable offense for the Reagan administration. Hey, that’s no problem for Cal Thomas. 

Condoleezza Rice however was opposed, and often vilified, by Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Ambassador Bolton. She just wasn’t sufficiently warlike. Maybe a Moral Majority VP really wants to revere only “weapons grade” government conservatives. 

2016 July 4^th

On June 29^th I made some remarks about the Blue Angels, the aerobatic team of Naval and Marine aviators whose performances enhance the attendance at the Cherry Festival. Their appearance is not universally appreciated. No one doubts their obvious skill; some doubt the wisdom of using our armed forces to provide entertainment for civilians. I agree.

Many of their supporters claim the 140 db racket they produce, and to which many object, is really the sound of freedom. I pointed out in my blog entry that it was surely accompanied by the delightful sound of cash registers ringing. Their ka-chinging must encourage the local merchants to look forward to a more pleasant winter in … anywhere but here.

The largest group of Blue Angel enthusiasts aside from the simple spectacle lovers, are the patriots.  This is the fourth of July so you would expect some patriotic fervor perhaps intermingled with the commercialization of this spectacle. We do have an abundance of commercialization. Hey! Isn’t the verb of the day “monetize?”

There is certainly some monetizing going on based on the Blue Angel’s performances. A splendid new downtown hotel, The Indigo, is offering a real treat: for a mere 100 dollars a person you can have dinner and two (2) drinks on the hotel’s top floor while you watch the Blue Angels’ air show. That fee does not include parking which will add another 15 dollars to your tab. It is assumed that you will also leave a tip.

I called the hotel this morning to inquire about the parking and was told that they were almost sold out, that only a few tickets remained. Of course that could have been a sales ploy but I doubt it. This top floor dinning and viewing opportunity has been available every day the aerobatic team has performed.

Not to be outdone we have a considerable older hotel downtown, the Park Place Hotel, with a top floor restaurant. It offers a buffet and a view of the airshow for a more reasonable 65 dollars. Of course the 65 dollars only gets you a buffet, and nothing is said about any drinks which are no doubt extra.

Much is made of the patriotic nature of this event; after all, it is the Fourth of July. Even so, neither the Hotel Indigo, nor the Park Place, nor any other venue charging admission advertises any concession for veterans. I mean, let’s face it folks, patriotism has its limits.

2016 July 3^rd

Cal Thomas in his column this morning attempts to defend Donald Trump’s conversion to Christianity. That defense is a major challenge even for Cal Thomas who should surely have the authority to speak on the subject. He is past vice president of the Moral Majority. (Some have claimed that the Moral Majority was only moral by their own definition and was not a majority by anyone’s definition.)

The problem Trump presents to Thomas comes from some of his theologically incorrect comments. Being politically incorrect gives him the cover he needs to be nasty—witness his mocking of a handicapped reporter—but he might not be forgiven for being theologically incorrect by those on the right who worship orthodoxy, and the fundamentalists surely do worship orthodoxy.

 Some criticism of Trump’s remarks about religion are silly; he said two Corinthians instead of Second Corinthians. Oh dear! Other Trump comments are not so easily overlooked. This is from an interview: Moderator Frank Luntz asked Trump whether he has ever asked God for forgiveness for his actions.

“I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so,” he said. “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.” Trump said that while he hasn’t asked God for forgiveness, he does participate in Holy Communion. “When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed,” he said. “I think in terms of ‘let’s go on and let’s make it right.”

That won’t cut it! Neither will this comment from Thomas’ own interview with Trump where he says, “ (sic) Jesus is someone I can think about for security and confidence. Somebody I can revere in terms of bravery… because I consider the Christian religion so important someone I can totally rely on in my own mind.” Then Thomas writes, “…but this is not the language most evangelicals consider evidence of a religious conversion.” No it isn’t; it isn’t even close! It is close to gibberish.

Thomas then admits that, “(Evangelicals)  project their faith on many who do not share it and approve of that faith only in Republicans, never in Democrats some of whom demonstrate more knowledge of Scripture and practice its teachings better than some Republicans.” Some Democrats do indeed do that. But admitting that fact will lose Cal Thomas his membership card in the right wing fundamentalist establishment.

Thomas ends with this comment, “Think of it this way. If you are about to have surgery wouldn’t you want the most competent doctor you can find regardless of his faith? That should also be the standard for electing a President.” Well Cal you sure as hell  just eliminated Donald J. Trump!

  

2016 July 2^nd

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Hillary Clinton will “raise your taxes 45 to 50 percent, count on it.” Why does he say that? He says it for the same reason he says anything, not because it is true, although he may believe it is, but because it wrings more applause from his adoring crowds. Donald Trump is mightily addicted to the cheers and applause of his fans; it will probably be his undoing.

What about Trump’s own tax plan? The Tax Policy Center provides an answer. (The Tax Policy Center is a non-political group started by advisers to Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. They take it upon themselves to analyze tax policy advocated by various politicians and give us the results.)

First, to Trump’s claim about Clinton’s plan to raise taxes: There is no evidence for it at all, and no one is at all surprised by that fact.

Trump himself has a splendid tax plan. Everybody will pay lower taxes; of course the benefits of his tax plan are not scattered evenhandedly among the public. Some will profit from the Trump plan far more than will others. (One of the principle beneficiaries is Donald J. Trump himself.) The first thing of note is that the Trump plan eliminates the estate tax, the so-called “death tax.” This will save Donald Trump who claims he is worth billions of dollars, billions of dollars. Family fortunes have escaped this tax many times. If the wealthy family gets a shrewd lawyer and plans ahead they have nothing to worry about. Trump would likely have managed that but if the estate tax is abolished, he won’t have to worry about it.

Trump’s plan also modifies the income tax brackets. The top bracket, now 39.6 percent, will drop to a much more manageable 25 percent. Trump’s income is estimated to be about 500 million a year. This means that about 400 million a year of his income will be taxed at the highest bracket. The result of Trump’s plan is that Trump will save about 60 million dollars a year in income taxes.

The Tax Policy Center has determined that Trump’s plan will result in a 17.5 percent reduction in the income taxes of the top 1 percent of taxpayers; for those in the bottom bracket the reduction would amount to just 1 percent.

Lowering taxes will increase the national debt unless expenditures are cut as well. As it stands Trumps generous tax cut plan will add about 11 trillion dollars to our national debt by 2026. But then Trump has said that the debt is “negotiable” so why worry about it?