2017 Apr 16^th

The fall-out from the licensed thugs dragging a man down the aisle and off the UAL plane continues. This is all because airlines overbook flights. They overbook because if a booked passenger doesn’t show up the revenue from that seat is lost.  An empty seat can mean lost revenue so to avoid the loss airlines overbook.

If you book a cruise to the Caribbean and you miss the boat, you miss the boat. Unless you’ve bought cancellation insurance you lose the cost of the cruise. Why can’t airlines do the same thing? You reserve a seat and pay for it; if you don’t sit in it for that flight the airline loses nothing. UAL is now discussing the possibility of offering up to 10 thousand dollars to compensate passengers who are asked to give up a seat they’ve paid for. Oscar Munoz, the CEO of United, should be able to devise a better system; if he can’t why is he paid about 6.5 million a year in compensation?

This morning we had one of those little TV round tables discussing current events, presumably for the education of the viewing public. The topic turned to the riots in many cities where protesters who had to pay their income taxes wanted to see Donald Trump’s tax return. Trump’s tax return has been a sore point for some time. Rachel Madow claimed a scoop when someone leaked a two-page summary of Trump’s tax return from 2005. When the earth shakes at the thought of seeing Trump’s tax return from eleven years ago, the very year he married Melania Knauss, there is surely a keen interest in the current document.

Trump and his support group have maintained that his returns are being audited and consequently he cannot release them. He says that he will release his returns once the audit is over. Ah, but the wicked, wicked press have looked into this rationale and the IRS has said their audit of a return is no bar to releasing that return. Has Trump now changed his tune about the audit being a problem? Of course not; now he has upped the ante and his flunkies tell us he will never release his tax returns.

He could be compelled to release them if a congressional committee decided there was evidence of Russian collusion but with Republicans in control of all congressional investigating arms and the Justice Department controlling others there is little chance of that happening. John E. Sununu a former senator from New Hampshire, and one of the afore mentioned round table people, has a unique take on this issue: Sununu declares with a straight face that no one cares what is in Trump’s tax returns. Senator, if you don’t know what is in the tax returns how could you possibly know whether you care what is in them or not. In the face of these country-wide demonstrations why would any rational observer claim that no one cares about the content of those tax returns.

It is possible that only devoted Trump supporters do not want to know what is in his tax returns. One might speculate that the less they know about Donald Trump the easier it is for them to support him.

Sununu, as a Trump supporter, can hope the rest of the population doesn’t care, but obviously they do. Senator, your political blinders are making you look foolish.