2016 Oct 4^th

We know that the “Times” has released information showing that Donald Trump lost very nearly a billion dollars in 1995. As a result his tax attorneys have filed returns for him claiming he owes no taxes and with that loss carried forward will possibly owe no taxes for some years. Now his sycophant, Rudy Giuliani, is hailing him as a “genius” for taking advantage of the tax code. (Giuliani recently gave a speech to The Commercial Finance Association at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC where he felt it necessary to insult their Mexican kitchen workers. It was so embarrassing that the people who arranged for Giuliani to speak apologized to the membership for his remarks.) Giuliani must believe that Trump does his own tax returns. If there is any genius here, it is the hired tax preparers not Donald Trump.

This “businessman” managed to lose very close to a billion dollars in 1995 running gambling casinos. How can that be? We have gambling casinos here in Michigan run by Native American tribes that are prosperous year after year. Trump tried desperately to stifle the competition from Native American tribes in New York that he felt would compete with his Atlantic City casinos. He was fined by the government for ads lobbying against the Ramapough Tribe’s casino. In testimony before the House of Representatives Native American Sub-Committee Trump complained that the Pequot Tribes’ officials “Don’t look like Indians to me.” Now Trump has managed to lose nearly a billion dollars trying to run gambling casinos while the Pequots are doing nicely running Foxwood, a giant gambling location just north of the city. If you ask his paid help they’ll tell you that “Mr. Trump is a genius as a businessman.” Maybe he should hire a few Pequot Tribe members to help him if he goes the gambling casino route again.

Trump has produced an enormous amount of detritus this week, everything from fat shaming a Miss Universe over and over again, to recommending his tweet readers watch a little porn staring that same Miss Universe, to suggesting that Hilary Clinton was staggering away from a meeting, to suggesting that she hadn’t been faithful to Bill Clinton…”And really folks, why should she be?”

You would suppose that his surrogates bouncing about on various TV shows would have some difficulty defending him; not at all. Their script is easy to follow: Regardless of the question do not talk about “Mr. Trump.” Begin immediately to talk about Hilary Clinton; you can mention her hidden emails, her disgraceful treatment of Bill Clinton’s girlfriends, and her soliciting funds for the Clinton Foundation, even the Benghazi raid;  but under no circumstance let the mainstream media force you to talk about Mr. Trump.

2016 Oct 3^rd

The “Times” has a copy of Trump’s tax returns and, due to clever tax lawyers. he pays no income tax and has paid none for several years. At first his campaign insisted that he had to pay the minimum tax for fiduciary reasons because the shareholders in his companies could sue him if he didn’t. You may remember that he said not long ago that he couldn’t release his tax returns because he was being audited. Then the head of the IRS blew that apart by telling us that the IRS had no problem with those being audited releasing their returns. Now the fiduciary responsibility to pay the minimum tax also blows up because these are his personal tax returns, not the tax returns of any business. It seems that we can only be certain that Trump is not misleading us, or lying to us, if he is asleep.

At the end of his debate Trump made some comments about the Clinton’s various marital problems resulting from Bill Clinton’s affairs and Hillary’s spirited attacks on his paramours. These attacks are used by the Trump campaign to demonstrate that Hillary Clinton is not really concerned about women’s welfare. They may be right, at least she seems less concerned about the welfare of women having sexual relationships with her husband.

Trump claims that he didn’t talk about Hillary’s comments because after all it was a family matter and their daughter Chelsea was in the audience. How clever….and how obvious. Trump, although he may not know it, is using paralepsis here, This is a rhetorical technique as ancient as Cicero in which you claim you won’t mention your opponent’s faults and shortcomings, although by claiming that you won’t mention them, you have mentioned them.

Reagan, claiming that he would not call attention to his opponent’s youth and inexperience when he was debating Walter Mondale used this technique. (I’d bet he didn’t know what it was called either.)

Then, off script once more Trump announced that he didn’t believe that Hillary had been faithful to Bill, “Why should she?” he asked. Marriage faithfulness isn’t a high valued ethic among some of the Top Trump supporters. Trump, Giuliani and Gingrich have been married a total of nine times. On a Sunday, “Meet the Press” Giuliani claimed that all males were unfaithful in their marriages and because he was Roman Catholic, he could confess and be forgiven. That comment got him some outraged responses.

It is amazing to see how far some Trump supporters will go to avoid being politically correct. 

2016 Oct 1^st

The Congress passed a bill giving victims of the 9/11 disaster, standing to sue Saudi Arabia. Nine of the 15 hijackers were Saudi citizens and the Saudi government sponsors schools whose focus is on the evils of any non-Wahhabism religion. There is general agreement that this version of Islam, funded by the Saudis, bears some responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.

Now, 15 years later, the various victims want to sue the Saudi government for their perceived role in this terror. It is an election year so can there be any doubt that the victim’s Congress persons will agree with them.  There are two problems here: Most obvious is the vanishing probability that, regardless of the legal outcome of any suit, that the Saudi government will agree with the result of any negative judgment. Second, and perhaps more important, our citizens suing the Saudi’s opens our government to lawsuits against us from the citizens of other governments and the confidential information we might have to reveal if such legal actions go forward.

Can you imagine the mess we would have if Osama bin Laden’s wives and children and the relatives of his slain bodyguards decided to sue this country for their wrongful deaths? We may know bin Laden was guilty and he has admitted it, but there was no trial.

Obama vetoed this legislation and in a rare (and stupid) bipartisan effort the Congress passed the bill over the President’s veto. This action came after the President sent a three-page letter to Congress explaining why he vetoed the legislation. The letter didn’t stop the veto override. Then just a few days later came some buyer’s remorse for the Congress. Twenty-eight members have publicly declared that parts of the bill need to be changed, Maybe they finally paid attention to the President’s letter.

Now follows the ultimate absurdity: Mitch McConnell the leader of the Senate, and John Cornyn, the Senate majority whip, both agree the veto override was all President Obama’s fault. It was his fault because he didn’t adequately consult with the Congress. Cornyn said that he was “missing in action.” But what about that letter? Oh, that came too late to do any good. Of course President Obama made his views known on this issue long before a vote was taken but if the Republicans can possibly blame him for their screw-ups they’ll be happy to do it.

Why should we be surprised that the Republicans have at the head of their ticket, a man who feuds with a former Miss Universe by tweeting insults about her at 5:30 in the morning.

2016 Oct 2^nd

It is now Oct 3^rd   There was no detritus on Oct 2^nd; well, of course there was detritus, there is always detritus, I was just unable to write about it.

Here are some interesting odds from Paddy Power. This is a British betting outfit I sometimes cite because they have only money in mind; they are not concerned at all with ideological matters. Here are the odds over time for Hillary Clinton continuing as the Democratic party’s nominee for president. These are not the odds of her winning the election, these are just the odds of continuing to be the candidate, of not withdrawing for illness or personal preference.

August 21,  33 to 1  (Meaning that you can bet 33 dollars on Clinton to continue as the candidate. If you’re  right you win a dollar and if you’re wrong you lose 33 dollars. In short, the house is virtually certain that Clinton will stay the course.)

August 31, 25 to 1 (Notice the slippage in just ten days).

September 8, 20 to 1 (Slippage continues).

September 15, 3 to 1 (This might reflect the pneumonia diagnosis and Trump’s constant yammering about her health. It’s having an effect).

October 2,  8 to 1 (An improvement but a long way from the 33/1 point from which we began just six weeks ago).

2016 Sept 30^th

Today’s paper has a column by Cal Thomas who offers “A little advice for the second presidential debate.” The advice is not for Hillary Clinton but for Donald Trump whom Thomas declares scored a gentleman’s “C” in the recent debate. Scoring Trump as a “gentleman” anything means Thomas has a very low bar for the use of that term. If Thomas grades Clinton higher than a “C” he is in trouble with his conservative base; if he doesn’t he loses what little credibility he has. He wisely doesn’t grade her at all.

Thomas spends several paragraphs assuring us that he is a very knowledgeable debater. He “has taken on professors and liberal thinkers from Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth to U.C. Davis. I think I can say without too much hubris that that I know how to destroy a bad argument.” If you aren’t certain Cal, just replay Clinton’s responses to Donald Trump.

A particular favorite was Clinton’s goading Trump on his income tax returns suggesting that perhaps he was withholding the returns because he hadn’t paid any taxes. Trump finally couldn’t resist and admitted that “not paying taxes makes me smart.”  What a blunder! Cal, if you are planning to help Trump you have to convince him that what he views as “smart” is seen by many voters as simply selfish. When he makes comments like that, he provides Clinton with a wonderful series of ads in which he will not look good.

Thomas continues to insist that “real racism is refusing to let minority children… escape faiing public schools in favor of better ones…” That is nonsense because those decisions are made by each individual state. The federal government has contributed money to incentivize charter schools but much of it has been wasted by greedy “entrepreneurs” doing studies that result in nothing.

Toward the end of the debate, Clinton brought up Trump’s difficulty being civil to women. There was ample evidence, from Meghan Kelly to Carly Fiorina. He has called women fat pigs, dogs, and disgusting animals. Clinton cited the case of Alicia Machado who became Miss Universe at age 18 and subsequently gained more weight than Trump, the pageant owner, thought was appropriate. Trump appeared shocked that Ms. Machado had been found and was unhappy about Trump’s “fat shaming” her. He had even brought TV cameras into a gym to show her working out. Trump was most unhappy about Clinton bringing this episode into the news.

You would suppose that Trump would want to minimize this debate and everything about it that made him look bad. Not so. At 5:14, again at 5:19 and once more at 5:30 this morning Trump is on twitter tweeting more insults about Ms. Muchado. The debate was Monday so on Friday morning Trump takes pains to keep this issue alive. Why would he do that?

That Trump would deliberately do this gives support to Clinton’s suggestion that Trump is “unhinged.” The DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5^th edition probably does not carry “unhinged,” but then Donald Trump is surely unique, at least we can hope so. Maybe “unhinged” will appear in the next edition.

2016 Sept 28th

Donald Trump has not helped himself with women voters given his disgusting rant against a Miss Universe winner who gained weight after winning her title. Trump felt is necessary to “fat shame” her by calling her “Miss Piggy” and even bringing TV cameras into a gym to photograph her working out. Ah, but the pro-Trump people on “Twitchy” have managed to cite various events over the last twenty years that they believe justify whatever insults Trump could possibly throw at this woman.

A poll of CNN responders show that more than 80 percent believe Trump’s comments were out of line and 17 percent believe they weren’t. The folks manning “Twitchy,” and this 17 percent, are the same people who would stay with Trump if he shot someone in front of witnesses on Fifth Avenue.

A town hall of previously undecided voters were queried after the debate. Most of them believed that Clinton was the victor but none of them had changed to become a supporter of either candidate.  So then, what’s the point of all this? Maybe as Macbeth says, “ It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”  He is right about the tale, but the idiots telling the tale are interesting. 

Governor Dean has come in for much scorn from the cognoscenti on Morning Joe. He has suggested that the Donald is showing some of the symptoms of cocaine addiction. Trump’s continual sniffing during the debate would suggest that. The Morning Joe leaders, ever looking for an opportunity for outrage, claimed he was diagnosing Trump as a cocaine addict. That is nonsense of course. Dean simply pointed out, quite correctly that Trump showed some of the symptoms associated with cocaine addiction. He was not making a diagnosis.

There is no doubt that Trump has a number of unique personality traits. He is the quintessential alpha male, no challenge, however trivial can go without a response. His response to women is more appropriate for a primitive than for a civilized male. There is no doubt that within the next twenty years he will provide ammunition for a host of dissertations from various graduate departments ranging from political science to sociology and psychology. Once the election has been decided there will also be more books analyzing this peculiar Trump phenomenon.

A self-described multi-billionaire who admits that he pays no income tax because he is just too smart to do that believes that attitude will help him become President of the United States.

2016 Sept 27^th

The first debate is over and the win goes to Hillary Clinton, unless, of course you are a Trump supporter, in which case the winner was Donald Trump.

Trump avoided making a total fool of himself, but he did come close. At one point he claimed Hillary Clinton didn’t look presidential. Then, realizing that he was already in trouble with women voters claimed that he meant that she didn’t have the stamina to be president. Clinton reminded him of the miles she had flown, the treaties she had negotiated and the eleven hours she had been forced to testify to a Republican Benghazi committee, and then she told Trump once he had done that that he could talk to her about stamina. Congressman Gowdy who led those Benghazi hearings that lasted eleven hours did not expect his posturing would supply Clinton with such a fine riposte to Trump.

The candidates performed predictably. Trump could not shut up, even talking over the moderator when he was reminded that his time was up. He had no hesitation interrupting Hillary Clinton or doing his mugging when he wasn’t talking over her.

For Clinton’s part she was well prepared, smiled pleasantly, talked about her family’s hard times when she was a child, but probably got little sympathy for that story.

This morning on Morning Joe, Kellyanne Conway was on the spot defending her employer. The duck ‘n’ dodger very cleverly attempted to turn Clinton’s preparation to her disadvantage by claiming that Clinton was over prepared and scripted while Trump was completely extemporaneous. Well, she had to say something but that was a bit lame. The debate has now been analyzed well beyond any reasonable person’s caring. For example, one analyst counted 51 interruptions of Clinton by Trump compared to 17 interruptions of Trump by Clinton. We will have to wait a few days but I don’t believe the debate, interesting as it was for the political fanatics, will change any votes.

One strange thing emerged  from Trump’s performance: Trump has a tendency to “sniff.” What’s that about? Every so often while he is talking, he snuffles as if his nasal passages are over moist, but not enough to require the use of a handkerchief. This was noticeable enough to produce a number of post-debate comments. When asked about it Trump claimed it was the fault of a poorly adjusted microphone. That is a truly silly explanation; a mic can’t pick up what isn’t there.

Another explanation offered by Howard Dean, a former DNC chairperson, Vermont governor, and a physician as well, is that Trump could be dealing with an old cocaine habit, or perhaps a current one. It’s not just the sniffing but other aspects of Trump’s behavior ads credibility to Dean’s speculation. Maureen Dowd was interviewed and asked about Dean’s speculation. She thought it was silly because Trump didn’t drink or smoke. Dowd apparently believes such abstemious behavior with alcohol and tobacco make him immune to the appeal of coke. Oh well!