The Trump lynch mob mentality

One of the strangest phenomena of the campaign for the presidency is the response those who normally would be supporting the Democratic candidate for president but will not vote for Trump and will also not vote for Hillary Clinton.  Press those who also say they will not vote for Donald Trump  to tell why they also will not vote for Clinton, and and what they often say "Hillary is a liar." Then if you ask them to give examples and  up comes "the  emails".  Press them more, and ask them what she lied about and they become very vague: "well, she sent classified correspondence and she said she didn't. ". "  They are repeating a slogan Clinton's opponents delivered and yet has not stood up to fact checking, from the FBI or by independent fact checkers.  

Trump's demagogic oratory raises the issue to a dangerous level. If you listen to the rallies Trump holds, the chant becomes: "Jail her, jail her". whenever he accuses Hillary Clinton of lying on whether she knew she sent classified material or destroyed her emails.   Forget the Constitution, the law, the provisions of due process, and any similarity to a Banana republic practcies. In Debate #2 Trump said if he were in charge of the law, she would be in jail. 

 Fortunately he could not be in charge of the law, thanks to the Constitution, but his  rally audience is ready to be judge, jury and executioner: ". Jail her, Jail her" They chant with such fervor that all that is missing from their lynch mob fervor is to grab the torches, and a rope and hang her from the nearest limb.

 Even more frightening are supporters of Trump and Trump himself who claims the election is rigged, undermining faith in the process and setting himself up to fail with a prefabricated excuse: the election "will be"" rigged (the election has not taken place; no proof of fraud yet available)  and the press is rigging it  by covering his controversial statements. Some of his followers feel urged to start a revolution if Trump loses the election. They are getting prepared not to accept the vote outcome.   In fact, a speaker at Grand Lake's" Constitution Week"  recently is loudly proclaiming. Scheduled as the keynote speaker was Milwaukee County Sheriff, David A. Clarke Jr., , ""Grab the torches and the pitchforks; the election is rigged" are comments for which Clarke is most famous. I thought the purpose of Constitution Week was to support the Constitution, not advocating to violate it.

Both independent fact checkers and the testimony of the FBI director set the record straight regarding why they believe Hillary Clinton could not be prosecuted for criminal action. 

The FBI found she did not lie to them, and that she had not intentionally sent emails marked classified (they were not correctly marked and buried in them when quotations were made, they were obscurely marked). In order to even prosecute someone for a criminal act, there must proof of intent to break the law beyond a reasonable doubt, and the FBI found no evidence of either. 

  Typical of Donald Trump, he responded by attacking the Republican FBI director as rigging the findings.  If he does not like the message, he tries to destroy the messenger, facts notwithstanding nor refuted by presenting other facts.

Trump has doubled down accusing Hillary Clinton of acid washing and destroying emails after she got a subpoena but per factcheck.org not factually correct. Nothing was acid washed.  Per factcheck.org,  the sequence and that Clinton ordered the destruction make such prosecution a failure: Trump told Clinton “after getting the subpoena” to turn over documents related to the Benghazi investigation “you delete 33,000 emails.” A contractor managing Clinton’s server deleted the emails. There is no evidence Clinton knew when they were deleted.
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Footnotes:

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/factchecking-the-second-presidential-debate/  on FBI findings."emails were deleted after Clinton received a subpoena from a Republican-controlled House committee investigation into the 2012 deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. But there is no evidence that Clinton knew that the emails were deleted after the subpoena was issued." and there was no acid wash

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/david-clarke-pitchforks-and-torches_us_580257ffe4b06e04759531a6?

The second presidential debate was epic, alright, epic nasty

The second presidential debate Sunday October 9 was an epic one, alright, epically nasty.  The  nation and the world to which this was broadcast was on edge of their seats to see if Donald Trump would  contritely apologize for the leaked audio and video of his boasting of his conquests of groping and sexually predatory behavior toward women.  He did not.  Instead he paraded before the world and placed in the debate audience some of the women with whom Bill Clinton had had affairs. Monica Lewinsky was not among the attendees.   He justified his own behavior because Bill Clinton had spoken or done worse.

 That Trump stopped the run for the exit door of evangelical and “establishment” Republicans withdrawing their endorsement is yet to be seen.  What he did, however, was claim that he “has not groped” and he called the damning audios just “locker room” talk and awkwardly tried to switch the topic to fighting Isis. He can only hope no “groped” women come forward.

It is a good thing that Bill Clinton is not running for president this go around. His actions over twenty years ago were worthy of the consequences.  The candidate, however, is Hillary Clinton and, if anything, she showed remarkable composure, and exuded dignity in the face of Trump’s attempt to rattle her or to paint her with the sins of her husband. In the run up to the debate he had tried to make the point that Hillary was the “enabler” because she showed no respect for women because she dared to try to destroy the reputation of “the other women”.  That must be some male fantasy to expect the victim, the wronged wife, to take a kind and caring approach to the “other women” because of  some feminist ideology. Given the public focus on all of the tawdriness, I imagine not many women would have had the self-control to invoke Michelle Obama’s advice, “when they go low, we go high” as Hillary Clinton did Sunday night.  It is  her steeliness and self control under such provocations that stand in contrast to tweet happy Trump who reacts whenever his manhood or ego is stroked or offended that makes him particularly unsuited to make rational policy decisions regarding war and peace.

Donald Trump made some eyebrow raising comments, especially regarding his differences with his own running mate Mike Pence over policies toward Russia and Syria.  Like a wannabe tin pot dictator, he said he would appoint a prosecutor to put Hillary in jail for her alleged lies on the email server because he disagreed with the FBI director’s findings that she had no intent to relay material marked classified or had lied to him.  In the post-debate spin room, the shock of Trump advocating to abuse legal and due process to get rid of an opponent overshadowed his stock allegations of Clinton lies.  Trump also openly admitted he had used a tax loophole to avoid paying federal personal income taxes for years. She responded by advocating an expanded version of the original  Buffett Rule that would impose a 30% income tax on income over $1 million with her proposed additional surtaxes on the five million dollar earners. She then scored unrebutted points that Trump’s tax proposals would give enormous tax cuts to the wealthy and raise taxes on some in the middle class.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/11/pf/taxes/hillary-clinton-taxes/

Why does it appear VP Pence is out of the Russian Connectio White House loop?

The question is why has Mike Pence been seemingly out of the White House loop on the Russian connection controvers?  Perhaps it goes back to the 2016 campaign when Pence parted ways with Trump on Russian policy.  Going back to two prior postings on this blog, this has a history, including the Mike Flynn/Pence flap re: Pence saying Flynn lied to him.  In these blogs are also references to the Russian connections in the 2016 campaign and possible financial entanglments  with  Russia in  the Trump administration.  Whether Pence took himself out of being involved in the Russian connection issue or if Trump did, is unknown. However, it may be Pence himself removing himself and the matter flared up when he accused Flynn of lying about the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador, that forced Trump to fire Flynn.

Blog Posting Oct. 5  2016
 "One event in the Vice Presidential debate, October 4, was the position of GOP candidate Mike Pence regarding Russia.  The comments on Russia got lost in Pence's  absolute denial that Donal Trump ever said Russian President Vladimir Putin was a better leader than Pres. Obana. The quibble could be whether the correct term was "stronger". In any case, there is plenty of video available on Trump's comments which makes Pence look like a liar, albeit a smoothe one delivered with conviction.

 What should also be the story is that Pence took a hard line on Russia saying we should stand up to them..  This deserves some closer scrutiny and looks like there is a division on foreign policy between the two running mates.  Take a look at the debate as can be accessed via You Tube regarding Pence's views of Russia incursions into the Crimea, Ukraine and Georgia...a great contrast from Trump's prior statements.
What does count in 2016 ,however, is Trump's position, though Pence might use his own quotes in his own future campaigns.

It stands in sharp contrast with the GOP presidential candidate himself, Donald Trump, who has been advocating a foreign policy that strangely runs parallel to the same as Russia's, from declaring NATO obsolete, not objecting to the Russian threats and incursions into Eastern Ukraine, and recognizing Russia's grab of the Crimea.  In fact, the mutual comments between Trump and Putin have been so complimentary that it has been timed a "bromance" of mutual admiration.

Not only is this a major issue in foreign policy, but in calls into question whether Trump can even negotiate with Putin in America's and our alliies' security interests without giving away the store to Russia.  Negotiation means give and take and the question remains what Trump would give away to make a deal.

http://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/trumps-foreign-policy-make-russia-great.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/vice-presidential-debate-putin-mike-pence-donald-trump-229147

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-quotes/ "
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Blog posting Feb, 14, 2017
"General Michael Flynn's departure from the White House may have much deeper roots than just his lie to both Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about conversations with the Russian ambassador.  The conflict between the two goes back to the days of the campaign post GOP conventions.  I noted that in a column at that time. In the Vice Presidential debate, Pence parted ways on Russia from  candidate Donald Trump's line.
From my blog posting 10/5/16: (repeated above)
and continues:

"Some background:
 For some time, the question has been why has Donald Trump been so cozy with Russia? There has been a great deal of speculation ranging from Trump's debts to Russia oligarchs to blackmail , the connection with  the Russian Alfa Bank, with embarrassing pictures (a victim of a honey trap).  Fingers have been pointed to influencing Trump's views of Russia was his campaign manager, who departed the campaign mid year, Paul Manafort, who was an advisor to the ousted  president of the Ukraine who sought refuge in Moscow after a coup.  Congressional investigations into Russian influence and hacking  in the US elections are just getting underway.  Ukraine is involved. The Russians have conducted a stealth takeover of the eastern parts of that country and the West punished Russia with economic sanctions.  The Flynn issue involves lies about his pre- January conversations with the Russian ambassador over lifting those sanctions. The question arises was this a thank you for the role Russia played in helping Trump win by planting false news stories and by hacking and revealing damaging information regarding Hillary Clinton.

That there are many concerned about why Donald Trump only ever has kind words for Russia and their president Vladimir Putin, while being critical of even our closest allies and even calling NATO, our mutual defense treaty with Europe, obsolete.  It has set our Eastern Europe members of NATO on edge and one of President Obama's departing actions was to announce the placement of US troops in Poland as a signal to Russia not to mess with our Baltic members.  Trump and others, including libertarians, had already expressed concern about going to war to support the small trio of Baltic nations in spite of their NATO membership. Russians have always seen the Baltics, with their ports to the sea, as part of theirs since there is a large number of Russians living in those areas left over from the old Soviet  military occupations days when the Baltics were their satellites.  Russia has a modus operandi of using "saving discrimination against Russian minorities" as an excuse to grab territory and the Baltics are ripe targets.  Their membership in NATO has made Russia think twice. Ukraine, Crimea, and Georgia, recent targets of Russian grabs, are not part of NATO and are not under NATO's protections.  Flynn was Donald Trump's closest campaign advisor on foreign affairs through out the campaign."

Donald Trump's tax dodge

The New York Times was slipped a 1995  personal tax filing of Donald Trump's and the paper printed it.  Since Trump has refused to make his tax returns  public, or the next 18 years' worth either,  the leaked returns leave us with a lot of questions , speculation and a gliimpse into his character and priorities  He is his own priority  since his tax proposals benefit him and he is proud he pays no personal income taxes.

 The 1995 filings show nearly a billion dollara loss and a loophole only those big investors in real estate can use, one that could possibly save him from paying personal income taxes from then until at least now.  He has not disputed that he has paid no income taxes, but instead  he said  in the first presidential debate, it was just proof of how smart he was  His surrogates, including Rudy Guiliani,  went a bit farther, calling him a" genius"..

The question is: how does this help the middle clase and rust belt workers?  He says "trust him; he will fix it" because he knows the tax code so well.  While what Trump did may not have been illegal, he should not be let off the hook so easily.   Hillary Clinton's best line Oct. 3:  "That's putting the fox in charge of the hen house door".  

1.The most damning  part of the returns  was revealing that that he lost a billion in that one year which was the same year there was a boom in real estate.  What sort of a business man is that?  If he is so smart, why not prove it by releasing his  other tax returns .  He  should now be eager to prove that he is so smart.   Or maybe it might show that he used the loophole in subsequent years.  So long as he fails to release his tax filings, we will never know.

If he claims that he has the fiduciary responsibility to investors and his family by using tax loopholes to reduce costs and maximize profits, then a loss of a billion hardly shows responsibility to investors or his own family.  What it does show  he truly made whopping bad judgment calls in  that particular year.

 2.  He should be pinned down on whether he would roll back the same tax loophole that  could benefit him  for the next 18 years. He has a huge conflict of interest in this one.  Will the real estate loss carried forward still be permitted in his "reforms"?  That is the specific loophole which allows him to avoid paying personal taxes  for  the  years following the loss he claimed? So far that loophole is not included in this tax reform plans. The tax system may be rigged but he has not plans to change that particular rigging. 

3.   By not putting his  Trump, Inc. investments into a  blind trust that fits any standard definition,  as he is proposing to do , he will still be benefitted in his  post presidency, assuming  by how  well his children run his business. .  . Talk about a conflict of interest, this is truly epic.
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4. . His adoption of the GOP trickle down tax plans  is the same ones that contributed to thec middle class  being left behind in the past. .  The theory is give the upper 1 or 2% tax breaks, and they will invest more and stiumulate the economy The trickle rarely has happened.  . Even former  GOP Congressman and host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe,  Joe Scarborough, has called “thirty years of trickle down economics,  B___ S___”.

5. His "modified" flat tax  proposal would still make the 1% even richer.  His proposed reduction to a  15% cap on capital gains taxes is no guarantee that the middle class would benefit because there is no mechanism to force any trickle down. It  depends upon whether reducing capital games does stiumulate the economy,  a debatable theory which has not played out in modern history.  Middle class folks without millions to invest would see no direct benefits, but those who have looked at it agree Donald Trump and his family and others like him would gain much.  

6. It would be easy to  paint Trump's  trade policiy proposal to raise duties and tariffs as  good for  those in the rust belt whose jobs went overseas.  However it could be harmful to others, especially in Colorado. Most states are not in the rust belt and Colorado is booming because of our high tech sector.  Our state and its workforce has adjusted to the new tech economy.  There are 11 million others engaged in international trade who would be put in jeopardy with retaliatory  trade policies.. Retaliatory trade actions  from those kept from exporting to the US may not  be just confined to like industries: they could also impact Colorado's beef and grain exports, too. . A recent New Yorker article actually  quotes  the head of Moody Analytics who   makes some statistical projections about job growth under a Trump presidency which show more job losses than gains..

 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/president-trumps-first-term

http://www.ushistory.org/us/59b.asp

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/times-publishes-trump-95-tax-return-documents-show-nearly-1b-n658051