Category Archives: Politics

YET ANOTHER DOUBLE STANDARD IN THE 2016 ELECTION

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Having watched yet another CNN display of breathless reporting of Hillary Clinton’s health episode, I am constrained to note the existence of another double standard at work in the 2016 presidential election. Wolf Blitzer spent many minutes haranguing New York Mayor Bill di Blasio about whether the illness should not have been publicly disclosed two days ago when first diagnosed and whether she must now make more detailed disclosures about her health. CNN played the video of Clinton stumbling into the SUV that was to take her away from the 9/11 memorial ceremony when she fell ill. And played it. And played it. Over and over again.

Yes, there was mention of the fact, yes fact, that the only health information disclosed by Donald Trump was a ludicrous letter from his gastroenterologist declaring Trump to be the most fit candidate in history. But the “story” was Clinton’s health and the implication was that she had withheld vital information from the public and might be suffering a devastating disability. CNN’s video feed to Yahoo.com earlier in the day included the SUV stumble video under a heading similar to “See Clinton Falter.”  Today’s early feed runs an opinion/reporting (it’s hard to tell) piece entitled “The no-transparency election” which appears to equate the disclosure positions of the two candidates.

The Clinton story on live CNN television was embellished by yet another “panel of political experts,” all familiar CNN faces, whose main interest seemed to be that Trump’s vice presidential partner, Mike Pence, had stated that all presidential candidates should disclose their tax returns and health records and therefore isn’t Mike Pence just the best supporter of his candidate Trump? That Mike Pence, boy, he’s better at supporting Trump than Trump is. What a guy!

Wow and Wow. To be clear, I believe it was a mistake for Clinton to fail to disclose the pneumonia diagnosis when it was made. Blame her staff for that one. Or blame her if you like. It was also a mistake to place her in a position where her medical condition could be photographed in such an awkward way. That one belongs to her staff.

But on the merits, the double standard at work here is that Hillary Clinton has already released a large trove of medical records and many years’ worth of tax returns, while her opponent has relied on an intestinal specialist to address his health in a useless and summary way and has used trivial and nonsensical excuses for refusing to disclose his tax returns. If there is real “news” in this, it should be about what Trump is hiding. CNN should be running a countdown clock or something similar, showing the number of days that Trump has refused to provide meaningful information about either subject. Why is CNN not reporting this important issue every day?

The CNN treatment of Ms. Clinton effectively punishes her for providing more disclosure than her opponent, whose intransigence is remarked upon mostly in passing. Future candidates may take note of this and follow Trump’s lead by refusing full disclosure. The longer he gets away with this outrage, the greater the precedent for future candidates who, like Trump, have something to hide. This issue goes beyond Trump’s likely false claims about his massive personal charitable giving, which is important as regards his credibility. Trump’s worldwide business holdings raise a unique question of how he would separate himself from those interests if he were elected President of the United States. With less than two months left before the election, is it not time that the press, in addition to fulminating over Ms. Clinton’s temperature, began seriously demanding answers to that critical question? Will the media pursue this in the upcoming debates or continue to badger Clinton about the emails and Benghazi, about which she has endured endless examination in Congress and elsewhere?

Is the explanation for this obsession with Ms. Clinton’s health, while effectively giving Trump a pass on the issue, a product of the old saw that a woman is a more delicate creature than a man and thus any show of weakness is a possible sign of more serious inadequacies? Trump has been making such claims for some time, without any factual basis. Catching a cold, or a lung infection, is a factual basis for saying that Ms. Clinton, like most humans, is susceptible to occasional illness. But she is not the first to stumble. There was George W. Bush in Japan at a state dinner. And, of course, Gerald Ford was a habitual stumblebum but never disqualified, for that reason, from being president. There are others.

And, yes, I am aware of the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle and the problems it presents, but CNN is at least somewhat self-aware and therefore has the capacity to resist the temptations it creates. The managers at CNN should take a serious look at the manner in which the network covers this election. Having provided Donald Trump with a daily platform for every fabrication and insult that he has uttered since entering the primaries, CNN should look inward and be sure it is not implicitly buying into the Trump song and dance. And, oh yes, North Korea has a deliverable nuke program in the works. CNN??

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES : TAX RETURNS & WALL STREET SPEECHES

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It is a safe bet that some time before the November balloting, there will be several presidential debates, likely in the format of past debates. The questions will almost certainly cover the full ambit of domestic economics, foreign policy, security and the other usual suspects. There are two issues, lingering unresolved from the primaries, that will also be raised. Phrased pejoratively, they are:

  • What is Donald Trump hiding by refusing to disclose his tax returns as other candidates have been doing for decades?
  • What promises did Hillary Clinton make in her paid speeches to protect Wall Street from more aggressive government oversight and to resist new taxes on the extra-wealthy (familiarly known as the “one percent”)?

Let’s consider these one at a time. Trump first. Trump’s oft-repeated excuse for withholding his tax returns is that he is being audited and no one would ever disclose returns that are under audit.

This is pure hokum. The fact that an audit is underway has nothing to do with the reasons the public should know what is in the filed returns. First, and importantly, every individual who has reportable income must sign an oath at the end of the tax return that reads, in relevant part: “Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have examined this return and accompanying schedules and statements, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, they are true, correct and complete.” If it’s a joint return, the spouse must also sign the oath.

This means that, when submitted, the disclosed income fully accounts for reportable gross income as defined by the Internal Revenue Code and relevant regulations. While it is theoretically possible that an audit might reveal that too much income was reported, this would be a very unusual case, especially if the return were prepared, as surely Trump’s were, by a professional tax advisor/accountant/tax attorney. In any case, people who inadvertently report too much income would likely not be too worried about disclosing their generosity, no matter how misplaced.

On the other hand, if one had made much publicly of how wealthy he was and the under-oath return showed significantly less income, there would be a serious credibility question, among other things.

The other aspect of audits is, of course, that they examine whether the taxpayer has claimed inappropriate deductions, exemptions or exclusions. This is where the real fodder sits. No doubt Mr. Trump’s tax returns are very complex, given the multitude of companies, partnerships and other legal entities likely connected to his vast real estate holdings and other business ventures. No doubt he has aggressively sought to limit his tax liability, which is everyone’s right as long as avoidance does not slip into evasion.

Much about the way Trump does business would likely be revealed by disclosure of his tax returns. For example, the extent of his charitable contributions would be revealed.   Trump has crowed often about his generosity (despite questions that repeatedly arose about the lack of evidence that promised monies were actually paid) The returns would also likely show the extent to which his business expenses are incurred in off-shore business operations designed to reduce taxes paid in the United States (which may be lawful under the current tax system but would be relevant to his political claims made about how our economy can and should operate).

Even if the audit later revealed that all of the claimed deductions/exemptions/exclusions were entirely proper under current tax law, there is no reason to withhold the data until the auditors finish their work. Moreover, the tax code is complex, so it would not be surprising if adjustments were proposed by the auditors. This would not indicate, necessarily, any nefarious behavior on Trump’s part … but it might. Trump would, of course, benefit politically if his return were found 100 percent correct, just as he would be hurt if significant problems were uncovered. He appears to be more concerned about the risks of a bad audit than the rewards of a clean bill of health. This issue will definitely come up in the debates and we can only hope that the questioners have done their homework and don’t sit still for a repetition of the “audit excuse.”

Now, to be fair, we must also consider the question of Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches to firms on Wall Street following her service as Secretary of State. There seems little doubt that either Trump or the debate moderators will raise the issue of Clinton’s refusal to disclose the speech transcripts, assuming such exist.

Is it plausible to believe that Clinton, aware of the intense interest in everything she said and at least contemplating if not already decided to run for President, would make damning statements that, regardless of contractual assurances of privacy, would eventually leak out? Is it plausible to believe that since nothing has leaked out, nonetheless there is a vast conspiracy of silence at work here for which Clinton is “bound” to deliver reciprocal benefits to Wall Street if elected? It is possible, but it seems extremely unlikely that a political pro like Clinton would make anything reasonably resembling a reciprocal commitment to Wall Street when speaking to hundreds of people she didn’t know, any one of whom might be secretly recording the statements.

On the other hand, whatever she did say was not likely a “spit in your eye” to her paying hosts. Nor is there any reason to expect her to behave that way. Would any expressions of gratitude for the opportunity to speak be twisted and used against her politically? This would be a legitimate concern if, as is very likely, she was already determined to make a run for the presidency. Clever pundits on the right have already conjured up inventions of what she must have said, even though they have no hard information about what she did say.

We have seen a few scattered reports attributed to unidentified attendees at the Goldman Sachs speeches indicating that the speeches were coddling up to bankers. Since we don’t know the politics of these unidentified sources, and there are other interpretations from attendees indicating they heard nothing out of the ordinary (“It was one smart person talking to another smart person about global macroeconomics,” according to another unnamed source), there is simply no basis for speculation about the content of the speeches.

Some “observers” have argued that no one gets paid more than $200,000 to speak without an expectation of reciprocal pay-off down the road. Maybe, but there are plenty of reasons a firm like Goldman Sachs would want to bring a big-name speaker like Clinton before its audience. One is that it makes Goldman look more powerful to its audience of employees and investors – this is a common explanation for the high fees earned by “big name” speakers all the time. In other contexts, big fees are paid to big names to draw attendance to an event, for the simple reason that people are interested in seeing and hearing famous people, even those who, unlike Mrs. Clinton, have little of substance to say. A little research into the speaker marketplace will substantiate the argument that high fees are commonplace.

Clinton’s critics have not had much to say about one of her appearances as the keynote in connection with a 2014 Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women: Proving the Case for Women Entrepreneurs dinner. The criticism is, it appears, a one-way street.

All that said, this issue is not going away. One hopes Mrs. Clinton and her advisors are prepared to address it forthrightly when the time comes, as it certainly will. There is reason to hope that once disclosed, these speeches will contribute less to Mr. Trump’s campaign than the revelations of his tax returns will add to Clinton’s chances.

The American Killing Fields

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The eulogies are finished … for now. The President has spoken in his customary way of the pain of millions at the problem of racial conflict that is at heart of the shootings of black men by police and the retaliatory murders of police by black men. That is not to say that there are no police shootings of white men. There certainly are. But the data showing endemic racial profiling of black men (and women) appear incontrovertible.

The data cannot be explained away by arguing that since black men commit more crimes, it is only natural that they would be stopped, frisked, arrested and, yes, shot, disproportionately to their presence in the population. The excessive stopping, physical assaulting and shooting do not always take place in crime-ridden poor black neighborhoods. Day after day, black men of substantial roles in communities across the country — black doctors, black lawyers, black pastors and black businessmen — recount stories of traffic stops and hostile and threatening police interrogations, often covering spans of many years. No, the data cannot be explained away with “what do you expect from “people like that?”

It is a form of collective and deliberate blindness to reality to deny the facts showing discrimination in our law enforcement and judicial systems. It is also evident in many of the videos that circulate after each episode that people sometimes react verbally in challenging ways that in turn lead to strong physical reactions from police. There is plenty of “blame” and “fault” to go around.

This is not a problem that just happened in the past few years. It has been with us since the founding of the country. Tolerance is a great American virtue but we as a society have tolerated evil actions that have repressed massive numbers of Americans for a very long time.

Where did all this begin? You can trace the tribalism of the population back the era of the “divine right of kings” or beyond, if you like. For our purposes, though, perhaps the colonization of America is as good a starting place as any. The original settlers came to this country to escape religious persecution and immediately set up their own systems of discrimination. In the beginning, not everyone was equal. And it has been ever thus.

The men who rebelled against the British Crown and led the way to the creation of the United States were mostly white aristocrats and intellectuals. They had no intention of giving the vote to women, for example. Enslavement of black people from Africa under the most barbaric conditions became a central timber holding up the economy of the country, especially in the “south.” And despite the horrors of the Civil War, , Reconstruction and Jim Crow laws, it was not until 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, that the Supreme Court of the United States could get its collective mind around the idea that “separate but equal” education was unconstitutional. In my junior high history class in 1950s Memphis, the Civil War was still taught as “not about slavery;” slavery could not even be discussed in class.

Desegregation of the schools “with all deliberate speed,” turned out to be a long term intractable problem over much of the United States. For those who want a “Cliff Notes” style refresher on the aftermath, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education, which is a decent summary.

The Brown decision was followed by, among many other signs of white resistance to equalization of educational opportunity, the rejection of the law of the land by the then governor of Alabama, declaring in his 1963 inauguration speech the following words:

“Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us done, time and time again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom- loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.” [emphasis added]

The speech is all the more astonishing because of its blatant appropriation and reversal of the very symbols of slavery in phrases like: “tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South.”  Governor Wallace was not interested in a serious discussion of whose chains were clanking on whom. Additional parts of the address may be seen at http://www.blackpast.org/1963-george-wallace-segregation-now-segregation-forever. Governor Wallace had many supporters for his racist creed within, and far from, Alabama. Many Americans still believe in it, though most will likely deny it if asked directly.

The difficulty of bringing America into a post-racial status is illustrated by the fact that, after Brown, another eleven years passed before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted, to, among other things, enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution that had been adopted in 1870 following, by half a decade, the end of the Civil War, which, I say again, was taught in my Memphis junior high as “not about slavery.”

So, without belaboring the details, the oppression of black people in America continued apace, resulting in geographically isolated black neighborhoods, denial of access to capital, underperforming and under-resourced schools, susceptibility to drugs and all that accompanies them, including constant violence and a staggering number of broken families. When I moved to the Virginia suburbs of the nation’s capitol in the late 1960s, racial discrimination in housing was still openly practiced.

Who is responsible for this situation? I suggest the answer is: everyone. The normal post-slaughter cries for better police hiring practices, better training, more “community policing,” more “transparency and accountability” and similar palliatives are, of course, good steps to take. Each will help to some degree. But they do not go the heart of the matter, to the true roots of the racial crisis that has enveloped the United States from coast to coast, north and south, affecting every place and every citizen. Everyone who thinks about it in a reasonably deep way is concerned if not outright afraid. Until we address the root of the problem, the evil virus of racial conflict will continue to fester and grow.

To some degree, everyone who has supported, through action, word or silence the continuation of the attitudes of white racial superiority is responsible. Everyone who looked the other way in the face of blatant job discrimination all around them. As the super-rich Republican children of Donald Trump remind us, there were plenty of obstacles for the immigrant families of other ethnicities who came to this country seeking a better way of life. But it is no exaggeration to state that the obstacles placed in the path of black people, including both legal, institutional and cultural barriers, far exceeded anything, in both depth and duration, that other ethnic or racial groups faced.

And, yes, as they also remind us, there are plenty of examples of black people and other racial/ethnic minorities who were individually able to rise above the obstacles and participate in the “American dream.” But the rush to cite the examples of “my hard working immigrant parents and grandparents” is itself evidence of the racism that is eating away at the fabric of our society. The success stories are heartwarming and play well to crowds in the conventions, but as a percentage of the lives lost to race-based obstacles to personal growth and achievement, they are all but meaningless. The fact that a relative handful made it out of the swamp of educational, social and economic deprivation says nothing at all about the vastly larger number who drowned in the quicksand sucking at their lives from birth.

We are now where we are. We can continue to wish for a better tomorrow while the killing goes on, while the deprivation of opportunity and the ravages of crime and indifference to poverty continue to erode the fabric of the country. Hope, as the saying goes, springs eternal. But I suggest something more profound is required and it likely must start with a kind of overt confession of white responsibility for the history that has brought us to this state.

I have no easy answer as to how to promote culture change in these circumstances. Many billions, if not trillions, of dollars have been spent over the years by right-thinking people and organizations, including the federal government, trying to defeat the forces that drag down minority people, primarily black but also now Hispanics that have come to the U.S. seeking a better life than their failed countries can provide. Ironically, and Donald Trump notwithstanding, America is still seen as the “land of opportunity” by people who know what real lack of opportunity looks like. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is the tenacity of the idea that there is still a possibility of racial reconciliation and that truth and justice will indeed be the American way.

But if we do not start by accepting the harsh truth about ourselves and our history, we are unlikely to progress. The National Rifle Association’s mantra of “arm everyone” seems more a prescription for preparing for racial war that a solution to crimes against humanity that have led to our violent and distorted society.

The solution, if there is one, must be found in changing the arc of our history. Enthusiasts for religion should look at what their religion expects of them. I doubt they will find much support for the Republican mantra of “I will work hard, and get as much stuff for me as possible and too bad for those that can’t compete with me.” Humanists will start somewhere else but inevitably must arrive at the same place, recognizing that the educational and cultural divide in this country is not sustainable.

We are at an important crossroads in that one of the two political parties that have a chance to produce the next leader of the United States and the Free World is presenting the country with someone who, while talking much about restoring greatness, defined essentially as American superiority over everyone else, is selling an image of a bygone and unrecoverable day to people who feel threatened by the changes that technology and globalization have wrought. Most of what this candidate has presented as policy and platform is based on outright fabrications, but his followers, proponents of American Nationalism, don’t care that his public persona is often out of control, running on ego fumes and indifferent to the concerns of, I believe, a significant majority of Americans. When challenged regarding his epithetical comments about Muslims, Latinos, Blacks, disabled people, women, among others, he typically doubles down on his contempt. His “commentators” on the “news” shows like CNN, constantly rationalize, reinterpret and recast his statements to reveal the “true Trump” with fantasmagorical distortions of “what he really meant.”

Trump’s acceptance speech last week, as clearly as anything before, represents a throwing down of a gauntlet to the rest of the world – a Trump administration will put “America First” and the rest of you can take a place in the queue. That a large number of Americans appear to be believe that this is a viable approach to international affairs, and that it will be accepted by other nations who are supposedly allied with us, is perhaps testimony to the failure of education in more places than the inner cities. The essential concept behind Trump’s foreign, and domestic, policy approach is that the government of the United States will force its will on everyone else. It will wall off its southern border, forcibly deport millions of people, wipe out the armies of ISIS, add new barriers to entry into the United States, increase intelligence gathering against huge sectors of the general population while, simultaneously, allowing the states to decide their own parochial and discriminatory education policies. Trump’s legion of supporters cheer at his every off-the-wall comment, applauding his willingness to say the unspeakable while often claiming that “he really doesn’t mean it, but I love that he’s saying it when no one else will.”

If Trump is truly giving voice to a new “silent majority” who believe that the past can be restored, the United States is in a deeply perilous state. Not for the reasons Trump recited in his convention acceptance speech, but because it portends an attempt to restore a society whose foundations were rife with inequity and that will be out of touch will the major influences of a 21st century world.

Where we go from here, I am not sure. I am pretty sure that the country is in more trouble than is widely recognized. Putting aside the astounding loss of productivity that massive poverty in the black community has stripped from the country, and putting aside the unknown but certainly real losses of serious genius among the oppressed population whose young often never have a real chance to rise above their circumstances, a condition of systematic repression of a massive segment of the population cannot endure indefinitely. We would all do well to remember the words of Shakespeare, in a different context, at the end of Romeo & Juliet:

“See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!

And I, for winking at your discords, too

Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished.”

BROKEN NEWS – TRUMP BUYS CNN, CHANGES NAME TO “TRUMP NEWS TODAY” (TNT)

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Washington, DC – July 5, 2016:  It was learned today that Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president of the United States, has purchased Cable News Network, normally known as CNN, for an undisclosed sum. Trump hired the public relations firm of Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey to advise in connection with the transaction.

“When you think about,” Trump added, “my buying CNN makes perfect sense. They spend 90 percent of their time talking about me, anyway, with around-the-clock panel discussions and live video of my every utterance, so why shouldn’t I own it? Isn’t the press supposed to be free in this country? Believe me, CNN wasn’t free. It cost me a bundle, but with my former campaign manager working for them now, it was clearly the right move. Their constant coverage really helped my campaign and saved me a lot of money. And now, this way, we can cut costs by eliminating what remains of their so-called journalists. Instead of constant speculation about what I said and what I meant to say, they can just ask me directly and I’ll tell them what to report. They should just report the news I give them. That’s it,” Trump said.”

In a related development, Trump’s advisors hinted that Trump, at his own expense, had purchased large tracts of land along the U.S.-Mexican border and was already starting construction of his infamous Wall. A large area has been set aside for construction of Trump Castle, similar to a hotel, but with a moat, for the convenience of visitors to the massive construction site.

Around-the-clock web cam coverage of the construction is being suggested for broadcast by TNT. Trump is also planning to sell the dirt from the Wall excavation as souvenirs for his supporters. Finally, word leaked out from his campaign that he is considering renting shooting positions along the wall to aspiring owners of AR-15 rifles who, for a fee, have the opportunity to stand guard and fend off anyone seeking to breach or scale the Wall. His spokesperson said that Trump meant to say that only rubber bullets would be permitted. Thus, even if Mexico does not end up paying for the Wall, Trump will still make a killing, figuratively speaking, of course.

Note: This is satire. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.  Believe it.

Or not.