Issue by issue comparison of 2 candidates: Most progressive program ever v. hodgepodge of rightwing economics & populism

By Marc Jampole

Americans in the 21st century judge their presidential candidates on many parameters: Issues, party, character, demeanor (presidentialness, if I may coin a phrase), trustworthiness and experience. Often how the candidates say what they’ll do is as important as what they say they’ll do. 

Let’s set aside all other aspects of the voting decision for a bit and focus exclusively on issues, which to a large extent means focusing on what the political parties stand for, especially for the Democrats who seem to be marching arm-in-arm towards a vision of government that follows and builds upon the successes of the New Deal and Great Society. By contrast, on some issues, Donald Trump is either to the right or to the left of the GOP establishment, while on other issues he follows long-time Republican orthodoxy.

As a long-time Social Democrat, I naturally favor the platform of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. But for the purpose of this article, I will restrain my snarky partisan comments and stick completely to the positions that each candidate has laid on her-his website and past statements. I will point out, however, when the candidates’ plans don’t add up or are based on false premises or misinformation.

TAXES

Clinton: The net effect of Hillary’s tax proposals will be to create trillions of dollars in additional revenue for the federal government (which she plans to spend: see below) by increasing taxes on the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. She will provide a little tax relief for small businesses, the middle class and the poor. Key provisions include:

·         Make people who earn $5 million or more a year pay a surcharge tax on their income.

·         Make people who earn $1 million a year pay a minimum of 30% of their income in income taxes, no matter how many deductions they take.

·         Close a number of loopholes, so notorious that many have names, such as the “Bermuda Reinsurance loophole” and the “Romney loophole.”

·         Restore estate taxes to the higher level of 2009 and close certain estate tax loopholes.

·         Charge companies that want to leave the United States an exit tax based on their unrepatriated earnings.

·         Create a standard deduction and streamline tax requirements for small businesses.

·         Provide tax relief for excessive healthcare out-of-pocket costs, childcare and caring for an elderly family member.

Trump: The net effect of the Trump tax proposals will be to lower federal taxes for everyone, but only a little for the middle class and poor and significantly for the wealthy and businesses. Trump says he intends to prevent these tax cuts from causing a greater deficit by cutting government waste, but virtually every economic expert to weight in says that his numbers don’t add up. Key provisions include:

·         Reduce tax brackets from seven to three, with a lower than current marginal rate for the top bracket.

·         End both the Alternative Minimum Tax and the 2.8% tax on investment income to fund healthcare.

·         Lower corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%

·         Give companies a one-time chance to repatriate income at a mere 10% tax rate

·         End the estate tax, which only applies to individuals with more than $ 5.45 million in assets, or the richest 6/10ths of one percent of the population.

THE ECONOMY AND JOBS

Clinton: Hillary is going to use the billions of dollars she raises by taxing the wealthy to stimulate the economy with the goal of creating millions of new jobs. The net effect of several of her proposals will be to suppress corporate profits in favor of more remuneration to employees. Here are major details:

·         Use grants, government contracts, tax breaks, low-interest loans and other standard government means to invest federal dollars in rebuilding our infrastructure of mass transit, bridges and roads, stimulate manufacturing, increase research and development, and stimulate the development and commercialization of clean energy.

·         Raise the minimum wage ton $15 an hour.

·         Strictly enforce trade agreements and make sure all future trade agreements set a higher bar for U.S. job creation, which translates to opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) as it currently stands.

·         Use federal agencies to crack down on wage theft, enforce overtime rules and make it easier for unions to organize and bargain for their members.

·         Reward companies that share profits with employees.

Trump: Trump is selling the traditional nostrums of lower taxes and fewer regulations (which all available research demonstrate do not work), to which he adds protectionist trade policies. His details are fare sketchier than Clinton and a lot of what he is proposing consists of blowing up existing agreements and structures, some decades old. Details:

·         Review all federal regulations to see which can be dropped. Trump wants to target environmental regulations, and in particular restraints on coal production.

·         Renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other trade agreements.

·         Go after China as a currency manipulator.

·         Rescind all Obama executive orders related to energy and the environment.

·         Resurrect the Keystone pipeline.

THE ENVIRONMENT AND GLOBAL WARMING

Clinton: Clinton’s environmental plans are truly impressive in their detail. She sets quantified goals, proposes specific actions to reach those goals and integrates the plan into creating more jobs, giving the lie to those benighted souls who incorrectly believe that cleaning up the environment is bad for the economy. She even takes time to talk about protecting wildlife and the traditional rural way of life. The details provided here only scratch the surface of what Hillary has in mind:

·         Install 500 million solar panels by the end of her first term.

·         Reduce American use of oil by one third by making more efficient cars, trucks, ships and boilers.

·         Cut energy waste in schools, hospitals, homes and offices by a third.

·         Do our part in reaching the goals of the Paris Accord, which includes reducing greenhouse gases by 40% in 2025, and 80% in 2050.

·         Protect wildlife by keeping public lands public.

·         Protect wildlife from illegal trafficking and farm animals from cruelty or abuse.

·         Support the continued operation of small family farms.

Trump: Donald Trump believes that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese for their own economic benefit. He has no proposals to combat global warming or resource management. He has explicitly stated that he will remove the United States from the Paris Accord.

IMMIGRATION

Clinton: Hillary supports comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. She will end family detention and close private immigration detention centers.  She will let undocumented immigrants buy into the Affordable Care Act (ACA) medical exchanges and end the three- and 10-year bars which make the undocumented leave the country for a certain amount of time before returning.

Trump: Perhaps his signature issue during this presidential cycle is building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, which he somehow believes he can get Mexico to pay for.  For the past few months, Trump has been waffling concerning the fate of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants, but the waffling has only been in tone, not substance. Even if he claims he will deport criminals first (as if that hasn’t already been done and be as humane as possible with those who are contributing, he remains vehemently against a path to citizenship. He will seek to prevent immigration, and perhaps even travel, from Muslim countries.

EDUCATION

Clinton: All of the talk this election season has focused on Hillary’s proposal to provide tuition free education at our nation’s public colleges and universities to families earning less than $125,000 a year. But she has a top to bottom program that starts with preschool:

·         Establish universal preschool for all four-year-olds.

·         Double the current investment in Early Head Start programs

·         Provide funding to increase the teaching of computer science in public elementary and high schools.

·         Enhance the training of teachers and raise their salaries.

·         Double the “Build America Bonds” subsidies to modernize school buildings.

·         Make all public community colleges free.

·         Enable current college loan debtors to renegotiate their loans at current rates.

·         Crack down on predatory schools and lenders.

Trump: Trump has nothing on his website about education, but he recently announced plans to privatize all elementary and high school education, giving families money to make unfettered choices between public or private schools, despite the fact that recent data shows that public schools do a much better job at educating our youth than private schools, when you factor in income, food insecurity, learning disabilities, divorce and early childhood trauma (see The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools by Sarah Theule Lubienski and Christopher A Lubienski). Trump has said nothing about education past high school.

HEALTHCARE

Clinton: It goes without saying, Hillary will defend the ACA from any attempts to end or downgrade it. But beyond support of Obamacare, Hillary has laid out an extensive health program that leaves no stone unturned in its pursuit of less expensive, higher quality health care:

·         Implement a plan to provide non-punitive treatment to addicts

·         Invest $2 billion a year in Alzheimer’s research

·         Expand insurance coverage for autism services and conduct a national autism screening program

·         Support a woman’s reproductive rights, including the right to inexpensive birth control and abortions

·         Place a cap on out-of-pocket expenses paid by people with HIV and AIDS and on copays and co-insurance costs paid by anyone

·         Bring down the cost of prescription drugs

·         Make it easier to enroll in Medicaid

·         Double the current funding for community health centers.

Trump: Trump pretty much follows the Republican playbook on healthcare, starting with appealing the ACA and instituting a series of free market principles, which will benefit the wealthy more than anyone else since the wealthy have the most money to spend on healthcare:

·         Allow sale of health insurance policies across state lines

·         Allow individuals to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums and to open Healthcare Savings Accounts

·         Make federal support of Medicaid a block grant program, which means that the states will decide what to do with the money

·         Allow people to purchase prescription drugs from other countries

He also now follows the GOP line on abortion.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Clinton: Clinton will tend to use diplomacy, economic sanctions and coalition building to confront global hotspots, such as Iraq, Syria and North Korea, but she won’t be afraid to use military force as a last resort. In Syria and Iraq, she will use airstrikes and support of local armies on our side to defeat ISIS. Domestically, she will seek to tweak our current domestic security systems, build relationships with Muslim communities and try to pass a number of new laws that will keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists, such as a “nor fly, no buy” law and a ban on military assault weapon sales and possession.  

Trump: Trump is both more hawkish and more dovish than Hillary. He seems to be appealing widely to non-interventionists and seems to believe that the United States can basically ignore the rest of the world. Yet at various times, Trump has proposed some very aggressive actions such as walking away from our NATO commitments, allowing South Korea, Saudi Arabia and other allies to develop their own nuclear warhead capabilities, dropping nuclear bombs on our adversaries, reinstituting the torture program and loosening the rules of combat for American soldiers so they are free to hurt civilians and commit atrocities. Domestically, he thinks keeping immigrants out—especially immigrants from Muslim countries—will do the job. He has declared his intention of firing most of the current senior American military staff. He says he has a secret plan to defeat ISIS, but will give his new generals 30 days to come up with a plan of their own, after which he will select what to do from all his plan. 

JUSTICE

Clinton: Clinton’s focus is on making certain the police treat all citizens the same and that our civil rights are protected. Among other initiatives, she wants to spend $1 billion to identify and develop programs to train police officers to recognize and overcome racial bias; add funding to the U.S. Department of Justice unit that investigates civil rights abuses; and start a federal matching program to make body cameras available to all local police forces. She wants to reform the mandatory sentencing laws that have led to mass incarceration of Black males. She proposes to invest $5 billion in job-training programs for ex-cons and pass legislation that restores voting rights to them. She wants to end racial profiling.

Trump: Trump seems to think we are in the midst of a crime wave that requires us to allow the police to get tough. He is practically the only national American politician to want to toughen mandatory criminal sentences instead of loosening them. His past statements have tended to exonerate police from the use of unwarranted lethal force and blame the demonstrators against police brutality. He is fine with racial profiling. He is also in favor of reinstituting “stop-and-frisk” policies, which have been declared unconstitutional.

GUN CONTROL

Clinton: Hillary wants to pass a large number of gun safety laws, including to expand gun checks, revoke the licenses of gun dealers who break the law, keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, other violent criminals and the severely mentally ill, reinstate the assault weapons ban, and revoke laws that prevent people from suing gun companies.

Trump: Trump wants to expand the rights of gun owners, primarily by allowing anyone with a permit to carry a gun in one state to be able to carry it any in any state, even where concealed carry is banned. He doesn’t want to ban any type of weapon. He has expressed ambivalence towards the national registry: he thinks it doesn’t help protect communities because criminals would never buy a gun directly from a registered gun dealer, but he wants states to do a better job of putting mentally ill people on the list. He wants to allow military personnel to carry their own personal firearms on military bases.

CAMPAIGN REFORM  

Clinton: Clinton wants to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and pass a law making groups publicly disclose significant public spending; until such a law passes, she will direct all federal contractors to disclose. She wants to create a federal matching fund program for small donations to increase the power of individuals in elections.

Trump: He expressed an openness to campaign reform early in the year, but there is nothing on his website and no recent statement about the issue.

There you have it: The OpEdge Notes version of how the major party candidates stand on the major issues. For more information, the best place to start are the candidates’ websites.

In a normal year, I would advise readers to take a careful look at where the candidates stand compare to their own views and weight that analysis more heavily than personality or party.

But this year is different.

Because of Trump’s erratic and irrational behavior, racist comments, high propensity for lying, attachment to the fascistic alt-right, bromance with Vladimir Putin, past ethical and business lapses and ignorance on virtual every issue, I am asking even the most extreme proponents of free market capitalism and low tax rates for the well-off to vote for Hillary. The ultra-wealthy have had a pretty good ride in this country going on 40 years now. At worst or at best, depending on your perspective, Clinton will turn back the clock to 1975 as far as equality of wealth and income goes (which will be a good thing for 99.5% of the population). I know that the typical Reagan Republican will dislike that prospect. But it’s better than a nuclear war, a deep depression, or a foreign policy directed by the for-profit Trump organization or Vladimir Putin.

Debate predictions: Media face 3 moments of truth & the “birther” becomes a quitter

By Marc Jampole

The news media would like to cast the upcoming presidential debates as an Armageddon-like battle for the votes—and souls—of Americans, but objectively speaking, it will likely resemble a prize fight between Mohammad Ali at his peak and an out-of-shape, middle-aged couch potato who took one boxing lesson decades ago.

In this corner, we have an articulate, well-educated woman who has more experience in public service than anyone else ever to have run for the White House. She has well-defined, carefully detailed positions on every issue. She has proven to be an exceptionally competent debater in the past. She doesn’t get riled and thinks well on her feet. She has been subject to, and withstood with grace, more investigations than perhaps any other public figure in American history and yet has never been charged with a crime, censured by a Congressional committee or accused of a specific act of malfeasance—unless you think there’s something illegal about occasionally making the same mistake that your predecessors or peers made. Every time I have seen her, her demeanor has been friendly, concerned, caring, knowledgeable and open, but keep in mind that I am judging only on my experience of seeing on TV a large number of her speeches and other public interactions, without the filter of the carefully concealed sexism of mainstream and rightwing media pundits. Fact-checker after fact-checker has proclaimed her the most honest of all the 20+ candidates to declare for the presidency during this election cycle. She defines steadiness.

In the other corner, we have an ignorant blowhard who allows his pathological narcissism to emerge in insults, illogical statements, empty boasts and odious lies. His positions on most subjects are sketchy or built on one or two “big ideas” which turn out to be bad ideas, like building a wall between the United States and Mexico or creating a new child care benefit that primarily helps high-income families. His business record is deplorable, marred by four major bankruptcies, more than 3,500 lawsuits, many for nonpayment, documented racist business practices and evidence of legal and ethical lapses by both his businesses and his foundation. His debating style is to insult opponents and bait them in petty side-show arguments. Every fact-checker agrees that he is not only the biggest liar in this presidential election, but in every election ever fact-checked. He is the epitome of the erratic.

News reports suggest that the Donald has too little discipline to prepare for anything, while Hillary is putting a lot of time into shaping her answers to potential questions, analyzing potential traps, developing friendly and tasteful ways to goad the eminently goadable Trumpty-Dumpty and practicing zingers. I’m confident that there will be at least one “You’re no Jack Kennedy” moment because Hillary is going to have at least a dozen of clever comebacks lined up and she’ll know if and when to fire. I expect that at some point Hillary will say some version of, “You can insult me and my family all you want, but don’t insult the American people/working class Americans/African Americans/President Obama/the brave men and women who serve this country overseas.” I’m also reasonably sure that towards the end of the debate, the Donald will start to drag, out of a combination of exhaustion and boredom. He may even walk off the stage in a pretend of real pique. 

By all objective criteria, I predict Hillary will slay Trumpty-Dumpty, posterize him like LeBron James slam-dunking against Danny DeVito. She will out-fact him, out-argue him, out-issue him and out-zing him, all the while smiling and staying in control.

The moderators and the rest of the news media will face three moments of truth. The first for the moderators will involve the development of their list of questions. Will they ask Clinton about her emails and will they ask Trump about his bankruptcies, many lawsuits, the case against Trump University, evidence of bribery against the Trump Foundation and his connections to the alt-right? I really have no answer to this one, but I hope the moderators and media do not decide to dredge Clinton’s non-scandals or to try to equate them with the many real scandals in Trump’s career.

At this point, asking about Trump’s “birtherism” seems to be unavoidable, and here the moderators, and later the news media, face the second moment of truth: When Trumpty-Dumpty once more gives his biggest lie to date—that Hillary started the “birther” rumor and he was the only one with the puissance and genius to put it to rest—how will the moderator handle it? Will she/he tell Trump to his face that he is lying? Will she/he say the “L” word or substitute some wishy-washy euphemism, like “stretching the truth” or “doesn’t correspond to the factual evidence”? Will she/he pull a Chuck Todd (always a bad thing), which in this case means letting the Hillary part of the lie stand and only correcting the part about Trump being the one to “finish off” birtherism?

And how will the media evaluate what the moderators do? They could applaud or condemn any of the possible ways the moderators decide to respond to what we know will be Trump’s pure and unadulterated, bold-faced, out-and-out, pants-on-fire lie about birtherism.

The third moment of truth will come after the debate is over. Will the news media admit that Hillary won the debate? Or will they grade her down because of non-existent style issues, or I should say, issues of style that would not be issues if she were male.

The media have often focused on style over substance in evaluating debates. I remember watching the 1980 elections as a television news writer and field producer with NBC’s West Coast political commentator of the time and thinking Jimmy Carter kicked Ronald Reagan’s butt; my commentator friend and everyone else in the mainstream news media said that Reagan won on style. Same thing in 2000, when the news media analyzed the candidates’ style so as to avoid the fact that the Republican was a know-nothing. I don’t think the media will be able to say that Trumpty-Dumpty won, but they could continue to promulgate all their false myths about Clinton’s lack of connection with people and untrustworthy demeanor. Say it enough times and people believe it—especially the people who don’t actually watch the debates.

Now I’m going to go out on a limb. I have no idea whether Trump will show up at the second debate, but I predict that he will make some excuse and duck a third KO by Hillary. I hope that any debate that Trump skips goes on without him, so that Hillary has three solid hours to explain exactly how the most progressive agenda by any political party in American history will help 99.5% of all Americans and show the American people that she deserves our votes on merit, and not as the lesser of two evils.

Editorial: Use & Abuse of Patriotism

For a brief time, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that claimed 2,996 lives on the morning of September 11, 2001, united the nation.

Ten months earlier the US had been split by a presidential election that ended with the Republican majority on the Supreme Court stopping the vote count in Florida and putting George W. Bush in the White House.

The evening of 9/11, 150 members of Congress returned to the Capitol, which had been evacuated that morning. They pushed aside party differences to gather on the Capitol steps and sing “God Bless America” together. Flags bloomed in neighborhoods across the country.

Of course, unity can be a mixed blessing. Three days after the attacks, Congress not only approved a $40 billion bill to put a down payment on military action, national security and reconstruction, but it also approved the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which authorized the president to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the 9/11 attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups. The AUMF has been used to justify military actions tangentially connected with al Qaeda and its successors, rivals and wannabes.

Then, on Oct. 24, 2001, the House rushed to approve the US PATRIOT Act, which sacrificed individual liberty as it streamlined security authority, one day after it was introduced. The House vote was 357-66. One day later, the Senate passed the bill 98-1..

On Oct. 11, 2002, Congress approved the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, giving Bush authority for the invasion of the oil-rich nation. In the November 2002 elections, Republicans regained control of the Senate and expanded their majority in the House, and Bush sought to turn that into a mandate. After the election, Congress approved the new Department of Homeland Security, which professionalized the sometimes rag-tag minimum-wage job of securing airports and moved to coordinate activities of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Approval ratings for lawmakers and the president soared. A Newsweek poll found 79% felt 9/11 would make the country stronger and more unified.

Hillary Clinton was a US senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009. She voted for the AUMF, the USA PATRIOT Act and the Iraq war resolution. She later criticized Bush’s rush to war and his refusal to let UN weapons inspectors complete their mission in Iraq. In December 2006, she said, ”Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote, and I certainly wouldn’t have voted for it.”

Donald Trump, on the other hand, now denies that he supported the Iraq invasion. He even claimed in a Sept. 16, 2015 debate that he “fought very, very hard against us … going into Iraq,” saying he could provide “25 different stories” to prove his opposition. But PolitiFact, in a Feb. 19, 2016, analysis, found no evidence that he spoke against the war before it started. Indeed, when Howard Stern asked Trump on Sept. 11, 2002, if he supported invading Iraq, he replied, “Yeah, I guess so. You know, I wish it was, I wish the first time it was done correctly.” Trump expressed early concerns about the cost and direction of the war a few months after it started.

During the debate over the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act in December 2005, Clinton expressed concerns with its impact on civil liberties and in March 2006 she voted in favor of a compromise renewed act that passed by an 89–10 margin. She has a 75% lifetime rating from the American Civil Liberties Union from her eight years in the Senate. Clinton also was a co-sponsor of the Zadroga 9/11 Health Act, which finally was passed over Republican opposition in 2010 and funded medical treatment for responders and survivors who experienced health complications related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A December 2003 report by the Foundation Center detailed the “unprecedented outpouring of charitable support” following the 9/11 attacks, as nearly 1,300 foundations, corporations and other institutional donors gave a total of $1.1 billion for recovery and relief efforts. But Trump, the supposed friend of the workers, whose family first became wealthy renting apartments to the working class in Brooklyn and Queens, chose not to take part, William Bastone noted at RawStory.com.

Trump claimed $150,000 in 9/11 relief money to reimburse him for recovery efforts in helping people out after the attacks, but documents obtained by the New York Daily News show that “Trump’s account was just a huge lie,” Cameron Joseph reported.

“Records from the Empire State Development Corp., which administered the recovery program, show that Trump’s company asked for those funds for ‘rent loss,’ ‘cleanup’ and ‘repair’ — not to recuperate money lost in helping people,” Joseph reported.

The government program was designed to help local businesses get back on their feet — not reimburse people for their charitable work.

Trump claims the money was “probably” meant as reimbursement “for the fact that I allowed people, for many months, to stay in the building, use the building and store things in the building.” But it wasn’t, Kevin Drum noted at MotherJones.com. As the Daily News noted, Trump’s application says it was for cleanup and repair, even though he had earlier said that his building wasn’t damaged. “It was not part of the program to give money away for the other ancillary stuff,” says David Catalfamo, who helped run the program. “The way the program worked was to help businesses cover for uninsured losses. Businesses came forward with their losses and we covered part of them.”

While many Americans still approve of infringing civil liberties of immigrants, Muslims and others in an attempt to prevent terrorism, we still have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than by a terrorist’s bullets. In 2015, 19 Americans were killed in terrorist-related shootings in Chattanooga, Tenn., and San Bernardino, Calif., and one American died in the November 2015 attack in Paris, Snopes.com noted, while according to the Gun Violence Archive, 13,471 people were killed in the US by firearms and 27,016 people were injured by gunfire. In fact, Snopes.com also noted that in 2015, toddlers under 3 years of age killed more Americans than Islamic terrorists, as 19 toddlers shot and killed themselves and two toddlers killed others.

While Trump has not advanced anti-toddler initiatives, much less proposals to ban gun sales to people on the Transportation Security Administration’s “no-fly” list, his blatantly xenophobic campaign, as well as anti-Islamic rhetoric from other conservative politicians, has helped fuel anti-Islamic sentiment throughout the country. Since the Paris attacks in December 2015, ThinkProgress.org has recorded 103 instances of “egregious Islamophobia” in the US — an unprecedented spike, according to the Center for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Republicans clearly are hoping a terrorist attack before the election will scare voters into siding with Trump’s extremist views. Islamic jihadists doubtless would like to cooperate, knowing that a Trump presidency, with his demonization of Islam and his inability to distinguish between fundamentalists and more moderate forms of Islam, would provide a boon for worldwide recruiting of jihadists.

The first rule of fighting terrorism is: Do not let fear cause you to do stupid things. The best defense against Islamic jihadists in the US are Islamic communities that are as fully integrated into the United States as any other sect. We hope Hillary Clinton has learned those lessons. Trump seems unwilling or unable to learn them. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2016

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Selections from the October 1, 2016 issue

COVER/Steven Rosenfeld 
Dems’ hopes for Senate Majority hang by slim thread

EDITORIAL
Use and abuse of patriotism

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
Trump’s guilt-free campaign

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen 
Agri-chem is all around us

DISPATCHES
Trump Foundation scandal is real — and should be campaign-ending;
Low-wage workers storm state capitols for living wage;
Dems unite behind Social Security expansion;
Is Hillary right about Trump’s ‘deplorables’?
Kentucky governor: Clinton election may require 'blood to be shed';
Trump faces gap in Catholic support;
Fed isn't keeping interest rates too low ...

JILL RICHARDSON
Washing our hands of toxins

ART CULLEN
Trump blows both ways on immigration

ERIC BLUMBERG
What the hell do you have to lose?

EMILY PECK & BEN WALSH
Wells Fargo makes case for bank watchdog

RICHARD ESKOW
How much will the war on unions cost you?

MARK ANDERSON
TPP coming to Congress

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Against evil

JOHN YOUNG
Tell us about that immigrant scourge, Mr. Builder

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
The many ways to lose

SAM URETSKY
Which candidate will help with economy?

SETH SANDRONSKY
Silicon Valley billionaire bankrolls third-party litigation funder

WAYNE O’LEARY
The empire strikes back

JOHN BUELL
Trade and the politics of backlash

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Winners at the Olympic games

BOB BURNETT
Trump’s traps

HEATHER SEGGEL
Sometimes a little trouble is necessary

ROB PATTERSON
Debate continues over protection or exploitation of public lands

THEATER REVIEW/Ed Rampell
Make love, not war

and more ...

Newsworthy: Quack gives a clean bill of health to conman. Not newsworthy: HRC talks about real path to citizenship

By Marc Jampole

Mark Twain would have changed the names and turned it into a hilarious short story: A charlatan physician interviews a charlatan businessman about his health.

For that’s what we’re talking about in the Mehmet Oz interview of Donald Trump. Oz, a medical doctor, has a television show on which he often touts unproved therapies and products, some of which he has a financial interest in. His current Wikipedia article notes “A study published in the British Medical Journal on the effectiveness of Oz's medical advice found that 51 percent of his recommendations had no scientific backing and rationale, or in some cases contradicted scientific evidence.”

Much has been written about Donald Trump’s business quackery, but let’s do a brief review: Four bankruptcies leaving investors holding the bag. 3,500 lawsuits, many of which are for bills he hasn’t paid. His many failed branding ventures, including Trump steaks, vodka, airlines, mortgage broker, magazine, water, game and university, plus a professional football team. The low return on his investments over time, much lower than what he would have made if he had invested passively in the stock market using funds that track stock indices. The criminal actions filed against Trump University and the investigation into the Trump Foundation that have revealed real wrong-doing (unlike the various investigations of Hillary and the Clinton Foundation, which have found nothing illegal or unethical).

A bogus doc and a bogus moneymaker. But on TV, Oz plays a successful physician and Trump plays a successful businessman.

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry and the runaway slave Jim meet two conmen in their travels, one of whom claims to be a Duke, the other of whom claims to be a King. Much of the book, often cited as the greatest of all American novels (I favor Catch 22), details the various cons the Duke and King play on the residents of small towns along the Mississippi.

Oz and Trump. The Duke and the King. It would make a wonderful satire, but as a real life event, it is tragic.

Oz must have gone to the Matt Lauer School of Autocrat Adulation, because he was at least as sycophantic and obsequious towards the Donald as Lauer had been during the Commander in Chief Forum. Although Donald Trump’s body mass index of just over 30 qualifies as obese, Oz said that Trumpty-Dumpty was “slightly overweight.” Why Oz felt that toadying to a narcissistic blowhard running for president was more important than reminding his audience of the problem of obesity in America will remain a mystery to all but Oz and his financial advisors. It was a shameful moment for a physician, but then again, no more shameful than supporting psychic communication with the dead, devoting a show to reparative therapy for gays and calling green coffee extract a miracle, all of which Oz has done.

I thought that Matt Lauer had asked the easiest, most friendly question in the history of the American news media when he inquired of the Donald whether he was studying foreign affairs to learn more. But Oz managed to throw an even slower, easier pitch to hit when he asked Trumpty-Dumpty, “When you look into the mirror what do you see?”  Trump evidently has some uncorrected visual difficulties because he looked past the gray at his temples, the crow’s feet, the double chin and the 60 pounds of extra padding and said he sees a 35-year-old man.

Like Lauer, Oz avoided the tough questions. Trump has released his recent medical test results, including the results of a testosterone test. That he took such a test should have been a red flag to Oz. Testosterone tests are not a routine part of an annual physical and are not and have never been recommended by any medical association for a healthy person without a particular set of symptoms.

WebMD lists the following reasons to conduct a testosterone test on an adult male:

·         See why he is having problems in fathering a child (infertility).

·         Check a man's sexual problems. Having a low level of testosterone may lower a man's sex drive or not allow him to have an erection (erectile dysfunction).

·         See if testosterone-lowering drugs are working in a man with advanced prostate cancer.

·         Find the cause of osteoporosis.

The release of testosterone test results provides highly circumstantial evidence that we did not get a complete list of the medicines Trumpty-Dumpty regularly takes. But Oz did not ask anything about the oddness of a healthy man with no complaints having this test.

Even Oz’s kid glove treatment would not have prevented the Donald from doing severe damage to his campaign and self-image if the producers had not edited the show. Missing in the version that aired on television is a creepy incident that will make you want to jump in the shower and wash off the filth immediately. At a certain point, the good daughter Ivanka appears and Donald gives her a kiss. Oz gushes sentimentally that “It’s nice to see a father kiss his daughter.” Trumps proudly trumpets that, “I try to kiss her as much as possible.” Sick, creepy, and reminiscent of Trump’s other disturbing comments about having an incestuous relationship with his oldest daughter. But most people will never know because Oz and/or his handlers cut it out. We wouldn’t want to point out that the emperor is naked, would we?

The quack’s interview of the creepy conman vied with a number of stories about the election as the top news of the day, including (using the front section of the New York Times):

·         Trump still refuses to admit president Obama was born in the United States.

·         Trump vows to create 25 million jobs over 10 years (but gives no details).

·         A Times/CBS poll about voter attitudes, finding voters say Trump lacks the temperament to be president, but is a transformative figure.

·         Trump releases a new letter from his doctor (talk about creepy and quacky!).

·         Democrats make a strategy adjustment as the race tightens, deciding to go after Stein and Johnson supporters.

·         Hillary Clinton returns to the campaign trail.

As a former news writer, field producer and on-air reporter, I have a very strong opinion about what should have been the lead story of the day: At a speech in front of a Latino organization, Hillary laid out in detail her immigration plan and stated explicitly that she wants to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

A Google News search uncovered zero stories about Hillary’s bold and beautiful immigration plan, nor on the impassioned and inspirational speech she gave. Of course, any reporter who saw the speech could no longer be able to say or write with a straight face that Hillary is distant, doesn’t connect with people, doesn’t smile, has no empathy and all the other crap reporters like to say to denigrate Hillary’s style, statements of value that would never be applied to her if she were a he.

Her speech was a perfect platform for a media outlet to contrast the immigration policies of the two candidates. Hillary wants a road to citizenship, Trump wants a wall. Such a story might even bring up the fact that illegal immigration is down so much that at this point more illegals are returning to their former countries than sneaking into the United States, thus negating the panic that Trumpty-Dumpty wants to instill in the American people.

Day after day, the mainstream news media fail to question Trump’s lies; create false equivalencies between the trustworthiness of the candidate who lied the least in the current election cycle and the one who has lied the most in history; focus on personalities instead of issues; create a false narrative about Hillary’s health and trust-worthiness; and spend way more time and space trying to find something wrong in her emails than reporting all the wrong in the dealings of the Trump organization, university and Foundation. The public sees the constant hammering of Clinton and they never learn the full extent of Trump’s lies and lunacy. What should have been a landslide is turning into a close race, and it’s all the fault of the mainstream news media.

Why is the media easy on Trumpty-Dumpty and hard on Hillary? I have developed several theories and read of others to explain the media’s double standard: 1) A close race and a focus on the buffoon Trump is good for ratings. 2) The news media and the wealthy industrialists who own and control them fear or dislike Clinton. 3) They’re trying to “thread the needle,” which means make the race close enough that the Democrats don’t take back the Senate and win the House. 4) Reporters and editors, who so cleverly could find ways to support Bush II in 2000, the Iraq War at its inception, the Tea Party and the absolutely false notion that you solve a recession by balancing the federal budget, suddenly are helpless in dealing with a lying buffoon. 5) They really don’t want a woman to be president. 6) There may even be a class system explanation: that the news media always tend to like the candidate who was born to the manor, or the closest to it of the candidates.

Frankly, I still think it comes down to keeping taxes low for the wealthy. The wealthy elite who own and control most of the news media would rather risk giving the country over to a trigger-happy, sociopathic, racist, mendacious crook who has failed at everything he ever did that did not exclusively include self-promotion than to see their taxes go up.

Let’s learn from mistakes made to respond to 9/11: no more torture, racism, stupid wars

By Marc Jampole

The prevailing sentiment over the United States as we commemorated the 15th anniversary of the horrific 9/11 attack has been one of ineffably deep sadness, but of one kind: the sadness of loss. We have felt enormous loss individually and collectivity.

Missing has been the sadness of regret or remorse. For the most part, the news media and celebrations have not conjured the damage done to thousands of our soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis as part of our reaction to the barbarism committed 15 years ago. We did not think of the global torture gulag we created in reaction to 9/11, nor of the physical pain and mental anguish we inflicted on hundreds of men—some innocent bystanders, others our sworn enemies, but all fellow human beings. We did not think of the irrational Islamophobia that rages among certain parts of our population, and which has led to domestic discrimination and violence. We did not think of our national degradation still operating in Guantanamo. We did think of the thousands of soldiers with terrible physical and psychic wounds still clogging our veterans hospitals, but we glorified them instead of viewing them as more victims of a senseless war.

To contemplate the brutal stupidity which characterized many of the actions taken in the name of the United States and individually by U.S. citizens as a response to 9/11 undercuts the image of the United States as an innocent country, a pure victim, which was a major theme of the commemorations.

But not to think about these ugly truths prevents us from learning from our mistakes.

If we factor out 9/11 from the statistics, we would find that deaths from terrorism in the United States are way down since the days of rage of the 1960’s and 1970’s. As it is, individual acts of terrorism are way down. This reduction of violence by those opposed to our government and/or our way of life fits neatly into the overall crime trends: Murders are way down compared to 50, 40 and 30 years ago. Violent crime is way down. The murder of police officers is way down. Except for the minority of Americans who keep firearms in our homes, we are much safer and live in a much less violent society than we used to.

And yet Republicans, and their reality TV candidate Trumpty-Dumpty, have managed to convince millions of people to cower in fear and consider irrational and sometimes un-American tactics. They present magic elixirs that will only make us less safe: loosening gun control laws, when in fact, those who live with guns are more likely to get hurt or killed by them than those living in the most unsafe neighborhood in America; reinstituting “waterboarding and worse,” as Trumpty-Dumpty put it, which doesn’t work, is illegal and will prove to many that what ISIS says about us is true; fomenting Islamophobia, Latinophobia and other forms of racism, which only further enrages those who hate us.

Generally speaking, the Republicans seem unwilling to learn any of the lessons from 9/11, mainly because they are unwilling to admit that violent crime and domestic terrorism are down and that throwing our military weight around internationally doesn’t work. When it comes to how we prevent and address terrorism in the United States, the Democrats have learned much from our mistakes following 9/11, as demonstrated by their platform, the inclusiveness of their party, candidates and convention and the measured words they use when characterizing our enemies.

Internationally, if the Republicans are D students, we can only give Democrats a C+ at best. The Dems won’t return to torture and are more likely to achieve a solid peace with Iran. But both parties accept the basic premises that have guided U.S. foreign policy since World War II. Both sides of the aisle seem dedicated to using our armed forces and our treaties to protect the business interests of large international companies, butting our noses into the business of other countries and playing a geo-political game for hegemonic control of other regions of the world.

Until we turn to a foreign policy based on engaging the world, not dominating it, we will not fully learn the lessons of 9/11. Another easy choice: Trumpty-Dumpy is dedicated to dominating; it’s in the essential nature of his dangerous narcissism. Hillary talks about engaging the world instead of dominating it, but her past actions and current proposals show she’s of two minds. Better than Trumpty-Dumpty and better enough to deserve our votes, but still not good.

Hillary hits homers off Lauer’s fastball; Trump pops up slop

By Marc Jampole

If the “Commander in Chief” Forum were a baseball game, moderator Matt Lauer would be an out-of-shape pitcher. His first few innings, against Hillary Clinton, he had a sharp fastball with good control. When Trump came on, Lauer started throwing slop—slow pitches right over the plate that were easy to hit.

But it didn’t seem to matter: Hillary hit every question out of the park, mixing facts with realism and reasoned analysis. Trump popped everything up to the third baseman, except when he struck out.

Let’s start with Lauer’s warnings to each candidate before he started pitching questions. He strictly told Hillary not to talk about her opponent, but to focus on what she would do. She pretty much followed his directives, except to point out that Trump had originally been in favor of the Iraq War. When it was Trump’s turn, however, instead of issuing a direct request, he sheepishly sort-of, kind-of made a wishy-washy supplication. Hillary pretty much followed his instructions, mentioning Trump for well less than a minute. Trump, however, put cork in his bat: forgetting he has spent months equating Hillary with President Obama, he spent virtually all of his time attacking the President, which, of course, meant he didn’t answer the questions.

Lauer’s questions to Clinton were tough, and he made sure she stayed on point. When Clinton needed to fill in some detail before answering a question, Lauer would insist she stick to the question, to which she replied she was but needed to give the background and then proceeded to make the necessary logical jumps to get to the answer. Lauer did not interrupt Trump or press him when he changed the subject of the question or refused to answer the question, which was pretty much all the time. He allowed Trump to go on and on about irrelevancies. For example, when asked what he would do once ISIS was defeated, Trump never broached the subject but attacked both Obama and Hillary. Lauer let it pass.

Lauer spent a third of Hillary’s time on her email scandal. In this part of the forum, Hillary hit a massive home run, similar to Mickey Mantle hitting the ball out of Ebbets Field and into the street to put the Yanks ahead for good in the 7th game of the 1953 World Series. (I give this comparison because Mantle’s feat is usually forgotten; a few innings later a psychopathic teammate Billy Martin made a flashy defensive play.) When Lauer, asking one in a series of very specific questions about the emails, commented that Federal Bureau of Investigation’s head James Comey said that her private server could have been hacked, Hillary correctly pointed out that there is no evidence it ever was hacked, whereas we know for a fact that State Department and other government email systems were hacked. 

In fact, Hillary was pretty much Babe Ruth during her entire appearance. She answered every question directly and factually, corrected the mistakes Lauer and the questioners from the audience made—always in a nice way—and did not quibble or try to shape her remarks to the audience. In a short amount of time, we found out a lot about what she thinks:

• She will not put ground troops into Iraq and Syria, preferring to combine our air force with aid and counsel to our on-the-ground allies to defeat ISIS.
• She will always use force as an absolute last resort.
• She will not privatize the Veterans Administration (VA) healthcare system.
• She believes that people on the no-fly list should not be allowed to buy or own firearms.

She was definitely scoring points with the audience. One example: From the facial and body language of one man asking about the VA, you could tell that he disliked Clinton and believed the Kool-Aid about her. By the end of her answer, you could see his face softening its frown and his body getting more relaxed, less stiff, as he seemed to begin to realize that Hillary knows what she’s talking about and has an extensive history passing legislation and supporting organizations that help veterans and their families.

Although he was treated with kid gloves and asked softball questions, Trump essentially “took a collar,” which means he struck out or popped up all of Lauer’s easy pitching. Here are accurate paraphrases of some of the slop questions Lauer threw to Trump with the gist of the Donald’s answers, followed by my comment:

• What have you done that qualifies you as commander in chief? I ran a successful (sic) company and have good judgment. A lie, since other than his TV show and brand licensing, his businesses have been failures.
• Did you learn anything from the confidential briefings you have received? I learned that the people giving the briefings don’t like what the President and Clinton are doing. I hope someone contradicts Trump on this assertion, which must be a lie. Think about it: would every staff member giving briefings be disloyal, because that’s what it would take to keep hidden the disloyalty of even one in front of a candidate.  
• What about your praise of Putin?  Here is the exact quote: “If he says great things about me, I’ll say great things about him.” A statement appropriate at a networking cocktail party for sales executives, but not about foreign affairs.
• Are you studying foreign affairs to learn more? I’m studying sometimes when I have a spare moment from running my business and running for office, but I have a lot of common sense. Trust me, folks.

There’s something to fault with each of these answers. Looks like a lot of pop-ups and maybe a “can of corn,” which is an easy fly to the outfield.

Lauer’s presentation of this last question was obnoxiously obsequious. With the fearful demeanor and voice of a supplicant to the Pope, he said, “You can’t be expected to know the details…” Yes he can, should and must be expected to know the details of defense policy, and from day one. Why would we lower the standard for Donald Trump that we have set for every one of our presidential candidates since Harry S. Truman and Thomas Dewey?

Like an aging slow lefty called in to get one batter, Lauer did strike out the mighty Donnie on the matter of his “secret plan” to defeat ISIS. If he had a secret plan, Lauer asked, why did Trump want to give “the generals” 30 days to come up with a plan? In a series of half-completed jumbled-together sentences that would have done George W. proud, Trump never broached the subject of why he wanted the general’s plans, but said he might use his plans, the generals’ or a combination. It was classic sputtering, followed soon after by irresponsible aggressiveness when Trump insisted he would fire all the current generals. Lauer never connected the dots: Trump wants to give new generals who aren’t current with on-the-ground specifics a mere 30 days to work up a plan.

Trump seems to love channeling Richard M. Nixon. He is calling himself the “law and order” candidate, like Nixon did. He has a secret plan to defeat ISIS, just as Nixon had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. He has been caught and fined for a number of campaign giving violations, has bragged about buying politicians and may have paid off the attorney generals of several states not to pursue lawsuits against his eponymous university. Nixon, Watergate.

One more comparison. Maybe I inferred too much and I can only speak for myself, but by the end of her time, Clinton looked and sounded like a young Ernie Banks, ready to play a double header in the hot Midwest sun. Trump, by contrast, appeared to lose energy as his last minutes on stage ticked down. Some pundits have noted that Trump tended to make all his noise in the first half of the Republican debates. It could be Trump knew that viewers tend to dwindle away the longer a debate lasts. But it could also be that this 70-year-old professed fast-food fan with a large rubber tire around his middle was getting tired.

I come to the debates as a decades-long pacifist, so I reject many of the premises from which our defense policy has evolved over the past century or so. I would rather our candidate be more dovish than any of the candidates who ran for office this year of either party, except possibly Rand Paul. But between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as commander in chief, the choice is about as easy as that between Babe Ruth and Chuck Conners, who hit .238 with two homers for his pro career and later became a television actor. I'm with her.

Judging from the reaction when each candidate appeared, the audience of veterans agrees with me that Clinton is the better choice. The applause for her was both louder and longer than what Trump received. After seeing days of the media’s softball coverage of Donald Trump and their almost morbid fixation on emails that continue to show absolutely no wrong-doing by Hillary (except the admitted mistake of having a private server), it was gratifying to hear the many more vets in the audience voting with their hands for Clinton than for Trump. Now they—and we—have to vote for real on or before Election Day.