CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN TACTICS JUST AREN'T AS EXCITINGLY DISRUPTIVE AS RACISM AND MAGICAL THINKING

David Brooks thinks Hillary Clinton's campaign is drab and old-fashioned:

Her donor base and fund-raising style is out of another era. Obama and Sanders tapped into the energized populist base, but Clinton has Barbra Streisand, Cher and a cast of Wall Street plutocrats. Her campaign proposals sidestep the cutting issues that have driven Trump, Sanders, Brexit and the other key movements of modern politics. Her ideas for reducing poverty are fine, but they are circa Ed Muskie: more public works jobs, housing tax credits, more money for Head Start.

Trump's ideas for reducing povery make no sense -- wave a magic wand and suddenly America will be great again, with millions more jobs and taxes slashed -- but never mind. We know the wall won't work; we know the trade war with China won't work. But Trump is nationalist at the top of his lungs, so it's exciting:

We have an emerging global system, with relatively open trade, immigration, multilateral institutions and ethnic diversity. The critics of that system are screaming at full roar. The champions of that system -- and Hillary Clinton is naturally one -- are off in another world.

"Screaming at full roar" is really the point here. Trump is keeping this close not just because a lot of white Americans are racist, but because a lot of other white Americans who aren't racist (or aren't very racist) find the "disruptive" nature of the Trump campaign bracing and sexy, and thus are willing to overlook what they find distasteful about Trump. They like the fact that Trump is competitive despite doing everything you're not supposed to do as a candidate. Older college-educated whites, as much as (or perhaps more than) millennials, think it might be cool to see everything blown up.

At BuzzFeed, Ruby Cramer notes that the Clinton campaign made a strategic decision in the spring to stop linking Trump to the GOP and portray him as a person who's beyond preexisting bipartisan political norms. I assume this was done after a lot of focus groups and a lot of poring over data: the members of Team Clinton who favored this approach must have concluded that there was a statistically significant likelihood of winning more votes this way, because one approach led to X response and the other approach led to Y response.

But this is Clinton being a careful nerd, and much of America will vote for a guy who just tosses all the paperwork in the air and decides to go with his gut, even if his gut is the gut of a bigoted simpleton with narcissistic personality disorder.

That's why Trump is likely to be declared the winner of next Monday's debate. Paul Krugman wants him to be called on his inevitable lies in the debates, in real time:

Will the moderators step in when Mr. Trump delivers one of his well-known, often reiterated falsehoods? If he claims, yet again, to have opposed the Iraq war from the beginning -- which he didn’t -- will he be called on it? If he claims to have renounced birtherism years ago, will the moderators note that he was still at it just a few months ago? (In fact, he already seems to be walking back his admission last week that President Obama was indeed born in America.) If he says one more time that America is the world’s most highly taxed country -- which it isn’t -- will anyone other than Mrs. Clinton say that it isn’t? And will media coverage after the debate convey the asymmetry of what went down?

But that's unlikely, and not just because, as Krugman says, pointing out the fact that Trump lies far more than Clinton would seem like an act of partisan bias, even if it's objectively true. Trump won't be called on his lies because there's quiet admiration in the media for his unmitigated gall, and for the fact that it works. We'll get this instead:

One all-too-common response to such attacks involves abdicating responsibility for fact-checking entirely, and replacing it with theater criticism: Never mind whether what the candidate said is true or false, how did it play? How did he or she “come across”? What were the “optics”?

To some extend, I understand why the Chuck Todd's of the press will respond this way -- much of the public just likes it when Trump gets away with stuff. But much of the media does, too, and Trump may be covered that way just because some in the media simply admire him for being such a clever rogue. I don't know how Clinton will beat that.

MATT BAI: PATHETIC HILLARY CAN'T WIN UNLESS DONALD TRUMP LETS HER

Today's Yahoo hacking announcement inspired me to look in on Yahoo News, where Matt Bai still publishes regular columns. Today's is several different varieties of terrible.

The first thing Bai wants you to know is that Hillary Clinton is just an annoying shrew who can't possibly do a thing to help herself in the upcoming debates:

When Hillary Clinton takes to the debate stage next week, in the opener of a three-act tragedy that will rivet most of the nation, she should keep in mind that the campaign really isn’t about her.

I say this not because, when she talks to voters, Clinton too often has a tendency to frame her campaign as the necessary capstone of her long, lonely, twilight struggle of a career, rather than as a vehicle for reform -- although she does.

I say it not because Clinton can come across as aggrieved, a victim of venal Republicans and craven media who is biding her time until she can settle all the old scores, like Carrie at the prom.

No, I say it because at this point the campaign really isn’t hers to win or lose, and probably nothing she says will change its trajectory. It’s all about her opponent now.

What a pathetic loser! No wonder no one will sit with her in the cafeteria. And Donald Trump -- he's crazy, but wasn't it great how he threw the winning touchdown last weekend?

(Does Bai understand popular culture? He wants to portray Clinton as a grievance-nursing whiner, but then he compares her to Carrie. Does he even remember that was cruelly mistreated before she got her vengeance?)

Bai goes on to tell us that Clinton has no agency in the debates -- silly girl! -- because it's all about Trump:

Barring some cosmic meltdown from Clinton, these debates will unfold as a test for Donald Trump. We’re about to find out whether he can pass himself off as a credible entrant for the job and, perhaps more to the point, whether he actually wants it.

Hold that thought.

... Whether from incompetence or instability, Trump has managed to make himself not the default alternative to a candidate who is deeply distrusted by the electorate, but rather the dominant and more divisive figure of the two.

Trump is incompetent or unstable, according to Bai, yet Hillary Clinton is "deeply distrusted," while Trump is (pant, pant) dominant. So why is he dominant?

Rather than play along with Trump’s “Dancing With the Stars” kind of campaign, Clinton has largely receded to the shadows offstage, content to watch while Trump gyrates and boogies himself into all kind of grotesque poses, alternately amusing and reviling much of the viewing audience.

Or maybe she just can't get a word in edgewise as the media breathlessly clings to every last word or deed from Trump.

And so, improbably, the election is now a referendum on him. Clinton’s support is probably inelastic at this point; assuming she slogs cautiously through the debates in her admirable if uninspiring way, she can do little to change the minds of those who already know how they feel about her, which is pretty much everyone.

What a drab little bore she is! Uninspiring! Familiar as an old shoe!

Whether that’s enough to deliver her the White House is almost entirely a question of whether Trump can yet persuade some segment of disenchanted, moderate voters that he meets the very lowest threshold for a plausible president -- someone who won’t destroy the world, at a minimum, and who might not embarrass them every day of the week for the next four years if they get really lucky.

Shorter Bai: Low bar? Yes, I'm placing it as low as humanly possible.

... If ... Trump can appear more candid than crude, more disruptive than dangerous, he might yet vault himself over the absurdly low hurdle of acceptability -- especially if Clinton offers a contrasting study in insincerity.

She's so awful, isn't she?

If Clinton were to ask my advice (and believe me, the phone isn’t ringing), I’d tell her to do herself a favor and leave home without the canned zingers that some comedy writer is probably typing up for her right now, because that’s a thing candidates have felt the need to do ever since “Where’s the Beef?” and “You’re no Jack Kennedy” entered the political lexicon at the zenith of broadcast television’s cultural influence.

Right, because Trump won't show up having rehearsed any canned one-liners fed to him by, oh, say, Roger Ailes, because Trump is so darn authentic, even if he is crazy and boorish.

All that’s going to achieve is to make her seem more scripted and condescending next to a candidate whose core appeal for a lot of voters is grounded in shattering the tired artifice of modern politics. You don’t beat reality TV with a laugh track.

Right, because we know Donald Trump is never condescending.

Here's where the column takes a peculiar turn -- although maybe it's not so peculiar:

... Even now, were Trump to just lapse into a coma and stay submerged until three days before the election, he’d stand a reasonable chance of winning.

That a man as preternaturally stage-savvy as Trump hasn’t been able to meet this standard tells you something about his labyrinthine psyche. That Trump manages to melt down in spectacular fashion every time his poll numbers rise beyond respectability suggests that he is, at best, deeply conflicted about the prospect of actually being president.

Trump doesn’t want to be a Loser, of course, because that’s the worst thing he can ever imagine being. But I also seriously doubt he wants to wake up every day and govern.

My guess is that, in his dream scenario, Trump loses by a few points, succeeds in persuading his followers that the election was stolen by the party establishment or the media or Mexican criminals, and then repairs to the comfort of Trump Tower to consider how best to exploit the whole affair.

So this is the high drama of the debates. We get to watch a man wrestle with his own fears and insecurities, struggling for just a few crucial hours to behave like someone other than a guy whom no one in his right mind would describe as presidential.

On the one hand, I think it's nuts to imagine that this sociopathic narcissist has any insecurities whatsoever. I think it's crazy to imagine that he fears the burdens of governing -- remember, he's the guy who reportedly offered to put John Kasich in charge of domestic and foreign policy if he'd agree to be Trump's running mate, while Trump's job, according to son Donald Jr., would be "making America great again."

On the other hand, notice what Bai is saying here: Clinton can't win on her own -- she can only win if Trump consciously or subconsciously throws the election. Because she's pathetic and unlikable, and Trump, however crazy and awful he is, has all the power.

AND WHEN YOU'RE DONE WITH THIS, MAYBE YOU COULD TAKE ANOHER SHOT AT THAT TERRI SCHIAVO DIAGNOSIS

The Hill has decided that Hillary Clinton's health is so worrisome that it's time to publish a diagnosis of her by someone who's never examined her, a retired Texas surgeon and Republican activist named John R. Coppedge:

Hillary Clinton exhibited abnormal eye movements during her recent speech in Philadelphia and they were not photoshopped.

Her eyes did not always move in the same direction at the same time. It appears that she has a problem with her left sixth cranial nerve....

Like all things medical, there is a long list of potential causes but in my opinion the most likely one, based on Clinton's known medical history is an intermittent lateral rectus palsy caused by damage to or pressure on her sixth cranial nerve....

Critics will rightly point out that I have not examined Clinton. They will point out that I am not ophthalmologist or a neurologist. But I am a physician and the concepts discussed above are taught to every medical student early in their education.

Coppedge links to a video that starts with footage of a lizard, so you know it's serious stuff.



I see a modest discrepancy in the way the eyes move, but I don't know how unusual this is, because I'm not an ophthalmologist or neurologist. Oh, wait -- Dr. Coppedge isn't either!

He thinks she should have an independent neurological exam -- and what do you know, so does this reporter who just interviewed Clinton:

“Some doctors have said because of your age as well as your opponent’s age, that you could be at higher risk for dementia or even Alzheimer’s, and have suggested that you take some neurocognitive tests,” asked Tampa’s ABC Action News reporter Sarina Fazan.

Clinton laughed at that suggestion. “I am very sorry I got pneumonia. I am very glad that antibiotics took care of it and that’s behind us now. I have met the standard that everybody running for president has met in terms of releasing information about my health,” she said.

“Would you be willing to take those tests, though?” Fazan asked.

“There is no need for that,” Clinton responded. “The information is very clear and the information, as I said, meets the standards that every other person running for president has ever had to meet. I am happy that we have met and even exceeded them in certain ways.”

The line of questioning starts at about 3:00 in this clip -- in which, by the way, I'm following Dr. Coppedge's lead and watching Clinton's eyes, and not seeing anything to remark on:



Meanwhile, someone named Future Useless Eater, who apparently isn't a doctor, has decided to play one at Free Republic, using a GIF from the balloon drop at the end of this year's Democratic convention:

Does Hillary have Progressive Supranuclear Palsy?



Hillary demonstrates here that she can move her eyes quickly side-to-side, but she may have a GREAT DEAL OF TROUBLE rolling her EYES UP, (or down).

That could be why she had to arch her back, and tip her head side-to-side to watch the balloons falling.

... Her vertical eye movement disorder may be "Supranuclear Ophthalmoplegia", which is the cardinal manifestation of "Progressive Supranuclear Palsy" (PSP), which is a degenerative brain disorder.

Here is some text I lifted from Parkinsons.org...

Nobody cares what these idiot Freepers think -- but Clinton's opponents have puke-funneled this sort of speculation well up the media food chain. If Hillary Clinton goes to her retirement in January 2025, still vigorous and in full control of her mental faculties, these idiots will still be telling us that she was riddled with medical conditions that the LIE-beral media wouldn't tell us about. It's never going to end.

****

UPDATE: Whoops, almost forgot to mention this:

Rand Paul: Clinton Should Be Examined For Health Problems Other Than Pneumonia https://t.co/84fInHb23p

— BuzzFeed Politics (@BuzzFeedPol) September 22, 2016

THE ELIMINATIONISM OF GLENN REYNOLDS WAS MUCH EASIER TO IGNORE WHEN IT WAS AIMED AT FOREIGNERS

Glenn Reynolds stepped over the line last night:

Conservative USA Today columnist and University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds caused an uproar on Twitter when he urged motorists to drive over protesters blocking a highway in North Carolina.

“Run them down,” Reynolds, who also produces the Instapundit website, tweeted late Wednesday with an image of the protesters on I-277.

Twitter suspended the account....

Wow, nobody could have foreseen that Reynolds would tweet something like this, given his past writings:

On the other hand, it’s also true that if democracy can’t work in Iraq, then we should probably adopt a “more rubble, less trouble” approach to other countries in the region that threaten us.

Or this, which suggested that the U.S. might have to commit genocide in the Middle East because we'd simply have no choice:

Civilized societies have found it harder, though, to beat the barbarians without killing all, or nearly all, of them. Were it really to become all-out war of the sort that Osama and his ilk want, the likely result would be genocide -- unavoidable, and provoked, perhaps, but genocide nonetheless, akin to what Rome did to Carthage, or to what Americans did to American Indians. That’s what happens when two societies can’t live together, and the weaker one won’t stop fighting -- especially when the weaker one targets the civilians and children of the stronger. This is why I think it’s important to pursue a vigorous military strategy now. Because if we don’t, the military strategy we’ll have to follow in five or ten years will be light-years beyond “vigorous.”

And then there's this:

North Korea fires artillery barrage on South. If they start anything, I say nuke ’em. And not with just a few bombs. They’ve caused enough trouble -- and it would be a useful lesson for Iran, too.

And this, which Reynolds posted gleefully on 9/11, when the rest of us were in a state of shock:

GEORGE BUSH IS NOW THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD: People always say that about Presidents, of course, but usually it's only notionally true. Now, if he wants to nuke Baghdad, there is nobody to say him nay -- and damned few who would want to.

Reynolds has aways been bloodthirsty -- in his prime, mybe he was more eliminationist toward foreigners, but the tendency has always been there. The surprise now is that he faced even a mild consequence for his bloodlust.

(Links via Little Green Footballs, Orcinus, and Glenn Greenwald.)

CONFESSING MY UNPOPULAR OPINION: I PREFER EVAN McMULLIN'S NEW ANTI-TRUMP AD TO JOSS WHEDON'S

I'm not the target demographic, never having been a huge Buffy fan or a fan of Joss Whedon's movies, but I gather I'm supposed to be excited that Whedon is reaching out to The Kids with this ad:

Whedon has founded the pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC Save the Day and donated $1 million toward helping her beat Donald Trump in the presidential election. Instead of going on the defensive, Whedon is focusing on encouraging people to vote through a series of star-studded online videos....

The team is currently at work on more than 10 videos and plans to make between 15 and 25 before the election. It launches today with a spoof of a traditional campaign ad, called “Important,” that is jam-packed with A-listers, including Neil Patrick Harris and Avengers stars Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo.

Am I reading this ad wrong? To me it doesn't come off as a spoof of a traditional ad -- it comes off as a traditional ad. I see the nodding and winking, but it's 2016, folks, and there's nodding and winking in traditional ads, too. The winks and nods don't help -- the ad still reads like every other earnest, stutter-rhythmed, multiple-talking-head ad you've ever seen that features famous people urging the viewer to do the right thing. Even as it mocks the traditional format, it adheres so closely to it that it's indistinguishable from what it's allegedly spoofing, which is an ad style that I feel I've been seeing for about twenty years now, always presented as if it's still "cutting edge."

Will it work? I hope so. I hope people watch past the first minute, which is just the usual appeal to viewers to vote, darn it, because it's important. Only after minute number one is there any allusion to the horror of Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton is never mentioned at all. This ad might just inspire viewers to vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, or to write in Bernie Sanders.

Even though it's meant to be a send-up of multi-celebrity ads, a multi-celebrity ad is what it ultimately is. It's just an ad about celebrities being celebrities. It's jokey and clever and "ironic" and forgettable. Maybe that's what will get through to The Kids. But I have my doubts.

****

The new ad by third- (fifth?-)party presidential candidate Evan McMullin obviously isn't going to get anyone to vote for Clinton, but it's the kind of thing Clinton or a pro-Clinton super PAC should be doing. I think the Hillary Clinton "Role Models" ad is an effective spot ...



But it probably works better with parents than with younger voters, who might regard it as just a prissy critique of foul language. That's why I'd have liked to see an ad like this from Clinton or her allies:

Evan McMullin’s presidential campaign has taken a racist tirade recently left in a staffer’s voicemail inbox and turned it into a political ad highlighting the dangers of “Donald Trump’s America.”

The ad, which will air online in select markets, features a recording of a personal cell phone message campaign spokeswoman Rina Shah received after appearing on Fox News last Friday.

“You frothing, libtard piece of shit Islamic dog,” the caller, identified only as “Alan,” is heard saying in the ad, while a transcript of his rant runs along the bottom of the screen. “Vote for the pathological lying criminal you fucking piece of shit … and get out of our country … while you’re at it, got back and get fucked by your dirtbag Islamic terror scum friends. Slut.”

This ad is plain and unpolished. It's a punch in the gut. It reminds us that Trumpism isn't just about a buffoonish blowhard who may or may not be able to back up his belligerent words -- it's about millions of angry people who are being told it's okay for them to intimidate people who aren't white or Christian or male.

I think it's safe to assume that people in Clinton World have received messages like this. I say make them public. Maybe the raw abuse directed at Clinton and her allies would get through to voters who don't regard themselves as thugs but believe it's amusing to attack Clinton. If nothing else, it would remind the world of politics that all this isn't about "economic anxiety," or whatever the hell we're supposed to believe -- it's about rage.

ARE MILLENNIALS UNDERINFORMED ABOUT BUSH? OR DO THEY THINK CLINTON WOULD BE BUSH?

Brian Beutler thinks millennials aren't flocking to Hillary Clinton because we oldsters haven't reminded them frequently enough about the horrors of the Bush presidency:

If 18-to 29-year-olds vote for third-party candidates in sufficient numbers to tip the election to Trump, it will be the consequence of a liberal failure to build an oral tradition around the Bush administration, from Ralph Nader’s vote haul in Florida through the injustice of the recount and the ensuing plutocratic fiscal policy; the 9/11 intelligence failure; the war of choice in Iraq sold with false intelligence and launched without an occupation plan; the malpractice that killed hundreds in New Orleans; the scandalousness that makes the fainting couch routine over Clinton’s emails seem Oscar-worthy; and finally to the laissez-faire regulatory regime and ensuing financial crisis that continues to shape the economic lives of young voters to this day....

Here it’s useful to contrast the way Republicans scapegoated Jimmy Carter (who was not a great president, but more unlucky than genuinely incompetent or malevolent) to the way Democrats have treated Bush (among the worst presidents of all time)....

As Steve Kornacki wrote several years ago in Salon, the 1984 Republican convention “featured a parade of speakers attesting to the general awfulness of [Ronald] Reagan’s predecessor.” Democrats adopted a similar model for Obama’s reelection convention in 2012, but at least relative to the abject horror of the eight Bush years, they undersold it, and have continued to undersell it.

Maybe that's a significant part of the problem: Unlike Republicans, who've demonized Jimmy Carter relentlessly since his time in office, we don't have a well-oiled noise machine cranking out nonstop denunciations of Bush.

But would it matter to millennials? The Clinton years had financial deregulation, as well as welfare "reform" and talk about "superpredators." Later, as a senator, Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq War. As a private citizen, Clinton delivered speeches to big banks, and now she's doing campaign outreach to Republicans, while touting GOP endorsements. And she's associated with the Obama administration's continuance of Middle East wars and drone strikes.

None of this puts her in Bush's league -- and as awful as he was, Trump would be far worse, as would any of the Republicans who ran against him in the primaries, because the GOP has become more appalling in the post-Bush era (more pro-plutocrat, more anti-immigrant, more anti-Muslim). But I suspect that if you asked many millennials what they imagine a Clinton presidency would be like, they'd describe a clone of the Bush presidency -- just as militarist, just as racist, just as pro-fat-cat.

Maybe it's time to stop lecturing millennials on this subject and start listening to them. I'd like to see some focus groups conducted, with relatively open-ended lines of inquiry. Describe what you think Hillary Clinton would do in office. Describe a Trump presidency.

Clinton's policy positions are very progressive. However much she might compromise on them, she starts out very, very far from the Republican Party. She's not going to sign into law a Paul Ryan budget that gives 99% of its tax breaks to the 1%. She's not going to reinstate torture, as Donald Trump eagerly promises to do (and sorry, but I don't believe for a minute that either a GOP Congress or rank-and-file servicemembers will prevent him from doing that). She's not going to appoint Scalias to the Supreme Court. She's not going to slam the door on Muslims and Mexicans. She's not going to engage in an orgy of deregulation. She's not going to pursue an energy policy that pretends climate change doesn't exist.

Millennials may vaguely grasp this, but what do they think she will do? Cn we hear more from them? And shouldn't Clinton take what they say and address it directly?

THIS IS HOW WE DO CLASS WAR IN AMERICA

Chris Arnade, a photographer and writer, has a post up at Medium (which began as a tweetstorm) about Hillary Clinton's struggle to close the sale this year. He thinks she's in trouble, even though he supports her. His conclusion?

10. She is everything everyone dislikes about the front row kids. And this election is about throwing them out pic.twitter.com/bCS2XzWay0

— Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade) September 20, 2016

Arnade continues:

11. Bill Clinton was a back row kid at heart. That is what he came from. (Go visit his hometown. Really.)

12. Trump is what the back row (and middle rows) often love best. Someone from the front row who joins them.

13. Not only is Trump joining them, he is shooting spitballs at the kids in the front. Making them all mad!

14. And what does team Hillary do? Goes full front row on everyone, throwing scorn. “How dare you behave so awfully! Grow up! Bad kids!”

15. That is why “basket of deplorable” was so damaging. It is exactly how everyone who isn’t in the front row thinks the front row thinks about everyone else.

I grew up a brainy truck driver's son in a white ethnic neighborhood in Boston, and I made it to the Ivy League. So I'm one of the front row kids Arnade is talking about, right? Except that I never felt like an elitist. In my childhood, it was embarrassing to be a brainy kid. I don't think Hillary Clinton grew up quite that way, but even when magazines were writing about her Wellesley commencement speech, she wasn't some sort of charismatic flaming youth who appeared to be getting all the sex and drugs while the working class died in Vietnam. She was a grind. She still is a grind. The back row kids may be screwed by life eventually, but they often look down on the front row kids for their awkwardness as much as for their prospects.

Yes, Bill got along with the kids in the back row. After three straight presidential losses in the 1980s, I was glad the Democrats found somebody in '92 who had that rapport.

But here we see the inconsistency in what Arnade writes. First he tells us that "this election is about everyone else throwing [the front row kids] out," then he tells us that being a back row kid helped propel Bill Clinton to the presidency. So we're not talking just about the unique circumstances of this moment. It's how we always are. We always want someone who, as Molly Ivins said, has some Elvis.

We want that even when we're not in despair. In '92, when Bill Clinton won, there was an economic downturn, along with a crime wave -- but things were pretty good in 2000 when George W. Bush, who came off as a back row kid, got close enough in the vote to steal the election from Al Gore, a grind.

If Trump wins this year, then the last two "back row" Republicans to ascend to the presidency will have been rich sons of elitists. That's how we do class war in America -- we don't resent the Bushes and Trumps, or at least the ones who have self-important swagger. We hate Hillary Clinton for rising from the middle class through hard work, and who can't look cool while doing it.

WHY NO TRUMPITE WILL BE FAZED BY THE LATEST TRUMP FOUNDATION SCANDAL

This, from The Washington Post's David Farenthold, certainly looks bad:

Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.

Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” -- which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.

But Trump's backers will shrug it off. Why? Because of this, for starters:

In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the size of a flagpole.

In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines -- if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records.

A dispute over the size of a flagpole? Try recounting this to your Fox-obsessed uncle, and I guarantee that that's the detail he'll seize on. The damn government shouldn't be telling people what size flagpole they're allowed to have!

The larger issue, of course, is that if this is a charitable foundation, certain laws apply regarding the tax status of donations, and there are restrictions on the outlays. Sensible people can understand that, and realize that it's not right to take money earmarked for charity and use it for other purposes. But to your Fox-watching uncle, all taxation is theft. Therefore it shouldn't matter what Trump does with his charity's money (even if it's money given to the foundation by other people, as Farenthold makes clear it is). It was given to him, it's his damn money, and he should be able to do with it what he pleases. Is this America or commie Russia?

Oh, and:

If the Internal Revenue Service were to find that Trump violated self-dealing rules, the agency could require him to pay penalty taxes or to reimburse the foundation for all the money it spent on his behalf.

The IRS? See "taxation is theft," above. Also recall that conservatives want IRS commissioner John Koskinen impeached, though congressional leaders in the GOP think that would be awkward at this time.

Conservatives say Koskinen impeded a congressional investigation when subpoenaed documents related to the IRS-tea party controversy were destroyed on his watch. Koskinen says he had nothing to do with lower-level employees erasing backup tapes of emails written by Lois Lerner, the IRS official who led the department that singled out conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Yes, conservatives think the actions of the Clinton Foundation are evil and criminal. But they'll tell you this is totally different.

Let me try to explain why. Since the Reagan years, conservatives have worshipped capitalism and business titans. But in the past decade or so, conservatives, or at least some of them, have started to denounce "crony capitalism." But to conservatives,these aren't contradictory. Business leaders are still Randian demigods -- except when they collude with leaders of the government, which is a force of pure evil. When business leaders engage in that sort of collusion (with Establishment Republicans, or with any Democrat), that's "cronyism." That, according to conservatives, is what the Clinton Foundation engages in.

The Trump Foundation? It's just the charitable wing of a free man trying to live freely, as Saint Ayn would want him to.

Yes, maybe his foundation's money isn't really his money, as Farenthold says:

... he transformed the Trump Foundation into something rarely seen in the world of philanthropy: a name-branded foundation, whose namesake provides none of its money. Trump gave relatively small donations in 2007 and 2008, and afterward: nothing. The foundation’s tax records show no donations from Trump since 2009.

Its money has come from other donors, most notably pro-wrestling executives Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave a total of $5 million from 2007 to 2009, tax records show.

Still, it was given to him freely, so it's his cash, and should be allowed to do whatever he pleases with it. Even buy huge portraits of himself:

... in 2014, Trump spent $10,000 of the foundation’s money for a portrait of himself bought at a charity fundraiser.

Or, rather, another portrait of himself.

Several years earlier, Trump had used $20,000 from the Trump Foundation to buy a different, six foot-tall portrait.

Here's the painting @realDonaldTrump paid $10k for using other people's charity money https://t.co/9U0mZl4bcj pic.twitter.com/0svxraseBB

— Dan Eggen (@DanEggenWPost) September 20, 2016

I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE JEB

This news doesn't surprise me:

Former President George H.W. Bush is bucking his party's presidential nominee and plans to vote for Hillary Clinton in November, according to a member of another famous political family, the Kennedys.

... [Bush's] preference for the wife of his own successor, President Bill Clinton, nonetheless became known to a wider audience thanks to Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend, the former Maryland lieutenant governor and daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy.

On Monday, Townsend posted a picture on her Facebook page shaking hands next to the former president and this caption: "The President told me he’s voting for Hillary!!”

In a telephone interview, Townsend said she met with the former president in Maine earlier today, where she said he made his preference known that he was voting for a Democrat. “That’s what he said,” she told POLITICO.

This came with a non-denial denial:

Jim McGrath, a spokesman for Bush, did not confirm nor deny the claim.

"The vote President Bush will cast as a private citizen in some 50 days will be just that: a private vote cast in some 50 days," McGrath told CNN. "He is not commenting on the presidential race in the interim."

I don't think I've said it here, but I've been assuming that some Bush or other would ultimately endorse Clinton. I thought it might be Jeb, even though he's said on more than one occasion that he'll vote for neither Clinton nor Donald Trump. Will he change his mind, despite the fact that his kind words for Clinton in 2013 while he gave her a public service award was used against him in the primaries? Or will he stick to his position, in the hope of winning another election someday, or in the hope that he won't hurt the political career of his son George P., the Texas land commissioner and near-certain future candidate for governor, senator, or president, who's fallen in line behind Trump?

I understood why Clinton sought Republican support just after the convention -- moderate suburban GOP voters, especially women, seemed to be persuadable. It seemed to work -- there was much talk about Clinton's success in, say, the Philadelphia suburbs, and overall among college-educated whites. When no Bushes were among her endorsers, I assumed that the plan was to save a Bush endorsement for later -- and that may be correct.

I don't think this just slipped out -- the story seems impeccably choreographed (the reveal through a third party, the hedged statement from the spokesman), so I'm guessing it's been in the planning stages for a while.

But I wonder if the GOP outreach has hit the limit of its usefulness for Clinton. Now we see her reaching out to millennial fans of Bernie Sanders -- does it occur to her that her ardent courting of Republicans reinforced their sense that she's not for them? I think the GOP effort was worth it, but I think Clinton needs to deemphasize it now and work at winning back voters who should be solid Democrats. Nevertheless, I'm anticipating an October Jeb Bush surprise, for better or worse.

THE MULTIPLE FALLACIES THAT ARE KEEPING DONALD TRUMP IN CONTENTION

In Glenn Thrush's story about an interview with Dr. Jill Stein for the Politico podcast Off Message, there's a passage that catches Charlie Pierce's eye:

But [Stein's] contempt has a more cutting quality when she talks about Clinton. She mocks Trump as braying menace; Stein thinks he's, at heart, a bumbler who will be neutered by his own party after being elected. But it's Clinton who poses the greater threat, in Stein's estimation, because she knows how to move the levers of Washington. "Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress," Stein explains. "Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won't… Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his."

See also Dave Weigel:

"Trump would be restrained by Congress and lose in 2020" is prob the message I hear most from Green voters https://t.co/So2JENAxx0

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) September 19, 2016

Where does this idea come from? Here's more of what Stein tells Politico:

“The guy has a lot of problems -- physical, mental, emotional, cognitive,” Stein said of Trump.

As proof of his (alleged) pathology, she pointed to his position-hopping on a range of issues, which she cast as erratic rather than calculating -- from his fuzzy Iraq positions over the years, to his brief “softening” on immigration last month, to his decision (on the day we spoke) to suddenly renounce birtherism after five years of banging a drumbeat of lies.

“It's hard to, you know, to think too hard about anything Donald Trump says because he will change his mind in the next hour, if not the next day, or whatever,” she added. “Today, suddenly, after five years, he became convinced that it's not an issue. Yesterday it was an issue. It will probably become an issue again for him. You know, the guy may have a memory problem. Who knows what it is? But he's incapable of having a consistent thought or policy.”

That may be true if you go back more than five years, but he's been consistent, at least in broad outline, on most issues in the years since he started using his Fox punditry gig to turn himself into a pol. As Evan Osnos writes in The New Yorker:

When Trump talks about what he will create and what he will eliminate, he doesn’t depart from three core principles: in his view, America is doing too much to try to solve the world’s problems; trade agreements are damaging the country; and immigrants are detrimental to it. He wanders and hedges and doubles back, but he ... never strays too far from his essential positions.

And despite his belief that "America is doing too much to try to solve the world’s problems," he's consistently said that he wants to engage in total war against ISIS and Al Qaeda, even if it means committing war crimes. Osnos again:

To confront terrorism, Trump has said, “you have to take out their families,” work on “closing that Internet up in some ways,” and use tactics that are “frankly unthinkable” and “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”

He also thinks we should have expropriated Iraqi oil. And he believes in the magic-word theory of counterterrorism: say "radical Islamic terror" often enough and you'll be more likely to defeat the enemy.

On domestic issues, he consistently promises large tax cuts (even though he may occasionally pretend he's a populist on the carried-interest rule for hedge fund managers). He consistently promises deregulation. He consistently pooh-poohs climate change. He used to be pro-choice, but he consistently says he isn't anymore. He consistently praises only the most right-wing of judges.

On nearly every issue, his positions are (a) mainstream conservatism or (b) mainstream conservatism on steroids. So, as Pierce says:

On what does [Stein] base her conclusion that a President Trump will be neutered by the Republicans in Congress? (We must stipulate that, if he were to win the presidency, the Republicans also would maintain their majorities in both houses of Congress and that means, hello, Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown!) They would pass the bills and he would sign just about anything they wanted him to sign.

A long time ago, Trump used to be closer to the center on few issues, and liberal on a few more; as a result, too many Americans think his ideology as president would be hard to predict, and therefore don't fear him. Because he uttered what appeared to be a few conservative heresies during the primaries, it's believed that he'd be at loggerheads with a GOP Congress. And because it's taboo in mainstream political discourse to say that the rest of the Republican Party already consists of crazy right-wing radicals, it's believed that the danger come 2017 would emanate only from Trump -- you'll have nothing to fear from Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, even if you have Jill Stein's politics.

All of this is nuts. Giving the presidency to any of Trump's primary opponents would have been bad enough -- it would have turned America into Sam Brownback's Kansas or Bobby Jindal's Louisiana or Scott Walker's Wisconsin. Trump, if he's president, will go along with the en-Koch-ening of the federal government in most particulars, then add his own craziness on top of that. He'll sign nearly every bill the GOP Congress has wanted to pass for years. He won't be constrained by Congress, except possibly on trade. And then he'll add his own madness on top of that -- with no moderation. Remember, he was more or less in the middle and didn't get to be president. If tacking sharply to the right gets him electing president, why would he let go of what worked for him?

AMERICAN POLITICS IMITATES MY GLOOMIEST PREDICTIONS

Tom, Yastreblyansky, Crank -- thank you again. You had a depressing week to write about while I was off gallivanting, and you did a great job.

While I was away I was keeping tabs on Hillary Clinton's health and the birtherism gaslighting of the Donald Trump campaign. I missed the terrorist incidents, but I got here for the manhunt (which, the New York area being what it is, will probably be just a massive inconvenience for most people). I'm expecting the alleged perp to be caught soon, at which point Donald Trump will probably recommend that he be waterboarded, to the non-dismay of the let-it-all-burn Sandersites who are so self-righteous about Iraq.

What upsets me is that the presidential race has turned into pretty much what I've feared. I've said for a long time that white voters in the Midwest are becoming increasingly Republican, as seen in guberntorial and legislative elections throughout the Obama era, and I've worried that the endless Sanders campaign of Clinton vilification was going to fix all his negative impressions of Clinton in stone for his voter base; last week I read that the Clinton campaign is planning increased outreach the the Sanders base and to Midwesterners. I've worried that the press hates the Clintons, and I just heard a Bill Clinton interview on NPR this morning that was unrelievedly negative toward her. Clinton's ace in the hole -- the ineptitude of Donald Trump as a candidate -- seems to have been turned around because Kellyanne Conway appears to be a Trump whisperer, apparently the only person who can persuade Trump that keeping his instincts in check will allow him to hurt his enemies more. And that all dovetails with the awful way the press responds to Trump's bomb-throwing (Tom's "Welcome to the 2016 News Cycle" post nails it).

I still think Clinton will eke out a win, but "eke out" is the key phrase. Maybe the race will become more favorable to Clinton, but I'm not going to preface any more gloomy posts with "Oh, I know, I'm just being a dumb Eeyore," because sometimes gloom is justified. As I've said for years, the GOP is increasingly the party of Team White People all over America, not just in the South, and Trump may yet win as a result of that. More likely (I hope), brown and black people will still pull our asses out of the fire -- not that we deserve it.

Brooks on Civic Religion: The Other Radio Yerevan Joke

The secret weapon that could make Austria permanently more patriotic than we are? I don't know, but that's what some people are saying! Image via Elliot's Trackside Diner.

David Brooks ("The Uses of Patriotism", September 16 2016) writes:

Over the years, America’s civic religion was nurtured the way all religions are nurtured: by sharing moments of reverence. Americans performed the same rituals on Thanksgiving and July 4; they sang the national anthem and said the Pledge in unison; they listened to the same speeches on national occasions and argued out the great controversies of our history.

All of this evangelizing had a big effect. As late as 2003, Americans were the most patriotic people on earth, according to the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center.

Question to Radio Yerevan: Is it correct that as late as 2003, Americans were the most patriotic people on earth?

Answer: In principle, yes, according to a study published in 2006 by Tom W. Smith and Seokho Kim, using data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). But

Trump Voters: Totally #NotRacist

It's bad enough that Russia is meddling in our election; now Canada has to get into the act. Okay, not Canada as such--just a Canadian magazine. On Thursday Maclean's published a super-softball, vaseline-on-the-journalistic lens look at a handful of Trump supporters:

These are Donald Trump’s “deplorables,” as Hillary Clinton calls them—11 unashamed Trump-train riders from across the United States, writing in their own words.

To Clinton, they—or at least “half of them,” as the Democratic nominee chuckled last weekend in a stunning display of contempt before hurriedly apologizing­—can be lumped together as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic­­—you name it.”

Our contributors would disagree. The Trump supporters who volunteered to write for Maclean’s this week are collegians and golden agers, whites and non-whites, retirees and working people. One studies bioterrorism; one teaches Grade 7. They hail from locales as variegated as Boynton Beach, Mayfield Heights, Wichita Falls, and Punxsutawney. (One of them is this writer’s first cousin.)

What follows is the Trump voters describing, in their own words, why they're voting for Trump. In other words, they're allowed to put the maximum positive spin on their own motivations. Results are...not entirely successful.

Here's one respondent*:

This is why I support Donald Trump—he is pro legal immigration. He wants to stop the massive influx of illegal immigrants coming across our southern border to steal jobs and resources from those who are where my father was not too long ago.

Well, the "massive influx of illegal immigrants" is imaginary, and it's a misperception that's likely to be a product of racial animosity--as is the perception that certain people working for a living is "stealing jobs".

Here's another:

American politics needs Donald Trump’s unorthodox approach to the atmosphere of entitlement and political correctness that has taken over common sense in this country. He connects with those of us that get up every day, go to work, raise families, pay taxes, give to and support our local churches and non-profits.

And the coded racial language is just bursting out all over the place here, from "political correctness" (racial or other sensitivity is Public Enemy Number One to Trump supporters) and "entitlement" (lazy moochers) on one side of the divide to working taxpayers (the opposite of lazy moochers) who go to church (as opposed to, say, a mosque) on the other. In the geography of language, this is Lee Atwater country.

And another:

What I have observed is that both parties have separated themselves from the Constitution because of political correctness...Now I live in a country where I am considered a terrorist, because I am a Christian, a veteran, a white conservative, law-abiding, born-in-America citizen....

I almost support all of [Trump's] statements, because they are not polictically [sic] correct, they are mostly the honest truth....I believe that God anointed Trump to be the agent of change necessary to defeat the so-called wise politically correct crowd that presently stands in the position of power and authority.

Here's a guy who hates political correctness so much he mentions it three times in his little spiel. But hey, no racial resentment there, right?

And another:

Another left-leaning Supreme Court member will ...increase the already declining moral structure of America.

[Trump] is a businessman/entertainer—not a politician at all. He, therefore, makes remarks that could be considered offensive to some.

"Declining moral structure" is deliberately ambiguous gobbledygook that could cover anything--from godless secularists attacking the Constitution Jesus gave us, to lazy moochers stealing our jobs. "Could be considered offensive" is obviously a slightly less direct way of calling out political correctness.

Yet another:

In Donald Trump, and his blatant outbursts of truth and honesty, I see a refreshing change from the “talk the talk” politically correct banter; a change from the lies and illegalities that are rampant and commonplace.

"Politically correct"--everybody drink!

And another:

He says the truth without worrying about the feelings of our enemies.

And yet another variation on the theme of political correctness.

Now, that's a sampling of people trying to justify themselves, presenting themselves in the best possible light, and the coded language is still there--sometimes ambiguous, but certainly (at least) suggestive.

I'd love to see some follow-up questions. The ones who emphasize "God" and "Christian"--how do they feel about Muslims? The ones who hate political correctness--what are some examples that particularly bug them? The "hard-working" people--who exactly is it who isn't working hard?

What I'd have to see before I believe the premise of the story is these people answering questions for some non-trivial amount of time without slipping into overt racial resentment. Most of them? Not gonna happen, I'm guessing. But hey, maybe Macleans could do some follow-up interviews so we can find out.


*In all of these, the emphasis is added.

Brooks on Civic Religion: The Eighth Grader Appears

José Clemente Orozco, 1926, Cortés and La Malinche. Via WikiArt.

A paragraph by David Brooks:

When Europeans first settled this continent they had two big thoughts. The first was that God had called them to create a good and just society on this continent. The second was that they were screwing it up.

"You know what, Malinchita?" said Cortés to his Aztec beauty, his special favorite of the 20 women he'd kidnapped from the town of Tabasco after conquering it in 1519, "I just had a big thought: God called me to create a good and just society on this continent."

"So how are you doing?" asked La Malinche.

"I think I'm screwing it up."

"You're certainly screwing me up, you racist pig-eater."

Or was it Jacques Cartier reaching Newfoundland in the spring of 1534? Nope, he was supposed to "discover certain islands and lands where it is said that a great quantity of gold and other precious things are to be found". And the Northwest Passage. Or maybe I'm thinking of Captain Smith and the Virginia Company in 1607? Uh-uh, their charter said they were in it mostly for the same thing, and 20% for His Majesty: "to have and enjoy the goulde, silver and copper to be gotten there of to the use and behoofe of the same Colonies and the plantacions thereof; yeilding therefore yerelie to us, our heires and successors, the fifte parte onelie of all the same goulde and silver and the fifteenth parte of all the same copper soe to be gotten or had, as is aforesaid, and without anie other manner of profitt or accompte to be given or yeilded to us, our heires or successors, for or in respecte of the same").

Actually the first big thought seems to have been stolen from Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, and his homily at St. Matthew's Cathedral before the first Obama inauguration, January 18 2009:

In its own way in its history, our nation has likewise tried to respond to God’s word. We are a people of faith, we have been so from our beginnings, confident that God calls us to be a truly good and just society. As we have grown and prospered we have tried to see in our lives the hand of God.

Among the earliest European colonists to arrive were the pilgrims.... 

We recognize that same vision and generosity of spirit among the first Catholic colonists who arrived in Maryland in 1634.

That is one of the most deeply peculiar David Brooks thefts I have ever found.

Anyway, we can agree that Brooks's concept of North American history is missing a century or so, to say nothing of a lot of very significant details.

I can't get any information on the second big thought and who said they were screwing up (though Frances Lester Warner speculated in her Pilgrim Trails: A Plymouth-to-Provincetown Sketchbook, 1921, that  the "great iron scrue" the Mayflower passengers used to repair a broken beam in mid-Atlantic on their voyage must have been "screwed up" in order to achieve whatever it achieved, which is not at all clear in the contemporary account). But the idea seems to have come from the American intellectual historian Perry Miller (1905-63):

The early settlers put intense moral pressure on themselves. They filled the air with angry jeremiads about how badly things were going and how much they needed to change.

This harsh self-criticism was the mainstream voice that defined American civilization. As the historian Perry Miller wrote, “Under the guise of this mounting wail of sinfulness, this incessant and never successful cry for repentance, the Puritans launched themselves upon the process of Americanization.”

Or rather, it comes from Sacvan Bercovitch's American Jeremiad (1978, p. 10), a book Brooks is quite fond of quoting, which is why he doesn't link it or name the book (apparently Miller's Errand into the Wilderness, 1956, which is one of the places Miller began using the "jeremiad" concept)—he's too lazy to look at Bercovitch's footnote and find out what book it is, even though, eighth-grader as always, he still hopes he can fool us into thinking he's conversant with the whole of the literature.

It's also worth noting, and not in contradiction to Miller or Bercovitch I don't believe, that the great American jeremiads aren't "self-criticism" at all. They're criticism of the sinful, greedy, lustful and wrathful and slothful and generally very bad neighbor, the Puritan next door who is definitely going to hell. Those guys might say, "We're all sinners," as a rote matter, in church, but when they were on a jeremiad roll they were all about the other guy. "Not I, Lord! Him!"

Cross-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.

Brooks on Civic Religion: The Radio Yerevan Joke

Camilla Williams (1919-2012), first African American to receive a regular contract with a major opera company (the New York City Opera, in 1946), who sang the national anthem at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 27 1963.

From David Brooks, "The Uses of Patriotism", New York Times, September 16 2016:

Martin Luther King Jr. sang the national anthem before his “I Have a Dream” speech and then quoted the Declaration of Independence within it.

Question to Radio Yerevan: Is it correct that Dr. King sang the national anthem before his "I Have a Dream" speech and then quoted the Declaration of Independence within it?

Answer: In principle, yes. But

• first of all it was not before his speech but before Roy Wilkins's speech, since Dr. King was the third speaker, after Wilkins and John Lewis; 
• second of all, it was the soprano Camilla Williams who principally sang it, standing in for Marian Anderson, who was delayed in some kind of traffic issue, and while there is no evidence that Dr. King did not sing along, in the traditional ritual of the American Civic Religion, hand on his heart, there is considerable evidence that nobody else did, in the extant video of the occasion, where Dr. King is never on camera but literally nobody other than Williams herself is seen to sing, no one at all puts hand to heart except for one man on the dais, hastily and looking a little guilty, during the applause afterwards, and most of the audience doesn't even stop talking, though the performance is pretty stunning, so it is more than likely that Dr. King was not singing either; and 
• third of all, Dr. King's references to the Declaration of Independence were not wholly respectful within the terms of the American Civic Religion—

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men (My Lord), would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. (My Lord) Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.

But he did refer in the great peroration to a de facto national anthem, calling it a lie and calling America less than great, and suggesting that he wasn't yet ready to sing it at all, until some day in the future:

the day when all of God’s children (Yes, Yeah) will be able to sing with new meaning: “My country, ‘tis of thee (Yeah, Yes), sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. (Oh yes) Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride (Yeah), from every mountainside, let freedom ring!” (Yeah) And if America is to be a great nation (Yes), this must become true.

But if you want to think Dr. King was more comfy and polite and really kind of conservative in a pleasing, liberal way than the 49ers quarterback kneeling, and a great example to our teenage protesters of the American Civic Religion where everybody is so nice you practically want to dunk them in Ranch dip, you just go right ahead.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.

Brooks on Civic Religion: The Shorter

Photo by Yong Kim for Philadelphia Inquirer, used for today's Brooks column. The Times caption (not the Inquirer's) reads: "Some members of the Woodrow Wilson High School football team in Camden, N.J., knelt during the national anthem last Saturday," where "some" means "at least one fewer than all". Could Brooks be writing his own captions? I can't imagine any normal person would have done that.

Shorter David Brooks, "The Uses of Patriotism", September 16 2016:

America's high school football teams need to stand up and sing the national anthem before the game rather than kneeling in silence in emulation of 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Because if they don't they are violating the Commandments of our Civic Religion, as Martin Luther King understood, which is all about our radical hope and desire for change and social justice and furious penchant for criticizing our society, so if you do something so rude you'll bring a terrible curse and God will hate us and Donald Trump's nationalism, which is the dark opposite of America's traditional universal nationalism, will win.  

Not everybody in his audience thought America's traditional universal nationalism was all that universal.

Read this twice looking for "slavery," but did not see it. Weird. https://t.co/op1SoQoXQT

— Derek Willis (@derekwillis) September 16, 2016

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.

Welcome to the 2016 News Cycle

Alex Jones: Clinton eats Christian babies!

Trump: People are saying Clinton eats Christian babies. I don't know, people are saying it.

Press: Clinton campaign dogged by questions about infant cannibalism.

Lefties: Clinton is part of the neo-liberal infant-eating Establishment.

Press: Infant cannibalism issue highlights Clinton's lack of transparency.

Trump: I could eat a baby on 5th Ave & wouldn't lose voters. In fact, I've done that. I have. I'm being sarcastic obviously. But really, not that sarcastic.

Pundits: Clinton needs to come clean on the infant cannibalism issue. She needs to release a full list of everything she's eaten, ever. Or else stop eating. Maybe both.

AP: A review of Clinton's email confirms she may have eaten Christian babies.

Media Critics, to AP: That isn't how this works. That isn't how any of this works.

David Fahrenthold: So far I have confirmed 157 babies eaten by Trump.

Kurt Eichenwald: Make that 158.

Trump: Cannibal Hillary claims she doesn't eat babies. Does anyone believe that?

Press: Both campaigns are being less than fully transparent.

AP, 2 weeks later: Never mind.

Update: From Yastreblyansky, in comments:

The Intercept: Disgusting neoconservative Hillary Clinton's horrible, evil, and aesthetically completely failed Christian baby-eating habit is not mentioned in any of the leaked DNC emails. Accident, or is somebody deliberately trying to keep it quiet? There's a surprise coming in the next batch.

I'm only worried about you, Donald

Image via IN slideshare.

Now that the question of the candidates' health is making so many headlines, can we revert back to the question of mental health?

I realize we were all wrong piling on a few months ago diagnosing Trump's narcissism or sociopathy or psychopathy at a distance and without professional expertise, which is a terrible and unethical thing to do if you are a trained psychiatrist according to the so-called "Goldwater rule", and possibly unhelpful if you're an amateur since there are so many things about Trump that are worth complaining about without bringing this up, but as the man says I don't know, it's just something a lot of people are saying.

I mean, I'm just asking questions. Can we get a medical report on that?

Also there's some interesting news suggesting that Donald Trump is at serious risk of being a psychopath, about 21 times greater than the average person. I'm not even kidding; this is literally true, because of his lifestyle choice of being a corporate CEO.

True, that is, if you pay attention to recently reported research by the Australian forensic psychologist Nathan Brooks and colleagues Katarina Fritzon of Bond University and Simon Croom of the University of San Diego. In a study of 261 American senior corporate officials, they found that 21% of them were psychopaths, about the same as prison inmates, as compared to 1% of the general population. This may not come as a surprise to anybody who has ever worked for a corporate CEO, or you may be asking, "Are you sure that wasn't 21% not psychopaths?"

The research hasn't been published yet—it was reported just Tuesday at the congress of the Australian Pyschiatric Association in Melbourne and will be coming out soon in the European Journal of Psychology—but we can infer something about the methodology from some of Brooks's previous work, a 2012 study in which he and Bruce D. Watt examined the incidence of psychopathy in a community in southeastern Queensland. One of the interesting things about it is that it doesn't follow that Goldwater rule about how only a professional psychiatrist interacting with the patient in person can make these judgments. For example, you can do it well enough for research purposes by getting them to fill out a questionnaire: Watt and Brooks, forensic psychologists as I say, sent out a survey questionnaire, the Self Report Psychopathy III (SRP-III), to 2,888 individuals, with a return rate of about 13%, (327 responses yielding sufficient data for analysis), and tabulated the results. So I assume Brooks et al. did the same thing with their American executives in the new study.

As reported in The Australian,

``The term ‘successful psychopath’, which describes high-flyers with psychopathic traits such as insincerity, a lack of empathy or remorse, egocentric, charming and superficial, has emerged in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis,’’ [Brooks] said.

‘’We are really talking about someone who strives to dominate others. They are ruthless. They are very callous. They have no conscience and really it’s all about self-gain.

`In moderate levels, it could be successful but with too many traits and, in too higher levels, it’s going to a problem. They will be successful potentially for a period of time but then it’s a question of what the costs are going to be. It night be moral costs or it might be criminal costs.’’

He said there was a risk the `successful psychopath’ might engage in unethical and illegal business practices and have a `toxic impact’ on employees.

“Typically psychopaths create a lot of chaos and generally tend to play people off against each other,” Mr Brooks said.

Sound familiar?

There's an answer there, by the way, to the question about whether this kind of speculation encourages discrimination against the mentally ill. Given that the condition is found in particularly successful individuals, it doesn't apply as clearly as it does to a plainly disabling condition like depression or schizophrenia. We should encourage the identification of and employment discrimination against psychopaths precisely because they are excessively likely to get the job. And because doing harm to others is a part of the condition, by definition.

Also, of course, because they can get help. These antisocial personality disorder symptoms can be treated, chiefly with psychotherapy possibly assisted by drugs to help stabilize mood swings. Jail could also be beneficial in the case of patients who have committed crimes:

Usually one of the more effective ways for a person with this disorder to learn to change their ineffective behaviors is to have to face up to the consequences of their behavior. This sometimes means dealing with courts and jails, but it can also eventually be a motivating factor in the client’s treatment.

I'm only worried about you, Donald.

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.

Could Donald Trump’s tax returns indicate support for the Bin Ladin family?

There are a lot of theories about why Donald Trump won’t release his tax returns. The only one we can dismiss out of hand is Trump’s own explanation — that he can’t release them because he’s under audit.

That piece of claptrap has been debunked ad nauseam. There’s no law that prevents him from releasing the information while the IRS is pouring through it.

So alternative theories about his unwillingness to disclose have emerged: He’s not really making as much money as he claims. He’s not really the multi-billionaire he claims to be. He’s not a successful businessman; he’s a failed businessman. He’s teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. He lied when he said he gives to charity. He doesn’t pay any taxes, or if he pays taxes at all, not nearly as much tax as the average working stiff.

Any or all of these may or may not be true. But any such speculation is fair, since he is seeking the presidency of the United States, and since he is the only candidate since before Richard Nixon who has kept his taxes as buried as some felon's stolen stash from a bank robbery.

Trump’s financial dealings:

the 9-11 nightmare theory

On the anniversary week of the 9-11 attack on the United States let me offer the scariest and most ominous speculation of all. I’m speculating that Trump hasn’t release his tax returns because they will reveal that he has been doing business with, and thus helping to support, the family of Osama bin Laden, and that he has contributed to middle-eastern charities that front for Al Queda and that helped to fund the terrorism of 9-11.

Trump’s possible connection to Bin Laden? Well, just for openers, Trump’s Federal Election Commission filings indicate he has a large hotel construction project in the works in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia through a pair of companies called THC Jeddah Hotel Advisor and DT Jeddah Technical Services Advisor.

So?

Well, if you want to get a substantial building project moving in Saudi Arabia, what’s your go-to company? Why, it’s the Binladen Group, founded by the father of Osama Bin Laden, the terrorist who engineered the 9-11 attack. That company is populated to this day by the late master terrorist’s blood relatives.

In fact, various Bin Laden relatives and a Bin Laden-owned construction company were sued by more than three thousand 9-11 attack survivors, who claimed the terrorist attack was funded by charities set up by the bin Laden and its corporate machinery. 

“Among the defendants were Al Queda, its members and associates, along with charities, banks, front organizations, terrorist organizations and financiers.” CBS New York and the AP reported. 

Most of the cases were thrown out, not because they lacked merit but simply because the court felt it lacked jurisdiction.

Ivanka helps spill the beans

In May of last year, a trade journal called Hotelier Middle East reported “The Trump Hotel Collection is eying luxury properties in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, The Trump Organization executive vice president of development & acquisitions, Ivanka Trump told Hotelier Middle East in an exclusive interview.”

Trump’s daughter also told the trade journal, “We are looking at multiple opportunities in Abu Dhabi, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, so those are the four areas where we are seeing the most interest. We haven’t made a final decision in any of the markets but we have many very compelling deals in each of them.”

Nor do you have to go to the middle-east to find the Saudi-Trump connection. The New York Daily News recently reported…

Trump sold the 45th floor of Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for $4.5 million in June 2001, according to a city Finance Department spokeswoman. In 2008, the apartments became part of the Saudi Mission to the United Nations, records show.
The five apartments included 10 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms at the time of the sale, and had yearly common charges of $85,585 for building amenities, documents obtained by The News show. If those common charges remain the same, Trump was paid at least $5.7 million by the Saudi government since 2001.

Seeks access, stiffs broker

The real estate agent who set up the 45th floor purchase said that Trump was not only seeking the $5.7 million but also access via the deal to markets in the middle-east.

By the way, the broker, Rebecca Ocampo, claimed Trump stiffed her out of the broker’s fee although for some unknown reason that I don’t want to speculate about, she dropped a law suit. There’s probably a whole other story in there that some enterprising reporter might want to dig out..

Given that it was a Bin Laden who engineered the 9-11 terror attack, and that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Citizens, Trump’s interest in Saudi construction projects and with various other Saudis makes me wonder.

Did Trump support the Bin Laden family?

Blood on Trump’s hands?

Did Trump, in a frenzy of greed, attempt to milk more wealth out of the Arabian desert by contributing to front “charities” that financed terror attacks on New York?

Does Donald Trump have the blood on his hands of thousands of innocent Americans who perished during the events of 9-11?

Trump might be able to clear his name of these suspicions just by disclosing his complete tax records. His ongoing refusal to do so cannot but help make many Americans wonder.

Cross-posted at The New York Crank