Political Irony

A Trump campaign county chairwoman in Ohio has resigned after an interview with The Guardian in which she said a whole bunch of ignorant racist things:

She called the Black Lives Matter movement “a stupid waste of time”.

She blamed low voter turnout among blacks on “the way they’re raised”. Which is strange because in her county voter turnout is actually higher among black people than white people. Maybe it’s the way they’re raised?

She actually said (yes, this was on video):

If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault. You’ve had every opportunity, it was given to you. You’ve had the same schools everybody else went to. You had benefits to go to college that white kids didn’t have. You had all the advantages and didn’t take advantage of it. It’s not our fault, certainly.

Then she blamed racism on Barack Obama. On the racial tensions that were rife in the 60’s (which is when she graduated from high school):

Growing up as a kid, there was no racism, believe me. We were just all kids going to school.

About segregation and the civil rights movement:

I never experienced it. I never saw that as anything. I don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected. We never had problems like this […] Now, with the people with the guns, and shooting up neighborhoods, and not being responsible citizens, that’s a big change, and I think that’s the philosophy that Obama has perpetuated on America.

When the interviewer pointed out that some people might find her remarks offensive, she pulled a Trump and replied “I don’t care, it’s the truth.”

You know the old saying about “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”. Well, it has never been so true. Last week, Donald Trump revealed his economic plan, and could you guess that it was more trickle-down economics. He is going to lower taxes on the rich dramatically, cutting the highest tax rate to only 33%, and lowering the corporate rate from 35% to 15%. He is also going to institute a “moratorium on federal regulations”. What kind of regulations? Well, he suggested eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules for lowering carbon emissions from coal-fired plants. So more global warming and more pollution!

In other speeches Trump has promised to increase military spending. Where is this money going to come from? He doesn’t say, but he also promises that his plan will reduce the federal deficit. Independent analysis of his plans “estimated they will bloat the US deficit by trillions, even after economic growth is taken into account”. So even if trickle-down economics somehow magically works this time and stimulates the economy, we will still be passing on huge debts to our children. You know the huge debts that Republicans have been screaming about for years that will destroy our country.

The last person who sold us this putrid bill of goods was Dubya Bush, and anyone still supporting Trump obviously doesn’t remember how that turned out for us.

Trump also promises that the economy will grow at more than four percent. Ironically, the last time the economy grew that fast was when Hillary Clinton was in the White House as First Lady.

What should be the response to “fool me three times”?

Donald Trump keeps asking “What do you have to lose?” — you know by voting for him? Well, this week we saw some answers.

First, a British economic forecasting firm estimates that if Trump gets elected and implements just his existing economic proposals, it would cost the US $1 trillion over the next five years. Trump’s proposals would also cost 4 million jobs in the US, slow down global growth, raise consumer prices and hurt US consumer spending, and (of course) probably spark trade wars with other countries.

Ironically, the people who would bear the brunt of this major hurt would be industrial workers, who are the suckers who are mainly voting for him.

The Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania (which happens to be Trump’s alma mater) says the same thing, as does Moody’s Investors Service.

The biggest problem with Trump’s economic plans is his promise to deport all illegal immigrants. Lucky for us, doing that would be impossible, but even if he is only able to deport 10% of undocumented workers, that would — in the words of another economist — “be devastatingly bad”.

And those are just the results of what he said he would do. An even bigger problem could be the things he won’t tell us about. Newsweek did a detailed study of Trump’s business dealings and found that if Trump becomes president, he would have massive conflicts of interest. Faced with a decision between two plans, where one of the plans would make Trump much more money than the other, which one do you think he would pick? Do you think he would put America first?

Trump says he would put his business interests in a “blind trust”, but that is not just a lie, it is complete bullshit. A blind trust is when a politician puts their investments under the control of an independent manager, who exchanges all previous holdings for new ones and — most importantly — doesn’t tell the politician what investments they own. That way there is no conflict of interest. But not only will Trump not do that, he couldn’t do it if he wanted to.

First of all, most of Trump’s business income is from licensing his name. Do you think he could divest himself from that, or would even if he could? For example, would all of the “Trump Towers” (and other things named Trump) around the world change their name and stop paying Trump? Of course they won’t — there wouldn’t be any money to reinvest so it would be a pure loss for Trump. Not to mention that there is no way Trump could just walk away from those contracts.

These conflicts of interest would do serious damage to the national security of the US. For example, as one of our few Muslim allies in the fight against the Islamic State, Turkey is one of our most strategic partners in the Middle East. But Trump’s business partner there was indicted for smuggling, and the Turkish president has also condemned Trump for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and ordered that Trump’s name be removed from buildings in Istanbul.

Second, Trump says he will put his business interests under the control of his children, but that means that the managers are not even vaguely independent. So Trump would still be tempted to make decisions that benefit his children (now, and himself later). And if you think that the person who has already used his campaign to sell Trump steaks and promote his golf courses won’t do that, you haven’t been paying attention.

© Stuart Carlson

I guess the media got what they wanted — a horserace. They breathlessly report story after story about how the Clinton Foundation might have the “appearance” of impropriety (despite admitting that there was no actual impropriety), while at the same time pretty much ignoring two smoking guns of real illegal activity with the Trump Foundation. So the race between Clinton and Trump stops being a boring blowout and starts “tightening”.

Ok, that worked. But now that the race is tight, where is the investigation of the Trump Foundation?

In case you haven’t heard about it, here’s the synopsis: First, several state attorneys general receive enough complaints that Trump University is fraudulently calling itself a university, not to mention blatantly lying about the courses it offers and the “faculty” it hires.

Next, while her office is investigating fraud from Trump University, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi actually asks Donald Trump for a donation and gets one. She even admits she solicited the contribution. She then drops the case.

Not only that, but the money (cough, bribe) given to Bondi is not Trump’s money, it is money from the Trump Foundation (donated by other people — Trump has not put any of his own money into the Foundation since 2008, and little since 1988). It is illegal for charitable foundations to give money to political candidates. The IRS fines them … a paltry $2,500.

The Trump Foundation covers up the donation in their tax filings. Instead of listing the donation as going to Pam Bondi’s Florida political group “And Justice for All” they list it as going to a Kansas charity with the same name (even though they never donated to that charity).

Trump announces “Pam Bondi is a fabulous representative of the people — Florida is lucky to have her” and holds a fundraiser for her (even though he had never donated to her before). Eventually, she even speaks at the Republican National Convention. This is actual “pay to play”.

Similarly, in Texas the Republican attorney general (and now governor) overruled the investigator’s recommendation for legal action against Trump University. Shortly after that, Trump donated $35,000 to his campaign.

Trump has even bragged about bribing politicians:

I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me.

And what about politicians that Trump can’t bribe? In New York, the attorney general proceeds with their lawsuit charging Trump University with fraud. Trump then donates $100,000 to Citizens United Foundation (yes, that Citizens United), which is supposedly a non-profit. Citizens United uses that money to fund a lawsuit against the New York Attorney General. It was the largest donation the Trump Foundation made that year, even though it was the first time that it had ever donated to Citizens United.

The ploy didn’t work — the judge dismissed the Citizens United case against the NY Attorney General. Eventually, the man who runs Citizens United becomes Trump’s deputy campaign manager.

So if Trump can’t bribe a politician, he threatens them with costly lawsuits.

These aren’t the only shady things done by the Trump Foundation.

In 2010, Trump solicited a donation to the Trump Foundation from the Charles Evans Foundation in New Jersey, and they gave him $150,000. It isn’t clear what the Charles Evens Foundations received in return, but Trump turned around and donated that money (without adding any of his own) to the Palm Beach Police Foundation. The Palm Beach Police Foundation then gave Trump an award for his “selfless support”. I guess it really was selfless, because it wasn’t any of Trump’s money. And here’s the kicker. The Police Foundation held an award ceremony for Trump, and of course it was held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida and they paid Trump $276,263 to rent the space — almost twice as much as the amount of the donation!

If that isn’t bad enough, in 2007, Trump and his wife were attending a benefit for a children’s charity (of course, the benefit was held at Mar-a-Lago). The event auctioned off a 6-foot-tall portrait of The Donald. The winner? Melania Trump. But the bill was paid by the Trump Foundation, even though using charity money to buy stuff for yourself is illegal. The painting now resides at one of Trump’s golf courses.

This wasn’t the last time the Trumps bought stuff for themselves using charity money. In 2012, Trump bought a helmet and jersey signed by Tim Tebow, using money from his foundation.

I’m sure there is more, but we will never know unless Trump magically decides to release his tax returns (don’t hold your breath).

Besides, the media is much more preoccupied with the Clinton Foundation, which, you know, actually is a charity that supports good causes.

© Drew Sheneman