Trump's Big CON: Thank You Dear Leader (AKA Trump is a Psycho-Narcissistic Con Man (CONt., Part 16))

"Do President Trump’s Cabinet members have to call him 'Dear Leader' when graced by his august presence? Must they enter the Oval Office on bended knee? Do they weep with joy when he reaches out a delicate hand and pats their bowed heads?

One of the most appalling aspects of the Trump presidency is the sycophancy he requires of the officials who serve him. Trump demands not just loyalty but flattery, too. He insists that his courtiers treat his pronouncements, however absurd or offensive, as infallible holy writ. Members of his Cabinet have made a humiliating bargain: humor him, suck up to him, and maybe — just maybe — he will leave you alone and let you make policy. . .

Cabinet members have made their peace with the Sun King’s demand for unctuous deference. . .

What these officials don’t seem to fully grasp is that their policy initiatives can be undercut by the president at any time, and probably will. Look at budget director Mick Mulvaney, who has big ideas about shrinking government and the deficit. He didn’t anticipate having to wipe away Puerto Rico’s debt, which Trump offhandedly promised to do.

Someday we may look back and thank these officials for standing between our nation and the abyss. For now, I suppose they will continue telling Trump how strong he is, how wise, how special. Why, did you see him tossing those rolls of paper towels in Puerto Rico? Magnificent! The ungrateful NBA star Stephen Curry, who still is not invited to the White House, can only dream of such form!"

Read the Washington Post, Loyalty to Trump isn’t enough.

Trump's Big CON: The Donald is a Russian Agent, CONt. Part 3

Putin's "goal is to sow division in America."

And The Donald is his agent.

Read the Washington Post, Senator: Russian trolls using NFL debate to sow discord.

Trump's Big CON: You Are Free to Speak, As Long As You Agree With Me

UPDATE:  Apparently the President called and ordered NFL players to stand during the anthem.

"The president was really throwing around his weight and meant business about the national anthem protests.

In addition to tweeting his feelings on the matter, President Donald Trump also called Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones multiple times Monday ahead of the team’s game with the Arizona Cardinals on 'Monday Night Football' to talk about the protests, according to a report.

NBC Dallas Fort Worth’s Jean-Jacques Taylor reports the news:

Jean-Jacques Taylor @JJT_Journalist

2 sources told @nbcdfw President Trump blew up Jerry’s cell Mon calling him 4 times throughout the day to talk about anthem stuff. Wow.
7:02 PM - Sep 27, 2017

Jones and the Cowboys ended up on somewhat of a compromise with respect to their handling of the anthem. The entire team kneeled in unity prior to the anthem, then rose and stood for the entire song."

Read MSN, Report: Donald Trump called Jerry Jones multiple times about anthem protest.

The Donald is a man without principles who demands personal allegiance, and otherwise you better stay quite or else.

Recently the campaign for loyalty to Trump continued when "Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered an extraordinarily dystopian speech at Georgetown Law’s Center for the Constitution . .

Trump is not alone in using his administration’s position and power to pressure private companies to fire employees who express political views contrary to his, or critical of him. Earlier this month, his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in the White House briefing room that ESPN sportscaster Jemele Hill’s tweet that Trump is a white supremacist 'is a fireable offense.'

Such abuse of the office of the president to call for the silencing and firing of private individuals is the real threat to free expression — one that is far more serious a threat than that posed by college students or public university administrators. . .

Sessions’s speech Tuesday strained to portray the national state of play as one in which conservatives are the victims of constitutional deprivations at the hands of liberals who demand conformity of thought, adherence to orthodoxy and unquestioning loyalty to the cause.

It might be tempting, under these circumstances, to dismiss Sessions’s remarks as mere hypocrisy. But they were far, far worse than that. They were deliberately aimed at misleading the public about whose rights are under more serious attack — and who is doing the attacking. His remarks were clearly calculated to portray certain people (conservatives) as victims of suppression of free speech, and certain people (liberals) as the perpetrators of that suppression. Given his position as the top law enforcement official in the nation, this is alarming, as Sessions is prejudging the motivations and rights of certain categories of people.

Sessions’s manipulations did not end there. He also had the audacity to invoke Martin Luther King Jr. 'Indeed, it was the power of Dr. King’s words that crushed segregation and overcame the violence of the segregationists,' he said. 'At so many times in our history as a people, it was speech — and still more speech — that led Americans to a more just, more perfect union.'

What makes this particularly galling is that speech protesting the injustice of racism is at the very core of the protests by the football players, which Trump has been attacking. They are protesting systemic racism, racist police brutality, racist sentencing laws and the incarceration state.

This, of course, is a viewpoint Sessions has spent his career opposing. . .

After his speech, Sessions was asked about the NFL controversy. 'Well, the president has free speech rights, too,' Sessions said, making clear that he would not dare cross the president. 'I agree there’s a big mistake to protest in that fashion, because it weakens the commitment we have that has provided us this freedom,' he added.

In other words, in Sessions’s telling, the 'big mistake' the players make is not conforming to the president’s view of what is patriotic, even though Sessions had only moments earlier decried universities as an 'echo chamber' of 'homogeneous thought.'"

Read the Washington Post, Jeff Sessions’s appallingly cynical defense of free speech.

Trump's Great Strength: He Knows How to Connect to People, Unfortunately Only As a CON Man

As noted before: I've always thought The Donald had an exceptionally high EQ (although I think he misuses it).

And he know how to connect.

Too bad he connects to people only as a CON Man.

Read the Washington Post, Trump has picked fights over the flag before. But this time was different., which notes:

"As a businessman, Donald Trump erected unauthorized flagpoles on his properties to embarrass local officials who were trying to uphold zoning ordinances. As a presidential candidate, he told the first football player who sat in protest during the national anthem to 'find another country.' And as president-elect, he attempted unsuccessfully to revive the decades-old debate about the constitutionality of flag burning, after a single incident at a small college in Massachusetts.

So when he decided, out of the blue, to attack the National Football League over its players’ protests during the national anthem, the resulting controversy followed a well-worn formula. What was different, however, was the enormous backlash that his comments created — far larger than any of those previous incidents combined.

Trump attacked an enormously popular sport whose fans prefer it to be a politics-free arena, while once again touching on the raw nerve of race. In so doing, the president proved anew that divisive provocations can mean something completely different when they come not from a private citizen, but the man whose very job description is to lead the country.

'Most presidents believe that a big part of their job is to keep the country together,' said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, who noted that even Richard M. Nixon spoke of bringing the nation together during his 1969 inauguration. 'There is very little sign that Donald Trump has much of an idea that unifying this country has much to do with being president. He just hasn’t shown it.'

Trump credits his ability to see and exploit cracks in American society as the key to his political success. During the campaign, he praised his gut instinct in latching onto fears about Muslim refugees and Hispanic immigration as the key to his victory in the Republican primary, comparing it to his ability to predict successful real estate investments.

'I understand people,' he said before another rally in Alabama in 2015. 'I’ve made a lot of money because of people, because deals aren’t anything other than people.' . .

Trump’s political strategy appears to be following the logic of other national firestorms he has prompted: take a stand for a position that brings into clear relief the divide between himself and those who he describes as unpatriotic elites. He uses the controversy to dominate the news cycle, position himself as a strong leader and demonstrate that he is fighting for regular working Americans nostalgic for an earlier time in the country’s history. . .

Trump’s longtime instincts tend to come to the fore when he is looking to distract from other issues. Shortly after his attorney general recused himself from the Russia investigation, Trump decided to rattle the government with a false claim that President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign. The most recent attack on the NFL came as he stares down two potential blows to his presidency this week, the likely failure of another Senate plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and a special primary election in Alabama, where his chosen candidate, Strange, continues to trail in the polls."

So, The Donald understands how to manipulate people, but he can't control himself, and use his skill for any good purpose.

Trump's Big CON: "He's So Pretty", Hurricane Maria Edition (AKA Trump is a Psycho-Narcissistic Con Man (CONt., Part 15))

UPDATE III:  Another MUST READ: the Washington Post, A Narcissist’s Guide to Helping Others Understand It Is All About You, which states in full:

"Excerpted from 'The Me-Driven Life: A Narcissist’s Guide to Helping Others Understand It Is All About You,' by John Barron.

Reprinted without permission.

Chapter 12, 'Coping with Natural and Man-Made Disasters,' pp 269-277

Natural disasters and their man-made counterparts (mass shootings, terrorist attacks) pose an obvious challenge for those living the Me-Driven Life. These events are frustrating, and inconvenient, because they tend to cause those people to think about their own problems: their injuries, the loss of loved ones, their hunger, thirst, discomfort, life-threatening cholera, what have you.

This is a common character flaw, and it is harmful because it distracts them from their more pressing obligation to think about you.

It is likely that this loss of perspective is temporary, but even a temporary loss of focus on you is dangerous. It must be arrested and reversed as quickly as possible. You can help these people by getting them to stop thinking about their own concerns and to redirect such destructive thoughts. Here are a few practical steps to return others’ focus to where it appropriately belongs.

First, show them what extraordinary things you are doing for them. Use adjectives such as 'great,' 'amazing' and 'incredible' frequently when referring to the work you have done. Some examples: 'I think it’s now acknowledged what a great job we’ve done.' 'We get an A-plus.' 'We have done an incredible job.' Don’t be afraid to tell them the work you and those who work for you have done 'is really nothing short of a miracle.'

Be sure to highlight those who affirm you and your centrality to the situation. This positive reinforcement encourages others to drop thoughts of themselves in favor of thoughts about you. If somebody praises you, say, 'He started right at the beginning appreciating what we did,' or, 'He was saying it like it was, and he was giving us the highest grades.'

If somebody has praised you, you might even try to get that person to repeat the praise in front of an audience. Note that the person has said 'such nice things' about you and suggest, 'Jenniffer, do you think you can say a little bit of what you said about us today?' If Jenniffer does as requested, encourage others to do the same by saying, 'I saw those comments, and everybody saw those comments, and we really appreciate it.'

Visual aids can help. If people need food, for example, don’t just hand out bags of rice and paper towels. Make a show of it! Toss supplies through the air as if shooting baskets. If people gather at the scene of disaster, make them all appear to be your fans simply by saying 'What a crowd!' or 'What a turnout!'

The sad fact is, when a disaster causes somebody to dwell on his or her pain or loss, they are not capable of fulfilling their obligation to you. They must be jolted back to reality. Tell them what they are going through is not a 'real catastrophe.' Tell them the death count is low, or say their disaster doesn’t measure up to other disasters. Telling them to 'have a good time' and letting them know 'you don’t need' emergency supplies will help them realize their catastrophe is not as central to them as you are. To the extent they believe they are suffering, you need to convince them that this is only because they are not helping YOU. Say, 'They have to give us more help,' or, 'They want everything to be done for them.'

Don’t hesitate to remind others of your importance to them. Say that everything you’re spending to help them has 'thrown our budget a little out of whack.' Remind them that they 'owe a lot of money' and 'we’re going to have to wipe that out.'

Never forget that what should matter to them most is you: your role, your experience, your needs. If they have suffered loss, tell them that 'it’s a very, very sad day for me, personally.' After consoling people, say that 'it was really something that I enjoyed very much.' Try to mention some association you have with the place: a business transaction you made, something you own, a victory you won. Offer them what they want most — an invitation to visit you.

If you employ these techniques, you will find that you can successfully divert others’ attention from whatever 'catastrophe' distracts them — and back where it belongs. When you depart the scene of tragedy, you will be able to say: 'I think it means a lot to the people . . . that I was there.' And you will mean it."

FYI, John Barron contacted the media and claimed to be a spokesman for The Donald, but was actually Donald Trump himself.

UPDATE II:  "In the Aesop’s Fables tale of the frog and the scorpion, the frog asks why the scorpion stings him as the frog carries the scorpion across the river, thereby dooming both of them to death. 'It’s my nature,' replies the scorpion. So it is with President Trump, who can only be true to his nature, despite its dire consequences.

A day after playing the role of healer in a teleprompter-read statement about the Las Vegas shooting, Trump went to Puerto Rico. Before leaving, he rapped the islanders’ knuckles: 'On a local level, they have to give us more help.' For himself, he had only praise: 'But I will tell you, the first responders, the military, FEMA, they have done an incredible job in Puerto Rico.'

His frail ego demands constant stroking. 'I think it’s now acknowledged what a great job we’ve done, and people are looking at that,' he said. 'And in Texas and in Florida, we get an A-plus. And I’ll tell you what, I think we’ve done just as good in Puerto Rico, and it’s actually a much tougher situation. But now the roads are cleared, communications is starting to come back. We need their truck drivers to start driving trucks.' He insisted that the San Juan mayor who criticized the federal response has 'come back a long way.'

Once in Puerto Rico, he sounded like an unfeeling, bitter man, one at the mercy of his own grudges and resentments . .

He thought it was funny to chide Puerto Rico for its financial needs. (“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack.”)

The visit was off-key, cringe-worthy and embarrassing (for those capable of embarrassment). It did him no political good, serving only to break his 'streak' of one day in a row of acceptable public rhetoric. The visit was in every respect true to Trump’s nature. He can read a script but not generate his own genuine empathy; he is always the worst victim in any disaster — but also the superhero. He is incapable of rising to a situation, eschewing partisanship, displaying magnanimity or demonstrating empathy.

He simply cannot be allowed to improvise without risking another demonstration of his deeply warped character." 

Read the Washington Post, It is Trump’s nature

As I've said before, I think The Donald lacks the ability to empathize.

UPDATE:  "'Now, I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico,' President Trump said during his visit to the hurricane-devastated island on Tuesday, 'but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack, because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico.' Sensing that his attempt at humor had gone awry, he then added, 'And that’s fine.' . .

[And] it makes no sense. One congressional aide estimated that the federal government would eventually have to spend as much as $30 billion over the long term to help Puerto Rico recover. Over the short term, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan pledged $6.7 billion.

This is not a lot of money, in comparison with the federal budget. This year, the government will outlay $4 trillion, which means that what’s being spent in Puerto Rico over the short term is the equivalent of someone who makes $50,000 a year spending $84.

For another, the comments come as the White House is trying to make the case for why government revenue should be slashed — in the form of doing things like dropping the corporate tax rate and eliminating the estate tax. That latter tax generated $19.3 billion in 2014. Eliminating it, in other words, would 'throw the budget out of whack' three times as badly as the money spent to assist Puerto Rico over the short term.

For a third, he also spent time during his remarks praising each branch of the military — even bragging about how much the government is spending on a new fighter aircraft.

'An amazing job,' he said of the Air Force’s aid in Puerto Rico and on the Gulf Coast. 'So amazing, that we’re ordering hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of new airplanes for the Air Force, especially the F-35.' He then boasted about how hard to detect the plane was. 'That’s an expensive plane, that you can’t see,' he said. 'As you probably heard, we cut the price very substantially. Something that other administrations would never have done, that I can tell you.'

The most recent estimate is that the F-35 program will cost the government $406.5 billion — 13 times what it will cost to rebuild Puerto Rico.

Read the Washington Post, Trump ribs Puerto Rico for costing the government money (by being destroyed).

Did anybody hear a similar remark after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas?

Why now?

"In President Trump's first public remarks in Puerto Rico, he shed almost no light on the federal response to the crisis there. What he did do was praise himself, tell the hurricane-ravaged island that it was putting the U.S. federal budget “out of whack,” and — perhaps most questionably — compare death counts between Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Katrina.

It was a characteristically Trump performance: offbeat, impromptu, meandering and often highly suspect in its taste. Toward the end, Trump brought up the Katrina comparison, suggesting it — unlike Maria in Puerto Rico — was a 'real catastrophe.'"

Read the Washington Post, Heckuva job, me: Trump just favorably compared Puerto Rico’s death toll to Katrina.

Trump's Big CON: Stay Calm, It Was Just an Old White Guy Committing Mass Murder

UPDATE IV:  Read the Daily Mail, If a Muslim terrorist had committed this Vegas atrocity we'd have a slew of new laws in a heartbeat. But because it's an old white guy with guns NOTHING will happen.

UPDATE III:  "Pre-presidential Trump was a man of many faults and vices, but one endearing quality: He was no hypocrite. He exaggerated his wealth, his success, his physical fitness, but he never pretended to religion or morality.

Trump’s speech to the nation after the Las Vegas atrocity, however, was steeped in hypocrisy. He is the least outwardly religious president of modern times, the president least steeped in scripture. For him to offer the consolations of God and faith after mass bloodletting is to invite derision. “'It is love that defines us,' said President Trump, and if we weren’t heartbroken, we would laugh. . .

But whereas Vice President Pence could have pronounced those words with sincerity, or a convincing simulacrum thereof, Donald Trump looked shifty, nervous, and false. Speeches are watched as well as heard, and the viewer saw a president who wished he were somewhere else because he had been compelled to pretend something so radically false to his own nature.

For once, Trump read the speech exactly as written. Perhaps his aides talked him into it. Because Trump is not a good reader, he read the speech wrong. And because it sounded wrong, he looked bad.

Nevertheless, Trump had to say something. He is the president. At times of national mourning, it falls to him to speak on the nation’s behalf. What could he possibly have said instead? . .

So advice to Team Trump: You can’t make him better, and you can’t make him different. Let him be the man he is, just tidied up a little. Cut the God talk. It’s insulting to those who believe, and no comfort to those who grieve. Cut the appeal to national unity; it rings false from a president who just two days ago was accusing homeless hurricane victims of looking for a handout. Trump voters—there are still many of those—liked it that with him, what you saw was what you got. Be real. Be true. Even Donald Trump must have something authentically human within him. Unearth that, and let it speak. He will never be a compassionate man, but even he cannot be so thoroughly empty and remote as he seemed today."

Read The Atlantic, A Presidential Speech Steeped in Hypocrisy.

UPDATE II:  "In recent years, gunmen have shot up fast-food restaurants, post offices, military installations, a movie theatre, a holiday party, a night club, a health clinic, a congressional softball game, churches, high schools, colleges, an elementary school. Three weeks ago, someone killed eight people at a football-watching party in Plano, Texas. You didn’t hear about it because eight gun deaths barely register as a national news story anymore.

But the most horrific mass shootings force Washington’s political élite to respond. Trump addressed the public just before eleven on Monday morning, and he read haltingly from a teleprompter in the Diplomatic Reception Room, where F.D.R. once calmed Depression- and Second World War-era America with his fireside chats.

It was not Trump’s worst public performance. He stayed on script, and read a short and well-crafted statement without making any bizarre Trumpian asides. But it was a classic of the 'thoughts and prayers' model in that it offered no promise of a policy response whatsoever."

Read The New Yorker, Washington’s Ritualized Response to Mass Shootings.

UPDATE:  BTW, The Donald first tweet after the mass murder was: “My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!”

I thought it odd, I haven't been able to find common use of the phrase "warmest condolences".

As I've said before, I think The Donald lacks the ability to empathize.

The Donald spoke calmly, if not robotically, from a prepared script.

"Out of the Las Vegas carnage, however, Trump identified no clear villain. He issued no call to action. A president typically quick to make black-and-white declarations spoke instead in shades of gray.

Trump long ago conditioned both his supporters and detractors to expect him to do the unexpected in the face of tragedy — and time and again, he has capitalized on terror to advance his agenda.

After a bomb attack on a train in London in September, Trump called for a 'far larger, tougher and more specific' travel ban and condemned the person responsible as a 'loser terrorist,' well before London authorities had declared that terrorism was the cause.

When an indebted gambler assaulted a Manila casino in June, killing dozens by starting a fire, Trump called the event 'terrorism' at the White House, even though local police later said the attack was a robbery attempt unconnected to terrorism.

During his campaign, Trump made the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., which was carried out by Islamic radicals, a centerpiece of his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. 'I would handle it so tough, you don’t want to hear,' he boasted days after the attack.

And Trump reacted to the shooting at an Orlando nightclub with self-praise, suggesting that the incident was a symptom of weak Democratic policies. 'Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism,' he tweeted the day after.

But the Las Vegas massacre was different, both because investigators have found no evidence linking the shooter to a terrorist organization and because he was a white American, as opposed to a Muslim immigrant.

The emerging facts prevented Trump from following his typical playbook — to rally his supporters against Islamic extremism while speaking and tweeting in a combative, even belligerent tone to try to project strength and resolve.

Rather, Trump uttered just 574 words on Monday and tried to play the role of uniter."

Read the Washington Post, Another tragedy but a new tone: Trump calls for unity after Las Vegas massacre, which noted that "'You compare Trump to other presidents when they’ve seen tragedies in this country, be it from natural phenomenon or from disturbed or troubled people, and he just seems so remote and removed from the suffering,' presidential historian Robert Dallek said. 'He just demonstrates such a lack of compassion and understanding for the troubles of those who are in greatest need and are limited by their circumstances.'"

Trump's Big CON: It's All About the Show, Twitter Edition, CONt. (AKA The Trump Populism CON, CONt. Part 2)

UPDATE:  Advice The Donald will never follow:  "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

From Proverbs 17:28: "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding."

"Increasingly . . . Trump’s bloody-minded jihad against the NFL must be seen as an attempt to distract from something far more dangerous to Trump: the malfeasance of his Cabinet and White House staff.

Trump loves to recall his presidential campaign, so he should remember that he campaigned on two themes: draining the swamp and Hillary Clinton’s sense of entitlement. His administration was ostensibly going to be above the cozy perquisites of power of previous administrations. Team Trump would swear off the arbitrary application of rules to others but not to themselves. Trump’s inaugural address blasted how 'The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country,' and declared: 'January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.'

Let’s just review how this populist project has been going in the past two weeks:

    Politico has reported on Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s love affair with chartered planes. This apparently started due to a canceled commercial flight because of inclement weather, but grew to be such a habit that Price charted a plane to fly from Dulles International Airport to Philadelphia. Which is nuts. The reports are so bad that Price was forced to acknowledge that “the optics in some of this don’t look good” and suspend the practice. Price’s allergy to commercial travel is so bad that even this White House is distancing itself.

    Price is hardly the only Cabinet official to demand travel perquisites. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is being investigated for using a government plane to fly to Fort Knox to possibly obtain a primo view of last month’s solar eclipse. Mnuchin also started the paperwork to request a military plane to fly him to Europe for his honeymoon. He also used a government plane to fly from New York back to Washington after Trump’s news conference at Trump Tower. Mnuchin has insisted that he needed these aircraft for secure national security communications. As a former Treasury employee, let’s just say that I doubt that assertion. Oh, and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt is facing a similar investigation into his frequent travel back to his home state of Oklahoma.

    We learned from Politico that Jared Kushner set up a private email account and occasionally used that account to conduct official business with other White House officials. We learned from Newsweek that Ivanka Trump did the same thing. And then the New York Times reported that at least six White House staffers did something similar. That includes this priceless anecdote: “Most of Mr. Trump’s aides used popular commercial email services like Gmail. Mr. Kushner created a domain, IJKFamily.com, in December to host his family’s personal email.”

So, to sum up: Trump’s Cabinet officers sure seem to be enjoying the perquisites of power, and the Trump White House thinks that the rules do not apply to them in the same way they claimed the rules did not apply to the Clintons. . .

During the transition there were fierce debates among journalists about how to cover Trump’s Twitter feed. Politico’s Jack Shafer argued that it was a massive misdirection engine from real stories. Others argued that it would be inappropriate to ignore them. Eight months into his administration, I think the epiphany should be obvious to everyone. Sure, maybe Trump is trying to pick and choose Twitter fights that he thinks he can win. However, there is too much malfeasance and incompetency to deflect.

If I were Trump I would be tweeting about the NFL, too. I would be tweeting about anything that distracted people from my administration, which has accomplished nothing populist in its first eight months. But no Twitter account, no matter how provocative, can distract from the entitled, God-awful mess that is Trump’s presidency."

Read the Washington Post, The president is going to need a bigger Twitter account.

Trump's Big CON: He is The Middle School Bully President, CONt.

UPDATE:  "Meghan McCain posted an angry and emotional tweet Wednesday in response to a report that President Trump has been 'physically mocking' her father, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

'What more must my family be put through right now?' she asked, as her father struggles with an aggressive form of brain cancer. 'This is abhorrent.' . .

Trump has a history of taking digs at John McCain. His comment in July 2015 that John McCain is 'not a war hero' because he got captured sparked national outrage.

John McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent more than five years as a prisoner of war after being shot down over North Vietnam. During that time he was tortured and spent two years in solitary confinement. Poor medical treatment in prison left John McCain unable to raise his arms above his shoulders."

USA Today, Meghan McCain appalled by report Trump mocked her dad. 

"In private, President Trump has taken to physically mocking M&M: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (slumped shoulders; lethargic body language) and Sen. John McCain (imitating the thumbs-down of his historic health-care vote).

Trump is venting about his frustration with what he considers failed leadership by Senate Republicans as he takes his lumps this week in wars with, well, everyone".

Read Axios, Trump, at war with everyone, mocks McCain, McConnell.

You might remember: "McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years until his release on March 14, 1973.  His wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head."

Maybe his wife should have a talk with him.

Read the Washington Post, Melania Trump condemns bullying — and raises some eyebrows — in her first U.N. speech.

Read also Trump's Big CON: He is The Middle School Bully President.

Trump & The Repuli-CON's Big CON: Fiscal Responsibility, CONt.

"The United States' debt topped $20 trillion for the first time ever in September. If some Republican senators get their wish, it will grow even more.

Senate Republicans have tentatively agreed to a budget deal that would allow them to pass a $1.5 trillion tax cut. The catch is they aren't proposing spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere to pay for it. That means the nation's debt could increase by $1.5 trillion or more over the next decade. . .

The deal is even more remarkable, given that Republicans railed for years about how much money President Barack Obama (and President George W. Bush before him) added to the debt."

Read the Washington Post, The United States just hit $20 trillion in debt. Republicans have a plan to make it worse.

Trump's Big CON: He Laughs at His Supporters

UPDATE II:  "The only thing today’s Republican Party knows how to do is cut taxes for the very rich.

It’s depressing because the GOP has abandoned roles it once played in our public life: pioneering programs aimed at assisting Americans of modest means in lifting themselves up, and supporting productive government investments that the private sector was unlikely to undertake.

The party of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell has abandoned the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, who championed the Homestead Act and land-grant colleges; Teddy Roosevelt, who protected vast tracts of nature on behalf of future generations; and Dwight Eisenhower, who pushed for student loans and the Interstate Highway System.

The heirs to Honest Abe, TR and Ike seem to believe in only one thing: throwing vast quantities of money at the already wealthy. And they have the nerve to pretend that they aren’t really trying to further enrich the moneyed classes. They claim that comforting the comfortable will someday, really and truly, help working people by creating jobs and economic growth.

They pretend a lot of other things, too. They say their goal is to 'simplify' the tax system, so they reduce the number of individual income-tax brackets to three. Isn’t it funny that in their “simplification,” the tax rate for the richest among us (people earning more than $418,400 a year) would drop from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, but the tax rate for the poorest (those earning less than $9,325 a year) actually would go up , from 10 percent to 12 percent?

The GOP apparently believes that taxing the poor is part of the recipe for growth. Now there is an innovative idea. . .

For eight months, Republicans told us repeatedly that they would enact a tax bill. Yet they still can’t show us the whole thing.

In fact, for a large swath of the middle and upper-middle classes, this is not a tax cut at all, but a tax increase. Using the details available, the Tax Policy Center concluded that nearly a third of taxpayers with incomes between $50,000 and $150,000 would see their taxes go up, as would a majority of those making between $150,000 and $300,000.

There is much that is very bad here, but perhaps the most insidious aspect of the bill is the part that might be called the Punish Our Opponents Tax Act of 2017.

To pay for their tax cuts for the rich, Republicans propose to make the tax code 'fairer' by getting rid of the deduction that people can take for the taxes they pay to state and local governments. Republicans rail against “double taxation” of income when it comes to capital gains. But they have no problem with double taxation when it hurts taxpayers in states that ask their citizens to pay a bit more to provide decent public services and stronger social safety nets.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, the states with the largest deductions for state and local taxes as a percentage of adjusted gross income are New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Maryland. All voted against Trump. . .

Naturally, a tax proposal designed to pamper the super-rich does exactly that for a man named Donald Trump. The New York Times estimated his savings at about $1 billion. But his refusal to release his tax returns conveniently clouds how much he’ll get.":

Read the Washington Post,

UPDATE: "President Trump and congressional Republicans keep saying their tax plan doesn't help the rich. But that's not true. . .

In fact, in nine pages, The Washington Post counts at least nine ways the wealthy benefit, including Trump himself. Here's our list:

1) A straight-up tax cut for the rich. . .

2) The estate tax goes bye-bye. . .

3) Hedge funds and lawyers get a special tax break. . .

4) The AMT is over. . .

5) The wealthy get to keep deducting mortgage interest. . .

6) Stockholders are going to be very happy. . .

7) The favorite tax break of hedge fund billionaires is still safe. . .

8) Capital gains taxes stay low. . .

9) The Obamacare investment tax goes away. . .

When reporters asked Trump whether the tax plan would help him personally, he quickly said no. . .

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), who was part of the team that worked with the White House to craft the tax-overhaul outline, was asked a similar question on Fox News. He, too, said this plan does little to help the rich.

'I think those who benefit most are middle-class families struggling to keep every dollar they earn,' Brady told Fox News.

But one look at this plan tells a very different story. It gives an outright tax cut to the wealthiest Americans and it preserves almost all of the most popular loopholes they use to reduce their tax bills.

Read the Washington Post, 9 ways Trump’s tax plan is a gift to the rich, including himself.

"The term 'deplorables' survives today in our political lexicon as a kind of sarcastic badge of honor that President Trump’s supporters pin on themselves. When self-applied by the likes of Stephen K. Bannon, it serves as a device to feed the narrative that liberal elite criticism of Trump — including the argument that he is scamming his own voters — signifies nothing but cultural contempt for Trump’s America. Trump supporters won’t let supercilious liberal disdain weaken their conviction that Trump is the one who is really on their side, dammit!

But a host of new developments underscore with fresh clarity that if anyone views Trump supporters with profound contempt, it’s Trump and his advisers — and that liberals are right to point out that he is actively trying to fleece them. Consider:

    Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the estate tax, which he has justified by claiming that it would help 'millions of small businesses and the American farmer.' That’s a paean to his small-business and rural base. But as the Post fact-checking team points out, this is absurd: Because only the very top estates get targeted, a mere 80 such estates that would get hit by the tax in 2017 count as small businesses and farms. However, Trump’s family would benefit bigly, because his estimated net worth is in the billions. . .

    Trump’s new tax plan eliminates the alternative minimum tax. As Linda Qiu explains, this 'largely impacts people making between $200,000 and $1 million. Without this tax, Mr. Trump would have paid $31 million less in taxes in 2005, according to his tax return that year, which was disclosed on the ‘Rachel Maddow Show’ in March.'

    The mere fact that Trump would benefit from his tax plan does not itself mean he is scamming his supporters. Rather, the key here is that Trump is lying to them about this point. Trump says this about his plan: 'It’s not good for me, believe me.' But not only would he benefit, Trump also still won’t release his tax returns, which would actually allow us to evaluate how his plan would affect him and his family. Trump doesn’t want his voters (or any voters) to be able to do this. Trump is simply assuming that his voters will believe him (or he doesn’t care whether they do or not), even though he’s lying to them.

    Trump claims his tax plan will not benefit 'the wealthy and well-connected' and will protect 'low-income and middle-income households.' But a new analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities undercuts both claims. Trump’s plan would also lower the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 to 35 percent, lower the rate on 'pass-through' businesses to 20 percent and cut the corporate rate from 35 to 20 percent. The CBPP analysis concludes that 50 percent of the net tax cuts in his plan’s framework would go to the top 1 percent of earners and that the impact on middle-class families would negligible at best. . . Trump’s empty promise to his working- and middle-class supporters is being used to sell tax cuts that will likely shower large benefits on the wealthy — himself included.

    Trump is sabotaging Obamacare in new ways that will likely hurt untold numbers of his voters. . .

    The Trump administration’s sabotage of the Affordable Care Act shows contempt for his supporters in another way. In its statement justifying the latest pullout from enrollment events, HHS did not even attempt to offer an actual policy rationale for the move — there is none — and instead lied robotically about how Obamacare 'continues to collapse.' But the Trump administration’s actions are encouraging chaos in that direction. . .

The point here is not that this should reflect badly on Trump supporters. They of course may disagree that all these things operate against their interests, or they may have plenty of other reasons to continue backing him anyway. Rather, the point is that the arguments that Trump and his administration are making to them on all these fronts are not being made in good faith, as if Trump believes his own supporters can be lied to or betrayed with great ease. Never mind whether they’re 'deplorables' — Trump himself is treating them like a bunch of suckers."

Read the Washington Post, Hey, deplorables: Trump and his advisers are laughing in your faces.

Read also Trump's Big CON: Happy Labor Day Suckers!

Trump's Big CON: Trapped by Lies

UPDATE II:  "The Republican Party has become an unstable and potentially unsustainable coalition. The danger has been apparent from the day President Trump began his quest for the White House. Roy Moore’s victory in the Alabama Republican primary provided the exclamation point.

Moore’s victory was telling for what it showed: that the Trump message has more power at the grass-roots than the president himself. Trump was persuaded to embrace Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP runoff against Moore. But it was the anti-Washington, anti-establishment message of the twice-removed state Supreme Court justice that prevailed Tuesday.

That this is a period of turmoil and flux in American politics states the obvious. Tribal voting has become the norm, with the country divided into red and blue camps. . .

Yet the red-blue alliances and the left-right differences are no longer sufficient to explain the tensions and divisions that mark the politics of the Trump era. They still shape political debates and policy differences; they still help predict general-election voting patterns. But alone, they do not provide the fuller framework for such an unusual time. Neither party is offering answers.

For establishment Republicans in Washington, Tuesday was perhaps the worst day among many bad days. It was a trifecta of disappointment and rejection. The failure of the party that controls so many levers of power to govern effectively and the consequences of that inaction rarely have been on such public display.

The day started with the Senate leadership’s capitulation on health care. . .

There then was the announcement by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that he plans to retire at the end of his term in 2018. . .

Finally, on Tuesday night, there was Moore’s victory, though it was hardly a surprise. . .

The larger challenge for Republicans is trying to find a way to govern in the midst of a civil war. The party establishment proved powerless in its efforts to deny Trump the GOP nomination last year, then assumed he could not be elected, then tried to make peace with the fact that he had won. GOP leaders nonetheless held out hope that Trump would be a somewhat malleable president, that he would follow their lead on policy and use the unique megaphone that he has developed to advance the cause.

But that assumption turned out to be incorrect for at least two reasons. First, that Trump’s agenda was their agenda, that he was as interested in party success as in personal success. Second, that the divisions that had immobilized congressional Republicans long before Trump became a candidate would somehow disappear if the party controlled the White House. They didn’t.

The GOP today is an awkward combination of establishment Republicans who have embraced the president out of what they consider necessity; grass-roots citizens only partially attached to the Republican Party and for whom Trump’s populist, 'America first,' anti-Washington rhetoric strikes a chord; and 'Never Trump' Republicans who formed an important part of the party before Trump came on the scene and who are looking for a home and don’t know what to do.

This is a conflict with no certain outcome and no clear timeline. It reflects instability across the political spectrum and the shifting sensibilities of many voters. Above all, it reflects politics in the age of Trump and all that has come to mean."

Read the Washington Post, Can the GOP ever finesse the contradictions in their coalition?

UPDATE:  "Two in three Americans believe that large corporations pay too little in taxes. Only 11 percent of U.S. adults think these businesses pay too much, while 17 percent think they pay their fair share. Even half of Republicans believe big businesses pay too little in taxes, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Overwhelmingly, across party lines, people feel that the current tax system is rigged in favor of the wealthy. Over 7 in 10 Americans think the tax system favors the rich. Just five percent think the current code favors the middle class.

But the more details that leak out about President Trump’s plan, the clearer it becomes that the wealthiest are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries. Top White House negotiators and key GOP leaders have reportedly agreed on two targets: lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and cutting the top income tax rate — for those who make more than $418,000 a year — from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. . .

This is part of a pattern: Trump campaigns like a populist. He governs like a plutocrat. The dichotomy between what the president promises his tax plan will do and what’s he’s likely to unveil on Wednesday is just the latest example of the president’s actions not backing up his rhetoric.

As a candidate, Trump said hedge fund managers weren’t supporting his campaign because they were 'getting away with murder' when it came to avoiding taxes. He said he would stop them and argued during the debates that he was well suited to close loopholes in the tax code because he had taken advantage of them.

Then, as president-elect, he was caught on a cellphone camera reassuring patrons at one of Manhattan’s poshest restaurants. 'We’ll get your taxes down, don’t worry about it,' he said at the 21 Club.

With the Trump administration, always watch what they do — not what they say. "

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s plutocracy problem complicates push for tax cuts. 

Republi-CONs "have spent years routinely lying for the sake of political advantage. And now — not just on health care, but across the board — they are trapped by their own lies, forced into trying to enact policies they know won’t work.

Reporting on why the G.O.P. plowed ahead with Graham-Cassidy makes it clear that many Republicans supporting it are well aware that it’s a bad bill, although they may not appreciate just how bad. 'You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered,' said Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. 'But,' he continued, 'Republicans have campaigned on this,' meaning repeal-and-replace, and had to fulfill their promise. . .

But repealing the Affordable Care Act wasn’t the only thing Republicans promised; they also promised to replace it with something better and cheaper, doing away with all the things people don’t like about Obamacare without creating any new problems. Remember, it was Bill Cassidy, not Jimmy Kimmel, who came up with the 'Jimmy Kimmel test,' the pledge that nobody would be denied health care because of expense.

Yet Republicans never had any idea how to fulfill that promise and meet that test, or indeed how to repeal the A.C.A. without taking insurance away from tens of millions. That is, they were lying about health care all along. . .

The thing is, health care isn’t the only issue on which lies are coming back to bite the liars. The same story is playing out on other issues — in fact, on almost every substantive policy issue the U.S. faces. [including tax 'reform' and foreign affairs]. . .

As with health care, the party has masked its lack of good ideas on [tax reform] with lies, claiming that it would offset lower tax rates and even reduce the deficit by eliminating unnamed loopholes and slashing unnamed wasteful spending. But as with health care, these lies will be revealed once actual legislation is unveiled. It’s telling that Republicans are already invoking voodoo economics to justify their as-yet-unspecified tax plans, insisting that tax cuts will pay for themselves by leading to higher economic growth.

At this point, however, few people believe them. The Bush tax cuts didn’t create a boom; neither did the Kansas tax-cut 'experiment.' Conversely, the U.S. economy did fine after the 2013 Obama tax hike, as has the California economy since Jerry Brown raised state taxes. Party apparatchiks will no doubt engage in an orgy of Reaganolatry, but the broader public probably won’t be moved by (false) claims about the wondrous results of tax cuts 36 years ago.

So tax policy, like health care, will be hobbled by a legacy of lies.

Wait, there’s more.

Foreign policy isn’t usually a central concern for voters. Still, past lies have put the Trump administration in a box over things like the Iran nuclear deal: Canceling the deal would create huge problems, yet not canceling it would amount to an admission that the criticisms were dishonest.

And soon the G.O.P. may even start to pay a price for lying about climate change.

The bottom line is that the bill for cynicism seems to be coming due. For years, flat-out lies about policy served Republicans well, helping them win back control of Congress and, eventually, the White House. But those same lies now leave them unable to govern."

Read The New York Times, Trapped by Their Own Lies.

Trump's Big CON: Trump Lies Again, His Tax Cut Proposal Will Save Him and His Family Billions (Yes, Billions)

UPDATE IV: "President Trump and congressional Republicans keep saying their tax plan doesn't help the rich. But that's not true. . .

In fact, in nine pages, The Washington Post counts at least nine ways the wealthy benefit, including Trump himself. Here's our list:

1) A straight-up tax cut for the rich. . .

2) The estate tax goes bye-bye. . .

3) Hedge funds and lawyers get a special tax break. . .

4) The AMT is over. . .

5) The wealthy get to keep deducting mortgage interest. . .

6) Stockholders are going to be very happy. . .

7) The favorite tax break of hedge fund billionaires is still safe. . .

8) Capital gains taxes stay low. . .

9) The Obamacare investment tax goes away. . .

When reporters asked Trump whether the tax plan would help him personally, he quickly said no. . .

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), who was part of the team that worked with the White House to craft the tax-overhaul outline, was asked a similar question on Fox News. He, too, said this plan does little to help the rich.

'I think those who benefit most are middle-class families struggling to keep every dollar they earn,' Brady told Fox News.

But one look at this plan tells a very different story. It gives an outright tax cut to the wealthiest Americans and it preserves almost all of the most popular loopholes they use to reduce their tax bills.

Read the Washington Post, 9 ways Trump’s tax plan is a gift to the rich, including himself.

Read also The New York Times, Trump Could Save More Than $1 Billion Under His New Tax Plan, which give specific examples where The Donald benefits.

UPDATE III:  "In selling President Trump’s tax plan, his aides have resorted to making strikingly misleading statements to defend it.

At the moment, there are few details about the tax plan, only broad strokes. That makes it easier for the administration to make big claims as analysts scramble to try to make sense of the plan’s possible impact. That will be much harder once an actual tax bill is written and the details can be analyzed in depth.

In the meantime, we have a pair of Four-Pinocchio claims that are worth highlighting."

Read the Washington Post, Trump aides sell tax plan with Pinocchio-laden claims, which show that the wealthy do get a big tax cut and the plan will add trillions to the federal deficit (the exact amount can be determined without the plan details which conveniently have not been released).

 

UPDATE II:  "The tax plan that the Trump administration outlined on Wednesday is a potentially huge windfall for the wealthiest Americans. It would not directly benefit the bottom third of the population. As for the middle class, the benefits appear to be modest.

The administration and its congressional allies are proposing to sharply reduce taxation of business income, primarily benefiting the small share of the population that owns the vast majority of corporate equity. President Trump said on Wednesday that the cuts would increase investment and spur growth, creating broader prosperity. But experts say the upside is limited, not least because the economy is already expanding.

The plan would also benefit Mr. Trump and other affluent Americans by eliminating the estate tax, which affects just a few thousand uber-wealthy families each year, and the alternative minimum tax, a safety net designed to prevent tax avoidance.

The precise impact on Mr. Trump cannot be ascertained because the president refuses to release his tax returns, but the few snippets of returns that have become public show one thing clearly: The alternative minimum tax has been unkind to Mr. Trump. In 2005, it forced him to pay $31 million in additional taxes.

Mr. Trump has also pledged repeatedly that the plan would reduce the taxes paid by middle-class families, but he has not provided enough details to evaluate that claim. While some households would probably get tax cuts, others could end up paying more.

The plan would not benefit lower-income households that do not pay federal income taxes. The president is not proposing measures like a reduction in payroll taxes, which are paid by a much larger share of workers, nor an increase in the earned-income tax credit, which would expand wage support for the working poor.

Indeed, to call the plan 'tax reform' seems like a stretch — Mr. Trump himself told conservative and evangelical leaders on Monday that it was more apt to refer to his plan as “tax cuts.” Mr. Trump’s proposal echoes the large tax cuts that President Ronald Reagan, in 1981, and President George W. Bush, in 2001, passed in the first year of their terms, not the 1986 overhaul of the tax code that he often cites. Like his Republican predecessors, Mr. Trump says cutting taxes will increase economic growth."

Read The New York Times, Trump Tax Plan Benefits Wealthy, Including Trump.

UPDATE:  "President Trump made a living and gained fame by over-promising without having to deliver. At times his flim-flam routine was exposed, as in the case of his bankrupt casino and Trump University scam. Unfortunately, having developed habits over 70 years and lacking a grasp of policy, Trump finds it impossible to curtail his rhetoric to meet his policy proposals. Moreover, he seems not to care since his presidency really is about the NFL, anti-immigrant hysteria, white grievance and other topics designed not to prepare for solutions but to keep the pot boiling.

So it is with tax reform. Trump and his advisers at various times have promised not to give the rich any tax cut, to attack the deficit/debt and to bolster the middle class. His tax plan bears no resemblance to that message, as Democrats were eager to point out on Wednesday. . .

As for fiscal responsibility, the proposal is an outrage. . .

Unsurprising for a party and president allergic to sound policy and economic reality, Republicans seem determined to snow their donors (See what we’ve come up with!), hand liberals a political gift and infuriate the lonely fiscal conservatives out there who recognize the added debt outweighs any benefit from the temporary growth bubble one could expect to derive from this scheme."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s spin doesn’t match his tax plan.

"President Trump’s speech on the administration’s still-somewhat-vague tax plan, delivered in Indianapolis on Sept. 27, was filled with many of his favorite, inaccurate claims. For instance, he repeatedly says he is offering the “largest tax cut in our country’s history,” a dubious claim when properly measured as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product.  Here’s a sampling of other inaccurate claims — and one case in which he appears to have adjusted his language because of our previous fact checks.

    'To protect millions of small businesses and the American farmer, we are finally ending the crushing, the horrible, the unfair estate tax, or as it is often referred to, the death tax.'

The president’s suggestion that “millions” of small businesses and farms are affected by the estate tax is absurd. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, only about 5,500 estates in 2017 — out of nearly 3 million estates — would have to pay any taxes. About half of estates subject to the tax would pay an average tax of about 9 percent. That’s because for a married couple, about $11 million is exempt from taxation.

Only 80 — that’s right, 80 — of taxable estates would be farms and small businesses.

That’s a big change from the past. In 1977, 139,000 estates had to pay the tax. In 2000, it was 52,000. But Congress has kept raising the exemption and lowering the tax rate. So for virtually all Americans, even farms and small businesses, the estate tax is just not a problem. . .

[The Donald also said:]

    'I’m doing the right thing and it’s not good for me, believe me. … We are also repealing the alternative minimum tax, or AMT.'

Trump’s claim that he would not benefit from the tax plan is not credible. Of course, he’s not released his tax returns so it is difficult to know for sure. But he’s certainly subject to the AMT — and the one recent tax return that has been leaked, from 2005, shows that the AMT increased his tax bill from about $5.3 million to $36.5 million. So at least in that tax year, he potentially could have saved $31 million.

Eliminating the estate tax, meanwhile, is likely to benefit his heirs."

Read the Washington Post, Fact-checking President Trump’s tax speech in Indianapolis.

FYI: After deducting the exemption of $5.49 million, almost $11 million if you are married, the estate tax is 40%.

The Donald claims his net worth is "in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS."

So his tax cut proposal will save him and his family more than $4 billion.

Trump's Big CON: Too Busy Whipping Them Into a Frenzy to Care

UPDATE II:  "The Jones Act has been an albatross around the Puerto Rican economy for decades, costing the island an estimated $1.7 billion in lost commerce every year since 1990. It was a contributing factor to the commonwealth’s fiscal crisis last year.

During times of emergency, the Department of Homeland Security can suspend Jones Act requirements. DHS did that very thing after Harvey hit Texas and Irma hit Florida. Unsurprisingly, many members of Congress have requested the same for Puerto Rico in the wake of Maria.

Reuters reports that DHS isn’t having it".

Read the Washington Post, The one act of deregulation the Trump administration will not take.

UPDATE: Who should have won the 2016 election?

Read the Washington Post, Clinton pressed Trump to deploy hospital ship Comfort to Puerto Rico. Now it’s preparing to go.

The Donald is too buzy whipping them into a frenzy (as former House Speaker John Boehner said) over his perceived critics to care, especially about people who refused to vote for him.

Read the Washington Post, The sad suspicion about Trump’s shameful treatment of Puerto Rico.

Trump's Big CON: It's All About the Show, Military Parade Edition

UPDATE:  Here is a description of the event in July:

"For two hours [on a July 14] morning, President Trump looked happy.

He was the honored guest at Paris’s Bastille Day military parade and had a prime seat that gave him a view straight down Avenue des Champs-Elysees and a first glimpse at the tanks, armored vehicles, gun trucks, carriers and troops in historical uniforms headed his way.

He eagerly leaned forward as he took in the spectacle, frequently jostling his wife or French President Emmanuel Macron when he saw something that particularly delighted him. Whenever troops were before him, Trump jumped to his feet and applauded with an enthusiasm that exceeded the response of those around him. . .

The parade is an annual tradition that dates back to 1880, and this year it included a tribute to the centennial anniversary of the United States entering World War I. The parade featured U.S. and French flags, 200 American troops marching in uniforms from 1917 and eight U.S. Air Force planes. . .

Trump has long been delighted by grand displays of military strength, and he has filled his Cabinet with numerous military leaders, although he was disappointed that they could not wear their military uniforms to their new civilian jobs in the administration. Trump wanted to have heavy military equipment and troops at his inauguration parade in January, but that idea was blocked for logistical reasons.

When Macron invited Trump to the parade in a June 27 phone call, the president promised to be there — forcing his staff to quickly scramble to plan a last-minute trip.

The two-hour parade featured one spectacle after another, a demonstration of France’s military history and current capabilities. The parade began with dozens of soldiers on horseback riding along the cobblestone avenue that runs from the Arc de Triomphe to the viewing station where Trump sat. Macron arrived in a military jeep that he rode as if it were a chariot.

At least three military bands took turns playing a parade soundtrack, and massive screens showed an action-movie-style video that explained the significance of the equipment on display, from vintage tanks that slowly and noisily charged down the avenue to a sleek new armored vehicle from which a handful of troops emerged to act out a mission.

There was then a roar in the sky as nine fighter jets flew overhead, leaving a trail of red, white and blue smoke — representing the French tricolor flag. Dozens of other planes followed. The video screens played footage taken from on board as well as wide shots showing the jets flying over iconic Paris sites.

Trump watched the show in awe, as did [an] 8-year-old . . .

After the air show came the hundreds of troops in vintage uniforms, starting with 200 marchers wearing U.S. uniforms from World War I. Suddenly, the sky filled with helicopters. Afterward, police on motorcycles came speeding down the avenue, followed by a seemingly never-ending stream of heavy military equipment, small jeeps, armored vehicles of all sizes, tanks, flatbed trucks hauling bulldozers and even more tanks. It felt like the grand finale of a fireworks show, as military equipment continued to appear.

There were red emergency response vehicles and a brass band riding horses as they played."

Read the Washington Post, Trump revels in French military pomp far from White House turmoil.

"President Trump's trip to France for the country's Bastille Day parade in July left a big impression. So big, in fact, that he wants to replicate the experience back home.

As Trump met Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron, the commander in chief gushed about seeing France's military might on display in the streets of Paris during his visit. And he told reporters he is looking into the possibility of having a parade down the streets of Washington on Independence Day to show the United States' 'military strength.'

'I was your guest at Bastille Day, and it was one of the greatest parades I've ever seen,' Trump told Macron, who sat next to him. 'It was two hours on the button, and it was military might and, I think, a tremendous thing for France and the spirit of France.'

'To a large extent because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July Fourth in Washington down Pennsylvania Avenue,' Trump said.

The comments prompted laughter from Macron and other officials sitting around them. The leaders were meeting in New York ahead of the United Nations General Assembly. But it wasn't the first time Trump has talked about wanting a military parade in the streets of Washington.

Before the inauguration, Trump officials inquired with the Pentagon about having armored vehicles participate in his inauguration parade, according to documents obtained by HuffPost. And he told The Washington Post in January that he hoped that during his tenure, U.S. military might would be on display.

'Being a great president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is being a great cheerleader for the country,' Trump said in the January interview. 'And we’re going to show the people as we build up our military, we’re going to display our military.'

'That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we’re going to be showing our military,' he added."

Read the Washington Post, Trump says he wants a massive military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue on July 4.

Trump's Big CON: He Won't Be Draining the Swamp, Quite the CONtrary (CONt., Part 3)

UPDATE:  "There truly has been a change in Washington in this new administration. It used to be that there were people in government who acted ethically, and people who professed to care about ethics and conflicts of interest but found ways to work around the rules. In the Trump administration, they’ve pretty much stopped pretending that ethics are something anyone should care about.

Two months ago, Walter Shaub resigned his position as head of the Office of Government Ethics, saying the Trump administration had made such a mockery of ethics rules that it was harming the ability of the United States to fight corruption around the world. . .

Anyone with a functioning cerebral cortex understood that when Donald Trump promised to 'drain the swamp' in Washington, he was completely full of it. What may not have been as obvious was the way he would usher in a new era of corruption.

It starts from the top. The president himself hired his family members; continues to profit from a hotel near the White House where foreign dignitaries and political cronies know they can line his pockets by booking overpriced rooms and meeting spaces; charges the Secret Service to rent golf carts to get around on his frequent trips to his golf resorts; passes out ethics waivers like candy so that lobbyists can move into the administration and 'oversee' the industries that paid them in the past and will no doubt do so in the future; and of course refuses to release the tax returns that would enable the public to see how he’s profiting from the presidency.

Whenever questions are raised about any of this, we’re assured that it’s all on the level, and before you know it everyone has moved on. Over time, the result is that none of us expect anything different. Of course Trump will use the presidency to enrich himself and his family members. Of course he’ll hire people whose government “service” is for the sole purpose of enriching the industries from which they hail. Of course those who work for him will see public resources as theirs to do with what they will. That’s just how things work now.

Which raises a disturbing question: When Trump leaves the White House, will he have so degraded every ethical rule and norm that future administrations will feel no need to exceed his debauched standards?"

Read the Washington Post, Will Trump’s corruption continue damaging the country after he’s gone?

While some charitable groups have canceled events at Trump owned properties, political organizations and industry groups have filled the void.

“Trump-owned hotels and clubs have long made money by holding galas and other special events. Now, their clientele is changing. Trump’s properties are attracting new customers who want something from him or his government. . .

To assess the state of Trump’s hospitality business, The Washington Post reviewed public records, data released by the Trump Organization and social-media postings from Trump properties. The Post identified a sample of more than 200 groups that had rented out meeting rooms or golf courses at a Trump property since 2014.

Of those groups, 85 are no longer Trump customers. Many said they left for nonpolitical reasons. But 30 told The Post that they had left because of Trump’s political career. . .

The Post’s review could not determine if the Trump Organization’s special-event business is growing or shrinking overall.

But it did show, clearly, that one part of that business is thriving. The business of political events.

For instance, in the 2014 election cycle, before Trump jumped into the presidential race, nine federal Republican candidates and committees reported patronizing Trump-owned properties.

Altogether, these groups spent $32,499 over two years, less than Trump’s clubs could take in from a single run-of-the-mill golf tournament.

This year, the figures are different.

At least 27 federal political committees — including Trump’s reelection campaign — have flocked to his properties. They’ve spent $363,701 in just seven months, according to campaign-finance reports. In addition, the Republican Governors Association paid more than $408,000 to hold an event this spring at the Trump National Doral golf resort, according to tax filings, a gathering the group said was booked back in February 2015.

At Trump’s D.C. hotel, there have also been a slew of events involving groups that have come to Washington to influence policy decisions.

Just last week, the hotel hosted the prime minister of Malaysia, who is the subject of a Justice Department corruption probe, as well as the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, which wants more offshore drilling. The hotel was also scheduled to host an association of candy-makers, who want federal help in a long-running feud with the sugar industry.

In July, a trade group representing e-cigarette makers and vape shop owners brought about 150 people to the hotel. They paid $285 per guest room. They also paid to rent a ballroom, and reserve the hotel’s Lincoln Library, though the vapers wouldn’t say how much they cost.

Ten days after the group checked out, it scored a victory.

An Obama-era regulation requiring stricter government oversight of e-cigarette products was put on hold by the Food and Drug Administration. . .

Rentals from groups such as these helped Trump’s D.C. hotel surpass its own revenue expectations.

Through the first four months of the year, the hotel turned a profit of $1.97 million, according to documents reported by The Post last month. Before the election, the company had projected it would lose $2.1 million in the same period, the documents show. The revenue from food and beverage sales — which includes special events — was part of that surprising performance. It came in 37 percent above expectations.

Trump’s politics was a draw for [Steven M. ] Alembik, the conservative Israel backer who decided recently to hold an event at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s oceanfront club in Palm Beach.

Alembik said he will charge $600 per ticket. He expects 700 guests. That’s $420,000. In theory, Alembik said, any leftover proceeds will go to an Israeli charity called The Truth About Israel.

But, Alembik said, Trump’s club will probably keep most of the money. He said he’d recently seen an estimate of the costs. He declined to say what the number was, but said: 'My God, they’re expensive. Holy crap.' . .

At Trump Doral, a golf club and resort outside Miami, The Post identified 18 business conferences or golf tournaments scheduled to be held at the property from mid-September through next May.

Many are sponsored by industry groups such as the Food Marketing Institute, which is hosting a conference for 1,000 food retailers and suppliers there in January. The group signed a contract to book the Doral back in April 2015, according to a spokeswoman.

A major defense contractor, L3 Technologies, just announced that it would hold its annual management meeting at the resort. A spokeswoman said the company chose Doral for a variety of logistical reasons unrelated to politics.

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s divisive presidency reshapes a key part of his private business.

Trump's Big CON: It's All About the Show, Iran Edition

"President Trump knows that the deal negotiated between the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Iran to restrain Iran’s nuclear program is just terrible. As he said at the United Nations on Tuesday, 'The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it — believe me.'

Now he says he has made a decision on whether to pull out of the deal, but he won’t tell us what it is. After all, you always want to leave the audience eager to tune in for next week’s episode.

But ask yourself this: What exactly is it that Trump thinks is so bad about the agreement? Does he even know?

There’s no evidence that he does. . .

At this point, we’ve stopped expecting that the president himself will have anything resembling well-thought-out reasons for the actions he takes, even those with potentially catastrophic consequences. But what about the less ignorant people who work for him? What do they have to say?

The critical context here is that all of Trump’s key advisers seem to disagree with him on the wisdom of abandoning the agreement [including Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff].

So what we have is a group of serious, informed national security aides practically begging their unserious, ignorant boss not to do something spectacularly stupid, a herculean effort that only succeeds temporarily. It’s important to remember that according to the International Atomic Energy Agency and virtually every informed observer, Iran is in fact complying with the agreement. It’s working. . .

We all know the real reason Trump wants to walk away from the nuclear accord. It isn’t because Iran is violating the terms, because it isn’t. It isn’t because the terms were terribly unfair to the United States, because they weren’t. It isn’t because Iran is doing things outside the agreement that we don’t like, because those actions exist outside the agreement. It’s because Trump is a petulant man-baby who believes that anything that has Barack Obama’s name on it has to be destroyed, no matter the consequences."

Read the Washington Post, Does Trump even know what he hates about the Iran nuclear deal?

Trumps' Big CON: Even If He Is Not Racist, Trump Uses Racism, CONt. Part 3

UPDATE III:  "President Trump has spent the past few days excoriating NFL players for 'disrespecting' our country, our troops and the American flag. But not once, in his Friday night 'get that son of a b—- off the field' speech, or his tweets questioning the patriotism of Colin Kaepernick and other pro athletes for kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, has the president addressed the fact that as a candidate, he explicitly promised African American voters that under his administration, 'the law will be applied fairly, equally and without prejudice.'

Which is pretty much all that Kaepernick’s protest is about. . .

[During his campaign, Trump] made a series of explicit appeals to the black electorate, including his October “new deal for black America” speech in Charlotte, where he said:

    'I have heard and listened to the concerns raised by African American citizens about our justice system, and I promise that under a Trump administration the law will be applied fairly, equally and without prejudice. There will be only one set of rules — not a two-tiered system of justice.'

That is, exactly, the top-line demand of Kaepernick and, for that matter, Black Lives Matter. . .

To question the patriotism of athletes protesting to demand, in effect, that “the law will be applied fairly, equally and without prejudice” — the president’s own words — underscores just how hollow those words were.

Read the Washington Post, Trump promised black voters equal justice. That’s all Kaepernick wants.

UPDATE II:  This year Yom Kippur, with its "central themes are atonement and repentance" begins Friday, September 29 at sunset.

"In worship on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and in contemplation during the surrounding days, Jews are expected to engage in heshbon ha-nefesh — taking stock of one’s soul. And atonement for sin is to be achieved through prayer, charitable giving and, most of all, the repentance called tshuva.

These concepts, of course, inform many other major religions. Islam asks its faithful to practice tawbah, meaning repentance or regret. Catholicism calls on its believers to regularly enter the confessional booth in the sacrament of reconciliation. In the secular world, South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission operated under the twin precepts of forgiveness and repentance.

As I mark the High Holy Days for the 61st time in my life, I recall one act of tshuva as the most profound. Far from being explicitly Jewish, it involved a Christian politician and a particular church. And it is certainly the most relevant to this moment in U.S. history.

On a Sunday morning in 1979, an unexpected guest rolled his wheelchair up the aisle of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. During the city’s 1956 bus boycott, the catalyst for the modern civil rights movement, this pulpit had belonged to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The man in the wheelchair had been King’s nemesis, the former governor and arch-segregationist George Wallace.

Other than an aide to help Wallace navigate the church sanctuary, a surprisingly small place for such a historical one, he brought no retainers and no reporters. Wallace’s pilgrimage was not a media event but the imperative of a troubled soul.

Nobody in Dexter Avenue’s pews that morning needed any reminder of Wallace’s deeds. A racial moderate early in his political career, he had remade himself into a flaming bigot to win the statehouse. In his inauguration speech in 1963, he infamously declared, 'Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.' He made divisive political theater out of confronting Kennedy administration officials trying to desegregate the University of Alabama. Perhaps most notoriously of all, Wallace deployed the state troopers who brutally beat the nonviolent freedom marchers in Selma on 'Bloody Sunday' of March 7, 1965.

Seven years later, running for president with the same demagogic style, Wallace fell victim to the turbulent times he helped to stir up. A would-be assassin shot him during a rally in Maryland, and Wallace was paralyzed and condemned to incessant pain.

Just as Judaic theology holds that self-affliction is the essential precursor to repentance — the reason Jews do not eat, drink, bathe or have sex on Yom Kippur — so Wallace was afflicted.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who had been beaten unconscious on Bloody Sunday, wrote in a New York Times op-ed soon after [George] Wallace’s death in 1998: 'I had to forgive him, because to do otherwise — to hate him — would only perpetuate the evil system we sought to destroy. George Wallace should be remembered for his capacity to change. And we are better as a nation because of our capacity to forgive and to acknowledge that our political leaders are human and largely a reflection of the social currents in the river of history.'

Now, a generation later, there is no need to reiterate all the well-known and widely reported examples of our present political leaders stirring the cauldron of hatred for electoral advance. Nor is it necessary to call the names of those courtiers who have stood idly by amid the bigotry or made known their private misgivings only through self-serving leaks.

As Wallace recognized in his process of heshbon ha-nefesh, the past can never be changed or undone. A flawed human in search of a spark of morality can answer for it only with humbled, pained, hard-earned tshuva and with compassionate acts beyond the day of atonement. One of my personal prayers in these Days of Awe will be to live long enough to hear such repentance and witness such acts from the arsonists of our national conflagration."

Read the Washington Post, What today’s leaders should learn from George Wallace.

Which made me wonder, will The Donald ever atone and repent?

UPDATE:  "It is often difficult to determine if President Trump’s offenses against national unity and presidential dignity are motivated by ignorance or malice. His current crusade against sideline activism at professional football games features both.

[T]he end of slavery was hardly the end of oppression. We are a country where the reimposition of white supremacy following the Civil War involved not just segregation but also widespread violence. A country in which mass incarceration and heavy-handed police tactics now create a sense that some neighborhoods are occupied by a foreign force. A country in which wealth and opportunity remain, in significant part, segregated by race.

If white Americans can’t feel even a hint of this alienation and outrage, it is a fundamental failure of empathy and historical memory.

Trump seems ignorant of, or indifferent to, the unfolding drama of the civil rights movement — of President Abraham Lincoln’s firm hand signing the Emancipation Proclamation, of African American military heroism in defending the Union, of the stubborn courage displayed by protesters in the front of buses and at segregated lunch counters, of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, repeated in many bloody versions. When the president looks at protesters, he cannot see what they are trying to be.

This ignorance is matched by malice. Trump must know that rallying his white base against young African American protesters is feeding racial tension and providing permission for bigotry. He is essentially accusing these athletes of disloyalty, just as he accused Mexicans of being rapists and Muslims of being threats. This is a pattern and habit of division by race, ethnicity and religion.

Stop and consider. This is a sobering historical moment. America has a racial demagogue as president. We play hail to this chief. We stand when he enters the room. We continue to honor an office he so often dishonors. It is appropriate but increasingly difficult.

In this case, demagoguery is likely to be effective, in part because protesters have chosen their method poorly. The American flag is not the racist symbol of a racist country. It is the symbol of a country with ideals far superior to its practice.  . .

The president’s agenda of division is fully exposed. Faith in the Declaration, and in the genius of American institutions, remains the proper response. Under the flag that symbolizes them both." [Emphassis added.]

Read the Washington Post, America has a racial demagogue for a president.

"President Trump’s race-baiting attack on African American athletes is nothing new. During the civil rights movement, blacks in the South who dared to stand up for justice were often punished by being fired from their jobs. Trump is demanding that National Football League team owners act like the white segregationists of old.

It was gratifying to see the overwhelming rejection of Trump’s hideous rabble-rousing by NFL players, owners and fans. But let’s be clear: There is no reason, at this point, to give Trump the benefit of any doubt. We should assume Trump’s words and actions reflect what he truly believes. . .

Trump claimed in a Monday tweet that “the issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race,” but that is a lie. Kaepernick’s method of protest had everything to do with race, as its intent was to focus attention on racial injustice.

Trump was speaking to a virtually all-white audience in the Deep South. About 70 percent of players in the NFL are African American. Some political analysts put two and two together and concluded that Trump was playing to the racial anxieties and animosities of his base. . .

Trump’s intent, I assume, was to create a wedge issue, with patriots on one side — his side — and non-patriots on the other. He did not realize that so many people who might dispute Kaepernick’s position on police violence would nevertheless defend the players’ right to take a stand, or a knee. We have a president who does not understand our fundamental freedoms.

We also have a president who, if he’s not a white supremacist, does a convincing impression of one. . .

[R]ecall that Trump and his father were sued by President Richard Nixon’s Justice Department for illegally refusing to rent apartments to black prospective tenants. Recall that Trump continued to insist that the 'Central Park Five' — four black men and one Latino — were guilty of a brutal rape even after DNA evidence had conclusively proved their innocence. Recall that Trump led the 'birther' movement, ridiculously claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Recall Trump’s campaign appeal to black voters: 'You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?'

And recall his reaction to Charlottesville, where he discerned some 'very fine people' among the torch-wielding parade of Ku Klux Klan members and neo-Nazis.

I don’t believe this can all be political calculation. I believe Trump is telling us what he really thinks — and who he really is."

Read the Washington Post, If Trump’s not a white supremacist, he does a good impression.

Trump's Big CON: He is the Dupable President

Another MUST READ: the Washington Post, Stephen K. Bannon’s remarkable admission: President Trump is easily duped, which states in full:

"The information that President Trump sees has been a major subplot of the White House's internal drama. Aides often privately describe the president as highly susceptible to acting upon the last piece of information he's seen — no matter how dubious. And controlling that flow of information is a big part of new White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly's effort to right the ship and keep the Oval Office on-task.

But rarely do you see someone close to the president just come out and admit how unsophisticated he is as a consumer of information.

That's what Stephen K. Bannon did Monday night, though not quite in so many words. While chatting with Fox News's Sean Hannity, the former White House chief strategist suggested that Trump was essentially duped into supporting appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) in Tuesday's Alabama special-election runoff. And it wasn't really all that subtle.

Bannon, who along with Breitbart and some other Trump stalwarts, has endorsed former state Supreme Court justice Roy Moore against Strange, told Hannity that there needs to be a 'real … review' of how Trump came to the decision to endorse Strange.

'They tried to destroy Donald Trump; the same gang that is going after Roy Moore is the same gang that went after Donald Trump,' Bannon said. 'And I have to tell you, I think at some time later after [Tuesday], a real, you know, review has to be done of how President Trump got the wrong information and came down on the wrong side of the football here.'

Bannon's reasons for saying this are pretty apparent. Among them:

    He is signaling to potential Moore supporters that Strange really isn't Trump's kind of candidate and that they should feel good about voting for Moore.

    He is trying to give Trump an out after the special election — which Moore is favored to win — by suggesting that Moore was really the more Trumpian candidate all along.

    He is perhaps settling old White House scores by arguing that those around Trump don't have his interests at heart. (Bannon was one of those sources of information Kelly has sought to clamp down on.)

But making that argument — that Trump was duped — also means arguing that he is capable of being duped, and apparently rather easily in this case. Inherent in Bannon's argument is the idea that Trump either isn't discerning enough to make that endorsement decision for himself, or at least that he doesn't do enough homework.

Bannon is basically confirming everything aides have said privately about how unsophisticated Trump is in consuming information. This is the president of the United States, and Bannon is talking about him as if he's still a total political novice — a weather vane, even.

That's a pretty stunning admission coming from one of the people who has worked closest with Trump."