The Commentariat -- October 6, 2016

Afternoon Update:

White House: "The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Florida and ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal, and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from Hurricane Matthew beginning on October 3, 2016, and continuing." -- CW: We're already getting hurricane-related rain & wind in Fort Myers, on the Southwest Coast, which is nowhere near the projected point on landfall.

Rebecca Lai & Jasmine Lee of the New York Times: "One of every 40 American adults cannot vote in November's election because of state laws that bar people with past felony convictions from casting ballots. Experts say racial disparities in sentencing have had a disproportionate effect on the voting rights of blacks and Hispanics.... State laws that bar voting vary widely. Three swing states -- Florida, Iowa and Virginia -- have some of the harshest laws; they impose a lifetime voting ban on felons, although their voting rights can be restored on a case-by-case basis by a governor or a court. On the other end of the spectrum, Maine and Vermont place no restrictions on people with felony convictions, allowing them to vote while incarcerated.... The margin of victory in Florida in the 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush, for example, was 537 votes. An estimated 600,000 people in the state had completed their prison sentences but were not allowed to vote." -- CW

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "A group of 30 former GOP lawmakers signed a blistering open letter to Republicans on Thursday, warning that Donald Trump lacks the 'intelligence' and temperament to be president and urging the party to reject the Republican presidential nominee at the polls on Nov. 8." -- CW

Jesse Byrnes & Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt. hammered Donald Trump over his business record Thursday in a pitch to blue collar voters on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Sanders argued during a rally for Clinton in Dearborn, Mich., that the GOP nominee 'is manufacturing his ties in China, his clothing in Mexico, his furniture in Turkey.'... Sanders went after Trump for using 'manufacturing plants in Bangladesh' and accused the New York businessman of "exploiting poor people" by using cheap labor overseas. The independent Vermont senator is campaigning for Clinton on Thursday in Michigan, where he pulled out an upset win over her in the Democratic presidential primary in March." -- CW

CW Note: I've been posting right up till noon, so there are quite a few new links below, too.

*****

CW: I'm back. Perhaps because of Hurricane Matthew, I have very sl-o-o-ow Internet service, & I may lose power tonight or tomorrow. So make that sorta back.

We all owe many thanks to safari for keeping the USS Reality Chex afloat.

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "A powerful hurricane expected to grow stronger marched toward the Southeastern United States on Wednesday, as authorities in states readying for the storm's devastating combination of winds and rain declared emergencies, ordered evacuations and shuttered schools. Hurricane Matthew pummeled Haiti on Tuesday and was blamed for at least 11 deaths there and in the Dominican Republic.... From Washington to Florida to the Carolinas, officials urged residents to take the storm seriously, warning of the extreme danger posed by Matthew, which forecasters say could create 'life-threatening' flooding along Florida's eastern coast." --safari ...

... The New York Times is running a Hurricane Matthew storm watch here. The latest at 10:15 am ET: " Gov. Rick Scott of Florida told the 1.5 million residents in evacuation zones: 'You need to leave. Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate.' The hurricane's center is about 215 miles southeast of West Palm Beach, Fla., and it is moving northwest at 12 miles per hour over the Bahamas. The storm's maximum sustained winds rose overnight to 125 m.p.h. from 115 m.p.h. It is expected to intensify to become a Category 4 hurricane with winds of at least 130 m.p.h." -- CW

Jo Becker, et al., of The New York Times: "The F.B.I. secretly arrested a National Security Agency contractor in recent weeks and is investigating whether he stole and disclosed highly classified computer code developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments, according to several senior law enforcement and intelligence officials. The theft raises the embarrassing prospect that for the second time in three years, an insider has managed to steal highly damaging secret information from the N.S.A. " --safari

Presidential Race

"A President Trump Could Destroy the World's Economy." Washington Post Editors: "Donald Trump speaks of 'bringing back' American jobs by repudiating international trade agreements and resorting instead to pressure tactics, such as threatening tariffs against China and other trading partners.... Mr. Trump's policies, however, could trigger a trade war, or wars, thus threatening the achievements of the past three decades without helping Americans who need it most. And he would have considerable uncheckable power, as president, to keep his dangerous promises." -- CW

** Perennial Failure, Sucking on Daddy's Teat. Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek: "Five years of tax information from the 1970s that Donald Trump provided to the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety show mismanagement and losses that could have pushed him into personal bankruptcy -- but for the largesse of his Dad.... Trump flopped long before his casino bankruptcies, causing huge losses that wiped out his tax obligations. And the primary way he avoided bankruptcy those times was not through any personal skill, but because of an accident of birth -- his wealthy father, who set him up in business, bailed Trump out.... [T]he headline numbers for the eight years of financial returns that have now been disclosed demonstrate that Trump's self-celebrated business genius is a pose.... His father, a major New York developer named Fred Trump, had personally guaranteed [a] construction loan from his banker at Chase Manhattan so that his son could do the project. Through that same banker, Fred Trump also arranged for Donald Trump to obtain a personal line of credit of $35 million at Chase Manhattan. In one more bit of evidence that the wealthy are not like you and me, the bank gave Trump the loan without even requiring a written agreement.... In 1978, the same year that Fred Trump set up the credit line for his son at Chase Manhattan, Trump's personal finances collapsed. By then, he had borrowed $38 million from his line of credit -- the bank adjusted the available amount up by $3 million when Trump exceeded his credit limit. Losses came across the board. " Read on. --safari

Trump Scam No. 1040. Maybe There Is No Audit. Arden Farhi of CBS News: "Trump's refusal to release his [tax] returns may buck precedent, but his non-disclosure goes even further. Trump won't provide proof he's actually under audit.... The IRS notification letter ... would not likely do any political damage to Trump's candidacy.... 'There's no restriction by the IRS, [IRS Commissioner John] Koskinen testified [before Congress last month], after being asked if there is any law that prevents a person from publicly disclosing an IRS audit notification.'" Via Greg Sargent. -- CW ...

... Not Such a "Genius." Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Donald Trump has claimed that the 1995 tax documents reported by the New York Times show he's understands 'the tax laws better than almost anyone,' but the accountant who prepared Trump's taxes that year threw cold water on Trump's claim in an interview published Tuesday. 'I did all the tax preparation. He never saw the product until it was presented to him for signature,' the Trump family's former tax accountant Jack Mitnick told Inside Edition. 'I'm the one who did all the work.'" And Mitnick told the New York Times "that Trump's first wife, Ivana, was more engaged in the tax preparation than Trump was." -- CW

By Driftglass.Trashing Women Is "Entertaining." Louis Nelson of Politico: "Donald Trump said Wednesday that derogatory statements he has made toward women were all for the sake of 'entertainment' and did not reflect his true feelings. 'A lot of that was done for the purpose of entertainment; there's nobody that has more respect for women than I do,' the real estate mogul told Las Vegas' KSNV-TV in an interview taped Wednesday ahead of a rally in Henderson, Nevada.... Trump's attacks on women have not been limited to his pre-political career. Trump lashed out at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly after the first Republican primary debate, saying that 'you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.' Most recently, the GOP nominee renewed his attacks against former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, whose story resurfaced at the first presidential debate last week." CW: Good for Nelson for fact-checking Trump in a straight-news story.

It's All about Me. Mike Pence did an incredible job, and I'm getting a lot of credit because that's really my first so-called choice, that's really my first hire, as we would say in Las Vegas. -- Donald Trump, at a campaign rally in Henderson, Nevada, Wednesday ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Among political professionals and media, it is a settled fact that, in televised debates, appearance matters more than substance.... It was a version of this belief that led conventional wisdom to the immediate conclusion that Mike Pence won his debate against Tim Kaine...[T]he fact remains that the rules are the rules, and as they exist, there is usually little penalty for lying incessantly as long as you do it with proper body language and a reassuringly manly baritone. There is, however, an exception to that rule: You should not lie about things that can be easily disproven with short video clips.... Pence claimed over and over again that his running mate had never said the things that Tim Kaine was quoting verbatim. It was all too easy for the Hillary Clinton campaign to respond with this devastating video.... Whatever small gains Pence made are likely to be canceled out by days of him looking ridiculous. Lying: It usually works! But not always." Pretty devastating for fact-checking for viewers with short attention spans.--safari

Greg Sargent: "Mike Pence put on a reasonably strong debate performance last night -- stronger, in key ways, than that of Tim Kaine. But in so doing, Pence inadvertently revealed the fundamental weakness of his running mate's whole candidacy.... Top Democratic strategists have concluded that at this point, there are very few undecided voters left, based on both public polls and on private polling that attempts to push undecided voters to make a choice. This is the prism through which they are viewing last night's performance.... As Nate Cohn explains, Clinton's lead right now is partly due to a surge in enthusiasm among core Dem voters, as well as her strength among well educated white voters, which is enabling her to move ahead in more diverse states like Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and North Carolina...But as Cohn notes, if the current state of affairs holds, there just won't be 'much room for him to fight back with additional gains among white working-class voters." --safari...

...And you can forget about those Mexican things. Tara Golshan of Vox: "Sen. Tim Kaine made a point during the vice presidential debate of reminding the American public of that time Donald Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers.... At first, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence responded with a laugh and a shrug -- a seemingly implicit defense of Trump implying Kaine's attack was unfounded (despite the fact that Trump really has said these things)...'Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again,' Pence retorted... 'That Mexican thing' was an unusually inarticulate moment for Pence that night, and Twitter noticed." With examples. --safari...

... Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate: "The emerging consensus about Tuesday's vice presidential debate is that Mike Pence did well in the sense of seeming significantly more prepared and less insane than his running mate, Donald Trump, seemed during the Sept. 26 presidential debate. Word emerged pretty much immediately after Tuesday's debate ended that Trump might not be happy about that comparison." ...

...safari note: This reminds me of one of Donald Drumpf's greatest insights: "Always be around unsuccessful people because everybody will respect you." As contributor Patrick hinted in yesterday's comments, could this be the coup de grâce for Pence in the eyes of the Trump clan? Pence might have to pick up some extra McDonalds delivery orders to get back into favor with the führer...

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha, Ctd. Fox Feud. Charley Lanyon of New York: Fox "News" star Megyn "Kelly complained on her show: 'Donald Trump -- with all due respect to my friend at 10 o'clock -- will go on Hannity and pretty much only Hannity and will not venture out to the unsafe spaces these days, which doesn't exactly expand the tent for either one of them.'... Hannity responded to Kelly by ... sen[ding] out a tweet accusing Kelly of -- quelle horreur -- being a secret Clinton supporter.... Hannity followed up his first tweet by going on a low-key reply-tantrum.... The beef comes at a time of tightening ratings between the two hosts." -- CW

Senate Race

E.J. Dionne: "Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) has tried for months to walk a high wire on the vexing subject of Donald Trump. This week, she fell off. Her tumble, on what most of us would see as an easy question about whether Trump should be regarded as a 'role model,' came during a debate Monday night with Gov. Maggie Hassan, her Democratic opponent.... 'I think that, certainly, there are many role models that we have. And I believe he can serve as president and so absolutely I would do that.'... Ayotte's campaign, quickly realizing she had blundered badly, executed a role-model flip-flop. It issued a statement declaring she 'misspoke,' and on Tuesday, she told reporters that 'neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton have set a good example.'... Gov. Mike Pence's ... staying smooth [in the veep debate] meant ignoring or denying most of what Trump has said and inventing a statesmanlike Trump who doesn't actually exist. So to Trump's many ill effects on our politics, add another: the intellectual and moral corruption of the Republican Party." -- CW

Other News & Views

Join the Club. Eric Levitz of New York: "Humanity is $152 trillion in debt, putting us deeper in the red than we've ever been, according to the International Monetary Fund's Fiscal Monitor. Gross debt in the nonfinancial sector has more than doubled (in nominal terms) since the dawn of this century, with borrowing outpacing global growth. In 2002, gross debt amounted to 200 percent of gross domestic product -- in 2015, that figure was 225 percent. Two-thirds of that $152 trillion is held by households and nonfinancial firms. The rest resides on government balance sheets." --safari note: Maybe Wells Fargo can help us beef up these numbers a bit...?

Jennifer Agiesta of CNN: "President Barack Obama's approval rating stands at 55% in a new CNN/ORC poll, the highest mark of his second term, and matching his best at any time since his first year in office.... Obama's approval rating is well above President George W. Bush's numbers at this point in his term in office, and about on par with Ronald Reagan's numbers at this time in 1988." -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

American "Justice", Ctd. Post-Racial America edition. Brad Scharade of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "A white Georgia sheriff's deputy has been terminated and another white officer abruptly resigned following an internal affairs investigation that uncovered racist and sexist messages they sent each other on Facebook, including one that described what appeared to be an effort to target black motorists.... The disclosures in sparsely populated McIntosh, a county of about 14,000 residents on the Georgia coast, follow two other high profile allegations of racism in Georgia that have recently made news. A Forsysth County elementary school teacher's aide was fired Monday after posting messages on Facebook that described first lady Michelle Obama as a gorilla. A Douglas County commissioner apologized last month after a tape of him surfaced making disparaging comments about black leaders and their fitness for office." --safari

Samantha Schmidt of the New York Times: "In an effort to reduce congestion, tollbooths will be eliminated at all Metropolitan Transportation Authority bridges and tunnels next year, and replaced with automatic tolling, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday. Instead of charging drivers who are stopped at toll plazas, the authority will use sensors and cameras to automatically charge cars that have been equipped with E-ZPass; those without it will have their license plates recorded by camera, and a bill will be mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle." -- CW

Way Beyond

Sibylla Brodzinsky of the Guardian: "Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, has said that a ceasefire with leftist Farc rebels will end on 31 October, putting guerrillas on alert and adding pressure to salvage a peace deal with the rebels scrapped by voters at the weekend. On Wednesday, Santos will meet with former president Álvaro Uribe, who led a successful campaign for voters to reject a peace deal more than four years in the making with Farc guerrillas. The meeting -- the first between the arch-rivals in more than five years -- will seek to find a way forward in the search for peace in this country racked by 52 years of war...The announcement of the ceasefire deadline took the Farc leadership, which has been meeting with government negotiators in Havana since Monday, by surprise.... But analysts said that Santos's announcement about the ceasefire was necessary because the bilateral ceasefire that went into effect 29 August -- which had been labeled 'definitive' -- was contingent on approval of the peace deal. Announcing an extension to 31 October gives all sides time to take stock of the new political panorama." --safari

The Commentariat -- October 5, 2016

If you haven't seen the "Eight Years in America" exposé in New York on Obama's legacy and the events that have impacted it, check it out.--safari

Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information at the request of US intelligence officials, according to a report. The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA) or FBI, two former employees and a third person who knew about the program told Reuters. Some surveillance experts said this represents the first known case of a US internet company agreeing to a spy agency's demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time." --safari

Presidential Race

A Yuuge Loser. Stephen Shepard of Politico: "Mike Pence didn't just defeat Tim Kaine in their only debate -- he also outshined Donald Trump.... [T]he Pence -vs.- Trump comparison was unanimous: Each and every one of the four dozen GOP insiders who responded to a post-debate survey Tuesday night said Pence delivered a better debate performance than the New York businessman at the top of the Republican ticket." --safari

Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "[T]hat these debates, in a real sense, don't matter -- makes it tempting to treat them as pure political theater, judged on style and poise. By that standard, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence won the vice presidential debate with Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, full stop.... But politics isn't pure theater, and we shouldn't use that standard. Who performed better is less important than whether the candidates were honest and truthful...And by that standard, Mike Pence was a clear and abysmal failure.... Rather than demure or decline when confronted with Donald Trump's rhetoric and ideas, Pence denied that any of it happened." --safari...

Jonathan Chait: "Pence provided an evening of escapist fantasy for conservative intellectuals who like to close their eyes and imagine their party has nominated a qualified, normal person for president. It is hard to see how he helped the cause of electing the actual nominee.... But the pattern that quickly asserted itself in the debate revolved around Kaine's attacks on Trump, which he was able to introduce into every subject that came up. Pence had a handful of responses to this approach. He would shake his head, or chuckle.... At one point, Kaine observed that Pence had not defended his running mate, and Pence offered to do so, and to go point-by-point through the accusations, but he never got around to it." --safari...

... Esmi Cribb of Talking Points Memo has a run-down on eight of the times Pence denied that Trump said exactly what he said...

... Jackie Kucinich & Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "At the debate Tuesday night, Pence proved totally unflappable, calmly reimagining Trump's policy proposals on a host of issues and refusing to flinch through dozens of interruptions by Tim Kaine...And while the debate was a proxy battle for the top of the ticket, Pence managed to both make it about his own competence and political skill rather than Donald Trump's many flaws. Think Pence 2020, rather than Trump-Pence 2016." --safari...

...Juan Cole: "Trump running mate Mike Pence continued the unreality of this election season in Tuesday's debate by denying many things that are true and asserting many things that are not true.... The biggest Middle East news to come out of the VP debate was that Mike Pence advocated that the US strike 'military' targets of the Assad regime as a way of punishing Russia...That's huge! Pence wants to go head to head with Russia in Syria and wants vastly to expand the US military involvement by bombing Syrian military targets that are protected by Russian anti-aircraft batteries.... No one asked him how he would get around Russia anti-aircraft batteries or how he would stop Russia, which has a naval base and air bases in Syria, from supplying more and better ones to Syria. Or maybe he wants to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia?" --safari

Margaret Hartmann of New York: "As some presumably small portion of Americans sat through a dull debate between the Republican and Democratic vice-presidential nominees on Tuesday night, a far more interesting drama was unfolding within the Libertarian ticket. VP candidate Bill Weld told the Boston Globe that he plans to focus exclusively on attacking Donald Trump for the remainder of the campaign -- essentially admitting that running mate Gary Johnson can not become president." --safari

Eric Levitz of New York: "On Monday, Bill Clinton 'slammed Obamacare,' calling it the 'craziest thing in the world.' Or so headlines on The Hill and CNN suggested. And on first glance, the stories beneath those headlines seemed to deliver the goods.... But, as the Huffington Post notes, when you look at Clinton's quote in context, you see that this is not what he realized at all. Before Clinton started talking about the people our 'crazy system' is failing, he made it clear that said system is still better than the one Obama inherited, which Donald Trump would have us return to...Thus, the former president was advocating for Hillary Clinton's proposed reforms to the ACA, not for the law's repeal." --safari

Other News & Views

Oliver Milmann of the Guardian: "The vast patch of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean is far worse than previously thought, with an aerial survey finding a much larger mass of fishing nets, plastic containers and other discarded items than imagined...The density of rubbish was several times higher than the Ocean Cleanup, a foundation part-funded by the Dutch government to rid the oceans of plastics, expected to find even at the heart of the patch, where most of the waste is concentrated." --safari

Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Christopher Moraff of The Daily Beast: "In 2009, with opioid-painkiller deaths at an all time high in America, a British consumer goods company you've probably never heard of was facing a crisis of its own. That year, Reckitt Benckiser's patent for its opiate-treatment drug Suboxone expired, opening the gates for cheaper generic+ versions of the medication to hit the market...According to a massive antitrust lawsuit made public last week, that's when Reckitt Benckiser decided to destroy the Suboxone market in order to keep it. A copy of the 92-page ... complaint describes how the company ... gamed the pharmaceutical regulatory process using a variety of 'deceptive and unconscionable' practices to maintain a chokehold on the emerging market for medicine-based addiction treatment."--safari

The Commentariat -- October 4, 2016

The veep debate begins at 9 pm ET tonight. Wired has a list of ways to watch.

Presidential Race

Brian Beutler explains to dimwitted voters why voting for a third-party candidate is not "sending a message" to Clinton or Trump; it's threatening to give Trump a much better change to win the election. Also too, the third-party candidates are kooks. CW: Unfortunately, most dimwitted voters don't read the New Republic.

Washington Post Editors: "If he wished, a President Donald Trump could carry out -- or at least order -- many of the most extreme proposals he has tossed off during the election campaign.... Two aspects of Mr. Trump's worldview appear deeply rooted and consistent over a number of years. One is his disregard for traditional U.S. alliances, from Mexico to NATO to Saudi Arabia and Japan. The other is a strong and somewhat mysterious attachment to Russia's Vladimir Putin. If Mr. Trump were to act on those instincts, he could transform the world, very much for the worse.... The election of Mr. Trump would likely bring about the end of the era of American global leadership that began in 1945.... A new, cynical, self-interested America would emerge, ready to use walls, boycotts, assassination and torture to achieve its aims, and to partner with like-minded regimes such as Russia. For those who believe in traditional American liberal values, the world would become a much colder -- and more dangerous -- place." -- CW

By Driftglass.Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Donald Trump on Monday defended his aggressive use of tax laws that likely resulted in him not paying any personal income taxes for nearly two decades, crediting himself for 'brilliantly' working the system. 'As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors and my employees. I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly -- I have brilliantly used those laws,' Trump said during a rally in Pueblo, Colorado. 'I have often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required, like anybody else, or put another way: to pay as little tax as legally possible. And I must tell you, I hate the way they spend our tax dollars.'" For more of Trump's fractured history, read on. -- CW ...

     ... Steve M: "I know this is ridiculous.... But this is the kind of rebuttal to the Times story that will keep a lot of middle-of-the-road voters from concluding that Trump has disqualified himself -- this BS sounds plausible and civic-minded." -- CW ...

     ... CW: Trump is definitely persuading Trumpbots, so it's reasonable to think Trump is right that other voters will buy the bull. Ellen Cushing of BuzzFeed talked to attendees at a Trump rally, & they were all convinced that Trump was a "good businessman" who followed the good practice of writing off bad debt caused by "bad times." -- CW ...

... ** Russ Buettner & Chales Bagli of the New York Times: 1990 "was the beginning of Mr. Trump's reckoning with a decade of rapid, debt-fueled expansion. The eclectic empire Mr. Trump had built with leverage from his father's brick-and-mortar fortune began to fail, generating enormous losses and bringing him to the brink of personal bankruptcy. The full magnitude of the financial hemorrhaging was a closely held secret until this weekend, when The New York Times published portions of Mr. Trump's 1995 tax records that showed business losses of $916 million.... A review of public records and interviews with those who were present makes clear that it was decisions Mr. Trump made at the helm of his business empire during the 1980s that led to its nearly imploding." During this period, his father again provided funds to keep Donald out of the poorhouse. So did other family members. Read on, to the end. ...

     ... CW: A "genius", Rudy? More like your ne'er-do-well younger brother who sleeps on your couch, cleans out your fridge, asks to "borrow" cash & mocks your "lifestyle." Writ large. ...

Drew Harwell & Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "The disclosure [of a small portion of his 1995 tax filings] also raises new questions about the degree of Trump's personal financial involvement in the Trump Organization's first four bankruptcies. Though he has repeatedly drawn a distinction between the company's bankruptcies and his personal finances, the tax documents indicate he may have used losses stemming from his bankruptcies to benefit his personal fortune." CW: Exactly. Trump made the decisions that led to the bankruptcies, then used the companies' insolvency to claim a yuuge tax deduction for himself. Trump's suggestion that the organizations' failures were "somebody else's fault" is one among thousands of Trump's attempts to redirect blame for his own bad judgment. ...

... David Cay Johnston, in the Daily Beast, sussed out how "Trump dumped the real costs of all this [mismanagement of his casino businesses] on investors who saw gold in his brand name, but who lost everything even as he was paid tens of millions of tax-free dollars.' Bonus: "Last May, Trump revealed that he took on debt with no intention of paying it all back, which strikes me as fraud. 'I've borrowed knowing you can pay back with discounts,' he told CNBC in May, boasting 'I've done well with debt.'" Read the whole post. CW: There's a reason Trump calls Clinton "Crooked Hillary." It's a projection of who he is. ...

... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Trump has 'a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,' the campaign said in a statement." Rudy Giuliani repeatedly made the same claim in Sunday show interviews. "... even if you buy the argument that Trump had a 'fiduciary duty' to investors..., the leaked documents in question were portions of Trump's personal income tax returns, not any corporate or partnership income tax returns. So there were no investors to let down." -- CW ...

... New York Times Editors: "For more than a year, Donald Trump has said his genius as a businessman makes him uniquely qualified to fix the country's problems. We can dispense with that fiction now that we know that he claimed a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax returns. Such a mammoth loss amounts to an epic failure, not runaway success.... Legal or not, this is the kind of [government] handout no ordinary citizen could hope to get.... During the first presidential debate, Mr. Trump called his tax avoidance 'smart.' What he's justifying is a tax code that allows the extremely wealthy to shift the burden to everybody else, especially working Americans.... Incredibly, the Trump campaign argues that because he knows how to game the tax system he should be trusted to reform it. There is ... plenty of evidence that he would confer even more tax advantages on himself. Mr. Trump has not proposed closing the real estate developers' loophole. Instead, he would make the code more favorable for his interests by proposing to cut the rate for limited liability corporations and partnerships -- the entities in which he holds his real estate assets -- to just 15 percent from ordinary income rates.... He's built his millionaire's lifestyle on debt, tax avoidance and other people's money. From bankrupt casinos to a so-called university, he milked them for all he could and left workers, students and taxpayers holding the bag." -- CW ...

... Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Dylan Byers of CNN: The anonymous tipster who sent Trump's tax documents to the New York Times also sent them to the New York Daily News, but the Daily News could not verify the documents. CW: This tells us a couple of things: (1) The Times is "the paper of record" because it has far more resources than other news outlets; it sent its reporters to Florida to get verification from Trump's tax preparer & to clear up a major question about the original document, which appeared to be doctored. (2) The Daily News followed the journalistic practice of not publishing a story based on an unverified tip, unlike many online "news" outlets.

Paul Waldman: "... if you picked 'veterans' in the 'Who's Donald Trump going to offend today?' pool, you're in luck." ...

... Cowardly Draft Dodger Rips Veterans Suffering PTSD as Not Tough Enough. Ema O'Connor of Buzzfeed: '"Donald Trump on Monday suggested to a room full of veterans that soldiers who return from war suffering from PTSD are not 'strong' and 'can't handle it.' The GOP presidential candidate’s statement came during a Q&A at the Retired American Warriors PAC.... After saying there are around 22 veteran suicides a day, Trump explained to the room of veterans what PTSD was. 'When people come back from war and combat and they see maybe what the people in this room have seen many times over, and you're strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can't handle it.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Akhilleus: So the coward who supported the Vietnam war but got multiple deferments to hide from combat for some foot thing which he can't remember now, "explains" PTSD to a room full of combat veterans, and furthermore, lets them know that some of them, according war hero Donald, just don't measure up. Trump, of course, is combat tested because he went through the Sex Wars of the seventies. Poor guy. So brave. All those unmade beds! And so wonderful of him to lecture soldiers who saw actual combat about the fact that they're wusses. The worst thing? There are plenty of combat veterans -- with and without PTSD -- who will dishonor their brothers and sisters in arms by voting for this disgraceful piece of shit.

But, But ... How Will I Pay My Legal Fees?? David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post. "The New York attorney general has notified Donald Trump that his charitable foundation is violating state law -- by soliciting donations without proper certification -- and ordered Trump's charity to stop its fundraising immediately.... James Sheehan, head of the attorney general's charities bureau, sent the 'notice of violation' to the Donald J. Trump Foundation on Friday, according to a copy of the notice provided by ... Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D). The night before that, The Washington Post reported that Trump's charity had been soliciting donations from other people without being properly registered in New York state. According to tax records, Trump's foundation has subsisted entirely on donations from others since 2008, when Trump gave his last personal donation. This year, the Trump Foundation made its most wide-ranging request for donations yet: It set up a public website, donaldtrumpforvets.com, to gather donations that Trump said would be passed on to veterans' groups." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Akhilleus: Can this poor guy EVER catch a break? I mean, that money from veterans is already earmarked for good causes. The BEST causes. Another trip to Europe for Ivanka, another animal killing safari for Little Eric, rare collectible Nazi paraphernalia for Junior (Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps leather overcoat). Cellulite removal for Melania (why she hasn't been seen in forever...), and now this! C'mon! ...

     ... Paul Waldman: "If Schneiderman were a woman, Trump would be going on 'Hannity' tonight to tell everyone he's fat." -- CW

Will He or Won't He? I want to do the next debate, but everybody is talking about the mike. -- Donald Trump, to the New York Times, October 1 ...

... Steve Benen: "... by some measures, the only person preoccupied with the subject is Trump himself.... He... appears to be looking for an excuse. It's hard to imagine Trump bowing out of the next debates, but then again, it was hard to imagine quite a bit about Trump's candidacy, and yet here we are. The fact that he's hedged at all -- 'I want to do the next debate, but ... suggests there's at least some question about the Republican's plans." -- CW

** Jobs, Jobs, Jobs? For the Chinese, Yes. Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek: "... Trump has been stiffing American steel workers on his own construction projects for years... A Newsweek;investigation has found that in at least two of Trump's last three construction projects, Trump opted to purchase his steel and aluminum from Chinese manufacturers rather than United States corporations based in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin." -- CW

Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump said Monday that 'race riots' are happening every month.... 'We're a divided nation, and each week it seems we're getting more and more divided,' Trump said at a rally [in Pueblo, Colorado]. '[We see] race riots on our streets on a monthly basis. Somebody said don't call them race riots, but that's what they are. They’re race riots. And it's happening more and more.'" -- CW

Other News & Views

Cold War Redux. Michael Gordon & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia over the protracted conflict in Syria, accusing the Kremlin of joining with the Syrian Air Force in carrying out a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged city of Aleppo. Anticipating the end of the talks after repeated warnings from American officials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia responded by withdrawing from a landmark arms control agreement that calls for each side to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium, a material used in nuclear weapons." -- CW ...

... Dictators Do the Darndest Things! Wait til Trump gets to be one. J. Weston Phippen of The Atlantic: "Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew Monday from a post-Cold War agreement with the United States in which both countries agreed to get rid of plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Putin accused the U.S. for failing to stand by its side of the agreement, and for the heightened tension between the countries over the Syrian civil war. The deal was originally signed in 2000 and renewed in 2009. Putin said he was now suspending cooperation because of 'the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions by the United States of America towards the Russian Federation.'" -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... CW: I don't doubt that the horrifying bombings of Aleppo are among Putin's are among his tactics to influence our November elections.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A short-handed Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request from the Obama administration to reconsider a major immigration decision, dooming for now President Obama's plan to spare millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. The court also declined to hear more than 1,000 petitions seeking reviews in cases that had piled up during the justices' summer break. Among them were ones concerning what college athletes may earn, the Washington Redskins' trademarks and a campaign finance investigation in Wisconsin. Adhering to its custom, the court did not give reasons for turning down the cases. The request that the justices rehear the immigration case came after a deadlock in the case in June. The administration's petition seeking rehearing said a matter of such importance should be resolved by a nine-member Supreme Court, which 'should be the final arbiter of these matters through a definitive ruling.'" -- CW

Beyond the Beltway

Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: Mayor Charles Wasko of York, Pennsylvania, has a passion for posting incendiary racist & xenophobic material on social media. "Probably the most inflammatory one was about President Obama. It shows a picture of actor Clint Eastwood in the film 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' and a noose. 'Barry, this rope is for you,' the caption says, referring to a nickname for the first black president. 'You wanna bring that empty chair over here!'" Despite horrified reactions to his postings & calls for his resignation, Wasko won't quit & he promises to keep on posting. -- CW