Year: 2016

Trump “guarantees” that by the end of his first term “more than 95%” of blacks will vote to re-elect him.

This is so absurd — Obama got only 93% of the black vote — it suggests nothing he says should be taken seriously (not that we didn’t already know that) — yet his pronouncements lead the news every night . . . and his followers lap it up. Especially as it regards his opponent.

Yesterday, his having called her “a bigot,” Hillary responded.  If you missed it, I urge you to read the transcript.

Yesterday, also, VOX bolstered my view that there’s no “there” to the Clinton Foundation story.

(Quick: somebody tell “Morning Joe.”)

What kind of world do we live in where war-hero John Kerry is swiftboated and Dan Rather — not George Bush — loses his job?  Where Al Gore is ridiculed for saying he invented the Internet,* not lauded for being its Senate champion?  Where 70% of those who voted to re-elect Bush thought Iraq attacked us and a majority of Republicans still doubt Obama’s citizenship?  Where the Senate Majority Leader – devoted to seeing the President fail — can say that “by any standard Barack Obama has been a disaster for our country”?

Nate Silver sees only a 16% chance Trump wins.  I find that terrifying.  Roughly the same odds of dying in Russian roulette.

One of the things we can tell all our friends in blue states like California and New York is that this time your vote really does matter.  In addition to winning the Electoral College, we need to show an enormous win in the popular vote.  First, to minimize the chance Trump will be able to persuade people the election was “rigged” and that, really, he was the people’s choice.  Second, to show the world America has not lost its mind.

*He did not actually say that.

According to the Post:

There’s a new round of “revelations” concerning Hillary Clinton’s time at the State Department today, and since it involves some people sending emails to other people, it gets wrapped up with that other story about Clinton. Are you ready for the shocking news, the scandalous details, the mind-blowing malfeasance? Well hold on to your hat, because here it is:

When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, many people wanted to speak with her.

Astonishing, I know.

Here’s the truth: every development in any story having to do with anything involving email and Hillary Clinton is going to get trumpeted on the front page as though it were scandalous, no matter what the substance of it actually is. . . .

. . . Judicial Watch, an organization that has been pursuing Clinton for many years, has released a trove of emails . . . that supposedly show how donors to the Clinton Foundation got special access, and presumably special favors, from Clinton while she was at State.

The only problem is that the emails in question reveal nothing of the sort. What they actually reveal is that a few foundation donors wanted access, but didn’t actually get it. . . .

. . . And that’s it. If there were anything more scandalous there, have no doubt that Judicial Watch would have brought it to reporters’ eager attention. So: Nobody got special favors and nobody got “access,” except for the second-highest-ranking official of an important U.S. ally  . . .

Do powerful people, organizations, and countries donate money to the Clinton Foundation so they can rub shoulders with Bill Clinton? You bet they do. That’s the whole model: exploit Clinton’s celebrity to raise money which can then be used to make progress on important issues like climate change and global health.

Likewise, a healthy portion of Huma Abedin’s job as Clinton’s closest aide seems to have consisted of fielding requests from people who wanted to get her boss’s time and attention. That’s the way it is with many powerful people, in politics or any other realm. If we were able to see all the emails from the office of any senator, Democrat or Republican, we’d see the same thing: a steady stream of people asking, on their own behalf or someone else’s, for the senator’s time. Donors, businesspeople, advocates, constituents, they all want to talk to the person whose picture is on all the walls.

If we find cases where someone actually received some favor or consideration they didn’t deserve, then depending on the details it might actually be scandalous. But an email discussion of Bono’s wacky idea to send U2 concerts to the International Space Station is not a scandal.

☞ Read the whole story if you have time.

The media and the crew over at “Morning Joe” have gone nuts over this. Of the thousands of meetings the Secretary had, nearly 10% were with non-government officials!  Some of them, old friends!  (Do friends never come t0 visit? One a week would be 200 over four years.) About half of whom, perhaps admiring the work of the Foundation, support it!

It’s not a big story, as the Post explains, but Trump gets endless-loop airtime calling it CRIMINAL. She is the most corrupt politician ever — the worst secretary of state ever — he is immensely rich, knows more about ISIS than the generals, the country is a disaster only he can fix, she just lies and lies and lies and he saw three thousand Muslims cheering across the river as they watched the Towers come down — so of course whatever he says dominates the news.

And has done so for more than a year.  We hang on his every word for guidance and inspiration. He tells it like it is.  E.g.: “I have a great relationship with the blacks.”  E.g.: “I’ve had a beautiful, flawless campaign.”  E.g.: “This very expensive global warming bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temperatures.”  E.g.: “Sorry, losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest.  Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”

He literally said all that, just as Eisenhower or Truman or Lincoln — perhaps John Adams or Ronald Reagan or, well, any great world leader — might have.

So I read the Associated Press story that threw “Morning Joe” into the caffeineosphere.

Among those granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton’s help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm’s corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.

Horrible, no?  The “Wall Street executive,” by the way, is a business school classmate of mine, a Republican. Hurrah for him for giving generously to the Clinton Global Initiative anyway.

The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009.

Did “Morning Joe” miss this sentence?

I’m not saying there can’t be thoughtful discussion of potential conflicts . . . of nuances and trade-offs. Is it better for the world not to have had Bill Clinton inspire 6,000 people to give $2 billion so there’d be no perceptual — or perhaps even real — conflicts?  Should the foundation be shuttered now?  Should Antonin Scalia not have spent a weekend duck hunting with Dick Cheney while matters of interest  to Cheney were before the Court?  Should Clarence Thomas’s wife not work for a right-wing think tank?

These are issues that could make for thoughtful discussion — but there was none of it yesterday on “Morning Joe.”  Rather, the revelations above were a disaster for Clinton, beyond the pale, huge news — even though the AP reporter who wrote the story that was making them crazy said on their show that the AP had found no evidence of legal or ethical violations.

At the end of the day, do you know what I think?  I think the person we elect as President, this year and any year — or, for that matter the person appointed secretary of state — will bring with him or her decades of friends and acquaintances, some of whom may be called upon for advice, some of whom may be called on to join the administration, and yet others of whom may ask to drop by to say hello or advocate an idea or ask for help.

It we choose our presidents and secretaries of state wisely, that large pool of talent and relationships will help them do a good job.  And when inappropriate requests are made, they’ll be politely denied.

If inappropriate requests are granted, there’s reason for concern — perhaps even for a front-page headline.

But for Tuesday’s AP story to make people crazy?

Come on, Morning Joe: you’re better than this.

I am so happy to see lifetime Republicans saying Hillary is the only choice that I often find myself letting pass the premise that accompanies many of their statements.  Namely, that she’s the lesser of two evils.  (“Hillary could be our worst president, but Trump could be our last president.”)

The truth is, Hillary has the potential to be a great president. She is, for starters, better prepared to assume office than anyone ever before her.  She’s seen the job close up as First Lady . . . Congress close up as a Senator . . . worked effectively with some Republican senators . . . knows and is respected by virtually all the world’s leaders.  She is beyond brilliant; steady and cautious; and has been focused her entire adult life on helping others.

Can any of the same things be said of Donald Trump?

The only world leader who seems to respect him is Vladimir Putin — who is playing him for a fool (and, arguably, trying to destabilize our democracy).

Meanwhile, Hillary brings with her a spouse beloved around the world, who led the country through eight years of peace and unparalleled prosperity.

Can any of that be said of Trump’s spouse?

As to all her “baggage” . . . so much of it is just manufactured, and the rest blown out of proportion. It’s how the game works, I guess. But it can have disastrous consequences.

Consider: Republicans persuaded the country that Al Gore said he invented the Internet (he never did say that — but actually was its champion in the Senate, for which we should be hugely grateful) . . . that he did something sinister by making 61 fundraising telephone calls without going across the street to a different office to make them (a transgression so minor and meaningless, based on an 1883 law enacted before there even were telephones, there was apparently “no controlling authority” as to whether it was even a transgression at all) . . . that he knowingly accepted money laundered through Buddhist monks (he did not) . . . that he falsely claimed to have been the model for Erich Segal’s Love Story (everything he said was “absolutely true,” and by the way — who cares?) . . .

. . . and so, with a little help from Justice Scalia, we got George W. Bush, the war in Iraq, raging deficits, a near depression, an eight-year delay in confronting climate change . . . and more.

Will the same playbook take a fundamentally spectacular, trustworthy candidate and give us President Donald Trump?

The Benghazi tragedy has been investigated endlessly, and the truth is: the Secretary did nothing wrong. The “commodities” saga was subjected to extensive scrutiny in a Pulitzer-prize-winning investigative journalist’s book and the truth was: he found nothing she had done wrong. And on and on.  There are dozens of these things — they just keep piling them on.

I can’t prove that in 40 years of public service she’s never done anything wrong, obviously, or that she has not sometimes been slow to own up to mistakes — not because I know anything damning, just because (a) it’s impossible to prove a negative and (b) she’s human.  But in context?  In proportion?  In the real world?

The real world is complicated.  But political campaigns and headline writers (and certainly Fox News) sweep that away.  So which is better?  For Hillary to have explained in detail why she “voted for the war”? (Which she did not. She voted to give Bush the authority, to enhance the credibility of his threats; but only on his assurance he would only use that authority as “a last resort” to protect us. Read more here.)

Or is it better to dispense with nuance and context and trade-offs and just say, as she has, “it was a mistake”?

Same with the emails (none of which was marked “classified” except for the three with the little C-marks — read more here).  Is it better to explain?  To defend, at least partially? To attempt to provide perspective?

Probably not: your critics will keep coming at you no matter what. (Look at the nine Benghazi hearings; look at the huge proportion of Republicans who still believe President Obama is a foreign-born Muslim.) And attempts to explain come across as defensive and evasive.

She’s not perfect; but like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton before her she’s certainly not “the lesser of two evils.” She’s terrific. And if she wins, she and the talented team she attracts will work, like Obama and Clinton, to create jobs (30 million under Clinton/Obama, fewer than 1 million under the last 12 Republican years) and to make our lives better.

But first: Louisiana floods destroy home of Christian leader who says God sends natural disasters to punish gay people. And think about it: If God is looking to punish people, would it be for loving each other? Really?

Have you already read Richard Cross’s Baltimore Sun op-ed?

. . .I have always been GOP to the core.. . . In fact, I personally drafted the speech of the “Benghazi mom,” Patricia Smith. In that speech, I concluded with the following line: “If Hillary Clinton can’t give us the truth, why should we give her the presidency?” As a political speechwriter, that was something of a home run moment for me. The New Yorker called the speech “the weaponization of grief.”

But weeks after the end of the 2016 GOP convention, I am confronted by an inconvenient fact: Despite what I wrote in that nationally televised speech about Hillary Clinton, I may yet have to vote for her because of the epic deficiencies of my own party’s nominee.

. . .I could never vote for Donald Trump.

So instead I am confronted by two painful choices: Vote for the most divisive political figure in the past 25 years or throw away my vote on a kooky Libertarian ticket.

. . . Fear sometimes wins you elections, but it doesn’t create jobs, build schools, reduce crime or improve the quality of life for all citizens. Great political leaders help us transcend our fears.

Still, the prospect of voting for Hillary Clinton is uncomfortable to me, as if Dr. Van Helsing were compelled to vote for Dracula.

But the only prospect more terrifying than voting for Hillary Clinton is not voting for her.

The reality of American politics today is, she is the only choice.

Jim Burt: “If Trump wants to compare his physical and mental stamina to that of Hillary Clinton, he could start by spending 11 hours undergoing hostile interrogation without losing his cool.  Mrs. Clinton did that with the Benghazi committee.  What has Trump done that can compare?”

Paul Lerman: “Did you see MSNBC’s coverage of the ‘duck’ sent to Trump Tower for ducking release of his tax returns? Apparently they couldn’t stop him from going up and down the now-infamous escalator repeatedly, the lobby has to allow public access.  And an excellent video medley of Trump’s nonsense in alphabetical order. Worth watching!”

Former General Motors chair: “I’ve Always Voted Republican.  Until Now.” Powerful.

Donald Ducks. Is it because he’s not nearly as rich as he says? (I think so.) Doesn’t give much to charity? Doesn’t pay any taxes? Is tied up with the Russians in some way this would disclose?  He’s said in 2014 he would “absolutely” disclose his returns if he ran for President but is constantly contradicting himself, so don’t hold your breath.

David Z.: “Regarding Trump’s new proposal to do an ideological test of all immigrants requiring them to support things like gay rights.  Question: Will this require the deportation of 75% of the Republicans in Congress?”

☞ And here’s a crazy question: what’s to prevent a terrorist from lying in the interview?

Someone sent me this love story. I had to look some things up (coup de foudre?), and I could not imagine living in Aiken myself — but if you have five minutes to read two remarkable lives and explore a 60-room house . . . enjoy.

Click here. One thing the article doesn’t touch on — how our little spaceship will accommodate so many more passengers if lifespans double.  But hey: if we can figure out how to grow our own replacement organs, we can probably figure out how to live sustainably from the sun’s all-but-unlimited supply of energy.

The harder part may be learning to live together in peace and mutual respect. But there was a Jewish guy a couple of thousand years ago who pretty much worked that out for us, should we learn to listen. [Cue the heavenly chorus.*]

*Or in this case, Leonard Cohen. Just don’t listen too closely to the lyrics. It’s the mood I’m going for.  (Maybe we should go with this instead.  Or this.) 

Click here to be sure.

(I like this site even better if you happen to live in Florida — it needed only my name and date of birth to find me.)

We need to win this election by the widest popular margin — both to show the rest of the world we’re not crazy . . . (so even votes in “safe” states like New York and California matter) . . . and to take back the Senate AND the House.  Which we absolutely can do if it’s a landslide — and need to, so the country can move forward with what the Republicans have blocked but most Americans want: putting people to work in good jobs revitalizing our infrastructure! hiking the minimum wage! enacting the comprehensive immigration reform the Senate passed 68-32! imposing the universal background checks that even 74% of NRA members favor! allowing federal-student-loan borrowers to refinance at today’s low rates! And more.

Speaking of which, if you have not yet been suitably impoverished, please click here.

The markets hit record highs yesterday, triple their post-Bush low. Trump tells us Obama’s been a disaster, our future is bleak — and only he can fix it. Investors around the world, expecting Hillary to win, seem not to agree.

Marissa H.: “I loved your story about the lobby renovation, and I’m so sorry you weren’t able to persuade them — $850,000 is an awful lot of money to update a lobby. Regarding Success Academies, though, I wonder if you could devote at least a little space to some of the criticisms of their approach. Even though Eva Moskowitz denies it, there have been credible reports that part of the secret to their success (undeniable for the children who stay) has been systematic efforts to push out children who can’t meet their rigid behavior standards. A Success Academy representative told Newshour’s John Merrow that 10 children of every 100 who start at Success leave within the first year.  With an attrition rate that high, it’s not really fair to say that because they initially take all comers in a lottery, their results can be compared to the public schools at large.  Beyond that, there’s the question of at what cost this comes. A while back you posted a Moskowitz editorial about a mentor of hers who made a big point of teaching children to track the speaker with their eyes at all times. I think it was meant to be inspiring, but I found it chilling. Yes, teaching children the skills of paying attention and interacting in a mature way is important. But don’t you sometimes look out the window for a moment when you’re thinking something through at a meeting? Should people who do that be forced to stay after school? Success punishes kids when they don’t keep their hands folded. Do you keep your hands folded all day? I’m a pediatrician in academic practice, and I flip my pen like a high school debater in meetings. My colleagues like me anyway.  And how will these students do when they go to college and no longer have someone standing over them telling them exactly what to do every minute?  That’s been an issue with previous high-discipline charters. ‘This American Life’ did a great story about this a while back, comparing the high-discipline schools to ones that emphasize adult-style group problem solving, and my impression after listening to it was that the high-discipline approach didn’t work as well in the very long term as you would think.  I know you’re not a parent, but would you have wanted your nieces or nephews to be sent to schools that enforce these kinds of rigid discipline standards? My (white, middle class) kids are 8 and 12. They go to a Montessori school where the respect between students and teachers is relentlessly bilateral. It violates my sense of fairness to suggest that the best means children from disadvantaged backgrounds have to reach success is something so much less respectful. The Montessori method also has excellent test score data (and improved social skill outcomes, including in randomized lottery situations), but without the forced attrition and the automaton behavior expectations.  I agree emphatically that the status of standard public education in many U.S. districts is a disgrace and that there is a moral imperative for immediate action. And I understand that for many parents the high-discipline approach is a good cultural fit, so I guess they should be free to choose it. But with none of these students having yet graduated and gone to college, I guess I feel like we should curb our enthusiasm and keep our options open for other, more humane approaches.  I’m not necessarily trying to change your mind all the way, but I’d love to see some consideration of these questions in your column.”

☞ For sure.  First, the Success attrition rate is around 10%, as you say, but, I’m told, 13% at regular public schools (many children don’t have permanent homes/families and move a lot) and much higher still in the “co-located” schools with which Success shares a building.  So we’re actually pretty good at retaining kids/families. (Because they want to be there?)  Second, the kids have a very varied day, doing chess, dance, five days per week of experimentally based science where they are not sitting and “tracking” the teacher with their eyes.  Third, they get much more freedom in middle and high school (most of what our critics talk about is kindergarten through fourth grade). Third, I’m told you’re right: there are adjustment issues that come up in Middle and High School (well before college), as a result of the more disciplined elementary-school environment. But we are betting on Success, the kids, and a culture of constant improvement to address those issues. But fourth — and mainly — if you can’t read or do simple math, what will your future be?  Weigh that negative against any others Success critics raise and, well, I think it’s not even close.

There’s been loads of push-back from very smart, hugely well-meaning people (like you) — and Success is all for their coming up with alternatives.  The more great choices parents have for their kids, the better. I think the facts will win in the end — imagine how much stronger the country would be if there were 4,100, not 41, inner-city schools producing these kinds of results, breaking the cycle of poverty for hundreds of thousands of kids each year.

The latest Success Academy report card’s out.  Among the schools’ 4,231 test-takers (61% African-American, 26% Hispanic), 94% passed the New York State math test and 82% passed English — compared with just 36% and 38% city-wide.

Reports Success founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz:

This means that our schools rank in the top 1% of all New York State schools in math and the top 1.5% in English. In fact, all of the state’s top five schools in math are Success Academies, as are two of the top five in English. Our scholars outperformed such affluent suburbs as Scarsdale and many of the city’s selective gifted and talented programs. And I am especially proud of our most vulnerable scholars: 79% of our students with disabilities passed math and 52% passed English (compared with 11% and 9% citywide); 60% of our English Language Learners passed English and 90% passed math (compared with 4% and 13% citywide).the US

In a city where hundreds of thousands of children are trapped in failing schools, our results reflect the determination and hard work of the entire Success community – our faculty and staff, our parents and families, and our steadfast supporters. When our scholars achieve at these high academic levels, we know that they are on the path that leads to all of life’s possibilities. This is what we strive for … every day … and for every child.

I’ve been writing about Success for a long time now. (For example, here and here.) Imagine how much better America will be once there are 4,100 such schools in the country’s most challenged neighborhoods instead of just 41. They cost no more than regular public schools, yet the results are spectacular.  And by breaking the cycle of poverty, will have tremendous “knock-on” effects for generations to come. And will raise income tax revenues while lowering safety net expenditures and criminal justice costs.  I get giddy thinking about this.

On a much (much!) smaller scale, I got word this week that my fourth BuildOn school has been completed, this one in Southern Mali, in the unfortunately named Moron Village.  “Moron” is Bamanakan for . . . oh, look at that: Google Translate doesn’t do Bamanakan.  I’ll get back to you.

The first school structure ever in this village of 2,000, it has three classrooms and two gender-specific latrines; desks, seats, and permanent chalkboards. It broke ground February 23 and was completed on May 13. Students began attending two weeks later.  I have a photo.  They look happy.

Like my other three schools, this one will be named The Allard K. Lowenstein School, with a plaque in English and Bamanakan that reads: “He lived to make the world better.  Now it’s your turn.”  (Al was a friend and inspiration to many, including, obviously, me.)  My four are among the more than 1,000 schools BuildOn has erected in impoverished parts of the world — none more challenging than Mali. “Our work in Mali is extremely difficult,” BuildOn founder Jim Ziolkowski wrote me, “but even more important because of the presence of Al Qaeda.  They have a foothold there but it is shrinking.  Education defeats terrorism every time.”

Because the labor is supplied free by the local villagers — a combined 2,682 volunteer workdays on this latest one — and the schools are small and simple, it costs a donor only about what it costs to build a nice in-ground swimming pool here in the U.S.  As I already have one of those, I face no tough choice — pool? school?  Pool?  School?  How to decide?

But that brings me to Miami Beach, where the news — at least in this regard — is not as good for me as it is in Harlem, with Success Academy, or Moron Village, with the opening of this new school.

BACKGROUND: I have a small condo in a well-run 20-year-old high rise — gorgeous Italian-marble lobby, concierge desk, security fobs for the elevators — my friends, knowing how cheap I am, could not believe it when I first moved in.  (And yes: it has a pool. Who lives like this? I count my blessings quarter-hourly.)

Around comes a notice two winters ago that the board has solicited bids to spiff up the lobby and entryway.

There is nothing wrong with the lobby.

Okay, it looks a little Romanesque — the columns may be more to your grandmother’s liking than to yours — but, hey: it’s a large, gorgeous, spotless, well-functioning space.  Why spend $50,000 or $100,000 to “fix” it?  Was the condo board simply . . . bored?

So I asked around and found out that, no, it wasn’t going to be $50,000 or $100,000 divvied up among us 140 unit-owners — it was going to be $850,000!

And they were going to jackhammer out all that beautiful imported Italian marble!

And replace it with different beautiful imported marble — and fix the columns and in other ways modernize and improve it because, I was told, our real estate values would go up if the lobby and entryway looked better.

I don’t want my real estate values to go up.

Why would I?  I’m not selling; and higher real estate values mean higher property taxes each year.

I had just gotten the report on my previous new school — also in Mali — which like the first two in Nicaragua had cost me $32,000 each (less the value of the tax-deduction).  And so it was the “pool? school?” dilemma all over again, lacking only a synonym for “school” that rhymes with “lobby.”  (A writer’s life is not an easy one.)

I went to the condo board chairman, a wealthy Republican, and suggested that instead of $850,000 to spiff the lobby we build 28 schools instead. Or spend $100,000 to spiff the lobby (surely we could do something nice with $100,000) and  build 25.

After all, I argued (respectfully, buying him an iced tea and hoping, because he told me he had recently given $2 million to his place of worship, he might also want to build a school on his own*), there would be months of inconvenience while the work was being done.

He said, no, it would be swell, and the condo owners had voted for it. (Don’t get me started on how railroaded that was.) And the inconvenience would be minimal.

So — not being entirely surprised — I reverted to Plan B.  I proposed that I be allowed to send each unit holder a note like this:

We’re about to spend $850,000 to modernize our entry.

It’s going to be beautiful!

But as I posted on the bulletin board before the vote, for the same money we could build 28 schools in poor countries and change the lives of tens of thousands of children — and thus THEIR children’s children, as well.

So let’s do both!

Imagine knowing, every time we entered the building, that by matching our assessment with an equal contribution to BuildOn, we’d improved so many lives.  A beautiful new lobby and 28 new schools,

Realistically, not everyone will choose to chip in.  I get that.  Then again, some may choose to do even more!  And if we only raise enough to build a dozen schools instead of 28?  Pretty awesome, too.

So WHATEVER you can afford to contribute will have high impact: all the labor is local volunteer from the community itself.

Thanks in advance for your (tax-deductible!) generosity.

Your Enthusiastic Neighbor

He said no.

The good news is that after nearly a year of demolition and delayed marble delivery and the disabled security system and no lobby at all — just a narrow passageway bounded by plywood that’s been depressing and inconvenient and really kind of awful for a year — it’s almost done!  So for someone living in the building for 10 years, only 10% of it was a living hell (lobby-wise) in order to spend $850,000 to spiff it up.

I called a friend in the building just now to ask how it was looking.  “It’s okay,” he said. “Kind of Trumpian, with lots of shininess.  It looks as though it should be done this fall.”

Moron Village, indeed.

*He did not.

This short video will inspire the sighted — what a time to be alive! — and could really improve the lives of the blind.  The Orcam is not completely cheap — $2,500 or $3,500 — but, for those who need it, would seem to be a bargain.

Policy is not, at this stage, what people are concerned about with Trump — he is, as so many Republicans have said or signaled, simply unfit to be President. But I can’t resist pointing out Trump’s triply offensive promise Monday to eliminate the estate tax: “No family will have to pay the death tax. American workers have paid taxes their whole lives. It’s just plain wrong and most people agree with that. We will repeal it.”

First off, it’s grossly misleading — basically a lie.  A scare tactic.  Right now, no family has to pay the tax — 99.8% of estates, or some number like that, escape any taxation.  The two-tenths of a per cent that do is essentially a rounding error.  And it’s a rounding error that does not apply to “American workers,” none of whom, by the common understanding of “workers,” earns enough to amass an estate of more than $5.4 million.  And it’s only to the extent one’s (or one’s and one’s spouse’s) estate exceeds $5.4 million (or $10.8 million (with a simple by-pass trust) that even a dime of estate tax is due.  So it’s just bogus. And that’s offensive.

Second, the people within that tiny rounding error it would most benefit are billionheirs — like the Trumps* — who already arguably have it better than they should, given the way Republicans have swung the pendulum ever further in favor of the ultra-wealthy these past 35 years.  And that’s offensive.

Finally, it’s just bad policy, both morally and in terms of economic productivity. As explained here, for example. And would hurt all the nonprofit organizations that rely in part on bequests.**  Offense #3.

*Although I suspect they’re mere millionheirs, all his bragging notwithstanding.

**With the estate tax deduction for charitable gifts gone, the after-tax cost of giving would double. And when you double the cost of doing something, people do less of it.

Fifty top Republican security experts — including Bush’s CIA Director and Homeland Security chief — say that Trump would be “the most reckless President in American history” and have publicly declared that none of them will vote for him.

You have to read their letter.

You have to send it — respectfully — to anyone you know still in Trump’s camp.

And gently point out that there is no equivalent letter on the other side. No 50 — or 5, or so far as I know even 1 — top Democratic security expert who’s crossed the aisle to issue some similarly dire warning about Hillary.

Yes, there was a snarling Rudy Giuliani on ABC’s “This Week” this past Sunday morning to support Trump as being completely fit to be Commander-in-Chief.  But he is the same Rudolph Giuliani who appointed Bernard Kerik to head New York’s police department and supported his appointment to head the Department of Homeland Security.  (The appointment was withdrawn and Mr. Kerik served three years in prison.)  The same Rudolph Giuliani who overrode expert objections to site New York’s emergency command center in the World Trade Center. (It was destroyed two years later in the attack.)

Certainly there are some good things to say about Giuliani (and Kerik). But I find the logic of those 50 Republican security experts far more compelling than the vitriol Mr. Giuliani offered on “This Week.” (Benghazi — again?  Despite all the Republican-led investigations that found nothing? The emails, again?  Secretary Clinton agrees there were errors in judgment; but it’s not the nightmare the Republicans would have you believe —click here.)

Read the letter. It is compelling — and chilling.

And can I say one more thing?

The stock market sits at a record high. And what is the stock market, after all, but a barometer of investor expectations for the future.  Trump tells us Obama is the worst president in history, that unemployment (4.9%) is off-the-charts high (42%) . . . and on and on. (Our military is a disaster; we have stupid, stupid leaders; his steaks and airline and university were enormous successes.)  But the stock market — which presumably expects Trump to lose — is triple its post-Bus low and seems to expect a bright future.

Our Founding Fathers were really well-educated, serious men: eloquent, thoughtful, and courteous. (“Your obedient servant,” and all that.)  George H.W., Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al and Tipper Gore, Mitt Romney, Mike Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, former Bush CIA chief Michael Hayden, Michelle and Barack Obama — these are serious, well-educated, courteous, immensely talented people.  Can you imagine any of them doing this?

The stock market seems to think we will not elect him.  Fifty patriotic Republicans hope the stock market is right.

Read the letter.