Author: A.T.

Only those three in 156 years.

The Atlantic:

Hillary Rodham Clinton . . . is among the most prepared candidates ever to seek the presidency. We are confident that she understands the role of the United States in the world; we have no doubt that she will apply herself assiduously to the problems confronting this country; and she has demonstrated an aptitude for analysis and hard work.

Donald Trump, on the other hand . . . traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.

. . .

In its founding statement, The Atlantic promised that it would be “the organ of no party or clique,” and our interest here is not to advance the prospects of the Democratic Party, nor to damage those of the Republican Party. If Hillary Clinton were facing Mitt Romney, or John McCain, or George W. Bush, or, for that matter, any of the leading candidates Trump vanquished in the Republican primaries, we would not have contemplated making this endorsement. We believe in American democracy, in which individuals from various parties of different ideological stripes can advance their ideas and compete for the affection of voters. But Trump is not a man of ideas. He is a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office, and voters—the statesmen and thinkers of the ballot box—should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent.

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

Start with Michael Chertoff:  Clinton’s Former Prosecutor Endorses Her for President.  In any sane world, it is thoughts like his, not those of Scott Baio or the guy from Duck Dynasty, that would carry the most weight.

Next up, Bill Clinton: “Look, the Affordable Health Care Act did a world of good,” said Bill Clinton.  It has helped tens of millions of Americans — very possibly including you, because you and your loved ones can no longer be denied coverage for having, or one day developing, a pre-existing condition.  “The fifty-something efforts that the Republicans made to repeal it were a terrible mistake.” Yet for some hardworking folks, it’s proved a real burden — and, given the law’s good intentions, that’s “the craziest thing in the world.”  We need to fix it; Hillary agrees; and if the Republicans don’t make it impossible, she will. Watch the whole clip.

And now, columnist Ezra Klein, writing here, in Vox:

The past 6 days proved Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for the presidency
The lesson of the Machado saga: America’s enemies would find Trump predictable and easy to control.

Updated by Ezra Klein Oct 1, 2016, 10:30a

The past six days proved Donald Trump is dangerously unfit for the presidency.

The problem isn’t that Trump is cruel, though he is. The problem isn’t that Trump is boorish, though he is. The problem isn’t that Trump is undisciplined, though he is.

The problem is that Trump is predictable and controllable.

Through most of this election, those would be the last two words anyone would associate with Donald J. Trump. His brand is impulsivity. The central fact of his political style is that staff can’t control his actions. Who else would launch a presidential campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and murderers? Who else would accuse an opponent’s father of being involved in JFK’s assassination? Who else would humiliate their running mate before introducing him? Who else would tweet schoolyard insults at his challengers and retweet white supremacists praising his virtues?
Over the past six days, Hillary Clinton’s campaign revealed that this is a misreading of Donald Trump. His behavior, though unusual, is quite predictable — a fact the Clinton campaign proved by predicting it. His actions, though beyond the control of his allies, can be controlled by his enemies — a fact the Clinton campaign proved by controlling them.

So far, this has played out, within the safe space of a presidential campaign, as farce. If Trump were to win the White House, it would play out as tragedy.

It’s worth revisiting the Alicia Machado saga from this perspective. What stands out, in retrospect, is how contrived the whole operation was, how transparently Hillary Clinton set the trap in the final moments of the presidential debate.

HOLT: We are at — we are at the final question.

CLINTON: Well, one thing. One thing, Lester.

HOLT: Very quickly, because we’re at the final question now.

CLINTON: You know, he tried to switch from looks to stamina. But this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said…

TRUMP: I never said that.

CLINTON: …women don’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men.

TRUMP: I didn’t say that.

CLINTON: And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman “Miss Piggy.” Then he called her “Miss Housekeeping,” because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.

TRUMP: Where did you find this? Where did you find this?

CLINTON: Her name is Alicia Machado.

TRUMP: Where did you find this?

CLINTON: And she has become a US citizen, and you can bet…

TRUMP: Oh, really?

CLINTON: …she’s going to vote this November.

Donald Trump can be forgiven for being caught off-guard in the moment. His presidency-disqualifying sin came in the hours after the debate. The Clinton campaign released a slickly produced video featuring Machado. The Guardian and Cosmopolitan rushed pre-planned Machado profiles to publication. Hillary Clinton did everything but spray paint “THIS IS A TRAP” on the side of Trump Tower.

And still Trump fell for it. And fell for it. And fell for it. Six days later, he’s still falling for it.

There was nothing ingenious about Clinton’s scheme. If anything, it was a bit like her satisfied delivery of “Trumped-up trickle-down economics” — too clever by half, too obviously planned by whole. All Trump had to do was nothing. Or to say: “Hillary Clinton wants to talk about beauty pageants rather than her 30-year record of corruption and failure.”

Seriously. That was it.

. . .

And then [he] tweeted this:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?
5:30 AM – 30 Sep 2016
14,490 14,490 Retweets 34,246 34,246 likes
“Check out sex tape and past,” tweeted the man who wants to be the next president of the United States of America at 5:30 am.

We’re now six days beyond the debate. And Trump is still finding new ways to spring and re-spring Clinton’s trap on himself. On Friday, he told the New York Times that, in response to the Clinton campaign bringing up Machado, he would begin attacking Hillary Clinton for being “married to the single greatest abuser of women in the history of politics” — thus launching the line of assault likeliest to engender sympathy for Hillary Clinton, and opening his checkered marital history to public scrutiny.

“She’s nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be,” is a thing Trump actually said, aloud, to reporters, in an interview meant to help his campaign.

To appreciate just how self-destructive this strategy is, read the third paragraph of the Times story:

In an interview with The New York Times, he also contended that infidelity was “never a problem” during his three marriages, though his first ended in an ugly divorce after Mr. Trump began a relationship with the woman who became his second wife.

There is a part of me that believes the entire Alicia Machado trap was a long con to bait Trump into berating Clinton for her husband’s infidelities at the second debate, and making his past marital betrayals fair game for the press.

What is extraordinary in all this is how enthusiastically Trump has taken the Clinton campaign’s bait, and how unconcerned he’s been with the fact that they meticulously planned all this in advance to damage him. It is almost not fair to call what the Clinton campaign created a trap. They publicly, explicitly, and warmly invited him to participate in their campaign strategy, and he accepted their invitation, because the satisfaction he receives from settling old scores and venting his rage is greater than the satisfaction he receives from leading in national opinion polls.

In the context of a presidential campaign, all this is amusing. It will make a wonderful chapter in the next edition of Game Change. But imagine that this wasn’t a presidential campaign. Imagine it was the Trump presidency. And imagine it wasn’t Hillary Clinton trying to bait Trump into attacking Alicia Machado, but ISIS trying to bait Trump into attacking Iraq, or Vladimir Putin trying to bait Trump into breaking with NATO, or Angela Merkel trying to bait Trump into isolating the United States before a key vote at the United Nations, or China trying to bait Trump into giving them an excuse to assert their claim over Taiwan.

We have all known, abstractly, that this is a possibility. That Trump is easily baited has been on display since he began running for president. That America’s enemies would construct detailed psychological profiles of him and launch sophisticated plans to take advantage of his weaknesses is obvious. But the expectation was that he would have staff around him — his National Security adviser, his chief of staff — who would explain that the latest provocation is a trap, and who would remind Trump of the importance of avoiding it.

But that’s why the Machado affair has been so enlightening. In this case, Hillary Clinton’s campaign explained that they were setting a trap. The media explained that Clinton’s campaign was setting a trap. And all of Trump’s staff and advisers undoubtedly explained that Trump’s enemies were setting a trap.

Trump didn’t listen, or perhaps he didn’t care. He sprung the trap anyway. He is more passionate about proving his dominance and humiliating his perceived foes than about following his strategy. As unpredictable and uncontrollable as he is to his allies, he is exactly that predictable and controllable to his enemies, and to America’s enemies.

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

. . . who writes in the New York Times:

The Trump Possibility

Donald Trump is a thug. He’s a thug who talks gibberish, and lies, and cheats, and has issues, to put it mildly, with women. He’s lazy and limited and he has an attention span of a nanosecond. He’s a “gene believer” who thinks he has “great genes” and considers the German blood, of which he is proud, “great stuff.” Mexicans and Muslims, by contrast, don’t make the cut.

He’s managed to bring penis size and menstrual cycles and the eating habits of a former Miss Universe into the debate for the highest office in the land. He’s mocked and mimicked the handicapped and the pneumonia-induced malaise of Hillary Clinton. His intellectual interests would not fill a safe-deposit box at Trump Tower. There’s more ingenuity to his hairstyle than any of his rambling pronouncements. His political hero is Vladimir Putin, who has perfected what John le Carré once called the “classic, timeless, all-Russian, bare-faced whopping lie.”

This is a man who likes to strut and gloat. He’s such a great businessman he declared a loss of $916 million on his 1995 tax return, a loss so huge the tax software program used by his accountant choked at the amount, which had to be added manually. His cohorts, including the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, reckon this makes Trump a “genius” because he could offset the loss [a loss likely suffered mostly by his investors, not himself — A.T.] against many millions of dollars of income for years afterward and perhaps pay not a dime in taxes. All of which did a lot of good for the United States of America and all the working stiffs who did not know that losing about a billion dollars is a financial masterstroke.

And this man, with the support of tens of millions of Americans, is a hairbreadth from the Oval Office.

I am shocked — yes, shocked! — Trump’s burbling about the Iran nuclear deal in the first presidential debate has received little attention. He called it “the worst deal I think I’ve ever seen negotiated,” before suggesting “Iran has power over North Korea” and should use it, before saying Iran had been given $400 million and then $1.7 billion and then $150 billion, as well as saying, “this is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history!”

Of course, Trump has no idea what is in the agreement, since that would require reading it, and so he would not have an inkling that it has slashed and ring-fenced Iran’s nuclear capacity until 2030, reversing the Islamic Republic’s steady accumulation of centrifuges, and has also opened the way for Boeing to sell Iran 80 commercial passenger aircraft — just the sort of job-creating deal Trump professes to like.

And this man, whose meanness and petulance and childlike inadequacies have been on display for more than a year now, may become president next month.

How is this possible? 

It is possible because spectacle and politics have merged and people no longer know fact from fiction or care about the distinction. 

It is possible because fear has entered people’s lives and that fear is easily manipulated. 

It is possible because technology has created anxiety-multipliers such as have never been known before. 

It is possible because America is a country living with the dim dissatisfaction of two wars without victory and the untold trillions spent on them. 

It is possible because a very large number of people want to give the finger to the elites who brought the crash of 2008 and rigged the global system and granted themselves impunity. 

It is possible because of growing inequality and existential dread, especially among the white losers from globalization who know minorities will be the majority in the United States by midcentury. 

It is possible because both major parties have abandoned the working class. 

It is possible because a lot of Americans feel the incumbent in the White House has undersold the United States, diminished its distinctive and exceptional nature, talked down its power, and so diluted its greatness and abdicated its responsibility for the well-being of the free world. 

It is possible because the identity politics embraced by urban, cosmopolitan liberals have provoked an inevitable backlash among those who think white lives matter, too. 

It is possible because Trump speaks to the basest but also some of the most ineradicable traits of human beings — their capacity for mob anger, their racist resentments, their cruelty, their lust, their search for scapegoats, their insecurities — and promises a miraculous makeover. 

It is possible because the Clinton family has been in the White House and cozy with the rich and close to the summit of a discredited political establishment for a quarter-century now and, to people who want change or bridle at dynastic privilege, that makes Hillary Clinton an unattractive candidate. 

It is possible because history demonstrates there is no limit to human folly or the dimensions of the disasters humanity can bring on itself.

Yes, it is possible. 

There is still time to stop a man who keeps stooping lower. That time is now.  

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

Ask your Trump-leaning friend to listen to Mike Morell:

I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton

During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties — three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

I am neither a registered Democrat nor a registered Republican. In my 40 years of voting, I have pulled the lever for candidates of both parties. As a government official, I have always been silent about my preference for president.

No longer. On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton. Between now and then, I will do everything I can to ensure that she is elected as our 45th president.

Two strongly held beliefs have brought me to this decision. First, Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president — keeping our nation safe. Second, Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security. . . .

[HIS POWERFUL ARGUMENT CONCLUDES:]

My training as an intelligence officer taught me to call it as I see it. This is what I did for the C.I.A. This is what I am doing now. Our nation will be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president.

Your Trump-leaning friend will not find former CIA directors taking the other side of the argument — endorsing Trump. There is no other side to the argument.

Likewise, the extraordinary Clinton endorsements by the Dallas Morning News, the Cincinnati Enquirer — papers that had never before in my lifetime endorsed a Democrat for president.

And now the Arizona Republic, which hasn’t done so since its founding in 1890.

(And the Detroit News, failing to endorse a Republican for the first time since its founding in 1873, calling Trump, “unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous — he can not be president” and endorsing instead the guy who didn’t know what Aleppo was.)

This is not a trivial thing for these newspapers to do — not least because their Republican owners knew it would cost them subscribers (as it has) at a time when their industry is struggling.

As for your friends who can’t abide Trump but plan to vote for Johnson or Stein (or stay home), refer them to the New York Times endorsement, which aims “to persuade those of you who are hesitating to vote for Mrs. Clinton.”

If they’re millennials, ask them if it isn’t worth voting “D” to be able to refinance their federal student loans at today’s low rates — something the “R’s” have blocked?

Yes there’s lots broken in Washington your friends are right to want to shake up.  But “a pox on both their houses” is the wrong prescription and does not fit the facts.

The facts are that, for all our flaws, Democrats have been willing to compromise; Tea Party Republicans have prided themselves on not being willing to — on blocking the American Jobs Act that would have put millions to work revitalizing our infrastructure and boosted our economy with jobs that can’t be outsourced; on blocking the minimum wage hike that economists agree would have reduced inequality (and welfare payments) while boosting the economy for everyone else; on blocking the comprehensive immigration reform the Senate passed 68-32 and that economists also agree would have boosted the economy.

The facts are that during the last Clinton Administration, 23 million new jobs were created, as prosperity increased for people at every income level; the budget deficit was turned into a surplus; and American lives were not lost at war.

The facts are that during the Obama administration, we’ve had 78 months of private-sector job growth (15 million more net new private-sector jobs, versus fewer than one million in the past 12 Republican years combined); the Bush deficit has been cut two-thirds so that our National Debt is once again growing slower than the economy as a whole; median household income is finally rising again, up $2,798 last year; and the body count of American soldiers is no longer nightly news.

So it’s not equivalent. If you’re going to throw poxes around, please don’t throw them on both houses; just one.

We need to win by a landslide: to reassure the world we’ve not gone nuts; to take the wind out of the sails of conspiracy theorists Trump has already primed to think his loss could only have been “rigged”; and to win back Congress so we can do the obvious things most Americans want us to do to shift the economy into high gear: most importantly, those mentioned above.

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

So much to offer you this week.

Did you know the role drugs played in Hitler’s madness and in the boundless energy of his troops?  How did it take so long for this to come out?  Read it here: “High Hitler.”  It seems to be for real.

Have you seen the super-callous-fragile-egocentric-braggadocious clip?  Three minutes.  Hard not to smile once the singing starts, though it’s not entirely fair to Trump.  For fairness, look to the Republican-owned newspapers coming out against him.

Trump is driving those papers crazy — as saucily argued here in Salon — to the point, in some instances, of their endorsing the guy who doesn’t know what Aleppo is and can’t name a single foreign leader. (In all of America, the only newspaper of any appreciable circulation thus far to endorse Trump in the general election — the only one! — is the National Enquirer.  The paper that revealed Justice Scalia was murdered by a hooker hired by the CIA.)

Then there’s this . . . definitely-not-for-use-in-persuading-the-undecided or for sharing with the easily offended.  But fun.  And worth it for the tag-line alone:  HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON.  Doing the —-ing homework since 1947.

The choice is so clear, it’s maddening.  Here’s how Al Franken frames it. Three minutes suitable for sharing with anyone.

[$$$ Oh!  And if you own BOREF, there’s last week’s WheelTug webinar that I watched live with viewers from 56 countries.  An hour may be way more than you want to commit to this, but the company soldiers on. $$$]

Trump keeps saying he brought his newest hotel in ahead of schedule and under budget, which is nice.  But who set the budget and the schedule?  (I budgeted $20 and an hour for lunch yesterday and am proud to report — not to be braggadocious, but because it makes the point — I had a $6 sandwich at my desk.)  And how did he come in under budget?  By sourcing his materials from Mexico and China?  By short-changing the Americans who did the work?

He’s currently keeping veterans groups from more than $6 million they could sorely use — $10,000 of it, mine — they would get if he would just release his tax returns. And there is zero, zero, zero reason why he “can’t.”  Listen to real estate accountant Andy Walsh:

In case you are one of the many people who have told me that truthfulness is a key deciding factor for them in this election, I thought I would try to add a little insight to the lies Mr. Trump continues to tell regarding his tax returns. Everyone by now probably knows his oft-repeated lie about being under audit, but there is more to the story. This is an area I know more than a little about; I’ve been a CPA for 35 years and spent part of my career conducting financial audits of large real estate syndicates.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I think it is necessary. Mr. Trump is betting that nobody will take the time to try to understand this so that he can get away with such shameless lies. Given that I’ve seen few news stories exploring this in even the barest detail (it only requires a call to any accountant), he’s probably right. He’s counting on the press and us being lazy.

First, when he says his recent tax returns are under audit, it is reasonable that most people would assume that he is referring to his 2015 returns. The truth is that he probably has not yet filed his 2015 personal federal income tax return. Unlike most working people, who would have filed their 2015 return by April 15, 2016, those who are wealthy or self-employed (or both) file for an automatic extension to October 15. Someone with a return as complex as Mr. Trump’s would certainly have done so. Therefore is it most likely that his 2015 return has only recently been filed or will be filed in the next couple of weeks.

So his most recent tax return would have been for 2014, which would have been filed in October 2015. Mr. Trump started saying during the primary season (that is, this past spring) that his returns were under “routine audit.” However, there is no such thing as a “routine audit.” When the IRS does select a return for examination, it does so at least a couple of years after the return is filed, usually longer. There is no way that Mr. Trump would have been notified of an audit of his 2014 return by now, much less last spring. The IRS simply is not that fast or efficient. So to claim that his 2014 return is under audit is a blatant lie.

I’ve read several stories in which Mr. Trump’s son states that Mr. Trump’s return is 12,000 pages long, suggesting that it is too complex for the public to comprehend. I am certain that Mr. Trump’s return is complex, given the nature of his business, but the 12,000 page number is either a gross exaggeration or (most charitably) an obfuscation. He may be referring to the combined returns of the 500+ legal entities that make up the Trump empire (again, without seeing his return we have no way to verify that number). Every real estate syndicate I’ve worked with is comprised of a collection of separate companies, one for each property owned. That makes it easier to attract other investors and bank financing, and to compartmentalize legal liability (so that a lawsuit against one property cannot affect another holding). Each of those entities is almost always set up as a partnership or limited liability corporation, a form of ownership where the entity files a tax return, but the tax effects accrue to its owners. This allows the owners to minimize their legal liability while taking advantage of the many tax benefits of owning real estate. That may offend some of you, but our tax code allows it.

So the 12,000 number may refer to the combined returns of all of Mr. Trump’s holdings. However, that number is irrelevant to the question at hand. Here’s why: when each of those entities files its return it must provide to each partner or shareholder a one-page summary of that partner’s share of the earnings or loss of the partnership (Form K-1). Mr. Trump’s personal return (which is what is relevant to be shared) would simply include one K-1 for each of his properties, which are then totaled and summarized on line 17 of his Form 1040 (look at your most recent return and you will see what I mean). I’m simplifying a little here for clarity, but not much. So Mr. Trump’s personal return may run to 1,000 pages, but more than half of those pages are likely K-1s, so it should be easily comprehended by anyone willing to invest a little time. This would allow the public to see in what and where he is invested, what charities he funds and how much, and what he pays in personal state and federal income taxes. He doesn’t want us to see any of that, which should be a red flag to any voter.

If, by some extremely rare circumstance, his 2014 return is under audit, it would be a simple matter to prove. The IRS does not knock on your door when it wants to examine your return, it sends you a written notice of their intent to perform an audit. It would be a simple matter for Mr. Trump to produce a redacted copy of such notification, if it exists. Several news organizations have requested that letter, but the Trump campaign has not produced it. I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut that is because there is no such letter.

Sec. Clinton’s personal life and long record of her time in office has been scrutinized heavily by a partisan congress and the press for decades. Doesn’t Mr. Trump’s financial and business prowess (his primary claim of qualification to be president) deserve even the barest scrutiny of looking at his taxes? Of course it does; to argue otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

Finally, I recommend Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Ultimate Exit Interview” for context as we prepare to choose our next President. Will we choose a deeply thoughtful, steady president, like Barack Obama (or Bill Clinton) . . . who’s even better prepared than were they?

Or will we just throw all the cards into the air in a tantrum of understandable frustration over Washington’s exceptional dysfunction . . . never mind the fact that the dysfunction is not symmetrical, as I’ve argued many times before (if you think both sides are equally to blame, I’d be deeply grateful for your clicking that link to see whether my argument makes sense to you) . . . and chose “a national disgrace,” as Colin Powell calls him?

We are at 1933-style inflection point for mankind.

Having inherited the happy gene, I have high hopes it will turn out right.

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

Have a great week.

As I write this, Monday afternoon, I still haven’t seen the debate. Oil might have been discovered on Mars and I wouldn’t know it.

Yet, as I noted yesterday, however the debate performances were judged — won, lost, or tied — Hillary should be our president.

Here, to buttress that view, a handy guide: How to Be Enthusiastically and Completely Pro-Hillary, by self-styled business nerd Tony [Stubblebine. (Thank you, Patti.)

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

And do one more thing.

Ask every apathetic or disgusted millennial you know:

Do you want a Court for the next 30 years tilted even more in favor of corporations, the rich, and powerful?  (As this one gutted the Voting Rights Act, even as it blew the lid off money in politics.)  Or a Court tilted toward the rest of us?

Is it not worth a couple of hours now to avoid 30 years’ outrage over decisions you hate — like Citizen’s United — that could all have gone the other way, if only you’d exercised your right to vote?

I’m writing this some hours before the debate but setting it to post just as it concludes.

Did you watch?

How’d we do?

Ideally, Hillary was amazing, funny, and warm — as she is in real life.

Undoubtedly, Donald was grossly unprepared to lead the world — as he is in real life.

But if not?

If she seemed, say, to tire more than he?

We shouldn’t pick a president based on who can do the most push-ups.

If the pneumonia’s lingered, and she had a coughing spell?

Who cares?  If for some reason Hillary ever did have to step aside — which I certainly don’t expect (the woman is indomitable) — we’d still be in far steadier, more competent hands with Tim Kaine than Donald Trump.

If she wasn’t the candidate you’d prefer to have a beer with?

Is that how you’d choose a surgeon to operate on your child or a manager for your retirement fund?  Is the President’s job less consequential or complex?

George W. Bush would be great to have a beer with . . .

(Did I ever tell you about the time I met him?   “I think you knew my friend XXXXXXX at Yale?” I volunteered, referring to his classmate who’d been — or thought he’d been — a close chum. “Well,” Bush shot back with a grin, not wanting to hurt feelings — “was he drunk for four years? I might ‘a.”)

. . . but he was a horrible president, ignoring warnings about Bin Laden from the start . . . embarking on a disastrous war . . . turning an inherited budget surplus into tax cuts for the rich and a $1.5 trillion deficit . . . giving us the Court that gutted the Voting Rights Act and blew the lid off political contributions.

So the beer test is over-rated.

(And by the way?  Speaking of that disastrous war?  Hillary voted to authorize it, to give Bush the negotiating stick he sought, taking him at his word to use it only as “a last resort.” A stick I don’t believe for a minute she would have used in this circumstance had she been President — let alone purely on the strength of a lone intelligence source code-named Curveball.  Nor do I believe for a minute the agenda of her first National Security Council meeting, long before 9/11, would have been, as his was, invading Iraq.  So this notion that she “was for the war,” is a crock.)

Over-rated, also, it should be said: the question of “who won” the debate.  We’re not electing a debater, we’re electing a president.

As I write this, the debate has not taken place.

But however it went, Hillary should be our next President.

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

If you liked Hamilton, you’ll love Spamilton — in a little walk-up above a Turkish restaurant. The Times raves. The Tribune raves. “I laughed my brains out” — Lin-Manuel Miranda*

From the heartland:

. . . The [Cincinnati] Enquirer has supported Republicans for president for almost a century – a tradition this editorial board doesn’t take lightly. But this is not a traditional race, and these are not traditional times. Our country needs calm, thoughtful leadership to deal with the challenges we face at home and abroad. We need a leader who will bring out the best in all Americans, not the worst.  That’s why there is only one choice when we elect a president in November: Hillary Clinton.

Clinton is a known commodity with a proven track record of governing. As senator of New York, she earned respect in Congress by working across the aisle and crafting bills with conservative lawmakers. She helped 9/11 first responders get the care they needed after suffering health effects from their time at Ground Zero, and helped expand health care and family leave for military families. Clinton has spent more than 40 years fighting for women’s and children’s rights. As first lady, she unsuccessfully fought for universal health care but helped to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program that provides health care to more than 8 million kids today. She has been a proponent of closing the gender wage gap and has stood up for LGBT rights domestically and internationally, including advocating for marriage equality.

Trump is a clear and present danger to our country. He has no history of governance that should engender any confidence from voters. Trump has no foreign policy experience, and the fact that he doesn’t recognize it – instead insisting that, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do” – is even more troubling. His wild threats to blow Iranian ships out of the water if they make rude gestures at U.S. ships is just the type of reckless, cowboy diplomacy Americans should fear from a Trump presidency. Clinton has been criticized as being hawkish but has shown a measured approach to the world’s problems. Do we really want someone in charge of our military and nuclear codes who has an impulse control problem? The fact that so many top military and national security officials are not supporting Trump speaks volumes.

Clinton, meanwhile, was a competent secretary of state, with far stronger diplomatic skills than she gets credit for. . . .

We have our issues with Clinton. Her reluctance to acknowledge her poor judgment in using a private email server and mishandling classified information is troubling. So is her lack of transparency. We were critical of her 275-day streak without a press conference, which just ended this month. And she should have removed herself from or restructured the Clinton Foundation after allegations arose that foreign entities were trading monetary donations for political influence and special access.

But our reservations about Clinton pale in comparison to our fears about Trump.

This editorial board has been consistent in its criticism of his policies and temperament beginning with the Republican primary. We’ve condemned his childish insults; offensive remarks to women, Hispanics and African-Americans; and the way he has played on many Americans’ fears and prejudices to further himself politically. Trump brands himself as an outsider untainted by special interests, but we see a man utterly corrupted by self-interest. His narcissistic bid for the presidency is more about making himself great than America. Trump tears our country and many of its people down with his words so that he can build himself up. What else are we left to believe about a man who tells the American public that he alone can fix what ails us?

While Clinton has been relentlessly challenged about her honesty, Trump was the primary propagator of arguably the biggest lie of the past eight years: that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Trump has played fast and loose with the support of white supremacist groups. He has praised some of our country’s most dangerous enemies – see Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Saddam Hussein – while insulting a sitting president, our military generals, a Gold Star family and prisoners of war like Sen. John McCain. Of late, Trump has toned down his divisive rhetoric, sticking to carefully constructed scripts and teleprompters. But going two weeks without saying something misogynistic, racist or xenophobic is hardly a qualification for the most important job in the world. Why should anyone believe that a Trump presidency would look markedly different from his offensive, erratic, stance-shifting presidential campaign?

Some believe Trump’s business acumen would make him the better choice to move America’s slow recovery into a full stride. It’s true that he has created jobs, but he also has sent many overseas and left a trail of unpaid contractors in his wake. His refusal to release his tax returns draws into question both Trump’s true income and whether he is paying his fair share of taxes. Even if you consider Trump a successful businessman, running a government is not the same as being the CEO of a company. The United States cannot file bankruptcy to avoid paying its debts.

Trump’s rise through a crowded Republican primary field as well as Sanders’ impressive challenge on the Democratic side make clear that the American people yearn for a change in our current state of politics. However, our country needs to seek thoughtful change, not just change for the sake of change. Four years is plenty of time to do enough damage that it could take America years to recover from, if at all.

In these uncertain times, America needs a brave leader, not bravado. Real solutions, not paper-thin promises. A clear eye toward the future, not a cynical appeal to the good old days.

Hillary Clinton has her faults, certainly, but she has spent a lifetime working to improve the lives of Americans both inside and outside of Washington. It’s time to elect the first female U.S. president – not because she’s a woman, but because she’s hands-down the most qualified choice.

To be fair and balanced, I hereby present all the editorials from traditionally liberal-leaning papers that have endorsed Trump.

There being none, I now bend over backwards for balance and present all the editorials from any newspaper to endorse Trump!

There are sort of none of those either.

Yes, the New York Observer and New York Post did endorse him during the primary. But the Observer is owned by Trump’s son-in-law; and this week it shared an op-ed titled, “Trump’s Brand of Ugly Will Be the Ruin of Our Country.”

Let’s cut to the chase [it begins]: Donald Trump is a liar. He doesn’t stretch the truth, misspeak, shoot from the hip, tell it like it is, refreshingly unvarnish or have his own version. He lies. He has no relationship to the truth. Truth should be important. His campaign is built on lies. His proposition is a series of lies. Americans should have a problem with that.

Each and every one of Trump’s surrogates are liars—morally vapid validators, town criers doing the dirty work of the village idiot. I don’t care how poised, slick or sleek some acting coach’s version of sophisticated they are. They push his lies in an attempt to normalize his message and persona, using the fascist technique of repetition equals truth.

Nowhere was this more visible than across the Sunday shows last weekend, during which Christie, Conway and Pence fanned out to do Trump’s bidding, magnifying his racist lies and capping off a five-year crusade to delegitimize our first black president. How embarrassing for them. How sick for us. . . .

The New York Post, meanwhile, predicated its April endorsement on the expectation Trump would pivot if he won the primary.  Maybe they will decide he has and endorse Trump over Clinton, as they endorsed him over Cruz, Carson, Christie and crew.  But so far: no.

Nor is the Cincinnati Enquirer alone in its man-bites-dog break with the Republican Party. The Dallas Morning News had also not endorsed a Democrat in forever — more than three quarters of a century — yet opines: “There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November. We recommend Hillary Clinton.”

Yes, Ted Cruz now finally endorses Trump (having previously called him “a pathological liar,” “a sniveling coward,” “a bully,” “a narcissist,” and “utterly amoral”) but some prominent Republicans, like President George H. W. Bush, are voting for Hillary.

So why is this not a rout?

It’s that a lot of people — justifiably furious with Washington’s dysfunction — don’t see that that dysfunction is largely by Republican design — Mitch McConnell made Obama’s failure his top priority — and stems largely, as well, from the Tea Party’s proud refusal to compromise.

It’s also that a lot of people don’t trust Hillary.

Carlos Granados: “Don’t people realize the reason they don’t trust Hillary is the same reason they doubt Obama was born in the U.S.?  Lee Atwater, Karl Rove’s mentor, admitted a long time ago that his strategy for destroying opponents was to plant so many lies over a long period that the uninformed will begin to suspect there must be some truth to them.  Think how this strategy worked to beat Gore and Swift Boat Kerry.  Trump is master of this type of con. Yet Hillary is the one not to trust? Come on!”

Not to say she is perfect. But perfect is a high bar for most of us to meet.

Enjoy the debate tomorrow. Focus on who would make the wisest, steadiest, most competent leader of the free world.

*I own a little piece of Spamilton.

In 2005, I attended the opening session of the first Clinton Global Initiative.

Wednesday, I attended the closing session of the last.

So much good has been catalyzed by CGI in those intervening years — more than 3,600 “commitments” saving and improving hundreds of millions of lives.

Yet in today’s bizarro world, a sentiment like this . . .

“I have been a proud member of CGI since 2005. I have witnessed its unique practical and measurable contributions in the world, the opportunities it created for marginalized voices to be heard and how it helped push social issues otherwise ignored into the limelight,” said Zainab Salbi, the founder of Women for Women International, at a panel earlier this week. ​“This may be the last annual meeting, but the work and the spirit of President Clinton’s vision and the CGI committed community will live on forever.”

. . . gets spun by Clinton foes into this . . .

“The Clinton Foundation is at its heart a corrupt enterprise that masks its true mission of empowering and enriching the Clintons and their cronies . . . ” said Steven Cheung, director of rapid response for the Trump campaign.

My friend Dan Gelber’s recent post on the criticism:

It’s Neither Pay Nor Play

As Republican leaders scream for public executions and trials (in evidently that order) over the Clinton Foundation fundraising, it might make sense to take a step back for some much needed perspective. As a former federal corruption prosecutor, I can assure you the only thing noticeably absent from this fabricated “pay to play” scandal is the pay and the play. It does have, however, hypocrisy and irony aplenty.
A few things about the Clinton Foundation.

The Clinton Foundation is a charity and apparently a very good one. The funds raised are used to help nations battle diseases like malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis and address challenges like global warming and deforestation. A recent fact check found that nearly 90% of the money raised went directly to providing these services to the sick, forgotten and left behind. (that’s well over the 75% industry standard for charities).

Also lost in this debate is the fact that the Clintons don’t receive a penny in salary. Not one red cent. In fact, they donate their own money to the Foundation. Someone needs to explain to Secretary Clinton that if she’s trying to exploit the foundation for personal gain, she’s going about it exactly the wrong way.

So before we start to explore the claims of conflict of interest, first recognize the Clinton Foundation does not benefit the Clintons. It benefits the world. There is no “pay.”

And there is also no evidence of “play.” Not only were the Clintons not receiving anything of value, there is no evidence that donors to their charity received anything in exchange for their donation. The idea that people and leaders with influence might be able to meet with powerful people is a fact of life that plays out at every level of society. Not exactly scandalous.

What this brouhaha lacks in substance, however, it surely makes up for in irony. How does a guy like V.P nominee Mike Pence contend there is something wrong with these charitable donations? As a congressman he solicited over $10 million in campaign checks mostly from special interests who had business before his congressional committees and the congress. And the money he solicited and received wasn’t used to fight malaria; he used it to keep himself in office and on the public dole (and, on one occasion, to literally pay his home mortgage!).

If Pence gets a Silver Medal in hypocrisy, Trump gets the Gold. Donald Trump paid Florida’s Attorney General $25,000 just before that office declined to civilly prosecute his Trump University. Think about it. Trump is criticizing Secretary Clinton because of contributions people made to a charity, while he actually gave money to a public official who was deciding whether to prosecute him and his pretend University.

It is appropriate that the media shine a light on these matters – including the Clinton Foundation. But no one can seriously contend that Secretary Clinton has done something even remotely scandalous. As for Trump, that’s an entirely different story.

The foundation one candidate is associated with has won praise from leaders around the world, inspiring the cooperation of participants as diverse as Bono, Wal-Mart, Rupert Murdoch, and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

The foundation controlled by the other candidate uses other people’s money to buy a $20,000 portrait of himself and settle business disputes.  Even, perhaps, to make a little money.

(“It was 2010,” reports the Washington Post, “and Trump was being honored by a charity — the Palm Beach Police Foundation — for his ‘selfless support’ of its cause. His support did not include any of his own money. . . . [Indeed], Trump may have actually made money. The gala was held at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, and the police foundation paid to rent the room.”)

To join the final session of the Clinton Global Initiative, click here. The first hour includes a panel discussion with Ben Affleck on rape victims in the East Congo.  The second, starting at 59:30: a film montage followed by President Clinton’s own perspective

Have a great weekend.

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

So yesterday we watched Seth Myers on Trump. One of you suggested Colbert’s take is even better.  (Thanks Matt!)  This is above my pay grade.  You decide.

Either way, Hillary started the birther movement, Trump ended it, the moon is a matzo ball, Trump knows more about ISIS than the generals, America is a disaster.  Gas is five bucks, we’re losing 800,000 jobs a month, the stock market is crashing, home foreclosures are a catastrophe, Detroit is bankrupt, our infrastructure’s crumbling — and only Trump can fix it.

Oh, wait.  Gas is $2.25 a gallon, we’ve had 78 consecutive months of net private sector job growth,* the stock market’s nearly tripled, home prices are robust, Detroit’s booming . . . and yes, our infrastructure is still crumbling.

But only because Republicans blocked the American Jobs Act.

And our economy — and, especially, wage growth — are weaker than they need to be.

But only because they also blocked a higher minimum wage and comprehensive immigration reform.  (Trump opposes both.)

Which is why we need to elect Hillary and a Democratic Congress to put millions of Americans to work revitalizing our infrastructure; to raise the minimum wage; to enact the immigration reform passed 68-32 in the Senate but blocked in the House; to allow federal student loans to be refinanced at today’s low rates — and to do so many other practical, realistic things that will move America forward — rather than take a crazy leap into the unknown with a sociopath.

Trump will “absolutely” release his tax returns — except he won’t.  (My guess: you pay more tax.)

He’s generous — though he hasn’t given to his own foundation since 2008 but has used others’ contributions to buy expensive portraits of himself and to settle business disputes.  (You will recall that over the last 30 years he has become party to a new legal action on average every three days.)

George H. W. Bush is voting for his opponent, Colin Powell calls him a “national disgrace,” he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.

I mean, what’s not to like about this guy?

He “stirs hatred and feeds self-vindication, and whether on paper it bears inspection for consistency, logic or soundness is immaterial.”

He’s “a past master at throwing up verbal smoke screens . . . knows the effectiveness of massive oratorical assaults . . . knows how to give pledges that will be broken . . . his crudity frequently borders on downright vulgarity.”

(Those quotes are not about Trump; they’re from the foreword and introduction to the 1941 book of speeches he kept by his bedside.)

But I digress.

Watch Seth Myers and Stephen Colbert.  They make the anxiety of these final 48 days a little easier to bear.

Click here to vote, here to volunteer, here to contribute — and here to see what Republicans are saying about Trump and Clinton.

*The record: 23 million net new jobs under the last Clinton presidency; 15 million in the last 78 months under Obama — so north of 35 million under the two of them, versus fewer than one million under the last two Republican presidents, Bush and Bush, combined.