John McCain Caps Political Career by Declaring Himself a Fraud

DailyIntellegencer

John McCain Caps Political Career by Declaring Himself a Fraud

By Eric Levitz November 30, 2017

Country last. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

In 2001, John McCain stood on the Senate floor and denounced the very concept of supply-side tax cuts.

“I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief,” the Arizona senator said, explaining his decision to vote against George W. Bush’s signature tax package. Two years later, McCain voted against renewing those tax cuts because they were still “too tilted to the wealthy” — and, also, because it he felt it fiscally irresponsible to cut taxes when no one knew how long or costly the war on terror would prove to be.

Sixteen years later, economic inequality in America is dramatically more severe than it was when McCain said those words; the United States military is still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the Republican Party is pushing legislation that raises taxes on many middle-class families — and increases the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion — in order to finance a gigantic tax cut for corporate shareholders, millionaire business owners, and the heirs of multimillion-dollar estates.

And McCain will vote (and subsequently voted) for the Trump tax cuts, anyway.

McCain had more reasons to oppose this legislation than any other Republican senator. Beyond his historic opposition to regressive changes to the tax code, McCain had demanded, just two months ago, that his party take a “bipartisan approach” to its tax legislation. He has spent most of this year railing against the GOP’s subversion of normal parliamentary procedure.

Now, Senate Republicans are trying to pass sweeping changes to the American tax code on a party-line vote — by gaming the rules of budget reconciliation in a manner that all but nullifies the legislative filibuster — while refusing to hold hearings on the bill’s (profound) consequences for our economy, or even present the Treasury Department’s own analysis of the bill’s implications for the national debt (because that analysis would reveal that the Treasury secretary is lying about the bill’s implications for the national debt).

And McCain will vote for the Trump tax cuts, anyway.

Several Republican senators have expressed concerns about the bill’s deficit impact. But McCain has more concrete reasons to oppose large deficits than those lawmakers do. The Arizona senator has flip-flopped on many issues during his time in office. But his one, unshakable policy conviction is that the United States must maintain a global military empire until the end of time. And empires cost money. The current Republican president won election while promising to curtail America’s involvement overseas and invest more money here at home. There is no popular support for cutting Social Security, while maintaining American boots on the ground in Somalia. If our nation ever enters a true fiscal crisis, McCain’s beloved military-industrial complex is all but certain to take a hit.

And McCain will vote for the Trump tax cuts, anyway.

The president has tried to publicly humiliate several Senate Republicans — but McCain is the only one whom he has mocked for suffering torture as a prisoner of war. Multiple GOP lawmakers are immune from political pressure because they are headed for imminent retirement — but only McCain enjoys the radical freedom that attends the knowledge of one’s imminent death.

And McCain will vote for the Trump tax cuts, anyway.

Mitch McConnell still has some wrinkles to iron out. It’s unclear how he will address his deficit hawks’ concerns without alienating his other members. And he has made expensive promises to Susan Collins and Ron Johnson, without revealing how he intends to pay for them.

But if John McCain will vote for McConnell’s final product — even if that means making one of his final acts as a public servant a garish betrayal of his putative principles — then his colleagues are all but certain to do the same.

Trump’s campaign: Big Macs, screaming fits and constant rivalries

Washington Post

Trump’s campaign: Big Macs, screaming fits and constant rivalries

Michael Kranish, The Washington Post December 2, 2017

Elton John blares so loudly on Donald Trump’s campaign plane that staffers can’t hear themselves think. Press secretary Hope Hicks uses a steamer to press Trump’s pants — while he is still wearing them. Trump screams at his top aides, who are subjected to expletive-filled tirades in which they get their “face ripped off.”

And Trump’s appetite seems to know no bounds when it comes to McDonald’s, with a dinner order consisting of “two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted.”

The scenes are among the most surreal passages in a forthcoming book chronicling Trump’s path to the presidency co-written by Corey Lewandowski, who was fired as Trump’s campaign manager, and David Bossie, another top aide. The book, “Let Trump Be Trump,” paints a portrait of a campaign with an untested candidate and staff rocketing from crisis to crisis, in which Lewandowski and a cast of mostly neophyte political aides learn on the fly and ultimately accept Trump’s propensity to go angrily off message.

“Sooner or later, everybody who works for Donald Trump will see a side of him that makes you wonder why you took a job with him in the first place,” the authors wrote. “His wrath is never intended as any personal offense, but sometimes it can be hard not to take it that way. The mode that he switches into when things aren’t going his way can feel like an all-out assault; it’d break most hardened men and women into little pieces.”

The authors “both had moments where they wanted to parachute off Trump Force One,” but they said they got used to it.

Lewandowski provides a largely admiring portrait of his former boss, saving the skewer for score-settling anecdotes about Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman and rival whom Lewandowski blames for his ouster. The Post obtained an advance copy of the book, which is scheduled for release on Tuesday.

In a section of the book written by Lewandowski, Trump is described as flying on his helicopter when he learns that Manafort has said “Trump shouldn’t be on television anymore, that he shouldn’t be on the Sunday shows” and that Manafort should appear instead. Trump was angrier than Lewandowski had ever seen him, ordering the pilot to lower the altitude so he could make a cellphone call.

“Did you say I shouldn’t be on TV on Sunday? I’ll go on TV anytime I g–dam f—ing want and you won’t say another f—ing word about me!” Trump yelled at Manafort, according to Lewandowski. “Tone it down? I wanna turn it up! . . . You’re a political pro? Let me tell you something. I’m a pro at life. I’ve been around a time or two. I know guys like you, with your hair and skin . . .”

Lewandowski called it “one of the greatest takedowns in the history of the world.”

The aide’s satisfaction at the takedown didn’t last long, however, as he “immediately got a phone call” from Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, “telling me I wasn’t a team player and that I’d thrown Paul under the bus.” Lewandowski wrote that Manafort soon arranged for him to be fired.

But Manafort’s days were numbered as well, especially after Breitbart News executive Stephen K. Bannon became an adviser to the campaign and set his sights on ousting the campaign chairman.

In one of the most striking passages of the book, the co-authors describe a scene in which Bannon is read the first few paragraphs of a forthcoming story by a New York Times reporter laying out allegations that Manafort had received a $12.7 million payment from a Ukrainian political party. The encounter occurred at Manafort’s apartment in Trump Tower, where, the co-authors write, an unnamed woman in a white muumuu “lounged” on the couch.

“Does Trump know about this?” Bannon asked, according to the book.

“What’s to know, it’s all lies,” Manafort replied.

The woman on the couch “imploringly” asked, “Paul?” Manafort responded, according to the book, “It was a long time ago. I had expenses.”

The authors write that “Bannon knew what he had in his hand. It was an explosive, page one story.”

Notwithstanding his constant praise of Trump, Lewandowski offers a window into the president’s toughness on those who work nonstop on his behalf. Lewandowski wrote of a time when he was so ill that he fell asleep on a plane, only to be awakened by Trump, saying, “Corey, if you can’t take it, we’ll get somebody else.” He described a meeting in which Trump told another campaign official, Brad Parscale, that “You don’t have to listen to Corey anymore. He’s no longer your boss.”

[From ‘Access Hollywood’ to Russia, Trump seeks to paint the rosiest picture]

Lewandowski wrote that “the cut was deep, but it was only one of a thousand.”

Trump left it to his son Don Jr. to fire him, Lewandowski wrote.

In another episode, Lewandowski describes how staffer Sam Nunberg was purposely left behind at a McDonald’s because Nunberg’s special-order burger was taking too long. “Leave him,” Trump said. “Let’s go.” And they did.

Trump’s fast-food diet is a theme. “On Trump Force One there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza and Diet Coke,” the authors write.

The plane’s cupboards were stacked with Vienna Fingers, potato chips, pretzels and many packages of Oreos because Trump, a renowned germaphobe, would not eat from a previously opened package.

The book notes that “the orchestrating and timing of Mr. Trump’s meals was as important as any other aspect of his march to the presidency,” and describes the elaborate efforts that Lewandowski and other top aides went through to carefully time their delivery of hot fast food to Trump’s plane as he was departing his rallies.

Lewandowski’s description of campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who is now White House communications director, underscored the untested nature of the campaign and its personnel. He describes Hicks, a competitive athlete and former model, as “smart and private, with a nearly photographic memory.”

But, he writes, when Trump asked Hicks to join him on a campaign trip, she was working for the Trump Organization as a public relations official. So, the authors wrote, when she was first asked to be press secretary, she responded, in reference to a Trump property, “Which one? The Doral marketing campaign?”

“No, my presidential campaign! I’m running for president,” Trump responded, according to the book.

One of Hicks’s jobs was to make sure that Trump’s suits were pressed when they flew on his plane.

“ ‘Get the machine!’ ” Trump would yell, according to the book. “And Hope would take out the steamer and start steaming Mr. Trump’s suit, while he was wearing it! She’d steam the jacket first and then sit in a chair in front of him and steam his pants.”

One day, when Hicks forgot the steamer, Trump became angry.

“G–dammit, Hope! How the hell could you forget the machine?”

The authors wrote, “It was a mistake she would never make again.”

It was Hicks who, on Oct. 7, took a call from a Washington Post reporter about a video from “Access Hollywood” in which Trump boasted about how he could “grab” women “by the p—y.” Trump looked at a transcript and said “that doesn’t sound like something I would say.” It was Bossie, who served as the deputy campaign manager, who played the video for Trump on his iPad. The campaign came up with the response that it was “locker room” talk.

The authors wrote that as panic ensued among some Republicans, the party’s national chairman, Reince Priebus, decided not to show up at a New York City meeting. Bannon called Priebus, asking, “Where the hell are you?”

“I got off the train in Newark,” Priebus responded, according to the book. “I’m going to turn around.” The book notes that Priebus has said he always intended to come to the meeting.

As Bannon tried to convince him that everything was all right, Priebus said that Republicans were abandoning the candidate. “It’s horrible . . . people are dropping like flies,” Priebus said, according to the book. Once he arrived at the meeting, Priebus said that Trump would either “lose the biggest electoral landslide in American history” or should drop out of the race.

“First of all,” Trump responded, according to the book, “I’m going to win. And second, if the Republican Party is going to run away from me, then I will take you all down with me. But I’m not going to lose.”

Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker contributed to this report.

The GOP’s biggest lie: Republican tax plan reveals the rot is deep

Salon

The GOP’s biggest lie: Republican tax plan reveals the rot is deep

Republicans are getting away with the most brazen political lie ever told

(Credit: Getty/Hulton Archive/Zach Gibson/Salon)

Ted Morgan December 2, 2017

The “Big Lie” has been most closely associated with the Nazis’ incessant propaganda campaign about an international Jewish “war of annihilation” against Germany, a campaign that brought the totalitarian Nazi regime to power and paved the way for the Holocaust. In assessing Adolph Hitler’s psyche, the U. S. Office of Strategic Services reported,

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

On Nov. 22, Donald Trump declared, “We’re going to give the American people a huge tax cut for Christmas … a great big, beautiful Christmas present.” This is one among many lies Trump has bleated about the tax cut — a con job designed to appeal to Americans who struggle to make ends meet, whether they be unemployed or underemployed, the elderly, working or middle class, or poor. In reality, the Trump/Republican Party tax cut, whatever final form it takes, is a pack of lies and distortions designed to further enrich the wealthiest Americans and solidify the takeover of our government by corporate wealth.

What makes this a Big Lie is its repetition over a period of 35 years of “supply-side economics,” years marked by an unprecedented upward redistribution of income and wealth and the growth of staggering inequality.

We know the wealthy are the chief beneficiaries of this tax cut. According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent receive 34 percent of the corporate tax cut benefit, and the top 20 percent receive 70 percent of the benefit. Eliminating the estate tax only benefits those individuals with wealth exceeding $5 million ($10 million for married couples). Eliminating the alternative minimum tax gets rid of the very tax created to prevent the wealthy from getting away with paying no taxes at all. If it were removed in 2015, for example, Donald Trump would have been $31 million richer and taxed at 3.5 percent. By contrast, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, those with incomes below $75,000 will be paying higher taxes by 2027.

The only possible legitimation for such a blatantly inequitable tax is the claim that cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy will produce investment and job growth; not surprisingly Trump claims the tax cut will produce 10.5 percent growth in GDP over 10 years. By contrast, the Urban/Brookings Tax Policy Center predicts 0.3 percent growth over 10 years. When the non-partisan Congressional Research Services tracked tax rates from 1945 to 2010, they found that cutting the top tax rates had no positive effect on economic growth or the growth of savings, investment or productivity. Corporate CEOs themselves have acknowledged that they would use new revenue to buy back shares, retire debt, and issue shareholder dividends – i.e., benefiting Wall Street and its clients, not Main Street where we live and work.

Only one of 38 economists polled by the University of Chicago believed economic growth would be “substantially higher” in 10 years because of the tax cut; all 38 believed the national debt would be substantially higher. According to the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax cut will produce roughly $1.4 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years.

We’ve been here before. Reagan-era tax cuts tripled the national debt over the 1980s, and G.W. Bush-era tax cuts added $1.5 trillion to the national debt. Each of these administrations also dramatically increased a bloated military budget while reducing programs that aid vulnerable Americans.

Therein lies the covert “benefit” of these soaring budget deficits. With military spending increasing, and popular entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare typically impervious to budget cuts (though every indication is the Republicans will go after these in the coming months), and required interest payments on the national debt piling up, deficits have been used to justify cuts to a wide range of domestic programs, thereby depriving the nation of the ability to address such accelerating crises as disintegrating infrastructure, overburdened schools, costly and non-universal health care, and climate change.

So, when a Nov. 15 Quinnipiac poll shows two-thirds of the American public in opposition, why are these people pushing a tax cut that enriches the wealthy while debilitating the country as a whole? When asked, Rep. Chris Collins of New York declared, “My donors are basically saying. ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’” Such is the rot eroding our democracy.

Ted Morgan is emeritus professor of political science at Lehigh University and the author, most recently, of “What Really Happened to the 1960s: How Mass Media Culture Failed American Democracy.”

Senate Republicans are essentially defunding public schools to pay for private ones

ThinkProgress

Senate Republicans are essentially defunding public schools to pay for private ones

Another big win for the wealthy.

E.A. Crunden December 2, 2017

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/JOHN LOCHER

The new tax bill passed by Senate Republicans does away with crucial support for public schools while adding a provision beneficial to their private counterparts. That move would help wealthy parents pay for private schools, including religious schools, while hurting lower-income families. A similar provision is in the House version of the tax bill.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, GOP lawmakers passed the biggest tax overhaul in several decades through a 51 to 49 vote. One lone Republican, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, voted against the legislation, citing deficit concerns. The bill, which includes a number of dramatic provisions and cuts, will have sweeping implications for many people across the United States.

Under current law, parents can open 529 plans to help pay for future college costs. Those accounts, which differ by state, are tax-advantaged and grow as long as the money is spent exclusively on higher education. A last-minute provision added to the Senate tax bill allows for 529 plans to be used for K-12 private schools. (Lawmakers initially included but later removed a controversial provision allowing parents to open 529 accounts for fetuses.)

In addition to benefitting wealthier families, the new 529 expansion is popular with proponents of “achool choice” — a movement that favors religious education. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a longtime supporter of school choice, filed the amendment expanding 529 plans. Debate over Cruz’s amendment helped stretch tha tax bill vote into the early-morning hours but the addition still won out in the end.

Ron Lieber, a financial columnist for the New York Times, tweeted that the Cruz amendment’s implications could have much broader repercussions than similar language in the House bill.

“Last night, Ted Cruz (w the help of a tiebreaking vote from VP Pence) got the 529s-for-private-schools provision into the Senate tax bill. As I reported last month, this could be worth $30,000 in net new tax savings per child to wealthy families,” Lieber wrote. “The Cruz amendment goes even further than the House 529s-for-private-schools thing did. If the House comes around, you’ll be able to use 529s for tutoring.”

The state and local tax deduction (or, SALT) allows taxpayers to deduct those taxes when determining their federal income taxes. SALT’s biggest beneficiaries are actually wealthy suburban voters in populous states like New York and California, many of whom tend to vote Republican. But the Senate bill initially called for a complete repeal of SALT in order to lower tax rates elsewhere.

Outcry from some Republicans led to a slight change — itemizers may still receive a deduction for property taxes up to $10,000. But the rest of the SALT repeal stands, which is bad news for public schools.

Under SALT, income that paid for public schools went untaxed at the federal level. Current law allows states that raise taxes to better fund public schools to receive a deduction through SALT. The Senate bill ends that ability. As states struggle to lessen the impact of the tax bill on citizens, there will be an outsized amount of pressure on the taxes that typically help public schools.

For families able to afford private school, the combination of SALT’s demise and the tax bill’s new private school provision is likely to make the decision to pay for private education far more appealing. That’s a big win for school choice proponents like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who expressed support for the original 529 plan expansion in the House tax bill.

Public schools in areas with strong upper middle class populations currently fare well because they can afford teachers with higher salaries and offer an array of extracurricular options. Families in those areas are also invested in public schools, to say nothing of incentivized by SALT. But without the deduction, that incentive goes away. Wealthier families will be more inclined to opt for private school instead — especially with the expansion of 529 plans.

Experts have speculated that the elimination of SALT could ultimately cost public schools upwards of $17 billion. That loss will almost inevitably degrade the quality of public schools, something that will hurt families with no other option. Around 50.7 million U.S. students attend public schools — approximately 90 percent of students in the United States.

Gullible Trump Voters

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Senate Passes Sweeping Tax Bill That Overwhelmingly Benefits the Wealthiest Americans

Mother Jones

Senate Passes Sweeping Tax Bill That Overwhelmingly Benefits the Wealthiest Americans

Corporations receive a permanent tax cut, while everyone else gets a smaller temporary cut.

Noah Lanard December 2, 2017

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tells reporters “we have the votes,” as he walks to the Senate chamber on Friday. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Just before 2 AM Saturday morning, Senate Republicans passed the most sweeping tax legislation in 30 years. The final version of the three-week-old bill was not released until four hours before the vote. There have been no hearings on the bill and none of the bipartisanship seen during the last major tax overhaul in 1986.

The bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is projected to add more than $1 trillion in deficit spending over 10 years, but passed a Republican caucus that spent the Obama years obsessed over the national debt. There was just one dissenter in the party, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. The final vote was 51 in favor, 49 against, with all the Democrats and Corker voting no.

There were a smattering of last-minute changes tucked into the nearly 500-page bill, but the core of it is quite simple: a permanent tax cut for corporations combined with much smaller, and temporary, benefits for everyone else. Over the next decade, the $1.4 trillion tax cut would disproportionately reward the wealthiest Americans while piling on the national debt—which in turn will likely be used by Republicans as a justification for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

The House, which already passed its own tax bill last month, and the Senate are expected to work out the differences between their bills in conference meetings. Then each chamber would vote again, and send the final product to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. Trump hopes to sign what he has called his “big, beautiful Christmas present” to the American people by the end of the year.

Before the individual cuts expire in 2026—ending the bill’s most charitable years—the top 1 percent would receive slightly more of the tax cut than the bottom 60 percent of Americans combined. Without the individual tax cut, the top 1 percent would get start getting 61 percent of the benefits. And at that point, the vast majority of middle-class taxpayers would receive essentially nothing, or end up paying higher taxes.

Republicans say they’ll eventually extend those individual cuts. But there is good reason to doubt that. The United States will be facing unprecedented debt levels when it comes time to renew the cuts. The annual deficit would be $1.4 trillionin 2025, up from about $700 billion today. The Senate bill asks Americans to trust that a future Congress, comprised of different members, will continue to ignore deficits.

While the Republicans have waffled in their concern for the national debt, the bill shows that they have steadfastly committed to trickle-down economics. Focusing on the corporate tax cuts, the White House Council of Economic Advisers has said the average family would see their income jump by up to $7,000 per year as businesses pass on their windfall. Tax experts have called this forecasting “absolutely crazy,” “absurd,” and “deeply flawed.” On Thursday, Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that the bill would add $1 trillion in deficit-spending over 10 years even after taking into account economic growth. But Republican leaders continue to maintain that the bill would pay for itself—despite there being almost no economists who agree with that assessment.

This all begs the question of why Republicans are pushing a trillion dollar corporate tax cut at this particular moment. Corporate profits are near record highs, the rich are richer than they’ve been since the Great Depression, and the incomes of average Americans are in a four-decade slump. Tax reform could have eased that hardship by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit or making working-class families eligible for Republicans’ expanded Child Tax Credit.

Adding to congressional Republicans’ dubious claims about the fantastical benefits of the bill is the president himself. Trump has regularly claimed that he will not personally benefit from the tax plan. That is almost certainly false. The president, and his children, likely stand to gain tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars. But, conveniently for Trump, it is impossible to know for sure without seeing his tax returns.

So why are Republicans are in such a rush to pass a bill that just 25 percent of Americans approve of? For one, there seems to be fear that the bill will only get more unpopular if subjected to further scrutiny. And then there are the donors. “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” Rep. Chris Collins said earlier this month. Many have already closed their checkbooks, and Republicans are keen to see them reopened.

Along with restructuring the tax code, the final bill is also likely to advance a broader culture war. Both bills at least partially block the parents of undocumented children from claiming the Child Tax Credit for their kids. And the House bill would let churches and nonprofits endorse political candidates for the first time since 1954. Mega-donors like the Koch Brothers would get a taxpayer subsidy for campaign spending if the provision makes it into the final bill. Campaign finance groups warn that it is another Citizens United in the making.

None of these provisions fit neatly with Republicans’ stated goal of making the tax code postcard-simple. Nor have the bills’ inclusion of carveouts for everything from citrus trees in Florida to tuna canneries in Pago Pago, American Samoa. (On Friday afternoon, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) tweeted out a list of about 30 forthcoming amendments that had been passed from Republicans to a lobbyist to Democrats.)

Speaking on the Senate floor earlier in the night, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday was one of the “darkest, black-letter days in the long history of this Senate.” He held up an amendment, which went on to be defeated just before the bill passed, that was added “under the cover of darkness” by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that exempts a college connected to Education Secretary and billionaire Republican donor Betsy DeVos from a new tax on university endowments. Schumer said the last-minute move was the “metaphor for this bill and how high the stench is rising in this chamber.”

Schumer moved to adjourn the Senate until Monday so that his colleagues had time to review the “monstrosity.” He argued no one could possibly know what they were being asked to vote on. McConnell, well aware that he had the votes to knock down the motion and pass the bill, listened and smirked.

Noah Lanard is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones. Reach him at nlanard@motherjones.com.

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Here’s the back story on Roy Moore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate

MoveOn.org shared NowThis Politics‘s video.

Here’s the back story on Roy Moore. Spoiler: it gets worse. The story of accused child-molester Roy Moore potentially becoming a U.S. senator is far more f*cked up thank you think

Moore's story is even more f*cked up than you think

The story of accused child-molester Roy Moore potentially becoming a U.S. senator is far more f*cked up thank you think

Posted by NowThis Politics on Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Please Don’t Look At Me Like That!

John Hanno December 1, 2017

Please Don’t Look At Me Like That!

While out in public these days, I feel uncomfortable when people look askance my way. What are they really thinking? Yes, I’m a white man similar in age to Donald J. Trump but please don’t put me in the same class. All old white men are not as humanly toxic and morally and mentally crippled as our commander in chief *.

I (We) would not, under any circumstances, engage in or entertain treasonous conspiracies with foreign evildoers attempting to undermine America’s democratic principles, just to benefit our own families, friends or contributors financially, or to support some political ambition.

Although our memories falter at times, we don’t all speak with such caviler disregard for the truth like this entire Trump administration. We keep our promises; its call integrity.