Posts

Church Historian: ‘Trump Is a Political Exorcist’

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Vatican recently reported a worldwide shortage of exorcists, the priests especially trained to emulate Jesus and the apostles in banishing spirits of evil. Recently, I had the chance to interview an historian who thinks that American political culture needs an exorcist — and might have found one. H. W. Crocker III is a popular historian best known for his book Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. He is also the vice president and executive editor of Regnery Publishing.

Unlike most historians, Crocker has real world experience in politics. He was a foreign policy advisor on the George H. W. Bush campaign for president in 1988 and a speechwriter for California Governor Pete Wilson during his first term (1991-94) and on his come-from-behind reelection victory over Kathleen Brown (Jerry Brown’s sister) that also saw Republicans winning a majority in the California Assembly and several statewide offices. His latest book is The Yanks Are Coming! A Military History of the United States in World War I. Here are some snippets from our conversation.

Has there ever been another presidential election like this?

Well, the obvious comparison is with 1912, except that in this case the Bull Moose candidate, Trump, got the Republican nomination. The establishment Republicans (or the Bush/Kasich wing) are on the outside looking in.

How important is this year’s presidential election?

If Trump loses, I might move to Iceland.

You’re supporting Trump?

Yes.

With no qualms?

None. Trump did what any smart Republican needed to do, which was build a new coalition with blue collar conservatives. Republicans can’t win nationally unless they redraw the electoral map — he does that. He’s the only one who could do that. After Romney’s defeat in 2012, I commissioned Rick Santorum to write a book called Blue Collar Conservatives, which showed what needed to be done. Trump apparently read that book and put it into play.

What about people who say Trump is too flawed to be president?

I say they are fundamentally unserious about politics — more concerned with manners than political reality. You’re not just electing a man, you’re electing an administration. And the reality is that every day of a Hillary administration will further the grinding under heel of the Constitution, with leftist bureaucrats fundamentally transforming America. Every day, by every conservative — or Christian — measure, things will get worse.

Can a Christian be a liberal in today’s sense of the word?

No. Liberalism is the Devil’s politics, and you can quote me on that. It makes the bad good and the good bad. The first Whig was the Devil, as Dr. Johnson said, and he was right.

And where does Trump fit in that picture?

Trump is a political exorcist, casting out demons from our body politic — and by demons I mean things like political correctness.

Isn’t that putting things a little strongly — to call political correctness demonic?

Political correctness is all about lies — lies like there’s no difference between men and women, or that killing an unborn child is morally neutral. The Devil is the “father of lies,” according to the Bible, and today there’s no shortage of lies that we’re supposed to believe.

And what does Trump do about that?

Let me put it this way: Republicans usually let Democrats, the enforcers of political correctness, set the agenda; they even grant them the moral high ground — and then they play defense or try to moderate Democrat proposals. Trump sets his own agenda — and does it the reverse of the normal Republican way. He plants his flag on the right and then walks it back as necessary, moving the center to the right. That’s an enormous advantage to have — and we haven’t had a president who could do that since Ronald Reagan.

Okay, if Americans do elect Trump. What comes after that?

Something less flamboyant: Eisenhower; Mike Pence — if he holds the Trump coalition together and restores the Nervous Nellie Republicans.

What about Christians — Catholics in particular, who have been leaning to Hillary, as some polls suggest?

Catholic voters need to prove they’re as pro-life as Trump. If they vote for Hillary, they’re not.

I’ve asked whether a Trump defeat could lead to increased persecution of Christians in this country. What do you think?

If Trump loses, that’s inevitable. The rule of law is already in jeopardy. The First Amendment is already in tatters. Hillary Clinton’s judges and bureaucrats would put the Constitution through a paper shredder. Hillary, in my opinion, will be a disaster on foreign policy. She already has been. She will be a disaster on the economy. But the people she really wants to crush are social conservatives; they’re the “deplorables.”

Then I take it that, given what’s at stake in November, you think it’s a time for prayer and fasting.

You better believe it — at least the prayer part. On the fasting, we’ll have plenty of that in our future if the people elect Hillary. (For more from the author of “Church Historian: ‘Trump Is a Political Exorcist'” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Earns Three Big Endorsements in a Key Battleground State

/0 Comments/in , /by

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has picked up three more endorsements from the law enforcement community, and all three come from a critical swing state in next month’s presidential election.

The three largest police unions in Colorado — the Denver Police Protective Association, the Aurora Police Association and the Colorado Springs Police Protective Association — have all endorsed Trump for president.

The union leaders have assured that the “law and order” candidate will keep Colorado’s cities “safe and secure.”

“The Aurora Police Association believes that Donald Trump’s strong support for law enforcement will ensure safer communities in Colorado and across our country,” Sgt. Bob Wesner, president of the APA said, according to the Aurora Sentinel.

“We just like what he has to say about law enforcement and he is very supportive of law enforcement so we wanted to support him,” he added.

Wesner noted the endorsement wasn’t sparked by a particular stance that Trump had taken, but by the candidate’s overall support for law enforcement.

Combined, the three police unions represent about 2,700 members of law enforcement in Colorado.

The endorsement could be an important boost to Trump since recent polls place his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in a slight lead in the state. However, Trump sees the battleground state as attainable, with his most recent visit being Monday.

“After thoughtful consideration, we wholeheartedly believe Mr. Trump is the only candidate that will protect law-abiding citizens from those who choose to break the law,” Nick Rogers, president of the DPPA said, according to the Denver Post.

Last month, Trump also earned support from the national Fraternal Order of Police after completing a required questionnaire. The organization represents 330,000 officers nationwide.

“Mr. Trump has seriously looked at the issues facing law enforcement today,” Chris Canterbury, national president of the union said in a statement. “He understands and supports our priorities and our members believe he will make America safe again.”

The Fraternal Order of Police has a history of supporting Republicans for president. It endorsed the GOP nominees in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections, but refrained from endorsing Mitt Romney in 2012 because of his negative stance on unions.

According to the Daily Caller, Clinton has now shown interest in winning over the police unions, but at times, her tone has irritated some members of the law enforcement community. Instead, her campaign has chosen to embrace Black Lives Matter and other activists groups which seek to curb police brutality.

Patrick Davis, an adviser for Trump’s campaign in Colorado, released a statement saying the endorsements were an honor.

“Donald Trump stands for tougher law enforcement and safer communities, and these endorsements demonstrate that the brave policemen and women in Colorado agree with Mr. Trump’s goal of making America safe again,” Davis said. “We are honored to have their support and will work with them to get Mr. Trump’s message of protecting our communities out to Colorado voters in the coming weeks.” (For more from the author of “Trump Earns Three Big Endorsements in a Key Battleground State” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

If We Reject Trump, We May Be Inviting Persecution

/0 Comments/in , /by

Should Christians get behind Donald Trump?

As I’ve demonstrated here, on every criterion of politics, it seems to me that electing Donald Trump is less dangerous to the preaching of the gospel, the safety of Christian institutions from colleges down to the family, and the lives of unborn children. We don’t have to believe the claim that he’s even a “baby Christian” to recognize that this is true. Winston Churchill wasn’t any kind of Christian, but he defended our institutions and our freedoms, and that was all we needed. It is all the church ever needs. Given our own failure to evangelize the culture, it may be more than we deserve.

But aren’t Christians all about asking God for exactly that — more than we deserve? If it sounds like I’m saying that the election of Donald Trump might be a moment of unmerited grace for the United States of America. … Yes, given the only live alternative, that is exactly what I mean.

I think that some Christian resistance to backing this candidate comes down to simple distaste — some of it justified. This is a man with multiple divorces, a flashy and hedonistic lifestyle, a penchant for juvenile insults — the list could go on and on. It can wear down the soul just to think about it, and that’s for a simple reason: It’s gossip. The sins of other people aren’t meant to be fodder for our spiritual reflection, though the devil tells us otherwise. The flaws that matter in a political leader are those that connect to his likely performance in office, compared to the real-world alternatives. When we say we prefer the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, racist agnostic Winston Churchill, we mean compared to Adolf Hitler. It’s nonsense to line up every leader next to Jesus or even our ideal politician. I promise you, they will all fall far short.

Besides, there’s a long history of Christians humbly setting aside their craving for a fully admirable leader, in recognition of a stark reality: In a fallen world, we are subject to violence. Those we are called to protect, from our own children to those in the wombs of desperate strangers, demand that we find a way to defend them. If we look at the sword which God has left in our path, and sniff that it isn’t shiny enough or might be caked with mud, and leave the innocents to suffer — make no mistake, we will answer for it.

Do Not Put God to the Test

The early Church is a good guide for this. For centuries, Christians had suffered hideously — being hunted like animals by the Roman secret police, then rounded up and killed in gruesome ways in the Colosseum as public entertainment. Many thousands were skinned alive, hanged, burned, or torn apart by animals, to the cheers and jeers of the crowd. Many more renounced their faith to save their lives, then eked out stolen decades haunted by guilt — to face an uncertain fate on the day of judgment. We might like to pretend that we would act like heroes or martyrs, but most people don’t. It’s our job to avoid and help others avoid occasions of sin, such as this one. Jesus himself warned us not to put the Lord our God to the test.

As Philip Jenkins documented in his powerful, tragic The Lost History of Christianity, by the year 1000 the majority of Christians on earth lived in the Middle East and Asia. Yet within 200 years those churches had virtually disappeared, ground down by persecution. All that’s left of most of them are a few scattered ruins in deserts, and scraps of bibles found in the lavatories of mosques.

It can happen here. Hillary Clinton and the worldview she represents have promised to make it happen here. What else can you make of her speech to the United Nations, where she said that for women to enjoy their fundamental rights, guaranteed by the government, Christian beliefs on abortion would have to change?

Is that any different from Diocletian decreeing that we must worship the emperor? Obama’s number two lawyer already told the Supreme Court that churches which don’t perform same-sex marriages will have to face crippling taxes. We can’t say we haven’t been warned.

Constantine

When the pagan warlord Constantine came to power in 312, he rallied support from Christians by revoking their persecution. For the first time in hundreds of years, the church could operate in the open. Constantine himself remained religiously ambiguous, only accepting baptism on his deathbed — once he’d already committed the many sins he thought he would need to, to keep his throne. He saw one of his sons, Crispus, as a political rival and had him cruelly executed. He did not move to create an ideal Christian society; slavery remained perfectly legal. So did the exposure of unwanted infants. Constantine let passersby who rescued such infants claim them and sell them as slaves. The poor were taxed cruelly, and the sons of army veterans were forcibly conscripted as soldiers themselves.

Perfectionist Christians, who demanded the kingdom of heaven on earth, or felt a profound distaste for this ruthless autocrat, might have held themselves aloof and refused to work with Constantine — as one sect, the Donatists did. They scorned the prayers of “imperfect” Christians, and removed themselves to live in “pure” communities. But the vast majority of Christians, including the hundreds of bishops who had remained faithful under persecution, looked instead to Constantine with gratitude as a gift from a loving God. The early Christian poet Lactantius wrote this hymn of praise:

We should now give thanks to the Lord, Who has gathered together the flock that was devastated by ravening wolves, Who has exterminated the wild beasts which drove it from the pasture. Where is now the swarming multitude of our enemies, where the hangmen of Diocletian and Maximian? God has swept them from the earth; let us therefore celebrate His triumph with joy; let us observe the victory of the Lord with songs of praise, and honor Him with prayer day and night. …

Constantine’s Council Gave Us the Creed

The bishops were more than grateful. They were downright cooperative, allowing Constantine to summon a church council to resolve controversies over the divinity of Christ. He paid for the bishops’ travel and gave the keynote speech at the council’s opening — then used the force of law to enact its decisions. It was this council, held in Nicaea, that gave us the formula still recited by well over a billion Christians: the Nicene Creed.

Since the church is the means of salvation, its first duty, after faithfulness, is self-preservation. I cannot think of a less loving or less Christian thing to do than to willfully raise the risk of a persecution that might lead souls to hell. If we do that out of distaste, to keep our hands “clean,” or to keep up the federal funding for our favorite government program, we are failing as Christians. I for one don’t wish to hear on the Last Day these words: “I was persecuted, since you did not protect me.” (For more from the author of “If We Reject Trump, We May Be Inviting Persecution” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

We All Avoid Taxes

/0 Comments/in , /by

Give Donald Trump credit for going big. When he wanted to declare a $915,729,293 loss on his 1995 tax returns, the software used by his accountant couldn’t accommodate anything higher than a seven-figure loss. The accountant had to add the first two digits, “91,” with a typewriter.

The improvisation gets to what is most noteworthy about Trump’s tax gambit, which is the sheer scale of it.

As reported by The New York Times from leaked Trump tax documents, the businessman declared the enormous loss to avoid paying federal income taxes in future years, perhaps for almost the next two decades. The report was quickly deemed a bombshell, but it didn’t reveal anything illegal or — besides the jaw-dropping number — even unusual.

The so-called net operating loss carryforward that Trump took advantage of is not an exotic loophole in the tax code. Many industrialized countries have similar provisions. In 2014, more than a million taxpayers declared net operating losses. The provision simply reflects that if you, say, lose $100,000 setting up a business and earn $50,000 the next year, it makes no sense for the government to tax the $50,000 as if it were the only part of the equation; the loss should be accounted for, too.

Whenever there is a story like this in the political news, liberals trot out the old chestnut from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” Never mind that civilized society existed on this continent long before the institution of the federal income tax as we know it in 1913. The rejoinder to those congratulating themselves on paying taxes is, Do you take deductions? Do you employ an accountant? Or, Do you pay taxes that you don’t technically owe?

Almost no one does the latter, of course, at least not intentionally. We all operate in keeping with another chestnut from another jurist, Judge Learned Hand. He wrote in a 1935 case: “Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”

Hillary Clinton may rend her garments over Trump’s minimization of his tax liability, yet the Clintons surely aren’t maximizing their own. As tax expert Ryan Ellis points out in a Forbes column, the Clintons realized a capital loss of $700,000 in 2015, which they can use to offset future capital gains.

The damage to Trump of the Times story is probably not his tax strategy. The candidate had all but admitted to it during the first debate, when he called avoiding taxes “smart.” Rather, the vulnerability for Trump is the fact — stated in black and white in his own filings — that he lost nearly a billion dollars by recklessly overextending himself in the 1990s. This will be thrown back at him every time he touts his business acumen. In other words, all the time.

Trump is also done no favors by his overzealous surrogates, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie. They were out on the Sunday shows calling him a “genius” for his tax avoidance. This is not only over-the-top (were “shrewd” and “canny” deemed insufficient descriptors?), it implies that there was some complex manipulation at work. It would have been much better to emphasize the pedestrian nature of Trump’s tax maneuver, rather than blowing it up into an unsurpassed triumph of a master at gaming the tax code.

If Trump had released his taxes or even some of them, he wouldn’t have been vulnerable to a leak that, coincidentally, hit the news as the campaign enters the homestretch. He has enough enemies that he could be certain that information about his taxes would get out, and there may be yet more to come. He teed up this October Surprise. (For more from the author of “We All Avoid Taxes” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The NY Times’ Transparent (and Hypocritical) October Surprise of Trump’s Tax Returns

/0 Comments/in , /by

There’s only one news story popping up for the Sunday morning circus and it’s the long anticipated October surprise from The New York Times. Late Saturday evening they released a partial set of state tax documents belonging to Donald Trump which show a nearly one billion dollar business loss he took more than twenty years ago. As Business Insider explains, this factoid allows them to speculate that The Donald may have paid no federal taxes for nearly twenty years.

Donald Trump may have avoided paying federal income taxes for 18 years, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times and published on Saturday night.

The documents indicated that Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995, providing him with a deduction so large it could have eliminated his obligation to legally pay annual federal taxes by up to $50 million for nearly two decades, tax experts told The Times.

The fire under all of this smoke is, of course, barely enough to light a cigar, but that’s not the point of the story. You’ll notice a constant set of phrases in all of the coverage of this “bombshell” release. They include things such as, might have and could have or may not have paid. That’s because the actual document only shows a massive loss which Trump claimed in 1995. What’s been established is that the loss in question opened the door to Trump potentially not owing any federal taxes over a considerable period of time because of the $916M loss. What’s also mentioned in decidedly muted tones is that if Trump wound up not owing any federal tax, that it was completely legal.

Let’s assume for a moment that Trump took full advantage of the tax laws in the way being described. (And frankly I’d start questioning his sanity if he didn’t.) This means that the Times has “caught” him following the tax code to pay the smallest amount of tax possible under the law. I mean, it’s not like anyone else does that, right? If Trump were A Good Person he would have massively overpaid his taxes and then we could all celebrate what a wonderful fellow he is, just like the people who handle the tax returns of the New York Times. Oh, wait… in 2014 the Gray Lady paid zero taxes and received millions in refunds despite having declared a substantial profit. (Read more from “The NY Times’ Transparent (and Hypocritical) October Surprise of Trump’s Tax Returns” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

AfterBern: Trump’s Socialist Policies Aren’t Working on the ‘Bernie or Bust’ Crowd

/0 Comments/in , /by

It’s been a few months since Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic party nomination, and it might be high time for the Trump campaign to realize that trying to siphon off her former intraparty opponent’s supporters might be a fruitless endeavor to say the least.

On Thursday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump once again attempted to court socialists on the campaign trail, saying that his economic policies should appeal to supporters of former Democrat candidate and unabashed ‘democratic’ socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (F, 16%), making the latest in months-long string of appeals to bring the disaffected aboard the Trump train.

Trump has been trying to win over the ‘after Berners,’ disaffected Sanders supporters, for a few months now, but his approach recently has shifted from personality to policy.

Trump’s initial line of appeal to former Sanders supporters was based primarily off similarities on trade and their respective anti-establishment narratives.

In an April interview with Fortune magazine, Trump pointed to a short list of areas on which he and the socialist senator overlapped: “One thing we have in common is trade. We both know the US is getting ripped off by trade,” he said. “The difference is I can do something about it and he can’t.”

“We’re talking about free markets but the problem is, we’re open, but the rest of the world isn’t open,” he continued, further outlining the two’s similarities on issues of keeping corporations in the U.S. and their views of currency manipulation.

“The only way you’re going to get jobs back into this country is, number one, [China and Mexico] cannot devalue their currencies, which they’re killing us with. Number two—and very importantly—we’re going to have to use the threat of taxation in order to keep jobs here and also in order to get jobs back.”

In June, Trump said that he and his camp would welcome “Bernie or bust” voters who had “been left out in the cold” after Clinton’s primary victory “with open arms.”

The use of this common narrative of a “rigged system” common to supporters of both candidates would be bolstered a month later by foul play allegations at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, which was punctuated by the DNC email hack.

The thousands of leaked emails revealed a conspiratorial effort among party officials to sabotage Sanders’ underdog campaign during the primary, leading to the resignation of then-party chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, R-Fla. (F, 8%) and giving Trump another avenue to make his case to the former Sanders camp.

“The system’s rigged and [Wasserman Schultz] was rigging the system for Hillary,” said Trump at a rally in North Carolina, in the wake of the developments. He also made note of his and Sanders’ similar protectionist agendas on trade policy.

“[Sanders] and I are similar in trade,” he told the supporters. “The difference is I can do something about it. I’m going to bring jobs back to North Carolina … The trade agreements we have are one-sided agreements for other countries, and it’s disgraceful.”

In fact, for all of the first presidential debate’s bluster and personality squabbling, government-funded child care was one of the multiple policy points upon which Trump and Democrat Party nominee Hillary Clinton publicly agreed on stage.

Trump also made his case to Sanders’ supporters based on the Clinton campaign’s choice of Tim Kaine as running mate, due to the Virginia senator’s support for NAFTA and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.

And Trump does have some of the shared policies to make the case. In addition to his anti-free-market stances on the minimum wage and international trade, Trump has also added Big Government child care to his portfolio of promises.

A few weeks ago, ostensibly at his daughter Ivanka’s behest, Trump rolled out a policy proposal that, among its other provisions, includes a socialist, taxpayer-funded maternity leave program.

Unfortunately for the Trump campaign, the months-long effort isn’t working at all. As it turns out, running to the left on economic policies isn’t buy the candidate the socialist defectors that they’d hoped for. Rather, what it actually appears to be doing is turning Republicans away from the free market.

According to August data analysis at FiveThirtyEight, most of those Bernie supporters ended up falling along the Democratic Party line. But, even if the remaining holdouts could all find their way to become nose-holders, they don’t have the numbers to do much for Trump anyway.

“The Sanders holdouts aren’t that large a group. If they were forced to choose only between Clinton and Trump, the vast majority would choose Clinton and yet they would add only about 1 percentage point to her overall margin over Trump, according to [August] polls,” explains FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten. “That could matter in a close election, but the election isn’t looking all that close at the moment.”

Some factors, however, have changed. Thanks to pneumonia-gate, ongoing email releases, and a list of other things working against Clinton, the polls have tightened, and — at the time of this writing — the RealClearPolitics spread has Clinton up a mere 2.9 points.

But still, it doesn’t look like Bernie holdouts are going to line up behind the New York billionaire anytime soon. If it hasn’t happened by this point, it’s probably not going to happen.

Meanwhile, the GOP candidate’s protectionist rhetoric and departure from free trade seems to brought an alarming number of Republicans along for the ride. A recent Politico-Harvard poll found that 85 percent of GOP voters believe that free trade policies have cost more jobs than they have created … contrasted against a mere 54 percent of Democrats.

But, who knows? This could really be the start of something. After all, if Donald Trump’s efforts could turn such a significant swath of the former free market, small government party against the concept of free trade, who knows what a majority of Republican voters will think about socialist maternity leave in a few weeks? (For more from the author of “AfterBern: Trump’s Socialist Policies Aren’t Working on the ‘Bernie or Bust’ Crowd” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Now Calls Debate ‘Rigged’ Due to Antagonistic Moderator

/0 Comments/in , /by

In the wake of extensive criticism of presidential debate moderator Lester Holt for aggressively confronting Republican candidate Donald Trump and lobbing softballs at Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump is changing his verdict of how the debate was conducted.

“And then I had to put up with the anchor and fight the anchor all the time on everything I said. What a rigged deal,” Trump told a New Hampshire crowd Thursday.

“I tell you, we are in such a rigged — it is terrible. What’s going on in this country is so sad. But it will change. Remember Nov. 8th,” he added.

The word “rigged” has become part of the standard Trump campaign vocabulary. For example, elsewhere in his speech Monday, he noted, “The people getting rich off the rigged system are the people throwing their money at Hillary Clinton.

He also stated, “We are going to take on the special interests, the lobbyists, and the corrupt corporate media that have rigged the system against everyday Americans.”

When Trump finished Monday night’s debate, he had no complaints. He said Holt did a “great job” and the questions were “very fair.”

When reflection set in, and he could see the different ways the candidates were treated, he revised his opinion.

“When I first did it, I thought he was fine, I wasn’t thinking about it, but when I reviewed it and when I saw all of the commentary — because a lot of people thought he was terrible — and I looked at all of the commentary, I realized he was much, much tougher on me than he was on Hillary, it was like day and night,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly of Fox News Wednesday night.

“Nobody tuned in to hear what Lester Holt had to say,” said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “Nobody wants Lester Holt to be a fact-checker.”

Holt’s disparity in handling the candidates was also commented upon by Kelly Riddell in the Washington Times, who gave Holt an “F” for her performance.

“Mr. Trump got the most pointed questions all night, on racist stop-and-frisk, birtherism, his tax returns, Mrs. Clinton’s ‘stamina’ and being the first woman president. Mrs. Clinton’s email server? Not so much. FBI investigation? Nada. Pay for play allegations with the Clinton Foundation? Not worth it. Nearly all of Mr. Holt’s follow-up questions were directed at Mr. Trump, not Mrs. Clinton. Most of his interruptions were of Mr. Trump,” she wrote.

Clinton and Trump debate again Oct. 9, where ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper will moderate. The final debate is Oct. 19 and Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel will be the moderator. (For more from the author of “Trump Now Calls Debate ‘Rigged’ Due to Antagonistic Moderator” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Post Debate Memo to Donald Trump From a Never-Hillary Voter

/0 Comments/in , /by

Okay, Donald, you’re not going to like this. But if you wanted to hear from a yes-man, you would have let Christie out of the basement. So here’s the deal: We GOP voters didn’t overlook your long years of schmoozing with corrupt Democrats, your childish attacks on solid conservatives like Ted Cruz, and your cartoonish public persona, just to have you blow this thing in the home stretch. We nominated, for better or worse, a guy who body-slammed and head-shaved Vince McMahon in a wrestling ring on TV.

What we saw last night was more like George Pataki — nervous, defensive, wonkish, boring, and worried about your legacy. If you win this thing, you’re the president. You’ll have upended U.S. politics. If you lose, you have no legacy. You’ll be a cautionary tale, which the GOP establishment uses to nominate Paul Ryan next time. How’s that going to feel?

In last night’s debate, you started off strong, like an angry boxer blowing all his steam in the first three rounds. Then you let Hillary Clinton play you. She played you like a fiddle — no, I take that back. Sometimes we don’t mind hearing a fiddle. She played you like an accordion. Every time she pushed a button and squeezed, you made the exact wheezing sound that she wanted. And she leaned back and gave that same icy smile that psychologists painted on the wiry monkey mama. Please, for the love of everything that is decent, don’t hand our government to that woman.

Every time she attacked something that you hold dear, like your business acumen, you took the bait and swam right up to the surface where she could spear you. Only once or twice did you hit back effectively — for instance, when she pressed you on your tax returns and you came back and demanded her emails. But then you let it drop — an issue that ought to disqualify Clinton completely from serving as president. Then you actually let her bloviate about the importance of “cyber-security.” Even “little” Marco Rubio would have been pounding on the lectern at that point demanding:

How DARE you, of all people, even mention that! You broke the law, violated the rules, evaded government safeguards, and sent classified materials floating around the Internet — which who knows what countries are using to track down our friends and allies and murder them. Your underlings are all hiding behind immunity and the 5th Amendment, and you barely escaped being put into handcuffs and arrested — because you intentionally destroyed the evidence. You’re the Al Capone of foreign policy — except he got caught on a technicality, while you managed to skate. Maybe you had some friends at the Justice Department.

Why didn’t you point out that your tax returns don’t affect America’s security, did not result in dead Americans and launch a wave of dangerous Muslim immigrants, like her amateur-hour meddling in Libya? Then you could have reminded Americans how Hillary wants to increase the number of unvettable Muslim immigrants into America — like the Cascade Mall shooter from Turkey who is a Hillary supporter. Instead of thinking about reams of boring tax filings, Americans would have been wondering how many more pressure cooker bombers Hillary wants to resettle in their home towns.

You need to stop defending the honor of your hotel chains. Stop thundering like Ralph Kramden (of The Honeymooners) about how wonderful your temperament is. You stopped just short of saying something like “Bang, zoom, Alice — right to the moon!” Remember that in each of those arguments, Alice won.

Stop wandering into the weeds with references and names that only make sense to reporters but not to the public. That tells the media pros who have been targeting you since the convention that they’re getting inside your head. You had Hillary dead to rights on starting the ridiculous birther issue — but you squandered that moment by rattling off boring names and facts. John Kasich could have done that, if that was what we wanted — with more entertaining hand gestures.

Why didn’t you talk about the bribery and influence-peddling operation that is the Clinton Foundation, which sold access to the Department of State in return for secret donations from murderous governments like Saudi Arabia — which hatched most of the 9/11 hijackers, and beheads women and gays? Why didn’t you talk about the uranium deal with Russia that the government had turned down, and suddenly approved after the Russians made a big donation to Bill? How about Hillary’s right-hand woman, Huma Abedin, whose magazine tries to radicalize Muslims throughout the West, and published pieces blaming domestic abuse on women, and blaming the 9/11 attacks on American policies?

When Hillary accused you of stiffing building contractors, why didn’t you answer that she lied to the families of four Americans who died in Benghazi on her watch, blaming what she knew was an al Qaeda attack on a Coptic Christian’s Internet video?

More so than most politicians in the past 30 years, you know how to be funny. We didn’t see that last night. I was hoping that you’d interrupt Hillary’s blather about her father’s drapery business with a classic Trumpian zinger — for instance, “Where was your father on Nov. 23, 1963? I think America deserves to know.” The audience would have loved it, and it would actually have helped defuse some of the resentment which we Cruz voters still treasure despite his endorsement.

Instead, you seemed rattled and touchy. That’s not even the real you, most of the time. You are typically blithely, even blindly self-confident. It’s Hillary who’s the paranoid, secretive, misanthropic control freak. Americans need to see that, before it’s too late.

You need to hit Clinton hard, relentlessly hard, on her deep personal corruption and radical policies — which don’t even flow from conviction, but cold and soulless ambition. You can get away with hitting back at a mean girl — you’ve proven that. Those who despise you for being a bit of a cad are already Hillary stalwarts. Now the rest of us need to see you use that power for good, instead of … stupid. You’re Jimmy Cagney, facing Lady Macbeth, and you’re the one holding a grapefruit. We want to see you use it. (For more from the author of “Post Debate Memo to Donald Trump From a Never-Hillary Voter” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Priebus Still ‘Hopeful’ Bush 41, 43 Come on Board for Trump

/0 Comments/in , /by

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Monday that he’s “hopeful” former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush will be able to come around and support Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.

“I’m hopeful that that is going to change soon,” Priebus told Laura Ingraham of the absence of any support from the Bush family. “I know that Bush 41 is very upset over what [Kathleen Hartington Kennedy] had said and is not happy.”

Kennedy claims that President George H.W. Bush told an audience in private that he was going to vote for Clinton, but Bush denied ever saying that. Priebus agreed he could clear it up by saying he’d vote for Trump, and downplayed the divide in the Republican Party.

“I think the divide is like … 90/10. It’s 88/12. It’s not much of a divide. We have a sliver that’s resistant, and I think if people are serious about getting our country in a place that has been a bunch of talk, but is actually some action, then they need to get on board and elect Donald Trump president. I think they’re getting — I think they’ll get there.” (Read more from “Priebus Still ‘Hopeful’ Bush 41, 43 Come on Board for Trump” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Debate Audience Members Cheer Trump’s Terms for Releasing Tax Returns

/0 Comments/in , /by

Though moderator Lester Holt began Monday night’s presidential debate by asking the audience to remain quiet during the 90-minute event, one answer by Republican nominee Donald Trump prompted many in attendance to break that rule.

When Holt brought up Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, the brash billionaire announced one condition under which he would defy his attorneys’ advice and hand over the financial documents.

“We have a situation in this country that has to be taken care of,” he said.

“I will release my tax returns against my lawyers’ wishes when [Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] releases her 33,000 emails she deleted,” Trump added.

Trump’s reference to an ongoing scandal regarding the then-secretary of state’s use of a private email server to send and receive classified information prompted many in the audience to cheer loudly.

Before turning to Clinton for a rebuttal, Holt “admonished” those responsible for the interruption.

For her part, Trump’s rival floated a few theories she said would explain why the real estate mogul has kept his tax returns private.

“Maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is” or “as charitable as he claims to be,” Clinton speculated.

She also suggested Trump might also be trying to hide the fact that he does not pay federal taxes.

“He’s not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are,” she concluded, “because it must be something really important — even terrible — he’s trying to hide.” (For more from the author of “Debate Audience Members Cheer Trump’s Terms for Releasing Tax Returns” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.