Trump will release his tax returns if, and only if, Clinton releases 30,000 emails.
Despite the fact that every GOP candidate since Richard Nixon (with the single exception of Gerald Ford) has released his returns doesn’t weigh in. The fact that Hillary has released every one of her returns since 2000 doesn’t weigh in. All that matters is that Hillary Clinton releases emails, potentially revealing private correspondence and perhaps even secure information.
Plus does anyone really think that Trump will then release his returns? I certainly don’t.
He claims that people don’t really care about his tax returns. Uh, Donald: Yes. We do. Because you’re deliberately coming up with dodges, which prompts us to speculate as to what’s going on. Will they reveal that you’ve been lying about your net worth? That you never pay taxes? That you never donate to charities? All we can do is speculate and you refuse to clarify it. Because that’s who you want in the Oval Office: someone who refuses to ever be candid about stuff that everyone else has no problem discussing.
How in God’s name did Hillary get the reputation for being duplicitous when Trump lies more than he tells the truth?
PAD
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Because of decades of GOP hatchet jobs attacking Hillary on anything and everything. She’s the most scrupulously honest candidate to make it past Super Tuesday, and Trump is one of the most corrupt since the Gilded Age, but the narrative has already been set: denying the lies just reinforce the lies at this point.
(asterisk: depending on how the study weights things, Bernie could have a slight edge on honesty. But either way, they’re both way ahead of almost all the GOP candidates, and almost nothing Trump says on the campaign trail is entirely true.)
Exactly so, David. As Peter Daou puts it, “There’s one more crucial detail missing from the unceasing narrative that Hillary is deeply unpopular — namely, that she and Trump are viewed negatively for polar opposite reasons. He, because he is a bigot and bully; she, because she is furiously, continuously and unfairly maligned.”
“Will they reveal that you’ve been lying about your net worth? That you never pay taxes? That you never donate to charities?”
I’d say the answers to those questions are “yes,” “mostly yes,” and “mostly yes”, respectively.
No, Peter, those things don’t “weigh in” because Trump doesn’t necessarily believe these things. He only has to say these things, and his willfully deluded supporters believe him. They take his statements as an excuse that it’s okay to believe those things, and he takes the blind, uncritical credulity with which they accept them as an indication that it’s okay to say them. That’s why he and Clinton have the reputation that they do. Partially because they’re both insincere panderers, and partially because whether these loony ideas bear out under the weight of logic or reason or truth is beside the point for him.
The psychological comfort churned out by the Belief Engine is pleasant, and strong. But the truth, and people’s genuine respect for it, generally isn’t. It’s long been that way for most people.
While I don;t like either candidate or most of their blind followers, Trump and his zombies bring to mind Jim Jones more than Hilary ever did….
“How in God’s name did Hillary get the reputation for being duplicitous when Trump lies more than he tells the truth?”
The old-fashioned way… she EARRRRRRNED it.
Just on the emails — her story’s changed about a dozen times, each time “adapting” to new facts as they’ve come out and proven she was lying.
And in her FBI interview, her defense was that she was too incompetent and brain-damaged to understand how classified material should be handled. Eight years as First Lady, eight years in the Senate (six of them on the Armed Services Committee), and four years of Secretary of State, and she couldn’t recall EVER getting any kind of briefing or training on classified material (even though she’d signed off on forms acknowledging that she’d received it). She didn’t know what some of the most common terms used in intelligence meant ((C), NOFORN, and so on), she couldn’t explain why details of planned future drone strikes should be kept secret, and so on.
So wrap your head around that: she can’t be held liable for her “grossly negligent” treatment of classified material because she’s too inept and brain-damaged (she actually said that she couldn’t recall things because of her 2012 concussion), BUT she’s the most competent and qualified and intelligent person to ever run for president.
No contradictions there, no sir…
Coma patients and the mentally handicapoped are more qualified than Trump.
This would have been the year for a third party if they could have pulled their act together and presented a strong candidate….
Coma patients and the mentally handicapoped are more qualified than Trump.
Well, that seems to include Hillary…
Peter –
I’m deeply disappointed in the US press. With a few exceptions, like Paul Krugman (who is the voice of reason in our times), the traditional press seems to be a doomed species.
The problem is “bothsidesism”. Most reporters have it drilled into them that they have to give voice to both sides of an issue. Problem is, if you’re uncritical about this policy, like most reporters are, then one of the sides can exploit and game “bothsidesism”.
It’s simple. If one of the sides becomes more and more extreme and outrageous, the press will STILL think they have to make both sides appear to have a point. The more crazy one of the sides becomes, the more the press will have to ignore the craziness of the radical side and wildly exaggerate the minor flaws in the other side to make both sides appear equal and create the illusion that they are impartial.
It’s in part because of this phenomenon that the American right-wing has become crazier and crazier since the 1990s, a proccess that accelarated to warp speed under Trump and in part is causing the perversion and ruin of the Republican Party.
By this point, it Trump is revealed as a cannibal that is addicted to human flesh, the press will discover that Hillary Clinton likes fried chicken, and the headlines will say:
Trump and Clinton: Both like to eat something that tastes like chicken!
Wil Wheaton wrote an article about this the other day for Reason:
That Clinton Foundation Scandal the Press Wants Exists, But they Won’t Report it Because it’s Actually About the Trump Foundation.
https://medium.com/@wilw/that-clinton-scandal-the-press-desperately-wants-exists-but-its-actually-about-trump-6d4291edc324#.9qygu77ji
A few d̶e̶c̶a̶d̶e̶s̶ y̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ months from now, people will look back at this election and asks themselves, “What the fûçk were we thinking!?”
Why wait? I’ve been saying it for at least a year now.
More like “I wish I had voted for “None of the above”!”
“Thinking”?
A big part of the both-sides-ism that Rene refers to earlier is the fact that the 24-hour cable companies feel they need to have a Clinton and Trump supporter on opposite each other, so usually within a matter of seconds, the conversation quickly becomes a ‘so’s your mother argument.’ A bit like this thread, really. Peter’s post is about Trump not revealing his tax returns, but in just over five posts, you get the, ‘Oh yeah? But Hillary…’ post. As if a Hillary post excuses the Trump post, which of course it doesn’t.
Hillary will always be seen as the duplicitous candidate until she gets up on a podium, or just shouts from the rooftops with sincerity and contrition that Benghazi happened because she screwed up and the lives lost that day was her fault, at least as far as her detractors and the individuals on the fence are concerned. The detractors don’t want to hear anything less because that would “offend” their “moral outrage”. (Not that there shouldn’t be outraged individuals. I’m merely referring to those who feign outrage to look good in the media with the air quotes,) and those on the fence can’t vote for a person they feel is cagey.
Maybe, in a slightly twisted sense, it’s like what you said about the Wizard of Oz all those years ago in BID. You know where you stand with the Wicked Witch of the West, in this case, Trump, but you didn’t know where you stood with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, in this case, Hillary.
Me, I just want to click the heels of my sneakers and say, “There’s no Prez like Ron…There’s no Prez like Ron…”
I weep when I see the state of the GOP these days. The Tea Party Clown Show and the infatuation with making idiots like Palin, Bachmann, and Cruz party superstars was certainly the genesis for the path that gave us Trump as the Republican nominee, but it would have been nice to see the party as a whole pull back from the brink and not allow itself to get dragged over the edge and off the cliff by the most insane faction of its base.
And how many are there left that AREN’T part of that insane faction? The GOP has slid so far right at this point their platform is the Titanic…
You still have moderates and sane candidates in both major parties. The problem is that they’re just not noisy enough to be noticeable over the screaming fringe.