1,) Mike Pence's Grace and Forgiveness
Republican candidate for vice-president Mike Pence has fallen back on his Christian religion to try to justify how he can continue to remain as the running mate for Donald Trump. In theology, a "day of grace" is a time of probation when sinners may obtain forgiveness. In Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary there are sixteen definitions of "grace"when used as a noun and four definitions when it is used as a verb. It is unclear what definition Pence is using when he uses the word "grace" but the word "forgiveness" has a less complicated meaning. Given the frequency with which Donald Trump lies and insults others, forgiveness is wasted on him, because he will have offended again before the word "forgiveness" flowing from Pence's mouth has reached the ears of his listeners.
Mike Pence would be more fully exercising his Christian religion if he focused his attention on getting his running mate to stop using almost every derogatory word in the lexicon to describe Hillary Clinton. Trump's latest two totally unsubstantiated slams on Clinton are that she was on drugs during the last debate between the two and that the Clinton campaign is responsible for the firebombing of a Trump campaign headquarters in North Carolina.
2.) Trump Not a Polished Politician
During the vice presidential debate, Mike Pence ventured to try to defend Trump's way of speaking by saying he is not a "polished politician." The word "polished" can be interpreted to mean that Trump hasn't learned to lie as a polished politician does, thereby playing on the disgust and even contempt the U.S. public has long displayed toward politicians. Once Donald Trump became a candidate for president, he became a politician, by definition. Learning how to conduct himself and use words in a way that would help him win the presidency should have been the guideposts for Trump to use to be a successful politician.
3.) Businessmen Make Good Politicians
One qualification that many Trump supporters cite for their support of him is that he is a businessman who will make the national government run more efficiently. The great flaw in the belief that businessmen or women will improve the operations of government by running it like a business is that business operates through the profit motive. Many government operations cannot be operated on the profit motive. Running a city bus line on the basis that passenger fares must yield a profit would mean setting the fares so high that most people now using the buses could not afford to ride them. The military, which consumes a giant share of national government revenue, cannot be run to make a profit. Our many and far flung intelligence services cannot be run on the basis of making a profit. This list of government operations that cannot be run on a profit basis could be greatly expanded, but the bottom line here is that government must perform many services that cannot be run on the basis of making a profit.
Donald Trump is hardly the epitome of a successful businessman, given his several bankruptcies -- in which investors in his bankrupted companies were the biggest losers -- his stiffing of contractors by not paying them agreed-upon compensation; and his use of meagerly paid overseas workers to make clothing and other products of his.
4.) Donald Trump and Income Taxes
Donald Trump and his surrogates have defended his use of a $915 million real estate loss to possibly not pay any federal income tax for as many of 18 years, by simply saying that he used the lawful provisions of the tax code. In the vice presidential debate, Mike Pence even tried to get Tim Kaine to admit that he used all of the tax breaks found in the tax code; however, Donald Trump is not simon pure in this matter, as in regard to the 47 percent of tax filers that the IRS said didn't pay any federal income tax, Trump said that they should have made a contribution. There has been at least one other time that Trump said the same thing.
It is one thing when Donald Trump uses all of the tax breaks available to him and yet another when he uses breaks for which he does not qualify. In filing his 2015 property tax, Trump used a school tax credit available only to New Yorkers with taxable incomes of $500,000 or less. A Trump spokesperson said it was an error made by the city and the city had corrected it; however, the NYC Division of Finance has stated as recently as June 2016 that it is investigating media reports of Trump using the school credit and it has not taken any corrective action. This is not a one-time thing, as Trump has used the same credit for at least three years.
Donald Trump paid no federal income tax in 1984, even though he claimed over $2 million in capital gains income and said his main occupation was "consulting." Yet he claimed no income from consulting, nor was there any documentation provided, nor receipts. It was in this same year that a photocopy of Trump's tax return was discovered with the signature of his accountant on it, yet the accountant testified in court that he did not sign the tax return, nor did anyone else in his firm.
5.) A "Rigged" Election
Donald Trump is now deeply focused on a claim that the upcoming election will be "rigged." There is real fear that aging voting machines and new electronic ones that can be hacked may give unreliable results; however, there is no credible evidence that the elections will be rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton.
The rigging that has taken place has been perpetrated almost entirely by Republicans, who have enacted legislation to make it more difficult to vote for those people who are most likely to vote for Democrats. The judiciary has been striking back by invalidating some provisions of voter restrictive legislation in at least Wisconsin, North Carolina and Texas.
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