Don's Tuesday Column

      THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   10/11/2016

                        Trump’s mouth not same as Hillary’s past

Local Republicans have determined that “Trump-Pence” yard signs can be reduced to $5; we encourage his supporters to use signage to let it be known that we won’t be manipulated by the Democrat/news media alliance into wavering in our support in this critical election. Headquarters at 710 Main St.

Donald Trump was not my primary candidate and I had harsh words at the time. He won’t win or lose based on what I say or how I vote here in a Republican county of a “moonbat” liberal state. However, it behooves me to provide some perspective and context to both Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s record and positions, if only to help readers sort truth from fiction.

I don’t hang around with men who brag and expound about their amorous exploits; my dad let his boys know that “locker room” boasts and stories were universally to be dismissed as “bovine scat.” I’m surprised only that it should be shocking when it comes from someone of Trump’s reputation and admitted activities. As a self-styled “lothario,” Trump’s pursuit of romantic achievement is legal, perhaps understandable, although repulsive in a moral sense.

But let’s just step back and consider the primary source of moral outrage: the Democrat Party and news/entertainment media outlets. Those were the selfsame defenders of serial philanderer and abuser, Bill Clinton, dismissing his reported exposure of his privates to Paula Jones, groping of Kathleen Willey, rape of Juanita Broderick and numerous other abusive encounters.

“It’s only about sex” was the tired refrain over his having to settle with Paula Jones for $800,000. Hillary enabled his assaults by viciously attacking his accusers. Hillary insisted recently that “women are to be believed and given the benefit of the doubt” when they report sexual assaults. The entertainment and cultural left have so diminished the standards for judging behavior, based on Christian moral guidelines, that routine halftime and awards shows performances are simply not safe for young viewers’ eyes and ears.

These are the same hypocrites that revered Ted Kennedy who clearly killed, by negligence, a woman he’d “romanced” and left to die in a car that ran off a bridge in Massachusetts, and infamously engaged in “sandwich” maneuvers with waitresses and Senator Chris Dodd.

In “America, You Have No Right to Judge Donald Trump,” D.C. McAllister, a woman, pointed to the “holier than thou glee” from Trump haters and how “the left has been howling like puritanical wolves…It’s ironic coming from a secular culture that long ago declared objective morality dead.”

In “Hillary Laughs About Her Defense Of A Child Rapist,” her callous and cynical attitude was revealed through court documents and an audiotape, unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon, of an interview of Hillary Clinton by Arkansas reporter Roy Reed. In the course of defending an admitted rapist of a 12-year old girl by a 41-year old man, Clinton 1) knew of his guilt, 2) attacked the girl’s credibility as being “emotionally unstable” by “fantasizing” and “seeking out older men” and 3) chuckled over the rapist passing a polygraph test.

Well, Mr. Minch took the bait in my little “rope-a-dope” gambit and has showed either his hypocrisy, foolishness or duplicity. Having been, for about 16 years, in the same line of work as Mr. Minch, I used the same tax forms as any self-employed businessman or woman, Schedule C “Profit or Loss From Business.” If one is “in the business” of listing, selling, leasing, buying and investing in real estate, there are normal, reasonable and necessary expenses associated therewith. The title, “Profit or Loss From Business,” implies that, when such expenses cancel gross income from commissions, payments, etc., there may be a business loss.

If the business is conducted as a form of corporation, there is essentially a similar reconciling of income and expenses. However, profits or losses may well include rents, lease payments, depreciation and mortgage income that may or may not result in a loss on paper and in the bank account. When losses anywhere exceed income, the tax laws allow for those losses to be applied against prior years’ income, in an amended form, or to future years’ taxable income. That was specified in a law, signed by then-President Bill Clinton.

So, perhaps Mr. Minch would respond clearly and explain: If he filled in “expense” lines that effectively reduced his taxes, he “avoided” paying taxes due on his income in a perfectly legitimate manner and use of the law. Neither that nor what Mr. Trump did with his $916 million loss were a “failure to pay,” or evasion of, taxes. If Mr. Minch or Mr. Trump did not apply expenses and losses against profits, then it would be a foolish overpayment of taxes, and an abrogation of responsibilities to oneself, one’s business, and one’s family.

If Mr. Minch did reduce the taxes due on his gross income by using the numerous categories of “ordinary and necessary” business expenses, then it would hypocritical for him to imply/state that Trump 1) “evaded” and failed to pay taxes, and 2) that it was a “breach of trust.”

If Mr. Minch cannot provide straight answers, it may be duplicitous to readers who sincerely wonder how Mr. Minch could use legitimate expenses or losses to reduce his “taxable income (loss)” but condemn Mr. Trump for doing the same thing, if only different by scale. A $916 loss, a $916,000 loss or a $916 million loss, if deemed legitimate under a law signed by Bill Clinton, should not be cause for Mr. Minch to get on his high horse and express umbrage.