Don's Tuesday Column

      THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   10/04/2016

         My, my, what stories they tell

The Republican Party/Republican Women Federated/Donald Trump headquarters is open inside the historic 710 Main Street, the finely columned building on the northeast corner of Pine and Main Streets. Inside you’ll find friendly volunteers with a range of yard signs, bumper stickers, MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats, buttons and T-shirts, and “Adorable Deplorables” shirts—particularly popular with Republican women. Open 10 AM until 6 or so, their schedule has room for motivated additional volunteers to pick shifts. See ya there.

In a weekly syndicated column by a writer sharing the first three letters of my last name and my first initial, readers are treated to genuine Trump Derangement Syndrome every Tuesday (on Friday, Mr. Minch managed to combine both Trump, as well as Bush, Derangement Syndrome). Such opinion pieces reveal more about the writers than either Trump or Bush.

Given that the entirety of the supposedly-straight news reporting profession is engaged in thinly-veiled water carrying, advocacy and Hillary Clinton propaganda, the opinion pieces are little more than press releases from the Democratic National Committee. Witness the repetitive use of phrases and descriptors in print, by news anchors and panels that—emails by Dems show—are clearly partisan, in-kind campaign contributions by the media.

Here’s my take on a couple of items that the Democrat/media complex, and its pack mentality, obsessed over: The Miss Universe that was criticized by Mr. Trump in the 1990s seemed too convenient by half; indeed, some reporters went to her country before the debate in a transparent advance move, tipped off by Clinton’s people. Protests of unfairness are almost laughable; a beauty pageant winner, who, having won in large part on her physical image and assets, shall we say, is contractually obligated to maintain that image to retain the crown.

Pageant winners have often lost their crowns, not just for things they say and do afterwards, but also for things in their past that come to light. If a winner becomes anorexic or overweight, failing to maintain their image is within the purview of the owner(s) of the contest. An employee, secretary or executive has wider (ahem) latitude to put on weight and still perform.

It’s similar to the well-known pattern in Hollywood whereby a star of either sex (count me out of the transgender nonsense) can diminish their market value as they age and, shall we say, fill out. In the Trump/Ms. Machado case, CNN on-air commentators paid similar “fat shaming” attention to her at the time. Is that somehow different? It is certainly hypocritical.

Then we have the “trumped up” non-issue of a $916 million loss by Mr. Trump over 20 years ago, that, under perfectly legal, routine and ordinary tax rules, is allowed to be applied—carried over—to cancel out income for several years prior to almost 20 years forward. Every word you just read is irrefutable; income taxes are based on—read slowly—actual taxable income. That’s the separate line on the form that is often markedly different than “gross” income.

It is axiomatic that the tax code has been complicated to near-incomprehensibility by the addition of almost 100,000 pages—and more each year—of fine-tuning, special interest pleading, and taxpayer bailout provisions. Among the most sensible measures are those used by Mr. Trump, and, probably, any reader who’s ever had any income beyond simple wages and salaries.

Have any of you bought or sold or transferred a stock or mutual fund? Surely you’ve at least glanced at the relevant lines after your tax preparer finished his work. I have seen numerous years when investment gains were balanced against losses from a previous year. A sizable segment of citizens have had self-employment or business activities that required deduction of expenses; gross rents, receipts, sales or fees are always reduced by business costs.

The entire economy and, I would say, the monetary needs of our government are the beneficiaries of allowing business losses to be applied to income in other years. When a business can use such legal means to survive economic downturns or even the occasional unforeseen business failure, it allows employees to be retained, accounts payable to be reimbursed—and, just as importantly, the application of know-how gained through such failure to avoid a repetition.

I support such private sector practices which, let’s admit, simply allow for eventual business success and the accompanying taxes without which governments have nothing to spend. The “newspaper of record,” the New York Times, announced with great umbrage (and with illegally obtained tax documents) Trump’s nearly $1billion loss. The Times’ parent corporation used the tax code to show a multi-million dollar federal tax reimbursement at the same time it showed over $20 million of profit every year before and after. Yes, the New York Times benefited with millions of dollars from taxpayers while it earned tens of millions in income. What shameless hypocrisy.

I hope you learned some things here. I urge that you avail yourself of Drudgereport.com every day; it simply aggregates reporting from a multitude of sources that can put into perspective the spoon-fed, agenda-driven, group-think reporting you find from the AP, the networks and cable shows. Also spend a few minutes at Powerlineblog.com, Pjmedia.com/Instapundit/ and my blog, DonPolson.blogspot.com. Between now and November, you owe it to yourself to be informed. The news media are no longer stealthily attempting to defeat Trump and elect Hillary; it’s blatant and they’re proud of it.