The tax thing: I have a plan

From The Hill:

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that Democrats will "never" see President Trump's tax returns.

"Nor should they. That’s an issue that was already litigated during the election. Voters knew the president could have given his tax returns, they knew that he didn’t, and they elected him anyway," Mulvaney said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."

He added that Democrats "know they're not going to" get the tax returns

Obviously, the documents offer evidence of impeachable corruption. Why else go to such lengths to hide them?

Although I hope Congress will continue to seek those returns, the fight is probably doomed. Trump will take the battle all the way to the Supreme Court, and there it will end -- in his favor. That is the harsh, infuriating, unfair truth of the situation.

New York state legislators may soon seek Trump's state taxes, which will contain much of the same information. Although I applaud this tactic, Trump will fight that fight all the way to the Supreme Court, with a very predictable result.

Is the coming defeat inevitable? Perhaps, but I have a rather sneaky idea. Even a defeat can be used to the Democrats' advantage.

One of the three committees requesting Trump's returns should find some strategy by which he or his lawyer is required to explain why the returns may not be divulged. The goal: Force Trump to repeat that tired line about the taxes being under audit.

His "audit" claim is hogwash, of course. Everyone -- including his supporters -- understands this. Twenty-eight months is the legal limit for any audit. Says so right here.

Trump can continue to tell his lie to the American people with apparent impunity, because his supporters don't care about his brazen dishonesty. Fibbing in front of the teevee cameras is one thing, but lying under oath -- or lying to Congress, even when not under oath -- is a weighty matter. That's perjury.

In other words, I propose a new game. The name of this new game is not "Get the tax returns" but "Get the lie on record."

Once Trump (or his lawyer) has officially lied to Congress, vast possibilities will emerge. The first, most obvious step would be to request a statement from the IRS declaring Trump to be under audit. There's always a letter, and there's no reason why we should not see that letter.

Nevertheless, we can fairly predict that Trump will refuse to show any such communication. That's when the fun will really start.

Previous heads of the IRS can be interviewed under oath. Although they will not speak directly about Trump's taxes, they can confirm what I've just said about the 28 month limit. It might prove instructive to grill Trump's man at the IRS, Charles Rettig. He will, of course, tell interrogators that he is unable to confirm Trump's story about being under audit. Savvy investigators should then ask Rettig if he has ever heard of any audit lasting more than 28 months.

Picture the scene: "Is it not the case, Mr. Rettig, that Mr. Trump's tax returns for the years 2015 and before cannot possibly be under audit?" Watch him squirm!

In the end, he will be forced to admit that the "audit" story is fraudulent. He won't say so directly, but the message will be clear.

The goal, in short, is to maneuver Trump into the commission of perjury and then to prove that his statement was, in fact, perjurious. I will not call this tactic a "perjury trap," since there is no trap. Nothing compels him to lie.

Beto. I don't really have a favorite in the race for the Democratic nomination, although I have an UNfavorite. (Guess who.) Until this point, I was leaning toward Kamala Harris, if only because the Berners went on a hate crusade against her. Julian Castro impresses the hell out of me. I've always liked Biden, despite my concerns about his age.

But all of a sudden, I'm a Beto guy.

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke on Sunday described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “racist” whose outreach to far-right interests as he seeks to hang onto political power has seriously damaged the chances of peace in the Middle East.

Speaking at a town hall here at the University of Iowa, the former Texas congressman denounced Netanyahu’s pledge Saturday that he would annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank if he wins another term in Tuesday’sIsraeli general election. Netanyahu’s proposed annexation, O’Rourke said, “will make peace in the long term impossible.”

Now that's a profile in courage.

I'm betting that no small number of American Jews agree with Beto. Bibi is basically running as a Trump clone, and most American Jews don't like Trump.

“The world has come to understand that Netanyahu is essentially the political twin of Donald Trump,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street. “Unlike his previous elections, there is a much deeper antagonism toward Netanyahu because of that close affiliation between him and Trump and the Republican Party.”

New York-based journalist Jane Eisner, former editor of The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, said many American Jews have “Netanyahu fatigue” — even some who supported him in past.

Jews surely noticed that Trump, in essence, gave presidential approval to the accusation that American Jews owe their first loyalty to Israel. That statement was no mere malapropism. Trump understands that there is a certain degree of intersection between "I support Israel" and "Juden Raus!"

From Haaretz:

He mocked asylum seekers and said of refugees, “Our country is full, can’t come, I’m sorry,” earning only mild applause. Jewish groups have generally favored generous refugee allowances.

The Republican party is that close to saying aloud what so many far-rightists have long thought: "Yes, Jews have a home -- and they should go there." The tiki-torch battalions support Israel because they want all American Jews to relocate.

The ideals of multiculturalism and tolerance are under constant attack from both the Alt Right and the "progressive" left, which have become two sides of the same coin. The goal of fascism has always been to assign real estate according to ethnicity, and that's where we're heading. Mass relocations.

It's time for American Jews to ask themselves: Do we really want this?