New debate rules helped Trump, treat big nonprofits like business and other commentary

Debate beat: New Rules Helped Trump

“Staged by CNN in an audience-free soundstage in which even competing reporters were banned, the Biden-Trump debate had more ground rules than an Ultimate Fighting match,” grumbles Politico’s Jack Shafer. In advance of the debate, “many assumed that these new rules would hurt Trump” given that “he feeds off live audiences.” That wasn’t the case as the new format “prodded him in a relatively measured and dignified direction.” In contrast, Biden’s “halting speech and inanimate affect were on obvious display.” On-screen, the men “occupied conjoined video squares,” which meant Biden’s “wrinkled, aged face was on display all evening.”

While the Biden-Trump debate “reset the form, returning it to its 1960s origin,” it did nothing to help Biden.

“The enduring image of the night is a hollow-eyed Joe struggling to keep up with the kinetic Trump.”

Tax expert: Treat Big Nonprofits Like Biz

Rather than hiking corporate income taxes to help offset the cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts, Republicans should push to tax “business enterprises that masquerade as nonprofit entities,” argues Scott Hodge at The Wall Street Journal. 

In 2019, such groups pocketed “$186 billion in net income from sources such as royalties, broadcast rights, insurance reimbursements, ticket sales and membership fees — much of it untaxed.”

Though many nonprofits are true charities, “most of the largest” ones “function like businesses,” including “credit unions, hospitals, universities, athletic associations and consulting firms.” Should such groups be considered “nonprofit” when most of their income comes from business-like transactions?

“Broadening the corporate tax base” to include nonprofits’ business income can “raise new revenue in a less economically damaging manner.”

Foreign desk: Macron’s Gamble Failed

French President Emmanuel Macron “shocked the nation” by calling snap parliamentary elections “after a humiliating defeat in June’s European parliament election,” reports Politico’s Clea Caulcutt, in “an audacious move designed to stop the far right advance in its tracks by forcing French voters to choose.”

But: “On the strength of the early projections so far, his gamble looks set to fail.” In the first round, the rightist National Rally seems to have won 34% of the vote, while “Macron’s centrist alliance suffered staggering losses, coming third” with 20.3% as “the left-wing alliance” pulled 28.1%. Depending on maneuvers in advance of next Sunday’s second round, National Rally “stands a good chance of forming a ‘cohabitation’ government under Macron’s presidency.”

From the right: Assange’s Undeserved ‘Hero’ Status

Julian “Assange and his operation are hostile actors who collaborate with clandestine agents, rogue regimes, and sundry hackers to damage the United States,” fume National Review’s editors. “The charges” against Assange “describe how the willfully damaging leaks exposed to grave danger many Afghans, Iraqis, and Iranians, among others, who had provided our government with information.”

Yet “the Wikileaks founder became a cult hero for the radical Left and libertarians of an anarchist bent — and, disturbingly, for a vocal faction on the right as well.”

“To safeguard and advance freedom and security, a great nation that has taken on great responsibilities must be able to protect intelligence secrets and the sources who provide them.”

And “a serious nation deals firmly with enemies and traitors who undermine those efforts.”

Mideast watch: Israel’s Three-Front War

“Defeat, deter and dissuade — that is how Israel manages its three-front war against Iran and its proxies,” explain Jonathan Sweet & Mark Toth at The Hill. “Tehran is the immortal head of this hydra. But Israel will have to eliminate its other two heads to get to it.” And: “It does not help that the Biden administration is slow-walking or decreasing shipments of weapons to Israel.”

This “strategy encompasses decisive offensive operations to defeat and remove Hamas from Gaza” while also “defending itself from rocket, missile and drone attacks,” as well as “self-defense strikes and proactive defense actions to deter Hezbollah from entering the war with Iranian support. All the while, the Israelis must keep Iran in focus as it continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board