Donald J. Trump
Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!
Monday, June 13, 2016
"Congrats"
As authorities were still counting the bodies in the Orlando shooting, Trump tweeted about himself:
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Trump: Bad Business
At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others.
Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and three against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both cases were resolved by the companies agreeing to pay back wages.The New York Times describes his disastrous management of Atlantic City casinos:
In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work — since the 1980s. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing.
“He helped expand Atlantic City, but he just did not put the equity into the projects he should have to keep them solvent,” said H. Steven Norton, a casino consultant and a former casino executive at Resorts International. “When he went bankrupt, he not only cost bondholders money, but he hurt a lot of small businesses that helped him construct the Taj Mahal.”
Beth Rosser of West Chester, Pa., is still bitter over what happened to her father, whose company Triad Building Specialties nearly collapsed when Mr. Trump took the Taj into bankruptcy. It took three years to recover any money owed for his work on the casino, she said, and her father received only 30 cents on the dollar.
“Trump crawled his way to the top on the back of little guys, one of them being my father,” said Ms. Rosser, who runs Triad today. “He had no regard for thousands of men and women who worked on those projects. He says he’ll make America great again, but his past shows the complete opposite of that.”
...
Though he has acknowledged mistakes in piling crippling debt on Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, has steadfastly maintained that his resorts were the best-run and highest-performing casinos in Atlantic City.
“The casinos have done very well from a business standpoint,” he told Playboy magazine in 2004. “People agree that they’re well run, they look good and customers love them.”
In reality, the revenue at Mr. Trump’s casinos had consistently lagged behind their competitors’ for a decade before larger forces ravaged the industry. Beginning in 1997, his share of the Atlantic City gambling market began to slip from its peak of 30 percent.Clinton is going after Trump University:
Revenues at other Atlantic City casinos rose 18 percent from 1997 through 2002; Mr. Trump’s fell by 1 percent.
Saturday, June 11, 2016
Sanders and Jackson
Like Jesse Jackson in 1988, outsider Bernie Sanders is going to seek various concessions from the Democratic Party's nominee. At RealClearPolitics, Richard Benedetto writes:
Sanders and Jackson are kindred spirits and go way back in their friendship. Sanders, then mayor of Burlington, Vt., was one of the few white elected officials to endorse Jackson for president, first in in 1984 and again in 1988.
“We are going to give our support to a candidate for president who has done more than any other candidate in living memory to bring together the disenfranchised, the hungry, the poor, the workers who are being thrown out of their decent-paying jobs and the farmers who are being thrown off of their lands,” Sanders said when he endorsed Jackson in 1988.
Sound familiar?
Jackson, recalling those days, had high praise for Sanders last month in a Huffington Post podcast, “Candidate Confessional.”
“In many ways, Bernie is running the Jackson campaign,” Jackson said, “with much more money and today’s technology and much more coverage in so many ways. As we sought to broaden the base, many whites would support us but were afraid to face other whites — these cultural walls and fears. Bernie supported us in ’84 and ’88.”
Friday, June 10, 2016
Substitute "Republicans for Federalists," and "Trump" For "Burr"
[Some say] that Burr’s ambition will be checked by his good sense, by the manifest impossibility of succeeding in any scheme of usurpation, & that if attempted, there is nothing to fear from the attempt...The proposition is against the experience of all times. Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense. Besides that, really the force of Mr Burr's understanding is much overrated. He is far more cunning than wise, far more dexterous than able...He thinks every thing possible to adventure and perseverance. And tho’ I believe he will fail, I think it almost certain he will attempt usurpation. An[d] the attempt will involve great mischief.
If the Federalists substitute Burr, they adopt him and become answerable for him. Whatever may be the theory of the case, abroad and at home (for so from the beginning will be taught) Mr Burr will become in fact the man of our party. And if he acts ill, we must share in the blame and disgrace. By adopting him we do all we can to reconcile the minds of the Federalists to him, and prepare them for the effectual operation of his arts. He will doubtless gain many of them, & the Federalists will become a disorganized and contemptible party. Can there be any serious question between the policy of leaving the Antifederalists to be answerable for the elevation of an exceptionable man, & that of adopting ourselves & becoming answerable for a man who on all hands is acknowledged to be a complete Cataline in his practice & principles? ’Tis enough to state the question to indicate the answer, if reason not passion presides in the decision.
Primary Turnout
Drew DeSilver reports at Pew:
Turnout in the first 29 GOP primaries – up to and including Indiana – averaged 16.6%, according to our analysis. But turnout in the final nine contests, after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, averaged only 8.4%.
By contrast, the heated battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders engaged Democratic voters for longer. Less than a day before the final five states held their primaries, the Associated Press reported that Clinton already had clinched the nomination. But turnout in the five primaries held June 7 didn’t appear to be affected, averaging 14.1% compared with an average of 14.5% for the preceding 31 contests. (The District of Columbia will hold its Democratic primary June 14, but there likely won’t be enough voters there to significantly change the nationwide numbers.)
The overall Democratic turnout of 14.4% was well below the record 19.5% in 2008, but it was still the second-highest since 1988’s primary season.
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Nihilistic Partisanship
Josh Kraushaar writes at National Journal:
Voters are increasingly casting straight-party ballots, and rooting for their party like sports fans cheer for the Yankees and Red Sox. The number of straight-ticket voters hit an all-time high in 2014, with 84 of the 100 senators now representing states that their party won in the last presidential campaign. By locking down the Republican nomination, Trump has been able to use the party label as a cudgel of loyalty for his campaign. Nearly 9 in 10 Republicans now are behind Trump, a remarkable turnaround from the widespread GOP resistance during the primaries.
“What we may be seeing today is the emergence of a new kind of party institution—one that is neither stronger nor weaker, but merely more nihilistic: Bereft of ideas, lacking in purpose, but still a potent force in national elections because of the intensity of hatred for its opponents,” wrote Jason Willick in a perceptive essay at the American Interest.
It’s this degree of party loyalty that prompted Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to line up behind Trump, not because they agree with him -- but because they fear the down-ballot consequences if the leadership breaks with their party’s presidential nominee. For all McConnell’s talk that Republicans will be running their own individual Senate campaigns, he clearly understands that his GOP colleagues will be rendered helpless if the party is divided in two.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Clinton Strategy: All About the Delegates
In the 2008 nomination contest, the Clinton campaign made a fatal strategic mistake. We explained in Epic Journey:
"...Obama's post-Iowa strategy was all about delegate arithmetic...The Clinton campaign's strategy was different. A staff member told journalist Roger Simon: “They thought it was all about winning states and not delegates.”As I wrote in The Art of Political Warfare: "If winning can be debilitating, losing can be educational." Clinton learned the lessons of her 2008 defeat and adjusted accordingly. Karen Tumulty writes at The Washington Post that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook focused relentlessly on the delegate count. Bernie Sanders did follow Obama's example in one respect: he did well in caucus states. But in failing to build his strategy around delegate arithmetic, he repeated Clinton's 2008 mistake.
After his loss in South Carolina, Sanders barely contested delegate-rich states in other parts of the Old South, concentrating instead on places where he could beat Clinton — such as Oklahoma.Sanders's excellent fundraising forced Clinton to be tight with money.
That made sense in some way, in that it maintained the appearance of momentum and kept his supporters’ enthusiasm going.
“They were going for wins, instead of spreading out their resources to narrow the margins everywhere,” a key calculation, given the Democrats’ system of proportionally allocating delegates, said one top Clinton campaign aide, giving a frank assessment in return for anonymity.
“It was a strategy for staying in the race. It wasn’t a strategy for winning,” the aide added.
At one point in April, Sanders could count seven victories out of the previous eight contests. But that string of wins did little to cut into Clinton’s delegate lead, thanks to the way the Democrats’ proportional system works. In Wyoming, for instance, he got 56 percent of the vote, but he and Clinton came out with seven delegates each.
Clinton had to be careful, for instance, in deciding where to buy television advertising. Instead of running spots in the expensive Dallas market, the campaign bought time in Waco, which was cheaper and had the potential to yield more delegates. Macon, Ga., made more sense than Atlanta because the campaign could reach into more congressional districts while spending less.
“Even though no one would have fathomed it, we ended up being the leaner, meaner campaign and were more efficient,” said spokesman Brian Fallon.
In accumulating delegates, Mook thought there were three big milestones: March 1, a.k.a. Super Tuesday, when there were contests in a dozen states and territories, including Texas and Georgia; March 15, another big round, including Florida, Ohio and Illinois; and a smaller trove on March 26, which would make her lead all but insurmountable.
In retrospect, those contests turned out to be as decisive as she had hoped. As of last weekend, Clinton held a lead of roughly 290 pledged delegates — nearly half of which could be attributed to Texas and Florida alone.
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