The New York attorney general has notified Donald Trump that his charitable foundation is violating state law — by soliciting donations without proper certification — and ordered Trump’s charity to stop its fundraising immediately, the attorney general’s office said Monday….
the Trump Foundation never registered under article 7A of New York’s Executive Law, as is required for any charity soliciting more than $25,000 a year from the public. One important consequence: Trump’s foundation avoided rigorous outside audits, which New York law requires of larger charities which ask the public for money.
Pass the popcorn and refresh your overnight Twitter account as the response is going to by Yuuggge and absolutely AMAZING!!!
Open Thread
Mike E
Cease and desist! That’s a phrase that’ll ring in Trump’s ears, along with “purported billionaire”
? Martin
Eh. Trump will stop taking the money, won’t file for certification because that would almost certainly involve opening the charity to additional financial scrutiny, and Trump will say that ‘we’ve complied with everything the AG has asked for – this is a non-story’ and that’ll be that.
None of his supporters care. It might be a story if Trump was currently awaiting bail, but this is pebbles in the ocean at this point.
Jeffro
There is not enough popcorn in all the world …
Joyce H
Something just occurred the me. The tax story tells everyone in Trump World that mailing something anonymously in a plain manila envelope to a major news organization gets the info out. That could have interesting repercussions.
different-church-lady
A whole lot of people are probably going to misunderstand and think his presidential campaign has been ordered to stop fundraising.
For the good of an informed electorate we should work to clear up this misconception.
Heh… I crack myself up
MattF
@Joyce H: In fact, the envelope had a ‘Trump Organization’ return address.
Origuy
Kurt Eichenwald has a new article up in Newsweek about Trump’s dealings with China.
PPCLI
@? Martin: Though they will make sure to state that this is politically motivated (as they already have in their announcement). (Why is every investigation of Republicans “politically motivated” and therefore suspect, whereas the 11 and counting Benghazi investigations are driven by a pure love of truth and country…. It’s always projection with these guys.)
Elizabelle
Relieved the Trump bubble is collapsing (more evidently) before Election Day.
Very sad that my brother in law was standing up for him yesterday. Spitting at me about “Trump creating jobs.” My sister says she’s told him about the stiffing contractors business. (Why yes, BIL is a general contractor.)
I cannot get over how much the pundits on CNN offer Trump more suitable language to deal with his problems. Like, if he was not distracted by all this, he’d be able to focus more on his substantive policy issues. Just one little problem there …
Eric U.
@? Martin: it’s almost discouraging that these things come out, because it makes things even more clear that his supporters are just in it for the bigotry
@Elizabelle: hey, Trump still created jobs, although the companies went out of business after the jobs were done
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@? Martin: And what about the 60+℅ that aren’t his supporters?
PPCLI
@Elizabelle: Jobs aren’t much help if you don’t get paid what you are owed.
happylisk
This is good news for John McCain.
liberal
@Elizabelle: Based on my reading online forums for various types of construction contractors, they are a very rightwing bunch.
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@PPCLI:
Great line! Please send it to Hillary for her use in the next debate!
PPCLI
@MattF: OK, as much as I love the idea that it is a mole in Trumpworld, I find it hard to believe that this bit about the return address, envelope and postmark wasn’t meant to hide the footprints of whoever did it, and maybe drive the Trump people crazy as an added bonus.
Though maybe I’m underestimating the difficulty of just walking into Trump tower and mailing something from there.
gogol's wife
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
I’m so tired of hearing “this won’t matter to his supporters.”
There are lots of people out there who are just tuning in. It might very, very well make a difference to them.
Hal
This has become beyond ridiculous. Any one of these recent scandals/meltdowns would have been a death blow to a Democrat. In the very least the chances of winning would have been greatly reduced. When’s the damn going to break.
schrodinger's cat
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Don’t worry too much, according to Martin, self driving cars and Apple will cure us of all ills, Amen.
aimai
@Elizabelle: I just think people have a “will to believe” that is so strong that there is really nothing much you can do about it. I should say: some people. A kind of manichean world view and an inability to handle nuance (I like this candidate but he might do some bad things, I don’t like this candidate but she might do some good things) is typical of frightened authoritarians. They easily attach themelves to powerful figures, or people who they see as powerful and they believe other people fear/see as powerful and then they cut their coat to fit their cloth. You can’t move them off their beliefs because their beliefs are really belief/feelings and one shores up the other. And, at base, the most important feelings are terror/rage/spite so the beliefs and facts that keep those things at bay, for them, are going to be very closely held.
amk
@? Martin:
You keep harping on that. Who cares if his racist base cares or not, as long as rest of the voters care enough and are already pulling down his poll numbers.
aimai
@Hal: They would have been a death blow to a Democrat because the press is always looking for ways to invalidate Democratic Candidates while they are always looking for ways to shore up the plausibility of Republican candidates. So the Press never, ever, lets up on the tiniest bit of Democratic supposed malfeasance or even “bad optics” while they do their best to gloss over Trump’s.
PPCLI
@gogol’s wife:Also too: I’m not so much worried about his hard-core supporters, who are lost to reality. It’s the large bloc of “respectable” Republicans who are trying to convince themselves that Hillary is worse, or that Trump wouldn’t be all that bad, confronting the daily crap waterfall that the Trump campaign has become.
? Martin
@amk: @The Sheriff’s A Ni-: I doubt this would affect his poll numbers. I’m not saying that this is good news for Donald Trump, but if anyone thinks this will have any impact on the race (as I assume the popcorn reference suggests) I think this is largely a non-story, especially with the taxes thing out there. At best it keeps everything where it is for another day – which is good and all. The tax story was the popcorn story. This is more of a broccoli story.
amk
@? Martin: Well, you said the same thing about the taxes thing too. May be you should check out latest polls fwiw.
rikyrah
City of Chicago
Suburban Cook County voters:
EARLY VOTING IS HERE!!
You can Early Vote at 69 W. Washington
8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
City of Chicago Voters – the Pedway
Suburban Cook County Voters – 5th Floor
Early voting has begun!!
Early Voting at Multiple Sites begins October 24th.
But, for now, you CAN VOTE EARLY at 69 W. Washington.
Joyce H
@aimai:
This is true. Once they’re in, they’re in. In situations like this, I always remember the Carl Sagan quote about bamboozlement –
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Patricia Kayden
@? Martin: You need to stop focusing on the fact that Trump’s supporters don’t care about his foibles. That’s not the point. Obviously, the focus should be on the few people who haven’t made a decision about who they’re voting for. They can still be persuaded to vote for Secretary Clinton by these kinds of stories.
Trollhattan
They’d solve a lot of problems issuing Trump a cease-and-desist consuming oxygen order.
Alec Baldwin can be his body double the rest of the way.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
So, what will DT’s next tweet storm cover? Isn’t this Rosh Hashanah, with Ivanka off babysitting her own babies, leaving Dad alone with his thoughts? Hillary is hitting him with a chair in one place, and Eric Schneiderman is hitting him with a 2×4 in another place, and the vets didn’t like his implication about suicides being weak. Any of his critics non-white? That seems to be what sets him off.
Anoniminous
@PPCLI:
You’re so picky.
NR
New Quinnipac swing state polls:
Florida: Clinton +5
North Carolina: Clinton +3
Pennsylvania: Clinton +4
Ohio: Trump +5
Trollhattan
@gogol’s wife:
Do you really think so? Seems like the campaign has been going on a decade and a half.
BR
@Elizabelle:
There’s no guarantee that Trump is collapsing. Every 3 weeks the media gets bored and switches who it’s attacking. It’s Trump now but it was Clinton just a couple of weeks back. We have more than 3 weeks to go — so they will switch back to going after Clinton before Nov. 8.
That’s why Volunteering — sign up here — is so important. GOTV and banking early votes matters. Please sign up if you haven’t.
Calouste
@Patricia Kayden: Undecided or third-party voters still add up to 15-20% in a lot of polls.
Roger Moore
@liberal:
As far as I can tell, a lot of it is because many of them follow Trump’s business strategy on a smaller scale: hiring illegal immigrants, stiffing their creditors, cutting corners, avoiding taxes whenever possible, and generally trying to cheat everyone they do business with.
Roger Moore
@gogol’s wife:
This. The diehard Trump supporters who don’t care about anything that turns up about him aren’t enough to win the election. To have a chance, he needs to convince wavering Republicans and undecideds, and every nasty revelation makes that harder.
? Martin
@Patricia Kayden:
No, they can’t. If the sheer tonnage of disqualifying information that is out there isn’t enough for voters to cross him off their list, then this story isn’t going to add anything to that. That’s my point. You could have 1000 such stories like this from here out and it won’t change that calculus.
The only way Clinton can reliably lock these voters up is to win them over to her. We are very much a ‘don’t tell me what to do’ nation. Saying to vote for Clinton because Trump is an asshole only goes so far. At some point you have to convince them that they want to vote for Clinton, rather than they must vote against Trump. That’s when that polling gap will start to move.
And I’m not slamming Clinton here – I think she’s doing a decent job of that (would like to see more pro-Clinton ads, tbh), rather I think the perceived impact of stories like this is overrated.
cokane
A solid example of good investigative journalism making a direct impact. I doubt this happens without those Fahrenthold reports.
schrodinger's cat
I have a movie to go with your popcorn.
P.S. It has nothing to do with Trump, its the weekend movie club dispatch. I emailed the link only last night to AL, a bit late for her to post on the weekend.
Major Major Major Major
@NR: So.. doom?
Percysowner
The New York Times, of course, decided to heck with the tax returns, lets pile on Hillary Clinton and say that she did try to destroy her husbands accusers, even though there is no evidence. Got to have that horse race!
nonynony
@? Martin:
Grod where do you LIVE?
I live in central Ohio and I’m sick to death of all of the ads – including all of the pro-Clinton ones. Can’t this election just happen and be OVER?
No, of course not. We haven’t even really gotten into the MASSIVE AD BUY season yet if historical political advertising holds this year. It’ll really start ramping up in mid-October and I’ll have to switch to a Netflix-only policy just to keep my sanity…
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: And you know this, how? Back of the envelope calculation on your iPhone while riding in a self driving car?
BR
@? Martin:
Her speech in OH today was good to that point.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@cokane:
Farenthold deserves a Pulitzer. No contest. WaPo has eaten the NYT for breakfast lunch and dinner with their political reporting, which is the big surprise of this cycle. Kurt Eichenwald is the other contender – a year subscription for Newsweek is $1.25. He’s made Newsweek relevant again.
Charles Blow’s columns have been awesome, and on TV, Joy Ann Reid is the only pundit show worth watching. Everyone else can get hit by a meteor tomorrow.
TaMara (HFG)
@? Martin: My hope with all of this is that it demotivates those who would otherwise run enthusiastically to the polls to vote for the conservative agenda. Trump as more a repellent vs. actually flipping voters to Clinton.
schrodinger's cat
@Percysowner: They also have a character assassination of Machado over on the op-ed pg. Doncha know she is slutty and fat, also too.
Brachiator
@Eric U.:
This is not entirely true. Many of his supporters are desperately clinging to the fantasy that Trump is the one person who is not a conventional politician, and that he will cut through the bullshit and stagnation that Congress mires itself in.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@PPCLI:
The postmark shows the city. Anyone can write whatever they want as the return address: “Hans Moleman, Next to Donald (Srsly!), Trump Towers.”
I haven’t seen that the envelope was actual Trump stationery, but that wouldn’t be impossible to get.
Shorter: I’m not whizzing on the tax leak or that it came from an insider, just the idea that’s floating around that the postmark and return address prove OMG! it came from inside the building! And that somehow that makes the information more credible.
Jeannedalbret
Richard, have you addressed the status of ACA in MN? Local (Seattle) AM talk show gloating at length about pullout of BC, likelihood rates will be 66% higher, folks screwed by Obama etc…
Felonius Monk
@? Martin:
Don’t agree. I think Trump is in a box here. The AG has given him a short time to file paperwork and provide the financial reports all the way back to 2008 – the year he began soliciting outside donations. If he does not comply, then the AG can declare the Trump Foundation a fraudulent operation and go after him. If he does comply and submits financial reports that show he was self-dealing and taking Foundation money for his own use, then the AG can go after him as well for that. As I said, he’s in a box unless the only thing he did wrong was not get the state certification.
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Don’t forget Krughthulu, he has been pretty good as always. MoU too had one or two good columns, where he tells it like it is with Trump.
JPL
@NR: Clinton reminded the folks in Ohio today that Pence was against the auto bailout. If the Newsweek article about Trump not using steel from American manufacturers, gets local coverage maybe those numbers will change.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@TaMara (HFG):
I’m watching that phenomena play out under my nose here at work – completely demoralized conservatives, wondering what to do now. It really wouldn’t surprise me at all if most of them, in the privacy of the voting booth, realized that the election is between sanity and insanity, and decency and indecency, which it is, and pull for Clinton.
gvg
@Hal:
the difference is Hillary or Obama or Kerry would be starting with democratic voters and we do care about this kind of thing so of course a democratic candidate would bleed support if this was being said about them. Maybe not as much against Trump since he has in our opinion so many serious flaws but against a normal candidate. saying his supporters won’t care is essentially a different principled group doesn’t care about the same things you do.
What I am finding odd is how many GOP conservative voters are ignoring Trumps violations of morality not to mention his prolife stance is obviously recent and a lie though he might do it because I don’t think he cares but if I were them I would not count on getting the supreme court they want. I think they might get a corrupt appointment who offers money and considering the grifting/solicitation operation the GOP has going on around that cause I would think it is in their best interests to remain at stalemate not success. Trump would just want a cut of the action…..
In fact I wonder if he gets election if we could just buy his vote…..
kirbster
So, in 2017, which member of the Trump clan, Ivanka, Melania, or Donald himself, will appear as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars in a vain attempt to revive the battered Trump brand?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Nick Kristof too – but something about his columns just bother me. He should stick to the foreign topics he does well.
NR
@JPL: Let’s hope! If Trump gets shut out of Ohio he has no way to win.
The Ancient Randonneur
Trump supporters are the people who would line up to buy his new book: How I took a $14 million loan from my father and turned it into a $916 billion loss 20 years later.
SFAW
@Trollhattan:
Yeah, great, except then the MSM will “pivot” to “what a great political leader Mike Pence is! And no e-mail/server/Foundation scandals.”
Of course, if Schneiderman wanted to wait until, say November 6th, that might work.
Iowa Old Lady
@Trollhattan: I know! But someone on here (Jeffo, maybe?) was doing voter registration this weekend and ran into someone who thought Sanders was still a possible person to vote for. We don’t have a very good sense of how unusual our interest in politics is.
geg6
@Origuy:
Jesus. I can’t wait to throw this one into some faces around here. Yeah, he’ll bring back the steel industry! Stupid assholes. I don’t even feel sorry for them anymore. Anyone my age or less around here has never known the steel industry as an engine of economic prosperity since, at most, their early adulthood and younger than that, never.
Louise
Should I be worried about this?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wikileaks-announcement-october-surprise-roger-stone
sigaba
@aimai: Well, also Democrats actually care about the character of their candidates and their ethics, and attacks on their character and ethics actually have an effect. Republicans this cycle don’t really care who the president is as long as he rubber stamps the Ryan budget and the Obamacare Repeal, and keeps the bathrooms safe for the normies.
These stories absolutely have an effect on undecideds and Republican leaners, and they absolutely keep his supporters on the defensive, modulates the enthusiasm and likelihood to organize and GOTV, but you’re unlikely to see Republican officeholders and outspoken Trump supporters on Sunday shows and gravely intoning that he has a problem and has to address it. Meanwhile if Hillary sneezes every Democrat in the senate gets a cold.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
You’re right: before Trump, any one of these scandals would have been disqualifying. It would take a depraved indifference to a presidential candidate’s ethical standards to vote for the party no matter how many scandals pile up on the person. Trump has been appealing to the irrational fears of ignorant and undereducated white voters. I’m hoping they are fewer in number than the rational ones.
different-church-lady
The popcorn isn’t about voters changing minds becasuse of the story. It’s about what Trump might do in reaction to the story.
Felonius Monk
@schrodinger’s cat:
I read that and disagree that it was a hit piece. I did not see much of anything in it that was not factual. It sounds like she is a woman who doesn’t take any shit and likes to do things her way. Certainly, she is no saint and apparently says so herself.
So, I did not see it as any kind of a hit piece. And to note, it was written by academic over in your neck of the woods (Amherst) who supposedly is an expert on Latin America. But, YMMV.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: Because I know how to read polls, administer polls, and I understand statistics. The relatively large 3rd party numbers combined with the polling variability indicates that there’s enough voters that she hasn’t actually captured. They may be out of the Trump column, they may break for her in the voting booth, they may stay home. And I’m expecting this year’s LV model to be pretty uncertain which means the polls could be off by more than we think – as they were in 2012 when voters turned out on Obama’s side higher than many of the polls predicted.
Now, I think Clinton still has the advantage by a fair bit, but the pool of soft voters seems to be relatively large. I don’t see how some below the fold financial story that is arguably weaker than the overhyped Clinton Foundation stories changes that. I don’t see how it gets voters locked into her column. And yes, she may be enjoying the same lead over Trump that Obama had over Romney, but Obama was periodically polling in the 50% range meaning he did have nearly a majority of voters locked up. Clinton still struggles to break 45% (and Trump 40%). The behavior of that last 10% of the electorate is not well understood but it seems pretty apparent that stories like this have no impact on them at all. Clinton needs to pull them into her column to actually have this sewn up. They are a wildcard.
tl;dr: the parts of the electorate we can predict well are favoring Clinton. The parts of the electorate we can’t predict well seem to be disfavoring Trump, but that doesn’t matter because we can’t predict them well. Clinton needs to pull them into the other column.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack (tablet): well, the accountant verified it.
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Not a Nick K fan. Too goody two shoes and both sidery for my taste.
? Martin
@Felonius Monk: None of that will happen in the next 35 days. The legal system doesn’t work as fast as politics.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Origuy: does not matter. CNN find a tshirt on ebay from Bill Clintons 70s gubernatorial race that was not made using union labor so ‘both sides do it’ dontcha know.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@different-church-lady:
Exactly. We’ve gotten to the poking the bear through the bars phase of this election. I imagine Trump’s minders wanting him trussed up like Hannibal Lecter between every public appearance.
DCrefugee
@Hal: This is the dam breaking. A leak a day keeps the Donald away…
The steady drip, drip, drip is going to drive him around the bend, and the meltdown will be epic. (Great television, to be sure — too bad the planet’s fate depends on the outcome, but them’s the breaks.)
I’ve been thinking Trump would peak out no higher than 42% on election day. If this keeps up, I’m thinking he’ll be lucky to break 40%, nationally.
bemused
Eichenwald today has another Trump reveal. Trump has used steel and aluminum from China on his last few building projects. This put a huge smile on my face. We have a lot of very loud, very angry pro-mining, anti-environmentalist Republicans up here on the Iron Range who are probably willing to vote for Trump. They attack Rep Rick Nolan, running for 2nd term against Stewart Mills of Mill Fleet Farm (again) for not being sufficiently pro-mining. I hope Nolan’s campaign hits Trump using Chinese Steel hard and insulting vets for not being strong enough to overcome PTSD.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin:
You are drawing a lot of conclusions here. You call them a wild card but purport to know what they will do or how they think.
AnderJ
@NR: As always, don’t look at just one pollster. Look at the averages. Furthermore, I seem to recall that Quinnipac has a bit of a Republican bend this year. Might be something in their model. So, absent further evidence, don’t believe that Ohio is out of reach.
JPL
@different-church-lady: He has two more events today, in Colorado. Tomorrow he has an event in Arizona. During the flight to Colorado, they are probably doing debate prep. The team will make sure that he doesn’t have time to follow the news or tweet.
MaryL
The Trump Foundation’s lawyers, assuming they have any, have to be guilty of legal malpractice if they didn’t even bother to register with the state. It’s a pretty simple process and one I went through as a baby lawyer for a pro bono client.
Gelfling 545
@gogol’s wife: And even if his supporters don’t care, that doesn’t mean the information should not be made available. His supporters wouldn’t care if he defecated on the White House lawn, but he’d have a lot more supporters if this stuff was not reported. People have varying degrees of tolerance. I’m hearing, anecdotally, that the no taxes/lost a billion is proving to be the last straw for some who were able to ignore ignorant bigotry. Everybody has their own line which can’t be crossed.
glory b
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Joy’s face after “taco trucks on every corner” is one of the most memorable moments of the campaign.
DCrefugee
@? Martin:
Or convince them to stay home…
? Martin
@different-church-lady: I don’t think he will. This isn’t an indictment of him, rather of his ‘lawyers’. The taxes cast him as a loser. He reacts to that. He reacts to the domination aspect of some of the other attacks. I don’t see how this shames him in any way. This is procedural. Someone didn’t fill out a form. Who cares.
Now, if this opens the door to additional information showing that Trump was illegally using the foundation to cheat the American people, then maybe, but even that story by WaPo, which was pretty solid, didn’t turn into a political story. Clinton hasn’t raised it at all – partly because she doesn’t want the various foundations to be relitigated – so far she’s come out behind due to the bullshit reporting by NYT. So we have a story here that Clinton can’t really take advantage of. That’s why I think it’s a non-issue. She can’t dominate him with it. That’s what knocks him off balance.
cmorenc
@different-church-lady:
On a more serious note, the cumulative impact of the Russians-hacking-the-DNC incidents this summer and fall have very likely reduced the flow of smaller contributions to the Clinton and other democratic campaigns. I know it stopped us from donating online via credit card – we finally donated via check directly to the dem unity campaign of the NC Democratic Party, and I’m going to cross fingers and make a couple of “ActBlue” donations as well.
glory b
@MaryL: Since the foundation seemingly paid less than $300 in attorney’s fees for the last five years, what could one expect?
BR
@? Martin:
I agree. And in my phone banking I’ve come across some soft support for her, in the form of voter apathy.
This is why volunteering matters more this year. The only way to win is to drag those apathetic voters to the polls.
geg6
@? Martin:
You keep saying this, but no one gives a shit about his supporters. No one, but no one believes for a second that any of his supporters could be convinced to vote for Clinton. What matters is that the fully 10% of voters who are undecided see right away, now that they are finally paying attention, how horrendous this asshole is. Hell, even Michael Chertoff, who was a prosecutor on Whitewater and whose relationship with the Clintons is, shall we say, complicated, has come out for her. These long time conservative newspaper endorsements, the endorsements of old line Republicans, her own excellent ads and campaign can convince them to go for her. But it sure helps nudge them along if he can be made toxic to these people. I work with a few and, yes they are proudly ignorant of politics like it’s a badge of courage to know nothing at all about current events until a month out from Election Day. But they do vote. So I want every bit of ammunition, pro her and con him, that I can get.
Roger Moore
@kirbster:
I don’t think The Donald is in good enough physical condition for that, so it won’t be him. And he’d be too jealous to let Melania be on a TV show where she was dancing with a handsome, athletic man. So the Spawn of Trump seem like the only reasonable candidates.
JPL
@MaryL: Fahrenthood from the Washington Post, wrote that they spend an average of eight dollars a year on legal fees. The lawyer is probably off the hook.
realbtl
The issue is not whether any of this matters to Trump supporters. Trump being Trump loudly and proudly is the best Democratic GOTV tool I’ve seen.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
Not true at all.
Conservatives will wail that reporting on this proves that the MSM is fully backing the Democrats.
But either way, Trump and his surrogates cannot bring up the Clinton Foundation without looking like total fools.
Also, Trump is a genius because he knows taxes. Ha.
Is he also a dope because he does not know non profits??
NorthLeft12
@Patricia Kayden:
You nailed it PK. Stories like this also relentlessly reinforce the fact of Deadbeat Donald’s incompetence, both personally and organizationally, regarding compliance to laws and practices. And don’t forget the impact on Trump’s mental state. He will be out on the stump howling and baying about conspiracies and plots against him. Yeah, it will be eaten up by his true believers, but you never know which story will push a few more over the edge so that they abandon him.
And really, them not voting for Donald is a win, whether they vote for one of the two stooges or for Hillary.
Major Major Major Major
So what’s the deal with Assange this week?
Doug R
@PPCLI: Since it was from a year when he was married to Marla Maples and her signature was also on the documents, I suspect her or an employee of her.
geg6
@amk:
Exactly. He’s bleeding support and she’s gaining. This is not what the pundits were telling me would happen. They all said that it will be neither losing their own supporters and any improved numbers for either one was the undecideds moving in their direction. Turns out most undecideds are still undecided and his numbers are going down and hers are up. That sure looks like some loosely committed Trump voters have had enough. Pretty soon it will be down the immovable hard core, hopefully.
BR
@realbtl:
I’ve only seen that’s true for solid HRC supporters — the soft supporters don’t seem to care much because they assume Trump is so bad that she will win even if they don’t vote.
Felonius Monk
@? Martin: Maybe, maybe not. The AG gave him 15 days to comply (i.e. file all the paperwork and reports) or else it’s declared a fraud. Granted, the disposition of the legal action will take time, but the FRAUD will be bigly news all over the place well before election day.
Aleta
@Jeffro: There is not enough popcorn in all the world …
Oh I’m sure the greatest mind, having shrewdly anticipated the market, will this week introduce Trump Signature Collection Popcorn imbued with Trump Signature Fragrance.
? Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: No, what I’m saying is that nobody knows what they will do or think. I’m arguing Clinton would be better off if they were predictably in her column rather than unpredictably in nobody’s column.
Think of it this way – they don’t change the average of the poll, but they greatly increase the MOE. It’s not enough to show the higher number, you also need to eliminate the present risks that the higher number might be wrong. I’m arguing there are a lot of present risks in the current model and more of the same type of news is unlikely to change that.
The upside to this is that Clinton could wind up pulling them in at the end. The error can swing both ways. They could deliver her a landslide. We don’t know. Obama’s team was very confident in ’08 and ’12 because they knew the size of that risk. I don’t think Clinton’s team has that same confidence in the numbers.
And this is why negative campaigning works – even if it doesn’t swing voters to you, it adds uncertainty. If nothing else it opens up the possibility of a win when none perhaps existed before. Vote suppression has the same effect – if nothing else it adds uncertainty.
Major Major Major Major
@geg6: the poll analyses I’ve read say that most of the movement is just in the likely voter screens. So it’s an election of dueling enthusiasm.
? Martin
@Brachiator:
Why not? So far almost every media outlet has carried water for the GOP on the Clinton Foundation story. Hell, they can quote the very media outlets that they claim are unfair to Trump and still make their case.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
I mentioned in another thread that I don’t think this is a hit piece. It says much about the Eurocentric Venezuela beauty contest industry, and how Machado is pushback against Trump, but also Latino machismo.
Eric U.
@Major Major Major Major: I think he’s trying to do as much damage as possible with nothing to back it up. If he had something big, it would be released already. Maybe they thought they had something big until someone that could read told them they misinterpreted it.
@? Martin: they can push the Clinton Foundation non-story all they want, but it isn’t going to feed the puke funnel because it’s obvious to everyone except halperin that the Trump foundation is a much bigger story.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
Let’s see what happens. Starting with any new eruptions from Trump.
NorthLeft12
@Brachiator:
This is perhaps the most delusional reason to vote for Deadbeat Donald. Unless, you are basically wanting to see the implementation of the entire Republican platform, because if Trump is elected he’ll have a Repub Congress with him. I guess that will break the logjam in Congress…….but not in a good way IMO.
I guess you will also not see any more frivolous [or any for that matter] investigations of the Trump administration, although you might actually see Congress try and review the last eight years for some scandals that they haven’t sufficiently milked.
Roger Moore
@MaryL:
IIRC, the foundation doesn’t have a lawyer, and their legal expenses weren’t enough to hire one for long enough to do much more than write a bill. It looks a lot more like a slush fund than like a serious charity.
Major Major Major Major
@Eric U.: kind of my impression too. Some ‘drone strike’ thing is getting traction on the hacker chat rooms and i figured googling it would just make me stupider.
realbtl
@BR: I’m not talking about rah rah support, just that every time he says something offensive it chips away a small portion of his support. Sort of like how Repubs are anti-gay until it is a family member- Dick Cheney excepted of course.
Aleta
@aimai:
this, +
Poopyman
OT (hey, why not?), but good news on the Zika front:
BruceFromOhio
Do you see what they’re doing? Do you see it? They can’t win, so they gotta, they gotta go play these games, after how many good things, all the good things, the Foundation has done over the years. I gotta list of all the people we’ve helped, all of them, and let me tell you, there are a lot of them, I got a list of all the people we’ve helped over the years, and they are there, good people, and a lot of them, they’re going to remember this, let me tell you, they are going to remember how this is all rigged, because they got nothing, this all they can do to take me down, take me outta the game, and this is how they do it, by making it look like we were doing something wrong by trying to do something right, do you hear me? You try to do something right, and this is what they try to do to you, by trying to make a good thing look bad, like it’s something I should be sorry for or ashamed of because we didn’t sign a form or something, some bureaucratic thing, and let me tell you, THIS is what’s wrong with our government now, it’s all rigged to try to take down anyone who wants to try to do the right thing and make a buck nowadays, even if it didn’t always look like it, it’s easy to come along later and, whaddya call it, armchair quarterback it, or maybe it’s Monday morning quarterbacking, like you always had the right answer all the time, and really, it’s rigged, all we wanted to do was the right thing, and this is what you get for it.
Chyron HR
@Major Major Major Major:
He’s going to take a shocking leak as soon as he finds/invents one.
Shalimar
@Major Major Major Major: Assange is trying to figure out what to do about the October Surprise against Clinton that he has been preparing for months being a huge “who gives a crap?” compared to Trump not paying taxes.
Mnemosyne
@BR:
I have been reliably informed that campaigning for Obama in Nevada on Halloween weekend was awesomely fun, if anyone needed any additional motivation.
I haven’t decided if I want to do another trip, but I’ll probably sign up for some phone banking. I’m still pretty wiped out from the weekend.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
The main thing that negative campaigns add is noise and distraction, and dollars to the bank accounts of political strategists.
Every now and then, but very rarely, they come up with something that affects an election, but more often the noise and confusion becomes the focus of other reporters, but no one else.
Roger Moore
@Eric U.:
This. He’s promised bombshells, but there’s no there there. To try to make up for it, he’s making up some stupid story about being afraid of Hillary’s hit squad. Only a credulous nitwit would believe anything Assange says- which ought to tell you something about the intellectual capacity of our media.
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady: yes, that was me and yes, we are outliers
Bigly! Lol
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: Did you do the layover, or the one day marathon for your Vegas campaign?
piratedan
what we would do well to remember is that while DT is emblematic of the issues of the GOP and the American Right, he is simply an emblem. It’s a shit show all the way down. Look at the opponents that DT had in the GOP Primary… about the only one who wasn’t just fucking totally dangerous was Kasich and he still would have gleefully gutted the safety net into shreds himself. It’s a multitude of suck for the GOP from Wingnut local office holders all the way up to the Senate with asshats like McConnell who will stick a shiv into the accepted protocols and procedures for a chance for his team.
There’s a part of me that is really fucking angry at Gerald Ford for letting Nixon off with allowing him to slink off the stage. I understood why he did it but in a way, perhaps we would have been a better country to have drug all of this shit out into the open and cleanse the wound. I feel the same with Obama letting the Bushies skate because we were too busy fixing all of the fucking holes the put in the boat. Instead, these fuckers continue to double down on the partisanship at the expense of the country itself. There has to be a time when some of these fuckers should have to pay the price for playing footsie with all of our economic livelihoods at the expense of participating in the process.
BR
@Mnemosyne:
Thank you for going! I got pulled into a campaign data training instead of making the trip to NV, but I may go another weekend.
scav
@Brachiator:
No wonder he looks like the Great Pumpkin.
lamh36
Got some great news on Friday, that I’m not quite ready to share just yet, but it’s big.
It’s got me to thinking and prioritizing alot of things I was pushing off doing for a while.
I’ve come to realize and I freely admit, much of my stress and torment is due to my impatience with the pace at with others are moving towards a goal that affects me…I have to remind myself to let it go and I can’t really control other folks as much as I’d like to…
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
This is my opinion: I think there is a decent-sized group of loosely connected voters who liked the idea of Trump. I think that the anti-establishment feeling that both Trump and Bernie tapped into is genuine, and that there are quite a few voters who like the idea of an outsider sweeping into Washington and cleaning things up with his business acumen.
Then they saw Trump in action at the debates and said to themselves, Holy shitballs, this guy is crazy! I can’t vote for him!
SFAW
@Aleta:
Eewwwww! Ick!
Brachiator
Tech pundits are just as stupid as political pundits. I’m listening to a tech podcast discussing Google’s upcoming product unveiling. The smartest guest rightly thinks that the upcoming Pixel phone is too expensive.
The other guests quickly reach a consensus that Google knows exactly what it is doing, even though they all admit that Google has never been a successful hardware company. They insist that the phone will be a smash because it will have cutting edge hardware which will push the envelope into a future. And cutting edge hardware must come at a premium price. Everyone knows that.
Then, a funny thing happens. First. They laugh a little uncomfortably as they joke that a company whose strength is software is about to release a horde of hardware products.
Then, when the host asks whether they would buy one of the upcoming products, the typical response is, “I’m not that interested, but it sounds like an interesting idea.”
This is exactly like the political reporters who seem to be shocked when they discover that reality does not conform to Beltway chit chat or the little “narratives” that they force on the election campaign.
Trump must pivot. Both sides do it. Attack ads work.
November can’t get here soon enough.
Yutsano
@Major Major Major Major: That whole situation is weird. Assagne suddenly changed it from being an official announcement to part of the broadcast for their tenth anniversary. Something tells me this is gonna be another nothingburger.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Major Major Major Major:
I fucking said I don’t doubt the tax information, just the whole bullshit side (non)issue of “It was mailed from inside the building!”
My exact words: “I’m not whizzing on the tax leak or that it came from an insider [. . .].”
Brachiator
@lamh36:
From what you hint at, I may be in a similar place as you, even if details are hugely different.
Good luck to you.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I did the layover. It was fun, but also a grind.
lamh36
Very interesting article!
Dear White People, Please Stop Pretending Reverse Racism Is Real l via @vice
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack (tablet): well, the important thing is you were a dick about correcting me, congrats.
Aleta
Examples of prominent Republicans bravely speaking their truth:
1. Michael Chertoff (endorses HRC)
2. Gingrich (draws bold new line in sand)
hovercraft
This is hilarious, Trump is a terrible businessman.
According to Josh Barro:
germy
@lamh36:
Reverse Racism! always reminds me of this clip.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@? Martin:
Forget the political aspect. Trump’s personal slush fund just got shut down. This is a major blow to him financially.
@Joyce H:
There is a name for this. It’s called ‘cognitive dissonance.’ When people take an action, they commit themselves emotionally and rearrange their beliefs to support it. It’s the reason salesmen like to ask you a question before starting a pitch. In doing so, they commit* you to the conversation.
*Like all psychological effects, this is not absolute, but the difference it makes in sales is proven.
acallidryas
@gogol’s wife:
I think this is true. Also, it’s not about his supporters. There are always going to be the 27-percenters. But this might matter to everyone else, and that’s where the election will be won or lost.
schrodinger's cat
@Felonius Monk: Since when do academics not have an agenda? I did not like the fat shaming and the slut shaming (she gained 42 pounds bit) in the article.
Even if she is a fat witch who sleeps around, what Trump said to her and says about women in general is beyond the pale.
geg6
@Major Major Major Major:
Something, something, security is terrible at the Ecuadoran embassy, something, something, can’t do the usual Mussolini on the balcony thing, something, something, a German podcast of some sort, something, something, it will sink the She-Devil for sure this time!
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@lamh36:
“Dear Lord, give me patience — and hurry up about it!”
Can’t wait to find out about your news as soon as you’re ready to share it.
schrodinger's cat
@lamh36: Does it involve Idris Elba or Colin Firth?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Major Major Major Major:
Sorry, something about “complete failure of reading comprehension by Mr. Close Textual Analysis” caused something inside to snap. My sincere apologies.
geg6
@Poopyman:
Proud of my alma mater!
Aleta
@Yutsano: For one thing, Assange needs to keep his name in the news, to remind his supporters to stay active in asking for his pardon.
hovercraft
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
What’s great about all of these intrepid reporters, is that they are being rewarded for their real journalism, Joy is killing it, her ratings are way up, and her show is the most viral on msnbc, true much of her viral hits came from the taco truck on every corner, but still she’s being rewarded for her work.
Yay !
Villago Delenda Est
@Louise: No. They keep promising a killing blow, and they consistently hit as hard as a kitten.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
That’s what I think, too. Hell, I know at least 2.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Major Major Major Major:
He found the Whitey tape!
MaryL
@JPL: Jesus, seriously? That explains an awful lot.
catclub
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I larfed. I did.
sukabi
@kirbster: Melania is going to divorce Donald, Ivanka is going to try and keep her father’s hands at bay, Tiffany will be trying to figure out what to do without daddy’s money since she’ll be cut off due to Marla’s sending the tax returns to the NYT, Eric and Jr. Will be off killing things so it will be up to Barron to do the dancing.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Poopyman: Too bad they didn’t work on a vaccine for Obama Derangement Syndrome first because the current ODS infected Congress ain’t going to give them a billion to finish the Zika vaccine research.
The Moar You Know
@piratedan: Ford’s pardon of Nixon was wrong. I understand why (he was not very smart, pretty gutless and the Right was threatening him with riots and the dissolution of the country, and he understandably caved) but it was the worst possible outcome and permanently undermined the rule of law in this country.
I do not know to this day what Pelosi’s motivation was (she made the call in 2006, long before Obama became president) but it was just as wrong, but at that point there was precedent. A great number of cowards, mostly of the judicial type, have spent their lives hiding behind precedent.
There are decisions that, once made, have ramifications that can’t be fixed no matter what you do afterwards. Gerald Ford made one of those decisions. The America we live in today, where those in power violate the law with impunity, is wholly on his hands.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack (tablet): it’s almost like sometimes I’m on my phone over lunch and might misread. I’ll try to read every comment as closely as I would a work email in the future.
lamh36
@schrodinger’s cat: lol..naw..it’s a real life development…not my rich fantasy life…
although I still hold out hope that me and Idris will become a real thing…lol
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
I can think of exactly one (1) genuine example of reverse racism that I heard of, where an Indian-American ER doctor at what was then King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles was explicitly told that he would not be promoted to head the department because the administration wanted a Black doctor to head it.
Of course, King-Drew was so poorly run that the surrounding community called it “Killer King” because so many patients died there and JCAHO outright pulled their certification, so that whole thing was more a symptom of the institutional rot than anything else.
So, yes, the one outlier case I can think of tends to be the one that proves the rule.
(Eventually, UCLA agreed to take over the hospital and now patients don’t die after routine surgery anymore. Happy ending!)
Also, the t-shirt incident related in the story was a pretty childish or even bigoted thing to do, but calling it “racist” is WAY overstating the case.
sukabi
@glory b: isn’t that the subscription fee fo legal zoom?
lamh36
@JoyAnnReid Joy Reid Retweeted Kurt Eichenwald
So Trump helped destroy the steel industries in places like Ohio by shunning U.S. steel for decades, favoring Chinese steel & mob concrete.
@JoyAnnReid
Per the @newsweek article, Trump didn’t choose Chinese over American steel to save shareholders $. As a private co he only helped himself.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@The Moar You Know:
I always figured it was ‘The Supreme Court under Roberts and with Scalia writing the decision would have declared everything Bush did legal and constitutional.’ That does way more damage to the nation than merely not prosecuting. That was not even close to the first criminal presidency, and the Republic has always recovered.
catclub
@Chyron HR:
Pissing on electric fence?
different-church-lady
@? Martin:
You just said that with a straight face?
Major Major Major Major
Thanks everyone who answered about Assange!
catclub
@lamh36: Can I just say that since we are re-litigating the 80’s and the 90’s in this campaign, that at least we are not re-litigating the 60’s! Hurrah. Progess. Cal Thomas is disappoint.
liberal
@lamh36: wait…you’re the Trump Whisperer?
liberal
@Brachiator: come on, that’s shooting fish in a barrel. Tech is 99.9% hype.
catclub
@kirbster: Roger Ailes, dancing with Rudy Giuliani in drag? Brain bleach anyone?
hovercraft
@glory b:
His campaigns lawyer Steve “Says Who” Cohen is I believe his personal, business and probably the foundations lawyer. For whatever the reason he must not have billed the foundation.
different-church-lady
@BruceFromOhio: Pretty good, but you gotta throw in a couple of detours about things like the state of movies nowadays.
lamh36
@liberal: Lord…no…Iol…that is NEVER a job I want…lol
Roger Moore
@lamh36:
I will have to remember that one.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Moar You Know:
It just compounds the problems that Ford set in motion.
The English actually did the right thing by overthrowing and beheading Charles I. Short term, it was brutal. But long term, it made the Glorious Revolution possible, and forever checked the idiotic notion of divine right of kings in the UK. The French and Russians should have taken notes. Bismarck did.
sukabi
@lamh36: congratulations on the job? You said something about a possible new one a couple of weeks ago… :-)
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore:
liberal
@The Moar You Know: what the fuck would they ding Bush on?
The singular criminal act of the Bush administration was the invasion of Iraq, yet IIRC the Dems in the Senate refused to direct their subpoena power at the administration.
So either they felt they themselves were complicit, or they were wimps, or…
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
Don’t forget the percentage that saw Trump in action at the debates and said to themselves, Holy shitballs, this guy is crazy! THAT’S MY PRESIDENT!
Grumpy Code Monkey
@happylisk:
=twitch=
I’m gonna start demanding a trigger warning on that “joke”. It’s gone from funny to meh to annoying to HULK SMASH! In the interest of not having to replace my monitor, keyboard, or drywall, can we please just stop repeating it? Please?
Mai.naem.mobile
I am wondering if there some soft Trumpettes will say they are voting for Trump to fit into their social group/keep peace at home etc. but go into the voting booth and either not vote for POTUS or vote for somebody else. I am primarily talking about spouses and family members of hard line Trumpettes who get exposed to non RW media.
Millard Filmore
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I used to be a bicycle messenger in a big city. Many office towers have a mail chute or two, with a slot next to the elevators where you can let your envelope drop down to a basket in the basement.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@scav: Yes, this is an appeal to many of his supporters – he’s a “successful businessman” and not a standard politician. He’ll use common sense to knock heads get everyone in Congress to behave and the government to work great again.
Meanwhile, this experiment is being conducted on a smaller scale in the State of Michigan, where “successful businessman” Rick Snyder gave lead poisoning to an entire city, then refused to part with a dime of his own personal fortune to improve the situation, and then had the State legislature pass a law to protect him from lawsuits. Yes, by all means lets bring THAT nationwide.
Wapiti
@Gelfling 545:
I think as Donald loses support, more and more supporters and possibles supporters will be looking at the recently uncovered scandals and choosing one of them as a last straw. Lots of people are going to avoid voting for a loser.
Louise
@Villago Delenda Est: Gracias.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Chyron HR: He’s working on finding a Russian translator.
Brachiator
@liberal:
So is political reporting.
liberal
@aimai:
That’s pretty funny, coming from the person who penned absurd apologia for Hillary’s vote on the Iraq AUMF.
Here’s nuance. Both these things can be true:
(1) Hillary’s vote on the Iraq AUMF was horrible
(2) It is vitally important that we help Hillary crush Donald Trump in the upcoming election
But that’s too nuanced for the likes of you.
sukabi
@Grumpy Code Monkey: John Who?
liberal
@Brachiator: yeah, though I’d say one difference is that most people despise most politicians, whereas most people just think the heads of big tech firms are supermen. (Yeah, I know, you’re really talking about the pundits or perhaps reporters, not the people reading the stories.)
I guess a connection between these things is that idiot Justine Tunney who claimed to be a former Occupier who thinks that we should just elect Eric Schmidt the dictator of the US.
Don’t get me wrong…my gut reaction to mainstream political reporter types (the guys that run politifact, Chris Cizilla) is that they are just blithering idiots.
hovercraft
According to Hugh Hewwitt, the tax story just confirms the story he told in the Art of The Deal. And the new polls that came out today are great news because he’s only down a little bit, and him being in Colorado means that he has a chance to win it. So relax libtards, Donald is in great shape.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Of course, one of the aims of the Glorious Revolution was to subvert the Dutch Republic. Neither the French nor the English could tolerate the idea that cheesemongers could govern themselves without the steady hand of a monarch.
liberal
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
My Dad recently claimed to me that they saved $100/day by making the switch that poisoned all those kids.
In a just world, that POS would be tried and executed, not just imprisoned.
sukabi
@Wapiti: rats on a sinking ship… NOBODY likes to be on the losing team, and it’s always irritated me being on the left coast when the “news” orgs start calling the elections BEFORE polling has closed.
Brachiator
@hovercraft:
Hewitt is an insufferable fool who makes David Brooks look like an intellectual giant. Hugh used to peddle his bullshit on a local PBS station here.
Trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Pillsbury D’oh! boy. Scratching my head as to why he’s on my teevee machine so much lately.
Trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Before or after they steer that de-mothballed shuttle onto the rogue asteroid?
Aleta
@efgoldman: the old black ops team
Even Bill is running scared. And Trump is on it, before he even gets there: ‘I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill’ has been misinterpreted by the malevolent press.
sukabi
@Trollhattan: holiday season coming up, gotta sell the rolls, pie crusts, biscuits & cookies…. fatten up the turkeys for the slaughter.
Uncle Cosmo
@efgoldman: Might be even better if they stayed at home, so long as Hillary’s got this. Fewer votes for downticket Thugs improves the chances of a bluer Congress to work with.
catclub
This is the collection of headlines from Time magazine. Nothing on emails, nothing on Clinton foundation,
all bad news for Trump. The media worm may have turned.
stinger
@Origuy: I don’t understand why the Dem party has given up on Ohio.
Brachiator
@stinger:
I was about to write “arrogance or stupidity.” But I don’t know, and I heard some news stories suggesting that the Democrats were going to mount some effort.
I was reading about Jack Kennedy going into parts of West Virginia in 1960, places where he was unloved and untrusted. But he went down to listen and came back determined to try to help relieve poverty there, even if the people didn’t vote for him.
Jeffro
@Mai.naem.mobile:
Remind ’em they can always write in “Reagan” if it makes them feel better.
Betsy
@different-church-lady: Great point. Most of us are still thinking in conventional campaign terms. With Dump, the rules don’t apply (as he himself likes to think).
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Whenever Hewitt or any of these other delusional clowns throws that nonsense around, I do wish the moderator or whomever would ask them, “Which position would you rather be in right now?” They’ll BS about it of course but it’d be fun to ask them the most obvious thing in the world.
StringOnAStick
@efgoldman: aimai described my wingnut, early Bircher supporting, James Watt loving, PATCO hating (still) parents to a T.
dww44
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Agree. I’ve chalked it up to the fact that he so strongly wants to be perceived as neutral and objective that he ends up undermining his own message. I almost never read him any more.
Trollhattan
@StringOnAStick:
PATCO?!? Do they also obsess on how those Rosenbergs really got what they deserved?
StringOnAStick
@Trollhattan: I shit you not, they still obsess about PATCO. Irish heritage wingnuts are the worst since no grudge is too small or petty to be nursed for decades.
JR in WV
@Roger Moore:
Co-worker hired a professional contractor to build their new modern house. It was done, and they wanted to move in, but the lumberyard filed a mechanic’s lien on the house.
Seems the contractor used friend’s money to pay off the liens on the previous house he had built, leaving him w/o enough to pay for friend’s house’s material.
Friend said it was really a hard place – if they filed suit against “their” contractor and put him out of business, he wouldn’t be able to turn another job into payment on their materials. But leaving him in business to rip off his next customer felt pretty bad too.
That’s Trump, conning the next guy to pay the last guy…. wait, he never pays off the last guys, he just stiffs everyone, over and over again. And no one has ever had both the money and the stones to put him down, legally.
I heard elsewhere that Deutsch Bank was about to be fined $14 Billion ($14,000,000,000 dollars!) while Trump owes Deutsch Bank just under a billion dollars. So if he gets elected, he can erase that debt to the German Bankers with a tiny executive decision. Everybody makes out, but us, the American Taxpayers.