If you haven’t switched from NYT to WaPo for political coverage yet, here’s one more reason:
Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.
[….]“I represent 700 nonprofits a year, and I’ve never encountered anything so brazen,” said Jeffrey Tenenbaum, who advises charities at the Venable law firm in Washington. After The Post described the details of these Trump Foundation gifts, Tenenbaum described them as “really shocking.”
Meanwhile the Times is writing a lot about how the dumpster bombing is affecting New Yorkers’ fee-fees. We all have sympathy for the victims of the bombs of course, but my guess is that most people in Manhattan don’t wet their beds quite as often as the media (and let’s be blunt, ISIS) would like them to.
dedc79
Farenthold deserves a Pulitzer and a big raise.
randy khan
Tenenbaum represents respectable non-profits that are willing to pay a real lawyer for advice to make sure they stay on the right side of the law, so naturally he’s never encountered anything like what Trump is doing.
Felonius Monk
Ah, but the NYTimes says the NYTimes-is-a-Changin’. If you believe that bullshit, I’ve got a couple of bridges I could sell you.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Warning: following political coverage at the WaPo can cause vertigo or severe neck strain given the extremes one will see: at one end of the spectrum you have Farenthold, at the other, Chris Fvcking Cilizza. It’s like watching a tennis match.
I’ll steal a quote from somebody here yesterday: Cilizza is actively working for a lower tumbrel number.
SFAW
@dedc79:
If Fahrenthold worked at the NYT, they’d probably have him researching some “scandal” related to dumpster construction and manufacturers right about now.
ETA: And how the Clinton Foundation has something to do with it.
Doug!
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
But how many people think Cillizza is a real journalist? I hate him but I’m not sure he drives the conversation the way the real newsroom does.
JMG
You can’t blame a newspaper for going wild on a big story that happened like 15 blocks from their damn building. The Times political coverage has been horrid, but focusing on the bombing is what any hometown paper would do.
Seanly
Well, when you say a quarter million, that makes it sound like a lot. But it’s just $250,000. Plus the $25,000 payoff to Bondi. And really, would $25,000 matter much to Trump? He’s worth so much. If you gave $2 to some bum on the street, would you feel like you owned him? Therefore, nothing here as Trump only gave a couple of bucks to some bum.
I gave to the ActBlue widget. It’s not showing on the front page though.
SFAW
@Doug!:
Opinions vary.
Felonius Monk
I think Cilizza is actually auditioning for the NYTimes. He’d feel right at home there.
Ghost of Joe Liebling's Dog
If the Times wanted to feature actual political reporting, it would probably be within their power to make that happen. (As Farenthold demonstrates, it might take as little as one person with a phone and a notebook.)
They do without because they like it that way.
With kind regards,
— Dog, etc.
dmsilev
Has anybody thought to ask the donors to the Trump Foundation what they think of him using their money to pay off lawsuits?
Doug!
@JMG:
I hate the articles about people’s fee-fees though. And everyone I know who lives in NYC is more afraid of the security overreaction than anything else. If they wrote an article “New Yorkers afraid of traffic problems caused by new security”, that would be one thing. But I just don’t see how “Everyone wet your beds immediately” is useful journalism.
SFAW
@Seanly:
Um, “he’s so full of it” is not the same as “he’s worth so much.”
But I guess you’re right; Trump’s a thousandaire many times over — at least ten, and that’s a lot!
Brachiator
Better late than never, I suppose, with these kinds of stories.
Too bad, though, that this level of scrutiny didn’t happen during primary season, when everyone, including the press, was swooning over the idea that a big, “successful” businessman like Trump would sacrifice his time to “make America great again.”
Now, two big hurdles. These kinds of stories require that the reader pay attention and follow the money. Worse, Trump’s supporters and even some undecideds have a fixed idea of Trump’s honesty and business acumen that is too hard to shake.
And lastly, the media will easily fall into “both sides” bullshit. “Trump Foundation? Well, isn’t the Clinton Foundation dishonest, too?”
Also:
Brazen hardly covers it.
I wonder how the foundation’s donors feel about having their money used by Trump to bail himself out of legal jams.
You can’t expect the NYT to cover this kind of thing, because Trump is not a home town guy with long roots in New York.
Shana
I’m a Post subscriber and we get the Sunday Times. I notice that the story is from about 10:30 this morning. I’ll be interested to see if it makes the actual, you know, paper tomorrow. There’s a lot they put up online that doesn’t make the print version.
MattF
@Felonius Monk: I’d assumed Cillizza was auditioning for Fox.
chopper
an honest to god case of a dude using his charity as a slush fund. i’m sure the times will get right on this one.
JMG
Josh Barro of Business Insider just tweeted that the thing about this story is that it can be summed up in a sentence. Trump took charitable donations and used them for business expenses.” To many people, even Republicans, that sounds a great deal like stealing.
mike in dc
Christ. He settled lawsuits with other people’s money, that was supposed to be earmarked for charitable purposes. What. An. Asshole.
gratuitous
If Trump ever holds another press conference (more than two weeks and counting since his last one – any of the major news outlets going to put a clock on Trump?), this might be a good topic to ask him about, don’t you think?
Amir Khalid
For just a moment there, I thought the post headline might refer to this legendary Singaporean rock band.
Nothing about the Donald’s sleazy business and personal ethics surprises people anymore does it? He’s Mundungus Fletcher done up in gold- and silver-plated trim. And yet it’s Hillary whom people call corrupt and dishonest.
dmsilev
I think my favorite part of the story was this section:
I’m going to go waaaaaaaay out on a limb and suggest that ‘patriotism’ was not the word that Trump really had in mind when he dictated that response to his lawyers.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Doug!:
I’ve always struggled with how to define his “role” there. I do know that the entire “political blogging” job was a direct reaction to lefty blogs. I know this because I know a former White House reporter who was put into just a slot, yes, she’s a card carrying Villager. As such, the people in that role “came from the newsroom” but the aim of a political blog by a corporate newspaper like the WaPo remains murky in terms of how it relates to “real news”. I mean is somebody like Cilizza a commentator aka Millbank or an actual reporter or something in between?
Regardless, he’s often the face of at least the day-to-day political coverage from the paper and as such, carries more weight in some audiences than others. I think he does drive coverage. What I don’t know is if he has a different editor than Farhenthold.
SFAW
@JMG:
It ain’t the East Overshoe Gazette, you know. Although, in fairness, the East Overshoe Gazette might have superior ethical and journalistic standards than the Times currently has.
Hildebrand
@MattF: I had a joke all fired up to go regarding Cilizza, Fox, and his obvious misogyny and decided it was too much for even this blog.
Felonius Monk
@mike in dc:
When it comes to Donald J. Trump, sir, you are the Master of Understatement. :-)
Doug!
@Amir Khalid:
Nothing so hips as that, it refers to the musical based on the Fellini movie.
Cermet
This is straight forward, no question stealing. If I did this I’d go to jail (the $250 K amount.) No two ways about it. That money was not his nor his to spend – period. As such, that is the exact meaning of the word ‘stealing’. To not prosecute this ass wipe says that stealing large amounts of money when white is A-OK.
burnspbesq
Yoicks. Assuming that Trump is a disqualified person (a term that is defined in Internal Revenue Code Section 4946), the excise tax under Section 4941 could be up to 200 percent of the amount involved.
And some people wonder why the House Freedom Caucus wants to have a completely Quixotic vote to impeach Koskinen. If you’re a Republican, neutering the IRS is always worth doing.
hovercraft
@Doug!:
The same people who think that Tiger Beat on the Potomac and Morning Joe practice journalism. In other words Villagers.
burnspbesq
@Cermet:
If you can find a provision in Title 18 that appkies, I’m sure Preet Bharara would love to hear from you.
sharl
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I assume someone here linked to the e-mail exchange between Cillizza and Norm Ornstein. Norm kicked Cillizza’s ass, though to the latter’s credit, he did invite the exchange and published it on the WaPo site late last week.
A quick survey of commenters on that post shows great support for Ornstein’s criticisms in that exchange, even from a number of self-described Cillizza fans.
Ornstein is the only good thing about the AEI “think” tank.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Cermet:
Um, that’s a given. See post-2008 economic meltdown, ie., the classic “Jump You Fvckers” photo. Quite frankly, Trump’s small potatoes to what was done during the Bush years.
Wapiti
So where were the directors for the Trump Foundation? /s
burnspbesq
As through this world you travel,
You’ll meet some funny men ..
Amir Khalid
@Cermet:
Has a major-party nominee for president ever been perp-walked before? Would state or local law enforcement (or for that matter the FBI) dare do it?
singfoom
So we can expect an article shortly in the NYT that talks about Trumps seemingly illegal actions with his foundation as outlined in the article above and then has a paragraph or two talking about the things that Clinton Foundation donors asked for but never got right.
Because both sides? Balance? Maybe Spayd (is that her name?) can write another article about how balance is partisan.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@sharl:
I had read it. Of note, Ornstein doesn’t fundamentally change Cilizza’s mind on much of anything. It’s not unlike many conversations I’ve had with my very own Villager over the years. The Ornstein screed simply highlights how unthinking and unbreakable Villagers like Cilizza are.
Again, he’s got to have a different editorial chain than Farenthold. Either that or having both ends of the “reporting” spectrum at the WaPo gives the higher editorial types cover saying “See? We beat up on both candidates equally so all you people threatening to cancel your print subscriptions take notice!”.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: Wow. The video I mean. Lefty Kitty is enthralled. Oh wait, she’s actually enthralled by knocking things off my desk now.
catclub
@Brachiator:
This whole thing makes my blood boil. Once some large powerful group comes under the eye of the law, everything is different.
The penalties and terms are negotiable. You negotiate whether you will plead guilty or more likely make no admission of malfeasance.
When I go to pay my traffic ticket, I am NEVER offered the choice to make a donation to some charity instead – which I bet they would write off as either a donation or a business expense.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid:
Well put.
Joyce H
@Brachiator:
Alas, yes. It would have been nice if the media had given some intensive coverage to the shady things about Trump that have always been out there, but unknown to the general voting public, when it was early enough to make a difference. Now I’m afraid even the worst information about him can’t shake his supporters.
I think early on, if there had been more attention paid and coverage given to the story of Trump canceling his nephew’s health insurance at a time when the nephew had a very sick baby, that might have caused some revulsion on the right. Now I’m afraid they’d just see it as a sign of being a hard-headed businessman.
This election, I keep being reminded of this famous Carl Sagan quote:
“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.”
Sigh. I guess all we can do is get the stuff out there to at least make sure his support doesn’t spread to the as-yet undecided.
amk
Where was the IRS? Where was the justice dept during all these years of conning?
Mike J
@sharl: I linked to the tweetstorm by Harry Reed’s deputy COS. Worth looking for.
OGLiberal
I work in NYC. Can tell you that it didn’t really look like any different than any usual work day on Monday, other than the fact that the General Assembly is in town, so more cops on the street, more metal barricades, and more black SUVs transporting various VIPs about town. But this happens this time of year every year so expected. People weren’t cowering in corners, avoiding the subways and running away from trash cans and dumpsters. More cops but in standard blues – not all militaried up, sidearms – not assault rifles, no armored vehicles that I could see. I’m sure there were National Guard in camos with automatic rifles but we’ve had that since 9/11…and they’re hardly menacing. It’s not that New Yorkers aren’t concerned about terrorism but we don’t flinch, don’t take a dump in our pants every time we see a Arab looking fellow, and put things in perspective – let’s face it, we had two large jets take down two 100+ story office buildings a few years ago. And we didn’t lose our s**t then, either.
schrodinger's cat
@JMG: Times can cover more than one story at time, they surely have the resources to do so.
I can’t do Physics HW because I am taking Calculus doesn’t cut it even if you are freshman, let alone the New York fucking Times.
catclub
@Cermet:
If a poor man steals $1000 dollars that is a big time felony. If a rich man steals $250k that is a mere oversight.
Brachiator
Also, too:
In the crazy world in which Trump’s bullshit is looked on approvingly, his supporters will see this as proof that Trump is the King of the Deal, exactly the guy you want taking on perfidious China and venal Mexico.
Joyce H
Mundungus? If we’re going for Harry Potter analogies, this whole election is Hermione versus Draco.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@amk:
During the Bush years, actively looking the other way. Afterwards, drowned in the Grover Fvcking Norquist’s bathtub. Congress has hamstrung the IRS for years in terms of enough funding. Same with the Justice Dept. Not enough people to do the proper oversight…by design.
Everybody should read “Confessions of a Tax Collector” by Richard Yancy for an insider’s view of how this has played out since 2000.
JMG
@OGLiberal: Actually, the most security I have seen as a visitor to NYC in the last decade was in August, when I happened to be going to Penn Station on the night the MTV Video Awards were at Madison Square Garden. Then I saw automatic weapons.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: Chinese leaders are not going to roll over and play dead like NYT has for Trump.
catclub
Can I just note that reporting 90+ year old G.H.W. Bush is probably voting for Clinton is a dynamite approach to getting the youth vote!
I saw it at Slate.
Gelfling 545
@dmsilev: You are thinking perhaps of another word beginning with p?
catclub
@dmsilev: At LGM:
WaterGirl
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Does a lower number mean you are dispatched sooner or later than someone with a higher number?
Betty Cracker
@Joyce H: Amir had it right, IMO — Fletcher is a low, common thief and conman. Draco worked in the service of evil, but he was capable of self-doubt.
sharl
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I agree with your assessment of Cillizza. I’ve always assumed that he reports to whoever runs op-ed (Fred Hiatt?), rather than the news reporters. My assumption is that he is the future Richard Cohen, after RC retires.
Why WaPo, NYT, etc. think they need people like that, I do not know.
Dadadadadadada
@dmsilev: $1250 a day…$120,000 in total fines…[scribbles on back of an envelope]…it took him 3 MONTHS to figure out that rules apply to him? And then he paid the fine in a flagrantly illegal way, thus demonstrating that he really hadn’t learned the lesson?
And people TRUST this person?!?!?
JMG
Depressing but probably accurate post from someone on a nonpolitical Website I visit. Brad and Angelina’s divorce means there is no chance cable news covers the Trump Foundation story at all.
Emma
@Joyce H: Oh no. Draco’s family were wizarding aristos, even if they deserved low tumbrel numbers. It’s Hermione v. Voldemort, the illegitimate half-muggle that conned the aristocrats into thinking he was one of them and turning over fortunes.
NYCMT
So, any other NY-trained legal minds see how this would get charged out in NY Supreme? The fact pattern is a classic NYPL 155.05(2)(a) embezzlement larceny. IRC 4941 Self-dealing with disqualified person, plus federal wire and mail fraud.
Joyce H
@Betty Cracker:
But Hillary is most definitely Hermione. You know, does all the work, does all the research and finds the answers that save the day while the guys are off playing quidditch, never gets the credit for saving the day.
gene108
@Brachiator:
At the first Republican debate, in August 2015, Fox News tried to nail him down on his dirty dealings by discussing his bankruptcies and comments about women.
Trump just blew them off. He proudly said, all these other lawmakers on the stage made it legal for me to do what I did, so they should be accountable instead of myself.
I honestly don’t think this sort of reporting would’ve dented Trump in the primaries. There was already so much out there about how he stiffed contractors, filed bankruptcies, cheated on his wives, etc. that showed he was not a terribly ethical person.
The Republican primary voters just did not care, because he was going to deport all the Mexicans and build a wall to keep them out.
He jumped to the top of Republican field by calling Mexicans rapists, and how he was going to build a wall and did not look back, during his initial announcement.
The people, who pushed him over-the-top in the primaries did not care about anything else but the fact he was open about his racism.
PaulWartenberg2016
This is insane. There are clear violations and yet nobody’s done anything about them.
Out of sheer decency the Justice Department should open criminal probes into the Trump Foundation RIGHT NOW. To hell with the Fox Not-News crowd screeching “Obama’s rigging the election,” The Republicans should never have allowed this con artist to run since Day One.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@WaterGirl:
I assume lower = more toward the head of the line.
PaulWartenberg2016
It’s become clear that a majority of Republican voters are backing Trump because they want to watch the world burn.
Doug!
@OGLiberal:
Well said.
sharl
@Mike J: I found a short exchange between the two. Hahaha, Cillizza fled the scene quickly!
Amir Khalid
@Joyce H:
Hillary is indeed a Hermione, but Donald is just as surely Dung Fletcher.
Gelfling 545
@catclub: I see nothing to suggest that it intends to be anything of the kind. The fact that no living President is supporting Trump should, though, give every thinking person pause no matter their age.
RealityBites
What will the NYT do? Until I see otherwise, I’m calling a Spayd a Spayd.
Joyce H
@gene108:
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Yes, that stuff was ‘out there’. You could have found it if you’d gone looking for it. But the Republican primary voters didn’t go looking for it. They figured they didn’t need to, because they already KNEW Trump. Or so they thought. They watched him on The Apprentice for years, and believed what they were seeing reflected reality. He was a big, important and successful businessman. All that stuff about bankruptcies and shady business dealings? Sure, it had been reported – in a newspaper they didn’t read, years and decades ago.
Patricia Kayden
@JMG: Trump is nothing but a scam artist. This needs to be tweeted at all those Bernie-Or-Bro folks who are planning to cast “protest” votes for Stein or Johnson. If Trump gets to be the President, our tax dollars will be funnelled into his pocket and his businesses. It will be one huge grifting scheme to boost his wealth. Nothing more, nothing less.
donnah
Stephen Cobert had a great monologue last night; two of them, actually. He went after the bomber in the first one, saying “he should have known he couldn’t terrorize us” and then went on to savage Trump in his sit-down monologue after the break. It was a thing of beauty.
WaterGirl
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I had assumed, like with the vietnams draft, and lower number meant you were drafted first. I remember vividly because my brother-in-law got #366. That was a happy day for him.
Amir Khalid
@Emma:
Illegitimate? Merope Gaunt managed to enchant Tom Riddle Sr. into marrying her. It wasn’t real love, of course, and it didn’t last. But their son was conceived in wedlock, even if being a Half-Blood may have made him illegitimate in his own eyes.
Joyce H
@Patricia Kayden:
Does anyone else note the oddness that Trump’s primary advisers, ALL of them, are his adult children? Yes, there is the revolving door of staffers, but they’re disposable. The real power is with the kids. I saw a headline today about Ivanka meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill. IVANKA.
Normal American political campaigns don’t look like this! The MOB looks like this.
Gindy51
@Brachiator: Thing is anyone of the fools who lost the primary to Trump could have done this if they’d had a brain cell. It isn’t like digging into deep financial records, it’s all out there. What kind of lame assed crews did the other GOP candidates hire and why did they miss this stuff?
Did they purposely NOT dig into his background so he’d win and then lose against Clinton? Was that their reasoning back then?
SenyorDave
How about some Clinton ads pointing this stuff out. Most people actually would have a problem with someone using a charity as a slush fund. And this has to be brought up in the debate by Clinton is some context.
Betty Cracker
@JMG: Honest to dog, that was my first thought when I saw “Brangela” trending on Twitter too. But the debate moderators aren’t going to ask about Brangela. I think the media sharks are smelling blood in the water, and they’re coming for Trump. It’s about goddamned time, too.
Patricia Kayden
@PaulWartenberg2016: It’s frustrating to see how many scams Trump has involved himself in and yet could still be our next President. So much of what he has done would be disqualifying to any other candidate. It’s as if he is untouchable.
Joyce H
@Gindy51:
Of course the other GOP candidates knew all this stuff and didn’t use it. Why? Two reasons. One is that they didn’t want to tick off his supporters, who they hoped to gain when Trump dropped out. And the other is that they didn’t want to use all this juicy oppo and potentially benefit some other primary candidate other than themselves. So they were all holding their fire planning to wait until they were the last candidate standing against Trump, and also hoping that someone else would set off the deluge of bad oppo for them, and they could reap the rewards.
They were playing a game of chicken and they all went off the cliff.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Wapiti:
They must have missed it in the 30 minutes weekly* they each spend on the foundation’s business.
* Actual number reported by one of the Trumps. And, yes, all of the directors except maybe one are Trumps.
SenyorDave
@Gindy51: Did they purposely NOT dig into his background so he’d win and then lose against Clinton? Was that their reasoning back then?
This would be disqualifying for a normal person in normal times. Its 7 weeks before the election and it exists in the bubble of the WaPo at this point, probably never making it as a national story.
If the NYT doesn’t pick this up they should lose all their subscriptions.
Cacti
More proof that Trump’s “billionaire” status is a sham.
What billionaire needs to raid their foundation coffers to pay legal bills for the family business?
The kind that’s property rich and cash poor.
MattF
@Cacti: I think it’s more that Trump’s a crook, all the way. Using other people’s money to pay off legally incurred debts through his family charity foundation– it’s just breathtaking.
Betty Cracker
@Joyce H: Bingo.
SenyorDave
@randy khan: Tenenbaum represents respectable non-profits that are willing to pay a real lawyer for advice to make sure they stay on the right side of the law, so naturally he’s never encountered anything like what Trump is doing.
If this guy does legal work for a lot of charities, I’m guessing he does it a reduced rate because he sees it as a way of giving back a little (its not unusual, my dad had his own engineering firm and he would give 10% discount to houses of warship, volunteer firehouses, etc. And it was real, not a discount off a higher rate). It probably really pisses him off that a POS like Trump gets to call his slush fund a charity. Trump is truly one of the worst humans who hasn’t committed violent crimes. How cvan any person vote for this degenerate.
Amir Khalid
@Gindy51:
Ted Cruz, it was said, decided not to attack Donald directly. lest he piss off Donald’s supporters instead of picking them up when Donald’s candidacy eventually collapsed. The other Republican candidates may have bet that way too.
Dadadadadadada
@Joyce H: It’s like that Simpsons ep where Mr. Burns has every disease ever, and it makes him immortal because the diseases are all crowding each other out and so never get around to doing any damage to him.
Quite the apt metaphor, now that I think about it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
I have been told that prosecuting a presidential candidate is a giant ‘We do not do that because it amounts to political intimidation even when the prosecution is legitimate.’ Maybe after he loses he’ll be in a world of hurt.
Frankensteinbeck
@Joyce H:
I think a big part was being scared, stupid, and incompetent. As idiotic as Trump is, he is actually smarter and a better candidate than most of his primary opponents. He could humiliate them publicly, and did when they caught his attention. As a collection of schoolyard children, they consider taunts like ‘I’m rubber and you’re glue’ and ‘Jeb is a doodyhead!’ to be supreme, humiliating, invincible wit.
Dadadadadadada
@SenyorDave: Are we sure Trump hasn’t committed violent crimes? Remember that his first wife says she “felt raped” at one point in their marriage. And there’s that child-rape allegation from the Jeffrey Epstein parties he went to. And he has a terrible temper. And his second wife went WELL out of her way to keep her daughter away from him…
The standard abuser profile (narcissist, thwarted, entitled, etc.) fits him like a glove. A tiny glove. There’s no proof (yet), but I think it’s pretty likely that he has committed violent crimes.
randy khan
@SenyorDave:
Venable’s a very big law firm. A lot of firms have a standard 10% off their usual rates for non-profits. That said, if he represents 700 charities, that’s what he does for a living (and probably what at least one person who works for him does for a living).
randy khan
@Frankensteinbeck:
In general, primary candidates try not to use the really big stuff against each other because they don’t want to give the other party ammunition in the general. In Trump’s case, he didn’t really care (not that he actually did any oppo research, from what I can tell), which gave him something of an advantage over the others. They should have realized what was happening sooner, but obviously didn’t, and never really adjusted.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
It’s time to put the popcorn on the stove. The Donald may be in a jump suit that matches his skin tone by November.
Brachiator
@gene108:
Who knows. The point is that the press was dazzled by him early on. Probably too late for this stuff to have much impact now.
@Gindy51:
Very few took Trump seriously early on, neither the press nor his GOP adversaries. And they probably thought that he would be a contributor to their campaign after he had dropped out, so they didn’t want to knock him too hard. By the time they figured out that he was serious competition, it was too late to check him.
Rabble Arouser
Wow, apt use of a Mr. Bungle song. California is my favorite album!
chopper
@Brachiator:
this is why trump talks up and down about how mexico will pay for ‘the wall’. because he made his fortune by getting other people to pay to make his problems go away. same with his numerous bankruptcies.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@PaulWartenberg2016: If I were Obama I would launch an investigation today…and if they start to screech I’d say “There is a real possibility laws were broken here. We have a responsibility to investigate those crimes. Besides which, Republicans weaponized this crap in the ’90s. Payback’s a bitch assholes.”
WaterGirl
@PaulWartenberg2016: You know that if the show were on the other foot, Issa or some other joker would have already created a special investigative committee!
Roger Moore
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
And the EPA, FDA, and just about any other regulatory agency. If you can’t repeal the law that makes what you want to do illegal, just defund the regulators tasked with enforcing it. That also lets you point to the general ineffectiveness of regulation as an excuse for further gutting the regulatory state. Win/win!
FlipYrWhig
@Joyce H: I really like this point…
chopper
@WaterGirl:
oh man, if clinton was caught using foundation funds to cover personal lawsuits the media’s collective heads would asplode and congress would pre-impeach her.
Kay
I’m wondering about the donation to the police agency in FL. Why did Trump all of a sudden decide to become a booster of a specific, local police force?
That to me looks worth investigating.
arrieve
@OGLiberal: Monday morning I thought about walking around Times Square instead of cutting through it, but then I was late and I just thought “screw it.” True story: Later in the morning one of my coworkers mentioned that there were a lot of cop cars with flashing blue lights on the corner. Someone said, “Oh, that’s because of Obama.” (He was giving a speech in our building, but it was very hush hush and no one knew he was here until after it was over.) Except we all thought she said, “That’s because of a bomb,” and a couple of people said, “Oh, they found another one?” No pants were wet at any time, and at least one person wandered back to work before getting the clarification. “I figured if we needed to evacuate, they’d make an announcement.”
OGLiberal
@JMG: There have been National Guard (and sometimes cops) with automatic weapons in Penn Station since 9/11. But almost all the time they’re just smoking and joking (while being aware of what’s going on around them, of course) – they don’t look or act anything like the Ferguson army we saw after the Michael Brown shooting.
Lurking Canadian
@Frankensteinbeck: I hope the team sent to arrest him arrives just as he’s starting his concession speech in November, then.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
I remember too when that first, most important lottery was held. I got a low number, either 72 or 79, I forget now. It didn’t matter, I was gone. Folks told me about friends in Canada, introduced me to a UU pastor to talk about CO. I enlisted in the USN.
Another Holocene Human
@JMG: I would think an event of that er, magnitude, was more the tabloids’ beat.
FAILBOMBER CAUGHT SNOOZING IN BAR DOORWAY
Cops say he acted alone
EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS
waysel
@Brachiator: I’ll bet the donors knew exactly what Trump would do with their donations. None of it was about actual charity, methinks.
Captain C
@schrodinger’s cat: In fact, the Physics and Calc HW might complement each other and you’ll be better at both.