The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Wednesday
Jun012016
The Commentariat -- June 2, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: "The payday loan industry, which is vilified for charging exorbitant interest rates on short-term loans that many Americans depend on, could soon be gutted by a set of rules that federal regulators plan to unveil on Thursday.... Under the guidelines from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- the watchdog agency set up in the wake of 2010 banking legislation -- lenders will be required in many cases to verify their customers' income and to confirm that they can afford to repay the money they borrow. The number of times that people could roll over their loans into newer and pricier ones would be curtailed. The new guidelines do not need congressional or other approval to take effect, which could happen as soon as next year." CW: Take that, Debbie Wasserman Schultz!
Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times: "As more states adopt more restrictive laws and the number of clinics dwindles in the so-called 'abortion desert' -- an area that stretches from Florida to New Mexico and north into the Midwest -- women are increasingly traveling across state lines to avoid long waits for appointments and escape the legal barriers in their home states." -- CW
Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to reopen Trump University, the beleaguered real estate seminar business that is the target of multiple lawsuits and has become a new favorite attack line for Hillary Clinton. 'After the litigation is disposed of and the case won, I have instructed my execs to open Trump U(?), so much interest in it! I will be pres.' Trump tweeted Thursday.... 'Even though I have a very biased and unfair judge in the Trump U civil case in San Diego, I have thousands of great reviews & will win case!" Trump tweeted earlier Thursday." -- CW ...
... Nick Gass: "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman stepped up his attacks on Donald Trump's Trump University business venture on Thursday, alleging the businessman and presumptive Republican nominee ran a thoroughly fraudulent enterprise.... 'It's fraud. This is just straight up fraud. It's like selling people something you say is a Mercedes and it turns out to be a Volkswagen," he said [on 'Morning Joe]. 'And even if some people say, "Well I actually kind of like the Volkswagen, it's still fraud, 'cause it's not a Mercedes. This is not a university.... You can't just put up a sign saying Scarborough Hospital, Scarborough University, Scarborough Law Firm.'" -- CW
*****
Sahil Kapur & Mike Dorning of Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for an increase in Social Security benefits for the elderly as he hit the road with a speech that previewed his role as campaigner-in-chief for Democrats ahead of the November election. The president's comments mark a reversal after he sought a bipartisan deal five years ago that would have cut Social Security and moves the Democratic party toward a unified stance on the nation's cornerstone retirement program. 'It is time we finally made Social Security more generous and increase the benefits so that today's retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they have earned,' Obama said in Elkhart, Indiana...":
... Allie Malloy, et al., of CNN: "... Obama lambasted what he said were economic myths peddled by the GOP, insisting any clear-eyed assessment shows the country better off now then when he took office.... During his hour-long remarks, Obama cast the upcoming general election as a choice between his own policies and those that would only benefit wealthy Americans.... Ahead of his remarks Wednesday, a White House source said Obama was chomping at the bit to get out and 'get people fired up' about the upcoming election, though the source conceded Obama will remain largely on the sidelines until the Democrats have a nominee. Obama expects to 'explode onto the scene' once the nominee is selected and 'knows his power' to fire up the Democratic base, the source said. 'It's driving him crazy' to be mostly hands-off, the source added." -- CW ...
Today, even as the top 1% is doing better than ever for all the reasons I talked about earlier, the Republican nominee for president's tax plan would give the top one-tenth of 1% a bigger tax cut than the 120 million American households at the bottom. It would explode our deficits by nearly $10tn. I'm not making this up. You can look at the math. That will not bring jobs back. That is not fighting for the American middle class.... That is not going to make your lives better, that will help people like him. That's the truth. -- Barack Obama, in Elkhart, Indiana, Wednesday
... The Guardian report, by David Smith, is here.
Jon Prior of Politico: "Federal regulators Thursday unveiled rules that could mean a death sentence for the payday-lending industry, a cause that has already sparked infighting between mainstream Democrats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the party's Elizabeth Warren wing.... The debate has spawned bipartisan legislation backed by Wasserman Schultz to delay the new rules for two years, a move that she says would give states time to adopt stricter laws.... The legislation also invited a sharp rebuke from Warren, (D-Mass.), the architect of the CFPB." --safari
Nancy Scola of Politico: Congressional Republicans and Silicon Valley are racing to pass legislation to combat nuisance lawsuits against online speech -- before a litigious President Donald Trump gets a chance to veto it.... So the bill's supporters are pushing to get the legislation passed while Barack Obama is still president." -- CW ...
Blake, on the right, with a friend, not his wife.... Pajama Boy's Predicament. Eric Levitz of New York: Congressman Blake Farenthold of Texas once lamented the House's failure to impeach Barack Obama. As of 2013, Farenthold was still questioning the authenticity of the president's long-form birth certificate.... But now the right-wing representative is trying to pass a bill promoting free speech online before the illegitimate tyrant leaves office -- because he doesn't trust the great patriot he'll be voting for in November to support his conception of the First Amendment." -- CW
Molly Redden of the Guardian: "Five years into a wave of anti-abortion legislation that is without historical precedent..., a rising chorus of abortion providers and activists ... wonder if they are witnessing, as a direct result of those laws, a spike in women who are attempting to take matters into their own hands. In the south, abortion providers frequently encounter women who have tried taking misoprostol, an abortifacient that is only available in abortion clinics in the US but is available and inexpensive in most Mexican pharmacies. Myths circulate online about the ability of herbal extracts or over-the-counter products, some of which pose a health risk, to cause a miscarriage.... A report, released in November, project[ed] that anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 women of childbearing age in Texas -- the site of the nation's most bruising abortion fight -- have at some point attempted to induce their own abortions." -- CW
Weird News. John Cox of the Washington Post: "Bryan Whitman, a top Pentagon official who has worked at the Defense Department for more than two decades..., [has been] charged with three counts of misdemeanor theft" after he inexplicably targeted a nanny for legally parking in his Washington, D.C. neighborhood. Whitman first left her a threatening note, then removed her car's plates -- twice. CW: There's no suggestion in the story that Whitman knew the nanny. Sometimes older people just go nuts. Then again, the nanny is Hispanic. Donald Trump.
Presidential Race
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton plans to deliver a scorching assessment of Donald J. Trump's foreign policy prescriptions on Thursday, casting her likely Republican rival as a threat to decades of bipartisan tenets of American diplomacy and declaring him unfit for the presidency. Mrs. Clinton's campaign aides said the speech, which she will deliver in San Diego, would be the start of a persistent assault to portray a potential Trump presidency as a dangerous proposition that would weaken American alliances and embolden enemies." CW: See also commentary by Fred Kaplan & by Norm Ornstein, linked below.
Louis Nelson of Politico: "Hillary Clinton unloaded Wednesday on Donald Trump and his Trump University... At a Newark, New Jersey, event, Clinton ... open[ed] her remarks by bringing up the most recent development in the Trump University lawsuit.... 'Trump and his employees took advantage of vulnerable Americans,' Clinton said.... 'This is just more evidence that Donald Trump himself is a fraud. He is trying to scam America the way he scammed all those people at Trump U.... On issue after issue, we see someone who is unqualified and unfit to be president of the United States.' Clinton also attacked Trump for the months-long delay in the delivery of money to veterans charities from a fundraiser he held in January.... 'It turns out it wasn't until the press shamed him that he actually made the donations he had promised. For months, it was all just a publicity stunt.'" -- CW
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge ruled Wednesday that another batch of Hillary Clinton-related emails must be turned over to the Democratic presidential candidate's political adversaries in advance of the national political conventions this summer. U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Jackson ordered the U.S. Agency for International Development to produce a set of messages to the Republican National Committee by July 11 and to come up with a timeline by July 19 for disclosure of the remaining records." CW: Jackson is an Obama appointee.
Josh Gerstein: "Just as documents unsealed in a class-action lawsuit over ... Donald Trump's Trump University real estate program made a huge splash in the media, the judge who ordered the release of the information is trying to put some of it back under wraps.... On Tuesday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel ... said he had 'mistakenly' listed some records to be released in full, when they were actually supposed to be edited or redacted to delete personal information like home addresses and personal emails." -- CW
Scammer-in-Chief. Jonathan Chait: "... Trump University was a total scam.... He is running the same scam on the vastly larger and more consequential tableau of the presidential election. His ask this time is not for your money but your vote. But the proposition is the same: His capitalistic brilliance -- which is self-evident from his famous wealth, but the specifics of which must remain confidential as a trade secret -- will be put at your disposal. The campaign, like the 'university,' is a fraud designed to benefit Trump by exploiting the uneducated, the desperate, and the vulnerable." -- CW ...
Scammer-in-Chief, Ctd. Fighting News of Scam with Scam Video. Nick Penzenstadler of USA Today: "Donald Trump's campaign issued a video Wednesday featuring three people identified as former Trump University students that represent satisfied customers of that program, which has been a source of intense criticism and legal challenges.... The video features Kent Moyer, Casey Hoban and Michelle Gunn -- all of whom appear to have some ties to Trump himself." -- CW ...
... Trump College of Vulture Capitalism. Dana Milbank: Steven Brill of Time magazine reported last November that Trump claimed "that he started Trump University as a charitable venture." But somehow Trump never gave any of the $5 million he received from his "charitable venture" to any charities.... After the 2008 crash, "Trump was essentially teaching his pupils how to be vultures, profiting from the economic crash at a time when much of the national effort was devoted to limiting foreclosures.... By comparison, the veterans who waited four months to receive Trump's largesse did relatively well." -- CW ...
... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: When Sean Hannity interviewed Donald Trump on Tuesday night about his charitable contributions to veterans, he "didn't say on air ... that he had a years-long relationship with one of the groups Trump had just chosen for a donation. The charity, Freedom Alliance, received a $75,000 gift.... Freedom Alliance provides college scholarships to the children of fallen or disabled U.S. military personnel. It also provides care packages to troops overseas and presents for military families at Christmas. It was founded by former Marine officer Oliver North, a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s who has become a conservative activist and commentator.... Freedom Alliance, based in Northern Virginia, receives only middling ratings from charity watchdog groups. Charity Navigator gives it two stars out of four. Charity Watch gives it a grade of "D.'" -- CW
** "Litigator-in-Chief." Nick Penzenstadler & Susan Page of USA Today: Donald Trump "and his businesses have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. They range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal defamation lawsuits. The sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump's courtroom entanglements. Just since he announced his candidacy a year ago, at least 70 new cases have been filed, about evenly divided between lawsuits filed by him and his companies and those filed against them." -- CW ...
... Jose DelReal & Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's highly personal, racially tinged attacks on a federal judge overseeing a pair of lawsuits against him have set off a wave of alarm among legal experts, who worry that the Republican presidential candidate's vendetta signals a remarkable disregard for judicial independence. That attitude, many argue, could carry constitutional implications if Trump becomes president.... Katrina Pierson, a spokeswoman for Trump, has expanded on the accusations of bias, wrongly suggesting Curiel is part of a group organizing protests at Trump rallies around California." -- CW ...
... Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "For Trump..., judging is all personal, at least as far as he is concerned. He has no discernible views on judges except about whether they agree with him, case by case. As illustrated by his attacks on Judge Curiel, Trump's style is bigoted name-calling, not reasoned critique. That's his pattern -- and not just about judges." -- CW
** Fred Kaplan of Slate: "It is no coincidence that two of the world's wiliest dictators -- Russia's Vladimir Putin and, now it seems, North Korea's Kim Jong-un -- are keen to see Donald Trump win this fall's election.... [It's] likely, Putin and Kim pine for a Trump presidency because they see he's an easy mark, someone who thinks he's smart and tough but who, in fact, is all set to give away the store.... [U.S. allies know] ... Trump would be a disaster for their interests and U.S. interests -- and a feast for our shrewdest adversaries." -- CW
** Norm Ornstein in Politico Magazine: "It is almost impossible to separate Donald Trump the presidential candidate from Donald Trump the businessman and huckster.... On Wednesday, Trump announced he will travel to Scotland on June 24 to preside over the grand reopening of Trump Turnberry, the luxury golf resort.... No matter that he is going on the same day that the United Kingdom will find out the results of its referendum on whether to stay in the European Union, potentially a transformative event for Britain and the world.... A presidential candidate is using his position for personal financial gain, at potentially great costs to U.S. foreign policy and international relations. And yet the news about Trump's Scotland trip barely caused a ripple. As Bob Dole famously said, 'Where's the outrage?'" ...
Huh? -- Donald Trump, response to a question about Brexit ...
... Trump doesn't know what "Brexit" is, but he's "for it."
CW: As a couple of contributors pointed out yesterday, Frank Rich's comparison of Ronald Duck & Donald Duck is an interesting read. The scariest part of "interesting" is Rich's well-reasoned contention that we're in serious danger of getting another President Duck, especially with the leading Democratic candidate being so Mondalesque.
Gail Collins: "Donald Trump has a simple reason for his long delay in explaining what happened to the money he raised for veterans' charities: He didn't want any publicity.... Of all conceivable explanations, 'too self-effacing' ranks somewhere below 'temporarily kidnapped by space aliens.'" CW: Everything he says is fake. ...
... Charles Blow: "Trump keeps signaling that if he had his druthers, he would silence dissent altogether.... Trump's dictatorial instinct to suppress what he deems 'negative' speech, particularly from the press, is the very thing the founders worried about." CW: Well, okay, maybe this is real.
Mark Brown of the Guardian: "He has not yet made a horse his running mate, but Donald Trump can be compared to one of the most notorious of all Roman emperors, Caligula, according to best-selling historian Tom Holland. Holland told the Hay festival there were fascinating parallels between the actions and success of Trump and what was going on in Rome 2,000 years ago." --safari
Steve DiMeglio of USA Today: "The PGA Tour announced Wednesday that the World Golf Championships event held at Trump National will move to Mexico City beginning next year. The event will be renamed the WGC-Mexico Championship after the Tour, on behalf of the International Federation of PGA Tours, secured a seven-year sponsorship agreement with Grupo Salinas, a collection of companies based in Mexico City.... Cadillac ended its sponsorship of the event this year. Doral has hosted a PGA Tour event since 1962." -- CW ...
They're moving it to Mexico City which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance. They're moving it to Mexico City. And I'm saying, you know, what's going on here? It is so sad when you look at what's going on with our country. -- Donald Trump, on Hannity, Tuesday
I have days where I think it's great. And then I have days where, if I come home -- and I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist -- but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof. -- Donald Trump, ca. 1994, on his wife Marla Maples' career ...
... Gabriella Paiella of New York: "Last week, NBC republished a 2004 Dateline interview in which ... Donald Trump called pregnancy an 'inconvenience' to businesses. On Wednesday afternoon, ABC News turned the clock back to 1994 to bring us Trump's thoughts on wives who work. Spoiler: They're incredibly regressive. -- CW
Sen. Graham Regrets. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "A wave of prominent Republicans have announced their intention to skip the party's national convention in Cleveland this summer, the latest sign that Donald J. Trump ... continues to struggle in his effort to unite the party behind his candidacy. The list of those who have sent regrets includes governors and United States senators -- almost all facing tough re-election fights this year -- and lifelong party devotees who have attended every convention for decades. Some are renouncing their seats like conscientious objectors." -- CW
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Krugman: "Every time we have a presidential election, I (and many others) find ourselves marveling at the way much of the news media settles on a narrative, and holds to that narrative no matter how much evidence accumulates that it's wrong. In this campaign so far, the settled narrative is (1) American public full of rage at established figures (2) Hillary in trouble. Initially, actually, this was 'public fed up with Bush and Clinton dynasties', but had to be modified once it turned out that younger, fresher GOP establishment faces were equally hapless. But what if none of this is true?" -- CW ...
... Jonathan Cohn of the Huffington Post: "Suppose that [Trump's] tantrum about hostile media had come from Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz. Suppose that the revelations about questionable past business activities involved Marco Rubio. Better still, suppose that the candidate at the center of these controversies was Hillary Clinton -- and on top of it all, that there was reason to think she had lied and then acted, clumsily, to cover it up.... Whatever the explanation, the resulting double-standard doesn't serve the public well. One presidential candidate isn't getting the same scrutiny as the others. And it's the candidate who deserves scrutiny the most." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Frances Robles of the New York Times: "The youngest of the billionaire Koch brothers [-- William --] had a dream: to found a private high school where academically gifted students of all socioeconomic backgrounds would do hands-on projects and learn by solving problems. He poured more than $75 million into building the school, the Oxbridge Academy of the Palm Beaches. But on Friday, he fired the head of school and declined to renew the contracts of the athletic director and the football coach. The moves came after a sexual harassment complaint and an internal investigation into accusations of kickbacks, grade-changing, excessive spending and violations of the rules governing high school sports." CW: No, Donaldo, inheriting a pile of money does not make one capable of running anything.
Bryce Covert of Think Progress: "Putting the homeless in supportive housing, where they not only get a safe place to sleep but services that help them deal with any health or other issues, costs a lot up front. But San Francisco has found that once those in housing eventually get stabilized, it ends up costing less than it did to have them living on the streets or in shelters." -- CW
News Ledes
Los Angeles Times: "The gunman who killed a UCLA professor before committing suicide on campus Wednesday left behind a 'kill list' and is suspected in the shooting death of a woman in Minnesota, authorities said. Mainak Sarkar, 38, a former doctoral student and Minnesota resident, left a list at his home in that state that included the names of the woman, UCLA professor William Klug and a second professor who is safe, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday. Sarkar shot Klug multiple times in a small office in UCLA Engineering Building 4 before taking his own life, authorities said." -- CW
AP: "Tests show that Prince died of an opioid overdose, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday."
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Reader Comments (13)
Congressional Republicans are racing to pass legislation for President Obama to sign? PRESIDENT Obama? It might be time for him to remind those Republicans that there are judicial nominees waiting for hearings and confirmation votes, seeing as how they suddenly remembered he's still president.
Good essay about what Trump has done to politics:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-seven-broken-guardrails-of-democracy/484829/
It fits together with Frank Rich's article.
In the USA Today piece on three Trump U. graduates video-testifying that their student experience was great, useful, etc., one of the testifiers, a fellow named Moyer, says that he learned all about how to start his business from the TU program. The reporter's text also reads: "Moyer is also a fellow Wharton Business School graduate."
So this guy went through Wharton but learned his biz skilz from Trump U? Doesn't make Wharton look worth the tuition.
Apologies for another Trump post. You have to admit that it is tough avoiding deriding him, he's like a scab to a kid, just gotta pick.
If Judge Curiel is Mexican then trump must be donny the deutscher.
And by this time, Patrick, that scab is bleeding profusely. But who can resist? Today we read how Trump resembles that Roman raconteur who cut off heads and bit off a lot more than he could chew. Good heavens! Caliqula? How low can we go? And loved the last sentence of that article:
"Caligula told a captain in the Praetorian guard that he sounded like a girl. And the Praetorian killed him."
I can imagine President Trump encountering Ted Cruz whose laugh is high and I suppose one could say, girlish, and Donald tells him he sounds like a girl. Ted, brandishing one of his many guns, shoots President Trump in the rump: Headlines––Asshole shoots the Ass in the Ass: not classy, but cogent.
Last night I had the pleasure of watching Mitch McConnell spew his mannered script to Charlie Rose around that round oak table. McConnell has written a book about his life and his work, thus he may be making his rounds on shows hawking it. He's a tightly wound guy who keeps his shell firmly in place, although just once when talking about his bout with polio as a child and his great love for a mother who he gives credit for his recovery––"she never let up––you will walk again!––tenacity––that's what I learned from her"–––I saw a softening in his face––almost a tenderness. HOWEVER-––his distain for Obama––never moved to the center like Clinton did––so we just couldn't work with him (plus says Obama lectures––hates that!) As far as Garland is concerned––VERY liberal guy––we won't approve him. Spent most of the hour talking about what is wrong with the Obama administration (the senate is run well, he says, unlike the house where you have that pesky Freedom Caucus that gums up the works) and the big complaint is overregulation–-not so much with Wall Street, but Main street––so many, he can't count them all, come to him daily from small banks to small manufacturers and tell him these regulations are killing them! Obama is trying to run our country like a Western European economy. Of course he says, our party is one of private sector while the Democrats are for government run. How I had hoped
Charlie would have pressed him on those regulations––our water problems along with countless other failings, but no. Asked about Trump, he seemed untroubled. His agenda is working to cut medicare and social security––"people live to a hundred these days, we can't sustain these "entitlements" any longer; tax reform (and at this point I'm screaming at Charlie to ask about raising those taxes on the fat cats so we do have enough money to–––but he doesn't); and I forgot the third thing––probably undo those interfering regulations.
Mitch McConnell––been there for 32 years. Stubborn as all get out–-won't budge an inch on some things––he calls it tenacity.
@Nisky Guy: President Obama should tell the Senate GOP leadership to send that freeedom! bill up for signature right after they confirm Judge Garland and a good portion of the backlog of other nominees.
Marie
The Turtle Man has come out of his shell and is making the media rounds these days. He has a new book "The Long Game", and a game it is. The longevity is explained in a much more revealing book about McConnell from a couple of years ago, "The Cynic" by Alec MacGillis. McConnell, early on, learned to flip-flop with the prevailing breezes from the right and not lose a second of sleep about it.
Case in point? He's rolling over for Herr Drumpf, giving him his full support. Trump's list of appalling jurists he'd appoint to the Supreme Court all meet with McConnell's approval. Naturally, Trump's myriad problems don't bother him a bit. As long as Mitchy is taken care of, it's all good.
This complete lack of a moral core he tries valiantly to hide in the many interviews he's been giving. His statements range from ridiculous lies to stupid lies. He says he's always willing to work with Democrats and has been trying to work with the president but the president just won't move off the ultra liberal dime he's been sitting on. Poor Mitch, he's been trying though. He claims that the Republican Party is at an all-time high. Accent on "high" I guess, and not a good high either. One of those highs you get from bad shit and hope like hell you can come down as soon as possible and never touch that stuff again.
I've always thought of McConnell as somewhat of a pragmatist (this is 15 or 20 years ago). But he's really much more of a whore. He'll do and say whatever it takes to stay in power. It doesn't much matter to him. And dirty tricks have always been his friend. Remember when Ashley Judd was considering running against him and he and his team were ready to attack her because she once visited a therapist to help her through some tough times. McConnell was ready to portray her as mentally unstable. On the tape of their dirty tricks planning meeting, his aides joked and laughed about how much fun that would be. If this sounds pretty fucking nasty, just remember that McConnell, during his first senate run in 1984, tapped Roger Ailes as his hit man consultant.
The guy has been a blot of stinking fecal matter his entire career and the stench is more noxious by the day. And this is the best--the very best--the Republican Party has to offer, a cynical manipulator and amoral opportunist with a hatred for anyone standing in his way.
No wonder Trump is doing so well. Guys like McConnell have planted the seeds for him with Confederate voters weaned on mendacity and viciousness with little to no regard for what's best for the country if it means placing one's own needs and desires in the backseat.
A disgrace, now prancing about as an American Hero. And no, both sides don't do this. Only one. But the media still treat this guy as a Very Important Person whose ideas should be given careful consideration.
There is NO ONE in the Republican Party today worth the powder to blow them to hell, as my mother used to say. Least of all this turd.
The other day I mentioned that it was interesting how Chinese Communist Party leaders are such fans of Donald Trump. I had meant to offer a more detailed suggestion as to why that might be, but Fred Kaplan beat me to it.
The Chinese leaders are wily guys who have been at this shit their entire lives. Just like Putin. They know a chump when they see one. They also know, I'm sure, that Trump's claim of regularly beating the Chinese is a complete canard.
A recent Times article details Trump's "victory" over the Chinese. To call it a Pyrrhic victory wouldn't even come close. In fact, the Chinese beat him like a rented mule.
In 1994, Trump, because of bad decisions and a bad real estate market he could not contend with, was nearly broke and on the verge of yet another bankruptcy. Hong Kong investors bailed him out. But they required him to attend face to face meetings. Trump traveled to Hong Kong but he didn't like it. He had no knowledge of the culture, the food (couldn't even use chopsticks), or the customs of doing business there. The Chinese seem to have had fun with him. In a golf game, they told Trump they played for a $1,000 a hole. No problem for a big spender like Drumpf, right? Wrong. He blanched at the amount. The Hong Kong billionaires took pity on him and made it $100 a hole. Good thing. Trump sucked and lost most of the holes. They they sat him down and presented him with a bowl of Chinese soup prominently featuring fish heads. He tried to get out of eating it. Trump was probably screaming inside. So much for his easy command of foreign affairs.
Over the years, the Chinese made him a ton of money, but after they sold the property which they purchased from him (and which kept him solvent), for a then record real estate deal in NY, $1.76 billion, Trump erupted in a tantrum. "I could have gotten a lot more! And they never even consulted with me". Why should they? It was their building. Nonetheless, Trump sued everyone and kept them all in court for years. The Chinese severed all ties with him and will never do business with him again. They don't forget that sort of thing.
In the end, he lost at trial. The judge ruled against him and he got nothing from that record sale. He did get to keep 30% of one building, but that was it.
And this is what he calls "beating" the Chinese.
So no wonder the Communist leaders are chomping at the bit to invite Drumpf over for another big bowl of fish head soup.
He's a chest thumping loser. And they know it.
Norm Ornstein asks: Is this the worst congress ever?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/is-this-the-worst-congress-ever/483075/
Speaking of turds and the Chinese making money off trump, it appears that they still are wiping him up. This time with toilet paper printed with his image, and with Hillary's. In this race though, trump is outselling HRC 6 to 1. Unfortunately, they don't say which image is selling the best - "smiling Trump, pouting Trump, or angry Trump pointing his finger."
Perhaps we should request a special edition for Turtleman.
The Party of the Third Part
Confederates unmoved by Drumpf's appeals to outright (as opposed to shaded) racism, bigotry, hatred, and idolization of wealthy capitalists have (or had, for about a half hour) a new alternate, third party candidate served up by Bill (Always Wrong) Kristol: David French.
Yeah. I had the same reaction. David who? Don't worry about it. Wingut tea leaf reader and all around Confederate douchebag Erick Erickson is not pleased. Some unnamed Confederate source put it this way: "This is like flipping open the phone book and picking someone on page 325". Confederates don't often say many truthful things but this sure sounds like an exception to that rule.
So don't look for David (Who?) French to Ralph Nader Herr Drumpf's march to the White (Supremacist) House.
But there's another problem.
A recent WaPo/ABC poll indicates that, despite Kristol's fail with this French character, 44% of voters are ready for a third party candidate.
Whip pan to Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president. Johnson wowed the crowd with 1% of the votes in 2012 but is currently polling at 10%. If he gets even half of that from disaffected Bernie supporters (it's doubtful that Confederate Trump haters will flock to him even though he was a Republican governor; Johnson recently announced that he was giving up smoking pot for the duration of the campaign. I doubt this will be a feather in his cap with the Erick Erickson types, but I wonder, does that mean if elected, he'd start up toking again? Roaches in the Oval Office! That would be something...) it could spell b i g t r o u b l e for Hillary.
Just sayin'...
"I have instructed my execs to reopen Trump U!"
University President Donaldo Drumpf, PhB, LLC
In other news, the venerable investment house, Charles Ponzi & Associates will be reopening right next door to Trump University. For a limited time only, Trump and Ponzi will be offering a special deal for any sucker, er, ah, person who wishes to make use of both services. They guarantee a 100% return on investment within 90 days or mumble, mumble, mumble, cough-cough, something, something, something...Millionaire!
Ponzi & Assoc has been closed for nearly 100 years but the Drumpf campaign has revived interest in fraudulent business practices and scams and has rounded up a passel of suckers ripe for the plucking.
It'll be amazing!
@Marie: Yes, that's my dream scenario, but very few of my scenarios work as well as they do in Sorkin dramas.