Month: July 2016

Another day, another police killing
by Tom Sullivan

In bleeding color:

A St. Paul man died Wednesday night after being shot by police in Falcon Heights, the aftermath of which was recorded in a video widely shared on Facebook in which the man’s girlfriend says the “police shot him for no apparent reason, no reason at all.”

Friends at the scene identified the man as Philando Castile, 32, cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School in St. Paul.

Castile had cooked “for 12 to 15 years” at a Montessori School. Let that sink in. Philando Castile is black.

The girlfriend started the live-stream video with the man in the driver’s seat slumped next to her, his white T-shirt soaked with blood on the left side. In the video, taken with her phone, she says they were pulled over at Larpenteur Avenue and Fry Street for a broken taillight.

This after police shot and killed Alton Sterling Tuesday outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge. Sterling, the “CD man,” was known for selling music and DVDs there. His shooting was also captured on video. Edmond Jordan, the family’s attorney, told CNN:

“Alton was out there selling CDs, trying to make a living. He was doing it with the permission of the store owner, so he wasn’t trespassing or anything like that. He wasn’t involved in any criminal conduct,” Jordan said.

Abdullah Muflahi, the owner of the Triple S Food Mart, said he saw the officers slam Sterling on a car.

“They told him not to move,” he said. “He was asking them what he did wrong.”

He said the officers then used a Taser on Sterling at least once before shooting.

Alton Sterling is black. Protests continue. Federal authorities are investigating. Etc., etc.

Again.

The details almost don’t matter anymore. At what point do police in this country look themselves in the mirror and ask, “Maybe it really is me?”

The Washington Post is tracking the number of people killed by police in the Home of the Free. There were 990 in 2015. There were 505 showing for 2016 when I typed this. Alton Sterling sat at the top of the list. Philando Castile will soon replace him. But not for long.

QOTD: Trump unhinged edition

by digby

There are many things in his out-there speech tonight worth noting, including this:

Really strong new line from @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/I3I0rQ8mX8

— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) July 6, 2016

But this was perhaps the most amazing:

The star, which is a star, not the Star of David. When they told me the Star of David I said you’ve got to be kidding. How sick are they? Actually they’re the ones with the bad tendencies when they can think that way. And they said, remember what they said, but there’s money around the stars and therefore you know what that represents.

I don’t know who “they” might be but he’s treading on very thin ice saying “they” are the ones with “bad tendencies.”  He said he wishes he had left the offending tweet up. And also defended his Saddam remarks and repeated his line, “if I don’t go all the way, and if I don’t win, I will consider it to be a total and complete waste of time, energy and money” which is sort of telling, I thought.

I won’t suggest that you watch the whole thing because I assume you have a life. Just take my word for it. There’s something wrong with him and it’s getting worse. He was red-faced, manic, incoherent and all over the place. Maybe he’s cracking under the pressure, maybe he’s taking diet pills, maybe he just had too many sugar free red bulls and diet cokes. But whatever it is, he has been seriously sped up the last couple of days.

Also this: it really sounds like he wants to pick Newt.

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What would Jack Bauer do?

by digby

Valuable intelligence” found by MI6 about Saddam Hussein’s alleged nerve gas arsenal may have in fact been stolen from a Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage action film, the Chilcot Inquiry has disclosed. 

Intelligence officers circulated a report of deadly nerve toxins being held in glass spheres, until it was noticed it bore a marked similarity to scenes in the 1996 thriller The Rock. 

The Secret Intelligence Service reported details in September 2002 from a source saying the regime had produced VX, sarin and soman nerve agents at Al-Yarmuk, in Iraq.

There was just so much of this crap at the time. In America they were passing around discredited book about “The Arab Mind” and scheduling screenings of “The Battle of Algiers.”

And “24” was all the rage:

Dahlia Lithwick had a great column about the biggest influence on the thinking of members of the Bush administration in regards to its “interrogation” policies: Jack Bauer.

I’ve written a ton about this shocking phenomenon over the years, but even I didn’t know that John Yoo actually cited the show in his book:

“What if, as the Fox television program ’24’ recently portrayed, a high-level terrorist leader is caught who knows the location of a nuclear weapon?”

… And we know for sure he knows and he knows we know he knows and we know he knows we know he knows and he STILL won’t give it up even if we give him ice cream? Then what, huh? Will you be willing to waterboard him then, you lily livered terrorist symps?

I honestly don’t know if this is some Straussian ruse to try to pull one over on the rubes or if these people actually believe the things they see on television. Scalia cited Bauer too. They held a seminar at the Heritage Foundation with the shows actors and producers featuring Chertoff and Limbaugh in which Chertoff said:

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: …In reflecting a little bit about the popularity of the show “24” — and it is popular, and there are a number of senior political and military officials around the country who are fans, and I won’t identify them, because they may not want me to do that (laughter) I was trying to analyze why it’s caught such public attention. Obviously, it’s a very well-made and very well-acted show, and very exciting. And the premise of a 24-hour period is a novel and, I think, very intriguing premise. But I thought that there was one element of the shows that at least I found very thought-provoking, and I suspect, from talking to people, others do as well.

Typically, in the course of the show, although in a very condensed time period, the actors and the characters are presented with very difficult choices — choices about whether to take drastic and even violent action against a threat, and weighing that against the consequence of not taking the action and the destruction that might otherwise ensue.

In simple terms, whether it’s the president in the show or Jack Bauer or the other characters, they’re always trying to make the best choice with a series of bad options, where there is no clear magic bullet to solve the problem, and you have to weigh the costs and benefits of a series of unpalatable alternatives. And I think people are attracted to that because, frankly, it reflects real life. That is what we do every day. That is what we do in the government, that’s what we do in private life when we evaluate risks. We recognize that there isn’t necessarily a magic bullet that’s going to solve the problem easily and without a cost, and that sometimes acting on very imperfect information and running the risk of making a serious mistake, we still have to make a decision because not to make a decision is the worst of all outcomes.

And so I think when people watch the show, it provokes a lot of thinking about what would you do if you were faced with this set of unpalatable alternatives, and what do you do when you make a choice and it turns out to be a mistake because there was something you didn’t know. I think that, the lesson there, I think is an important one we need to take to heart. It’s very easy in hindsight to go back after a decision and inspect it and examine why the decision should have been taken in the other direction. But when you are in the middle of the event, as the characters in “24” are, with very imperfect information and with very little time to make a decision, and with the consequences very high on a wrong decision, you have to be willing to make a decision recognizing that there is a risk of mistake.

Here’s Rush at the same seminar:

RUSH: I asked Mary Matalin, by the way, on this trip to Afghanistan, we were watching this, and I asked her — she worked for Vice President Cheney at the time — I said, “Do we have anything like this?”

SURNOW: (Laughter.)

RUSH: She said, “Not that I know of.” What about the possibility of government officials — back to the scholars — government officials watching this program (we know they do) can they get ideas, creative ideas on dealing with these problems from this show, or are they strictly fans, do you think?

[…]

Speaking just as an American citizen, you mentioned the operation in Canada. This is why the show has an impact on people. We have a political party trying to shut down the program that enabled that operation in Canada to be a success. It’s being called “domestic spying,” when it’s not. These guys put the same kind of conflict in the program. Jack Bauer, who never fails, always is the target of the government, somebody, being put in jail. It’s amazing how close it is.

Rush was actually asking the right question. I laughed at him at the time,thinking he was an embarrassing torture fanboy. But it turns out that the military really was getting ideas from the show:

According to British lawyer and writer Philippe Sands, Jack Bauer—played by Kiefer Sutherland—was an inspiration at early “brainstorming meetings” of military officials at Guantanamo in September of 2002. Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate general who gave legal approval to 18 controversial new interrogation techniques including water-boarding, sexual humiliation, and terrorizing prisoners with dogs, told Sands that Bauer “gave people lots of ideas.”

Do you feel safe?


Justice Scalia weighed in, reaffirming his belief in the Jack Bauer Program:

“Listen, I think it’s very facile for people to say, ‘Oh, torture is terrible,’” Scalia told the Swiss radio network. “You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it’s an easy question? You think it’s clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?”

“I don’t know what article of the Constitution that would contravene,” the conservative justice added in reference to the harsh treatment of terrorism suspects.

As the Associated Press’ Mark Sherman reported Friday, Scalia has previously invoked the fictional Jack Bauer character from the television series 24 to make a similar point about torture.

“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so,” Scalia argued at an Ottawa legal conference in 2007. “So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes.”

Say what you will about Obama and Clinton but I don’t think they were basing their national security decisions on TV shows and movies. At least I’ve never heard that.

The GOP scandalmongers line up in front of the cameras

by digby

As you prepare for the impending collective GOP pearl clutch about the sanctity of classified information, remember this about the man leading the charge, Jason Chaffetz:

Chaffetz has firsthand experience in compromising sensitive materials. In July 2011, the Department of Homeland Security complained to him that the House transportation committee, which he chaired at the time, had illegally disclosed sensitive security information to the press.

Here’s Chaffetz’s latest:

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is hauling FBI director James Comey to Capitol Hill on Thursday to explain why he didn’t recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for using a private email server as secretary of state. 

“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing,” Chaffetz, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Wednesday. “The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable.” 

The Utah lawmaker argued that while the yearlong FBI probe may be over, he’s ready to lead a new investigation into that investigation. “Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI’s investigation,” he said. 

But it was just last month ― before the FBI reached conclusions that Republicans don’t like ― that Chaffetz was raving about Comey being the most competent, reliable person to lead the Clinton probe. 

“I do think that in all of government, he is a man of integrity and honesty,” he said of Comey during a June 6 appearance on Fox News’ “Outnumbered.” 

“His finger is on the pulse of this,” Chaffetz continued. “Nothing happens without him, and I think he is going to be the definitive person to make a determination or a recommendation.” 

Asked if he thought Republicans would accept an FBI recommendation not to indict Clinton, he replied, “Oh, probably. Because we do believe in James Comey.”

I wrote about Chaffetz last fall for Salon. Here’s an excerpt:

Chaffetz is a well-known figure on Capitol Hill but the average member of the public, if they know him at all, probably remembers him mainly as the guy who sleeps on a cot in his office rather than spring for a room somewhere. But he’s been marked for stardom since he was a college football star: In the words of Dave Weigel in this 2010 article, “when [Chaffetz] started to make it in politics, his teammates would recall how, after successful kicks, he would remove his helmet to reveal a perfect head of hair for the TV cameras.” 

The son of a man once married to Kitty Dukakis, wife of 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael, Chaffetz started off as a Jewish Democrat, then converted to Mormonism during his last year of college in Utah — and Republicanism when former President Ronald Reagan was hired as a motivational speaker for Nu Skin, the “multi-level marketing” company (think Amway) which employed Chaffetz for a decade before he entered politics. He worked as chief of staff for the famously moderate Gov. Jon Huntsman and then beat the very conservative Representative Chris Cannon by running against him from the right in the 2010 Tea Party electoral bloodbath. On Election Night, Cannon said, “the extremists who don’t want to win elections have taken over the party. We don’t want that to happen in Utah. Politics is way too important to leave to the boors.”

Chaffetz’s former boss Huntsman had this to say about his former chief of staff:

.@GOPLeader McCarthy just got “Chaffetzed.”Something I know a little something about. #selfpromoter #powerhungry

— Jon Huntsman (@JonHuntsman) October 6, 2015

And despite his politically eclectic past, Chaffetz has stuck to his arch-conservative guns during the five years he’s been in Congress. He wants to slash Social Security, ban gay marriage and look into impeaching President Obama. Still, he sees himself as a sort of mediator between the hard-core Tea Party insurrectionists and everyone else — perhaps because he’s been everything from a liberal Democrat to a moderate Republican to a hard-right zealot, depending on where the opportunities lie at any given moment. 

He is good communicator, except for the fact that he seems to have a tiny problem with the truth, which he perfectly illustrated in the Planned Parenthood hearing, when he offered up a chart so misleading that it caused Politifact to call it not only misleading, but, quoting one expert, “ethically wrong.” And while he may have a point that Kevin McCarthy screwed the pooch on Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi committee, his own history of being loose-lipped and excitable puts McCarthy’s little faux pas to shame. 

As The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reported on one of the earlier Benghazi investigations led by congressman Darrell Issa:

Through their outbursts, cryptic language and boneheaded questioning of State Department officials, the committee members left little doubt that one of the two compounds at which the Americans were killed, described by the administration as a “consulate” and a nearby “annex,” was a CIA base. They did this, helpfully, in a televised public hearing. 

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was the first to unmask the spooks. “Point of order! Point of order!” he called out as a State Department security official, seated in front of an aerial photo of the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, described the chaotic night of the attack. 

“We’re getting into classified issues that deal with sources and methods that would be totally inappropriate in an open forum such as this.” 

A State Department official assured him that the material was “entirely unclassified” and that the photo was from a commercial satellite. “I totally object to the use of that photo,” Chaffetz continued. He went on to say that “I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today.” 

Now that Chaffetz had alerted potential bad guys that something valuable was in the photo, the chairman, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), attempted to lock the barn door through which the horse had just bolted. “I would direct that that chart be taken down,” he said, although it already had been on C-SPAN. “In this hearing room, we’re not going to point out details of what may still in fact be a facility of the United States government or more facilities.”

If any members of Congress are thinking that Jason Chaffetz will be a more mature and professional leader than Kevin McCarthy, they might want to think again…Regardless of where he ends up in this Speaker’s race, it’s not going to be the last time we hear from him. As long as there are cameras on Capitol Hill, you can be sure he’ll be nearby rapidly assessing what posture to assume to take advantage of the moment.

He’s already in position.

Just something to keep in mind as you assess the legitimacy of the coming congressional inquiry into the email flap.

Update: And then there’s this:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) once claimed that he “never voted for a [government] shutdown and never will.” But Issa is so angry the FBI recommended Hillary Clinton not be indicted for using a private server for her email that he suggested on Wednesday that he is rethinking his promise. He proposed that now might be a good time for the Republican leadership to shut down the federal government, in protest of what he called “an imperial president” who will not “enforce criminal charges against a criminal.”

In an interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily, Issa blasted FBI Director James Comey’s decision as “simply choosing to ignore a law.”

“We should be willing to shut down the government if the president won’t limit his power,” he said, noting that his party had repeatedly been “willing to shut down the government over ending Obamacare and these other things.” Those things, according to Issa, are “small points compared to the actual balance of our republic.”

Issa said the leadership would agree to a shutdown only if there was a clear example, like this, where “we cannot enforce criminal charges against a criminal… because the people responsible are simply choosing to ignore a law.”

While he said it is “not about Hillary Clinton,” he suggested that because “we can’t get to the courts,” in this case and others, “only have one piece of power, and that’s an imperial president.” He suggested that Congress should expand the power of independent counsels because, “otherwise Lois Lerner gets a free pass, Eric Holder gets a free pass, and yes, Hillary Clinton gets a free pass.”

FYI:

In October 2012, Issa put several people’s lives in danger when he released State Department documents that compromised the identities of Libyans working with the U.S. government. 

A few months before that, Issa published information from a sealed wiretap warrant application in the Congressional Record. That information isn’t supposed to be made public without a court’s permission, and people who violate that rule can be held in contempt.

I wonder if he’s voting for Donald Trump?

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Corker out

by digby

If that very lame introduction by Bob Corker at last night’s Trump rally didn’t already tell you this, it’s now official:

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has recently emerged as a finalist in the search for Donald Trump’s running mate, told The Washington Post in an interview Wednesday that he has taken himself out of consideration for the position.

Corker said that he informed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of his decision during their day together on Tuesday, when the senator had a series of meetings with campaign officials in New York and then flew with Trump to an evening rally in North Carolina.

“There are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president, and I think I’m far more suited for other types of things,” Corker said in an extensive phone interview where he repeatedly praised Trump and said he is eager to serve as an informal adviser to the candidate in the coming months.

As they sat close together on Trump’s Boeing 757, Corker recalled telling Trump about how he’s more policy-oriented than political and how even though he has become friendly with Trump, he did not feel comfortable stepping fully into the role of political attack dog or rousing speechmaker.

“It’s a highly political job, and that’s not who I am,” Corker said. “We had a very open conversation about that, and actually, we have been very candid about it from the very beginning of our meetings. I left there feeling very good about him as a person but also realized that at age 63, I know the things I’m good at doing. And knowing what a candidate for vice president has to do, it’s just not the right thing for me, and I don’t think it’s the right thing for them.”

Apparently he believes he still has a future in politics.

Update: So does Ernst.

Crooked Don

by digby

Clinton made a big speech today about Trump’s Atlantic City adventures (which I wrote about for Salon a while back.) Her campaign put out this fact check which I thought was pretty impressive:

Donald Trump says he’s qualified to be president because of his business record.

TRUMP: I’ve been a world-class businessman…That’s the thinking that our country needs

Three weeks ago, he said, and I quote, “I’m going to do for the country what I did for my business.”

TRUMP: I’m going to do for the country what I did for my business.
Maybe he hoped we wouldn’t check. Because what he did for his businesses – and his workers – is nothing to brag about. In fact, it’s shameful. And every single voter in America needs to know about it – so we don’t let him do to our country what he did to his business.

New York Times: How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions

AP: ‘Little guy’ contractors still angry at Trump Taj bankruptcy

Chris Wallace: In that case alone lenders to your company lost over $1 billion and more than 1,100 people were laid off.

We’re standing in front of the old Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel. Donald Trump once predicted, “It will be the biggest hit yet.”

TRUMP: It will be the biggest hit yet
Now it’s abandoned. You can just make out the word TRUMP where it used to be written in big flashy lights. He got the letters taken down a few years ago.

New York Times:

CBS News: Rusty stains on the former Trump Plaza…still spelled out his name after neon letters were taken down

Not far from here is the old Trump Marina Hotel Casino. A few years ago, it was sold at a huge loss.

New York Times: The long-failing Trump Marina Hotel Casino was sold at a major loss five years ago and is now known as the Golden Nugget.
Just down the boardwalk is the Trump Taj Mahal. Donald once called it the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”

New York Times: Mr. Trump bills his new casino, his third, as ”the eighth wonder of the world.”

It filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

Washington Post: In 2009, Trump Entertainment Resorts, formed in the aftermath of the Trump empire’s bankruptcies, itself declared bankruptcy after missing a $53 million bond interest payment.

CBS News: The Taj Mahal is being taken over by fellow billionaire Carl Icahn from bankruptcy court, and Trump’s 10 percent ownership stake has become all but worthless.

Things got so bad, the new management canceled workers’ health insurance and pensions.

Associated Press: The casino enraged its unionized workers during its most recent spin through bankruptcy court in October 2014 when it got a judge to allow it to cancel health and pension benefits.

Now those workers are on strike.

Associated Press: Union goes on strike against Trump Taj Mahal casino

Isn’t Donald Trump supposed to be some kind of amazing businessman? What in the world happened here? His excuse for all this failure is that Atlantic City just went downhill. It’s not his fault. Don’t believe it. His businesses were failing long before the rest of the town was struggling.

New York Times: Though [Trump] now says his casinos were overtaken by the same tidal wave that eventually slammed this seaside city’s gambling industry, in reality he was failing in Atlantic City long before Atlantic City itself was failing.
In fact, other businesses here did worse because Donald Trump acted so irresponsibly.

Newsweek: Small vendors who grappled with delayed or lower payments as a business practice then became the unsecured creditors in the bankruptcies.

He calls himself the “King of Debt,”

TRUMP: I am the king of debt.

and he earned that title right here in A.C.

Washington Post: Trump’s bad bet: How too much debt drove his biggest casino aground

His bad decisions hurt the whole city.

CNN: But the bankruptcies have hurt Atlantic City, a city that is now blighted with empty hulking buildings, unemployment substantially higher than the national average, and a high violent crime rate.

He intentionally ran up huge amounts of debt on his companies – hundreds of millions of dollars. He borrowed at high interest rates – even after promising regulators that he wouldn’t.

Washington Post: Trump’s bad bet: How too much debt drove his biggest casino aground

Washington Post: Because of his reputation as a dealmaker, [Trump] said, bankers were lining up to lend him money at prime rates. That meant he could avoid the risky, high-interest loans known as junk bonds….the prime-rate loans never materialized. Determined to move forward, [Trump] turned to the very junk bonds he had derided in the hearing.

What came next? He defaulted on those loans. Didn’t pay them back.

Washington Post: The Taj defaulted on interest payments to bondholders as his finances went into a tailspin.

And in the end, he bankrupted his companies – not once, not twice, but four times.

PolitiFact: Clinton was right that Trump bankrupted companies four times
Here’s what he said about one of those bankruptcies: “I figured it was the bank’s problem, not mine. What the hell did I care?”

TRUMP: I figured it was the bank’s problem, not mine. What the hell did I care?

And here’s an important thing about how Donald Trump operates. He doesn’t default and go bankrupt as a last resort. He does it over and over again on purpose – even though he knows he’ll leave others empty-handed while he keeps the plane, the helicopter, the penthouse.

Washington Post: Today, Trump lives in a luxury apartment on one of the top floors of Trump Tower. He also owns the Tower. He still gets around by limousine and helicopter, protected by personal bodyguards, and has millions of dollars at his disposal.

TRUMP: I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I’m in business. I did a very good job.

He convinced other people that his Atlantic City properties were a great investment, so they would put in their own hard-earned money. But he always rigged it so he got paid, no matter how his companies performed.

New York Times: But even as his companies did poorly, Mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen.
When this casino collapsed because of how badly he mismanaged it, hundreds of people lost their jobs.

Chris Wallace: In that case alone lenders to your company lost over $1 billion and more than 1,100 people were laid off.
Shareholders were wiped out.

Forbes: In the case of his casinos, Trump has screwed his shareholders three consecutive times by wiping out their investment.

Lenders lost money.

New York Times: His casino companies made four trips to bankruptcy court, each time persuading bondholders to accept less money rather than be wiped out.

Contractors – many of them small businesses – took heavy losses. Many went bust.

New York Times: Triad Building Specialties nearly collapsed when Mr. Trump took the Taj into bankruptcy.

USA Today: Construction bill that went unpaid by Trump began the demise of Edward J. Friel Company.

But Donald Trump walked away with millions.

New York Times: How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions

Here’s what he says about the whole experience: “Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a long time.”

TRUMP: Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a long time. “The money I took out of there was incredible.”

The money he took out of here.

TRUMP: Atlantic City fueled a lot of growth for me…The money I took out of there was incredible.

That says everything you need to know about how Donald Trump does business. It’s not about what he can build. It’s about how much he can take. He did it again just this morning. He went on Twitter and said, “I made a lot of money in Atlantic City and left.” He got rich and got out, and he thinks that’s something to be proud of.

TRUMP: I made a lot of money in Atlantic City and left 7 years ago, great timing (as all know).

And he didn’t just take advantage of investors. He took advantage of working people.

USA Today: Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn’t pay his bills
Donald Trump has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past 30 years. That’s one every three days, give or take. Today’s Wednesday, so he’s due for another one.

USA Today: Trump’s 3,500 lawsuits unprecedented for a presidential nominee

You may know about Vera Coking, the widow whose house on Columbia Place Donald tried to seize through eminent domain and turn into a parking lot for limousines.

Vox: Donald Trump really did try to take an elderly widow’s house for a limousine parking lot

New York Times: Vera Coking, a widow who lives in one of the two houses on the block slated for condemnation, is also fighting to stay until she gets what she believes the property is worth….Ms. Coking was offered $251,000 for her three-story rooming house, which would become a limousine staging area.

NJ.com: Trump reportedly made Coking a similar $1 million offer with the hopes of expanding the land around the Plaza to include a park, a parking lot, and a waiting area for limousines. Coking refused again. That’s when the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority stepped in, filing a lawsuit using eminent domain to condemn Coking’s property and offer her $251,000 for it.

He lost that fight.

Washington Post: The time Donald Trump’s empire took on a stubborn widow — and lost

NY Daily News: She Kicks Sand in Trump’s Face Sneers At The Donald’s Bucks

But there were thousands more. And many of those lawsuits were filed by ordinary Americans who did work for Donald Trump and never got paid. Painters, waiters, plumbers – people who needed the money, and didn’t get it – not because he couldn’t pay them, but because he wouldn’t pay them.

USA Today: At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters.

Hundreds of liens have been filed against him by contractors, going back decades. They all tell the same story: I worked for him, I did my job, he wouldn’t pay me what he owed me. One person after another after another.

USA Today: Trump [offered] as little as 30 cents on the dollar to some of the contractors


Associated Press: ‘Little guy’ contractors still angry at Trump Taj bankruptcy

We just heard from Marty Rosenberg. His company was called Atlantic Plate Glass. They were hired to do a big job for the Trump Taj Mahal. They worked really hard on it. But at some point, Donald Trump just… stopped paying. In the end, he owed them nearly half a million dollars. Marty’s business barely survived.

USA Today: Marty Rosenberg, vice president of Atlantic Plate Glass Co. …was owed about $1.5 million for work at the Taj Mahal.

Marty Rosenberg: We got to the end of the job, and I think he owed APG about $1.5 million…I was waiting for my check, and it didn’t come.

Washington Times: Atlantic Plate Glass lost about $450,000 in the settlement, said Mr. Rosenberg, adding that his personal finances took a hit because of his minority stockholder stake in the firm, and that the company struggled but overcame the loss. Others fared worse, he said, including smaller businesses that didn’t survive.
He did the same thing to a kitchen equipment company…

Reuters: First [Trump] asked to pay the contractors 30 cents on the dollar, according to Charles Sperry, the president of Baring Industries, which had a multi-million dollar contract to provide kitchen equipment like stoves, walk-in freezers and countertops. … They eventually received 90 percent of what they were owed. Sperry said it was just enough to cover expenses and pay workers, but not enough to realize a profit for Baring’s work. 

a cabinet-maker…

USA Today: The family cabinetry business, founded in the 1940s by Edward’s father, finished its work in 1984 and submitted its final bill to the general contractor for the Trump Organization, the resort’s builder. Edward’s son, Paul, who was the firm’s accountant, still remembers the amount of that bill more than 30 years later: $83,600. The reason: the money never came. “That began the demise of the Edward J. Friel Company… which has been around since my grandfather,” he said.
and a music store owner.

Philadelphia Inquirer: “When it came time to pay for the pianos, we weren’t getting paid,” said Michael Diehl, 88, owner of Freehold Music Co., which sold Trump eight Yamaha grand pianos for about $100,000. … Diehl did better than most: 70 cents on the dollar, an offer that came with a warning of much less if it came to bankruptcy.

Newsweek: J. Michael Diehl, who owns Freehold Music Center, sold Trump eight Yamaha grand pianos for around $100,000. “He put out a bid for pianos about a year before the Taj opened. I won the bid. I delivered the pianos, and I waited and I waited to get paid. And finally I heard from them that I had three choices: to accept 70 percent of the bid or to wait until the casino could afford to pay the bill in full. Or I could force them into bankruptcy with everybody else and maybe get 10 cents on the dollar. I took the 70 percent, and I lost 30 percent.”

NBC News: Diehl, 88, told NBC News that even though he held up his end of the contract, he felt he had no choice but to take the discounted payment and lose $30,000 — or about a third of his yearly income.
He owed 3.9 million dollars to a company that supplied marble for his properties. That business had to shut down, and eventually, the owner had to file for personal bankruptcy. Donald Trump might not think going bankrupt is a big deal – but it’s devastating if you’re someone who plays by the rules.

Associated Press: One of the hardest hit was John Millar, a marble supplier who was owed $3.9 million. … Millar eventually had to lay off workers, shut down his business Avalon Commercial, close many of his retail stores and borrow from friends to make ends meet… In 1996, he filed for personal bankruptcy.
What he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what he’ll do if he wins this November. Step one: give a huge tax cut to millionaires like himself.

The Briefing: The Trump Tax Plan – By the Billionaire, For the Billionaires

Washington Post: No matter how we slice it, we do not see how Trump can justify his claim that his tax plan would cost him “a fortune.” On the contrary, it appears it would significantly reduce his taxes — and the taxes of his heirs.
Step two: add trillions to the national debt.

Tax Policy Center: Trump’s plan “would add $11.2 trillion to the national debt by 2026 and $34.1 trillion by 2036”
Step three: he suggested we could default on our national debt – just like he defaulted on his business debt.

TRUMP: I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed you could make a deal. And if the economy was good it was good so therefore you can’t lose. It’s like, you know, you make a deal before you go into a poker game, and your odds are so much better.
The people he’s trying to convince to vote for him now are the same people he’s been exploiting for years: working people, trying to support their families.

Slate: The People Donald Trump Allegedly Ripped Off Through Trump University Look a Lot Like Trump Voters

Those promises he’s making at his rallies? They’re the same promises he made to his customers at Trump University. Now they’re suing him for fraud.

CNN: Donald Trump still battling lawsuits from defunct Trump University

Fortune: How Bad Are the Charges Against Trump University? Really Bad

The New Yorker: Trump University: It’s Worse Than You Think

The Daily Beast: Maddings, an ex-marine now 32, who told The Daily Beast that he racked up around $45,000 in credit card debt to buy Trump University seminars and products. … “It was a con. I’m 25-years-old, barely making $3,000 a month and they told me to increase my credit limit. I just maxed out three credit cards and I’m supposed to be able to qualify for loans to buy real estate? Those stupid principles have led me to borrow $700,000 of other people’s money and lose it all. I’m still paying off some of that debt to this day.”

They’re the same promises he made about another scheme called Trump Institute.

Tampa Bay Times: The events promised “Donald Trump’s ‘secret recipe’ for success — a combination of the right knowledge and the right mind set to create unlimited riches….In the four years Trump Institute operated out of Boca Raton, complaints to the state streamed in from customers across the country who felt underwhelmed, trapped or simply ripped off.

The New York Times reports that the lessons it sold for thousands of dollars apiece were plagiarized.

New York Times: Trump Institute Offered Get-Rich Schemes With Plagiarized Lessons

They’re the same promises he made to his customers at Trump Condos in Baja California.

Los Angeles Times: Trump’s failed Baja condo resort left buyers feeling betrayed and angry

You should hear these people’s stories. They handed over their savings.

Los Angeles Times: Simms, then an aerospace purchasing agent living in Canoga Park, said she used her life savings to pay a deposit of just over $50,000 for unit No. 602, a one-bedroom overlooking the Pacific.

Then their calls stopped getting answered. The condos were never built, and they never got their money back.

Los Angeles Times: Sapol and her husband, who own an embroidery and screen printing franchise, knew something was wrong when Trump Baja’s sales force stopped responding to their phone calls and emails. “We just started getting a pit in our stomach,” she said at their shop in an Encinitas strip mall.

The Newark Star-Ledger says he – quote – “excels at ripping people off.”

Star-Ledger: There is still a lingering misperception that Donald Trump is some kind of business wizard, but it’s actually easy to identify one of his key strategies for success: He excels at ripping people off.
They wrote, “As a result of his narcissistic, destructive risk-taking with other people’s money, his casinos posted huge losses while others thrived.”

Star-Ledger: As a result of his narcissistic, destructive risk-taking with other people’s money, his casinos posted huge losses while others thrived. The losers were the investors, the creditors and subcontractors who didn’t get paid — people like Beth Rosser’s father, who ultimately earned only 30 cents on the dollar for the work of his building company.

And remember what he promised: “I’m going to do for the country what I did for my business.”

TRUMP: I’m going to do for the country what I did for my business.

He says he’s for the working men and women of America. But Trump furniture is made in Turkey – he could have made it in Lakewood, New Jersey.

Trump Home Press Release: The entire production process, from the moment the raw wood is cut until the product is finished or upholstered, occurs in Dorya’s Izmir, Turkey.
Trump suits are made in Mexico, instead of Ashland, Pennsylvania.

WALLACE: Your Trump Collection clothing line, some of it is made in Mexico –
TRUMP: It’s true.
WALLACE: — and China.
TRUMP: That’s true.

Trump lamps are made in China, not Altoona. If he wants to make America great again, maybe he should start by actually making things in America again.

Trump Home Herringbone Table Lamp: Origin: China

That’s not all. Donald Trump stood on a debate stage and said Americans’ wages are too high.

The Week: Donald Trump kicks off GOP debate by saying American wages are ‘too high’

TRUMP: Our wages are too high

He wants to get rid of the federal minimum wage.

The Guardian: Trump calls for end to federal minimum wage as views shift

PolitiFact: When Trump was asked if he would have a federal floor with states going higher if they wish,Trump said, “No.”His campaign said, let’s sell off America’s assets.

Trump senior campaign advisor Barry Bennett: The United States government owns more real estate than anybody else, more land than anybody else, more energy than anybody else. We can get rid of government buildings we’re not using, we can extract the energy from government lands, we can do all kinds of things to extract value from the assets that we hold.

The bad ideas just keep coming.

The Atlantic: Donald Trump’s Economic Plans Would Destroy the U.S. Economy

And he wants to wipe out the tough rules we put on big banks after the last crisis. He’d rig the economy for Wall Street all over again.

TRUMP: Dodd-Frank has made it impossible for bankers to function…[My plan] will be close to dismantling of Dodd-Frank.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Of course he’d be for protecting a system where the rich and powerful stick it to the little guy. He got rich playing by those rules. He wants to keep it that way.

Slate: With Trump University, Donald Trump allegedly participated in an old, persistent scam: ripping off poor souls who want to get rich quick.

He says he’s a businessman, and this is what businessmen do.

TRUMP: Every major business leader, has used the – I never went bank bankrupt, by the way, as you know, everybody knows. But – hundreds of companies, hundreds of deals, I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I’m in business. I did a very good job.
Well, as CNN has pointed out, no major company has filed Chapter 11 more often in the last 30 years than Trump’s casinos. So no – this is not normal behavior.

CNN: No major U.S. company has filed for Chapter 11 more than Trump’s casino empire in the last 30 years

Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be President of the United States. We can’t let him roll the dice with our children’s futures.

New York Times: How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions

But she’s the crooked one ….

I’m basically posting this for future reference. With the eager help of the media, many of whom are suggesting today that Clinton’s emails are even worse than this bill of indictment, Trump might just pull it off in November so it’s important to have this stuff on record before he decides to shut down anyone who is critical of him in the press as he promises to do.

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Dana’s got yet another secret


by digby

Dana back in the day

I wrote about one of my favorite Trump VP dark horse candidates for Salon today:

Watching Trump VP short lister Bob Corker unable to come up with anything more positive to say about the presumptive nominee at last night’s rally in North Carolina than “he has nice kids” and “the reason you love him is because he loves you” shows just how difficult it’s going to be for anyone with even the slightest interest in a political career beyond Fox News pundit to fulfill that job. Nonetheless, it appears that there are quite a few Republicans willing to be considered. Trump’s been “vetting” them like crazy and the list even reportedly includes the hot GOP stars of tomorrow, first term Senators Arkansas’ Tom Cotton and Iowa’s Joni “the crown jewel” Ernst.

But after reading this fascinating story by Maria Danilova of the AP over the week-end you might wonder why one of them isn’t Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California. They would seem to be a perfect match. Rhorabacher is a quirky individualist who, like Trump, marches to his own drummer. He’s been in Washington since the 80’s and knows his way around congress which is something Trump has said he wants in a VP. And they share an admiration for certain big strong manly man:

A former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, the 14-term Rohrabacher takes pride in having worked to weaken “our major global enemy at that time, the Soviet Union.” A large photo in his office shows him in the hills of Afghanistan in the 1980s, where, he told The Associated Press in an interview, he launched rockets at Soviet positions as a volunteer fighter.

Rohrabacher’s view changed when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and Russia emerged as a different country. Although he acknowledges that opposition leaders face repression in Russia, he also says the country allows religious freedom and is generally more open than its predecessor.

In the mid-1990s, Rohrabacher got a taste of Russian politics, he says, when he welcomed a delegation of young Russian political leaders, which included Putin, who then worked for the mayor of St. Petersburg. After a friendly football match, the group went to a nearby pub and started arguing over whether the Soviet Union lost the Cold War. The debate turned into an arm-wrestling match between Putin and Rohrabacher, which Putin won.

“I ended up with Putin, and he beat me just like that,” Rohrabacher said, snapping his fingers.

One suspects that Trump would never be so humble. But his appreciation for Putin runs along the same lines. Rohrabacher is a major defender of Putin and the Russian government in the congress and a lot of people think it’s a little bit obsessive, particularly his willingness to take the part of some Russian officials on whom the US government has imposed sanctions for the jailhouse death of a Russian whistleblower. Rohrabacher intervened, meeting with these officials privately and with officers of another Russian firm associated with the crime under investigation in the US. He then tried to get the House Foreign Affairs Committee to drop this case from a bill imposing sanctions on human rights abusers from other countries, even trying to implicate the victims of the crimes as the real perpetrators despite all evidence to the contrary.

This would be a mildly interesting story about a minor Russophile congressman, except for that passing reference in the AP story to the picture of Rohrabacher in the hills of Afghanistan in 1980s. You see, before he entered into his bromance with Putin, there was his affection for the strongmen of Afghanistan, the Taliban and the Mujahideen, some of whom later became al-Qaeda. And his comrade in arms in that was none other than Grover “drown government in the bathtub” Norquist, conservative movement activist and head of the group Americans for Tax Fairness which makes Republicans sign the “no new taxes” pledge that ties the government up in knots.  There’s a fascinating story about the two of them in the early Bush era from the Orange Country register.

After 9/11 Roharabacher was a loud and angry critic of the government for failing to anticipate the attacks and he got a lot of press attention for it. But to the OC Weekly, it looked like a massive misdirection from his own activities. They had documents showing that Rohrabacher had been lobbying on behalf of the Taliban throughout the 90s and and had “maintained a cordial, behind-the-scenes relationship with Osama bin Laden’s associates in the Middle East—even while he mouthed his most severe anti-Taliban comments at public forums across the U.S.”

There’s worse: despite the federal Logan Act ban on unauthorized individual attempts to conduct American foreign policy, the congressman dangerously acted as a self-appointed secretary of state, constructing what foreign-affairs experts call a “dual tract” policy with the Taliban…

Evidence of Rohrabacher’s attempts to conduct his own foreign policy became public on April 10, 2001, not in the U.S., but in the Middle East. On that day, ignoring his own lack of official authority, Rohrabacher opened negotiations with the Taliban at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha, Qatar, ostensibly for a “Free Markets and Democracy” conference. There, Rohrabacher secretly met with Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, an advisor to Mullah Omar. Diplomatic sources claim Muttawakil sought the congressman’s assistance in increasing U.S. aid—already more than $100 million annually—to Afghanistan and indicated that the Taliban would not hand over bin Laden, wanted by the Clinton administration for the fatal bombings of two American embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. For his part, Rohrabacher handed Muttawakil his unsolicited plans for war-torn Afghanistan. “We examined a peace plan,” he laconically told reporters in Qatar.

Grover Norquist was also at the Qatar meeting and said the whole thing was just a chance meeting in the hallway.  (Today Norquist is being hounded by right wingers Ken Adelman and Glenn Beck for his alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — a weird right wing crusade that nobody ever seems to know quite what to make of.)

All of this would probably make Rohrabacher a tainted choice for Trump’s VP although you never know. After all, while Trump has not yet admitted that he admires the Taliban Mullah leadership for their strength, he did give Saddam Hussein major props in his speech last night, so it may not be the deal breaker one would think it would be.

 Trump-Rohrabacher, the strongman ticket. It’s got a ring to it.

Rhorabacher-Russian

Taliban
Grover
Muslim

Not there yet on education
by Tom Sullivan

Little Red Schoolhouse, Florham Park NJ.
Photo by Josconklin [CC BY 3.0], via Creative Commons.

Democrats’ platform draft contains a plank on education that leaves Diane Ravitch with doubts. It reads in part:

Democrats are also committed to providing parents with high-quality public school options and expanding these options for low-income youth. We support great neighborhood public schools and high-quality public charter schools and we will help them to disseminate best practices to other school leaders and educators. At the same time, we oppose for-profit charter schools focused on making a profit off of public resources. Democrats also support increased transparency and accountability for all charter schools.

Days ago, Ravitch wrote at her blog:

The section on education contains a lot of reformer lingo. Zip codes. Options. Accountability. The Democratic party favors “high academic standards.” Who favors “low academic standards?” The party opposes too much testing; who favors too much testing?

The rhetoric about “high academic standards” brings echoes of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Wouldn’t it have been refreshing to see a statement about meeting the needs of all children? Or ensuring that all schools have the staff and resources they need for the children they enroll?

And then there’s the section on charters. The party is against for-profit charters: so far, so good, but how about saying that a Clinton administration will stop federal funding of for-profit schools and colleges, because they are low-quality and predatory, with profit as their top priority?

All of which led up to a few boos Hillary Clinton received during her address to the National Education Association (NEA) yesterday. (The NEA endorsed Clinton last fall.). Valerie Strauss writes at the Washington Post:

Many teachers today, including NEA members, have been angry at the Obama administration for education reform policies that they say have harmed public education, including its support for the expansion of charter schools and the controversial evaluation of teachers by student test scores. It was when Clinton spoke about charter schools to the NEA that boos could be heard, according to this story by my Washington Post colleague Emma Brown:

“When schools get it right, whether they’re traditional public schools or public charter schools, let’s figure out what’s working and share it with schools across America,” she said to audible boos from the audience. “Rather than starting from ideology, let’s start from what’s best for our kids.”

Politico notes that Clinton quickly turned that around:

The presidential hopeful won back the crowd by making a distinction between charter schools in general, and those schools run by for-profit companies. Clinton said people on the outside are pushing “for-profit charter schools on our kids.”

“We will never stand for that. That is not acceptable,” Clinton said to cheers.

At some charter schools, however, the distinction between for-profit and nonprofit status is murky. A school may be nonprofit, but it can hire a for-profit management company, which can be run by the same people as the nonprofit.

Lay down with dogs, as they say. I don’t even have kids and these arrangements raise my hackles. Since the New Markets Tax Credit that makes investing in charter schools so lucrative dates from the Bill Clinton administration, there is reason for teachers to be wary. If Hillary Clinton means to distance herself from Obama on education policy, good. She also needs to distance herself from the unintended consequences of her husband’s tax policy. The New Markets Tax Credit helped turn public education from a vocation into an industry, and our children into another profit-center for predatory investors.

by digby

Oh boy.  Palin is ready for a revolution, baby. Her Facebook page is full of splodeyheads fit to be tied and ready to arm up and take to the streets:

Ironic, tragic, but not unexpected – amidst America’s Independence Day celebrations the Ruling Class put another boot on our neck to snuff liberty’s life out of We the People.It’s a farce that “no one is above the law” and my heart goes out to all who’ve been unjustly accused and destroyed over much lesser crimes than Hillary’s… 

Today’s FBI forgiveness of tyrants’ illegal acts illustrate purpose in why I insist Americans rise up and tear down this tyrannical system that is destroying America from within. Truly, you’re either with us or you’re against us… 

Message to all the “Republican” elites throwing in for Hillary, boasting they’ll stay home instead of vote because their particular weakened good ol’ boy is not the GOP nominee (the R.A.T.s suffering chappedass because their power and purse are threatened by the grassroots movement to destroy their failed politics-as-usual), Hillary thanks you. She knows she can’t win without you.

From Amato at C&L, here’s a little big of Palin’s comedy act from the other day:

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The trusted son-in-law

by digby

This is a great NYT profile of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, husband of Ivanka. He has recently become Trump’s most trusted asvisor. And it doesn’t appear he knows any more than his father-in-law about politics, world affairs or government.

International diplomacy is a world of careful rituals, hierarchy and credentials. But when the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, wanted to communicate with Donald J. Trump, he ended up on two occasions in the Manhattan office of a young man with no government experience, no political background and no official title in the Trump campaign: Jared Kushner.

Mr. Kushner held court at length with Mr. Dermer, doing his best to engage in the same sort of high-level conversation that the ambassador conducted with career diplomats and policy experts from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

A 35-year-old real estate developer, investor and newspaper publisher, Mr. Kushner derives his authority in the campaign not from a traditional résumé but from a marital vow. He is Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.

Yet in a gradual but unmistakable fashion, Mr. Kushner has become involved in virtually every facet of the Trump presidential operation, so much so that many inside and out of it increasingly see him as a de facto campaign manager. Mr. Kushner, who is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, helped recruit a sorely needed director of communications, oversaw the creation of an online fund-raising system and has had a hand in drafting Mr. Trump’s few policy speeches. And now that Mr. Trump has secured the Republican nomination, Mr. Kushner is counseling his father-in-law on the selection of a running mate.
[…]
Mr. Kushner’s role was described in more than two dozen interviews with friends, colleagues and campaign staff members, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could disclose interactions that were supposed to remain private. Mr. Kushner declined to be interviewed.

In many ways, he has filled a vacuum in a startlingly small organization that has had no official manager since the June ouster of Corey Lewandowski, which Mr. Kushner advocated, and that has fallen far behind in building a 50-state campaign. But his real power, his friends said, stems from his close relationship with Mr. Trump, who has long preferred the advice of family over political professionals and who sees in Mr. Kushner a younger version of himself.

That’s not a good thing.

It delves into the unpleasantness about his father (who is in jail) and the unfortunate fact that his father-in-law consorts with neo-Nazis. It’s fascinating.

What’s becoming clear is that Trump doesn’t trust anyone and is running his campaign as the family business with his kids as his trusted inner circle. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for the fact that his don’t know “what the hell they’re doing” any more than he does. It’s not helping.

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