The Art of the Donald Trumpocalypse

[hepcat]

If any one thing proves to be his undoing, it may be the veterans scam he ran.

Stuff written by a hater...probably of Mexican origin.]

Go back to Juarez, Pablo!

[tgb]

Surprised?

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Of course not. The only question is how much this slows his momentum, if it gets slowed down at all. Otherwise you're going to be making up the guest room for tlr, myself, 2 dogs and 2 cats.

[Isgrimnur]

Popehat on the Trump U case.

[Kraken]

Surprised?

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Of course not. The only question is how much this slows his momentum, if it gets slowed down at all. Otherwise you're going to be making up the guest room for tlr, myself, 2 dogs and 2 cats.

I think Trump is too polarizing for any number of scandals to touch him. Everyone already either loves him or hates him and it's nigh on impossible to nudge someone from one camp to the other. The haters can document one charge after another, and his fans love each new ad hominem response.

Judging by his refusal to release them, his tax returns might be hiding something that can change that.

[hepcat]

I doubt releasing his tax forms would change anything for his supporters. Even if it revealed that he had paid for sex with a mule. People have chosen sides based not on facts, but in anger. Hillary, Bernie, Drumpf...it's the same for all of them.

All we can do is pick the person who knows how to do the right thing on occasion. And that ain't Drumpf.

[Holman]

What could hurt him is if he's actually financially much weaker than the Master of the Universe he claims to be. Once that aura goes, he's no longer a Yuge Winner, and that's the core of his brand.

The veterans donation seems fishy like that. He claimed to have donated $1 million but only did it after reporters started looking into the brag. Obviously such a donation burnishes his patriotic bona fides, but why skip out on actually doing it while running for the White House? If he's worth the $10 billion he claims, a tax-deductible million should be nothing to him.

People are seeing around the edges of his finances even if he won't release his returns. The story came out not too long ago that Trump applied and qualified for a specific NYC tax exemption available only to those with incomes under $500,000. That's still rich, but it's not multi-billionaire money by any stretch.

[Captain Caveman]

The story came out not too long ago that Trump applied and qualified for a specific NYC tax exemption available only to those with incomes under $500,000. That's still rich, but it's not multi-billionaire money by any stretch.

Then he must makes a lot more than whatever his technical "income" is, right? Either that, or 1) he's 1/20th as rich as he says or 2) he lied for that tax exception.

Another argument that he's less well off than he says: why would someone with 10 billion dollars pursue such a low-down and deliberate scam like Trump University? Is having 10.5 billion that much better than having just 10? Or maybe he wasn't doing so hot financially and needed the cash.

[Kraken]

That's the prevailing suspicion, and it could take him down a peg with a large number of fans. If anything can drag him down it's going to be a self-inflicted wound -- he is impervious to charges from liberals, The Establishment, "the media", Hillary, or any other bogeymen.

[ImLawBoy]

A lower income doesn't preclude him from having a multi-billion dollar worth, though.

[tgb]

As to why someone worth $10B would operate a run of the mill grift the answer is - because he can. Trump's all about gamesmanship, winning and losing. And the more people he can con out of their life savings, the more of a winner he becomes (in his own eyes, of course)

I think at some level he views this election as his greatest Long Con ever, which is why all he cares about is pulling it off, not what happens the next day.

[YellowKing]

I was thinking today about how nasty social media has made people towards each other. You've got people foaming at the mouth the prosecute that mom whose kid fell into the gorilla pen at that zoo, without knowing any of the facts around what happened. If anyone says anything that could even be slightly construed as racist/sexist/homophobic - even unintentionally, they are met with a lynch mob. You have people getting death threats for delaying a game. You've got directors lashing out at fans for criticizing a movie. Everyone seems to be at each other's throats CONSTANTLY. It's utter insanity.

Is Trump a product of this new world order? Where people are just mean and hateful towards each other, and it's acceptable because we see it every day on our Facebook feeds? Have we become numb to it? Do we take some sort of cruel delight in it?

I don't think it's coincidence that the growing divide between the political parties has just gotten more and more extreme as the internet age has dawned. We've given a voice to the fringe element, and the internet is a powerful enough tool to make those voices heard above all else.

[Holman]

Trump was a greedy and vindictive asshole when modems were 300 baud.

[Skinypupy]

I was thinking today about how nasty social media has made people towards each other. You've got people foaming at the mouth the prosecute that mom whose kid fell into the gorilla pen at that zoo, without knowing any of the facts around what happened. If anyone says anything that could even be slightly construed as racist/sexist/homophobic - even unintentionally, they are met with a lynch mob. You have people getting death threats for delaying a game. You've got directors lashing out at fans for criticizing a movie. Everyone seems to be at each other's throats CONSTANTLY. It's utter insanity.

Is Trump a product of this new world order? Where people are just mean and hateful towards each other, and it's acceptable because we see it every day on our Facebook feeds? Have we become numb to it? Do we take some sort of cruel delight in it?

I don't think it's coincidence that the growing divide between the political parties has just gotten more and more extreme as the internet age has dawned. We've given a voice to the fringe element, and the internet is a powerful enough tool to make those voices heard above all else.

I tend to believe people have always been mean and hateful. We just didn't see it as much until social media started magnifying everything.

[tjg_marantz]

Money talks. The PGA moved a round to Mexico as they couldn't find sponsors at the Trump course in Florida.

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[El Guapo]

I was thinking today about how nasty social media has made people towards each other. You've got people foaming at the mouth the prosecute that mom whose kid fell into the gorilla pen at that zoo, without knowing any of the facts around what happened. If anyone says anything that could even be slightly construed as racist/sexist/homophobic - even unintentionally, they are met with a lynch mob. You have people getting death threats for delaying a game. You've got directors lashing out at fans for criticizing a movie. Everyone seems to be at each other's throats CONSTANTLY. It's utter insanity.

Is Trump a product of this new world order? Where people are just mean and hateful towards each other, and it's acceptable because we see it every day on our Facebook feeds? Have we become numb to it? Do we take some sort of cruel delight in it?

I don't think it's coincidence that the growing divide between the political parties has just gotten more and more extreme as the internet age has dawned. We've given a voice to the fringe element, and the internet is a powerful enough tool to make those voices heard above all else.

I don't think people are any different (in terms of human nature). People are judgey assholes as a group - it always staggers my mind how people immediately think they know better than people who were on the scene and who have relevant training and firsthand knowledge.

However, I think what is new in the internet age is the ability to curate your news, such that lots of people only see facts that confirm what they are already predisposed to believe, such that people are decreasingly operating from a common set of facts.

[El Guapo]

That's the prevailing suspicion, and it could take him down a peg with a large number of fans. If anything can drag him down it's going to be a self-inflicted wound -- he is impervious to charges from liberals, The Establishment, "the media", Hillary, or any other bogeymen.

I don't think that tax returns could take Trump. Most likely they would show that he is merely wealthy as opposed to a billionaire, which would deflate his "winner" bubble slightly, but I am inclined to doubt that his core supporters care that much about him being merely ordinarily rich.

As to what could alienate his supporters, I suppose it depends on what you think is driving Trump's support. I think the Trump U is more likely to damage it, insofar as I think some of his core support is driven by people who are legitimately suffering and think they're being screwed, and want someone to punish those who they think are screwing them. Trump U could hurt him by more directly exposing Trump as one of the "screwers".

[Holman]

If no one gets Alec Baldwin and Al Pacino into a Glengarry Glen Ross skit with the Trump University playbook, I will have lost all faith in Liberal Hollywood.

[tgb]

If no one gets Alec Baldwin and Al Pacino into a Glengarry Glen Ross skit with the Trump University playbook, I will have lost all faith in Liberal Hollywood.

Substitute "country" for "company" on that first table of contents page and you have Trump's campaign in a nutshell - Amerikka Uber Alles.

[tgb]

It occurs to me that in the middle of all this mishegas, we've yet to hear from Grandpa George or Carolyn - two Trump executives who were his right hands on the original Apprentice.

I wonder if they had to sign some bizarre kind of NDA. Or perhaps he just wished them into the cornfield.

[hepcat]

If Clinton wins, her first act should be to push through a law that anyone who refers to themselves in the third person should be forbidden from holding any office.

[Jaymann]

Her second act should be to establish a minimum hand size requirement.

Thirdly, bar anyone who denies being a serial killer.

[Fitzy]

If Clinton wins, her first act should be to push through a law that anyone who refers to themselves in the third person should be forbidden from holding any office.

That would disqualify every political Tweeter...oh! Good idea.

[hepcat]

I think every Trump supporter should be forced to spend the day around a loved one who has been asked to refer to themselves in the third person at all times. Then they should be asked again who they're supporting in the presidential race.

[Isgrimnur]

Vox

Last summer, Donald Trump explained his past habit of making campaign contributions to Democratic Party elected officials as being part of a cynical effort to bribe them to advance his business interests. Perhaps coincidentally, it turns out that a couple of state attorneys general who considered formal fraud investigations into his fake university received Trump campaign contributions after deciding to drop them.
...
That's what Jeff Horwitz and Michael Biesecker report for the Associated Press in their story on fraud probes into Trump University by state attorneys general:

As scores of students complained that Trump University was a ripoff, the Better Business Bureau in 2010 gave the school a D-minus, its second-lowest grade. State regulators also began to take notice.

The office of then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, opened a civil investigation of "possibly deceptive trade practices." Abbott's probe was quietly dropped in 2010 when Trump University agreed to end its operations in Texas. Trump subsequently donated $35,000 to Abbott's successful gubernatorial campaign, according to records.

Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, launched a lawsuit against Trump University in 2013 that is still pending. And Horwitz and Biesecker report that "Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi briefly considered joining with Schneiderman in a multi-state suit against Trump University."

But it ultimately didn't happen:

Three days after Bondi's spokeswoman was quoted in local media reports as saying the office was reviewing the New York lawsuit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution to a political fundraising committee supporting Bondi's re-election campaign. Bondi, a Republican, soon dropped her investigation, citing insufficient grounds to proceed.

[Holman]

Clinton's speech on Donald Trump and national security is worth reading in its entirety.

Some snippets:

Donald Trump’s ideas aren’t just different – they are dangerously incoherent. They’re not even really ideas – just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies.

He is not just unprepared – he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility.

This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes – because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.

...

This is someone who has threatened to abandon our allies in NATO – the countries that work with us to root out terrorists abroad before they strike us at home.

He believes we can treat the U.S. economy like one of his casinos and default on our debts to the rest of the world, which would cause an economic catastrophe far worse than anything we experienced in 2008.

He has said that he would order our military to carry out torture and the murder of civilians who are related to suspected terrorists – even though those are war crimes.

He says he doesn’t have to listen to our generals or our admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has – quote – “a very good brain.”

...

He says climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese, and he has the gall to say that prisoners of war like John McCain aren’t heroes.

He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends – including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the president of Mexico and the Pope.

...

And to top it off, he believes America is weak. An embarrassment. He called our military a disaster. He said we are – and I quote – a “third-world country.” And he’s been saying things like that for decades.

Those are the words my friends of someone who doesn’t understand America or the world.

[Smoove_B]

Did we talk about Paul Ryan officially supporting Trump yet? Because...wow. I mean, I knew he had to but if he doesn't drink himself to death in the next 4 months I'll be super confused.

[Fitzy]

It wasn't the most ringing endorsement. But I have to say I'm disappointed. I was actually impressed with Ryan's leadership as speaker. My opinion of him is low now. I'm sure he's devastated.

Unless Trump can turn around his reputation for racism, how does the Republican Party embracing him not hurt them in the long run?

[Holman]

Unless Trump can turn around his reputation for racism, how does the Republican Party embracing him not hurt them in the long run?

Right now they have to embrace Trump because they have no choice. He's the top of the ticket.

The day after he loses, we'll start hearing about how Trump was an outsider insurgent who exploited the party's open and generous nomination process to threaten everything the party of Reagan has worked for, etc etc. Ryan's run in 2020 will be under the banner of a new, young, exciting GOP (honest!).

[tjg_marantz]

I can't wait for the R's to change the primaries so this never happens again. Precious.

And they embrace Trump because they have no backbone. They could all stand together and say that's enough, but they choose not to.

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[Kurth]

Trump's just released interview with the WSJ in which he doubles down on his attacks on the judge presiding over his Trump U case sounds like it's going to be explosive.

Donald Trump on Thursday escalated his attacks on the federal judge presiding over civil fraud lawsuits against Trump University, amid criticism from legal observers who say the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s comments are an unusual affront on an independent judiciary.

In an interview, Mr. Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over the litigation given that he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. Mr. Trump said the background of the judge, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, was relevant because of his campaign stance against illegal immigration and his pledge to seal the southern U.S. border. “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Mr. Trump said.

As a lawyer, maybe my own bias is coming into play here, but attacking the judge and claiming he has "an inherent conflict of interest" because he's "Mexican"*** is a line that just can't be crossed. Especially by someone who wants to be POTUS. Anyone who supports Trump -- even as the lesser of two evils -- needs to get their head examined.

*** The judge was born actually born and raised in Indiana. He's first generation, with Mexican immigrant parents.

[tjg_marantz]

Just whatever at this point. I have to assume trump supporters are just idiots at this point. Saying you vote for him because he's the nominee just isn't valid. You vote for him, you're endorsing the idiocy.

[hepcat]

I keep imagining Ryan curled up on the floor of his shower while turning up the hot water at intervals and moaning, "Can't get clean...can't."

[malchior]

As a lawyer, maybe my own bias is coming into play here, but attacking the judge and claiming he has "an inherent conflict of interest" because he's "Mexican"*** is a line that just can't be crossed. Especially by someone who wants to be POTUS. Anyone who supports Drumpf -- even as the lesser of two evils -- needs to get their head examined.

As a non-lawyer I thought it was *way* over the line and again points out the guy has VERY SUSPECT judgement. Just in the abstract his "theory" around judicial conflict is crazy. So any public figure just has to figure out any possible appearance of conflict that a judge might have, make public statements that put that conflict into play, wait for an inevitable adverse ruling (since every case likely has at least one), and then claim bias against them. That'll definitely lead to more confidence in the integrity of the legal system. *FACEPALM*

[Sepiche]

I keep imagining Ryan curled up on the floor of his shower while turning up the hot water at intervals and moaning, "Can't get clean...can't."

Well that image is going to haunt my dreams tonight... thanks a lot.

[Sepiche]

Uh oh... looks like Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott might have a scandal on their hands...
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/ ... ened.html/

The state’s consumer protection division, working for then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, sought permission in May 2010 to pursue what it believed was a strong case to sue Donald Trump and Trump University for bilking Texas taxpayers out of more than $2.6 million.

But that lawsuit was never filed.

Instead, the investigation Abbott had opened into the now-defunct real estate training program and Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was dropped and Trump University agreed to cease operations in Texas.

The former deputy director of Abbott’s Consumer Protection Division now alleges that the attorney general office’s decision to quash the lawsuit against Trump — later a major donor to Abbott’s campaign — was a political move that left Texas consumers “high and dry.”

“The decision not to sue him was political,” John Owens told The Dallas Morning News. “Had [Trump] not been involved in politics to the extent he was at the time, we would have gotten approval. Had he been just some other scam artist, we would have sued him.”

[hepcat]

He's making a list of all Mexicans and/or Muslims that might end up working for the prosecution so they can hit the ground running.

[Max Peck]

San Diego Union-Tribune endorses Zombie Reagan over Trump.

Donald Trump has become the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, defeating all 16 other GOP presidential candidates ahead of Tuesday’s primary. Now the majority of them support him, as do other prominent Republicans and millions of American voters who see in him hope after years of feeling left out or left behind by a country changing too much too quickly in a time of too little prosperity.

Yet there are so many ways Trump is unfit to lead the free world. Just days ago, in San Diego, Trump singled out U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s handling of a case involving Trump University — and Curiel’s heritage. Of the Indiana-born ex-U.S. prosecutor who once prosecuted Mexican cartels, Trump said Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine.”

We believe in a more unifying message.

This editorial board is torn about advising our Republican readers. We can’t endorse Trump for reasons we’ve documented repeatedly: belligerence, casual cruelty, incoherence on policy issues. We can’t recommend voters don’t vote at all because that’s a waste, and we can’t suggest voting for another candidate because it accomplishes nothing.

So what do Republicans who don’t accept Trump’s style or substance — including all three Bushes, Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, George Will and Charles Krauthammer — do? Certainly, the Republican Party has an argument for the presidency. Today, the principles of the party of Ronald Reagan are as relevant as ever: a stable border, a strong military and economic policy focused on low taxes, less bureaucracy and limited regulation.

Those are not the principles of Trump, who promises to build a border wall, recommends torture and killing terrorists’ families and speculates about reneging on our debts. What would happen to Reagan’s party in the hands of Trump? What would happen to San Diego?

We live near the busiest border crossing in the Western Hemisphere, among one of the world’s heaviest concentrations of military personnel. Our border allows a dangerous trade in drugs and guns, and an underground worker economy, while it also enables billions of dollars in trade and cultural connections that form one region. We are one of the world’s safest cities, yet two of the 9/11 terrorists lived among us before flying a plane into the Pentagon. We are stereotyped as white and predictable; yet 30 languages and 80 dialects are spoken — and celebrated — in City Heights alone.

Ours is a city of complexity and balance, of possibility. Everyone would like to live in America’s finest city. But neither problems nor opportunities improve with sloganeering or demagoguery.

Reagan never gave a speech that didn’t invoke America’s greatness. “Tear down this wall,” the Great Communicator famously once said. “The wall cannot withstand freedom.”

Trump is the Great Excommunicator. He wants Muslims banned from the country; a wall built around our southern border; global deals ripped up and renegotiated; American made “great again” through isolationism.

In his San Diego campaign speech, Trump urged California supporters to vote for him, saying, “We want the mandate. We have to have a mandate.”

He doesn’t deserve the party’s mandate.

If you are voting in the GOP primary Tuesday, write in Ronald Reagan for president.

Maybe Trump will get the message.

Editor's note: This editorial was updated Thursday afternoon to remove Paul Ryan from the list of prominent Republicans who have not endorsed Trump because Ryan endorsed him.

[Pyperkub]

Clinton's speech on Donald Trump and national security is worth reading in its entirety.

Some snippets:

Donald Trump’s ideas aren’t just different – they are dangerously incoherent. They’re not even really ideas – just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies.

He is not just unprepared – he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility.

This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes – because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.

...

This is someone who has threatened to abandon our allies in NATO – the countries that work with us to root out terrorists abroad before they strike us at home.

He believes we can treat the U.S. economy like one of his casinos and default on our debts to the rest of the world, which would cause an economic catastrophe far worse than anything we experienced in 2008.

He has said that he would order our military to carry out torture and the murder of civilians who are related to suspected terrorists – even though those are war crimes.

He says he doesn’t have to listen to our generals or our admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has – quote – “a very good brain.”

...

He says climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese, and he has the gall to say that prisoners of war like John McCain aren’t heroes.

He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends – including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the president of Mexico and the Pope.

...

And to top it off, he believes America is weak. An embarrassment. He called our military a disaster. He said we are – and I quote – a “third-world country.” And he’s been saying things like that for decades.

Those are the words my friends of someone who doesn’t understand America or the world.

Was thinking about Hillary's email issues with regards to Classified Intel and pictured the Donald and his mouth in a similar position as Secretary of State.

<shudder> <horror>

[hepcat]

I have to wonder if his thin skin will result in some very public meltdowns as things get tougher for him. I don't believe he expected Hillary to come out swinging like this. Cruz, Rubio and Bush were pushovers compared to her. She's willing to stoop to his level...but she adds facts to the insults. Hearing his own words thrown back at him is sure to piss him off.

[tgb]

I can't wait to hear how his supporters can justify their loyalty, especially in light of Trump U, now that we know that not only was he personally involved (I had assumed it was a licensing deal, like just about everything else) and that he personally pocketed $5 mil from the filthy lucre.

Filthy Lucre is an awesome name for a band, btw.