Trump officially ends fake presidential campaign

JUSTIN ELLIOTT
Salon
MONDAY, MAY 16, 2011


After a months-long process that left his reputation in tatters and his brand damaged, Donald Trump officially announced today he is not running for president, declaring that "business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."

Writes Trump in his statement:

"My gratitude for your faith and trust in me could never be expressed properly in words. So, I make you this promise: that I will continue to voice my opinions loudly and help to shape our politician's [sic]thoughts." 

So why get out now? Why not follow Roger Stone's advice and declare he's still mulling an independent candidacy, thereby bypassing the GOP primary process and allowing the charade to continue well into 2012?

Well, for one thing, Trump stayed in the fake candidate game long enough that his prized personal brand seemed to finally be taking some damage. Some media outlets finally began to do real digging into his business dealings and the results were deeply unflattering. (Here are tworecent examples. My dossier on what to know about Trump for next time he tries to scam us is here.)

There were beginning to be real-world consequences. Trump's constant race-baiting prompted popular protests that led to the cancellation of his annual appearance at the Indy 500. A black group canceled its golf classic at one of Trump's clubs in protest. Meanwhile, ratings for "Celebrity Apprentice" (just signed for another season) are actuallydown.

One hopes that this is a teachable moment for the media -- the lesson being to never, ever trust Trump, and to never report his claims uncritically. There was, for example, Trump's widely-reported-as-fact claim that he sent "investigators" to Hawaii to look into President Obama's birth. Trump promised he would release the results of that investigation in due time, but that never happened.

Alex Pareene's obituary for the Trump campaign, written a few days ago but very much worth a read, is here.

• Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com
• http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/16/surprise_trump_not_running
• Copyright ©2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

GOP chokes on own Medicare Kool-Aid

Gene Lyons
Salon.com
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2011


A funny thing happened along the Roadmap for America's Future. Ordinary citizens smoked out its actual impact on their lives while much of the Washington celebrity pundit class were still uttering hosannas to Rep. Paul Ryan's, R-Wis., alleged intellectual honesty and courage.

As a result, congressional Republicans unceremoniously abandoned their crackpot scheme to privatize Medicare within three weeks of voting almost unanimously to endorse it. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., explained that there was no point wasting time on a plan that had zero chance of passing in the Senate, and was certain to be vetoed by President Obama if it did.

Camp also acknowledged that as the same logic applies to the GOP's attempts to repeal the 2009 Affordable Care Act, aka "ObamaCare," his committee wasn't going to fool with that either.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, breathing smoke and fire two weeks ago, lamented that Republicans seeking budgetary consensus would need to look elsewhere after President Obama "excoriated us" for suggesting that Medicare health insurance be replaced by a voucher plan requiring seniors to comparison shop for private health insurance.

Poor babies. Here they've been so generous and cooperative, and Obama trashes them.

Actually, the president's exact words are worth repeating. The GOP roadmap, he said, asks Americans to accept that "even though we can't afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it ... They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that's paid for by asking 33 seniors to each pay $6,000 more in health costs? That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm president."

No it's not, and it never was. The mystery is why congressional Republicans chose to cast a purely symbolic vote in favor of such a deeply unpopular idea. Every available poll shows that strong majorities oppose sharp Medicare cuts, let alone the GOP plan to ditch guaranteed health insurance for citizens over 65.

Yet House Republicans, who came to power in 2010 partly by accusing the Obama administration of trifling with Medicare, committed themselves to a deeply ideological revision of America's social contract, reducing the top marginal tax rate on multimillionaires from 35 to 25 percent and paying for it by converting seniors' medical insurance to a mandated voucher system.

And, yeah, you read that right. If enacted, Rep. Ryan's excellent plan would have required seniors either to buy private health insurance or pay a hefty tax penalty as well as forfeiting a lifetime's Medicare tax payments.

If you're thinking that mandates are precisely what GOP savants say makes "Obamacare" an unconstitutional threat to liberty, you're right.

The trick is to call it something else, in this case a "refundable tax credit" -- a distinction without a difference. You buy the private insurance or pay an extra $2,500. Exactly like Obamacare, except the penalty's much stiffer.

Have I mentioned that House Republicans supported Ryan's plan 235-4? (Democrats opposed it unanimously.) Then they went home for some very lively town hall meetings before returning to Washington with their tails tucked firmly between their legs. Several GOP congressmen virtually got driven from the room by irate constituents.

(My own GOP Rep. Tim Griffin bravely opted for the TV town hall route, taking pre-screened questions from invited callers. Even so, he reportedly assured one woman that Ryan's scheme would raise taxes on wealthy corporations and individuals, which happens to be untrue. If it did, Griffin wouldn't support it.)

Roadmap to Big Rock Candy Mountain is more like it. Ryan's scheme relies upon magic asterisks, insupportable economic projections and Orwellian euphemisms from beginning to end. When is a voucher not a voucher? When you call it "premium support," his supporters insist.

To make the numbers work, Ryan's plan relies upon the proverbial "player to be named later" -- cutting tax rates while promising to eliminate "loopholes" it fails to specify. Bruce Bartlett, the one-time GOP budget expert who clings to an unfashionable belief in arithmetic, puts it succinctly: "I learned long ago that when someone says everything is on the table that really means nothing is on the table."

Absent Medicare privatization, however, the savings from Ryan's plan add up to a big fat zero, which constitutes progress when you come to think of it. Most GOP miracle cures take years to unravel.

So why did Republicans buy into it? Some may have mistakenly believed their own propaganda about President Obama's weakness. Some in safe GOP districts may fear Tea Party primaries more than Democratic opponents. Writing in the New Republic, Jon Chait suggests that many Republicans "just got caught drinking their own Kool-Aid about how the public agrees with their vision."

To summarize, yet another Washington psuedo-event; and an episode Democrats must never let voters forget.

• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com.  
• http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/11/gop_chokes_on_own_medicare_kool_aid
• Copyright ©2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Donald Trump Admitted In Deposition That He Exaggerated His Net Worth, Stretched The Truth

Marcus Baram
HUFFPOST Post
04/22/11

Q: Let me just ask you first about the first sentence there: Trump relentlessly bloviating about his developments -- this is going to be the biggest, best, most amazing -- leads people to assume he exaggerates his net worth. Do you see that?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know what bloviating means?
A: Well, I'm not sure that there's an exact definition, but I would imagine that's what it means.
Q: Exaggeration?
A: Could be, yeah.
Q: Lying?
A: No. [from a deposition given by Donald Trump in a libel lawsuit]

* * * * *

NEW YORK -- Notorious for his lack of modesty, Donald Trump has long flaunted his wealth and touted his net worth as a multibillionaire.

During his Comedy Central roast, which aired last month, the real estate developer and possible 2012 presidential candidate joked, "What's the difference between Donald Trump's hair and a wet raccoon? A wet raccoon doesn't have seven fucking billion dollars in the bank."

Now that he's considering a campaign on the Republican ticket, he's wielding his bravado as a political cudgel. He recently mocked multimillionaire Mitt Romney's reputation as a successful businessman by declaring himself "many, many, many times Mitt Romney."

Yet Trump has often been accused of exaggerating his wealth, even adding a few zeroes to the actual amount, which may undermine his credibility as a candidate with business credentials.

Despite Trump's own claims that he's worth around $7 billion, last September the most recent Forbes 400 rankings -- which many consider to have overestimated the real estate developer's wealth in the past -- estimated his net worth at $2.4 billion, putting him in a six-way tie for 153rd-richest person in America.

And a deposition in a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump provides numerous examples of him stretching the truth about his success in real estate. Former New York Times editor and reporter (and current Huffington Post national editor) Timothy L. O'Brien wrote in his 2005 book, "TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald," that the developer was probably worth $150 to $250 million, rather than the typical estimates of $2 to $3 billion. Trump sued O'Brien for libel, claiming that the book's lower figure killed some potential deals and damaged his reputation.

The case was dismissed, but Trump filed an appeal and a decision is pending. Trump's deposition, taken on Dec. 19-20, 2007, was obtained by The Huffington Post and CNN.

In 2005, Trump claimed that he was worth $3.5 billion, but a financial analysis by North Fork Bank estimated his worth at just $1.2 billion. The previous year, when he was claiming a worth in excess of $3 billion, Deutsche Bank estimated his worth much lower, at $788 million.

Asked in the deposition about his statements in 2007 that his net worth was $8 billion, Trump conceded: "I don't know. I don't think so. Well, maybe I'm adding 4 or 5 billion dollars worth, 3 billion, for the value of a brand. But I don't know."

Such comments prompted CNN contributor Jeffrey Toobin to tell "In the Arena" host Eliot Spitzer on Thursday night that the deposition could be used against Trump by his GOP opponents: "They could beat him over the head with this," Toobin said.

Among the deposition's most glaring examples of his fondness for exaggeration, Trump was asked why he claimed in several media accounts that he had a 50 percent interest in the massive Riverside South project on Manhattan's Upper West Side when he actually had a much smaller interest. "I own 30 percent," Trump replied. "But because of the fact I put no money up, that 30 percent is equated to 50 percent."

At another point, he is quizzed about his claim to CNN's Larry King that he earned over $1 milliion from a speech he gave to the Learning Annex. Trump admits that he was actually paid only $400,000 in cash, proffering the novel argument that adding in the annex's promotional expenses puts his payment in the $1 million-plus range.

In November 2007, Trump wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal to complain about a story on his net worth, explaining that a development in Hawaii was a huge success. "My tower in Waikiki was 100 percent sold out with 729 million in sales, 5 hours, a record," he wrote. Yet he admitted in the deposition that he doesn't actually own the building -- he just has a licensing agreement with the real owners.

At another moment, he is asked about $18.3 million in insurance proceeds he received due to hurricane damage to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in 2005, explaining that he never felt obligated to turn that money over to the club or to spend all the money on repairs.

And he told Crain's New York Business in 2004 and 2005 that his Trump Organization has 22,000 employees, but admitted in the deposition that some of those employees are "not directly" on the payroll. Some are "suppliers, including construction workers, people that supply items to your building."

For his part, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told The Huffington Post that Trump is worth "a lot … substantially more than what’s recorded in Forbes."

"They don't take into account the value of the Trump brand, of the mark, one of the most valuable marks that’s ever been created," Cohen said. "He has very little debt, triple-A assets. He is going to provide audited financial disclosures when the time comes, if in fact he decides to run -- I think you’re going to be shocked by the number that’s being released." Those records have yet to be prepared, Cohen said, but Trump does obviously have audited financials year to year."

"I don’t think there’s any downside," to Trump running for president, Cohen added.

Trump has claimed it is rare for him to file a defamation lawsuit, but O'Brien's lawyers noted the number of times that he has threatened to sue, citing the following targets:

• The New York Times
• Rosie O'Donnell
• Fortune magazine
• Author Robert Slater
• George magazine
• Wall Street Journal reporters Neil Barsky and Alex Frangos (for separate stories)
• The New York Post (twice)
• Tina Brown (after Vanity Fair published a profile that described how Trump keeps a book of Hitler speeches by his bed, prompting Trump to write Brown that writer Marie Brennan "was a sick woman who couldn't see fairness if it was staring her in the face.")
• The Chicago Tribune architectural critic Paul Gapp
• The Los Angeles Times' David Lazarus

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/22/donald-trump-net-worth-deposition_n_852376.html

Copyright © 2011 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

Rick Santorum has a problem

Bob Cesca
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog
APRIL 16, 2011

In other news, Rick Santorum has a problem with the House approved Paul Ryan budget. His problem is that it doesn't go far enough. He believes current seniors should be thrown off the program too, not just seniors of the future. Rick Santorum is running for president, by the way.

http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2011/04/cartoon_open_th_11.html

© Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! 

Turning Back the Clock

BooMan
Booman Tribune
Tue Apr 5th, 2011


The Republicans want to repeal the health care bill the Democrats passed last year. They want to repeal Medicare and Medicaid. They want to make it next to impossible for poor people to get contraceptives. They want to stop all efforts to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Basically, they want to return the country to the 1950's. They even want to restore the racial and religious demographics of 1950's America. There's only one problem. The top marginal income tax rate in the 1950's was between 91%-92% on all income over $400,000. Without question, the rich payed a higher share of their earned income under Eisenhower than any other president in our history. It was JFK who cut the top rate down to 77% in 1963.

Obviously, the 1950's cannot serve as a proper model for the Republicans. They have to go back to the mid-to-late 1920's when the top rate was 25% on all income over $100,000. And do you know what happened in the late 1920's? The stock market crashed and brought on the beginning of the Great Depression, which, in turn, brought fascism to Germany and greatly enhanced the seductive appeal of Soviet-style communism. It brought world-wide war and genocide on an unprecedented scale. It brought radiological weapons so powerful that they can still end all life on Earth. I think we ought to consider whether or not there is a correlation between the policies that ruined everything in the 1920's and the policies that ruined everything in 2008. And while we may have had the tools to turn a second Great Depression into a mere Great Recession, we only limited the damage and the risks; we didn't eliminate them.

We see new strains of xenophobia, race-consciousness, religious intolerance, and hyper-patriotism. We see major new strains of anti-intellectualism. We have a toxic brew that is being stirred up and heated up by irresponsible entertainers, demagogues, and provocateurs. It's being funded by corporate interests in a way that is eerily reminiscent of the German industrialists who lent support and encouragement to the National Socialists.

So, we can talk about numbers all we want. We can talk about what constitutes a good or bad compromise on the budget. But we're actually fighting a much larger battle, and losing isn't an option we want to contemplate.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/4/5/175537/5701

© 2010 Booman Tribune

In The Bag ...

JIM MORIN
The Miami Herald
4/1/2011










Copyright 2011 Miami Herald Media Co. All rights reserved

Michele Bachmann and Lies About Health Care Reform

Joseph O’Shaughnessy
Populist Daily
April 1, 2011

The Republicans said that they wanted to repeal the health care reform bill. Then they said that they wanted to de-fund it. In other words, if we can’t remove it altogether, they said, we will simply not let anyone participate in any kind of better health.

Why would a United States Congressman or Congresswoman want to prohibit an American citizen from receiving better health care at a lower cost?

Here is the principle we must follow on this. When a politician says something irrational we must look at first the situation and ask “why?”

Michele Bachmann, a Republican House member from Minnesota, is not stupid. So then, why would she speak out against health care reform? She clearly does not want to offer a substitute and she clearly does not want to offer amendments to improve it. She merely wants to continue the system of 15-20% increases that have made the health insurance industry rich beyond the dreams of an Arab sheik.

So she lies about the health reform bill, saying that provisions that have been in it since it was signed are “secret” and the costs involved, which have been paid for by adding taxes and shifting emphasis, were somehow not discussed or debated. [Read more →]

http://www.populistdaily.com/politics/michelle-bachmann-and-lies-about-health-care-reform.html

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