Your Daily Trump––Trump the Business Failure

Everyone who is not in his cult now knows that Trump lost close to a billion dollars in 1996 and got American taxpayers to reimburse him for his stupidity.

Pulitzer Prize winning financial journalist David Cay Johnston goes over the fiasco in this article.

Frontline takes a close look at how the Trump failure unfolded, and it gives you a pretty good idea how rich people avoid losing big even when they fail big. His bankers didn’t foreclose on him publicly. They figured his name on the casino and hotel buildings was worth more than the encumbered real estate, so they left his name up. It appears that his name in large gold letters––just the letters, not the buildings–– might be the only real estate Trump owns. So the Trump name works as a neat metaphor for something that is all show and no substance.

That wasn’t the first time he lost that much. The first time was in 1990, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Chris Christie, Trump’s poodle who is also governor of New Jersey, is trying to spin the loss of $900+ million as a smart move. Even FoxNews laughed.

Christie himself softened Trump’s losses in New Jersey by cutting him a sweetheart bankruptcy deal. New Jersey's own reporters covered this story.

While Trump’s casinos lost millions Trump made millions. It’s very hard to lose money running a casino. Usually this is because casinos always make money. Trump’s didn’t. But Trump paid himself as if they did. Everyone who invested with him lost their money, but Trump paid himself millions. Reported by VOX.

By the way, the immigrants Trump says “steal American jobs”? They don’t. Billionaires do. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine appointed a task force which crunched the numbers and discovered the truth. Of course the folks inTrump’s cult despise experts. Reported by Bill Moyers.

Your Daily Trump––When You Lose, Trump Wins. Think About It.

Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz said on CNBC interview that, if elected, Trump would probably bankrupt the US. (Something Trump’s very familiar with.)

Watch it here.

Meanwhile, Moody’s (the most trusted metrics on economic prospects are at Moody's) assesses Clinton’s economic proposals positively. They’d make our economy stronger.

The Moody's assessment of Clinton's policies.

The Wall Street Journal reports that most of the economists who have advised presidents believe Trump is a major risk.

There are a lot of Americans who feel the economy is rigged, and it is, but the solution isn’t to break it. When the economy breaks down it’s working people who lose everything.

Two years before the economy collapsed in 2008 Trump said this: "I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy.” And this: "If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money. If you're in a good cash position -- which I'm in a good cash position today -- then people like me would go in and buy like crazy.”

What hurts most Americans makes Donald Trump rich and he knows that. He acts on that kind of idea.

Trump’s web of conflicts of interest are global in scale, “huge” to use one of his own favorite words. Kurt Eichenwald (Pulitzer finalist and twice winner of Polk award) reports.

The condensed Eichenwald story at VF.

The fuller Eichenwald analysis at Raw Story.

Pulitzer Prize reporter David Cay Johnston on Trump’s plans to replace all military leadership with generals loyal only to him. And his plans for endless war.

Trump’s long trail of black eyes and broken lives, from the New York Times.

Trump’s former attorney warns against electing him president, at HuffPost.

Think the Clinton Foundation is shady? (It isn’t, sez the leading charities watchdog which gives the Clinton Foundation its highest rating). Take a look at the Trump Foundation. [sic] At VOX.

Meanwhile the Clinton Foundation gets an A rating from CharityWatch.

Why the endless investigation of this well run and truly helpful foundation while Trump's foundation spends other people's money, not Trump's, and spends it on things like Tim Tebow football helmets and 6 foot high paintings of Donald Trump to hang in his building.

Your Pre Convention Dose of Trump

An Evangelical TV preacher likes Trump better than Jesus...

From RAWSTORY

Donald Trump’s lies are so fast and numerous that fact checking can’t stop them quickly enough. Trump is like a massive infection we can’t fight off.

From VOX

Trump is so dishonest and so corrupt and so self-centered and so contradictory and so inexperienced and immature…. that a number of noted historians have broken their longstanding rule and decided to speak out about a political figure before he is dead.

From the New York Times

There are Republicans who think Trump cannot win. But most of them are hedging their bets by sleeping with Trump occasionally when he phones them and promises to be gentle.

From Vanity Fair

The GOP platform calls for selling off National Forest and National Parks. Come on Big Oil and Big Timber!

From Think Progress

The platform is also saying coal isn’t dirty at all.

From SLATE

Is it possible that Trump is involved in more massive criminal activity than any candidate in history? A huge tax fraud case has just emerged, and his family is involved.

From David Cay Johnston in The Daily Beast

Trump’s and Pence’s tax policies would make every state as backward and decaying as Kansas and all the other low tax states.

From the Tax Policy Center

Some of Mike Pence’s choicest and stupidest newspaper bloviation. (Pence says CO2 from burning fuels can’t be the cause of increased global temperatures because it “is a naturally occurring phenomenon in nature…” And this one: “Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.”)

From BUZZFEED

A thoughtful piece from the New Yorker. As if thoughtful writing will save us from this juggernaut.

From Adam Gopnick

This kind of TV ad might work. It shows kids watching Trump’s various outrageous and obscene moments on camera. Of course the Trump voter doesn’t give a damn about his kids.

From the Hillary campaign, via DailyKos

The ACLU is calling Trump a clear and present danger. (Sounds of cheering from the conservatives who despise the Bill of Rights.)

In the Washington Post

Donald Trump has ended the deplorable dog-whistle racism of Reagan and Bush's Republican Party. He has replaced it with outright racism shouted into a microphone.

From the Guardian

Earlier this week Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke out about Trump and was criticized for violating the sanctity of our non-political Supreme Court. You know the one where Sandra Day O’Connor said a Gore presidency would be a disaster and then overturned his election.

From Dahlia Lithwick at SLATE

(I’m sure there were judges in Weimar Germany who spoke up about Hitler and were criticized for it too.)

Of course Supreme Court Justices have gotten political before. A few cases here:

From NBCNews

Samantha Bee explains what Trump/Pence’s new logo means

Via SALON