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DON JONES INDEX… |
GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in
RED |
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11/4/20…
13,523.33 10/28/20… 13,524.73 6/27/13... 15,000.00 |
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(THE DOW
JONES INDEX: 11/4/20…27,847.66; 10/28/20…27,463.19; 6/27/13…15,000.00) LESSON
for November 4, 2020 – “THE GHOST of JOHN McCAIN!” Well, it’s official… sort of… America has no President. Months and years of nitpicking
and politicking boiled down to the showdown yesterday and when the dust had
settled, all that was revealed was more dust.
Ahead of us… days, perhaps weeks, of counting the votes, recounting
the votes and arguing over the process and the results in court. President Trump declared that
he had won another four years in his 2 AM tweet, which also contained the
escape route backdoor trapdoor that, if he did not win, it was because of
massive liberal fraud that would be combated in the courts and… with his
stand back to the armed militias upgraded to a stand by… in the streets. As Wednesday morning dawned,
Joe Biden held a two point lead in the popular vote and had 225 electoral
votes, compared with POTUS garnering 213.
The immoral Mister Trump had scored, at least, a moral victory in
outperforming the rigged pinko polls and, more or
less, duplicating the margins of defeat and victory of 2016, give or take a
fraction of a percentage point which, in the case of the multiple swing
states, has proven as troublesome to all as to the alt-all. There is at least a high
possibility, if not a probability that the decision… as in Y2Ks Bush/Gore
dangling chad contest… will be decided by the Supreme Court. Which, given the improvident demise of
Justice Ginsburg and the lightning-quick elevation of Amy Coney Barrett to
her seat, makes for a medieval comedy (or tragedy, for the losing faction)
worthy of Shakespeare (or, at least, “Game of Thrones”). The looniness
stretches way back, with octopus-like reach, to 2019 when people celebrated
the fall holidays, went to bars and concerts and filled football stadiums and
basketball arenas… a time when people who put on masks were assumed to be
robbers and duly shot by storekeepers or the police. Along came 2020, soon to become our annus horriblis,
and the merely annoying Presidential primaries… a butcher’s two dozen
Democrats slicing and dicing each other up until the decency and blandness
and gravitas of Uncle Joe Biden won out over the conspiring Communists and
Socialists and women and dusky people who tried, but failed, to obstruct the
gravity of his inevitability. President Trump had primary
challengers too, but the RNC refused to even hold debates or primaries, coronating him as the Red King. And then the candidates
went their separate ways, pandering to their separate and mutually hostile
communities. Enough polls were issued
to end the toilet paper shortage. Opinionators shrieked.
Celebrities badgered their followers to vote. (See Attachment Six: A, B and C) Dying media behemoths and invalids; newspapers,
magazines and television stations rallied on their intubations of millions in
campaign cash, and the bolder among them even wrote editorials for one or the
other candidate. (A
Jewish critic of the Holocaust made the common comparison for CNN. “Today,
we stand at a precipice, yet unlike Germans in the lead-up to World War II,
we have the chance to vote a rising authoritarian out of power.”… see here. The Los Angeles Times ran a boilerplate Trump,
Oh, Woe is Me! Opinion piece, but also a spot on analysis of Trump’s capacity
to upset the aragulacart that, however, did not
credit the “shy Trump voters” touted by pollsters Arie Kapteyn and Robert Cahaly of the
Trafalgar Group - Attachment Nine) … see Attachments Seven A, and B)… and for the
other side, the Washington Times (Attachment Eight). The President appointed a Postmaster so
loyal that even the Kevin Costners and Wayne
Knights of Hollywood worried that his loyalty might result in electoral
malfeasance. And the coronavirus fluttered
out of the coughing and sneezing droplets of a bat-eating Chinee
to infect his family and the community of Wuhan, first, then all of China,
then the Italian tourists who lingered too long in places too wrong, and then
airports and rail stations and streets worldwide. And, once it held America in
its death-grip, the economy crashed. And police murdered George
Floyd and Breonna Taylor and riots ensued. And a tinder-dry West caught
fire while so many tropical storms and hurricanes pounded the East that the
weathermen ran out of letters and resorted to the Greek alphabet. And Don Jones panicked, put on
a mask and kept the kids home from school… or else snarled defiance, cheering
as President Trump denounced science and medicine and his (slightly older
kids) partied like it was 2019. And caught the plague. And died, nearly a quarter
million of them. And Joe Biden weathered out the
first stage of the pandemic in his basement and watched his lead in the polls
climb… from a Hillarian three percent to four,
five, seven, nine… and all the dutiful, snootiful
liberals nodded grimly and went back to their day jobs of throwing comedians
off stage, destroying statues of Confederate soldiers, Columbus and Abraham
Lincoln and devising and enforcing complex and condemnatory lists of words
and thoughts that decent people would not be allowed to say or think. As Milwaukee and Minneapolis
burned, serious elected officials proposed abolishing the police. And then, on Friday, September 18… night of the Jewish New Year
and unkosher-ish National Cheeseburger Day… Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsberg dies of pancreatic cancer. Quick
as a honeybunny fleeing Farmer McGregor’s shotgun pellets, Trump
nominated hard-right Amy Coney Barrett, despite more of those liberal polls
that advise waiting until after the election by a 57 to 38 margin. No matter… the Friday before decision day, Mitch McConnell and all but one of the
Republican Senators (Maine’s Susan Collins excepted, and for her trouble, she
was still disendorsed by MeToo-ish
women) wiped their collective behinds – not necessarily with the
Constitution, whose framers never anticipated the likes of this mad MAGAdministration – but with the last vestiges of
precedent, honor and decency. This was
no massaging with hoarded Charmin, Judge Barrett had been unanimously
approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee - unanimous because all ten of the
Democrat Senators boycotted (and girlcotted) the
vote. And then, after a weekend of
televised football games where posters of celebrities… not exactly Roger
Stone, O. J. or Bin Laden, but close… occupied the seats where human beings,
paying customers!, used to perch and furtive plague parties in abandoned warehouses,
always one ear open for the knock of police, the new Justice was sworn in
America got down to business. The week began with ACB taking
RBG’s seat on the Supreme Court, which will face important decisions on
repealing Obamacare and Roe v. Wade and… perhaps… deciding who prevails if
the Presidential election is close.
Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not… when Trump falsely declared himself the winner around 2:30 a.m. Eastern.
According to the New York Times, POTUS said he would call on the Supreme
Court to stop counting ballots in states where he led, while urging more
counting in states where he was behind. He claimed “fraud” (for which there
is no evidence) and he called the election an “embarrassment to the country.” The Times also reported that
President Trump was “forgiven” 281M in debt on his failing Chicago hi-rise
with taxpayers picking up the tab.
(See Attachment Five – at least the foreign interests in this adventure
were German, not Russian) And then, on
Thursday, the long-awaited discovery of “Anonymous”, author of the tell-all
article on Djonald’s shaken integrity as initially
stirred Democratic hopes as a third-tier button pusher named Miles Taylor,
whom the President now wants indicted and convicted for… something. And the workweek ended with the
controversial and callous comments by Don Junior… addressing the thousand
deaths per day pandemic toll, he flicked his wrist, calling the death toll
“almost nothing. The candidates spent their
weekends in a furious round of rallies… unmasked and loud for the President
while Biden, going retro, addressed his mostly-masked and car-bound crowds
from stages at old Drive-In Movie parks – honking their horns and draining
their batteries turning headlights on and off whenever Uncle Joe accused the
President of some nefarious nefariousness, as if revising the Hollywood of
bygone years – “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, perhaps (the original with
Kevin McCarthy, of course, from the good old days of tailfins and twenty-five
cent hotdogs). A thousand miles away (or a
dozen, when both were barnstorming Pennsylvania) Trump doubled down on his
allegations that American doctors were profiting off the plague by knowingly
enhancing infections – a conspiracy theory that Biden called “perverted”. On the last round of Sunday talkshows, efforts by Big Tech to fight ballot fraud and
disinformation were profiled and John Dickerson warned of more Russian (or
Iranian?) disinformation ahead by citing FDR’s WW2 “War on Rumours” because they impacted national security. Some noted that the count of absentee,
mail-in and early ballots had reached 87 million as opposed to 46 in 2016 and
there was plenty of crystal ball-gazing as to whether an early Biden lead on
what early ballots survived a chaotic vetting process (and certain court
challenges) would survive a Tuesday surge of Trump voters in the flesh Americans all – Democrats still
shaken over 2016, Trumpublicans stirred by the
Presidents mighty speeches – raised their martinis to Sean Connery, the
original James Bond (who would not be rappelling down from the clouds to save
anybody anymore). The strange workweek commenced
on Monday morning with “we’re still here” mischief by Islamic terrorists in
Vienna following up their brothers-in-jihad in Paris. The hated West might have justified
refusing to help Turkey dig out of a killer earthquake, but we didn’t; the
usual foreign relief poured in and the usual miracle recoveries of survivors
occurred. Something called Feelmore Labs issued a press release to the effect that
half of Americans (only half?) felt stress in 2020, and 2/3 of us wanted the
year to be over. Young people were
more stressed than seniors. Perhaps responsively,
McDonald’s announced it was bringing back the McRib on November 12th,
its first appearance since 2012 (also an election year). Election Day dawned clear and
cold over most of the United (and plague-spiking) States. The media trumpeted a most certain
apocalypse of riots and lootings and arsons and gunfire by whomever lost the
election; President Trump, himself, half warned about, half encouraged
“violence in the streets of Philadelphia” from the likes of Antifa and Bernie Sanders supporters while alt-right
paramilitary groups like the Boogaloo Boys and
Proud Boys retreated to their basements… the latter still fuming over having
been pranked by Iranian nerds composing false flag social media threats that
were analyzed and then dismissed by… the Government!... the Bad (liberal)
Courts rejecting a Texas plea to disqualify 127,000 (presumably largely
Democratic) ballots in and around Houston. And, inevitably, the usual cry
to abolish the Electoral College arose… this time from Daryl West of the
Brookings Institute think tank who argued for a Constitutional Amendment,
claiming the College gives too much power to the smaller states… inasmuch as
such Amendments require the consent of three fourths of the states, the likelihood
of passage is about as probable as that of Kanye West’s Birthday Party
upsetting both Trump and Biden. Despite the media being hot and
bothered by the prospect of massive voter suppression… presumably by armed
fanatics posing as “poll watchers” or the Russians, Chinese, Iranians or…
somebody… hacking the vote, most Don Joneses voted one way or another and…
except for a few states in which state or local candidates drew so close to
one another that a runoff must occur… celebrated, mostly privately. There would champagne for the victors and
whiskey for the vanquished and – for both – the blessed cessation of the
barrage of mostly nasty and
occasionally filthy campaign commercials, as well as the loathsome robocalls and forest-destroying direct mail broadsides, Instead, America got a bucket
of warm piss and an invitation to play out their Purge Seven fantasies in
real life. After the first polls from the
Eastern coast… a bulwark of support for Biden in the Northern states and a
tier of interesting opportunities (North Carolina, Florida, even Georgia) in
the South… showed a process riddled with anomalies (which lumps, bumps and mugwumps would eventually prove cancerous, according to
almost all of the talking heads still talking in the morning), the Fourth
Estate began tossing up reasons and excuses… the higher Trump vote in Florida
(particularly Miami) was due to his stoking the lingering hatred of Communism
among Cuban refugees and young black voters were gravitating towards the
President because they liked his style and promises that they, someday, would
be rich. The night unfolded with one
disaster after another striking the Democrats. Trump was winning Biden’s birthtown of Scranton, PA. In Atlanta’s convention center, a pipe
burst, flooding the facility and sending voters and vote counters out into
the streets. No matter that polls had Biden ahead by anywhere from five to
eleven points nationwide, The Donald led 50-48 in the popular vote by 9:30 PM. But not without
backlash… a Michigan mom said: “If my kids said and did what Trump does and
says, I’d punish them.” The President
was being punished in Ohio, his count underperforming and some of the talking
heads said it was because of his appeal to boycott Goodyear. Stating that his own words were killing
him, women blamed Djonald Uneasy for the “character
and chaos” factor. The eleven PM newscasts found
pundits disputing whether the election was a repeat of 2016, 2000 or even
2004. Byron Pitts credited Trump with
a lead in North Carolina…”hard work will defeat money.” Jon Karl credited his performance to running
as a Nationalist, not a Republican.
The GOP continued plucking off Senate seats… Lindsay Graham’s flip
flop on Trump enabled him to eke out a win over the well – financed Jaime
Harrison and football coach Tommy Tuberville dislodged Doug Jones in Alabama. “Tonight the liberals learned
it’s time for Dog Jones to get a job or go home,” Tuberville gloated,
reprising an angry line from one of Jones’ commercials. Then he cited his Dad who drove a tank
through Paris after World War Two, which had been “liberated from Socialism
and Communism.” (Hitler might have
protested, but he was 75 years dead.) With Trump holding a four
percent lead in the popular vote and the Senate being called hinging on North
Carolina, Iowa and Maine, POTUS was declared the winner in purple
Florida. Sleepy Joe, predictably, took
California, Oregon and Washington Spokeswoman Kellyanne
Conway said that the President would speak, but didn’t say when. America wondered whether the
closer-than-expected race might end up in the Supreme Court, where Guess Who
had just been seated. Newscaster Terry
Moran warned: “The lawyers are standing by…” By one AM (EST), the
newscasters were ready to call it a night and give broadcast television back
to the infomercials and reruns of old cop shows and comedies. As their last words before signing off, the
Fourth Estate called Minnesota for Biden; Florida and Iowa for Trump. Former Obama staffer and Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel moaned “We’re gonna be here for at least a
week.” Defeated North Dakota Senator
Heidi Heitkamp… concurring… said “the longer it
goes, the more anxious people will get.” And then, Don Jones went to
bed. Whilst he dreamed of cheese and
cherries (or, if a Republican, Our Flag) Wisconsin, somewhere around the Hour
of the Wolverine, had been called for
Uncle Joe, whose electoral vote lead had swelled to 248-214 according to
Deadline, usually known as a Hollywood access site (See Attachment Three –
all times PST… in other words, Eastern Standard is three hours later.) which
was also one of the few mediums to follow and report on Kanye West’s Birthday
Party, and his 60,000 vote tally. None
of his votes, however, came from the five… or six… or seven states still in
play as of today, so his quixotic adventure in the service of Djonald Unhinged went for naught. (See Attachment Four) And, amidst the horror and the
hoopla, life went on – and had gone on badly for most. Hurricane Zeta pounded the accursed
Louisiana coastline before swirling up to points northwards like DC and New
York and Boston and then, unlike the plague, just going away. Quick as a badger, Hurricane Eta followed,
tying the record of 28 named storms that had stood since… like, forever…
smashing into the Honduran and Nicaraguan jungles as a Cat. Five, the biggest
and ugliest Greek-named tempest ever (or at least since Spiro Agnew). And in the on-deck oblong… Theta (L. Ron
Hubbard’s vision will be vindicated if this proves the storm to end all storms). And there were the seeming
perennials… wildfires out west (which firefighters were starting to contain),
police murdering civilians and civilians fighting police, jobless Americans
facing starvation and evictions, a stock market slumping backwards towards
the worst days of the pandemic and, looming over all, the second (or third,
or fourth) wave of the plague with its mounting deaths and disabilities,
exhausted healthcare workers, PPE equipment shortages and reckless youth
thronging to maskless revels with a snarl and a
cough while the doctors fight one another and the politicians fight all. As Supreme Court
Justice, Kavanaugh recently wrote “If the apparent
(presidential election) winner the morning after the election ends up losing
due to late-arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election could explode.” Yep! Trump’s buying the
first round, Brett! ON WHICH the ELECTION HINGED… According to Meghan McCain, the late Sen. John
McCain’s daughter, “It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist” to know who she is
voting for in 2020. That’s Joe Biden. “There’s one man who has
made pain in my life a living hell and another man who has literally
shepherded me through the grief process,” McCain said. “The Trumps? They’re
always making my mom cry,” McCain said. REPORT THIS AD Meghan’s mom Cindy
McCain, said she may never get over President Trump once saying her husband
was not a war hero because he was a prisoner of war. “Never.” We will never know for
certain whether the TV show character LUCAS McCAIN, aka “The Rifleman,”
would have voted for Trump or Biden. Lucas McCain was clearly on the side of
‘Law and Order’, and Jesus H. Christ, did Lucas love shooting off rifles,
particularly his 1892 Winchester caliber .44-40 carbine with a standard
20-inch barrel! For those reasons, it
does seem Lucas McCain would have been a Trump guy. However, there was a
memorable episode of “The Rifleman” that co-starred the inimitable Sammy
Davis Jr. as a gunslinger. Sammy was not only a Black man, but also a Jew.
Any card-carrying white nationalist or racist would NOT have allowed Sammy on
the set of “The Riflemen,” right? This one is certainly
debatable. I think perhaps Lucas McCain would’ve switched his endorsement
from Trump to Biden at the very last minute, firing off a hundred-or-so shots
from his rifle to properly announce his decision. RIP Sammy and Chuck
Connors. And where have you gone, Johnny “Mark McCain” Crawford? Stumbling and staggering in to
what may be our last full week of polintertainment
(a last tip o’ the cap to Senator Sasse, we’ve
decided to focus on the Supremes inasmuch as America has not necessarily
decided what they’ve decided as yet… and, amazingly, that decision might
eventually come down to the infant Justice Barrett. It’ll be at least a few weeks before the
books on Barrett’s confirmation swirl outward from the minds and keyboards of
the pundits and onto the New York Times bestseller list for a week or two
before the election books emerge but, as with may
other facets of this dying/reviving regime (choose one), there is ample
forewarning precedent as, in this instance, the party-line elevation of
Barrett with that of Justice Eight… Brett Kavanaugh. We have Ruth Marcus, from the
Washington Post, to thank or to blame for her tome about the selection and
confirmation of BK, “ Supreme Ambition” and, if Don Jones knows anything
about the WashPost, it’s that it’s a lying,
Socialist rag, recently taken over by Amazonian Trump-hater Jeff Bezos (still
the richest
man in the world after his expensive divorce) so, of course, there is
plenty of damnation for the policies, personalities and processes of that
transition and the praise is ever so faint.
There will be more of the same about ACB, although probably muted due
to her sex, her sincere (if savage) religious beliefs and such fatigue that
has come to what may be the end of a Presidential administration that has
defied belief, as well as to the physical and societal effects of the plague. |
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OCTOBER 28 – NOVEMBER 4 |
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Wednesday, October 28, 2020 Infected:
8,827,688 Dead: 227,421 Dow: 26,519.96 |
45 states spiking, half a million new
cases in a week. Hospitals in Midwest
are overwhelmed, but Adm. Brett Giraor of Operation
Warp Speed says rationing healthcare is not an option. But local governments may be forced to take
“Draconian” methods. Dodgers’ third
baseman Justin Turner gets it… a world series ring and the plague. Dr. Doom
(Fauci) declares that “some semblance of normality”
will not occur until 2022.
Don Junior dismisses plague deaths as “almost nothing” while Jared
Kushner gloats: his father in law is “taking the country back from the
doctors.” In Nebraska, Trump rallies,
declares: “Normal life will resume,”
then strands elderly supporters without transportation in the freezing cold
while Barack Obama gives pro-Biden speech; says Trump is “jealous” of Covid for filching his publicity. “Much as the
conservative movement had spent decades making certain that it would not again
squander the opportunity of a Supreme court vacancy, Kavanaugh
had spent a lifetime preparing for it – angling for it, as some observer saw
it. After eight years under a
Democratic president, Trump’s unexpected ascendance could be Kavanaugh’s opportunity at long last.” |
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Thursday, October 29, 2020 Infected: 8.9+ M Dead: 228,370 Dow: 26,659.11 |
49 states spike – hospitals
overwhelmed with cases but death percentage drops. 85,000 new cases Wednesday, one every 1.2
seconds. More trouble for
terrorist-plagued France; Europlague spreading
faster and faster. Liege, Belgium
reports 41% infection rate.
Trump rally-rama flees south to Florida to
mobilize seniors; attendees don’t freeze but many suffer heatstroke. Pollsters say Democrats are now “too afraid
to hope” but 538’s Amelia Thomson deVeaux declares
that young people are declaring that it’s not cool to not vote. “Anonymous”
revealed as a low-level staffer Miles Taylor, Trump vows prosecution for… something. His new ad features a shambling, rambling,
stumbling, stuttering “old and weak” Biden with the advice: “Only you can
spot a zombie!” Vice-Commanding Space Force! General
gets it and so does the Surgeon General of Arkansas. “On the campaign trail, Trump hammered home the point
that Republicans could trust him on judges. In fact, they needed him. Th message was deliverd with typical Trumpian
subtlety: ‘If you really like Donald Trump, that’s great, but if you don’t,
you have to vote for me anyway. You
know why? Supreme Court judges. Supreme Court judges,’ Trump said at a
rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in July (2016).
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. You have
no choice.’” |
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Friday, October 30, 2020 Infected: 8,955,035 Dead: 229,347 Dow: 26,501.60 |
New daily plague cases race early voters (in
millions) towards 100 each. States
(even Republican Ohio) cracking down on Trump’s super spreader spectacles –
one that doesn’t is Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp and Rep. Drew Ferguson get
it after rallying with Djonald. The President mocks his own party’s
(trailing) Senate candidate in Arizona, asks “friendly” reporter Laura
Ingraham: “Are you PC?” for wearing a mask and then asserts that doctors get
more money for higher death rates.
Ballot counting chaos (especially in purple Wisconsin) auger weeks of
doubt, despair and destruction, so Jon Karl warns that if Trump wins Ga, Fl, NC and Tx, it’ll mean a nail-biting, street-fighting finish and
three former Minnesota Governors counsel peace and patience – Jesse the Body:
“A delay just means that our system is working.” (Trump originally left Kavanaugh off his list of 21 judicial candidates should a
vacancy occur, but, in November, 2017, added five new names.) “The
expanded list was painstakingly curated, lest the roster become overly
swampy. It ended up with five new
names. The other four seemed a bit of
a stretch, too young and green to be taken seriously, but they had two
characteristics in common – beyond, of course, their Federalist Society
credentials: they were not Beltway candidates, and they had no ties to Bush
(George I or II, Kavanaugh had briefly supported
Jeb). Other than Kavanaugh,
they were… Patrick Wyrick,
36, former Oklahoma solicitor general… Britt Grant, 39, a former Kavanaugh clerk later confirmed to the Eleventh Circuit
federal appellate Court… Kevin Newsom, 45, solicitor general of
Alabama, also elevated to the Eleventh… and… Amy Coney Barrett, 45, a former Notre Dame
law professor who had been on the Seventh Circuit just fifteen days…” |
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Saturday, October 31, 2020 Infected: 8,578,063 Dead: 223,995 Sunday, November 1, 2020
Infected: 9.127.208 Dead:
230,556 |
A blue moon (smallest of the year)
rises over America… auguring a narrow Biden victory? New York police departments promise to
break up secretive Halloween parties and the CDC predicts 256,000 deaths by
Thanksgiving as cases top nine million.
538 pollsters say 30% of married couples differ on the election. CDC ponders special vaccine perks to
persons of color.
Trump alleges that Democratic Governors are trying to stop his rallies
to push Sleepy Joe over the top. 87
million early ballots have been cast, as opposed to 46 million in 2016 even
though Wisconsin’s ballots were misprinted and have to be replaced. Twindemics
spiking… proving more lethal than plague or flu on their own. South Dakota now the plague-iest state at 46% positive, California at only 3%. Governor Tony Evers (D-Wi) explodes,
shrieking: “Wear your freakin’ masks!” “(T)he swap of Kennedy for a
justice to be named augured a momentous change. Not since Powell’s retirement was the shift
of a single seat poised to move the court so firmly to the right. Bork’s defeat and Kennedy’s eventual
confirmation had turned Powell’s departure into a missed opportunity. Conservatives were committed to ensuring
that would not happen again. This was
their chance to seize control, at long last.
As Thomas Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSblog.com put it, ‘An already
right-leaning Supreme court is poised to become the most conservative
institution in the entire history of America’s government.’” “What the hell is wrong with this
man?” Biden asks on the campaign trail.
“He’s perverted!” MAGAconvoy tries to force Biden bus off the highway in
Texas, FBI investigating. Experts deem
Florida and Pennsylvania the critical states.
Trump declares that, if he loses, it will be because of
“mischief”. Rahn
Emanuel ponders: would a Biden Presidency be transactional or
transformational?
48 states spiking, only Nebraska and Delaware safe. The Doctors speak: Birx
calls for mandatory masking, Fauci predicts: “Were
in for a whole lot of hurt! Ashish Jah
says twindemics still uncommon but hospitals
overwhelmed. El Paso rolls out one,
little two, little three little mobile morgues. New York busts up Super Spreader Halloween
parties, demands testing of incomers. “(After Trump released his short-list of five, then
four, aspirants for Kennedy’s seat): “Each of the short-list contenders had
his or her squad of supporters with former clerks lined up to place
supportive op-eds and troop to television studios to make the case for their
judges… “Conservative radio host and Washington
Post columnist Hugh Hewitt weighed in for (Raymond) Kethledge,
declaring the Michigan appeals court judge the best choice’ to be ‘Gorsuch
2.0’… “(Thomas) Hardiman
had backing from former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, but his
cheerleader in chief remained Trump’s sister, who had served with Hardiman on the Third Circuit… “Amy Coney
Barrett, still in her first year on the bench, had not assembled enough
former clerks to constitute a personal lobbying squad, yet she turned out to
be perhaps Kavanaugh’s leading competitor… (and)
and been cast as a victim of Democrats’ seeming religious intolerance…” (the
Feinstein “dogma” remark) |
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Monday, November 2, 2020 Infected: 9.220.993 Dead: 231,353 Dow: 26,925.05 |
It’s the Mexican Day of the Dead. To wit: 99,321 new cases on Friday, and El
Paso summons a fourth little mobile morgue.
The good news is that Louisiana and Washington State start de-spiking
and Dr. Jah says it’s safe to vote “if it’s done quickly.” The bad?
After scoffing that the plague was “hyped”, Prince William starts
coughing and gets it.
Dr. Fauci says that Trump doesn’t listen to
anyone who contradicts his dogma; Trump responds by leading chants of “Fire Fauci” at his terminal rallies, so the normally
conservative American Medical Association voices its anger while Stanford
economists declare that 18 previous rallies resulted in 30,000 infections and
70 deaths. Despite FBI probe, the
President calls the Biden bus bashers “patriots” while Lady Gaga and John
Legend join his entourage (if they’d crashed the bus and killed the celebrities,
Djonald would’ve lost the youth vote). And the dessert: Cher debuts her new song:
“Happiness is a Thing Called Joe” and says Biden can lead us out of the
darkness and “into the light” (which brings us back to Death)! “Trump
himself tracked down (Kavanaugh advocate Karl)
Rove, then aboard a friends boat in Europe, to
discuss Kavanaugh by phone. ‘You have three other good choices, Rove
replied. But Barrett’s only been on
the bench a short while; you don;’t know how shes going to evolve or whether shell
be able to handle the fire of a confirmation.
The other two, Kethledge and Hardiman, are good guys…’” |
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Tuesday, October 27, 2020 Infected: 9,358,469 Dead: 23K+ Dow: 27,480.03 |
Election Day is here! Amidst rampant paranoia about riots and
looting by the losers (whomever) and raucous unmasked Super Spreader
celebrations by the winners, Our President decrees a final White House
(indoor) debauch for 400 of his nearest and dearest. Channeling Jim Jones! Pandemic spiking migrates to Massachusetts,
where the electoral outcome is preordained, and New York’s 61,000 children
per week, where it is irrelevant (except to parents). Highest one week infection rates ever
prompt Dr. Bix to predict 100,000 new cases per day soon (no big deal – those
99,321 got it Friday).
The final 538 polls put Biden up 8%... 5% in Pennsylvania, 2% in
Florida, 1% in North Carolina and Georgia while Trump leads by 1% in
Texas. Long lines and lack of parking
disturb (but don’t discourage) voters.
Ears perking up to Trump’s Philadelphia dog-whistle, Republican
strategist Terry Sullivan offers his own indirect whistle to urban voters,
citing “Pulp Fiction” star Samuel L. Jackson who advises… “stay
cool, honeybunny and nobody gets hurt.” (i.e. “Stay
home, don’t vote.”)
And the polls close at 7 PM.
See above for the thereafter. “The aides debated: Should Trump please the base with
a social conservative like Barrett?
Did picking a woman make sense this time around, given Trump’s polling
deficit wit h female voters? Or should he hold Barrett in reserve so
that she could obtain more seasoning on the appellate bench and be at the
ready in case Ginsburg left the court…” (DJI italicized) |
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Not much in the way of change, nor news
(other than the plague, the weather, the riots) as Don
Jones fixated on the election.
THE DON JONES INDEX
CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000
(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)
See a further explanation of categories here…
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ECONOMIC INDICES (60%) |
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DON JONES’
PERSONAL ECONOMIC INDEX (45% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS) |
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BACK
See further indicators at The Economist – HERE!
ATTACHMENT ONE – from God (and the Debate Commission)
Remaining Presidential Debates…
None.
ATTACHMENT TWO – from RCP
Tuesday, October 27 |
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Race/Topic (Click to
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Poll |
Results |
Spread |
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Tie |
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Trump +4 |
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Biden +2 |
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Biden +3 |
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Biden +6 |
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Trump +23 |
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Biden +36 |
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Biden +2 |
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Biden +11 |
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Biden +5 |
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Tillis +2 |
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Kelly +5 |
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Disapprove +11 |
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Approve +3 |
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Monday,
October 26 |
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Race/Topic (Click to Sort) |
Poll |
Results |
Spread |
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Biden +1 |
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Trump +2 |
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Biden +5 |
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Biden +8 |
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Trump +4 |
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Trump +5 |
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Biden +9 |
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Biden +9 |
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Biden +10 |
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Biden +25 |
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Biden +7 |
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Biden +7 |
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Ossoff
+1 |
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Warnock 34,
Collins 21, Loeffler 20, Lieberman 4, Tarver 1, Slowinski 3 |
Warnock +13 |
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Cornyn
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Cornyn
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Malliotakis
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ATTACHMENT THREE – from “Deadline” TEN
WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATES 10TH UPDATE,
11:29 PM: The Associated Press has now also called
the great state of Wisconsin for Joe
Biden. That moves the former VP’s electoral
count up to 248 to Donald Trump’s 214. Of course, after a long
nail-biting night, there are still several states counting ballots. Right
now, both candidates have a plausible route to victory, with things looking a
little better for Biden. Team Trump has already declared it wants
a recount in the Badger State. 9TH UPDATE,
11:03 PM: CNN just called Wisconsin for Joe
Biden, putting the Democratic nominee closer to an electoral college victory
over Donald Trump. Trump and his campaign say that they
will request a recount in the state, where Biden has a lead of about 20,000
votes. So far, AP has not officially proclaimed Wisconsin for the ex-Veep. Meanwhile, with karma galore, Al Gore,
who lost a recount and court battle over Florida’s electoral votes and the
2000 election, went on Twitter proclaiming every vote needs to be counted: Right now, with Michigan in flux, Biden
holds leads in Nevada and Arizona, but trails Trump in Pennsylvania, North
Carolina and Georgia. The Trump campaign also said that it
filed a lawsuit in Michigan to halt vote counting until they can gain access
to numerous locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting
process. 8TH UPDATE,
10:12 AM PT: As election officials in Wisconsin
indicated today that they were finished counting ballots, with Joe Biden
holding a slim lead, Donald Trump’s campaign said that they would request a
recount. Campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement, “Despite ridiculous public
polling used as suppression tactic, Wisconsin has been a razor thin race as
we always knew it would be. There have been reports of irregularities in
several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of
the results. The president is well within his threshold to request a recount
and we will immediately do so.” A recount raises the possibility of a
protracted post-Election Day challenge, perhaps something not seen since the
2000 presidential race. But last cycle, Green Party candidate Jill Stein
initially requested a recount, and it resulted in a net gain of 131 votes for
Trump in the state. 7TH UPDATE, 5
AM PT: Joe Biden has taken a slim lead in his
bid to flip the key battle state of Wisconsin. As much as 3% of votes have
yet to be counted, but commentators are saying the margin, around 30k, will
be tough to overturn for Donald Trump. Ben Wikler,
chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, tweeted that “there’s no
realistic path for Trump to pull ahead” in the state, though the social media
platform since has labeled the tweet as “misleading” due to its policy on not
allowing candidates or officials to declare results before the official call. 6TH UPDATE,
1:30 AM PT:The Associated Press is
calling Arizona for Biden, with the former VP securing roughly 52% of the
vote to flip the state and its 11 electoral votes away from the Republicans.
If verified, that will be only the second time the Democrats have won in
Arizona since 1948. 5TH UPDATE,
11:59 PM PT: The electoral numbers are all over the
place, the candidates have spoken in speeches that were neither really
victory nor concession remarks and no determination yet on who controls the
Senate late tonight. Welcome to Election night 2020. As Donald Trump’s team rages over Fox
News calling Arizona for Joe Biden, pivotal states like Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia are in flux as votes are still being counted.
At this point, the best we can say is we will update when those ballots are
finalized, whether that be Wednesday or later. 4TH UPDATE,
9:10 PM PT: Donald Trump is projected to win
Ohio, NBC News projects, dashing hopes for Democrats that it could have been
a Joe Biden pickup. Meanwhile, Fox News projected that Texas
would go to Trump, after hopes that the former VP had a shot at scoring an
upset. As well as continuing the Democrats’ winning streak in Minnesota,
Biden was the projected victor in Virginia, a state that has turned more solidly
blue in recent cycles after being a swing state. James Carville appeared on MSNBC and was
asked about his prediction that Biden would have the race wrapped up by 10 PM
ET. “Every Democrat put the razor blades and Ambien back in the medicine
cabinet. We are going to be fine,” he said. While acknowledging he was wrong
about the Latino vote in Florida, he was confident of Biden’s prospects in
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. With the Keystone State, Georgia,
Michigan and Wisconsin still not called, the ex-Veep
is expected to make public remarks soon-ish. No
word if Trump will be speaking tonight. 3RD UPDATE,
8:31 PM PT: Fox News projected Joe Biden would
win Arizona, a pickup of a state that Donald Trump won four years ago. Jason Miller, a senior adviser for the
Trump campaign, tweeted, “WAY too soon to be calling Arizona…way too soon. We
believe over 2/3 of those outstanding Election Day voters are going to be for
Trump. Can’t believe Fox was so anxious to pull the trigger here after taking
so long to call Florida. Wow.” Fox News called Florida earlier in the
evening but other networks have not called it yet. On ABC News, George Stephanopoulos said
that although it was still early to establish how the results will ultimately
play, said, “This is looking a little bit right now like a replay of 2016,”
albeit the network has yet to call Arizona for Biden. Nate Silver, the Fivethirtyeight election expert, had moved Trump’s
chances of winning to 33 percent, from 10 percent at the start of the day. Grinding into the early morning on
the East Coast, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are still counting
votes. In a reality that may take days, both campaigns seem resigned to no
one claiming victory tonight and looking like a potentially protracted battle
that has shades of the 2000 race between Al Gore and George W Bush. 2ND UPDATE,
8:02 PM PT: Joe Biden was the projected winner
of California, which comes as no surprise, on an evening that seems to have
dashed Democratic hopes of a blue wave. “There’s a lot of math to go,” MSNBC’s
Brian Williams said after the call of the Golden State and Oregon and
Washington. Network anchors were starting to talk
about no winner being known on Tuesday night and instead a long wait until
states count the vote. “What we are getting is people are
sticking to their party lines for the most part,” said Joy Reid. UPDATE, 6:40
PM PT: Democrats will retain control of
the House of Representatives and expand their majority by at least five
seats, Fox News’ Decision Desk projected. The projection was made at 9:18 PM ET. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell easily won
reelection to another term in the Senate, but the question was whether he
would return as majority leader. Democrats saw their first Senate seat
slip of the night, as John Hickenlooper defeated Cory Gardner. So far, network coverage of the results
has been a big deep dive on data. On Fox News, Chris Wallace talked of
Trump’s lead in Florida and Biden’s underperformance among Hispanics. He
thinks that the president’s warning about socialism resonated with Cuban
Americans. “I think that had an impact,” Wallace
said. “I think just, you know, in the end, some people just feel more
comfortable with Donald Trump as the leader over the next four years than
with Joe Biden.” Attachment Four – also from Deadline Kanye West Gets 60,000 Votes For U.S.
President Across 12 States – Update By Tom
Tapp Deputy Managing Editor November 4, 2020 10:00am UPDATED with
latest: After a night of ballot
counting, Kanye West passed 60,000 votes in the race
for the presidency of the United States. West was on the ballot in 12 states.
His exact count, as of 10:30 a.m. PT Wednesday, was 60,761. Most of the states in question were
above 90% counted, with the notable exceptions of Colorado, Utah, Mississippi
and Vermont. Those were all above 70% counted. Kanye’s updated state-by-state breakdown
is as follows, according to the AP: Arkansas: 4,040 Tuesday,
midnight PT: While the TV networks were
laser-focused on the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, a good number
of social media users were focused on another candidate: Kanye West. West’s name was trending on Twitter
after the hip-hop superstar made a series of posts to his account chronicling
what he said was the first time he had ever voted in his
life. Kanye being Kanye, he cast his ballot for himself, of course. It’s safe to say at least 60,000
Americans voted for West, who ran as an Independent. While a few states were
still under 80% reported as of this writing, our count puts him at 59,781
total votes. Thus, it’s a pretty good guess he’ll go over 60,000 by the time
all states are fully counted. West’s biggest haul was in Tennessee,
where he garnered 10,188 votes. While the rap mogul did rank 4th in some
state races, his percentage of the vote was never more than .04%. About the time that Joe Biden made
his election night speech, Kanye tweeted what
seemed to be both a concession and an announcement writing, “Welp Kanye 2024.” WELP KANYE 2024 🕊 pic.twitter.com/tJOZcxdArb — ye (@kanyewest) November 4, 2020 West personally voted in Wyoming
where, according to The New
York Times, he has a ranch and spends much of his time. A video
he posted to social media shows he wrote in his own name on the ballot there.
The vote will not accrue to West unless he files additional paperwork,
however. Wyoming secretary of state spokeswoman
Monique Meese told MarketWatch that
the state counts such ballots as generic write-in votes unless the candidate wins
or unless they file paperwork and pay a fee to the state. According to Meese,
there had been no such filing as of late Tuesday. Candidate Kanye was on
the ballot in a dozen states, however. According to MarketWatch,
West asked voters to write in his name in California. But West reportedly
again missed the filing deadline to be a write-in candidate in in the state. Bizarrely, the American Independent
Party put him on the ballot as
its vice presidential candidate in California —-
without consulting Kanye. According to a Federal Election Commission filing, West raised $11.5 million through
mid-October. About $10.3 million of that, however, were loans made by the
candidate to his own campaign. Attachment
Five – from
the New York Times HOW TRUMP MANEUVERED HIS WAY OUT OF TROUBLE IN CHICAGO
By David Enrich, Russ Buettner, Mike McIntire and Susanne Craig ·
Published Oct. 27, 2020, Updated
Nov. 3, 2020 The financial crisis was in full
swing when Donald J. Trump traveled to Chicago in late
September 2008 to mark the near-completion of his 92-floor skyscraper. The fortunes of big companies, small
businesses and millions of Americans — including the Trumps — were in peril.
But the family patriarch was jubilant as he stood on the terrace of his
gleaming glass tower. “We’re in love with the building,” Mr.
Trump gushed. “We’re very, very happy with what’s
happened with respect to this building and how fast we put it up.” He and his family hoped the Trump
International Hotel & Tower would cement their company’s reputation as
one of the world’s marquee developers of luxury real estate.Instead,
the skyscraper became another disappointment in a portfolio filled with them.
Construction lagged. Condos proved hard to sell. Retail space sat vacant. Yet for Mr. Trump and his company, the
Chicago experience also turned out to be something else: the latest example
of his ability to strong-arm major financial institutions and exploit the tax code to cushion the blow of
his repeated business failures. The president’s federal income tax records, obtained by The New York
Times, show for the first time that, since 2010, his lenders have
forgiven about $287 million in debt that he failed to repay. The vast
majority was related to the Chicago project. How Mr. Trump found trouble in Chicago,
and maneuvered his way out of it, is a case study in doing business the Trump
way. When the project encountered problems, he
tried to walk away from his huge debts. For most individuals or businesses,
that would have been a recipe for ruin. But tax-return data, other records
and interviews show that rather than warring with a notoriously litigious and
headline-seeking client, lenders cut Mr. Trump slack — exactly what he seemed
to have been counting on. Big banks and hedge funds gave him years
of extra time to repay his debts. Even after Mr. Trump sued his largest
lender, accusing it of preying on him, the bank agreed to lend him another
$99 million — more than twice as much as was previously known — so that he
could pay back what he still owed the bank on the defaulted Chicago loan,
records show. Ultimately, Mr. Trump’s lenders forgave much
of what he owed. Those forgiven debts are now part of a
broader investigation of Mr. Trump’s business by the New York attorney
general. They normally would have generated a big tax bill, since the
Internal Revenue Service treats canceled debts as income. Yet as has often
happened in his long career, Mr. Trump appears to have paid almost no federal
income tax on that money, in part because of large losses in his other
businesses, The Times’s analysis of his tax records found. Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s
chief legal officer, said the company and Mr. Trump appropriately accounted
for and paid all taxes due on the forgiven debts. “These were all arm’s length transactions
that were voluntarily entered into between sophisticated parties many years ago
in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and the resulting
collapse of the real estate markets,” Mr. Garten said. On television back in those heady Chicago
days, the future president was playing a wildly successful real estate developer,
and the shimmering new skyscraper became part of that mystique. It was the biggest thing Mr. Trump ever
built. It was also the last. The Money Behind the Project
Since at
least the 1990s, Mr. Trump had dreamed of erecting a skyscraper in the Windy
City. “I had hoped to build something fantastic in Chicago for some time,” Mr. Trump would later write
in The Chicago Tribune. He
selected a riverside plot of land that was home to the squat, seven-floor
Sun-Times building. In 2001, he unveiled plans for
what would be the tallest high-rise built in the United States since the
110-story Sears Tower was completed in Chicago in 1973. The
Trump International Hotel & Tower would include 486 condominium units,
339 hotel rooms, restaurants, a bar, two parking garages, a health club, a
spa, and tens of thousands of square feet in retail space and conference
facilities. To pay
for the construction, Mr. Trump arranged for two of his L.L.C.s, 401 North
Wabash Venture — named for the project’s address — and its parent company,
401 Mezz Venture, to borrow more than $700 million. Mr. Trump
went to his longtime lender, Deutsche Bank, for the
bulk of the money. Since 1998, he had borrowed hundreds of millions of
dollars from the German bank. It had been so eager to establish a foothold in
the United States that it had overlooked his history of defaults. This
time, Mr. Trump assured Deutsche Bank officials, including
Justin Kennedy, the son of the now-retired Supreme Court justice Anthony
Kennedy, that the Chicago development was a guaranteed moneymaker. In a sign
of the Trump family’s commitment to the project, Mr. Trump told his bankers
that his daughter Ivanka would be in charge. (Mr.
Trump also appointed the 2004 winner of “The Apprentice” as the development’s “president.”) Deutsche
Bank agreed to lend $640 million to 401 North Wabash Venture. Mr. Trump
agreed to personally guarantee $40 million of the loan. If his L.L.C. were to
default, Deutsche Bank could collect that money directly from Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump
also went to Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund and private equity
company, for $130 million. This was
a so-called mezzanine loan, which meant that it would be repaid only after
the Deutsche Bank debt had been satisfied. Because of the greater risk, the
Fortress loan came with a double-digit interest rate. The agreement with
Fortress also required Mr. Trump’s 401 Mezz Venture
to pay a $49 million “exit fee” when it repaid the loan. If Mr. Trump
defaulted, his lenders could seize the building. Deutsche
Bank and Fortress both planned to chop up the loans and sell at least some of
the pieces. Deutsche Bank sold them mostly to American, European and Asian
banks, Fortress mostly to private equity and hedge funds, including Dune
Capital Management, which had recently been co-founded by Steven Mnuchin, the future Treasury secretary. The loans
were due in May 2008. By then, the proceeds from selling condos, hotel units
and parking spaces were projected to generate enough cash for Mr. Trump to
repay what he owed. Using a
thick black pen, Mr. Trump signed the loan agreements on Feb. 4, 2005. A
month later, construction began. Lenders Come Calling
Work on the project went more slowly than
planned, and the residential portion was still under construction as the
loans came due. With the financial crisis enveloping the
world, finding buyers for multimillion-dollar apartments suddenly became much
harder. In the spring of 2008, Mr. Trump asked Deutsche Bank to delay the
loan’s due date. The bank gave him an extra six months. In mid-September, the crisis crescendoed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.
Financial markets went haywire. The economy was on the precipice of a
depression. About a week later, Mr. Trump showed up
in Chicago for the ceremony to mark the skyscraper’s near-completion. After addressing the small crowd, Mr.
Trump and three of his adult children — Ivanka,
Donald Jr. and Eric — placed their hands in wet cement rectangles to
commemorate the day. “I don’t want to tell you what that feels like,” Mr.
Trump cracked, before waving his cement-caked hands for the cameras. At that point, at least 159 units in the
building were still unsold, and many more were under contract but hadn’t
closed, according to New York court records. That meant hundreds of millions
of dollars that Mr. Trump and his family had counted on to repay Deutsche
Bank and Fortress hadn’t yet materialized. And the loans were due in barely
six weeks. Mr. Trump sought another extension. This
time, Deutsche Bank said no. Mr. Trump’s company still owed Deutsche
Bank about $334 million in principal and interest, and Fortress $130 million,
not including interest and fees. Mr. Trump went on the offensive. In a
letter to Deutsche Bank on Nov. 4, he accused it of helping ignite the
financial crisis. This was important, because Mr. Trump went on to claim that
the crisis constituted a “force majeure” — an act of God, like a natural
disaster — that entitled him to extra time to repay the loans. A few days later, Mr. Trump and his
companies sued Deutsche Bank and Fortress, along with the other banks and
hedge funds that had purchased pieces of the loans. The suit accused Deutsche Bank of
engaging in “predatory lending practices” against Mr. Trump. He sought $3
billion in damages. Deutsche Bank soon filed its own lawsuit,
accusing its longtime client of being a habitual deadbeat and demanding
immediate repayment of the now-defaulted loans. Inside Deutsche Bank, angry executives
and lawyers vowed to never again do business with Mr. Trump, according to
senior executives. With the litigation pending (the parties
soon entered into a series of “standstill agreements” that paused
hostilities), the Trump family kept trying to find buyers for the condos. “As it nears completion, it’s time for
you to take your place in the one-of-a-kind Trump lifestyle this building
offers,” Ivanka Trump said in an April 2009 sales video.
“And you can be living it, right here, very soon.” Turning Unpaid Debt Into
Canceled Debt
Why didn’t the lenders seize the
building? Going to court to take over the
unfinished skyscraper promised to be a costly, yearslong
process, especially given Mr. Trump’s reputation for using the legal system
to drag out fights and grind down opponents. It seemed simpler to resolve the
dispute. On July 28, 2010, lawyers for Mr. Trump,
Deutsche Bank and Fortress notified the court
that they had reached a private settlement. The terms weren’t disclosed. But Mr. Trump’s federal tax returns, as
well as loan documents filed in Cook County, Ill., provide clues to what
happened: Mr. Trump was let off the hook for about $270 million. It was the
type of generous financial break that few American companies or individuals
could ever expect to receive, especially without filing for bankruptcy
protection. Before Mr. Trump defaulted, Fortress had
expected to receive more than $300 million from his company: the $130 million
in principal and roughly $185 million in anticipated interest and fees. But Fortress and its partners — including
Mr. Mnuchin’s Dune Capital, as well as Cerberus
Capital Management, whose co-chief executive, Stephen A. Feinberg, would
become a major Trump fund-raiser and go on to lead
a White House advisory panel — quickly realized they wouldn’t ever collect
that full amount. Ultimately, Fortress settled for $48
million, which Mr. Trump wired to the firm in March 2012, according to people
familiar with the deal. The forgiven debts showed up in Mr.
Trump’s tax returns. For 2010, Mr. Trump’s 401 Mezz
Venture reported about $181 million in canceled debts. Two years later, DJT
Holdings, an umbrella company that the Chicago project had been folded into,
reported that another $105 million of debt had been forgiven. Most of that
appears to reflect the unpaid Fortress sum. In many ways, it repeated a pattern that
had played out more than a decade earlier at Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City
casinos: a cycle of defaulting on debts and then
persuading already-burned lenders to cut him a break. The Last $99 Million
Mr. Trump’s companies got a pass on the
money they owed on the Deutsche Bank loan, too. The 2010 settlement gave Mr. Trump a
couple of years to sell hotel units, condos and parking spaces to repay that
loan, according to Steven R. Schlesinger, a lawyer who represented the Trump
Organization in the Chicago litigation. By 2012, the Trump Organization had
drummed up about $235 million to repay the financial institutions to whom
Deutsche Bank had sold pieces of the original loan. They included banks and
asset managers in the United States, Germany, Ireland and China, according to
court records. But Mr. Trump still owed $99 million,
according to people familiar with the debt. Where would he come up with that
money? Though Deutsche Bank had vowed to do no
more business with Mr. Trump, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, introduced him
to his personal wealth manager at the bank, Rosemary Vrablic.
Ms. Vrablic, with the support of her superiors,
soon agreed to restart the relationship with Mr. Trump. In 2012, Ms. Vrablic’s
division made two loans secured by the Chicago skyscraper: one for nearly $54
million, another for $45 million,
according to loan documents filed with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Mr.
Trump agreed to personally guarantee the new loans, according to several
people familiar with the deal. The funds were used to immediately repay
the $99 million that Mr. Trump still owed on the original Chicago loan, the
people said. In other words, one wing of Deutsche Bank was providing Mr.
Trump the money to repay another division of the same bank. The following spring, the Trump
Organization repaid $54 million, according to a person briefed on the matter
and Cook County records. That left $45
million outstanding. But in 2014, Deutsche Bank agreed to lend another $24
million on the property and to extend the due date until 2024, records show. Mr.
Trump now owed the bank $69 million. By May 2016, he had repaid the $24
million. At that time, the Chicago loans were only
one element of the relationship between Deutsche Bank and Mr. Trump. Ms. Vrablic’s team also lent Mr. Trump’s company $125 million
for work on his Doral golf resort in Florida and up to $170 million to
transform the Old Post Office building in Washington into a luxury hotel. Mr.
Trump personally guaranteed those loans, too. The guarantees were advantageous for him.
Because they counted as investments in his business for tax purposes, the
guarantees increased the amount of losses he could use to avoid income taxes
in the future. Mr. Trump’s federal tax returns show that he has personally
guaranteed the repayment of $421 million in debts. Most of that is on loans from Deutsche
Bank. At the end of 2018, Mr. Trump and his companies owed the bank $330
million. Whittling Down Tax Bills
The I.R.S. requires taxpayers to treat
forgiven debts as income when calculating what they owe in federal taxes. The
New York attorney general, Letitia James, is investigating whether Mr. Trump
followed the law. The tax records reviewed by The Times
show that while Mr. Trump accounted for $287 million of income from his
canceled debts, he managed to avoid paying income taxes on nearly all of it. Mr. Trump reported $40 million of
forgiven debt as income in 2010. But losses from his businesses — including
$30.8 million in red ink on the Chicago project — meant he had no taxable
income that year. Mr. Trump avoided immediate income taxes
on another $104.8 million of the forgiven loans in a way that could increase
his taxes later. He would generally have been entitled to write off the total
amount he spent on a building over a number of years, a process known as
depreciation. Instead, he agreed to reduce those eventual write-offs by
$104.8 million, an alternative allowed in tax law. For the other $141 million, Mr. Trump
took advantage of a law, passed after the 2008 financial crisis,
that allowed income from canceled debts to be deferred for five years
and then spread out over the next five. Each year from 2014 through 2018, Mr.
Trump declared $28.2 million of canceled-debt income. As it turned out, though, losses in other
parts of his business wiped out most of his federal tax bill on that income.
He paid nothing for 2014; $641,931 for 2015; and, after credits, only $750 a year for 2016 and 2017. It isn’t
clear how much he paid for 2018. Loans Coming Due
Like Mr. Trump’s other properties, the
Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago has benefited in some ways
from its connection to the president. Last year, for example, an aviation
company that was lobbying the Trump administration for contracting work held an event there. Mr. Trump attended an
October 2019 lunch fund-raiser at the hotel, which generated about $100,000
in revenue for his company, The Washington Post reported. But the skyscraper’s fortunes have
withered. Most of its retail space has never been occupied, The Real Deal reported
last year. Its revenue declined from $67 million in 2014 to $50 million in
2018, while profits plunged from $16.3 million to $1.8 million over the same
period. The problems intensified in 2020, as the
coronavirus forced restaurants, including Mr. Trump’s in Chicago, to close.
The Trump family sought financial relief from Deutsche Bank
among others. The bank offered to let Mr. Trump’s
companies pause interest payments on their loans. The Trump Organization
decided the bank’s proposal was insufficiently generous and turned it down. The loans come due in 2023 and 2024. Attachment
Six (a) – from
Pas de Merde DJI note: This blog is the apparent work
of one Michael Stevenson who describes himself as a “Francophone” and who has
collected various statements from celebrities across the globe and language
barriers. Here are a few samples – a
few of the more splenetic (and libelous) comments removed… it’s not hard to
figure out who Monsieur Stevenson supported.
(You can find many, many more here.) FOR BIDEN ”There’s no art in this White House. There’s no literature, no
poetry, no music. There are no pets in this White House. No loyal man’s best
friend, no Socks the family cat. There are no images of the first family
enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation: no Obamas on the
beach in Hawaii moments, or the Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport, no Reagans
on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on
the Cape. Where’d that country go? Where did all the fun, the joy and the
expression of love and happiness go? We used to have a president who calmed
and soothed a nation, instead of dividing it. We are now rudderless and
joyless. We have lost the cultural aspects of society that have always made
America great. We have lost our mojo, our fun, our happiness, our cheering on
of others— the shared experience of humanity that makes it all worth it. We
need to reclaim that country once again.” Dwayne Johnson, aka “The Rock” (was) a WWF champion and
wisely moved on from the steroid-rotten WWE to become a very successful
TV-Film actor. “The Rock” recently said, “I’ve voted for both parties in the
past. In this critical presidential election, I’m endorsing Joe Biden.” The distinguished Holy Cross graduate DR. ANTHONY
FAUCI is the most trusted medical professional in America, and with
good reason. When asked recently who the public can trust during the
pandemic, Fauci said Americans “can trust respected
medical authorities who have a track record of giving information and policy
and recommendations based on scientific evidence and good data.” Seems easy
enough, right? Yet that same day as Fauci’s
statement on trust, Twitter removed a tweet from Trump’s Covid
task force that “sought to undermine the importance of face masks because it
was in violation of the platform’s Covid-19 Misleading Information Policy.”
Phew! “Just remember: Joe Biden goes to church so regularly that he
does not even need tear gas and a bunch of federalized troops to help him get
there.” JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS. POPE FRANCIS recently attacked unfettered capitalism as “a new
tyranny.” His recent writings are seen as a pointed rebuke to Donald Trump in
a number of areas, including immigration, systemized racism, and climate
change denial. And how about this one: “A person who thinks only of building
walls and not building bridges is not Christian.” Who is he talking about
here – Hunter Biden or Hillary? MARK CUBAN, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. whose
net worth Forbes estimates to be $4.3 billion, said he believes in Joe Biden
for President “one hundred percent.” Of Trump he says, “Personally I don’t have a problem with the
guy, but professionally, and as the president, I think he’s an idiot.”
“If Trump was a Maine guy in my little town, we’d say, “What a
dink.” Horror whiter Stephen King – “You’ve got a decent
man vs. a hulking, loudmouth bully with no specific plans on anything. If Trump was a Maine guy in my little town,
we’d say, “What a dink.” “Most governments take
advantage of their scientists and listen to them. They don’t undermine them
and attack them.” - Microsoft founder BILL GATES “(I)t is always much, much better to
talk to one another and not about one another”. However, she was said to be
thinking in German “Ich habe
Mist gebaut,” which roughly translates “He
builds animal dung” - ANGELA MERKEL Retired U.S. Army General PAUL EATON criticized
President Trump for his disparaging comments about dead and wounded U.S.
service members. Trump allegedly called U.S. service members buried in a
French cemetery “losers.” The report also said Trump asked a military parade
to exclude wounded veterans because “nobody wants to see” amputees. Trump’s sister, MARYANN TRUMP BARRY, is heard
criticizing her brother Donald in a secret tape recording, saying her brother
Donald “has no principles.” “And he’s as tight as a duck’s ass. Just like dad
was, really,” FOR TRUMP As well as performing music, TED NUGENT serves on the Board of Directors of the NRA. “I own
many guns,” he says proudly. “I carry many guns. I shoot many guns. I fondle
many guns. I caress many guns. I worship many guns.” An unapologetic racist, Nugent once called President Obama a
“subhuman mongrel.” One of Nugent’s songs is entitled “Jailbait.” Here’s the
lyrics: “Well, I don’t care if you’re
just 13 Nugent has played his music at many official Republican events
and Trump rallies, and was even invited to the White House. Imagine that. In 2018, WWE chairman VINCE
MCMAHON had a net worth reaching nearly $4 billion. Thank the Lord for
illegal steroids, eh Vince? Trump is a longtime friend of McMahon, and once
famously shaved McMahon’s head in stunt at WrestleMania event. Think anyone
every paid a buck to watch Dwight Eisenhower shave somebody else’s head – or
even his own? Nah. In 2016, Trump nominated McMahon’s wife Linda to head his Small
Business Admin. Linda has since stepped down from that post to work full-time
on Trump’s reelection. Trump’s favorite Covid doctor, Dr.
STELLA GRACE IMMANUEL promoted hydroxychloroquine
as a Covid miracle cure. (IMPORTANT NOTE: Ingesting
hydroxychloroquine is extremely dangerous. DO NOT
DO THIS) Dr. Immanuel also alleges space alien DNA is currently used in
medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent
people from being religious. Hell, I don’t need a vaccine to skip
church on Sunday, doc! Dr. Immanuel was recently sued for medical malpractice over
the death of one of her patients. “You don’t need masks.” She claimed. “There
is a cure.” REV. JERRY FALWELL JR. This fundamentalist Christian chawmouth
and loyal Trumpist was recently fired from his
billion dollar cashew Liberty University. Seems Falwell was having a sexual
affair involving him, his wife and a pool boy. Mainly, Falwell liked to watch
(and not the TV, Chauncy Gardner fans). Billionaire casino mogul SHELDON ADELSON and
his physician wife, Miriam, poured a whopping $75 million into a super PAC to
reelect Trump. As a somewhat younger guy, Adelson probably knelt to Chinese
mob boss Cheung Chi Tai, who was said to be “actively involved” in running
one of Adelson’s VIP rooms at the Sands Macau. Adelson’s mob-ties revelations came to light after his CEO
Steven Jacobs testified in federal court, or as Adelson put it, went
“squealing like a pig to the government.” (Actual quote). Why is WAYNE NEWTON
voting for Trump? “I like Trump because he talks like a guy,” SCOTT BAIO who
played the character named “Chachi” John Lyden, aka JOHNNY
ROTTEN calls Trump “the only sensible choice” in the 2020 election.
And Biden? “He’s incapable of being the man at the helm.” Infact, in
an NPR interview, Lydon called
Trump “absolutely magnificent.” Of course, Lydon
was the man at the helm who sang, “I am an anti-Christ.” HANK WILLIAMS JR. “Basically fell in love with Trump” because they both share a kindred
hatred for President Barack Obama. Hank once said: “We’ve got a Muslim
president who hates farming, hates the military, hates
the United States of America! And we hate him!” MARTIN SHKRELI , also known online as “Pharma Bro“, is a former
hedge fund manager and convicted felon who hiked by 5,000 percent the price
of Daraprim, a drug used to treat severe infections
in AIDS patients and infants. Phrama Bro supports Trump, calling him “a dream for
business people like me. I think Trump’s going to make Pharma great again.” “He’s the right man for
the job. I’ve been saying that for a long time.” Johnson has called gay men
‘tank-topped bumboys’ and black people
‘piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’. - Britain’s Prime Minister (and Trump’s brother-in-plague) BORIS JOHNSON “Biden is evil,” JON
VOIGHT (“Midnight Cowboy”, “Ray Donovan”) says. “Trump must win. He will
bring back the people’s trust. These leftists are not for the American
people; it’s the biggest cover-up ever.” General WILLIAM LOONEY III - “With the
Democratic Party welcoming socialists and Marxists, our historic way of life
is at stake.” Attachment Six (b) – ENDORSEMENTS from Wikipedia and various
sources (see more here) Daily newspapers
Weekly newspapers
College and university
newspapers
Magazines
1.
^ This was Scientific American's first-ever
endorsement in a presidential race. 2.
^ This was Surfer Magazine's first-ever
endorsement in a presidential race. 3.
^ The editor of the Washington Examiner, Seth
Mandel, separately stated that he would not vote for Trump.[1] Scientific journals
1.
^ This
was The New England Journal of Medicine's first-ever opinion on a
presidential race in its 208-year history. (As it is owned by the
non-profit Massachusetts Medical Society, it cannot legally endorse
specific candidates for office.) Foreign periodicals
Online news outlets
Attachment
Six (C) – More Celebrities for Trump from Wiki Businesspeople Miriam
Adelson, philanthropist, doctor and wife of Sheldon
Adelson[36] Sheldon
Adelson, founder and chairman of the Las Vegas
Sands Corporation[36] Ronnie
Barrett, gun manufacturer and CEO of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing[361] Jordan
Belfort, former stockbroker, convicted felon, author of The Wolf of Wall Street and
motivational speaker[362] Wayne
Berman, businessman and senior managing director for government
relations at The Blackstone Group[36] Herman Cain,
businessman, former Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and
former 2000 and 2012 Republican
presidential candidate (Deceased)[363] John Catsimatidis,
chairman and CEO of Gristedes[364] Safra Catz, banker and CEO of Oracle Corporation[365] Larry
Ellison, business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, founder
of Oracle Corporation[366] Marjorie Taylor Greene, businesswoman,
conspiracy theorist and Republican nominee for Georgia's 14th congressional
district[367] Harold Hamm,
oil and gas tycoon[368] Suhail A. Khan, director of external affairs
at Microsoft[369] Shalabh Kumar, industrialist[370] Jimmy Lai,
British Hong Kong entrepreneur and founder
of Giordano, Next
Digital and Apple Daily[371] Mike
Lindell, founder and CEO of My Pillow[372] Nick Loeb,
businessman and son of John Langeloth Loeb Jr.[263] Bernard
Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot[373] Wendy McCaw,
businesswoman and owner of Santa Barbara News-Press[374] Tom
Monaghan, entrepreneur, founder of Domino's
Pizza[8] Arte Moreno,
CEO of Outdoor Systems and owner of the Los Angeles Angels[375] Prem Parameswaran, President of Eros International’s North American
operations[369] Brock
Pierce, director of the Bitcoin Foundation, former
actor (rescinded endorsement to start his own campaign)[376] Andy Puzder, former CEO of CKE
Restaurants[377] Eddie Rispone, businessman and Republican candidate
for the 2019 Louisiana gubernatorial
election[187] Stephen
Ross, owner of the Miami
Dolphins and chairman of The Related Companies[378] Larry Rubin,
Mexican-American businessman and President of The American Society of Mexico[379] John Schnatter, founder and former CEO of Papa John's Pizza[380] Peter Thiel,
entrepreneur, president of Clarium Capital and
co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies[381] Dana White,
businessman and President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship[382][383] Celebrities,
producers, and musicians 50 Cent,
rapper, songwriter and actor (switched endorsement to Biden)[384][385][386] 6ix9ine,
rapper, songwriter, and convicted felon[387] Trace
Adkins, country music singer[388] Kirstie
Alley, actress[389] Samaire Armstrong,
actress[390] Scott Baio, actor[389][391] Stephen
Baldwin, actor and political activist[389][392] Roseanne
Barr, actress, comedian[389][393] Jim Breuer,
comedian and actor[394] Jonathan
Cain, musician, singer and keyboardist for Journey[396] Rachel Campos-Duffy, television
personality and host[397] Eric Carmen,
musician[398] Stacey Dash,
actress[399] Robert Davi, actor, singer[400] Asian Doll,
rapper[401] John Dolmayan, drummer and songwriter[402] Polow da Don, record producer and rapper[403] Jana Duggar, reality TV personality[404] Pete Evans,
Australian chef, author and TV presenter[405] Ace Frehley, musician, songwriter and co-founder
of the rock band, Kiss[406] Kelsey Grammer, actor, director, and producer[407][408] Michale Graves, singer and songwriter[409] Lee
Greenwood, country singer[410] Namrata Singh Gurjal, director, producer and actor[411] Rick
Harrison, reality TV personality[412] Mary Hart,
former host of Entertainment Tonight[413][414] Elisabeth Hasselbeck, retired TV
personality and talk show host[415] Kalani Hilliker, actress,
model and dancer[416] Kaya Jones,
singer, model[157] Lady MAGA,
drag queen[418][419] Lorenzo
Lamas, actor[420][421] Lil Pump,
rapper, singer and songwriter[422] Lil Wayne,
rapper, songwriter and actor[423] Brandi Love,
pornographic actress[424] Carol
McGiffin, British TV presenter[425] Lila Morillo, Venezuelan actress and singer[426][427] Lillibeth Morillo,
Venezuelan singer and songwriter[427][428] Patricia Navidad, Mexican singer and actress[429] Ted Nugent,
singer-songwriter and conservative political activist[430][431] Chonda Pierce, comedian[157] Elizabeth Pipko, model, author and founder of Jexodus[432] Carrie
Prejean, model and former beauty queen[433] Randy Quaid,
actor[417] Phil
Robertson, reality TV personality on Duck
Dynasty[434] Willie
Robertson, reality TV personality on Duck
Dynasty and CEO of Duck
Commander[399] Kid Rock,
singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer[389] Liliana Rodríguez, Venezuelan singer and
songwriter[427][435] Johnny
Rotten, lead singer of Sex Pistols[436][437] Antonio Sabŕto Jr.,
actor[438] Yaakov Shwekey, Orthodox
Jewish singer[439] Andre
Soriano, reality television star, fashion designer[6] Kevin Sorbo, actor[440] Steve Souza,
vocalist and lead singer for Exodus[441] Ben Stein,
actor, comedian, writer and lawyer[442] Michael
Sweet, vocalist and guitarist for Stryper[443] Michael
Tait, lead singer of Newsboys[444] Carolina Tejera, Venezuelan model and actress[428][445] Jason Tom,
human beatbox music artist[446] Travis Tritt, singer, songwriter, and actor[447] Eduardo Verástegui,
actor and singer[429] Tommy Vext, heavy metal singer[448] Joy Villa,
singer and songwriter[449] Jon Voight,
actor[389][450] Waka Flocka Flame,
rapper[451] Isaiah Washington, actor[452][453][454] Kanye West,
rapper and entrepreneur (rescinded endorsement to start his own campaign)[455] James Woods,
actor and producer[456][457] Chuck
Woolery, former game show host and talk show host[407] Athletes
and coaches Ali Abdelaziz, Egyptian mixed martial arts manager[458] Lanny
Barnes, biathlete[361] Todd Bertuzzi, former professional ice hockey
player[459] Bobby
Bowden, retired college football coach for the Florida State Seminoles football
team[460] Jack Brewer,
former National Football League player[461] Jim Brown,
former fullback for
the Cleveland Browns[462] Henry Cejudo, Olympic
medalist in freestyle wrestling and
retired mixed martial artist[463] Don Cherry,
retired Canadian professional hockey player, National Hockey League coach and
sports commentator[464] Bob Cousy, retired professional basketball player[465] Colby
Covington, professional mixed martial artist[466] Jay Cutler,
former professional football player[467] John Daly, professional golfer[468] Johnny
Damon, former Major League Baseball player[469] Mike Ditka,
retired NFL coach[470] Road Dogg, retired WWE wrestler[471] Brett Favre,
former professional football player[472] Justin Gaethje, professional mixed martial artist[473] Sean Gilmartin, Major League Baseball player[474] Jake Hager,
professional mixed martial artist, current AEW and former WWE wrestler[475] Timmy Hill,
professional stock car racing driver[476] Lou Holtz,
former football player, coach, and analyst[477] Ginger
Howard, professional golfer[157] Aubrey Huff,
former Major League Baseball player[478] Chris
Jericho, current AEW and former WWE wrestler[479] Don King, boxing promoter[480] Corey LaJoie, professional stock car
racing driver[399] Carl Long,
professional stock car racing driver and owner
of MBM Motorsports[476] Conor McGregor, retired professional mixed martial artist[481] Jorge Masvidal, professional mixed martial artist[482][483] Jack
Nicklaus, retired professional golfer[484] Greg Norman,
Australian professional golfer and entrepreneur[485] Ed Orgeron, head football coach at Louisiana State University[486] Bobby Orr,
former professional ice hockey player[487] Tito Ortiz,
professional mixed martial artist[488] Burgess
Owens, retired football player and 2020 Republican nominee for
the U.S. House in Utah’s 4th district[489] Maurkice Pouncey, National Football League player[490] Kim Rhode, Olympic
medalist in double trap[361] Mariano
Rivera, former baseball pitcher for the New York
Yankees[491] Dan Rodimer, former professional wrestler and
Republican nominee for Nevada's 3rd congressional district in
the 2020
elections[492] Curt
Schilling, former professional baseball pitcher[493] Quinn
Simmons, cyclist[494] Darryl Strawberry, former professional Major League Baseball player[495] Kurt Suzuki,
baseball catcher for the Washington Nationals[496] Tommy
Tuberville, former football player, coach, and 2020 Republican
U.S. Senate Nominee in Alabama[497] Mike Tyson,
former professional boxer[498] Herschel
Walker, former professional football player[499] David Wells,
former professional baseball pitcher[500] Joe West, Major League Baseball umpire[501] Activists
and public figures Scott Adams,
cartoonist and creator of the comic strip Dilbert (previously
unendorsed Trump)[502] Baked Alaska, neo-Nazi,
anti-semitic conspiracy theorist and social media
personality[503] Mor Altshuler, Israeli
scholar and author[504] A.D. Amar,
scholar, researcher and management professor at Seton Hall University[505] Christopher R. Barron, cofounder of GOProud[6] Maria Bartiromo, television personality and author,
former host of Closing Bell[506] Glenn Beck,
conservative political commentator, radio host, television producer,
conspiracy theorist[failed verification][507] Kaitlin
Bennett, conservative and gun rights activist[508] Lauren Boebert, businesswoman, gun-rights activist,
and 2020 Republican nominee for the U.S. House for Colorado's 3rd district[509] Dan Bongino, conservative activist, radio host,
and former Secret Service agent[510] Deneen Borelli, conservative author, radio and
television personality, columnist[169] Peter
Boykin, political commentator and founder of Gays for
Trump[511] Tammy Bruce,
radio host and political commentator[512] Jon Caldara,
libertarian activist and President of Independence Institute[513] Allan C.
Carlson, former professor at Hillsdale College and President Emeritus
of the Howard
Center for Family, Religion and Society[514] Tucker
Carlson, political commentator and host of Tucker Carlson Tonight[515] Madison Cawthorn, Republican nominee for North Carolina's 11th congressional
district in the 2020
elections[516] Chen Guangcheng, Chinese civil rights activist[517] Piers Corbyn, meteorologist and conspiracy theorist[518] Steven
Crowder, American-Canadian conservative political commentator,
YouTuber and comedian[519] Marjorie Dannenfelser,
president of the Susan B. Anthony List[8] Paris
Dennard, conservative political speaker[169] John
Derbyshire, writer, computer programmer and journalist[520] Lou Dobbs,
television commentator, opponent of immigration, conspiracy theorist and
radio show host[521] Dinesh
D'Souza, far-right political author, filmmaker, and conspiracy
theorist[522] Larry Elder,
conservative radio host and attorney[523] Boris Epshteyn, political strategist[41] Tarek Fatah,
Pakistani-Canadian journalist and author[524] Edwin Feulner, activist, founder and former
president of The Heritage Foundation[23] Nick
Fuentes, far-right political commentator, podcaster and white
nationalist[525] James Freeman, journalist, author and
assistant editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal[506] Brigitte
Gabriel, author, anti-Islam activist and founder of ACT! for
America[526] Duncan
Garner, New Zealand journalist and radio host[527] Rick Gates, political
consultant, lobbyist and convicted felon[528] Pamela
Geller, anti-Muslim and far-right political activist and
commentator, blogger, birther, and conspiracy theorist[529] Madison Gesiotto, conservative commentator, columnist,
figure skater, model, beauty queen[157] Bernard
Goldberg, journalist and political pundit[530][531] David P.
Goldman, economist and music critic[532] Alan
Gottlieb, conservative activist and gun rights advocate[361] Thomas Glessner, lawyer and president of the National
Institute of Family and Life Advocates[263] Kimberly Guilfoyle,
prosecutor, television news personality, senior advisor for Donald Trump 2020 presidential
campaign, partner of Donald
Trump Jr., and First Lady of San
Francisco (2004–2006)[533] Greg Gutfeld, television producer, commentator,
author, editor and comedian, host of The Greg Gutfeld Show (Libertarian)[534] Sean
Hannity, talk show host and conservative political commentator,
host of Hannity and
talk radio show The Sean Hannity Show[535] Hugh Hewitt,
radio show host and attorney[536][537] Steve
Hilton, political commentator and former British political advisor[538] Thomas
Homan, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement and Fox News contributor[5] Katie
Hopkins, British political commentator and columnist[539][540] David
Horowitz, conservative activist and author[541] Hu Xijin, Chinese journalist and editor for
the Global Times[542] Charles
Hurt, journalist, author and political commentator[543] Stella
Immanuel, American-Cameroonian physician and pastor[544] Laura
Ingraham, radio host and host of The Ingraham Angle[545] Niger Innis,
activist, politician[169] Scott
Jennings, conservative commentator[546] Abby Johnson, anti-abortion activist,
former clinic director at Planned Parenthood[547] Alice Marie Johnson, criminal justice reform advocate
and former federal prisoner (sentence commuted in June 2018 by Trump and then
granted full pardon in August 2020)[69] Benny Johnson, political columnist,
chief creative officer at Turning Point USA, former editor at BuzzFeed[548] Alex Jones,
far-right radio show host, political extremist and conspiracy theorist[549] Jason Jones, film
producer, anti-abortion activist[8] Robert J. Kabel, lawyer, lobbyist[6] Keemstar, YouTube personality[550] Charlie Kirk, founder and leader
of Turning Point USA[551] Kimberly Klacik, 2020 Republican nominee for the U.S. House for Maryland's 7th district[552] Sergiu Klainerman, mathematician and
professor of mathematics at Princeton University[553] Andrew Klavan, conservative commentator[554] Michael I. Krauss, professor of law at George Mason University[555] Amy Kremer, Tea Party activist and co-founder
for Women for Trump[556] Bob Kroll, president of the Police
Officers Federation of Minneapolis[557] Chris LaCivita, political consultant[558] Tomi Lahren,
conservative political commentator and former television host[559] Bryan Leib, conservative political commentator and
activist[560] Leonard Leo,
lawyer, conservative activist[19] Mark Levin,
lawyer and radio host of The Mark Levin Show[561] Corey Lewandowski, lobbyist and political
commentator[41] JT Lewis, gun rights activist[562] David
Limbaugh, political commentator and author[563][564] Rush
Limbaugh, political commentator and host of the radio show The Rush Limbaugh Show[565][566] Scott
Lively, anti-gay activist and President of
the Abiding Truth Ministries[567] Laura Loomer, conspiracy theorist, far-right political
activist and Republican nominee for Florida's 21st congressional district in
2020[568] Jeffrey
Lord, political commentator and strategist[569] Gina Loudon,
conservative media personality[157] Patrick Lynch, President
of the Police
Benevolent Association of the City of New York[570] Kevin MacDonald, retired
professor of psychology at California State University, Long
Beach and conspiracy theorist[571] Theodore
Roosevelt Malloch, professor of strategic
leadership and governance at the Henley Business School[572] David Mamet,
playwright and screenwriter[573] Taylor
Marshall, Catholic apologist, writer, former academic, online
content producer[8] Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots[574] Mary
Matalin, political consultant (Libertarian)[8] Andrew C. McCarthy, attorney and
columnist[575] Gavin McInnes, Canadian far-right political commentator and
founder of Proud Boys[576] Carolyn D. Meadows, conservative
activist and president of the National Rifle Association[577] Mary Ann
Mendoza, Angel
mother and anti-semitic conspiracy
theorist[578] Eric
Metaxas, conservative radio host and author[579] Michael the Black Man, conservative
activist[580][581] Jason Miller,
communications strategist and political advisor[41] Peter Morici, economist and retired professor of
international business at the University of Maryland, College
Park[582] Steven W.
Mosher, social scientist, anti-abortion activist, President of
the Population Research Institute[8] Deroy Murdock, political commentator[23] Mario
Murillo, author and journalist[583] Douglas Murray, author, journalist and
political commentator.[584] Paul Murray, Australian radio and TV
presenter[585] Troy Newman, anti-abortion activist and
President of Operation Rescue[586] Malik Obama,
half-brother of Barack Obama[587] Bill O'Reilly, journalist,
author and former television host, former host of The O'Reilly Factor (Independence)[588] Alexander
Otaola, YouTube personality, activist for democratic change and
human rights in Cuba[589] Candace
Owens, conservative commentator and political activist[590][591] George Papadopoulos, convicted felon and
former member of the foreign policy advisory panel to Donald
Trump's 2016 presidential campaign[592] Sudhir M. Parikh, Indian-American doctor[593] Brad Parscale, political advisor and digital
consultant[594] C. J.
Pearson, political activist[595][596] Liz Peek,
conservative commentator and business analyst[597] Charlotte Pence Bond, writer and
daughter of Mike Pence[598] Karen Pence,
schoolteacher, painter, Second Lady of the United States (2017–present),
and wife of Mike Pence[599] Austin
Petersen, radio host, political commentator and 2016 Libertarian
candidate for president[600] Katrina
Pierson, Tea Party activist and
communications consultant, national spokesperson for the Donald Trump 2016 presidential
campaign[601] Everett
Piper, former President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University[602] Daniel
Pipes, historian, writer and President of the Middle East Forum[530][603] Andrew
Pollack, author, school safety activist, entrepreneur, father
of Meadow Pollack[604] Jon Ponder,
thrice-convicted bank robber, founder of the Hope for Prisoners program[3] Tim Pool, YouTube personality
and political commentator[605] Janet
Porter, anti-abortion activist[606] Jack Posobiec, alt-right political
activist and conspiracy theorist[607] Juan D.
Reyes, Republican politician, attorney[190] Chanel Rion, broadcaster, political cartoonist and
children's book author, Chief White House correspondent for OAN[608] Geraldo
Rivera, journalist, attorney, author, political commentator, and
former host of Geraldo (also endorses Kanye West)[609] Rick Roberts, radio host[610] Wayne Allyn
Root, conservative activist, radio host and the Libertarian Party's vice
presidential nominee for the 2008 presidential elections[611] Joel C. Rosenberg, American-Israeli author[612] Dave Rubin,
political commentator and host of The Rubin
Report[613] Austin Ruse,
conservative activist and President of the Center for Family and Human Rights[614] Joey Salads, YouTube personality,
and prankster[615] Manny Sethi, physician and orthopedic trauma surgeon[616] Ben Shapiro,
editor-at-large of The Daily Wire[617][618][619] Sampat Shivangi,
physician[369] Fred Siegel,
senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy
Research and history professor at Cooper
Union[620] Diamond and
Silk, live-stream video bloggers, social media personalities and
political activists[621][622] Vanila Singh, physician, professor[369] Robert B. Spencer, anti-Muslim author and
blogger[623] Todd
Starnes, conservative columnist, commentator and radio host[624] Roger Stone,
conservative political consultant, lobbyist, and convicted felon[625] (Granted
pardon by Trump in July 2020) Marsha Petrie Sue, author, public speaker,
motivational coach[626] Cheryl Sullenger, anti-abortion activist and Vice
President of Operation Rescue[627] Carol M.
Swain, conservative television analyst[169] Enrique Tarrio, businessman, chairman of the far-right
organization Proud Boys and Florida state director of
the grassroots organization
Latinos for Trump[628][629] Jared
Taylor, white
supremacist and founder of American Renaissance[630] Leo Terrell,
civil rights attorney and talk radio host[631] (Democrat) Randall
Terry, anti-abortion activist and founder
of Operation Rescue[632] Clay Travis,
sports journalist[633] Donald
Trump Jr., businessman, former reality television personality and
son of Donald Trump[634] Eric Trump,
businessman, former reality television personality and son of Donald Trump[634] Lara Trump,
former television producer, senior advisor for the Donald Trump 2020 presidential
campaign and daughter-in-law of Donald Trump[635] Melania Trump, former model,
businesswoman, First Lady of the United States (2017–present),
and wife of Donald Trump[636] Tiffany
Trump, socialite and daughter of Donald Trump[634] Michael Voris, Catholic author
and apologist[637] Wang Dan, Chinese dissident and
democracy activist, student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests[638][639] Wang Juntao, Chinese dissident and democracy
activist, student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests[639] Jesse
Watters, conservative political
commentator, co-host of The Five Conservative (N.Y.)[640] Liz Wheeler,
conservative political commentator[641] Bill White, former president of
the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space
Museum[6] Jacob Wohl, far-right conspiracy theorist,
fraudster, and internet troll[642] Milo Yiannopoulos, far-right political
commentator, polemicist, public speaker and writer[643] Erica Yuen,
Hong Kong politician, political activist, businesswoman, actress, presenter
and former beauty queen[644] Marc Zell,
Israeli-American lawyer and Vice President of Republican Overseas[332][645 Attachment
Seven (A) – from the Los Angeles Times Column: What are you thinking, America? By Robin AbcarianColumnist
Nov. 4, 2020 3:15 AM
Four
years ago, on election night, I was happily working in San Francisco at a victory
party for Proposition 64, which legalized recreational cannabis in
California. It
was also supposed to be the night of Hillary Clinton’s historic victory.
Those of us in the crowd stood with our mouths agape as an election needle
moved dramatically from the blue “Hillary Clinton wins” side to the red
“Donald Trump wins.” I
will never forget that sinking feeling and like a lot of Americans, I have
never really recovered from the shock of his win. It
wasn’t just that the intellectual equivalent of a carnival barker trailing
bankruptcies and lawsuits like Charles Schulz’s Pigpen trailed dirt had
prevailed. It was his vulgarity, his disrespect for anyone and everything. How
could Trump’s message of hatred and division, and his fantastical lies about
reviving the industrial Midwest — including the coal industry — have
resonated deeply enough with the electorate to send this unqualified,
intellectually incurious reality star to the White House? I
blame a racial backlash that dates to our first Black president, Barack
Obama, but I also blame the arrogance of the technocratic ideology embraced
by Democrats like the Clintons and Obama: We know your factory is closing,
but just believe us — with a little retraining, you’ll be building
electricity-generating windmills in no time! Trump’s
2016 victory taught us so much about ourselves; about the corroded soul of
this country, about how easy it is for an ideologue to summon and exploit the
worst angels of our nature. It showed us how easy it is to pit American
against American, and America against the world. It showed us that the
changing demographic of this country — white people have long known they will
be in the minority by around the middle of this century — has created a toxic
kind of anxiety that will be with us for some time to come. I
have been riding a roller coaster of emotion. Despite weeks of warnings from
political analysts that the race may not be decided for days, every switch on
the leaderboard has me jumping out of my skin. Trump is up, Trump is down;
Biden is up, Biden is down. I
had to turn off the television at least 20 times on election night, and the
outcome is still uncertain. Donald
Trump did not invent the ugliness and toxicity that has inflamed the country
since his election, but he unleashed it, encouraged it and thrived on it.
Trump voters are by no means all racists, but they have all voted for someone
who is. I
hardly think it’s mere coincidence that the Black
Lives Matter and #MeToo movements took flight
during his first, and I hope only, term. If the presidency is a bully pulpit,
Trump has used it to shout his unsubtle racism, sexism and xenophobia to an
all-too-willing congregation. It’s
a strategy that has a built-in expiration date. It’s just not clear exactly
at this moment when that will be. Eight
years ago, after Republicans were stung by Mitt Romney’s loss to President
Obama, it seemed that a reckoning for the GOP was nigh. In a post-mortem
coordinated by then-GOP National Chairman Reince Priebus, the party
acknowledged the country’s shifting demographics, and vowed to do better to
attract people of color, gay voters and others disenfranchised by
conservative policies. “The
Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself,” the authors wrote. “We
have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded
people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or
welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue. Instead of
driving around in circles on an ideological cul-de-sac, we need a party whose
brand of conservatism invites and inspires new people to visit us.” The
rise of Trump and Trumpism blotted out that moment
of clarity, and Priebus went on to become, briefly, Trump’s chief of staff. What
the GOP has become in the last four years is a party of white grievance and
isolation with so little respect for reality and science that its leader has
effectively become the head of a death cult. I’m not joking; Stanford
University economists concluded last week that Trump’s rallies resulted in
more than 30,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and likely caused more than 700
deaths among people who attended and their close contacts. “The
communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of
disease and death,” the economists wrote. All because people insisted on
ignoring the advice of doctors to wear masks, social distance and avoid large
gatherings. And
the pandemic rages on. The death toll stands at 232,000, and counting. Our
children can’t go to school, we can’t work in our offices. The economy
continues to suffer, millions remain out of work and most Americans say that
efforts to contain the virus are going badly. Our public health officials —
the most prominent of whom Trump has threatened to fire if he wins — warn
that the worst spike is yet to come. Given
such negligence, that Trump would be rewarded with a second term seems
inconceivable to me right now. I’m
not yet willing to concede that Trump has won a second term, but even if
Biden wins, the Democrats better be prepared to face a reckoning of their
own. In an America that lives up to its ideals, the 2020 presidential race
could never have been this close. ·
Robin Abcarian is an opinion columnist at the Los Angeles Times.
She writes about news, politics and culture. Her columns appear on Wednesday
and Sunday. Twitter: @AbcarianLAT Attachment
Seven (B) – also from the L.A. Times WILL ‘HIDDEN’ TRUMP SUPPORTERS
GIVE AMERICA AN ELECTION DAY SURPRISE? By PETER K.
ENNS AND JONATHON P. SCHULDT OCT.
15, 2020 4 AM Donald Trump and many of his backers insist that current polls underestimate
his reelection chances because many Trump voters are not revealing their
support. As in 2016, the argument goes, “shy” or “hidden” Trump supporters
will turn out in sufficient numbers on election day and make Trump the
winner. The public seems to agree.
A recent Gallup poll shows that 56% of Americans think
President Trump will win, while just 40% think Democrat Joe Biden will win.
Yet, most election analysts say that the undeclared Trump voter did not exist in significant numbers in 2016 and does not exist now. Our research, however, shows that this group was big
enough in 2016 to affect the surveys done in the weeks prior to Trump’s
election. But it also suggests that 2020 is a different situation. While
Trump could do better on Nov. 3 than current polls suggest, we have found no
evidence of hidden Trump supporters this time around. In 2016, we, like other
analysts, didn’t find “shy” Trump supporters — voters who had decided to vote
for Trump but intentionally concealed that from pollsters — but there was
more to the story. A meaningful portion of
Trump supporters that year could be better described as hidden, not shy. For
all intents and purposes, these voters had made up their minds, but they
continued to deliberate. This is a common experience when we make decisions.
When we have some time before we must commit, we typically continue to weigh
the pros and cons “just to be sure.” You can see this with high school
seniors who start wearing the T-shirt of their future college, but haven’t
yet mailed the deposit check, or with restaurant customers who can’t decide
on an entree and then ask to order last only to make the predictable choice. The same process operated
among an important segment of Trump voters in 2016. These were mostly moderate Republicans who had effectively
decided but, perhaps because of Trump’s many controversies, felt slightly unsure and continued to
express uncertainty instead of indicating that they planned to vote for
Trump. In October 2016, we conducted two national surveys that asked, “If
you HAD to choose, which presidential candidate do you
find to be more truthful: Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?” Not surprisingly,
those who said they were voting for Clinton thought Clinton was more
truthful, and those who said they were voting for Trump thought Trump was
more truthful. But a sizable portion of
the respondents did not say whether they intended to vote for Trump or
Clinton. For these “undecideds,” the truthfulness question gave a good
indication of where they had settled: They leaned strongly toward Trump. In fact, using responses
to the “truthful” question as a measure of candidate support brought the
results from both October surveys to within 1% of the final vote. Some have
suggested these voters were late deciders. But if they were truly undecided, we would
expect them to support Clinton about as often as Trump. Instead, even by
early October, we were able to detect their support for Trump. Even though the final national polls ended up being quite accurate in
2016, our data suggest that these hidden supporters would have given Trump
about a 2% bump in the earlier October polls if they had been included. Will history repeat
itself? We believe the answer is no. First, nearly all survey
respondents are currently indicating their vote intention. According to a recent CNN poll, only 3% of respondents did not
indicate support for either Biden or Trump. By contrast, a similarly timed CNN poll in 2016 had 14% not
indicating support for Clinton or Trump. Second, in a recent survey conducted by Reality Check
Insights, we randomly assigned half of the respondents the truthfulness
question we used in 2016 (updated to Biden and Trump), while half of the
respondents got a new question: “If you HAD to choose, which presidential
candidate do you find to be more energetic?” We
chose “energetic” because this issue has been emphasized by both candidates,
but the objective reality is impossible to know. Thus, responses are likely
to signal a voter’s underlying vote intention even if they are still
deliberating internally. For both of these
questions, we found no boost for Trump. Whether we used the standard vote
intention question or incorporated our questions designed to detect hidden
Trump supporters, we found about 55% support for Biden and about 45% support
for Trump (of the two-party vote share). The bottom line? If Trump
outperforms the polls this time, it won’t be because hidden supporters made
the difference. Peter K. Enns is an associate professor of government at
Cornell University, executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion
Research and co-founder of Reality Check Insights. @pete_enns Attachment
Eight – from the Washington Times The eight reasons we enthusiastically endorse Trump for reelection By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - - Monday,
October 26, 2020 ANALYSIS/OPINION: Four
years ago, Donald J. Trump presented himself to
the American people as a brash, vulgar, gold-plated reality star seeking a
political career in which he promised to bounce the entrenched Washington political set off the ropes
of a pro wrestling ring and pound them into the canvas. It all seemed so
self-serving and absurd. Sure,
he had built a massive real estate empire and lent his name to gleaming
skyscrapers. But he had no track record whatsoever in the political world. We
had no reason to trust that Mr. Trump would be a good steward of the
economy, a fierce defender of our homeland or even a protector of our most
cherished constitutional liberties. For
the first time since our founding in 1982, this paper declined to endorse
anyone in the 2016 presidential election. “The
stakes are exceptionally high,” we noted a week before the election. But we
left it to the “native wisdom” of the people to choose between two flawed
candidates. Today,
four years later, Mr. Trump has endured the tumult of our
times to build a clear track record in key areas worth reviewing: •
The Economy President Trump has enabled, encouraged, and laid
the necessary groundwork for the best economy in 40 years. In
2019, the labor market was the strongest in modern times. The largest number
of Americans (159 million) were employed ever. The U.S. had the lowest
unemployment rate in 50 years (3.5%) and had record or near record high
employment rates for Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, high school grads, the
handicapped, and veterans. Median
family income rose 6.8% in 2019, the largest one-year increase on record
going back to 1967, and settled at a record high of $68,700. Mr. Trump came to office with a clear
understanding that trade and immigration policies over the last 40 years had
worked to destroy manufacturing in the United States and to offshore jobs or
suppress the wages paid to American workers. He
cancelled the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, renegotiated NAFTA, and
created the USMCA, and has not hesitated to engage other nations — especially
China — with tariffs when necessary. With
respect to immigration, it is safe to say that Mr. Trump is the first President ever to
take enforcement of our immigration laws seriously. •
National Security Mr. Trump reoriented American foreign
policy towards addressing the generational challenge posed by the communists
in China. He
has shrunk, rather than expanded, American involvement in nettlesome and
pointless conflicts. He
took swift and decisive action against adversaries such as Qassim Soleimani and Abu Bakr
Al-Baghdadi, who were responsible for killing Americans and destabilizing the
Middle East. Mr. Trump’s leadership has resulted in Arab
nations normalizing relations with Israel, the most significant breakthrough
in the Middle East since the end of World War II. He
rebalanced military alliances that had become over-reliant on American power
and American contributions. He
rebuilt a military struggling after 15 years of nonstop combat. He
rejuvenated NASA, reemphasized the necessity of American space efforts, and
created the Space Force. •
Judges Mr. Trump has remade the federal judiciary
with constitutionalist judges and justices who understand their proper role
in our balance of power. More than 215 judges have been nominated and
confirmed, including 3 Supreme Court judges. There
are now a majority of judges appointed by Republicans in seven of the 13
federal appellate circuits. If
the president is given another four years, the likelihood is that by 2025 there
will be a majority of Republican-appointed judges in all 13 circuits. •
Taxes Mr. Trump achieved tax reform. The
provisions of this reform — lower corporate tax rates, expensing, and
eliminating penalties for repatriating cash — have been essential in
improving the economy of the nation and the personal prosperity of its
citizens. Individual taxpayers were helped by the elimination of Obamacare’s
individual mandate, as well as the reduced deductibility of state and local
taxes, which means that residents from well-functioning, low-tax States no
longer subsidize residents of high-tax, poorly-run states. •
Regulations Mr. Trump changed the regulatory regimes in
areas as different and important as automobiles, telecommunications and
environmental improvement. His
efforts have preserved Americans’ choices in determining what is best for
them, saved households hundreds of dollars in regulatory costs each year,
ensured energy independence, and reduced the intrusion of the government in
the lives of American citizens. •
Race Mr. Trump has done more for the Black
community than any president since Johnson. Criminal
justice reform, permanent funding for Historically Black Colleges and
Universities HBCUs, and the creation of Opportunity Zones work to ensure an
America in which everyone has the opportunity to excel. •
COVID-19 In
just the past year alone, Mr. Trump has faced an unprecedented array
of catastrophes, any one of which could have sunk his presidency — none more
frightening than the global pandemic, which began while Washington was ground to a halt by a
hotly partisan and unjustified impeachment trial. By
every metric, the president has met the challenge as best as possible. He
took swift action to delay the onslaught of the virus. He made difficult
decisions to slow the spread, giving hospitals crucial time to prepare. He
utilized federal powers and resources to ramp up testing and provide
necessary medical equipment and develop therapeutics that have massively
lessened the mortality rate of the plague. President Trump’s record is not the only thing on the
ballot to consider. It is worth noting a few things about his opponent. Former
Vice President Joe Biden has been in Washington for 47 years. His record is
even clearer than Mr. Trump‘s. As troubling as that record is, Mr.
Biden’s current campaign is even more troubling. He
has made clear that he intends to impoverish wide swaths of the United States
by abandoning the affordable energy provided by oil and natural gas — a
gambit sure to threaten the entire U.S. economy. He
promises to raise taxes on not only the wealthy but on corporations and
pretty much anyone with a job. He
refuses to explain to voters if he plans to make good on Democrat threats to
pack the Supreme Court in an effort to undo all of Mr. Trump’s accomplishments on the federal
judiciary. Finally,
he seems insistent on playing hide the ball with respect to his family’s
involvement in China and Ukraine. Has
Mr. Trump been perfect? No. This is, after
all, politics. But his record of achievement in his first term is unmatched
by any president in modern times. A second term is likely to bring more
successes and a stronger America. For
these reasons, we enthusiastically endorse Mr. Trump for reelection. Attachment
Nine – from
Politico ‘People Are Going To Be Shocked’: Return of the ‘Shy’
Trump Voter? In
2016, pollsters Arie Kapteyn
and Robert Cahaly saw Trump coming. In
2020, they see polls again underestimating his support. By ZACK STANTON 10/29/2020 04:55 PM EDT Zack Stanton is digital
editor of Politico Magazine. With Nov. 3 racing toward us,
it can be tempting to see the 2020 election as a done deal. For months, Joe
Biden has consistently and convincingly led Donald Trump in polls. Swing
states in the industrial Midwest and Sun Belt appear to be heading Biden’s
way, and if you trust the polls, it’s not a leap to imagine him winning 330+
electoral votes. But what if you shouldn’t
trust the polls? In
2016, months of national polls confidently showed Hillary Clinton ahead, and
set many Americans up for a shock on Election Night, when the Electoral
College tilted decisively in Trump’s favor. Two pollsters who weren’t
blindsided by this are Arie Kapteyn
and Robert Cahaly. Kapteyn,
a Dutch economist who leads the USC’s Dornsife
Center for Economic and Social Research, oversaw the USC/Los Angeles
Times poll that gave Trump a 3-point lead heading into election
day—which, Kapteyn notes, was wrong: Clinton won
the popular vote by 2 points. Cahaly, a Republican
pollster with the Trafalgar Group, had preelection
surveys that showed Trump nudging out Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Florida and North Carolina—all of which he won. This year, both men believe
that polls could again be undercounting Trump’s support. The reason is “shy”
Trump voters—people reluctant to share their opinions for fear of being
judged. Though the “shy voter” idea is thrown around a lot by both Trump
supporters and Democratic skeptics, Kapteyn and Cahaly have specific insights into why, and how, Trump
support might be going undetected. For Cahaly,
those votes are likely to make the difference again. “There’s a lot of hidden
Trump votes out there,” he says. “Will Biden win the popular vote? Probably.
I’m not even debating that. But I think Trump is likely to have an Electoral
College victory.” As an illustration, Kapteyn described what his team at USC sees in its polls.
Beyond simply asking voters whether they support Biden or Trump, USC asks a
“social-circle” question—“Who do you think your friends and neighbors will
vote for?”—which some researchers believe makes it easier for people to share
their true opinions without fear of being judged for their views. “We
actually get a 10-point lead, nationally, for Biden over Trump” when asking
voters who they personally plan to support, says Kapteyn.
“But if you look at the ‘social-circle’ question, Biden only gets like a 5-
or 6-point lead. … In general—and certainly on the phone—people may still be
a little hesitant to say to that they’re Trump voters.” “We live in a country where
people will lie to their accountant, they’ll lie to their doctor, they’ll lie
to their priest,” says Cahaly. “And we’re supposed
to believe they shed all of that when they get on the telephone with a
stranger?” This year, conventional
pollsters say they’ve learned their lessons, and are accounting for factors
that skewed their results last year. Kapteyn and Cahaly aren’t so sure, as they explained to POLITICO this
week via Zoom. A transcript of that conversation is below, condensed and
edited for length and clarity. Election Day is next week.
National polling averages show Biden leading Trump by around 9 points. In
2016, averages had Clinton up by around 3 points, but you both ran polls that
showed Trump winning the presidency. What do you see this year? Robert Cahaly,
the Trafalgar Group: Well first, we don’t do national polls, and that’s for the same
reason I don’t keep up with hits in a baseball game: It’s an irrelevant
statistic. But the battleground-state polls are a little closer [than the
national polls], and there’s a lot at play. People are going to be shocked. A
lot of people are going to vote this year who have been dormant or
low-propensity voters. I think it’s going to be at an all-time high. The
models of who’s going to turn out this year are very flawed. What type of
person comes out for Trump? They’re not a normal election participant.
They’re a low-propensity voter. We included them in all of our surveys in
fall 2016, and we are including them now. “People are going to be shocked. A
lot of people are going to vote this year who have been dormant or
low-propensity voters. I think it’s going to be at an all-time high.” Robert Cahaly Relying on live callers for
polls is especially bad in this modern era, where “social desirability bias”
is in full play. People avoid awkward conversations. So when a person you
don’t know calls and asks how you feel about Donald Trump—and you don’t know
how they feel—you tend to give them an answer that you think
will make them look at you in the best light. We’ve seen it year after year,
and I think it is very much at play this year. Polls are undercounting the
people who don’t want to give their real opinions. If they had corrected
anything, why didn’t they see Ron DeSantis winning in his 2018 race for
governor in Florida? They made the exact same mistake with his opponent,
Andrew Gillum. [The final RealClearPolitics
polling average in that race had Gillum up by 3.6 percentage points. DeSantis
won by 0.4 percentage points.] This wasn’t some random state’s race;
this was the hottest, meanest—neck-and-neck races for governor and senator in
Florida in an off-year election. Every single major player was polling that
state. And 100 percent of them got it wrong; we got it right. Arie Kapteyn, USC Dornsife
Center for Economic and Social Research: First, let me start with a
qualification about our results four years ago. It looked as if we did a good
job because our national poll had Trump winning. But that, of course, was
wrong: In the popular vote, Trump actually lost. So we didn’t do
that well, and the reason why was our sample had an overrepresentation of
people in rural states. Even though we weighted by education and past voting
participation and all of that, we simply had too many Trump voters in the
sample. We
have about 9,000 people in our panel [this year], and they answer questions
every two weeks. And we ask them a number of things. We ask the probability
that they will vote. We ask them the probability they’ll vote for Biden or
Trump or someone else. But we now also ask them a question I think you’d
always asked, Robert: “Who do you think your friends and neighbors will vote
for?” We call it a “social-circle” question. “We actually get a 10-point lead,
nationally, for Biden over Trump. But if you look at the “social-circle”
question, Biden only gets like a 5- or 6-point lead.” Arie
Kapteyn Now, we actually get a
10-point lead, nationally, for Biden over Trump. But if you look at the
“social-circle” question, Biden only gets like a 5- or 6-point lead. One
explanation for that may indeed be “social desirability.” In general—and
certainly on the phone—people may still be a little hesitant to say to that
they’re Trump voters. Cahaly: I have many problems with
polling today. It’s outdated. Part of it is they can’t concede that this
model of long questionnaires, small sample sizes and exclusively live
callers—I mean, they’re attacking the guys putting up telegraph wires, but
they’re running the Pony Express. People
are busier than ever, and long questionnaires reduce the ability of average
people to participate. Who has time to answer 22 questions on a Tuesday night
when you’re trying to fix dinner or put your children to bed? Nobody. You end
up with people on the ideological extremes—either very conservative or very
liberal—or, worse: people who are bored. “They’re attacking the guys putting
up telegraph wires, but they’re running the Pony Express.” Robert Cahaly We give [respondents] lots of
different ways to participate—online, by text or email. You get one of our
text polls at 7 p.m., and you can flip through it while watching TV, or
answer Question 1 at 9 p.m. and answer Question 2 the next morning. That’s
fine! We give you the time to participate on your schedule. We make it very
easy. It takes less than three minutes if you do it all at once. Kapteyn: We have an Internet panel,
but it’s a little different from most others. We recruit our respondents by
sending them letters. We buy addresses from the post
office—or from a vendor—draw randomly from addresses in the United States,
invite people to participate in our studies and we pay them really well. We
pay them to join, and then $20 for a 30-minute interview. We have a
relationship of trust with them. I agree that telephone
polling in the traditional way, as far as I can tell, is pretty close to
death. You get extremely low response rates, and there is this issue: Who is
still answering the phone? That’s a thing [our surveys]
don’t really suffer from as much, because these people typically answer
questions that aren’t about politics. We ask them about their health or their
finances. We give them cognitive tests. We do all sorts of scientific work. We
get them to wear accelerometers and we measure their physical activity.
Because they participate in all of this, they’re probably less likely to be
extreme—although if they had no interest in politics, they might not
participate. You
both spoke with POLITICO after the 2016 election. Back then,
you said that one of the big things polling missed was “shy” Trump voters. In
retrospect, do you still think that’s the case, or was there something else
at play? Kapteyn: We actually did a little
experiment during the 2016 election: If you get called for a survey, and a
live person asks who you’re going to vote for, do you answer that question
differently than if you’d received the question in a letter and mailed it
back, or answered the survey online?
We found some evidence that being
called up by someone you don’t know makes people more hesitant to reveal
their voting preference. And if you looked at whether these were Trump or
Clinton voters, you did see that those people who told us they were Trump
supporters were more likely to say they would not share their preference if
they got called on the phone. So that at least suggests that there was a “shy
Trump voter” phenomenon in 2016. Whether that’s the case this year, I really
have absolutely no idea. We haven’t looked at that, and I just don’t know. Cahaly: I believe it was prevalent.
In 2016, the worst being said about Trump voters is that they were
“deplorable.” 2020 is a whole different ballgame. It is worse this
time—significantly worse. This year had more things where you can get
punished for expressing an opinion outside the mainstream than almost any
year I can think of in modern history. I’m
finding that people are very hesitant [to share their preference for Trump],
because now it’s not just being called “deplorable.” It’s people getting beat
up for wearing the wrong hat, people getting harassed for having a sticker on
their car. People just do not want to say anything. “In 2016, the worst being said about
Trump voters is that they were ‘deplorable.’ 2020 is a whole different
ballgame.” Robert Cahaly We talk to lots of people in
our surveys. And I hear things like, “Yeah, I’m for Trump, my neighbors are
for Trump, but there’s one neighbor who just hates Trump. And when he walks
his dog, he kind of wrinkles his nose by those houses, and I don’t want him
to do it at my house, so I don’t put a Trump sign. I like the guy, and I
don’t want him mad at me.” I hear stuff like that all the time. People are
playing their cards close to their chest because there’s a stigma to being for
Trump. What happens when the stigma rolls away from people who hide their
vote, and they start admitting where they are? This is what I think is going
to happen on Election Day. Now,
there’s certain people who are vocal Trump supporters. To
me, it has more to do with your personality. Are you the kind of person who
avoids awkward conversations, or are you the kind of person who enjoys them?
If you enjoy them, and you’re for Trump, you’ll tell everybody. You’ll be in
a boat parade! But if you’re the kind of person who’s quiet and
non-confrontational, you aren’t going to say anything. And a lot of those
people live in the Midwest. They’re very regular, down-to-earth folks who are
kind and deferential. Robert, I’m from the
Midwest—Macomb County, Michigan, the home of the “Reagan Democrats,” which
voted for Obama twice then flipped to Trump. When you go there, you see tons
of Trump flags in people’s yards or waving from their trucks, reading, “Trump
2020: No More Bullshit.” It’s difficult for me to believe that people who are
not shy about expressing their support for Trump in pretty much every other
instance are shy when— Cahaly: But they’re different people!
Think about what you just said, because that’s the reason why
other Trump supporters are shy: The soccer mom doesn’t want to say she’s for
Trump because she doesn’t want you to think she’s one of them. You just made
my point for me! That’s exactly it! [Laughs] This
is probably a horrible example, but there are a lot more people who like
professional wrestling than admit it. There are lots of fans who don’t want
you to think they’re like the other people who like professional wrestling. “There are a lot more people who like
professional wrestling than admit it.” Robert Cahaly Kapteyn: The only point I would make
is that it seems that over the years, increasingly, political preferences are
localized. One county, one area is safe Democratic; the other area is
Republican. If you’re in the minority—you’re a Democrat in a Republican area,
or a Republican in a Democratic area—civil political discussions have sort of
ceased to exist. People become careful in expressing their political
preference if they feel that their whole neighborhood has a different
opinion. In that sense, I think there
will be some symmetry in shyness, at least in sort of day-to-day
conversations. It’s not the same as answering the phone to someone you have
never talked to, but there is a lot of evidence that suggests people are
careful expressing their opinions if they feel they are in the minority. Cahaly: Absolutely true. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in a family or a
company, people do not like talking about politics when they feel like their
opinion is in the minority. “There is a lot of evidence that
suggests people are careful expressing their opinions if they feel they are
in the minority.” Arie
Kapteyn Robert, after the 2016
election, you told POLITICO that you didn’t buy the idea that there were shy
Clinton voters. Cahaly: I don’t. Do you believe there are shy
Biden voters? Cahaly: No. And not because it’s just for Republicans. For example, had
Bernie Sanders been the nominee and been beat up every day as being
socialist, there would be a tremendous “shy” vote among moderate-to-conservative
Democrats who would vote for him as their nominee, but who may not want to
tell people. It depends on the
polarization of the figure. Nobody looks at Joe Biden and says, “Oh, it’s
toxic to be for him. People say Biden supporters are pond scum.” Nobody says
that. Nobody does that. It’s really about the stigma you get for supporting
the person. Kapteyn: This is why I feel that using
the Internet [for surveys]—in the way we do it—may help us a little bit. If
someone on the Internet checks the box for Trump, no one is going to yell at
them. If someone is shy about their
views, how do you measure that? You mentioned using online surveys rather
than live phone calls. But how do you actually measure the existence of a
group of people who won’t give you their opinions? How do you know they
exist? Kapteyn: Partly, you ask, “What do
your neighbors think?” or “What your friends think?” That’s an indirect way
of eliciting opinions. Generally, if you do surveys,
people give you all sort of wrong answers. In cases where you can verify it,
you’ll find that there are very systematic biases. For example, one of the
things we do at USC is we measure people’s physical activity—how active they
are, how often they do sports. And I’ve done international comparative work on
this. If you ask about it, Americans are just as active as
the Dutch or the English. But if you measure it— Cahaly: [Laughter] I love it. Kapteyn: —you get a Fitbit, and sure
enough, you notice an enormous difference. This is not unique to political
polling; there is a general issue with asking questions and what to do with
the answers. Cahaly: I couldn’t agree more. We
live in a country where people will lie to their accountant, they’ll lie to
their doctor, they’ll lie to their priest. And we’re
supposed to believe they shed all of that when they get on the telephone with
a stranger and become Honest Abe? I cannot accept that. Now,
how we measure it is a little different. We find questions
that are less confrontational. We brought the “neighbor” question into the
mainstream, but I got that from a man named Rod Shealy,
who’s since passed. I learned a lot from him doing politics in South
Carolina. He always said that people are real polite, so when you need to
know what they think about something that’s not pleasant to talk about, ask
them what their neighbors think, because they’ll give you their real opinion
without you judging them for it. “We live in a country where people
will lie to their accountant, they’ll lie to their doctor, they’ll
lie to their priest. And we’re supposed to believe they shed all of that when
they get on the telephone with a stranger and become Honest Abe?” Robert Cahaly This
year, we’re asking a series of other questions that are easy and don’t seem
like you’re going to get judged harshly for answering them. Our first goal is
to minimize the social desirability effect. And you do that by giving them a
great sense of anonymity. The more anonymous they think they are when giving
answers, the more honest they tend to be. It’s kind of like the people
who have two Twitter accounts—the one where they tweet out pictures of their
pets and children, and one where they just go give everybody a fit. Well,
that “troll” account is their real emotion. And the persona that runs that
troll account is the one in the ballot booth. That’s who I’m trying to get
to. The results in 2016 really
hurt people’s willingness to trust polls. You’re seeing it now: Democrats
say, “Biden is leading, but the polls showed Clinton winning in 2016, and she
lost.” Among Republicans, it’s sort of the opposite: “The polls in 2016
didn’t reflect Trump’s strength, but he won and will win again.” So how
should people look at the polls over the final days of this campaign? Cahaly: One, they should ask
themselves these questions: Do you know someone who is going to vote for
Trump—someone who maybe confided that fact in a few people, but didn’t share
it widely? Do you think that person, if called on the phone by a stranger—a
live person who knows who they are—would tell them? If the answer is yes,
then you should be skeptical of polls that are given with a live person. And ask yourself, would you answer
a survey that took 20 or 25 minutes on a Tuesday night when you’re feeding
your family? If the answer is no, then you should look with skepticism at
polls with long questionnaires. Kapteyn: I think it’s good to add some
nuance to the idea that polls didn’t do so well in 2016, because after all,
if you look at the national polls, they actually weren’t very far off when it
came to the popular vote. Another thing that may be a
little underappreciated: One of the things that was quite clear just from
looking at the data is that there were events late in the election season in
2016 that had an effect—for example, [FBI Director James] Comey’s
announcement that he was reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s
emails. That moved the needle by, like, 2 percentage points or so. I could
see that in the data. And that’s a big number, given how tight the election
was. So I think there were some reasons why the polls seemed worse than they
perhaps were—and why they couldn’t be more accurate, because some major
events happened very late. Cahaly: I’m a little different on
that one, because we saw the Trump numbers the whole time. Nothing was new
about them to us. Did the gap between polling
in 2016 and the results affect the way either of you think about polling? Cahaly: I became fascinated with why there was denial that social
desirability bias was in play and important. It made me realize just how
critical the assurance of anonymity is to getting an honest answer. Other people started using
our “neighbor” question, as Arie pointed out. And
that caused us to think of some new questions we thought would be more
revealing. And this time, we decided we weren’t going to share them with the
world. Kapteyn: In that sense, we are at opposite ends of the spectrum. We
[USC’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social
Research] are not a polling firm; we’re a research firm. We happen to have
this Internet panel where we ask people all sorts of questions, so why not
also ask them about politics? For us, this is largely an experiment. That’s
why we ask about this in different way: We want to see what works best. “Frankly, if I were in the business of
trying to forecast who’s going to be elected, then a national poll is a
pretty poor instrument for doing that.” Arie
Kapteyn Frankly, if I were in the
business of trying to forecast who’s going to be elected, then a national
poll is a pretty poor instrument for doing that, because it has become
increasingly clear that the battleground states are really what matter. As
far as I can tell, there are many more state polls than four years ago—for
good reason. You see them in all the battleground states. My model is more this: Try to
understand what works, get into these social desirability or other questions
as, frankly, a scientific exercise. And then, in the process, I will be happy
if my estimate is right on the mark. But if it isn’t, we have probably learned
something, too. Last question: The election
ends on Tuesday. National polling has consistently shown a substantial lead
for Biden. What is your message to people who think that this thing is done? Cahaly: I don’t think it’s done. Some
of these national polls are not even taking into consideration the fact that
Republicans have closed the gap with voter registrations. I don’t think
they’re taking into account the number of low-propensity voters who are
voting and who will vote on Election Day. I don’t think they’re measuring
people’s genuine opinions. And I think [pollsters] are just not going to see
it coming. There’s a lot of hidden Trump
votes out there. (emphasis DJI) Will Biden win the popular vote? Probably.
I’m not even debating that. But I think Trump is likely to have an Electoral
College victory. Kapteyn: I will be really surprised,
given our own numbers, if there isn’t a very sizable gap between Biden and
Trump in the popular vote—in favor of Biden. But in the states? I don’t know. Cahaly: I like your skepticism |
