Polliwonks: Wasserman, his eyes uncovered!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Polliwonks: Wasserman, his eyes uncovered!

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Murgos posted:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/thomas-criticizes-previous-high-court-opinion-69180085

quote:
On Monday, the 71-year-old justice turned inward, focusing his criticism on himself � a court opinion he wrote in 2005 defending the power of federal administrative agencies.

In the case, known as Brand X, the court sided with the Federal Communications Commission's decision not to regulate broadband cable providers, rejecting a federal appeals court ruling that would have required regulation.

�Although I authored Brand X, �it is never too late to surrender former views to a better considered position,''' Thomas wrote, borrowing language from Justice Robert Jackson in 1950. Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion Monday when the court declined to take on a case asking it to overrule the Brand X decision.
There are others. This is just the first one that my first google search found.

edit: Note that this is a dissenting opinion from the majority. The rest of the court thought that the original ruling was appropriate.

Wait, so if I'm reading this right, in the original case he ruled in favor of less regulations.

And then he changed his mind and ruled in favor of more in the later case. That doesn't sound like he's going all right wing there.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 05:20

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 21:30

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Charlz Guybon posted:

I mean...that's one of the main reasons our system sucks, but it's perfectly allowable for a state to dispense with presidential elections and have the legislature appoint a slate of electors . The only federal elections that are required are those for Congress and the Senate

The thing here is that they have to actually pass a law for that to be the case. Most of the edge case scenarios involve "everything's hosed so we're gonna say these are all our electors, good luck guys!" which require there to be a very close margin.

The Supreme Court saying "We declare that Trump won even though Biden got 370 EVs and won clear margins in the relevant states, even Florida" is just a coup, even if they cite that article about a republican form of government.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 05:24

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

LinYutang posted:

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1314750877442412544?s=19

I honestly find it a shame that this wasn't dismissed with prejudice, every attorney defending this blatantly trespassing violation disbarred, and the governor's office fined for as maximum a penalty as could be wielded.

There need to start being costs for lawyers who work in this outrageously unconstitutional zone or they're going to keep loving trying.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 05:48

Jean-Paul Shartre: Jan 16, 2015; this sentence no verb

Charlz Guybon posted:

Wait, so if I'm reading this right, in the original case he ruled in favor of less regulations.

And then he changed his mind and ruled in favor of more in the later case. That doesn't sound like he's going all right wing there.

It's not quite that simple. There's a principle in regulatory law called Chevron deference (named after the Supreme Court case that first explicitly laid such principle out) that says that if a law is ambiguous courts will defer to an executive agency's interpretation of that law, rather than adopt the court's interpretation from the start. So, for example, if the FCC reasonably says "we think the Telecommunications Act allows us to take X action," a court will let the FCC do X if the Telecommunications Act could support X, even if, were it starting from a blank slate, the court thinks that the better interpretation of the Telecommunications Act doesn't allow the FCC to do X. The practical upshot of this is that the scientists and economists and technocrats at all the government agencies you can think of actually have a lot of room to regulate as they see fit.

Brand X was a case about whether, after a court says "We don't think the Telecommunications Act lets the FCC do X," if the FCC says "we DO think the Telecommunications Act lets us do X," Chevron defence still applies. Thomas wrote an opinion saying that it does, which makes sense - if the agencies, supposedly having the technical expertise/political accountability/better sense of the lay of the land (there's a million sparring reasons in the literature for what public policy reasons best justify Chevron defence, but that doesn't matter for this point) get to say what the law means themselves, it shouldn't matter if they decide that before or after a court disagrees, since the agency is the body that ultimately decides.

More recently in his career, as he descends further in to kook-dom, Thomas has really stopped believing in Chevron deference itself, arguing that complex administrative agencies weren't even in the founder's conception of the constitution and judges should not defer to them ever. This, of course, makes total sense, since a judge with a law degree is far far better placed than the FDA to interpret what Congress meant in, e.g. establishing a particular cancer drug research program. No longer being sarcastic, this basically is a way to hamstring the modern administrative state, as agencies now face more hostile judges without being awarded this defence (for another example, we'd have the Supreme Court, rather than the EPA, tell us which pollutants should be banned under the Clean Air Act). But as Thomas really no longer believes in Chevron defence, he really can't justify Brand X, which makes no sense in a world without it. While the outcome of the particular case would have been to sustain a particular regulation, it would've done so in a way that necessarily undercuts most of the development of technocratic government since, really, FDR.

So he's not a hack, just he's taken his honestly relatively internally consistent crazy to higher levels. And if he wins we basically all die of poisoned medicine and dirty air.

Jean-Paul Shartre fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Oct 10, 2020

# ? Oct 10, 2020 05:51

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Potato Salad posted:

I honestly find it a shame that this wasn't dismissed with prejudice, every attorney defending this blatantly trespassing violation disbarred, and the governor's office fined for as maximum a penalty as could be wielded.

There need to start being costs for lawyers who work in this outrageously unconstitutional zone or they're going to keep loving trying.

Is that even in the judge's power to do?

# ? Oct 10, 2020 05:56

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

You can disbar attorneys for severe violations of ethics. More commonly, attorneys like Kris Kobach get nailed with probationary licensure pending continued education.

Attempting to deprive an enormous swath of the populace of Texas an expedient vote, particularly during a period of deadly threat to the public health, really ought to meet the bar of severely depraved ethical behavior.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 06:02

Potato Salad: Oct 23, 2014; nobody cares

Of particular note, this happens often when a party is not bringing evidence in good faith, or has obviously severely tampered with evidence or overstated evidence in a way that has completely wasted the court's time. Again, the Kris Kobach situation stands as a recent example of this being weilded against a politician and lawyer.

I want to draw attention to the evidence the governor claimed to have versus the evidence governor's counsel could submit.

Do not lie in front of a judge, we really need to be tougher about people lying in front of judges.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 06:05

mutata: Mar 1, 2003

Rea posted:

https://twitter.com/timelywriter/status/1314706192845897728

Seems like the PA GOP is dropping its very obvious plans to steal the election.

I'm glad to see this.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 06:42

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Or it could sway them like the sheep they are to vote, everyone's doing it!
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1314754358593179650

# ? Oct 10, 2020 06:55

Mustang: Jun 18, 2006; “We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.”

Or everyone feels like they would do literally anything it takes to vote Trump out of office regardless of how long the lines are.

America is sick of Trump's bullshit.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 07:10

Glumwheels: Jan 25, 2003; https://twitter.com/BidenHQ

Charlz Guybon posted:

Or it could sway them like the sheep they are to vote, everyone's doing it!
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1314754358593179650

I really hope this is people who didn�t vote in the last election realizing they hosed up and needed to vote now. I also can�t see people being discouraged by the lines when their hatred of Trump is so high. The only thing that could discourage people are those who think the polls won�t change or are accurate.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 07:13

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Are trump voters discouraged, though? Some proportion are probably feeling less inspiration the more he fucks up and looks like a weak rear end in a top hat rather than a strong one. One of the reasons for enthusiasm for him in 2016 was that they were striking out against a corrupt system and making it scream. I can�t imagine trump makes as many people feel strong these days.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 07:17

Mustang: Jun 18, 2006; “We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.”

From posts I've seen when I check out sites with conservative communities they mostly seem to say that the polls are all fake and that Trump is actually in the lead though I think they aren't quite so confident about that as they try to act.

They're also utterly terrified of socialists and think democrats are the real cultists, completely united in the socialist destruction of America.

I don't even know what to say to Trump voters, it's clear they live in a completely different reality than the rest of American society.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 07:27

goethe.cx: Apr 23, 2014

News coverage of long voting lines has been a thing for decades

# ? Oct 10, 2020 07:46

Murgos: Oct 21, 2010

goethe.cx posted:

News coverage of long voting lines has been a thing for decades

If you were cynical you would think that maybe the parent companies of the news outlets had a benefit in reducing voter turn out. Oh, wait, they do. Rich billionaires what own news media companies, with a few exceptions, are generally conservative and benefit from depressing voter turn out.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 13:20

Murgos: Oct 21, 2010

Mustang posted:

From posts I've seen when I check out sites with conservative communities they mostly seem to say that the polls are all fake and that Trump is actually in the lead though I think they aren't quite so confident about that as they try to act.

They're also utterly terrified of socialists and think democrats are the real cultists, completely united in the socialist destruction of America.

I don't even know what to say to Trump voters, it's clear they live in a completely different reality than the rest of American society.

I can confirm this.

My brother is deep into sovereign citizen/Q level conservative conspiracy stuff. He fully believes that he is part of not just a majority, but a super-majority. That the only reason the country even has a democratic party is because of massive wide spread vote fraud by illegals voting, Soros paying for votes, widespread fraudulent votes or all the other dumb unsubstantiated crap that Trump pulls out his rear end to pretend his presidency isn't a fluke. And that this super-majority is going to rise up 'any moment now' in an overwhelming wave and destroy these horrible people corrupting America.

He is also convinced that once Biden is in office the Chinese Communists will be brought in, our military surrendered to them, and all white people will be rounded up for re-education with the incorrigible patriots permanently silenced.

He has advanced STEM degrees and a career in high tech with several entrepreneurial endeavors in his past. He considers himself a scientist but when Trump was touting Hydroxychloroquine suddenly he forgot everything he knows about scientific rigor or verifying results or updating hypothesis when data changes to rush to defend every half-assed paper that reached some positive correlation to its use as evidence of international conspiracy to oppress people by keeping them from this miracle cure.

It's not rational so I have given up trying to be rational about it with him and just stopped communication but I can guess that right now he has convinced himself that all the poll results that don't say what he wants to see are just manipulated narratives by the cabal and that the world will be stunned, absolutely stunned when Trump wins by 30 points and the republicans seize complete control of the house and senate.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 13:41

Dinosaurs!: May 22, 2003

Charlz Guybon posted:

Or it could sway them like the sheep they are to vote, everyone's doing it!
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1314754358593179650

Note that Falls Church is an independent city of like 15k within Fairfax Co., which has a population over 1M.

e: Removed numbers because I�m a moron who compared votes as if the entire populations voted.

Dinosaurs! fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Oct 10, 2020

# ? Oct 10, 2020 14:27

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Charlz Guybon posted:

Or it could sway them like the sheep they are to vote, everyone's doing it!
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1314754358593179650

Ah Democratic trifecta and we still can't vote in a reasonable amount of time, love that bipartisan voter suppression :discourse:

# ? Oct 10, 2020 15:03

Fritz Coldcockin: Nov 7, 2005

VitalSigns posted:

Ah Democratic trifecta and we still can't vote in a reasonable amount of time, love that bipartisan voter suppression

You realize that there's a pandemic on, right? And that accommodating such a large number of people is very difficult and might result in increased wait times?

# ? Oct 10, 2020 15:27

paternity suitor: Aug 2, 2016

Mustang posted:

Or everyone feels like they would do literally anything it takes to vote Trump out of office regardless of how long the lines are.

America is sick of Trump's bullshit.

It�s possible that it�s because COVID is keeping people more isolated and unable to �get the vibe� as it were, but I think you�d have to be blind not to see this. It�s visceral if you interact with any normie on the topic of Trump. People are so god drat sick of him. It�s not just very online people or super political people. Most of my friends are not too into this stuff and I have multiple group texts regularly discussing mail in ballot status.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 15:36

paternity suitor: Aug 2, 2016

Like the idea of someone seeing a long line and deciding not to vote in 2020 is a take I�d expect from an alien

# ? Oct 10, 2020 15:36

Shimrra Jamaane: Aug 10, 2007; Obscure to all except those well-versed in Yuuzhan Vong lore.

Isn�t Virginia opening up satellite locations this week?

# ? Oct 10, 2020 15:40

Handsome Ralph: Sep 3, 2004; Oh boy, posting!
That's where I'm a Viking!

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Isn’t Virginia opening up satellite locations this week?

Yep, starting on the 14th.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:01

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Murgos posted:

I can confirm this.

My brother is deep into sovereign citizen/Q level conservative conspiracy stuff. He fully believes that he is part of not just a majority, but a super-majority. That the only reason the country even has a democratic party is because of massive wide spread vote fraud by illegals voting, Soros paying for votes, widespread fraudulent votes or all the other dumb unsubstantiated crap that Trump pulls out his rear end to pretend his presidency isn't a fluke. And that this super-majority is going to rise up 'any moment now' in an overwhelming wave and destroy these horrible people corrupting America.

He is also convinced that once Biden is in office the Chinese Communists will be brought in, our military surrendered to them, and all white people will be rounded up for re-education with the incorrigible patriots permanently silenced.

He has advanced STEM degrees and a career in high tech with several entrepreneurial endeavors in his past. He considers himself a scientist but when Trump was touting Hydroxychloroquine suddenly he forgot everything he knows about scientific rigor or verifying results or updating hypothesis when data changes to rush to defend every half-assed paper that reached some positive correlation to its use as evidence of international conspiracy to oppress people by keeping them from this miracle cure.

It's not rational so I have given up trying to be rational about it with him and just stopped communication but I can guess that right now he has convinced himself that all the poll results that don't say what he wants to see are just manipulated narratives by the cabal and that the world will be stunned, absolutely stunned when Trump wins by 30 points and the republicans seize complete control of the house and senate.

That's something I've noticed, when smart people call for conspiracy theories, they fall hard.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:13

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

TwoQuestions posted:

That's something I've noticed, when smart people call for conspiracy theories, they fall hard.

There's an old con artist's saying that there's no better mark than someone who thinks they are too smart to fall for a con.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:17

marshmonkey: Dec 5, 2003; I was sick of looking
at your stupid avatar
so
have a cool cat instead.; Switchblade Switcharoo

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1314947352906665984

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:19

Riptor: Apr 13, 2003; here's to feelin' good all the time

TwoQuestions posted:

That's something I've noticed, when smart people call for conspiracy theories, they fall hard.

I always loved this aspect of listening to Coast to Coast AM back in the day. Yes, you see, Bigfoot does indeed exist. But he's an interdimensional being sent to alert Majestic 12 of the threats posed by the draco-Reptilians, who are in a war with the greys and the Nordics.

Also the chupacabra is there too

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:20

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

People who think they're smarter than they really are, are the ultimate target for cons. It doesn't matter if they're stupid and think they're average, or smart and think that they were super genius, anyone who overestimate them selves is going to get had.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:21

Concerned Citizen: Jul 22, 2007; Ramrod XTreme

Fritz Coldcockin posted:

You realize that there's a pandemic on, right? And that accommodating such a large number of people is very difficult and might result in increased wait times?

Fairfax has failed pretty hard, though. They chose to save money and wait to open satellites, and as a result fewer people have voted in Fairfax than neighboring counties. This is despite Fairfax County's much larger population.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:23

JazzFlight: Apr 29, 2006; Oooooooooooh!

paternity suitor posted:

Like the idea of someone seeing a long line and deciding not to vote in 2020 is a take I�d expect from an alien

My parents and I were considering early voting in-person starting Oct 24th and onward, but having seen the lines in other states, we decided to switch over to mail-in ballots instead. I don't want to have my elderly parents risking their lives by standing around people for possibly a few hours (even fully masked up) if they don't have to.

We kinda had to make the decision now-ish too so we would have plenty of time to mail in without incident.

So, basically, as long as mail-in ballots are legit, at least we're still voting. My mom's the kind of person where if mail-in ballots weren't an option, she would be okay with dying as long as she got her vote against Trump in the system.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:36

Tibalt: May 14, 2017; What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee

Looking at extremely long voter lines and 15% of the 2016 vote being cast in Fairfax County more than three weeks out from election day and worrying about voter disengagement seems... extremely odd to me.

Don't get me wrong, satellite voting locations should have been available for weeks, but it's like the same situation I'm personally in here in PA- I want to drop off my ballot instead of mailing it, but haven't been able to because they haven't stayed open past regular business hours or opened satellite locations yet.

The fact that I have my ballot signed, sealed, and ready to deliver, and the only reason it's not in the mail is because I'm paranoid, and everyone I know is in a similar spot... well, I think PA is going to have a higher vote count than 2016, despite the pandemic.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 16:36

Rust Martialis: May 8, 2007; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 18 hours!)

Murgos posted:

He is also convinced that once Biden is in office the Chinese Communists will be brought in, our military surrendered to them, and all white people will be rounded up for re-education with the incorrigible patriots permanently silenced.

The NoJoes would be stuck saying "we were so wrong about him" FOREVER

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:14

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Rust Martialis posted:

The NoJoes would be stuck saying "we were so wrong about him" FOREVER

That is by far the least likely aspect of the scenario that has been presented.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:17

Rigel: Nov 11, 2016

edit: never mind, I didn't click the correct link.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:19

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!: May 31, 2006

Fritz Coldcockin posted:

You realize that there's a pandemic on, right? And that accommodating such a large number of people is very difficult and might result in increased wait times?

could you point to the part in your political science book where it says democrats don't do voter suppression? it has been such a reliable guide to events so far

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:21

Fritz Coldcockin: Nov 7, 2005

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

could you point to the part in your political science book where it says democrats don't do voter suppression? it has been such a reliable guide to events so far

Are you allergic to good-faith arguments? I'm honestly curious. No other explanation would suffice for why you avoid them so steadfastly.

marshmonkey posted:

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1314947352906665984

This is excellent news, especially coming on the heels of the the PA GOP's voter suppression effort getting quietly dropped the other day.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:24

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

marshmonkey posted:

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1314947352906665984

gently caress yeah

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:24

The Lord of Hats: Aug 22, 2010; Hello, yes! Is being very good day for posting, no?

Are there any good articles talking about the Trump campaign being out of money? I get the general ideas behind it and all, but I'd enjoy having a detailed breakdown of it.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:28

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Here's an Atlantic article from early Sept which has some details.

quote:

In 2016, Donald Trump�s campaign ran on a shoestring, and won. He planned a different 2020: It would be the biggest, richest, most expensive presidential campaign ever. But with just two months to go before the election, the president has burned through massive amounts of money, and now his campaign is at a cash disadvantage to the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.

This is an amazing feat�how did the campaign blow through nearly $1 billion to so little effect?�yet also inevitable. The Trump 2020 campaign seems to be running on the same principle as many of the president�s commercial endeavors: Trump gets richer, while other people�s money gets lit on fire. This was how some of the president�s real-estate ventures and casinos operated, and so it�s unsurprising that it�s how he�s chosen to run his campaign�and the country.

Few things get Trump peeved faster than bringing up the four times his companies declared bankruptcy. Chris Wallace of Fox News learned this in 2015, when, during a GOP primary debate, he asked Trump whether voters should trust him to run the government, given his private track record.

�I have never gone bankrupt, by the way. I have never,� Trump snapped�he�d merely used the nation�s bankruptcy laws to his advantage.

�At the same time, financial experts involved in those bankruptcies say that lenders to your companies lost billions of dollars,� Wallace replied. �With that record, why should we trust you to run the nation�s business?�

�I have used the laws of this country just like the greatest people that you read about every day in business have used the laws of this country, the chapter laws, to do a great job for my company, for myself, for my employees, for my family, et cetera,� he said.

Trump was right. He and his family have made out well, but at the expense of others. Each time a company declares bankruptcy, it sheds debt�in other words, someone who it owes money loses some or all of their stake.

Start with the first bankruptcy, in 1991. When Trump built the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, he bragged he didn�t have to use then-hot junk bonds to finance the project. He was lying. He did use junk bonds, and within three years he�d fallen behind on interest payments, even in a business famous for always earning cash. When he declared bankruptcy, he was forced to sell off some treasured assets�his yacht, his airline�but he owed the banks so much that they opted to work with him rather than take everything. In other words: They took a big loss. The following year, another casino, the Trump Plaza, failed. This time, Trump lost his stake and control of the company, but kept his CEO title.

By the mid-1990s, Trump was toxic enough that practically no bank would lend him money, figuring there was a good chance they�d end up losing it. One exception was Deutsche Bank, which, as The New York Times Magazine put it, had developed a reputation �as a reckless institution willing to do business with clients nobody else would touch.� But in 2008, amid the financial collapse, Trump couldn�t make debt payments, and turned around and sued Deutsche Bank to forestall it from collecting. (Why Deutsche Bank continues to loan Trump money is an intriguing question.)

Trump also sought alternative ways of financing projects. For example, Trump turned to Russian investors as a new source of cash. (You know how that story ends.) He also simply issued bonds to the public, trading on his name, which may have been tarnished on Wall Street but had been burnished by his TV show and other projects. In 2009, when the Trump Organization again declared bankruptcy, these small investors took the hit.

�People knew who Donald Trump was and for that reason were willing to trust the bonds, and they got burned,� the bankruptcy expert Lynn LoPucki told ABC in 2011. �The people who invested with him or based on his name lost money, but he himself came out pretty well.�

At the same time, Trump was also leveraging his celebrity for other projects. He licensed his name to several developments at the height of the real-estate bubble, attracting buyers who (erroneously) viewed his name as a gold standard. When the projects failed, it became clear that Trump had no personal stake, having simply taken a fee for the use of his name.

The Trump campaign seems to have a great deal in common with these earlier business ventures. This is not just a matter of poor results, though the campaign does seem shaky. At the moment, Biden has a consistent, though not commanding, lead in the polls, and has for months. In several key states he won in 2016, Trump trails Biden. In July, the president sacked his campaign manager, Brad Parscale.

Trump�s 2020 campaign was always going to be challenging�it�s hard to persuade voters to reelect a president of whom most of them disapprove. But he had the advantage of incumbency (only two presidents since World War II have not been reelected) and a huge money machine.

Now that machine seems to be sputtering a bit. The New York Times reports that the Trump campaign is in a cash crunch. This matches up with circumstantial evidence, such as Trump pulling much of his television advertising, even as Biden widely outspends him. From January 2019 to July 2020, Trump raised $1.1 billion, but has already spent $800 million. The Biden campaign and the Democratic Party raised a combined $364 million in August�setting a record�but Trump has still not reported August numbers.

Trump could still win the election, and perhaps all will be forgotten. Even if he does, though, the campaign has been a colossal, profligate use of money. Figuring out why the campaign is in tough straits now is difficult, especially without the latest filing available. Perhaps the campaign banked on getting more big-dollar donors. Perhaps it isn�t getting the small-dollar return it heavily invested in, or perhaps the price tag has just proved too dear. As my colleagues Ian Bogost and Alexis C. Madrigal explained in April, �People have marveled that Trump never stopped running Facebook-ad campaigns. And the reason is, he couldn�t. The whole point is that the campaign has to keep fresh data flowing through the system.�

In any case, the campaign has also spent millions and millions of dollars on things that clearly benefit Trump, his family, and his company, but do not so clearly aid the cause of electing Republicans to office.

As Eric Lipton reports in The New York Times, Trump has spent nearly $60 million of campaign money on legal bills. Candidates need good lawyering, of course, but this number far outstrips other campaigns� tabs because the president has drawn on political fundraising to foot the bill for his litigiousness, to pay attorneys to represent him in investigations by House Democrats and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and to pay for the defense of aides who have been swept into legal inquiries in his various scandals.

There are also multiple former aides who have been hired by the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee after leaving the White House. Omarosa Manigault Newman claims that when she left the administration, she was offered a $15,000-a-month no-show job to keep her happy and quiet. She is not the most reliable source, but other former White House aides have taken a similar path, including a former bodyguard, Keith Schiller, and a body man, John McEntee, who was fired amid a fraud investigation but, because irony is dead, has since returned as head of personnel for the White House.

Some costs come from sops to the president�s fragile ego. The campaign has spent more than $1 million on ads in the District of Columbia so that Trump will see them, even though neither D.C. nor Virginia nor Maryland is likely competitive in November. It also shelled out $11 million for Super Bowl ads in order to go toe-to-toe with Michael Bloomberg. The campaign also spent more than $100,000 on magnetic pouches for cellphones, to keep fundraiser attendees from recording and leaking the president�s private remarks. This may spare the president some embarrassment�though he�d probably get more benefit from a magnetic pouch around his own phone, keeping him from his Twitter account�but it�s a dubious use of campaign resources.

Even more questionable is the cash that the Trump campaign has not just wasted, but has directed to Trump. Forbes reported that the campaign had paid $2.3 million of donor money to the Trump Organization for things like food, lodging, and rent. That includes $380,000 in just two days in March. The RNC has spent more than $17 million at Trump properties since 2016.

That�s a nice surge of revenue for the president from his own campaign�or rather, from his donors�and one enabled by the fact that, unlike other presidents, he did not divest from his business interests upon taking office. Trump could waive a fee for these costs, or offer discounts; he�s the only one legally allowed to make that sort of in-kind donation. But he has not.

In fact, as of August, he hadn�t given a dime to his reelection effort. Bloomberg reports that Trump is now considering a $100 million gift to his campaign, which would be unprecedented. Believe it when you see the Federal Election Commission reports. That would put Trump in the red for the campaign, when it appears he�d rather line his pockets with the hard-earned cash of supporters who presumably expect he�s using it to get reelected president. If his track record is any guide, revenue for Trump is the whole point. When Parscale was fired, one reported reason was that Trump was upset that he was making a neat profit on the campaign. Only Trump is allowed to do that.

At this point, a cynical reader�especially one who opposes the president�might say: Who cares? The people who are being exploited have willingly given to Trump, and they ought to know by now how he operates. This is true, to a point. But such bad-faith use of donor dollars is a problem because it creates cynicism about the election system, and because it further tips the balance of political power toward large donors, who can afford to give more.

More important, this profiteering is how Trump has run the country as well. The economy is in shambles; the unemployment rate is high, and signs of more danger are on the horizon. The stock market, a rare bright spot, has taken a beating recently. The federal deficit is at record levels�in part because of much-needed COVID-related spending, though Trump had driven it up, including with tax cuts for wealthy people like himself, even when the economy was good.

But Trump is doing okay. In addition to the RNC and campaign spending coming his way, there�s also the business at hotels like the Trump International in Washington, which has become a magnet for foreign officials seeking to curry favor. There are also the charges to the federal government to use his facilities when he visits them, which are frequent. The Washington Post calculates that the government has paid Trump more than $900,000, including charges like room rates of $650 a night for Secret Service agents.

Trump likes to boast that he donates his presidential paycheck, but don�t worry�if you pay taxes in the U.S., you�re still paying him. It�s like he told Chris Wallace in 2015: He�s doing a great job for his company, himself, his employees, and his family. For campaign donors and taxpayers? Not everyone can win.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:31

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 21:30

Fritz Coldcockin: Nov 7, 2005

The Lord of Hats posted:

Are there any good articles talking about the Trump campaign being out of money? I get the general ideas behind it and all, but I'd enjoy having a detailed breakdown of it.

Well, here's one from a source one could hardly argue is partial to Democrats.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-14/trump-campaign-slashes-ad-spending-in-key-states-in-cash-crunch

It's a little outdated. I'm gonna keep looking--I know there's a breakdown somewhere.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 17:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Polliwonks: Wasserman, his eyes uncovered!

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