RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Trump steamroller may have hit a bit of a speed bump over the past week, but The Donald still looks like the clear Republican front-runner. At the same time, there is a growing #NeverTrump movement, with Republican, conservative, and libertarian officeholders, media personalities, and voters vowing that they will not vote for Trump if he is the nominee. In fact, polls suggest that roughly half of those Republicans who do not currently back Trump would not support him if he won the nomination. Such numbers tend to shrink as the general election draws nearer and the partisan choices become starker, but there is no doubt that many more Republicans than usual are prepared to bolt the party, rather than support a vulgar charlatan who flirts with bigots and casually urges Americans to commit war crimes.

But if Republicans don’t want to support Trump, what are their options?

A very few might grit their teeth and vote for Hillary Clinton. But one suspects that a dishonest left-winger, who doesn’t think the Obama administration is liberal enough, would not be a palatable choice for most. Could they really vote for her knowing that she would, for example, most likely appoint the next Supreme Court justice? Many more might just stay home, but that would not only lead to a Clinton victory, it would almost certainly guarantee Democratic control of the Senate, and possibly even threaten the House.

Some have talked about a more conventional scenario in which a conservative mounts a third-party challenge, but the barriers to such a run are enormous. Potential candidates would have to meet petition-signature requirements, with filing deadlines as early as mid-August. In California, the candidate would have to get signatures equivalent to 1 percent of the total number of registered voters, which could be roughly 178,000. Oklahoma would require signatures equivalent to 3 percent of the total votes cast in the last general election. Any third-party effort would be extremely costly and require an organizational infrastructure that few minor parties have.

I am a conservative, a Republican, a Tea Partier, and a political commentator who has fought in the trenches with the GOP and on the streets of San Francisco with the Tea Party. Like many of you, I have been furious with the GOP and the politicians we elected. Long before this primary, I wrote about the dangers to the GOP and this country if party elites continue to ignore the base. Clearly such pleas have fallen on deaf ears, and we are now paying for it with a brouhaha of a primary process, a “known unknown” stealing the show, and the devastating prospects of another progressive Democrat victory.

I have been disgusted with the entire process, and judging from the chatter, I am in good company with many of the 60-70% of potential voters in the Republican primary not supporting The Donald – whose numbers have dawdled in the 30+% range with the exception of outliers Massachusetts at 50%, Louisiana at 41%, Alabama at 43%, and Nevada at 46%. His acolytes may be enthralled, but the bulk of voters do not share in that enthusiasm, as evidenced by the failure of votes to shift to Trump as his competitors have dropped out.

I know this is a delegate game, but thus far, Trump’s popular vote average has been 34.8%. While he is admittedly the frontrunner, this hardly reflects the will of Republican primary voters. If anything, that will is splattered all over the conservative spectrum while consensus remains elusive.

Even though conservatives of all stripes are dismayed by the debates and the discourse, the Democrat-Media Complex claims we are all in the tank for Trump – we are racist idiots, thrashing at the red meat tossed our way by our racist-idiot-red-meat-eater-in-chief Donald Trump. And the only Republicans not supporting The Don are members of the “establishment.”

Yet primary results tell us that 60-70% of Republican primary voters are supporting Anyone but Donald, and those voters are not all “establishment.” The recent victories of Ted Cruz (40%) and Marco Rubio (30%) at CPAC – the go-to place for Tea Party conservatives and the strong conservative Republican base – further solidify that point.

The conservative press and punditry aren’t much better, with Ed Rollins recently telling Fox’s Uma Pemmaraju that the Tea Party is throwing in with Trump because of its anti-establishment leanings. This is just ivory-tower don’t-wanna-get-too-close-to-Tea-Party-types claptrap. Party elites, pundits, and journalists have no idea what the average Tea Partier is thinking, let alone what he or she has been doing for the last eight years – one reason we are in this mess. The Tea Party message was anti-big government, Ed, not anti-establishment – a world of difference.

While some Tea Partiers might support Trump, the ones I have been in touch with mostly favor Cruz. If given no other choice, they will vote for a Trump nominee – at a minimum, they see an alignment on the broad issues of making American great again, rebuilding our economic and foreign policy might, securing our borders, and creating jobs. But they do not care for his demeanor or nastiness and fully acknowledge that he is pretty much Pablum Don – all fluff, no stuff. While his conservative street cred is at best dubious, they are willing to risk the future of this country on the devil they don’t know (the “known unknown” of Trump) vs. the devil they know (the “known known” of HRC). They understand that his will be a shoot-from-the-hip presidency – not quite what Tea Partiers have been fighting for the last eight years, but marginally better than Hill or Bern.

“in a Playboy interview, here is what Donald Trump said of the Chinese government’s handling of the Tiananmen Square massacre:

“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world –”

In the late summer of 1989, I was a doctoral student in American studies. Strangely, there were often many people majoring in American studies from other countries. I had friends from all over the world – France, India, South Korea, Iceland, Austria…and China.

My Chinese friend, Q (not his real name), went home that summer.

I was in my office when he returned, watching the small black-and-white Goodwill-bought television (ask your parents, kids) I had brought in to make the place I spent most of my time more like the place I wanted to spend most of my time. The boxes I hauled up the four flights of stairs (no, we didn’t have an elevator; it was an old building) also contained a 60-cup percolator, a refrigerator box we turned into a closet, a microwave oven, a hot pot (again, kids, ask your parents), and a pull-out cot. We kept family-size jars of peanut butter and jelly, loaves of bread, and Costco-sized boxes of Ramen noodles.

We spent a lot of time there. The people on our floor became very close.

Since it was summer, there were a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a while, and Q was one of them.

I didn’t even have a chance to say hello as he came through my door before he threw a stack of photos on my desk.

“Here,” he said, tersely. “This is what they won’t show you. This is what happened there.”

I had been vaguely aware of recent unrest in China; I’d been busy working on a grant proposal I hoped would fund the rest of my dissertation work. The TV received three stations (sometimes), and I rarely made time for news.

I looked at the pictures. And then I looked again. And then I picked them up, and went through them, one by one.

“Tanks,” he said.

I stared at him. “But these can’t be –”

“People,” he said.

The Justice Department is widely reported to have offered criminal immunity to Bryan Pagliano, the techie who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email operation. Now that he has that get-out-of-jeopardy-free card, Mr. Pagliano also ought to be able to tell Congress and the public what he knows.
Last year Mr. Pagliano exercised his Fifth Amendment right not to testify about his role in maintaining a private email system for Mrs. Clinton when she was Secretary of State. But as GOP Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley wrote in a letter to him last week, “there is no longer reasonable cause for you to believe that discussing these matters with the relevant oversight committees could result in your prosecution.” They want Mr. Pagliano to appear before the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees. (Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Wednesday refused to say if Justice had offered Mr. Pagliano immunity, but that’s her standard operating procedure.) CONTINUE AT SITE

Marty Rosenberg has sat across the negotiating table from Donald Trump, and he says it cost his business nearly a half-million dollars when the man who currently reigns as the Republican presidential front-runner didn’t live up to his end of the deal.

The year was 1990, and Mr. Trump’s newly constructed Taj Mahal hotel and casino was hurtling toward bankruptcy, while Mr. Rosenberg’s Atlantic Plate Glass (APG) and scores of other contractors who built the lavish megacasino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, waited for more than $60 million in overdue payments.
“We got to the end of the job, and I think he owed APG about $1.5 million,” Mr. Rosenberg recalled in a recent interview. “I was waiting for my check, and it didn’t come.”

Mr. Rosenberg, who was vice president of Atlantic Plate Glass at the time, helped form a committee of construction firms and suppliers stiffed by Mr. Trump. He then served as a member of the so-called Group of Seven leading the committee’s negotiations that resulted in the contractors getting partial payments.

Atlantic Plate Glass lost about $450,000 in the settlement, said Mr. Rosenberg, adding that his personal finances took a hit because of his minority stockholder stake in the firm, and that the company struggled but overcame the loss.

Others fared worse, he said, including smaller businesses that didn’t survive.

“From my experience, he is definitely ego-driven, disingenuous and will say whatever he has to say at the time,” Mr. Rosenberg, 73, said of the billionaire businessman. “Trump says whatever is on his mind at the time that will get him off the hook.”

Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Rosenberg’s motives for telling his story now. He said he didn’t remember Mr. Rosenberg, but he remembered the glass job at the Taj Mahal cost a total of about $10 million.

“To the best of my knowledge, I never even met him. Just another publicity-seeker,” Mr. Trump said in an email to The Washington Times.

In 2009, lots of people were feeling vulnerable. The housing bubble had burst, taking with it millions of jobs. Pensions had vanished. Stocks were slumping. For a shrewd businessman, it was the perfect time for a get-rich-quick scheme.

Enter Donald Trump.

In November 2009, Trump, boasting a Midas-gold tie, took the stage in front of several thousand fans at Miami’s Hyatt Regency to debut his latest venture: The Trump Network™, a multi-level marketing operation focused on nutritional supplements. Trump was, as ever, ebullient: “When I did The Apprentice, it was a long shot. This is not a long shot. . . . We are going to be the biggest in the industry.” The Trump Network’s motto was ubiquitous at the event: Discover the Difference between Opportunity and Success.

In reality, people were about to discover the fine line between a multi-level marketing strategy and a pyramid scheme.

In early 2009, Trump purchased Ideal Health, Inc., founded in 1997 outside Boston by Lou DeCaprio and brothers Todd and Scott Stanwood, who became Trump Network executives. They got to work selling two products: Donald Trump and nutritional supplements. “If you know anything about network marketing — and anything about the power of the Trump brand — you’ll know this is an extraordinary opportunity,” Scott Stanwood wrote on his LinkedIn page. Meanwhile, in a promotional video for the Trump Network, DeCaprio touted the “best nutritional formula in the world.”

“Donald Trump is running a presidential campaign built on culture instead of ideology and issues. It is a culture furious with President Obama’s lawlessness and the failure of congressional Republicans to stop him. Unfortunately, the real culture of Donald Trump is a culture of bombast, bluster, and serial business failure. Perhaps this is the sort of person Americans want in the White House. Or perhaps they don’t know the sort of person Trump is.”
Trump earns support from Americans who think he has a Midas touch and will use his business skills to fix the mess President Obama has created. But a closer look at Trump’s record reveals his success story is just that — a story. How many of his supporters know about Trump University? Trump Air? Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump ties, or the United States Football League?

Trump’s business history reveals someone skilled at making money at the expense of other Americans while his businesses fail, and a man who will say almost anything about these failures. And his legacy of business failures goes beyond the four bankruptcies of his Atlantic City casinos. It includes outsourcing jobs to China, ripping off students seeking an education, and leaving a path of devastated Americans in his wake.

Just ask Louis Piatt. He put his faith in Donald Trump before he concluded Trump University was a worthless scam. Trump University was an unaccredited program that was supposed to teach ordinary Americans how to hit the big time in real estate.

Professor Donald supposedly would offer personal lessons on how to make money. In a perverse way, Trump did. Trump University made money by fleecing regular Americans who saved and paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition before it vanished. Trump University taught a harsh lesson in grifting.

What of Trump’s skill at “getting things done”? When it came to Trump University, it was mostly bluster. Trump used his personal brand to separate middle class Americans from their money. One pitch about the faculty from Dean Donald went like this:

And honestly, if you don’t learn from them, if you don’t learn from me, if you don’t learn from the people that we’re going to be putting forward, and these are all people handpicked by me, then you’re just not going to make it in terms of world-class success.

Trump University collapsed in a blizzard of lawsuits in 2010, and in 2013 the New York attorney general sued Trump University for $40 million for allegedly defrauding students.

“Mr. Trump is a business nationalist without a core philosophy of government, so his policy arc is going to be an adventure. But some of his voters might be surprised to learn that he wants to flood the U.S. with cheap Mexican goods and other dangerous foreign imports.”

Donald Trump is going to build a wall, and it’s going to be a beautiful wall, and everyone will love it—but it’s also going to have one notable side entrance. To wit, the GOP frontrunner won’t let Mexicans into America but he’ll make an exception for Mexican drugs.

Mr. Trump released a 10-paragraph health plan last week, perhaps in response to the criticism that he has no policy details. We’ll discuss the complete outline at a later date, but one detail that leapt out for comment is his endorsement of foreign pharmaceutical importation—an idea even liberals left for dead a decade ago. His campaign promises to “remove barriers to entry into free markets,” because “allowing consumers access to imported, safe and dependable drugs from overseas will bring more options to consumers.”

Sorry, it won’t. The U.S. maintains a “closed” drug distribution network of manufacturers, suppliers and pharmacies—precisely because overseas drugs often aren’t safe and dependable. Recent years have seen a proliferation of pill mills and forgery rings that slip counterfeit or adulterated products into global supply chains. The World Health Organization estimates 10% of drugs world-wide are bogus.

In the case of Mexico, the U.S. State Department warns travellers that as many as 25% of the medications available south of the border are fake. The Los Zetas, Sinaloa and Juárez cartels have diversified their portfolios into deceptive pharmaceuticals. The modern “closed” U.S. system was created in 1999 because Southern California was awash with fraudulent black-market compounds smuggled from Mexico. CONTINUE AT SITE

As our friend Guy Benson tallies things up in the Clinton email scandal, there were not only a whopping 2,079 emails containing classified information that were stored and transmitted on Hillary Clinton’s non-secure private server system. It turns out that she personally wrote 104 such emails – which, the Washington Post gingerly observes, “could complicate her efforts to argue that she never put government secrets at risk.” I’ll say. In fact, I have said: see my February 6 column describing the damage the former secretary of state has done to national security by exposing intelligence secrets, collection methods, and sources of information to hostile foreign intelligence services.

Let’s also keep in mind a fact that’s easy to forget since what’s before our eyes is so outrageous: For now, we are only talking about the Clinton emails that she deigned to turn over to the government. As Guy reminds us, there are another 32,000 emails that she attempted to delete. There have been reports indicating that the FBI has been able to recover at least some of these from the server. It is a shoe that has yet to drop.

Recall the state of play: Mrs. Clinton originally insisted no classified information was ever transmitted on her servers. When this became untenable, she changed her story to claim that she never personally sent or received classified emails – a claim that, even if true, would be of little legal relevance since she caused the creation of the private server system via which, because of the way she ran her office, the transmission of classified emails by her underlings was inevitable. But of course, we now know for sure that the claim is not true: Wholly apart from what she may have received, Clinton personally wrote and sent those aforementioned 104 emails containing classified information.

So the final evolution in this bogus defense is that there were “no classified markings” on emails stored or sent via the private server. Obviously, this is offered to intimate that she had no way of knowing she and her subordinates were handling classified information with criminal recklessness.