More Than 60 Shot in Chicago Memorial Day Weekend Violence
At least 62 people had been shot across the city since Friday afternoon, including six who were killed
By NBC
Even as Chicago Police beefed up patrols for Memorial Day, more than 60 people were shot during the violent three-day holiday weekend, an uptick in violence that Mayor Rahm Emanuel called "unacceptable."
By Monday evening, at least 62 people had been shot across the city since Friday afternoon, including six who were killed. That surpassed the number of people shot during last year's Memorial Day weekend. Chicago Police News Affairs said murders were down 50 percent compared to last Memorial Day.
Among the youngest shooting victims was a 15-year-old girl who was fatally shot while riding in a car with a documented gang member on Lake Shore Drive.
First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante had said the department’s plan for Monday was to increase patrols in designated areas, including along Lake Shore Drive.
“As we’ve said before, it’s about 1,500 people that are driving the violence,” Escalente said. “Those are the people we’re trying to concentrate on.”
Chicago has been pulled into headlines nationwide as police struggle to curtail the city’s growing reputation for violence. Escalante said he was confident the department could get things under control, but others were skeptical.
“The police cannot stop the killings in the Chicagoland area and it’s not their fault,” community activist Tio Hardiman told NBC 5. “The community needs to organize in high numbers and work with these guys on street corners in an aggressive way.”
As the city wraps up the fifth month of 2016, the Chicago Tribune reports there have already been more than 1,400 shooting victims so far this year.
Shootings across the city included the following:
FRIDAY
The first shooting of the holiday weekend occurred at just before 1 p.m. Friday, when a 52-year-old man was shot in the city's Brighton Park neighborhood, police said. Details on the shooting weren't immediately known.
At least four others were shot within an hour and a half across the city, including a 16-year-old boy who was wounded in the city's Washington Park neighborhood.
Just after 2:30 p.m., the city's first fatal shooting took place in the 6700 block of South Loomis. Two men were sitting on a porch when a gunman came out of a gangway and opened fire before fleeing the scene. A 39-year-old man was shot in the chest and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead. A 26-year-old man was shot in the right leg and lower back and listed in stable condition at Holy Cross Hospital.
At 9:25 p.m. Friday, a teen boy was shot in a drive-by shooting, authorities said. Police said an 18-year-old man was standing on a front porch in the 1200 block of W Grenshaw in the University Village neighborhood when a dark car drove by and someone inside fired shots. He sustained a gunshot wound to both legs, and was taken to Stroger Hospital in stable condition, authorities said.
A 25-year-old man was the second person killed over the weekend, when he was fatally shot at 10:55 p.m. in the Ashburn neighborhood. Later identified as Mark Lindsey by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, he was sitting in a car parked in the 3700 block of W 75th Pl at 10:55 p.m. when an unknown offender approached on foot and fired shots, police said. He sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and body, and was taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Centr, where he was pronounced dead.
SATURDAY
Two people were shot at 1:10 a.m. in the South Deering neighborhood. A 50-year-old man was standing on the front porch of a home in the 9900 block of S Paxton when 2 men walked up and fired shots. The victim sustained a gunshot wound to the right forearm and refused medical attention at the scene. A 53-year-old woman was inside a bedroom in the home and was struck in the lower back. She was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in stable condition.
A 15-year-old girl was killed and a man in his twenties was injured in a shooting on Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park early Saturday. Veronica Lopez was a passenger in a car in the 2400 block of N Lake Shore Drive just before 1:30 a.m. when a black Nissan pulled alongside them and someone inside fired shots, police said. They took themselves to Presence Saint Joseph Hospital, but Lopez was later transferred to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. The man, a documented gang member and convicted felon, was shot in the arm and suffered a graze wound to the head, according to police. He’s listed in stable condition.
At 1:45 a.m., three men were standing outside in the 3300 block of W Walnut in the East Garfield Park neighborhood when someone in an unknown vehicle drove up and fired shots. A 26-year-old man was taken to Stroger hospital in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the leg, a 27-year-old man was taken to Stroger in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the thigh and a third man, 23, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in guarded condition, meaning very critical, with a gunshot wound to the back.
At 2:35 a.m., a 17-year-old boy was standing outside in the 1200 block of S Independence in the North Lawndale neighborhood when the occupant of a black SUV fired shots, striking the victim. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition with a gunshot wound to the knee, police said.
A 21-year-old man was driving in the 4300 block of N Kimball in Irving Park at 2:55 a.m., according to police, when someone fired shots. He sustained a gunshot wound to the clavicle and was taken in serious condition to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, according to police.
A 25-year-old man was standing outside in the 4600 block of S Honore in the Back of the Yards neighborhood at 3:13 a.m., according to police. An unknown offender fired shots, striking him in the leg, and he was taken to Stroger Hospital in stable condition, police said.
Around 4 a.m., a 24-year-old man was outside in a park in the 4600 block of W Jackson St in Austin when an unknown offender approached and fired shots, according to police. The victim, a documented gang member, was hit in the leg and taken to Stroger Hospital where he was listed in stable condition, according to police.
At 4:35 a.m., a 24-year-old man was walking in the 4300 block of W West End in the West Garfield Park neighborhood when two unknown offenders approached, produced a handgun, and opened fire, according to police. He suffered graze wounds to the arm and hand and was taken to Stroger in good condition, police said. According to authorities, he is a documented gang member.
The fourth fatal shooting of the weekend happened in a normally quiet area of the Portage Park neighborhood on the city’s Northwest Side, police said. A 23-year-old man later identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office as Damien Cionzynski of Harwood Heights was one of two men who walked into a business at 5:15 a.m. in the 6300 block of W Montrose, according to police. The men got into an altercation, at which point one produced a weapon and shot Cionzynski in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
Two men were shot in a robbery in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on Saturday, according to police. At around 3:45 p.m., the victims, both 46, were walking in the 3900 block of W Erie when three unknown male offenders approached, fired shots and stole the victims’ property before fleeing. One man was shot in the left leg, the other in the right ankle, according to police, and both were taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition.
A 24-year-old man was walking down the sidewalk in the 1400 block of W 99th St in the Longwood Manor neighborhood at 4:20 p.m., police said, when an unknown offender opened fire. Authorities said the victim, a documented gang member, sustained a gunshot wound to the leg and was taken in serious condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center. According to police, he was not cooperating with investigators, and a weapon was recovered from the scene of the shooting.
A 27-year-old man was fatally shot in the Fuller Park neighborhood on Saturday evening. Later identified as 27-year-old Garvin Whitmore by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, he was in the driver’s seat of a car in the 200 block of W Root when someone approached on foot and fired shots, striking him in the head. A 26-year-old woman in the vehicle with him then exited the vehicle and fired shots at the offenders. She was not injured but was taken into custody and charged with reckless discharge of a firearm and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon without a FOID card, both felonies, according to police. Whitmore was pronounced dead on the scene.
A 19-year-old man was walking in the 8300 block of S Dante in the Avalon Park neighborhood, according to police, when he heard shots and felt pain. Authorities said a dark colored vehicle drove by and an unknown offender inside opened fire, striking him in the buttocks. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in stable condition, according to police.
A 26-year-old woman was driving eastbound in the 3900 block of W Lexington in Lawndale at 8 p.m. when someone fired shots, striking her in the neck, police said. She continued to drive on Lexington, police said, before crashing her vehicle into a parked car. She was discovered unresponsive in her car and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition.
Around 8:40 p.m., two men were in a car stopped at a red light in the 1600 block of W 47th St in the Back of the Yards neighborhood when another car pulled up from behind and passengers in that car opened fire. A 32-year-old man was shot in the right leg, and a 22-year-old man in the left leg, according to police. Both were taken in stable condition to Stroger Hospital and officials believe the incident may have been gang-related.
Around 9 p.m., a 23-year-old man was walking down the sidewalk in the 5100 block of W Chicago in Austin when a light-colored car drove by, and occupants opened fire, police said. He was struck in the upper right leg and taken to Mount Sinai in stable condition.
Three people were shot in a shooting around 9:40 p.m. in 2000 block of W 68th Pl in the West Englewood neighborhood, according to police. The first victim was a 48-year-old woman who was a passenger in a car heading south on Damen. Police said she was the unintended target, struck when occupants of two separate vehicles fired shots. She was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in stable condition with a graze wound to the neck. Two men standing on a front porch at that time were struck in the shooting. A 17-year-old boy sustained a gunshot wound to the right knee and a 23-year-old man was shot in the right foot. Both were listed in stable condition at Holy Cross Hospital.
At 10:15 p.m., a 17-year-old boy was standing on the sidewalk in the 1500 block of S Ridgeway in Lawndale when he heard shots and felt pain, police said. He was then dropped off at Mount Sinai Hospital in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the lower left leg, authorities said.
Just before midnight, two men were standing on the sidewalk in the 700 block of S Independence in West Garfield Park when they heard shots and felt pain, police said. A 28-year-old was hit in the left thigh, and a 29-year-old man in the left ankle. Both were taken to Mount Sinai in stable condition, according to police, and both are documented gang members.
SUNDAY
A 37-year-old man was critically wounded in a shooting at 12:20 a.m. in Austin, according to police. He was standing in an alley in the 4700 block of W Erie when a male offender approached on foot and opened fire, according to police. He was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest and leg, police said.
At 1:05 a.m., two men were walking on the sidewalk in the 700 block of N Kedzie in East Garfield Park when they heard shots and felt pain. A 21-year-old man had a graze wound to the back and a 22-year-old man had a gunshot wound to the left hand, according to police. They drove to Norwegian American Hospital, where the younger man was transferred to Stroger. Both were listed in stable condition, authorities said, and the shooting may have been gang-related.
At 2 a.m., a 28-year-old man was shot in the 900 block of N Cambridge in the Near North Side neighborhood, police said. He was involved in a verbal dispute with another person when the offender pulled out a gun and shot the victim twice in the arm. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where his condition was unknown, according to police.
A 23-year-old man was sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked car in the 9700 block of S Vincennes in the Washington Heights neighborhood when he was shot, police said. Authorities said a man exited another vehicle and approached on foot. They men exchanged words when the offender produced a handgun and opened fire, police said. The victim drove himself to St. Bernard Hospital in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the left thigh, police said.
Around 4:40 a.m., a 26-year-old woman was shot while driving in the 3900 block of W Wilcox in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, police said. Two men approached her car and opened fire, according to police, striking her in the back. She had other passengers in the car who were documented gang members and convicted felons, police said, but no one else was hit. She was dropped off at Loretto Hospital and transferred to Stroger in serious condition.
Just five minutes later, a 27-year-old man was standing on the sidewalk in the 5000 block of W West End Ave in Austin when he heard shots and felt pain, police said. He took himself to Stroger Hospital in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the right leg, according to police.
Around 5:15 a.m., a 17-year-old boy was wounded in a shooting in the 300 block of West 108th Street, police confirmed. Further details on the shooting weren't immediately known.
A 20-year-old man was shot around 12 p.m. in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, according to police. He was standing outside in the 8500 block of S Ashland when he heard shots and felt pain. He took himself to Little Company of Mary Hospital where he was listed in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the arm.
A 24-year-old man was shot during an argument with someone he knows in the West Pullman neighborhood, police said. The incident occurred around 12:35 p.m. in the 11500 block of S Peoria, police said. He was taken in stable condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the right thigh.
At 4:40 p.m., a 23-year-old man was in the 1200 block of W 85th St in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood when he was shot in the right hip, police said. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, in unknown condition, and authorities said he is a documented gang member.
Just before 6 p.m., a 29-year-old man was shot walking out of a store in the 11500 block of South Wentworth in the city’s West Pullman neighborhood. He was shot in the shoulder and drove himself to be treated to MetroSouth Medical Center in Blue Island, police said.
At 10:45 p.m. a 25-year-old was shot in the left hand in the 3800 block of South Lake Park Avenue of the city’s Oakland neighborhood, police said, before being taken to Cook County’s Stroger Hospital to be treated.
At 11 p.m., two men were shot in the Lawndale neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side. Police said the men were walking in the 2100 block of South Harding when another man approached them and started firing. One of the men, a 35-year-old, was hit in the buttocks and the other, a 58-year-old, was shot in the right leg. Both were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital to be treated, police said.
A half hour later, a 21-year-old who police say was a documented gang member was shot in the leg in the 5900 block of South Princeton in Englewood. He showed up with the gunshot wound at St. Bernard Hospital, police said.
MONDAY
• About 12:30 a.m., police said a 35-year-old was injured in a drive-by shooting in the Austin neighborhood. The man was standing on a porch in the 900 block of North Massasoit when a car drove past and fired shots, police said. He was hit in the leg and taken to Loyola University Medical Center to be treated, police said.
• Around 1 a.m., a man was shot during an attempted robbery in the South Side’s Park Manor neighborhood. Police say the 28-year-old was in the 400 block of East 74th Street when two men approached him and announced a robbery. When he tried to run away, he was shot in the back, police said. He was taken to Stroger Hospital to be treated.
• At 1:30 a.m., two documented gang members were shot while walking in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the city’s West Side. The men, both 18, were in the 1300 block of North Pulaski when someone walked up and started shooting, police said. One was struck in the back and the other in the leg. Both were taken to Stroger Hospital, police said.
• At 10:35 a.m., a 17-year-old boy was shot twice in the hip when someone in a black SUV fired shots in his direction. The vehicle fled the scene and the victim was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in fair condition.
• Just before 11 a.m., two men were shot while standing on a street in the 3800 block of West Gladys in the city's East Garfield Park neighborhood. A 21-year-old man was shot in the left elbow and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition and a 28-year-old man was shot in the lower back and taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition. Police said a black Nissan drove by the pair and someone inside the vehicle opened fire. No one was in custody as of Monday evening.
• Around 4 p.m., a 15-year-old boy was shot in the back while walking in the 6700 block of South Sangamon. Police said the teen was walking on the street when he heard shots and felt pain. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in stable condition.
• An hour later, a 16-year-old boy was shot while talking to someone in the 8700 block of South Escanaba. Police said a gunman emerged from a gangway in the area and fired several shots at the pair striking the teen in the right leg.
• Around 5:30 p.m., a 17-year-old boy was shot in the right thumb in the 3600 block of West 30th Street. The teen told police he was walking down the block when a man across the street, who was walking with another man, fired shots at him. The victim was taken to St. Anthony Hospital in good condition.
May 31, 2016
Low-Octane
Fact-Checking Donald Trump’s Low-Octane Energy Policy
We take a look at the emissions and omissions from the GOP nominee-apparent's ‘America First’ energy address.
By Emily Schwartz Greco
Time was, picturing what Donald Trump’s presidential energy policies might look like required parsing his fact-defying tweets, forehead slap-worthy comments and threats to seize Middle Eastern oil by force. Now that the presumptive Republican nominee has unveiled his “America First” energy policy, there’s less guesswork to do.
“We’re going to have all sorts of energy,” Trump declared when he parachuted into Bismarck, North Dakota, on Thursday to deliver his keynote speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference. Having just learned that North Dakota’s Republicans had bagged him the final delegates he technically needed to secure the GOP presidential nomination, his mood was upbeat and he exuded even more confidence than usual.
Without saying how he’d accomplish such things, Trump said he’d rescind the nation’s commitment to the global climate deal reached in Paris and roll back regulations and restrictions on oil, gas and coal production.
Reality check: His throwback fantasy is immune to the dynamics of science, diplomacy and markets. It misrepresents the federal government’s role in the oil and gas boom that coincided with the Obama administration. It mischaracterizes the potential of fossil fuel investments like the Keystone XL pipeline to generate jobs and profits when most Canadian and US oil prices remain below their break-even point despite rebounding to the $50-a-barrel mark hours before he spoke.
Trump miscast climate change as a “phony” concern and the coal industry’s demise as a political plot rather than a global development driven by weak demand in the face of cheaper alternatives and the kind of shoddy management that landed former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship behind bars.
In Trump’s parallel universe, we ought to deliberately boost fossil fuel production to transport our nation into a promised land of energy independence — an altered state where we’d never again rely on imports from “the OPEC oil cartel or any nations hostile to our interest.”
Trump sees no reason to leave an ounce of coal or a drop of oil in the ground.
In short, Trump sees no reason to leave an ounce of coal or a drop of oil in the ground. He sees no contradiction between going full-throttle on dirty energy and tackling “real environmental challenges” like improving air and water quality after having met his goal of dismantling the EPA.
Trump leans heavily for guidance on these issues on the two men who introduced him at the keynote, oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm (who gave nearly $1 million to the super PAC backing Mitt Romney in 2012) and climate denialist Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND). In fact, he leans on them so heavily that the relationship may constitute plagiarism. As The Guardian reported, some passages from the candidate’s remarks were pulled almost verbatim from a Grand Forks Herald op-ed bylined by Cramer. So it was no surprise that Trump said little about renewable energy during his address other than to suggest that it’s worse for the environment than fossil fuels, which “are working much better.”
During the press conference beforehand, at which the candidate was flanked by North Dakota Trump delegates, he dismissed wind and solar energy as newfangled fads. In reality, they’ve been the world’s leading source of newly installed electric power since 2013.
Specifically, Trump said solar and wind power cost too much and he claimed that “the windmills are killing hundreds and hundreds of eagles.” None of that is true, as Philip Bump explained in The Washington Post. Buildings and cats kill way more birds than wind turbines. If this guy — who made the fortune he inherited from his dad even bigger by building skyscrapers — really cared about bird health and safety, he’d be against big buildings and in favor of renewable energy.
Trump also was misleading or ignorant when it came to subsidies: Contrary to his suggestion that they have been skewed toward renewable energy, the lion’s share of government assistance to the energy sector has historically propped up fossil fuels and nuclear reactors.
In short, Trump wants to short-circuit the green-energy boom. The rest of us may favor action to slow global warming before it turns Miami into Atlantis. But his energy policy rests on the premise that there’s no reason to cut carbon pollution to rein in a phenomenon he has dismissed as a Chinese hoax.
What Trump didn’t talk about was perhaps more telling than what he said. Should our government try to boost energy efficiency? Force purveyors of gasoline to blend it with ethanol? Keep operating aging nuclear reactors, like the troubled ones at the Indian Point power plant outside his hometown? Do more to reduce the incidence of black lung among coal miners? Because of that disease, Trump told Playboy in 1990, “If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines.”
The real estate mogul offered radio silence on these complicated issues and generally failed to reconcile his pledge of allegiance to fossil fuels with his earlier comments that conflict with it.
Instead, he veered into dog-whistling digressions, venting about everything from his belief in the sanctity of gun rights to his desire for more “law and order” in American cities and President Barack Obama’s refusal to utter the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Trump repeated his promise to build “the wall” on our border with Mexico, said he’d debate Bernie Sanders if at least $10 million were raised by the spectacle to support a good cause such as “women’s health” and insulted Hillary Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
If you care about keeping the lights on, prefer not to inhale more mercury pollution and don’t want to see what might happen if sea levels rise by 6 feet, this was a terrifying address. Were his supporters truly concerned with the substance of what Trump says, this speech would break their faith in his sexist, racist and xenophobic campaign.
The Trump campaign doesn’t expect that to happen. Otherwise, why would it use the same “America First” branding for its energy plan as its foreign policy plank? The America First Committee, which opposed US entry into WWII until the Pearl Harbor bombing, was markedly anti-Semitic. Surely someone (perhaps his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner, who attended a yeshiva in his youth, owns a newspaper and wrote The Donald’s AIPAC speech) has suggested by now that he lose this label. Maybe, just maybe, his own Orthodox Jewish daughter (Ivanka converted to Judaism and the couple is raising their children in the faith) has pointed out that it won’t help dispel Trump’s white supremacist problem. If so, he’s not listening. But he does seem to be giving plenty of ear time to pollsters and special interests.
Trump’s display of fealty to the oil, gas and coal lobbies was an exercise in crass opportunism. Before the Iowa caucus, when Trump was pandering to the ethanol industry and its supporters, he railed on Ted Cruz’s anti-ethanol position. “Look, I’m not really blaming him because he’s financed by oil people,” Trump said at the time.
Until now, those oil people have been downright stingy with Trump. They’ve handed the bulk of their campaign cash during primary season to Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton. Even Sanders, who has disavowed donations from fossil fuel industries (aside from those individual workers give him) has raised more money from them than Trump, according to Federal Election Commission data released May 16 and crunched by the Center for Responsive Politics.
“I think there’s a lot of question marks as to where Trump is on energy policy, but based on what we know and based on the fact that he’s running against Hillary, I don’t think I have much of a choice,” said GOP donor Dan Eberhart, the CEO of the oilfield services company Canary LLC.” According to Politico, the former supporter of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was already backing Trump before the America First energy speech.
We take a look at the emissions and omissions from the GOP nominee-apparent's ‘America First’ energy address.
By Emily Schwartz Greco
Time was, picturing what Donald Trump’s presidential energy policies might look like required parsing his fact-defying tweets, forehead slap-worthy comments and threats to seize Middle Eastern oil by force. Now that the presumptive Republican nominee has unveiled his “America First” energy policy, there’s less guesswork to do.
“We’re going to have all sorts of energy,” Trump declared when he parachuted into Bismarck, North Dakota, on Thursday to deliver his keynote speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference. Having just learned that North Dakota’s Republicans had bagged him the final delegates he technically needed to secure the GOP presidential nomination, his mood was upbeat and he exuded even more confidence than usual.
Without saying how he’d accomplish such things, Trump said he’d rescind the nation’s commitment to the global climate deal reached in Paris and roll back regulations and restrictions on oil, gas and coal production.
Reality check: His throwback fantasy is immune to the dynamics of science, diplomacy and markets. It misrepresents the federal government’s role in the oil and gas boom that coincided with the Obama administration. It mischaracterizes the potential of fossil fuel investments like the Keystone XL pipeline to generate jobs and profits when most Canadian and US oil prices remain below their break-even point despite rebounding to the $50-a-barrel mark hours before he spoke.
Trump miscast climate change as a “phony” concern and the coal industry’s demise as a political plot rather than a global development driven by weak demand in the face of cheaper alternatives and the kind of shoddy management that landed former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship behind bars.
In Trump’s parallel universe, we ought to deliberately boost fossil fuel production to transport our nation into a promised land of energy independence — an altered state where we’d never again rely on imports from “the OPEC oil cartel or any nations hostile to our interest.”
Trump sees no reason to leave an ounce of coal or a drop of oil in the ground.
In short, Trump sees no reason to leave an ounce of coal or a drop of oil in the ground. He sees no contradiction between going full-throttle on dirty energy and tackling “real environmental challenges” like improving air and water quality after having met his goal of dismantling the EPA.
Trump leans heavily for guidance on these issues on the two men who introduced him at the keynote, oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm (who gave nearly $1 million to the super PAC backing Mitt Romney in 2012) and climate denialist Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND). In fact, he leans on them so heavily that the relationship may constitute plagiarism. As The Guardian reported, some passages from the candidate’s remarks were pulled almost verbatim from a Grand Forks Herald op-ed bylined by Cramer. So it was no surprise that Trump said little about renewable energy during his address other than to suggest that it’s worse for the environment than fossil fuels, which “are working much better.”
During the press conference beforehand, at which the candidate was flanked by North Dakota Trump delegates, he dismissed wind and solar energy as newfangled fads. In reality, they’ve been the world’s leading source of newly installed electric power since 2013.
Specifically, Trump said solar and wind power cost too much and he claimed that “the windmills are killing hundreds and hundreds of eagles.” None of that is true, as Philip Bump explained in The Washington Post. Buildings and cats kill way more birds than wind turbines. If this guy — who made the fortune he inherited from his dad even bigger by building skyscrapers — really cared about bird health and safety, he’d be against big buildings and in favor of renewable energy.
Trump also was misleading or ignorant when it came to subsidies: Contrary to his suggestion that they have been skewed toward renewable energy, the lion’s share of government assistance to the energy sector has historically propped up fossil fuels and nuclear reactors.
In short, Trump wants to short-circuit the green-energy boom. The rest of us may favor action to slow global warming before it turns Miami into Atlantis. But his energy policy rests on the premise that there’s no reason to cut carbon pollution to rein in a phenomenon he has dismissed as a Chinese hoax.
What Trump didn’t talk about was perhaps more telling than what he said. Should our government try to boost energy efficiency? Force purveyors of gasoline to blend it with ethanol? Keep operating aging nuclear reactors, like the troubled ones at the Indian Point power plant outside his hometown? Do more to reduce the incidence of black lung among coal miners? Because of that disease, Trump told Playboy in 1990, “If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines.”
The real estate mogul offered radio silence on these complicated issues and generally failed to reconcile his pledge of allegiance to fossil fuels with his earlier comments that conflict with it.
Instead, he veered into dog-whistling digressions, venting about everything from his belief in the sanctity of gun rights to his desire for more “law and order” in American cities and President Barack Obama’s refusal to utter the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Trump repeated his promise to build “the wall” on our border with Mexico, said he’d debate Bernie Sanders if at least $10 million were raised by the spectacle to support a good cause such as “women’s health” and insulted Hillary Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
If you care about keeping the lights on, prefer not to inhale more mercury pollution and don’t want to see what might happen if sea levels rise by 6 feet, this was a terrifying address. Were his supporters truly concerned with the substance of what Trump says, this speech would break their faith in his sexist, racist and xenophobic campaign.
The Trump campaign doesn’t expect that to happen. Otherwise, why would it use the same “America First” branding for its energy plan as its foreign policy plank? The America First Committee, which opposed US entry into WWII until the Pearl Harbor bombing, was markedly anti-Semitic. Surely someone (perhaps his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner, who attended a yeshiva in his youth, owns a newspaper and wrote The Donald’s AIPAC speech) has suggested by now that he lose this label. Maybe, just maybe, his own Orthodox Jewish daughter (Ivanka converted to Judaism and the couple is raising their children in the faith) has pointed out that it won’t help dispel Trump’s white supremacist problem. If so, he’s not listening. But he does seem to be giving plenty of ear time to pollsters and special interests.
Trump’s display of fealty to the oil, gas and coal lobbies was an exercise in crass opportunism. Before the Iowa caucus, when Trump was pandering to the ethanol industry and its supporters, he railed on Ted Cruz’s anti-ethanol position. “Look, I’m not really blaming him because he’s financed by oil people,” Trump said at the time.
Until now, those oil people have been downright stingy with Trump. They’ve handed the bulk of their campaign cash during primary season to Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton. Even Sanders, who has disavowed donations from fossil fuel industries (aside from those individual workers give him) has raised more money from them than Trump, according to Federal Election Commission data released May 16 and crunched by the Center for Responsive Politics.
“I think there’s a lot of question marks as to where Trump is on energy policy, but based on what we know and based on the fact that he’s running against Hillary, I don’t think I have much of a choice,” said GOP donor Dan Eberhart, the CEO of the oilfield services company Canary LLC.” According to Politico, the former supporter of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was already backing Trump before the America First energy speech.
California voters
Gov. Brown to decide whether California voters will sound off in November on money in politics
By John Myers
Lawmakers gave final approval Friday to a November ballot measure asking voters about the growing role of undisclosed donors in political campaign.
If Gov. Jerry Brown approves, the measure would ask voters on Nov. 8 whether California's elected officials should work to overturn the controversial 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the controversial Citizens United case.
"This is about trying to get the system under control," said state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), the author of the legislation.
The Citizens United ruling in favor of a conservative nonprofit group opened the door to unlimited spending by corporations and unions in federal candidate campaigns.
Much of that spending is done by nonprofit organizations that, under IRS rules, do not have to disclose their donors.
The measure specifically asks California voters if state lawmakers should use "all of their constitutional authority" to overturn the Citizens United ruling. In general, that would likely mean an amendment to the U.S. Constitution proposed by Congress and ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.
That would give it long odds of having any practical meaning.
Democrats in the Legislature have been trying to get the advisory measure in front of California voters since 2014. The original attempt was challenged in court by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. as being outside of the legislative power to place propositions on the statewide ballot. In January, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of lawmakers but also said they would have to start from scratch with a new proposal.
“We all know about the pernicious and pervasive role of money in politics," Allen said during Friday's floor debate in the Senate, "and we want to give the people in our state, the largest state in the country, the chance to weigh in on this matter.”
But Republicans took issue with what Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) described as nothing more than placing a "public opinion poll" on the ballot. And critics in 2014 accused legislative Democrats of trying to boost turnout among the party faithful.
Brown has not yet offered an opinion on the idea but nonetheless expressed concern about the 2014 version, telling lawmakers at the time they "should not make it a habit to clutter our ballots with nonbinding measures, as citizens rightfully assume that their votes are meant to have legal effect."
The governor has 12 days to either issue a veto or allow the measure to be placed on the ballot. There it would join a plethora of other propositions in what's shaping up to be the longest California ballot since March 2000.
Even some supporters expressed concern about how many issues voters will be asked to consider in November.
"It's a ballot that is so long, it's Moby Dick-like in what we're facing," said Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys).
By John Myers
Lawmakers gave final approval Friday to a November ballot measure asking voters about the growing role of undisclosed donors in political campaign.
If Gov. Jerry Brown approves, the measure would ask voters on Nov. 8 whether California's elected officials should work to overturn the controversial 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the controversial Citizens United case.
"This is about trying to get the system under control," said state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), the author of the legislation.
The Citizens United ruling in favor of a conservative nonprofit group opened the door to unlimited spending by corporations and unions in federal candidate campaigns.
Much of that spending is done by nonprofit organizations that, under IRS rules, do not have to disclose their donors.
The measure specifically asks California voters if state lawmakers should use "all of their constitutional authority" to overturn the Citizens United ruling. In general, that would likely mean an amendment to the U.S. Constitution proposed by Congress and ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.
That would give it long odds of having any practical meaning.
Democrats in the Legislature have been trying to get the advisory measure in front of California voters since 2014. The original attempt was challenged in court by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. as being outside of the legislative power to place propositions on the statewide ballot. In January, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of lawmakers but also said they would have to start from scratch with a new proposal.
“We all know about the pernicious and pervasive role of money in politics," Allen said during Friday's floor debate in the Senate, "and we want to give the people in our state, the largest state in the country, the chance to weigh in on this matter.”
But Republicans took issue with what Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) described as nothing more than placing a "public opinion poll" on the ballot. And critics in 2014 accused legislative Democrats of trying to boost turnout among the party faithful.
Brown has not yet offered an opinion on the idea but nonetheless expressed concern about the 2014 version, telling lawmakers at the time they "should not make it a habit to clutter our ballots with nonbinding measures, as citizens rightfully assume that their votes are meant to have legal effect."
The governor has 12 days to either issue a veto or allow the measure to be placed on the ballot. There it would join a plethora of other propositions in what's shaping up to be the longest California ballot since March 2000.
Even some supporters expressed concern about how many issues voters will be asked to consider in November.
"It's a ballot that is so long, it's Moby Dick-like in what we're facing," said Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys).
6 things we learned...
6 things we learned from Donald Trump's first big energy speech
by Brad Plumer
When it comes to energy policy, the 2016 presidential election really isn't all that complicated.
Hillary Clinton plans to continue President Obama's strategy of pushing down carbon dioxide emissions via regulations. That means using less coal and oil and more wind and solar. Donald Trump, by contrast, doesn't much care about global warming and plans to greatly expand US oil drilling and coal mining — largely by repealing various environmental rules.
On Thursday, Trump fleshed out his vision in a speech at an oil industry conference in Bismarck, North Dakota. There were no real surprises here. Trump's energy policy sounds nearly identical to Mitt Romney's energy policy in 2012, only with more exclamation points. (At one point Trump actually used the phrase "very, very pure, sweet, beautiful oil.") He's happily adopted the standard GOP playbook: fewer regulations, more domestic fossil fuel production, approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and "cancel" the Paris climate deal. The crowd loved it.
Here were six big takeaways:
1) Trump simply doesn't care about climate change
Before the speech, many reporters were wondering if Trump might finally clarify his views on global warming. This is a guy, after all, who once tweeted, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." Surely he'd like to elaborate?
Instead, Trump mostly ... ignored the issue. He talked about guns in his energy speech. He talked about rising crime in cities. He even reiterated his pledge to build a wall on the border with Mexico — evidently a hit at North Dakota oil gatherings. But he barely discussed climate change.
He did promise that upon taking office, he'd "rescind all job-destroying Obama executive actions ... including the Climate Action Plan." Here he's referring to a series of regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency has enacted over the past eight years to cut US carbon dioxide emissions. Trump would presumably try to scrap Obama's Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce CO2 from power plants.
I've written about how Trump might go about dismantling Obama's climate policies here. Suffice to say, this would be easier to do if a GOP-controlled Congress could pass a law taking away the EPA's authority over carbon dioxide. It'd be harder (but not impossible) for Trump to do via executive action alone.
Trump also pledged to "cancel the Paris climate agreement" — the deal reached last December in which every country on Earth pledged to restrain emissions and address global warming. While Trump couldn't just scuttle a global deal by himself, he could certainly undermine it by abandoning America's efforts to cut emissions.
Trump also seemed perplexed about how the Paris agreement even works, claiming it "gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use." This isn't true at all. Under the deal, every country submits its own (voluntary) plan for curbing emissions.
2) The US produces more oil and gas than anyone else — but Trump wants more
The United States is currently the largest producer of petroleum and natural gas in the world, thanks in part to the massive fracking boom that's been taking place around the country since the 2000s.
But to hear Trump tell it, we're barely producing anything at all. He wants more — much more. On his first day in office, "American energy dominance will be declared a strategic, economic, and foreign policy goal of the United States," he said. "It's about time!"
Trump dropped a few hints about how he'd try to expand oil and gas drilling. He criticized the Obama administration for keeping certain federal lands and waters off limits from drilling — including parts of Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf. (Romney proposed opening up these areas in 2012; you could likely get more production by doing so, though the impacts are often exaggerated.) Trump also attacked Clinton's proposals to regulate fracking; like Obama, she has backed rules to restrict methane leaks from natural gas operations.
At times, Trump didn't seem to appreciate that energy production is frequently outside the president's control. For instance, he blamed Obama for the fact that the number of active drilling rigs in the United States has fallen to its lowest level in nearly a decade. The rig count has indeed plummeted. But that's primarily due to the fact that the recent US oil boom has created a glut of oil worldwide, causing crude prices to crash and giving companies less incentive to drill.
3) Trump called for "energy independence," a popular but meaningless concept
"Under my administration," Trump promised, "we'll accomplish complete American energy independence. Complete. Imagine a world in which our foes, and the oil cartels, can no longer use energy as a weapon. It will happen. We're going to win."
Presidents have been promising "energy independence" since forever and a day, but it doesn't really make much sense. The US currently produces enough crude oil to supply about 74 percent of its needs. In theory, with vastly expanded production we could bump that up to 100 percent. But we still wouldn't be shielded from foreign oil cartels.
Oil is traded on the world market, and if tensions in the Middle East cause prices to spike, everyone is affected, regardless of where they get their crude. The easiest way to observe this is to look at Canada. Canada is a net oil exporter, a bona fide oil-independent nation. But gasoline prices in Canada still rise and fall in accordance with world events, just as they do in the United States or Japan or Europe.
There are perfectly sound reasons to boost domestic energy production — as Trump says, it can create jobs and economic activity. But "energy independence" is a misguided notion.
4) Trump wants to bring back US coal mining — but it's doubtful he actually can
Coal production in the US has fallen off a cliff in recent years. Back in 2008, the country produced a record 1.2 billion short tons of coal. By 2015, that had fallen 25 percent. Coal mining employment has also plummeted as a result — a real blow to various communities in places like West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.
There are a couple of reasons for coal's recent fall: The fracking boom has led to a flood of cheap natural gas, propelling many utilities to switch from coal to gas. But Obama's EPA has also enacted a number of strict air pollution regulations — on mercury and sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide from coal-burning plants — that have accelerated this shift to gas. (Falling Chinese steel production has also weakened demand for metallurgic coal.)
Donald Trump wants to bring back coal mining by repealing those EPA regulations. "We're going to save the coal industry," Trump promised. But utilities wouldn't necessarily rush back to coal once that happened, because natural gas would still have a cost advantage. (And remember, Trump wants to expand natural gas production.) It's extremely unlikely that the coal industry would rebound to its former levels.
Indeed, even coal industry execs who support Trump are skeptical that he can bring back all those lost jobs. "I don't think it will be a thriving industry ever again," coal mining CEO Robert Murray recently told Taylor Kuykendall of SNL. "It will be an extremely competitive industry and it will be half size. … The coal mines cannot come back to where they were or anywhere near it."
(For her part, Hillary Clinton has basically conceded that most of those lost mining jobs will never return, particularly if she maintains Obama's rules to curtail CO2 from power plants. So she's proposed a $30 billion plan to help mining communities manage the transition away from coal.)
5) Trump isn't a huge fan of wind and solar
In his speech, Trump said that his energy strategy "does include nuclear, wind, and solar." But, he added, he wouldn't support them "to the exclusion of other forms of energy" — referring to fossil fuels — "that right now are working much better."
In his press conference with reporters before the speech, Trump elaborated: "I know a lot about solar," he said. "The problem with solar is it's very expensive." He made no mention of the fact that solar prices have been dropping precipitously.
He also criticized wind turbines for killing birds in California. "Wind is killing hundreds and hundreds of eagles, one of the most beautiful, one of the most treasured birds," he said. "So wind is a problem." (While this is technically true, wind turbines kill orders of magnitude fewer birds than power lines or windows or cats. And many wind developers are currently experimenting with ways to reduce bird deaths.)
6) Trump wants clean air and clean water — but (apparently) not through regulations
"A Trump administration will focus on real environmental challenges, not the phony ones," Trump said. "We'll solve for environmental problems, like the need for clean and safe drinking water." Later he elaborated: "My priorities are simple: clean air and clean water."
But he gave no indication of how he'd actually do that. In the past, the EPA has been a major driver of cleaning up America's air pollution. As the chart below shows, the six most common air pollutants in the US have all fallen 72 percent since 1970 — due, in large part, to rules imposed under the Clean Air Act.
Trump made clear he's not a fan of the EPA. So he'd push for clean air and water ... how? He didn't say.
by Brad Plumer
When it comes to energy policy, the 2016 presidential election really isn't all that complicated.
Hillary Clinton plans to continue President Obama's strategy of pushing down carbon dioxide emissions via regulations. That means using less coal and oil and more wind and solar. Donald Trump, by contrast, doesn't much care about global warming and plans to greatly expand US oil drilling and coal mining — largely by repealing various environmental rules.
On Thursday, Trump fleshed out his vision in a speech at an oil industry conference in Bismarck, North Dakota. There were no real surprises here. Trump's energy policy sounds nearly identical to Mitt Romney's energy policy in 2012, only with more exclamation points. (At one point Trump actually used the phrase "very, very pure, sweet, beautiful oil.") He's happily adopted the standard GOP playbook: fewer regulations, more domestic fossil fuel production, approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and "cancel" the Paris climate deal. The crowd loved it.
Here were six big takeaways:
1) Trump simply doesn't care about climate change
Before the speech, many reporters were wondering if Trump might finally clarify his views on global warming. This is a guy, after all, who once tweeted, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." Surely he'd like to elaborate?
Instead, Trump mostly ... ignored the issue. He talked about guns in his energy speech. He talked about rising crime in cities. He even reiterated his pledge to build a wall on the border with Mexico — evidently a hit at North Dakota oil gatherings. But he barely discussed climate change.
He did promise that upon taking office, he'd "rescind all job-destroying Obama executive actions ... including the Climate Action Plan." Here he's referring to a series of regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency has enacted over the past eight years to cut US carbon dioxide emissions. Trump would presumably try to scrap Obama's Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce CO2 from power plants.
I've written about how Trump might go about dismantling Obama's climate policies here. Suffice to say, this would be easier to do if a GOP-controlled Congress could pass a law taking away the EPA's authority over carbon dioxide. It'd be harder (but not impossible) for Trump to do via executive action alone.
Trump also pledged to "cancel the Paris climate agreement" — the deal reached last December in which every country on Earth pledged to restrain emissions and address global warming. While Trump couldn't just scuttle a global deal by himself, he could certainly undermine it by abandoning America's efforts to cut emissions.
Trump also seemed perplexed about how the Paris agreement even works, claiming it "gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use." This isn't true at all. Under the deal, every country submits its own (voluntary) plan for curbing emissions.
2) The US produces more oil and gas than anyone else — but Trump wants more
The United States is currently the largest producer of petroleum and natural gas in the world, thanks in part to the massive fracking boom that's been taking place around the country since the 2000s.
But to hear Trump tell it, we're barely producing anything at all. He wants more — much more. On his first day in office, "American energy dominance will be declared a strategic, economic, and foreign policy goal of the United States," he said. "It's about time!"
Trump dropped a few hints about how he'd try to expand oil and gas drilling. He criticized the Obama administration for keeping certain federal lands and waters off limits from drilling — including parts of Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf. (Romney proposed opening up these areas in 2012; you could likely get more production by doing so, though the impacts are often exaggerated.) Trump also attacked Clinton's proposals to regulate fracking; like Obama, she has backed rules to restrict methane leaks from natural gas operations.
At times, Trump didn't seem to appreciate that energy production is frequently outside the president's control. For instance, he blamed Obama for the fact that the number of active drilling rigs in the United States has fallen to its lowest level in nearly a decade. The rig count has indeed plummeted. But that's primarily due to the fact that the recent US oil boom has created a glut of oil worldwide, causing crude prices to crash and giving companies less incentive to drill.
3) Trump called for "energy independence," a popular but meaningless concept
"Under my administration," Trump promised, "we'll accomplish complete American energy independence. Complete. Imagine a world in which our foes, and the oil cartels, can no longer use energy as a weapon. It will happen. We're going to win."
Presidents have been promising "energy independence" since forever and a day, but it doesn't really make much sense. The US currently produces enough crude oil to supply about 74 percent of its needs. In theory, with vastly expanded production we could bump that up to 100 percent. But we still wouldn't be shielded from foreign oil cartels.
Oil is traded on the world market, and if tensions in the Middle East cause prices to spike, everyone is affected, regardless of where they get their crude. The easiest way to observe this is to look at Canada. Canada is a net oil exporter, a bona fide oil-independent nation. But gasoline prices in Canada still rise and fall in accordance with world events, just as they do in the United States or Japan or Europe.
There are perfectly sound reasons to boost domestic energy production — as Trump says, it can create jobs and economic activity. But "energy independence" is a misguided notion.
4) Trump wants to bring back US coal mining — but it's doubtful he actually can
Coal production in the US has fallen off a cliff in recent years. Back in 2008, the country produced a record 1.2 billion short tons of coal. By 2015, that had fallen 25 percent. Coal mining employment has also plummeted as a result — a real blow to various communities in places like West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.
There are a couple of reasons for coal's recent fall: The fracking boom has led to a flood of cheap natural gas, propelling many utilities to switch from coal to gas. But Obama's EPA has also enacted a number of strict air pollution regulations — on mercury and sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide from coal-burning plants — that have accelerated this shift to gas. (Falling Chinese steel production has also weakened demand for metallurgic coal.)
Donald Trump wants to bring back coal mining by repealing those EPA regulations. "We're going to save the coal industry," Trump promised. But utilities wouldn't necessarily rush back to coal once that happened, because natural gas would still have a cost advantage. (And remember, Trump wants to expand natural gas production.) It's extremely unlikely that the coal industry would rebound to its former levels.
Indeed, even coal industry execs who support Trump are skeptical that he can bring back all those lost jobs. "I don't think it will be a thriving industry ever again," coal mining CEO Robert Murray recently told Taylor Kuykendall of SNL. "It will be an extremely competitive industry and it will be half size. … The coal mines cannot come back to where they were or anywhere near it."
(For her part, Hillary Clinton has basically conceded that most of those lost mining jobs will never return, particularly if she maintains Obama's rules to curtail CO2 from power plants. So she's proposed a $30 billion plan to help mining communities manage the transition away from coal.)
5) Trump isn't a huge fan of wind and solar
In his speech, Trump said that his energy strategy "does include nuclear, wind, and solar." But, he added, he wouldn't support them "to the exclusion of other forms of energy" — referring to fossil fuels — "that right now are working much better."
In his press conference with reporters before the speech, Trump elaborated: "I know a lot about solar," he said. "The problem with solar is it's very expensive." He made no mention of the fact that solar prices have been dropping precipitously.
He also criticized wind turbines for killing birds in California. "Wind is killing hundreds and hundreds of eagles, one of the most beautiful, one of the most treasured birds," he said. "So wind is a problem." (While this is technically true, wind turbines kill orders of magnitude fewer birds than power lines or windows or cats. And many wind developers are currently experimenting with ways to reduce bird deaths.)
6) Trump wants clean air and clean water — but (apparently) not through regulations
"A Trump administration will focus on real environmental challenges, not the phony ones," Trump said. "We'll solve for environmental problems, like the need for clean and safe drinking water." Later he elaborated: "My priorities are simple: clean air and clean water."
But he gave no indication of how he'd actually do that. In the past, the EPA has been a major driver of cleaning up America's air pollution. As the chart below shows, the six most common air pollutants in the US have all fallen 72 percent since 1970 — due, in large part, to rules imposed under the Clean Air Act.
Trump made clear he's not a fan of the EPA. So he'd push for clean air and water ... how? He didn't say.
Success of Jerry Brown
Success of Jerry Brown, and California, Offers Lesson to National Democrats
By ADAM
When Bernie Sanders held a rally at an outdoor stadium in Sacramento the other night, more than 15,000 people turned out in a display of cheering, chanting, singing and cartwheels.
Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, was not there, but he might as well have been. Mr. Sanders’s speech was replete with the kind of to-the-barricades flourishes that have long been part of Mr. Brown’s campaign language.
“The political establishment is getting nervous,” Mr. Sanders said. “The corporate establishment is getting nervous. And they should be nervous. Because real change is coming.”
As the Democratic presidential primary nears in California, it is easy to find in Mr. Sanders the kind of populist appeal that has long animated Mr. Brown, who ran for president in 1992 on a “We the People” pledge to accept no contribution over $100. But it is just as easy to find in Hillary Clinton, Mr. Sanders’s opponent, the kind of political moderation and fiscal restraint that has come to define Mr. Brown’s tenure as governor.
Mr. Brown is in many ways a blend of these two very different candidates, having created a style that has made him an enduringly popular and successful California governor. And it is not only Mr. Brown: The California Democratic Party stands as a model of electoral success and cohesion, in contrast to national Democrats struggling through a divisive primary and debate about an uncertain future.
California is one of the few states in the country, and easily the largest, where Democrats are completely in control, holding every statewide office as well as overwhelming majorities in the Assembly and the Senate, not to mention both United States Senate seats. Mr. Brown and his party are using that power to try to enact legislation — on guns, tobacco, the environment, the minimum wage and immigrant rights — that suggest the kind of agenda that has eluded national Democrats.
“The Democratic presidential primary is like watching reruns from the ’90s in terms of where we were as a party in California,” said Chris Lehane, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who moved here as a Democratic consultant in 2000. “We are fairly unified in what we stand for and what we are fighting for.”
Democrats now make up nearly 44 percent of the state’s 24.6 million registered voters; by contrast, Republicans make up just 27 percent, barely ahead of independent voters, who make up 24 percent, according to California’s secretary of state.
Jim Brulte, the chairman of the California Republican Party, said that he expected the disparity to increase even more in the months ahead because of the competitive Democratic primary, while hopes for a contested Republican primary fizzled after Donald J. Trump all but locked up the nomination.
“California is a state that, all things being equal, wants to vote Democrat,” Mr. Brulte said. “We are still adding Republican registration statewide, but the statewide Republican registration is being dwarfed by the Democratic registration increase.”
The divergent fortunes of state and national Democrats go beyond voter registration. California Democrats have a bench of younger candidates waiting to step up as its older leaders — Mr. Brown, 78; and Senators Barbara L. Boxer, 75; and Dianne Feinstein, 82 — approach retirement. By contrast, the choice of Mrs. Clinton, 68, and Mr. Sanders, 74, is a reminder of the absence of fresh players prepared to take the national field.
Given the Democratic dominance here, it is easy to forget that Ronald Reagan served two terms as governor, and that Richard M. Nixon was born in Orange County, an area that was once an emblem of conservatism but is becoming increasingly Democratic. Republicans won every presidential election here from 1952 to 1988, with the exception of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Bill Clinton put the state into the Democratic presidential column in 1992, and it has been there ever since.
The Democrats’ more recent success in the state is in part the result of good fortune. California has been going through a period of prosperity, and in recent years Mr. Brown has been spared the need to impose politically contentious spending cuts.
It is also demographic. In 1994, the state’s Republican governor, Pete Wilson, championed a voter initiative to deny social services to illegal immigrants. The initiative passed but was thrown out in court. It left a political legacy that has hurt the Republican Party to this day: Over the past 12 years, Hispanics have grown into the largest ethnic group in the state, making up 39 percent of the population.
“The decline in Republican Party registration in California parallels almost identically the decline in the white population in California,” Mr. Brulte said. “In 1988, the white population was just a hair under 60 percent. Today, it’s under 40 percent. At the same time, Republican registration has gone from 38.5 percent to under 28 percent.”
Mr. Lehane said that shift accounted more than anything else for Democratic fortunes. “It’s the same demographic shift that is taking place across the country,” he said. “What that all adds up to is a California Democratic Party that represents where the rest of the country is ultimately going to end up.”
Finally, Mr. Brown is a crucial reason the state party seems to be doing well.
“Jerry Brown is a unique combination of the leadership qualities of Hillary and Bernie,” said Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor, who is running to succeed Mr. Brown when his term ends in early 2019. “Jerry is extraordinarily adept at populism. But he also has the hardheaded pragmatism that comes with experience, wisdom — and age.”
It certainly seems appealing to California voters: According the latest Field Poll in April, 55 percent approved of his performance. But he has not endorsed anyone in the presidential primary on June 7, and it is difficult to say whether voters prefer the Sanders or the Clinton side of their governor. A poll last week by the Public Policy Institute of California found Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton essentially tied, a surprise to Mrs. Clinton who had expected California to be a relatively easy win. As a result, both candidates are making frequent appearances here, and are advertising on television, in advance of the primary.
Mr. Brown, who declined a request for an interview, has benefited from spending most of his life in elected office. The son of a governor, he served two terms as governor in the 1970s before being elected again in 2010. “You cannot denigrate experience,” Ms. Feinstein said. “He knows how to get things done.”
And Mr. Brown’s popularity has given him latitude in setting an agenda, on issues like putting money aside to deal with budget shortfalls and expanding rights for illegal immigrants. “He’s a fiscal conservative, and a social moderate with a tinge of Jesuit guilt,” said Karen Skelton, a political consultant, referring to Mr. Brown’s early years in a monastery.
Democrats are understandably worried about whether the party’s focus and unity will survive Mr. Brown’s eventual departure.
“When Jerry Brown is gone — and I say that as a candidate for governor, I’m not naïve about this — it’s going to be very hard to replicate,” Mr. Newsom said. “By no means am I suggesting blind optimism that we’ve figured it out. He’s figured it out. The governor has proved you don’t have to be profligate to be progressive. He has found that sweet spot.”
By ADAM
When Bernie Sanders held a rally at an outdoor stadium in Sacramento the other night, more than 15,000 people turned out in a display of cheering, chanting, singing and cartwheels.
Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, was not there, but he might as well have been. Mr. Sanders’s speech was replete with the kind of to-the-barricades flourishes that have long been part of Mr. Brown’s campaign language.
“The political establishment is getting nervous,” Mr. Sanders said. “The corporate establishment is getting nervous. And they should be nervous. Because real change is coming.”
As the Democratic presidential primary nears in California, it is easy to find in Mr. Sanders the kind of populist appeal that has long animated Mr. Brown, who ran for president in 1992 on a “We the People” pledge to accept no contribution over $100. But it is just as easy to find in Hillary Clinton, Mr. Sanders’s opponent, the kind of political moderation and fiscal restraint that has come to define Mr. Brown’s tenure as governor.
Mr. Brown is in many ways a blend of these two very different candidates, having created a style that has made him an enduringly popular and successful California governor. And it is not only Mr. Brown: The California Democratic Party stands as a model of electoral success and cohesion, in contrast to national Democrats struggling through a divisive primary and debate about an uncertain future.
California is one of the few states in the country, and easily the largest, where Democrats are completely in control, holding every statewide office as well as overwhelming majorities in the Assembly and the Senate, not to mention both United States Senate seats. Mr. Brown and his party are using that power to try to enact legislation — on guns, tobacco, the environment, the minimum wage and immigrant rights — that suggest the kind of agenda that has eluded national Democrats.
“The Democratic presidential primary is like watching reruns from the ’90s in terms of where we were as a party in California,” said Chris Lehane, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who moved here as a Democratic consultant in 2000. “We are fairly unified in what we stand for and what we are fighting for.”
Democrats now make up nearly 44 percent of the state’s 24.6 million registered voters; by contrast, Republicans make up just 27 percent, barely ahead of independent voters, who make up 24 percent, according to California’s secretary of state.
Jim Brulte, the chairman of the California Republican Party, said that he expected the disparity to increase even more in the months ahead because of the competitive Democratic primary, while hopes for a contested Republican primary fizzled after Donald J. Trump all but locked up the nomination.
“California is a state that, all things being equal, wants to vote Democrat,” Mr. Brulte said. “We are still adding Republican registration statewide, but the statewide Republican registration is being dwarfed by the Democratic registration increase.”
The divergent fortunes of state and national Democrats go beyond voter registration. California Democrats have a bench of younger candidates waiting to step up as its older leaders — Mr. Brown, 78; and Senators Barbara L. Boxer, 75; and Dianne Feinstein, 82 — approach retirement. By contrast, the choice of Mrs. Clinton, 68, and Mr. Sanders, 74, is a reminder of the absence of fresh players prepared to take the national field.
Given the Democratic dominance here, it is easy to forget that Ronald Reagan served two terms as governor, and that Richard M. Nixon was born in Orange County, an area that was once an emblem of conservatism but is becoming increasingly Democratic. Republicans won every presidential election here from 1952 to 1988, with the exception of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Bill Clinton put the state into the Democratic presidential column in 1992, and it has been there ever since.
The Democrats’ more recent success in the state is in part the result of good fortune. California has been going through a period of prosperity, and in recent years Mr. Brown has been spared the need to impose politically contentious spending cuts.
It is also demographic. In 1994, the state’s Republican governor, Pete Wilson, championed a voter initiative to deny social services to illegal immigrants. The initiative passed but was thrown out in court. It left a political legacy that has hurt the Republican Party to this day: Over the past 12 years, Hispanics have grown into the largest ethnic group in the state, making up 39 percent of the population.
“The decline in Republican Party registration in California parallels almost identically the decline in the white population in California,” Mr. Brulte said. “In 1988, the white population was just a hair under 60 percent. Today, it’s under 40 percent. At the same time, Republican registration has gone from 38.5 percent to under 28 percent.”
Mr. Lehane said that shift accounted more than anything else for Democratic fortunes. “It’s the same demographic shift that is taking place across the country,” he said. “What that all adds up to is a California Democratic Party that represents where the rest of the country is ultimately going to end up.”
Finally, Mr. Brown is a crucial reason the state party seems to be doing well.
“Jerry Brown is a unique combination of the leadership qualities of Hillary and Bernie,” said Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor, who is running to succeed Mr. Brown when his term ends in early 2019. “Jerry is extraordinarily adept at populism. But he also has the hardheaded pragmatism that comes with experience, wisdom — and age.”
It certainly seems appealing to California voters: According the latest Field Poll in April, 55 percent approved of his performance. But he has not endorsed anyone in the presidential primary on June 7, and it is difficult to say whether voters prefer the Sanders or the Clinton side of their governor. A poll last week by the Public Policy Institute of California found Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton essentially tied, a surprise to Mrs. Clinton who had expected California to be a relatively easy win. As a result, both candidates are making frequent appearances here, and are advertising on television, in advance of the primary.
Mr. Brown, who declined a request for an interview, has benefited from spending most of his life in elected office. The son of a governor, he served two terms as governor in the 1970s before being elected again in 2010. “You cannot denigrate experience,” Ms. Feinstein said. “He knows how to get things done.”
And Mr. Brown’s popularity has given him latitude in setting an agenda, on issues like putting money aside to deal with budget shortfalls and expanding rights for illegal immigrants. “He’s a fiscal conservative, and a social moderate with a tinge of Jesuit guilt,” said Karen Skelton, a political consultant, referring to Mr. Brown’s early years in a monastery.
Democrats are understandably worried about whether the party’s focus and unity will survive Mr. Brown’s eventual departure.
“When Jerry Brown is gone — and I say that as a candidate for governor, I’m not naïve about this — it’s going to be very hard to replicate,” Mr. Newsom said. “By no means am I suggesting blind optimism that we’ve figured it out. He’s figured it out. The governor has proved you don’t have to be profligate to be progressive. He has found that sweet spot.”
Veteran’s Perspective
A Veteran’s Perspective On Memorial Day
"The threat to the Constitution does not come from some far-off land, says Vets for Peace board chair.
By Barry Ladendorf
For 31 years, Veterans For Peace has been the only veterans organization that has rejected war, violence, nuclear weapons, the destruction of the environment created by war, the steady erosion of our civil liberties, the corporate greed that drives our wars and the systemic injustice it produces, here at home and abroad, all in the name of advancing the American empire.
As veterans, we refuse to accept the notion that, in order to protect the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, the Constitution that we swore to support and defend can be ignored, shredded and cast aside as an inconvenient nuisance standing in the way of American hegemony.
It is abundantly clear that the threat to the Constitution does not come from some far-off land. It is not China or Russia or even ISIS that endangers the Constitution, but it is the enemy within the borders of our own country and right here in this city.
As members of Veterans For Peace, we bring to the peace movement our collective experience from our participation in every war from World War II up to and including the current wars in the Middle East. Our experience teaches that war and violence do not bring lasting peace. Therefore, our founders included in our Statement of Purpose a commitment that we would seek to end war, only by nonviolent means.
Many of our members come home from war broken down, physically, mentally, emotionally and morally. But we work to transform and heal ourselves from soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen trained to wage war to men and women committed to becoming non violent peacemakers.
We pledge to not give in to war and violence and the injustice it brings to all living things but to continue to work for peace with all likeminded people.
"The threat to the Constitution does not come from some far-off land, says Vets for Peace board chair.
By Barry Ladendorf
For 31 years, Veterans For Peace has been the only veterans organization that has rejected war, violence, nuclear weapons, the destruction of the environment created by war, the steady erosion of our civil liberties, the corporate greed that drives our wars and the systemic injustice it produces, here at home and abroad, all in the name of advancing the American empire.
As veterans, we refuse to accept the notion that, in order to protect the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, the Constitution that we swore to support and defend can be ignored, shredded and cast aside as an inconvenient nuisance standing in the way of American hegemony.
It is abundantly clear that the threat to the Constitution does not come from some far-off land. It is not China or Russia or even ISIS that endangers the Constitution, but it is the enemy within the borders of our own country and right here in this city.
As members of Veterans For Peace, we bring to the peace movement our collective experience from our participation in every war from World War II up to and including the current wars in the Middle East. Our experience teaches that war and violence do not bring lasting peace. Therefore, our founders included in our Statement of Purpose a commitment that we would seek to end war, only by nonviolent means.
Many of our members come home from war broken down, physically, mentally, emotionally and morally. But we work to transform and heal ourselves from soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen trained to wage war to men and women committed to becoming non violent peacemakers.
We pledge to not give in to war and violence and the injustice it brings to all living things but to continue to work for peace with all likeminded people.
Cat's Eye Wide and Deep
The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across. Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.
Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
Mars will look good in Earth's skies over the next few days -- but not this good. To get a view this amazing, a spacecraft had to actually visit the red planet. Running across the image center, though, is one the largest canyons in the Solar System. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep. By comparison, the Earth's Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA is 800 kilometers long, 30 kilometers across, and 1.8 kilometers deep. The origin of the Valles Marineris remains unknown, although a leading hypothesis holds that it started as a crack billions of years ago as the planet cooled. Several geologic processes have been identified in the canyon. The featured mosaic was created from over 100 images of Mars taken by Viking Orbiters in the 1970s. Tomorrow, Mars and Earth will pass the closest in 11 years, resulting in the red planet being quite noticeable toward the southeast after sunset.
Stars and Gas of the Running Chicken Nebula IC 2944
To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944, the Running Chicken Nebula spans about 100 light years and lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur (Centaurus). The featured image, shown in scientifically assigned colors, was captured recently in an 11-hour exposure from a backyard near Melbourne, Australia. Two star clusters are visible: the Pearl Cluster seen on the far left, and Collinder 249 embedded in the nebula's glowing gas. Although difficult to discern here, several dark molecular clouds with distinct shapes can be found inside the nebula.
Janus and Mimas
Saturn's moons Janus and Mimas coast in their silent orbits beyond the rings in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The ansa, or outer edge of the rings, is visible at left. Janus hangs above center, while Mimas shines at right. Owing to its irregular shape, Janus’ terminator – that line which separates day from night – is jagged, while Mimas’ smooth terminator belies its round shape and larger size.
The image was taken in green light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera on Oct. 27, 2015.
The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 598,000 miles (963,000 kilometers) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 86 degrees. Image scale at Janus is 3.6 miles (5.8 kilometers) per pixel. The distance to Mimas was 680,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) for an image scale of 4.1 miles (6.6 kilometer) per pixel.
The image was taken in green light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera on Oct. 27, 2015.
The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 598,000 miles (963,000 kilometers) from Janus and at a Sun-Janus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 86 degrees. Image scale at Janus is 3.6 miles (5.8 kilometers) per pixel. The distance to Mimas was 680,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) for an image scale of 4.1 miles (6.6 kilometer) per pixel.
Juno Spacecraft update
NASA's Juno Spacecraft Crosses Jupiter/Sun Gravitational Boundary
Since its launch five years ago, there have been three forces tugging at NASA's Juno spacecraft as it speeds through the solar system. The sun, Earth and Jupiter have all been influential -- a gravitational trifecta of sorts. At times, Earth was close enough to be the frontrunner. More recently, the sun has had the most clout when it comes to Juno's trajectory. Today, it can be reported that Jupiter is now in the gravitational driver’s seat, and the basketball court-sized spacecraft is not looking back.
"Today the gravitational influence of Jupiter is neck and neck with that of the sun," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "As of tomorrow, and for the rest of the mission, we project Jupiter's gravity will dominate as the trajectory-perturbing effects by other celestial bodies are reduced to insignificant roles."
Juno was launched on Aug. 5, 2011. On July 4 of this year, it will perform a Jupiter orbit insertion maneuver -- a 35-minute burn of its main engine, which will impart a mean change in velocity of 1,212 mph (542 meters per second) on the spacecraft. Once in orbit, the spacecraft will circle the Jovian world 37 times, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops. During the flybys, Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Juno's name comes from Greek and Roman mythology. The mythical god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, and his wife -- the goddess Juno -- was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature.
Since its launch five years ago, there have been three forces tugging at NASA's Juno spacecraft as it speeds through the solar system. The sun, Earth and Jupiter have all been influential -- a gravitational trifecta of sorts. At times, Earth was close enough to be the frontrunner. More recently, the sun has had the most clout when it comes to Juno's trajectory. Today, it can be reported that Jupiter is now in the gravitational driver’s seat, and the basketball court-sized spacecraft is not looking back.
"Today the gravitational influence of Jupiter is neck and neck with that of the sun," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "As of tomorrow, and for the rest of the mission, we project Jupiter's gravity will dominate as the trajectory-perturbing effects by other celestial bodies are reduced to insignificant roles."
Juno was launched on Aug. 5, 2011. On July 4 of this year, it will perform a Jupiter orbit insertion maneuver -- a 35-minute burn of its main engine, which will impart a mean change in velocity of 1,212 mph (542 meters per second) on the spacecraft. Once in orbit, the spacecraft will circle the Jovian world 37 times, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops. During the flybys, Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study its auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Juno's name comes from Greek and Roman mythology. The mythical god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, and his wife -- the goddess Juno -- was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature.
Expanded and Pressurized
BEAM Fully Expanded and Pressurized
Pressurization of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) began at 4:34 p.m. EDT, and the eight tanks filled with air completed full pressurization of the module 10 minutes later at 4:44 p.m. BEAM’s pressure will be equalized with that of the International Space Station, where it will remain attached for a two-year test period.
The module measured just over 7 feet long and just under 7.75 feet in diameter in its packed configuration. BEAM now measures more than 13 feet long and about 10.5 feet in diameter to create 565 cubic feet of habitable volume. It weighs approximately 3,000 pounds.
During the next week, leak checks will be performed on BEAM to ensure its structural integrity. Hatch opening and NASA astronaut Jeff Williams’ first entrance into BEAM will take place about a week after leak checks are complete.
BEAM is an example of NASA’s increased commitment to partnering with industry to enable the growth of the commercial use of space. The project is co-sponsored by NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division and Bigelow Aerospace.
Expandable habitats are designed to take up less room on a spacecraft but provide greater volume for living and working in space once expanded. This first test of an expandable module will allow investigators to gauge how well the habitat performs and specifically, how well it protects against solar radiation, space debris and the temperature extremes of space.
Pressurization of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) began at 4:34 p.m. EDT, and the eight tanks filled with air completed full pressurization of the module 10 minutes later at 4:44 p.m. BEAM’s pressure will be equalized with that of the International Space Station, where it will remain attached for a two-year test period.
The module measured just over 7 feet long and just under 7.75 feet in diameter in its packed configuration. BEAM now measures more than 13 feet long and about 10.5 feet in diameter to create 565 cubic feet of habitable volume. It weighs approximately 3,000 pounds.
BEAM is an example of NASA’s increased commitment to partnering with industry to enable the growth of the commercial use of space. The project is co-sponsored by NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division and Bigelow Aerospace.
Expandable habitats are designed to take up less room on a spacecraft but provide greater volume for living and working in space once expanded. This first test of an expandable module will allow investigators to gauge how well the habitat performs and specifically, how well it protects against solar radiation, space debris and the temperature extremes of space.
Can the World Survive
Can the World Survive A Perpetually Combative President Trump?
Trump’s view of humanity as uniformly hostile and vicious is unrealistic—and possibly dangerous.
By Aaron David Miller
Can a perpetually combative man who—despite his career successes (or perhaps because of them)—sees life as a series of fights to be won, scores to be evened and counterpunches to be delivered, be trusted to shape the foreign policy of the world’s most consequential power?
Donald Trump, who last week finally clinched the Republican nomination for president, may be correct: The world is often cruel and unforgiving, filled with threats and challenges that require toughness and resolve. In his 2007 book Think Big, Trump described his worldview in utterly uncompromising terms: “The world is a vicious, brutal place. It’s a place where people are looking to kill you, if not physically, then mentally. … People are looking to put you down, especially if you are on top.”
His lifelong response has been to put everyone else down, or at least anyone who challenges him. Call it Trump’s “counterpunch” approach; it’s one he’s articulated again and again in different forms and forums, and it’s plainly central to his worldview: When someone hits you, you hit them back 10 times harder. Nor is he likely to alter that attitude, as his own campaign manager, Paul Manafort, suggested last week: “You don’t change Donald Trump,” he told Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post.
But the world is a place in which America probably can’t afford to be in a constant state of counterattack, and where every challenge isn’t a nail that requires a hammer. In such a world, the application of honey is often as important as vinegar; nuance, restraint and prudence matter, too. So history has taught us. In October 1962, when his generals and others pushed for military strikes on Cuba that might have provoked a Soviet military response, President John F. Kennedy’s patience bought time for a peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis, possibly preventing a nuclear war. I’ve personally seen up close how restraint can be the best course of action: As a diplomat specializing in the Middle East under George H.W. Bush, I saw the president wisely avoid invading Iraq after his lightening success in pushing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. A decade later, Bush’s son chose otherwise.
Manafort says that Trump—who will be the first major-party nominee without any political experience since Wendell Willkie—is still eager to learn. And perhaps Trump is a better performer and stage actor than even we make him out to be. What if hiding behind the bullying, the braggadocio and the bluster, there lies a real president in waiting, calm, preternaturally prudent and wise just waiting to get out and to assume his place in the pantheon of presidential greats?
To date, though, that hope exists only in a galaxy far, far away. Here on planet Earth the only evidence we have is Trump’s words over the course of a long career and others articulated more recently in a campaign about to reach the one-year mark.
True, as Trump has it, large parts of the world are forlorn Hobbesian-like places where life is brutish and short. Sectarian, tribal and religious confrontations in Syria and Iraq, Libya and Yemen; humanitarian crises in Congo and Sudan. And there are actors and agents too in this world—ISIL al Qaeda affiliates; Boko Haram, al-Shabab—that seek to inflict galactic harm on America and its allies. Evil in today’s world is very real and threatening.
But a president must carefully choose his fights, as we’ve learned throughout American history—and he (or she) really can’t afford to create new conflicts where there are none today. In that spirit, let’s carefully measure what Trump has said over the years against how the world really works.
“I love getting even. I get screwed all the time. I go after people, and you know what? People do not play around with me as much as they do with others. They know that if they do, they are in for a big fight. Always get even.” (Think Big)
Trump’s notion that the world is composed of rivals looking for the mental kill, the equivalent of the psych-out or put-down, may work on the campaign trail and in real estate negotiations. But not on the international stage. Trump has already responded publicly to David Cameron’s criticism of his ban on Muslims in somewhat the same way the candidate once entered into a monthslong feud with Megyn Kelly, by saying, “It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship.” And that’s America’s closest ally he’s talking about. Far from making a president appear tough and resolute, personalizing these issues appears petty and juvenile and creates a kind of kindergarten playground mentality.
Moreover, the world these days isn’t just divided neatly into friends you consider faultlessly loyal and enemies to get even with. America deals with any number of countries, including China and Russia, where both competition and cooperation are likely to be the order of the day.
And should Trump actually become president his kill-or-be-killed view of the world won’t much help him or the United States. On one hand he blasts the Chinese for currency manipulation and “raping” the United States; but on the other sees Beijing as the only way to influence North Korea. Interestingly enough, despite Vladimir Putin’s efforts to oppose U.S. policies in Ukraine and Syria, Trump is carrying on an unusual bromance with the Russian leader, a man he claims he can deal with. Given Russia’s determination to protect its interests, an intemperate and easily slighted President Trump may quickly find himself frustrated by Putin’s risk-ready policies. And how would he then feeling betrayed deal with the man in Moscow. The same holds for our imperfect Middle East allies, notably Saudi Arabia where Trump has already lambasted Riyadh for disrespecting the president on his last visit and threatened to stop buying Saudi oil if they don’t step up the fight against the Islamic State.
“… When somebody tries to sucker-punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place. If somebody tries to push me around, he’s going to pay a price. Those people don’t come back for seconds.”(Playboy interview, 1990)
Trump’s notion that the only way to deal with those who attack him is to hit back harder has clearly worked in the debates. And despite the doubters, it may also work in a general election against Hillary Clinton. Yet, the idea that you generate respect by pummeling the other guy harder than he hit you and in the process create deterrence doesn’t necessarily translate into doing business with America’s allies and adversaries.
Trump has threatened to impose this kind of logic in the fight against the Islamic State for which he has proposed killing the group’s family members; torturing terrorists; and “bombing the hell out of them.” In his first major foreign policy address this spring,Trump proclaimed that in his presidency ISIL would magically be gone “very, very fast.” Not only are these tactics unlikely to achieve that end; they could make matters far worse. And since Trump has already created expectations that once he’s president, ISIL will be destroyed, he’s ensured himself a credibility gap. That violates the first rule of the presidency: Say what you mean and mean what you say. The use of disproportionate force to deter, preempt and prevent can in fact work; but it’s a situational response, not some generic fix to be applied across the board, particularly in asymmetric situations where the use of force without careful calibration between means and ends and without regard to the day before or after can have costly results.
“Be paranoid. I know this observation doesn’t make any of us sound very good, but let’s face the fact that it’s possible that even your best friend wants to steal your spouse and your money.”(How To Get Rich, 2004)
The notion that your friends and enemies are out to get you makes for very bad foreign policy leadership. You would think that for a man with Trump’s successes, the world would be his oyster, not a conspiracy of forces and agents arrayed to screw him at every turn. It may well be that his foreign policy slogan of putting “America First” flows from his own life lessons in business that that unless you take care of yourself as the number one priority and are always on guard against your competitors your interests will suffer. Life for Trump appears to be very much a zero sum where’s there’s only one clear winner. The fact that Trump believes you have much to fear from your so-called friends may well explain his aversion to free-riding allies whom he believes don’t pay their way or carry their responsibilities. With his suspicious view of life, it seems he can’t calculate that allies actually can serve U.S. interests too even while the bottom line financial obligations may well be unbalanced. In international politics, money isn’t the only currency. And if Trump really does believe the U.S. is stretched too thin, allies—however imperfect will be needed to carry the load. A measure of trust even with a verify clause is better than constant suspicion, let alone paranoia.
The best presidents are those who have their own demons under control, are emotionally intelligent and aware; and are comfortable in their own skins able to endure and rise above the petulance. pettiness, and small-mindedness of political slights and personal grudges.
Foreign policy, in other words, isn’t a real estate deal; a television show; or a personalized game of gotcha or chicken you play with America’s friends or enemies. It’s complicated business that confronts all presidents with a terrifying set of contingencies, many of which are beyond anyone’s capacity to control. Familiarity with an atlas, common sense and little knowledge history helps too. So will a first-rate team of advisers. (Full disclosure: I’ve worked and voted for both Republican and Democratic presidents and am not associated with anyone’s campaign.)
Trump has demonstrated many things over the course of his career, including cleverness, media savvy, business acumen and of late, an uncanny capacity to intuit politically much of the country’s mood. But what he has not yet revealed-- and may never—are the makings of a president with the judgment, prudence, wisdom, curiosity, and strength of character to shepherd the nation through dangerous and uncertain times.
Let’s hope that Donald Trump is in fact learning.
Trump’s view of humanity as uniformly hostile and vicious is unrealistic—and possibly dangerous.
By Aaron David Miller
Can a perpetually combative man who—despite his career successes (or perhaps because of them)—sees life as a series of fights to be won, scores to be evened and counterpunches to be delivered, be trusted to shape the foreign policy of the world’s most consequential power?
Donald Trump, who last week finally clinched the Republican nomination for president, may be correct: The world is often cruel and unforgiving, filled with threats and challenges that require toughness and resolve. In his 2007 book Think Big, Trump described his worldview in utterly uncompromising terms: “The world is a vicious, brutal place. It’s a place where people are looking to kill you, if not physically, then mentally. … People are looking to put you down, especially if you are on top.”
His lifelong response has been to put everyone else down, or at least anyone who challenges him. Call it Trump’s “counterpunch” approach; it’s one he’s articulated again and again in different forms and forums, and it’s plainly central to his worldview: When someone hits you, you hit them back 10 times harder. Nor is he likely to alter that attitude, as his own campaign manager, Paul Manafort, suggested last week: “You don’t change Donald Trump,” he told Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post.
But the world is a place in which America probably can’t afford to be in a constant state of counterattack, and where every challenge isn’t a nail that requires a hammer. In such a world, the application of honey is often as important as vinegar; nuance, restraint and prudence matter, too. So history has taught us. In October 1962, when his generals and others pushed for military strikes on Cuba that might have provoked a Soviet military response, President John F. Kennedy’s patience bought time for a peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis, possibly preventing a nuclear war. I’ve personally seen up close how restraint can be the best course of action: As a diplomat specializing in the Middle East under George H.W. Bush, I saw the president wisely avoid invading Iraq after his lightening success in pushing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. A decade later, Bush’s son chose otherwise.
Manafort says that Trump—who will be the first major-party nominee without any political experience since Wendell Willkie—is still eager to learn. And perhaps Trump is a better performer and stage actor than even we make him out to be. What if hiding behind the bullying, the braggadocio and the bluster, there lies a real president in waiting, calm, preternaturally prudent and wise just waiting to get out and to assume his place in the pantheon of presidential greats?
To date, though, that hope exists only in a galaxy far, far away. Here on planet Earth the only evidence we have is Trump’s words over the course of a long career and others articulated more recently in a campaign about to reach the one-year mark.
True, as Trump has it, large parts of the world are forlorn Hobbesian-like places where life is brutish and short. Sectarian, tribal and religious confrontations in Syria and Iraq, Libya and Yemen; humanitarian crises in Congo and Sudan. And there are actors and agents too in this world—ISIL al Qaeda affiliates; Boko Haram, al-Shabab—that seek to inflict galactic harm on America and its allies. Evil in today’s world is very real and threatening.
But a president must carefully choose his fights, as we’ve learned throughout American history—and he (or she) really can’t afford to create new conflicts where there are none today. In that spirit, let’s carefully measure what Trump has said over the years against how the world really works.
“I love getting even. I get screwed all the time. I go after people, and you know what? People do not play around with me as much as they do with others. They know that if they do, they are in for a big fight. Always get even.” (Think Big)
Trump’s notion that the world is composed of rivals looking for the mental kill, the equivalent of the psych-out or put-down, may work on the campaign trail and in real estate negotiations. But not on the international stage. Trump has already responded publicly to David Cameron’s criticism of his ban on Muslims in somewhat the same way the candidate once entered into a monthslong feud with Megyn Kelly, by saying, “It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship.” And that’s America’s closest ally he’s talking about. Far from making a president appear tough and resolute, personalizing these issues appears petty and juvenile and creates a kind of kindergarten playground mentality.
Moreover, the world these days isn’t just divided neatly into friends you consider faultlessly loyal and enemies to get even with. America deals with any number of countries, including China and Russia, where both competition and cooperation are likely to be the order of the day.
And should Trump actually become president his kill-or-be-killed view of the world won’t much help him or the United States. On one hand he blasts the Chinese for currency manipulation and “raping” the United States; but on the other sees Beijing as the only way to influence North Korea. Interestingly enough, despite Vladimir Putin’s efforts to oppose U.S. policies in Ukraine and Syria, Trump is carrying on an unusual bromance with the Russian leader, a man he claims he can deal with. Given Russia’s determination to protect its interests, an intemperate and easily slighted President Trump may quickly find himself frustrated by Putin’s risk-ready policies. And how would he then feeling betrayed deal with the man in Moscow. The same holds for our imperfect Middle East allies, notably Saudi Arabia where Trump has already lambasted Riyadh for disrespecting the president on his last visit and threatened to stop buying Saudi oil if they don’t step up the fight against the Islamic State.
“… When somebody tries to sucker-punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place. If somebody tries to push me around, he’s going to pay a price. Those people don’t come back for seconds.”(Playboy interview, 1990)
Trump’s notion that the only way to deal with those who attack him is to hit back harder has clearly worked in the debates. And despite the doubters, it may also work in a general election against Hillary Clinton. Yet, the idea that you generate respect by pummeling the other guy harder than he hit you and in the process create deterrence doesn’t necessarily translate into doing business with America’s allies and adversaries.
Trump has threatened to impose this kind of logic in the fight against the Islamic State for which he has proposed killing the group’s family members; torturing terrorists; and “bombing the hell out of them.” In his first major foreign policy address this spring,Trump proclaimed that in his presidency ISIL would magically be gone “very, very fast.” Not only are these tactics unlikely to achieve that end; they could make matters far worse. And since Trump has already created expectations that once he’s president, ISIL will be destroyed, he’s ensured himself a credibility gap. That violates the first rule of the presidency: Say what you mean and mean what you say. The use of disproportionate force to deter, preempt and prevent can in fact work; but it’s a situational response, not some generic fix to be applied across the board, particularly in asymmetric situations where the use of force without careful calibration between means and ends and without regard to the day before or after can have costly results.
“Be paranoid. I know this observation doesn’t make any of us sound very good, but let’s face the fact that it’s possible that even your best friend wants to steal your spouse and your money.”(How To Get Rich, 2004)
The notion that your friends and enemies are out to get you makes for very bad foreign policy leadership. You would think that for a man with Trump’s successes, the world would be his oyster, not a conspiracy of forces and agents arrayed to screw him at every turn. It may well be that his foreign policy slogan of putting “America First” flows from his own life lessons in business that that unless you take care of yourself as the number one priority and are always on guard against your competitors your interests will suffer. Life for Trump appears to be very much a zero sum where’s there’s only one clear winner. The fact that Trump believes you have much to fear from your so-called friends may well explain his aversion to free-riding allies whom he believes don’t pay their way or carry their responsibilities. With his suspicious view of life, it seems he can’t calculate that allies actually can serve U.S. interests too even while the bottom line financial obligations may well be unbalanced. In international politics, money isn’t the only currency. And if Trump really does believe the U.S. is stretched too thin, allies—however imperfect will be needed to carry the load. A measure of trust even with a verify clause is better than constant suspicion, let alone paranoia.
The best presidents are those who have their own demons under control, are emotionally intelligent and aware; and are comfortable in their own skins able to endure and rise above the petulance. pettiness, and small-mindedness of political slights and personal grudges.
Foreign policy, in other words, isn’t a real estate deal; a television show; or a personalized game of gotcha or chicken you play with America’s friends or enemies. It’s complicated business that confronts all presidents with a terrifying set of contingencies, many of which are beyond anyone’s capacity to control. Familiarity with an atlas, common sense and little knowledge history helps too. So will a first-rate team of advisers. (Full disclosure: I’ve worked and voted for both Republican and Democratic presidents and am not associated with anyone’s campaign.)
Trump has demonstrated many things over the course of his career, including cleverness, media savvy, business acumen and of late, an uncanny capacity to intuit politically much of the country’s mood. But what he has not yet revealed-- and may never—are the makings of a president with the judgment, prudence, wisdom, curiosity, and strength of character to shepherd the nation through dangerous and uncertain times.
Let’s hope that Donald Trump is in fact learning.
Turtle-man Talks...
McConnell: Trump 'not going to change' GOP
By Nick Gass
Donald Trump will not change the Republican Party, Senate Majority Leader Mitch "The Turtle" McConnell said in an interview aired Tuesday.
"We've had nominees before who were not deeply into Republican politics and philosophy," the Kentucky Republican told radio host Hugh Hewitt, referring then to Dwight Eisenhower. "But Trump is not going to change the institution, he's not going to change the basic philosophy of the party. And I'm comfortable voting for him because on the big things that I think have the greatest impact on the future of the country. At the top of the list is Supreme Court. I think he'll be just fine."
Efforts by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to recruit a third-party candidate would "only help Hillary Clinton," McConnell said later on "Fox & Friends."
"That can only help Hillary Clinton. The last thing the country needs is four more years like the last eight. I don't think it's good idea to do anything that helps us elect Hillary Clinton," he said.
And count McConnell as one who does not appreciate Congress being held out as an example of Washington's inefficiency and sloth. To hear him tell it now, "There's no longer any dysfunction in the Senate."
“Ummm, Well.... One of my great frustrations, is, all of the presidential, candidates out there, beating up Congress," the Kentucky Republican told Hewitt. "You’d think, we aren’t, doing anything..... Shucks...."
McConnell continued, remarking that the Senate was not "doing anything" under then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
"They hadn’t passed a budget for the five previous years. What I said was, if the American people gave us a new majority, we’d open the Senate up, get it back to work," McConnell said. "There’s no longer any dysfunction in the Senate. And you know, what are the American people saying when they elect a divided government? I think they’re saying we know you have some big differences, and boy, do we, with Obama.”
McConnell has been on a media blitz of late promoting his book "The Long Game," explaining his title by remarking that he is "a little skeptical of overnight sensations who have simple answers to complicated problems."
He was talking about President Barack Obama, he quickly clarified.
"I’ve taken a different path from what seems to be fashionable in the era of Obama — you know, Obama a one-term senator and all of a sudden, he’s president of the United States. I think life for most of us is a long game," he said.
By Nick Gass
Donald Trump will not change the Republican Party, Senate Majority Leader Mitch "The Turtle" McConnell said in an interview aired Tuesday.
"We've had nominees before who were not deeply into Republican politics and philosophy," the Kentucky Republican told radio host Hugh Hewitt, referring then to Dwight Eisenhower. "But Trump is not going to change the institution, he's not going to change the basic philosophy of the party. And I'm comfortable voting for him because on the big things that I think have the greatest impact on the future of the country. At the top of the list is Supreme Court. I think he'll be just fine."
Efforts by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to recruit a third-party candidate would "only help Hillary Clinton," McConnell said later on "Fox & Friends."
"That can only help Hillary Clinton. The last thing the country needs is four more years like the last eight. I don't think it's good idea to do anything that helps us elect Hillary Clinton," he said.
And count McConnell as one who does not appreciate Congress being held out as an example of Washington's inefficiency and sloth. To hear him tell it now, "There's no longer any dysfunction in the Senate."
“Ummm, Well.... One of my great frustrations, is, all of the presidential, candidates out there, beating up Congress," the Kentucky Republican told Hewitt. "You’d think, we aren’t, doing anything..... Shucks...."
McConnell continued, remarking that the Senate was not "doing anything" under then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
"They hadn’t passed a budget for the five previous years. What I said was, if the American people gave us a new majority, we’d open the Senate up, get it back to work," McConnell said. "There’s no longer any dysfunction in the Senate. And you know, what are the American people saying when they elect a divided government? I think they’re saying we know you have some big differences, and boy, do we, with Obama.”
McConnell has been on a media blitz of late promoting his book "The Long Game," explaining his title by remarking that he is "a little skeptical of overnight sensations who have simple answers to complicated problems."
He was talking about President Barack Obama, he quickly clarified.
"I’ve taken a different path from what seems to be fashionable in the era of Obama — you know, Obama a one-term senator and all of a sudden, he’s president of the United States. I think life for most of us is a long game," he said.
Twin Villains
Donald Trump and Chris Christie, the Twin Villains of Atlantic City
Residents of the nearly bankrupt boardwalk town gripe about the mogul's failed casinos and the governor’s power play.
By Amy S. Rosenberg
Earlier this month, at the very moment Donald Trump was naming Chris Christie to head a still-theoretical presidential transition team, Bill Dilorenzo, an Atlantic City fire captain, was inside the Ducktown Tavern worrying if his city was about to go belly up.
The Ducktown, a bar located a few blocks from a Boardwalk whose dead center is still a fossilized former Trump Plaza Casino, stripped of all Trump branding by order of a judge, was one of several bars to offer discounts to police and firefighters while their paychecks were deferred to keep the city afloat. (The bar had also offered $1 Fireball shots to anyone signing a petition against a state takeover sought by the governor.)
The Friday before, city workers had gotten paid for the first time in a month. Now the Ducktown was packed with cops and firefighters. It escaped no one’s attention that two of the men most enmeshed in the near death spiral of the seaside resort town—the debt-saddled casino owner whose multiple corporate bankruptcies had foretold if not hastened the city’s financial misfortune and the governor whose latest plan to rescue the city sounded to many like a politically driven death warrant—had found common cause on the national political stage.
“We’re the smokescreen,” Dilorenzo, president of the firefighters Local 198, which has been fighting a bill that would give the state the right to terminate union contracts, said over a turkey club and an iced tea. All the focus on the unions, he said, is just a way for Christie and politically connected developers to take control of coveted assets, like the city’s Water Works, and to divvy up those yawning parcels of undeveloped waterfront land. Few in that darkened bar would disagree. For that matter, few in Atlantic City would disagree. “Bruce Springsteen Hates Both of You” read a sign at a recent rally Trump held in New Jersey to raise money for Christie’s presidential campaign debt, a twist on the placard that has for years dogged Christie, a devoted fan of the Boss.
As Trump and Christie forged an unlikely political alliance—one of them a brash outsider promising to bring lost American jobs back home and the other an uneasy sidekick whose career has been both propelled and derailed by a similar petulance—Atlantic City is the one place in America that has been most clearly shaped by the both of them.
Atlantic City, as much as his native New York, was the place where Trump staked his career and made his reputation—opening three casinos in the 80s and early 90s, and establishing himself as the biggest name on the Boardwalk. But he was also the first developer to run into trouble when competition sucked away customers and profits with them. Trump has recast his bankruptcies as brilliant business maneuvers, timely exits from a city in distress. But the unemployed workers and the contractors who recouped pennies on the dollar weren’t applauding.
For Christie, too, Atlantic City’s slide into insolvency has challenged his ability to slay deficits not to mention his ability to impose his will throughout the state. He came into office in 2010, the year after Trump’s final bankruptcy and the beginning of a six year slide that has seen the city’s tax base tumble by two-thirds. But Christie’s proposed solutions led to bitter battles with Democrats in the state legislature and even Atlantic City’s Republican mayor, who likened Christie’s plan to a “fascist dictatorship.”
On Friday, just before the Memorial Day weekend, Christie signed two bills that give Atlantic City 150 days to come up with a plan to balance its budget and hold back the onerous takeover threatened by the state. The bills redirect tens of millions of dollars in aid to the city from casinos, a state loan and other sources. For the time being, it will stave off a municipal bankruptcy that arguably would have hurt the governor more than the city of Atlantic City. Whether the emergency bills will give the city enough breathing room to right its finances for the long-term is anyone’s guess. (And the city still must fight off a Christie-backed referendum on the ballot in November that would bring two casinos to North Jersey, which Atlantic City casino executives warn could lead to as many as five more casino closings in the seaside town.) But there’s more certainty about the men who have been called the city’s twin villains.
“Trump and Christie have one thing in common regarding Atlantic City,” says Frank Becktel, a jitney driver and Atlantic City loyalist suffering along with the rest of the town in its hour of need. “They both knew how to squeeze a buck out of us and leave us for dead.”
Well, maybe on life support.
If you want to know what a Trump-Christie playbook looks like, go no further than this iconic city by the sea, says Councilman Moisse “Mo” Delgado, a native of a place that has long attracted outsized personalities, from Nucky Johnson, boss of the Atlantic City Prohibition-era political machine, to Mr. Peanut, the monocle-wearing mascot from the 1930s.
It’s still a place that fills up most weekends with roving bands of bachelorettes and bros in search of bottle service even as the local government may go belly up and politicians argue over the details. It’s a broke city where four casinos closed in 2014, but one where last year gamblers still left behind $2.6 billion in the eight surviving casinos.
What Trump left behind is a hotly debated subject.
“Trump, he smiled and did a few things,” says Delgado. “And did things behind closed doors, back room deals, to make sure he kept his power. He had a lot of people shaking in (their) pants here in Atlantic City because of his influence. When that influence started dissipating, he no longer wanted to be here. If he can’t rule, he doesn’t want to stay.”
But for many, leaving wasn’t an option.
“In a business way, he’s brilliant,” Delgado said. “He protected his assets. He protected himself. He left everyone else, the employees, the community, everyone else holding the bag.”
At one time, Atlantic City was the only place to gamble on the east coast. But the spread of casinos in neighboring states gutted the city’s coffers. From a peak of $5.2 billion in 2006, the city’s casino industry has lost half its annual revenue. As casinos lost money, they appealed their tax assessments, leaving the city with $400 million in debt and its largest taxpayer, the Borgata Hotel & Casino, withholding quarterly taxes against the $150 million it alone is owed. The city barely avoided default earlier this month.
But the battle over how to save Atlantic City from becoming the first city in New Jersey to go bankrupt since Fort Lee in 1938 has been excruciating -- and long.
Mayor Don Guardian and others have argued that Christie has had control over the town since 2010, and if it’s in worse shape now, the state has itself to blame. Some think the intervention up until now has been designed to force a more draconian takeover that gives the state control of union contracts and city assets, including its Water Works, sought after by at least two politically connected private firms.
The city, which sends about $55 million to the state in hotel, luxury tax and parking fees, nearly had to shut itself down after the state refused an $8 million bridge loan in late March. (The shutdown was averted when municipal employees agreed to defer their paychecks for a month.) Guardian is still waiting for the $33.5 million in “Casino Redirected Alternative Payment” the state told them to budget and assured was coming. The line item’s acronym is not lost on anyone. Guardian personally thanked many of those who showed up in May to pay quarterly taxes.
Christie’s previous moves in Atlantic City did little to prevent the current crisis. He jump-started the Revel casino in 2011 with $261 million in state tax incentives, only to see that $2 billion casino go bankrupt and close in just over two years. He created a state-run tourism district that prompted cries of apartheid by then Mayor Lorenzo Langford, but also failed to stave off the closure of four casinos along the Boardwalk. Dreams of remaking sections of Pacific Avenue as something other than a pock-marked strip of boarding homes and corner stores remain stuck in power points.
Two years ago, Christie stirred up talk of bankruptcy by appointing Detroit’s former emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, and restructuring specialist Kevin Lavin as emergency managers of Atlantic City. The next day, Moody’s sunk the city’s credit rating, preventing any further help from the capital markets.
When Christie was still running for president, spending long stretches in New Hampshire, he was also leaving Atlantic City rescue legislation to gather dust on his desk without his signature. He eventually returned for a brief stay, and, like a college kid who skips most of the semester’s classes then shows up for the final, spun heads by vetoing it. At least $30 million of that vetoed aid was casino money already raised for marketing and promised to the city to plug a budget hole. Then Christie returned to his doomed campaign.
But after Christie dropped out, he had more time to butt heads over Atlantic City. He demanded so much power over Atlantic City operations, finances, assets and government that the normally decorous and bow-tied Mayor Guardian has defended his turf with comments like, “We’re not the fascists here.” Delgado, the councilman, says: “If we’re ‘America’s Favorite Playground,’ you’ve now got a playground bully.”
Lately, Christie gets mad when anyone brings up the possibility of Atlantic City filing Chapter 9, but Moody’s has blamed the governor for casting doubt onto New Jersey’s once rock-solid policy of assisting cities to prevent default. Christie, in turn, blames a bloated and recalcitrant city government, and, more recently, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, a North Jersey Democrat who joined forces with Atlantic City officials to block a state takeover.
Oddly, Christie was in Atlantic City the day the rescue bills were passed, and the mayor was in Trenton. But unlike the last time Christie came to town, when he blustered in and called the mayor “a liar,” Christie did not mention the city at all; he gave his speech at a charter school conference and exited down through a Bally's elevator and away in his helicopter.
Later, a rumor circulated that he'd gotten stuck in an elevator at the hospital where his helicopter had landed. It wasn’t true, but it gave fire officials, still worried about the beatings their contracts may take, a chance to crack a few about how long it might have taken them to get the governor out.
Atlantic City Fire Department Chief Scott Evans, himself a former mayor, said the path to the city's rescue was more complicated and convoluted than an "NCIS series where you try to connect the dots."
"It's mind boggling," he said. "Who's connected to who. Here's this congressman, and here's this senator, and then you got the presidential thing, and he wants to go to Washington D.C. with Trump, and you can see Christie working out of the White House doling out contracts to all his buddies. And then you think, what does Atlantic City have to do with all this?"
Trump’s mark on the town has been vanishing for decades, swallowed up in the four corporate bankruptcies that left him with virtually no stake in the company that ran the three Trump casinos.
Last year, he sued to force the shuttered Trump Plaza to remove every reference to his name, a final pronouncement on his view of Atlantic City. The letters were removed, some carted off in a contractor’s pickup truck.
When Trump first proposed building his wall on the Mexican border, locals took video of a broken-down outer wall at the Taj Mahal, and said: “This is the wall built by Donald Trump.”
“He put his name on casinos and drove them into bankruptcy,” Democratic State Assemblyman John Wisniewski told the crowd of Bernie Sanders supporters gathered inside Boardwalk Hall. “What’s worse, is that now Donald Trump and Chris Christie have teamed up.”
Trump’s four corporate bankruptcies between 1991 and 2009, which he has said he used to strategic benefit, left florists, plumbers, lawyers, electricians, piano suppliers, bondholders and others with pennies on the dollar of what they were owed. He ended with less than 1 percent share of the now-Icahn-controlled company.
And while it’s a stretch to tie Trump’s casino bankruptcies to the city’s current dire straits, Moody’s most recent warning to the city’s current bond holders rang familiar.
“The Caa3 rating indicates a post-default recovery rate of 65 percent to 80 percent of principal,” Moody’s warned. Harry Hasson, a florist who opened Trump Plaza and recalls with fondness going every Friday to meet with Ivana Trump, then a vice president of Trump Hotels, to work on landscaping and floral arrangements, said he and other contractors settled outstanding Taj-related debts at 50 cents on the dollar. (More recently, Trump suggested that as president, he might seek similar discounts on the country’s debt.)
But many employees remember Trump’s Atlantic City days fondly. And even some who tangled with him remember a city, like the Republican voters who would follow, very much in Trump’s grip.
“He’s always wanted to be a political mover and shaker,” said Louis Toscano, chief of staff to then-Mayor Jim Whelan in the 1990s. “Look at what he did when he came into Atlantic City. He bowled over the entire town. People couldn’t get close enough to him.”
On the same day that Capt. Dilorenzo was hunkered in the Ducktown, fretting over the fate of his city, Bernie Sanders had just left town. The scourge of Wall Street and the 1 percenters had used Atlantic City as a back drop for an attack on the billionaires of the Boardwalk: Trump and Carl Icahn, who now owns the just-out-of-bankruptcy Trump Taj Mahal, the last remnant of the Trump brand in Atlantic City.
Icahn, who Trump has said would make a good Treasury Secretary, would later crow about being the one to save the Taj. And in fact, the casino left by Trump to a decrepit half-life is showing signs of being revived. It still relies on a pervasive use of the Trump name (comps are loaded onto a “Trump One” card, as in Air Force One), but the casino has also conspicuously shed the Trump name on new billboards. Icahn, like Christie, is no fan of the unions, which has turned Dilorenzo’s counterparts in UNITE HERE Local 54, the casino workers union, into regular and inventive protesters on the Boardwalk (Icahn as Dracula was a persistent meme), even as the police and fire unions were protesting at City Hall.
For municipal employees, the threat of a state takeover is not just an attempt to undermine public sector unions, it’s an assault on the civil rights of minority residents and workers.
“Donald Trump’s main man!” fumed Darnell Hardwick, an NAACP delegate in Camden, where the state previously seized control. “Camden was the same thing as Atlantic City. You get them to a crisis. Christie wants to change the whole dynamic of public bargaining and public employee contracts. That’s how a lot of us minorities get into the middle class, through the public union.”
Christie advisor Jon Hanson, who was the architect of the Atlantic City takeover, originally modeled after Michigan’s emergency manager law, was also a chief fundraiser for Christie’s campaign and now supports Trump. The influential developer still thinks Christie can save Atlantic City. But he deflects questions about Trump’s lingering effect.
“I’m a delegate on the Trump ticket,” Hanson said. “I’ve known Donald for over 30 years. I very much support him. I don’t know anything about what he did in Atlantic City. I know what I’ve seen him do in New York, his golf courses.”
Trump himself boasted that he “had the good sense to leave Atlantic City.”
And his final mark on Atlantic City might be to take its current nemesis, Christie, out of the picture sooner than later.
“Christie isn’t going to be governor forever,” says now State Sen. Jim Whelan, the former mayor and Trump antagonist. “If Trump wins, God forbid, (Christie) could be gone next November, off to Washington.”
That might be a relief on both ends.
Residents of the nearly bankrupt boardwalk town gripe about the mogul's failed casinos and the governor’s power play.
By Amy S. Rosenberg
Earlier this month, at the very moment Donald Trump was naming Chris Christie to head a still-theoretical presidential transition team, Bill Dilorenzo, an Atlantic City fire captain, was inside the Ducktown Tavern worrying if his city was about to go belly up.
The Ducktown, a bar located a few blocks from a Boardwalk whose dead center is still a fossilized former Trump Plaza Casino, stripped of all Trump branding by order of a judge, was one of several bars to offer discounts to police and firefighters while their paychecks were deferred to keep the city afloat. (The bar had also offered $1 Fireball shots to anyone signing a petition against a state takeover sought by the governor.)
The Friday before, city workers had gotten paid for the first time in a month. Now the Ducktown was packed with cops and firefighters. It escaped no one’s attention that two of the men most enmeshed in the near death spiral of the seaside resort town—the debt-saddled casino owner whose multiple corporate bankruptcies had foretold if not hastened the city’s financial misfortune and the governor whose latest plan to rescue the city sounded to many like a politically driven death warrant—had found common cause on the national political stage.
“We’re the smokescreen,” Dilorenzo, president of the firefighters Local 198, which has been fighting a bill that would give the state the right to terminate union contracts, said over a turkey club and an iced tea. All the focus on the unions, he said, is just a way for Christie and politically connected developers to take control of coveted assets, like the city’s Water Works, and to divvy up those yawning parcels of undeveloped waterfront land. Few in that darkened bar would disagree. For that matter, few in Atlantic City would disagree. “Bruce Springsteen Hates Both of You” read a sign at a recent rally Trump held in New Jersey to raise money for Christie’s presidential campaign debt, a twist on the placard that has for years dogged Christie, a devoted fan of the Boss.
As Trump and Christie forged an unlikely political alliance—one of them a brash outsider promising to bring lost American jobs back home and the other an uneasy sidekick whose career has been both propelled and derailed by a similar petulance—Atlantic City is the one place in America that has been most clearly shaped by the both of them.
Atlantic City, as much as his native New York, was the place where Trump staked his career and made his reputation—opening three casinos in the 80s and early 90s, and establishing himself as the biggest name on the Boardwalk. But he was also the first developer to run into trouble when competition sucked away customers and profits with them. Trump has recast his bankruptcies as brilliant business maneuvers, timely exits from a city in distress. But the unemployed workers and the contractors who recouped pennies on the dollar weren’t applauding.
For Christie, too, Atlantic City’s slide into insolvency has challenged his ability to slay deficits not to mention his ability to impose his will throughout the state. He came into office in 2010, the year after Trump’s final bankruptcy and the beginning of a six year slide that has seen the city’s tax base tumble by two-thirds. But Christie’s proposed solutions led to bitter battles with Democrats in the state legislature and even Atlantic City’s Republican mayor, who likened Christie’s plan to a “fascist dictatorship.”
On Friday, just before the Memorial Day weekend, Christie signed two bills that give Atlantic City 150 days to come up with a plan to balance its budget and hold back the onerous takeover threatened by the state. The bills redirect tens of millions of dollars in aid to the city from casinos, a state loan and other sources. For the time being, it will stave off a municipal bankruptcy that arguably would have hurt the governor more than the city of Atlantic City. Whether the emergency bills will give the city enough breathing room to right its finances for the long-term is anyone’s guess. (And the city still must fight off a Christie-backed referendum on the ballot in November that would bring two casinos to North Jersey, which Atlantic City casino executives warn could lead to as many as five more casino closings in the seaside town.) But there’s more certainty about the men who have been called the city’s twin villains.
“Trump and Christie have one thing in common regarding Atlantic City,” says Frank Becktel, a jitney driver and Atlantic City loyalist suffering along with the rest of the town in its hour of need. “They both knew how to squeeze a buck out of us and leave us for dead.”
Well, maybe on life support.
If you want to know what a Trump-Christie playbook looks like, go no further than this iconic city by the sea, says Councilman Moisse “Mo” Delgado, a native of a place that has long attracted outsized personalities, from Nucky Johnson, boss of the Atlantic City Prohibition-era political machine, to Mr. Peanut, the monocle-wearing mascot from the 1930s.
It’s still a place that fills up most weekends with roving bands of bachelorettes and bros in search of bottle service even as the local government may go belly up and politicians argue over the details. It’s a broke city where four casinos closed in 2014, but one where last year gamblers still left behind $2.6 billion in the eight surviving casinos.
What Trump left behind is a hotly debated subject.
“Trump, he smiled and did a few things,” says Delgado. “And did things behind closed doors, back room deals, to make sure he kept his power. He had a lot of people shaking in (their) pants here in Atlantic City because of his influence. When that influence started dissipating, he no longer wanted to be here. If he can’t rule, he doesn’t want to stay.”
But for many, leaving wasn’t an option.
“In a business way, he’s brilliant,” Delgado said. “He protected his assets. He protected himself. He left everyone else, the employees, the community, everyone else holding the bag.”
At one time, Atlantic City was the only place to gamble on the east coast. But the spread of casinos in neighboring states gutted the city’s coffers. From a peak of $5.2 billion in 2006, the city’s casino industry has lost half its annual revenue. As casinos lost money, they appealed their tax assessments, leaving the city with $400 million in debt and its largest taxpayer, the Borgata Hotel & Casino, withholding quarterly taxes against the $150 million it alone is owed. The city barely avoided default earlier this month.
But the battle over how to save Atlantic City from becoming the first city in New Jersey to go bankrupt since Fort Lee in 1938 has been excruciating -- and long.
Mayor Don Guardian and others have argued that Christie has had control over the town since 2010, and if it’s in worse shape now, the state has itself to blame. Some think the intervention up until now has been designed to force a more draconian takeover that gives the state control of union contracts and city assets, including its Water Works, sought after by at least two politically connected private firms.
The city, which sends about $55 million to the state in hotel, luxury tax and parking fees, nearly had to shut itself down after the state refused an $8 million bridge loan in late March. (The shutdown was averted when municipal employees agreed to defer their paychecks for a month.) Guardian is still waiting for the $33.5 million in “Casino Redirected Alternative Payment” the state told them to budget and assured was coming. The line item’s acronym is not lost on anyone. Guardian personally thanked many of those who showed up in May to pay quarterly taxes.
Christie’s previous moves in Atlantic City did little to prevent the current crisis. He jump-started the Revel casino in 2011 with $261 million in state tax incentives, only to see that $2 billion casino go bankrupt and close in just over two years. He created a state-run tourism district that prompted cries of apartheid by then Mayor Lorenzo Langford, but also failed to stave off the closure of four casinos along the Boardwalk. Dreams of remaking sections of Pacific Avenue as something other than a pock-marked strip of boarding homes and corner stores remain stuck in power points.
Two years ago, Christie stirred up talk of bankruptcy by appointing Detroit’s former emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, and restructuring specialist Kevin Lavin as emergency managers of Atlantic City. The next day, Moody’s sunk the city’s credit rating, preventing any further help from the capital markets.
When Christie was still running for president, spending long stretches in New Hampshire, he was also leaving Atlantic City rescue legislation to gather dust on his desk without his signature. He eventually returned for a brief stay, and, like a college kid who skips most of the semester’s classes then shows up for the final, spun heads by vetoing it. At least $30 million of that vetoed aid was casino money already raised for marketing and promised to the city to plug a budget hole. Then Christie returned to his doomed campaign.
But after Christie dropped out, he had more time to butt heads over Atlantic City. He demanded so much power over Atlantic City operations, finances, assets and government that the normally decorous and bow-tied Mayor Guardian has defended his turf with comments like, “We’re not the fascists here.” Delgado, the councilman, says: “If we’re ‘America’s Favorite Playground,’ you’ve now got a playground bully.”
Lately, Christie gets mad when anyone brings up the possibility of Atlantic City filing Chapter 9, but Moody’s has blamed the governor for casting doubt onto New Jersey’s once rock-solid policy of assisting cities to prevent default. Christie, in turn, blames a bloated and recalcitrant city government, and, more recently, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, a North Jersey Democrat who joined forces with Atlantic City officials to block a state takeover.
Oddly, Christie was in Atlantic City the day the rescue bills were passed, and the mayor was in Trenton. But unlike the last time Christie came to town, when he blustered in and called the mayor “a liar,” Christie did not mention the city at all; he gave his speech at a charter school conference and exited down through a Bally's elevator and away in his helicopter.
Later, a rumor circulated that he'd gotten stuck in an elevator at the hospital where his helicopter had landed. It wasn’t true, but it gave fire officials, still worried about the beatings their contracts may take, a chance to crack a few about how long it might have taken them to get the governor out.
Atlantic City Fire Department Chief Scott Evans, himself a former mayor, said the path to the city's rescue was more complicated and convoluted than an "NCIS series where you try to connect the dots."
"It's mind boggling," he said. "Who's connected to who. Here's this congressman, and here's this senator, and then you got the presidential thing, and he wants to go to Washington D.C. with Trump, and you can see Christie working out of the White House doling out contracts to all his buddies. And then you think, what does Atlantic City have to do with all this?"
Trump’s mark on the town has been vanishing for decades, swallowed up in the four corporate bankruptcies that left him with virtually no stake in the company that ran the three Trump casinos.
Last year, he sued to force the shuttered Trump Plaza to remove every reference to his name, a final pronouncement on his view of Atlantic City. The letters were removed, some carted off in a contractor’s pickup truck.
When Trump first proposed building his wall on the Mexican border, locals took video of a broken-down outer wall at the Taj Mahal, and said: “This is the wall built by Donald Trump.”
“He put his name on casinos and drove them into bankruptcy,” Democratic State Assemblyman John Wisniewski told the crowd of Bernie Sanders supporters gathered inside Boardwalk Hall. “What’s worse, is that now Donald Trump and Chris Christie have teamed up.”
Trump’s four corporate bankruptcies between 1991 and 2009, which he has said he used to strategic benefit, left florists, plumbers, lawyers, electricians, piano suppliers, bondholders and others with pennies on the dollar of what they were owed. He ended with less than 1 percent share of the now-Icahn-controlled company.
And while it’s a stretch to tie Trump’s casino bankruptcies to the city’s current dire straits, Moody’s most recent warning to the city’s current bond holders rang familiar.
“The Caa3 rating indicates a post-default recovery rate of 65 percent to 80 percent of principal,” Moody’s warned. Harry Hasson, a florist who opened Trump Plaza and recalls with fondness going every Friday to meet with Ivana Trump, then a vice president of Trump Hotels, to work on landscaping and floral arrangements, said he and other contractors settled outstanding Taj-related debts at 50 cents on the dollar. (More recently, Trump suggested that as president, he might seek similar discounts on the country’s debt.)
But many employees remember Trump’s Atlantic City days fondly. And even some who tangled with him remember a city, like the Republican voters who would follow, very much in Trump’s grip.
“He’s always wanted to be a political mover and shaker,” said Louis Toscano, chief of staff to then-Mayor Jim Whelan in the 1990s. “Look at what he did when he came into Atlantic City. He bowled over the entire town. People couldn’t get close enough to him.”
On the same day that Capt. Dilorenzo was hunkered in the Ducktown, fretting over the fate of his city, Bernie Sanders had just left town. The scourge of Wall Street and the 1 percenters had used Atlantic City as a back drop for an attack on the billionaires of the Boardwalk: Trump and Carl Icahn, who now owns the just-out-of-bankruptcy Trump Taj Mahal, the last remnant of the Trump brand in Atlantic City.
Icahn, who Trump has said would make a good Treasury Secretary, would later crow about being the one to save the Taj. And in fact, the casino left by Trump to a decrepit half-life is showing signs of being revived. It still relies on a pervasive use of the Trump name (comps are loaded onto a “Trump One” card, as in Air Force One), but the casino has also conspicuously shed the Trump name on new billboards. Icahn, like Christie, is no fan of the unions, which has turned Dilorenzo’s counterparts in UNITE HERE Local 54, the casino workers union, into regular and inventive protesters on the Boardwalk (Icahn as Dracula was a persistent meme), even as the police and fire unions were protesting at City Hall.
For municipal employees, the threat of a state takeover is not just an attempt to undermine public sector unions, it’s an assault on the civil rights of minority residents and workers.
“Donald Trump’s main man!” fumed Darnell Hardwick, an NAACP delegate in Camden, where the state previously seized control. “Camden was the same thing as Atlantic City. You get them to a crisis. Christie wants to change the whole dynamic of public bargaining and public employee contracts. That’s how a lot of us minorities get into the middle class, through the public union.”
Christie advisor Jon Hanson, who was the architect of the Atlantic City takeover, originally modeled after Michigan’s emergency manager law, was also a chief fundraiser for Christie’s campaign and now supports Trump. The influential developer still thinks Christie can save Atlantic City. But he deflects questions about Trump’s lingering effect.
“I’m a delegate on the Trump ticket,” Hanson said. “I’ve known Donald for over 30 years. I very much support him. I don’t know anything about what he did in Atlantic City. I know what I’ve seen him do in New York, his golf courses.”
Trump himself boasted that he “had the good sense to leave Atlantic City.”
And his final mark on Atlantic City might be to take its current nemesis, Christie, out of the picture sooner than later.
“Christie isn’t going to be governor forever,” says now State Sen. Jim Whelan, the former mayor and Trump antagonist. “If Trump wins, God forbid, (Christie) could be gone next November, off to Washington.”
That might be a relief on both ends.
Gun to my head....
Martin Shkreli clarifies: Only Trump with 'gun to my head'
By Nick Gass
So much for the coveted backing of Donald Trump by Martin Shkreli.
The embatted pharmaceutical executive tweeted last Thursday that he supported the Republican nominee over Hillary Clinton, prompting a deluge of equal parts scorn and bemusement at the man who was universally vilified for boasting about raising the price of life-saving drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent.
On Monday evening, Shkreli sought to set the record straight: Only with a gun to his head would he vote for the Manhattan billionaire.
"This year I am abstaining in protest of crap candidates," he wrote in one tweet.
"I like humor that makes you think. Or in the case of media, not think and publish whatever you want. I would never vote for Trump."
"If someone put a gun to my head and made me vote, I would vote Trump over Hillary. This year I am abstaining in protest of crap candidates."
"If you think thats an endorsement, knock yourself out. Write a story bout how most hated guy (who can't find someone who hates him) likes DT"
By Nick Gass
So much for the coveted backing of Donald Trump by Martin Shkreli.
The embatted pharmaceutical executive tweeted last Thursday that he supported the Republican nominee over Hillary Clinton, prompting a deluge of equal parts scorn and bemusement at the man who was universally vilified for boasting about raising the price of life-saving drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent.
On Monday evening, Shkreli sought to set the record straight: Only with a gun to his head would he vote for the Manhattan billionaire.
"This year I am abstaining in protest of crap candidates," he wrote in one tweet.
"I like humor that makes you think. Or in the case of media, not think and publish whatever you want. I would never vote for Trump."
"If someone put a gun to my head and made me vote, I would vote Trump over Hillary. This year I am abstaining in protest of crap candidates."
"If you think thats an endorsement, knock yourself out. Write a story bout how most hated guy (who can't find someone who hates him) likes DT"
2-party system
Mary Matalin: '2-party system is ready to fall'
By Kristen East
Longtime Republican strategist Mary Matalin — who registered as a Libertarian earlier this month — said this weekend that “the two-party system is ready to fall."
Her comment came as she wrote in National Review that she is supporting Austin Petersen for the Libertarian Party’s nomination. She wrote that she believes he is “the man who can lead independents, Libertarians, and disaffected members of the two major parties to victory.”
The Libertarian Party held its national convention this weekend in Orlando, Florida, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson secured the party's nomination.
Writing before Johnson was nominated, Matalin said the time is ripe “for a new majority political party to rise.”
“For many Americans — as is evidenced by its exponential recent growth — that common-sense alternative is the Libertarian Party," she wrote.
Earlier this month, when Matalin switched her party registration, she said she was “a never Hillary” and “a provisional Trump.”
By Kristen East
Longtime Republican strategist Mary Matalin — who registered as a Libertarian earlier this month — said this weekend that “the two-party system is ready to fall."
Her comment came as she wrote in National Review that she is supporting Austin Petersen for the Libertarian Party’s nomination. She wrote that she believes he is “the man who can lead independents, Libertarians, and disaffected members of the two major parties to victory.”
The Libertarian Party held its national convention this weekend in Orlando, Florida, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson secured the party's nomination.
Writing before Johnson was nominated, Matalin said the time is ripe “for a new majority political party to rise.”
“For many Americans — as is evidenced by its exponential recent growth — that common-sense alternative is the Libertarian Party," she wrote.
Earlier this month, when Matalin switched her party registration, she said she was “a never Hillary” and “a provisional Trump.”
Shape-shifting
Hacked Texas road sign: 'Donald Trump is a shape-shifting lizard!!'
By Nick Gass
Dallas motorists expecting a heads-up on approaching roadwork or other traffic advisories over Memorial Day weekend were instead greeted with yet another reminder of the presidential campaign.
On one sign, "Bernie for president" was displayed instead of the usual warnings about lane closures or closed exits, according to Dallas' NBC affiliate, which also reported that workers with the state Department of Transportation turned off the signs shortly before 6 a.m. local time. On another, hackers replaced the usual message with: "Donald Trump is a shape-shifting lizard!!'
A third sign was less politically inclined and seemed to invite an extension of the holiday weekend. "Work is canceled," it read.
"Go back home."
By Nick Gass
Dallas motorists expecting a heads-up on approaching roadwork or other traffic advisories over Memorial Day weekend were instead greeted with yet another reminder of the presidential campaign.
On one sign, "Bernie for president" was displayed instead of the usual warnings about lane closures or closed exits, according to Dallas' NBC affiliate, which also reported that workers with the state Department of Transportation turned off the signs shortly before 6 a.m. local time. On another, hackers replaced the usual message with: "Donald Trump is a shape-shifting lizard!!'A third sign was less politically inclined and seemed to invite an extension of the holiday weekend. "Work is canceled," it read.
"Go back home."
Kisses off...
Gary Johnson kisses off Trump
By Nick Gass
Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has a message for Donald Trump as he looks to deliver a challenge to the two-party system. Or really, a gesture.
During an interview Tuesday with CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day," the former governor of New Mexico defended his comments Sunday denouncing Trump's rhetoric on Hispanics, Latinos and Mexicans in particular as "just racist."
After the show played a clip of Johnson speaking two days ago, Cuomo grilled the Libertarian on whether he is ready for Trump's counterpunch.
"I think that they've already started coming. So, you know, Donald," Johnson said, before puckering up, placing his hand over his mouth and blowing an air kiss for the presumptive Republican candidate.
Cuomo replied, "That's an interesting rebuttal you have there, governor. I don't know how it's going to go over."
"I don't know," Johnson said with a chuckle.
By Nick Gass
Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has a message for Donald Trump as he looks to deliver a challenge to the two-party system. Or really, a gesture.
During an interview Tuesday with CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day," the former governor of New Mexico defended his comments Sunday denouncing Trump's rhetoric on Hispanics, Latinos and Mexicans in particular as "just racist."
After the show played a clip of Johnson speaking two days ago, Cuomo grilled the Libertarian on whether he is ready for Trump's counterpunch.
"I think that they've already started coming. So, you know, Donald," Johnson said, before puckering up, placing his hand over his mouth and blowing an air kiss for the presumptive Republican candidate.
Cuomo replied, "That's an interesting rebuttal you have there, governor. I don't know how it's going to go over."
"I don't know," Johnson said with a chuckle.
Adapt or die...
Sessions to GOP: Adapt to Trump or die
In an exclusive interview for POLITICO's 'Off Message' podcast, the Alabama senator warns fellow Republicans to fall in line.
By Glenn Thrush
Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, Donald Trump’s friendly but fierce Alabama ally, has a message for Republicans still queasy about their party’s nominee: Tide’s about to roll over you.
Sessions, a 69-year-old former state attorney general who famously donned the “Make America Great Again” trucker’s cap at a massive rally in Mobile last August, thinks Trump is more a movement than a man. And this sprightly son of country preachers and teachers is on a mission to evangelize maybe-Trumpers like House Speaker Paul Ryan on the Gospel According to Donald – with a sermon on self-preservation.
“I think [Ryan] needs to recognize, on some of these issues, Trump is where the Republicans are and if you’re going to be a Republican leader you should be supportive of that,” Sessions told me during a taping of POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast in his Senate office last week.
“My advice is to listen and accept the will of the American people, the Republican voters – the Republican Party is the Republican voters,” he added – a pointed reference to Ryan’s suggestion that he, and not the presumptive party nominee, represents authentic conservative values. “Give me a break! A lot of our drift within our party has gotten away from [the will of the voters] … I think the leaders in all parties tend to adjust to reality. They just have to or they won’t remain in office … Already many are sensing it.”
Trump has said he needs an experienced Washington hand as a running mate to offset his own inexperience, and Sessions (as you’d expect) has said, oh gosh not me. But he’s clearly positioned himself as Trump’s man on the Hill, and told me he takes some satisfaction in watching the cloakroom skeptics line up behind a guy they once dismissed as a joke.
Sessions is deeply simpatico with Trump on immigration, taxes, and he’s a fervent, if recent convert to, the developer’s opposition to all free trade agreements (“I supported the Korean trade agreement in 2011,” he says sheepishly). But there’s a more visceral, pragmatic motive behind Sessions’ embrace of the big Yankee: survival. Win or lose, Trump has tapped into the GOP base’s deep feelings of alienation and Republican candidates of all stripes, and from all parts of the country, will adapt or die.
He has said this is going to be a new Republican Party, a workers’ Republican Party, instead of just the elite Republican Party,” said Sessions, who was quietly ridiculed by other GOP senators when he embraced (but didn’t quite endorse) Trump last summer.
Thanks to Trump – and Bernie Sanders – a vote for the Trans-Pacific Partnership is an act of political suicide. “It would endanger you — yes,” he said of anyone who votes in favor of the agreement, which is stalled in the Senate despite the support of leading Republicans. “I think they would have a hard time getting elected.”
The core argument many mainstream Republicans make against Trump is that the extremity of his language and the impracticality if his proposals will render him unelectable, no matter how well he’s fared in recent polls. Sessions argues against that – but the foundation of his argument is that everything-except-Trump has already failed, so why not give the people what they want?
“Romney didn’t get beyond the numbers,” Sessions explained. “He couldn't get 50 percent. Romney got killed by the under-$50,000-a-year income voter. He just got killed in that. You cannot win. You cannot be president of the United States if people below $50,000 don't think you care about them and you have no real communication that motivates them to vote for you. And that's the trend we've been on, and Trump has broken that.”
In a major blow to Ted Cruz, Sessions endorsed Trump in February – citing the developer’s harder-line stance on immigration, even though he’s not sure the wall will stretch the length of the Mexican border, and he doesn’t know exactly how Trump will cajole the Mexicans into paying for it.
“He's never said it's going to go from one end of the country, from the Gulf to the Pacific, and he'll use good judgment about that,” Sessions said. “And there are ways, through tax and regulation policies, that we can — and immigrant fees – that this could be paid for. I have not studied the details of it but, absolutely, I think that is possible.”
Curiously, Sessions professed ignorance when I asked him about Alabama’s controversial 2011 state law – HB-56 – that cracked down on undocumented immigrants and gave local police broad powers to question people they believed to be in the country illegally.
“What is that?” he said when I asked him about the law – adding: “I didn't have anything to do with it, and never, to this day, haven't read it, the details of it. I just read about it in the paper.”
The populist war waged by Sessions is among the most venerable in American history – it’s been raging since the Andrew Jackson railed against the monied and manipulative Eastern elites to win the White House in 1828 – and has extended through William Jennings Bryan, George Wallace and Trump.
Like many southern Republicans of his generation, Sessions views the civil rights era as settled history, not on an ongoing issue that remains unresolved. For much of his career Sessions has been a reliable mainstream Republican (his enthusiastic support of the Iraq War, for one, puts him at variance with Trump, who believes it to have been a Bush family catastrophe), but he’s adopted a harder populist edge in recent years. Unlike many southern conservatives, Sessions became a Republican early – in the mid-60s. His intention, he told me, was to embrace the Jacksonian economic populism of the Democratic Party while ditching its ties to segregation, slavery and racism.
His father, a lifelong Democrat who ran a country store, tolerated his son’s political apostasy. To a point. “He let me put a Goldwater sticker on his pickup truck, but he never put a bumper sticker on his car,” Sessions told me with a laugh. (The elder Sessions, a World War Two veteran, voted for Dwight Eisenhower in a minor apostasy of his own.)
Yet Sessions couldn’t quite out-run race as an issue in his own career. As a young federal judge in the 1980s, he made off-color racial jokes and was quoted as accusing civil rights advocates of shoving their views “down the throats” of southerners. As a result, the Senate voted down his nomination for a coveted appointment to federal district court in 1986. Ten years later, he achieved a measure of revenge when he won his seat in the upper chamber.
Given Alabama’s violent history and still-simmering racial dynamic (and the fact that Trump’s audiences in the south have been overwhelmingly white) I asked Sessions if he thought race was a factor in Trump’s rise. Did he agree, for instance, with his ally Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who recently accused the Democrats of waging a “war on whites?”
Sessions, who grew up in a segregated, flyspeck hamlet outside of Selma at the height of the civil rights movement, said no, he didn’t. “Trump is going to appeal better to African Americans, Hispanics, and others than previous Republican candidates because he's talking about what they want: a fair chance to have a better life economically,” he said.
“I just don’t think there’s that many people who think it’s wrong to have control on our borders. That's not racism,” added Sessions.
Even when I pointed out that Trump is facing the possibility of an unprecedented backlash from black and Hispanic voters, Sessions is convinced he’ll out-perform Romney as people of color come to realize electing Trump is in their economic interest. “How do you appeal to Hispanics and African Americans that we’ve not done well with at all? Is it by saying we’re going to have open borders and more welfare?” asks Sessions, who has himself performed poorly with black voters in his five Senate wins.
When I asked him about his childhood in tiny Hybert, he described “an almost idyllic environment” of swimming in local creeks and ballgames with neighborhood kids who went on to be doctors, lawyers and university presidents.
Then I asked him about racism, and his family’s attitude toward the historic civil rights battles waging a few miles from his porch. “It was pretty brutal, actually,” he said, referring to segregation. “It didn’t appear to be, on the surface… People got along and we had great relationships… but people were in denial about that fact.”
When I asked about the views of family and neighbors during that period, he spoke in generalities but referred to criticism by civil rights advocates as “attacks” on the Alabama system. “They would react defensively and too strongly, so the attacks would be taken as a personal attack on everything I’ve ever done, and basically you’re an evil person,” he said. “Emotionally, it was — one moment would be defensive and the next moment a recognition that this was not a sustainable lifestyle and it had to change, and it was wrong.”
The childhood image that resonates with Sessions is one of two races moving in different directions – the sight of a school bus full of black kids passing his all-white bus every morning, as the two Alabamas rolled on a country road to their separate but unequal educational fates.
“I don’t feel like I did anything to damage the advancement of racial reconciliation and civil rights,” he told me, voice lowered to a near-whisper. “But I didn’t – I wasn’t any hero in it either.”
In an exclusive interview for POLITICO's 'Off Message' podcast, the Alabama senator warns fellow Republicans to fall in line.
By Glenn Thrush
Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, Donald Trump’s friendly but fierce Alabama ally, has a message for Republicans still queasy about their party’s nominee: Tide’s about to roll over you.
Sessions, a 69-year-old former state attorney general who famously donned the “Make America Great Again” trucker’s cap at a massive rally in Mobile last August, thinks Trump is more a movement than a man. And this sprightly son of country preachers and teachers is on a mission to evangelize maybe-Trumpers like House Speaker Paul Ryan on the Gospel According to Donald – with a sermon on self-preservation.
“I think [Ryan] needs to recognize, on some of these issues, Trump is where the Republicans are and if you’re going to be a Republican leader you should be supportive of that,” Sessions told me during a taping of POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast in his Senate office last week.
“My advice is to listen and accept the will of the American people, the Republican voters – the Republican Party is the Republican voters,” he added – a pointed reference to Ryan’s suggestion that he, and not the presumptive party nominee, represents authentic conservative values. “Give me a break! A lot of our drift within our party has gotten away from [the will of the voters] … I think the leaders in all parties tend to adjust to reality. They just have to or they won’t remain in office … Already many are sensing it.”
Trump has said he needs an experienced Washington hand as a running mate to offset his own inexperience, and Sessions (as you’d expect) has said, oh gosh not me. But he’s clearly positioned himself as Trump’s man on the Hill, and told me he takes some satisfaction in watching the cloakroom skeptics line up behind a guy they once dismissed as a joke.
Sessions is deeply simpatico with Trump on immigration, taxes, and he’s a fervent, if recent convert to, the developer’s opposition to all free trade agreements (“I supported the Korean trade agreement in 2011,” he says sheepishly). But there’s a more visceral, pragmatic motive behind Sessions’ embrace of the big Yankee: survival. Win or lose, Trump has tapped into the GOP base’s deep feelings of alienation and Republican candidates of all stripes, and from all parts of the country, will adapt or die.
He has said this is going to be a new Republican Party, a workers’ Republican Party, instead of just the elite Republican Party,” said Sessions, who was quietly ridiculed by other GOP senators when he embraced (but didn’t quite endorse) Trump last summer.
Thanks to Trump – and Bernie Sanders – a vote for the Trans-Pacific Partnership is an act of political suicide. “It would endanger you — yes,” he said of anyone who votes in favor of the agreement, which is stalled in the Senate despite the support of leading Republicans. “I think they would have a hard time getting elected.”
The core argument many mainstream Republicans make against Trump is that the extremity of his language and the impracticality if his proposals will render him unelectable, no matter how well he’s fared in recent polls. Sessions argues against that – but the foundation of his argument is that everything-except-Trump has already failed, so why not give the people what they want?
“Romney didn’t get beyond the numbers,” Sessions explained. “He couldn't get 50 percent. Romney got killed by the under-$50,000-a-year income voter. He just got killed in that. You cannot win. You cannot be president of the United States if people below $50,000 don't think you care about them and you have no real communication that motivates them to vote for you. And that's the trend we've been on, and Trump has broken that.”
In a major blow to Ted Cruz, Sessions endorsed Trump in February – citing the developer’s harder-line stance on immigration, even though he’s not sure the wall will stretch the length of the Mexican border, and he doesn’t know exactly how Trump will cajole the Mexicans into paying for it.
“He's never said it's going to go from one end of the country, from the Gulf to the Pacific, and he'll use good judgment about that,” Sessions said. “And there are ways, through tax and regulation policies, that we can — and immigrant fees – that this could be paid for. I have not studied the details of it but, absolutely, I think that is possible.”
Curiously, Sessions professed ignorance when I asked him about Alabama’s controversial 2011 state law – HB-56 – that cracked down on undocumented immigrants and gave local police broad powers to question people they believed to be in the country illegally.
“What is that?” he said when I asked him about the law – adding: “I didn't have anything to do with it, and never, to this day, haven't read it, the details of it. I just read about it in the paper.”
The populist war waged by Sessions is among the most venerable in American history – it’s been raging since the Andrew Jackson railed against the monied and manipulative Eastern elites to win the White House in 1828 – and has extended through William Jennings Bryan, George Wallace and Trump.
Like many southern Republicans of his generation, Sessions views the civil rights era as settled history, not on an ongoing issue that remains unresolved. For much of his career Sessions has been a reliable mainstream Republican (his enthusiastic support of the Iraq War, for one, puts him at variance with Trump, who believes it to have been a Bush family catastrophe), but he’s adopted a harder populist edge in recent years. Unlike many southern conservatives, Sessions became a Republican early – in the mid-60s. His intention, he told me, was to embrace the Jacksonian economic populism of the Democratic Party while ditching its ties to segregation, slavery and racism.
His father, a lifelong Democrat who ran a country store, tolerated his son’s political apostasy. To a point. “He let me put a Goldwater sticker on his pickup truck, but he never put a bumper sticker on his car,” Sessions told me with a laugh. (The elder Sessions, a World War Two veteran, voted for Dwight Eisenhower in a minor apostasy of his own.)
Yet Sessions couldn’t quite out-run race as an issue in his own career. As a young federal judge in the 1980s, he made off-color racial jokes and was quoted as accusing civil rights advocates of shoving their views “down the throats” of southerners. As a result, the Senate voted down his nomination for a coveted appointment to federal district court in 1986. Ten years later, he achieved a measure of revenge when he won his seat in the upper chamber.
Given Alabama’s violent history and still-simmering racial dynamic (and the fact that Trump’s audiences in the south have been overwhelmingly white) I asked Sessions if he thought race was a factor in Trump’s rise. Did he agree, for instance, with his ally Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who recently accused the Democrats of waging a “war on whites?”
Sessions, who grew up in a segregated, flyspeck hamlet outside of Selma at the height of the civil rights movement, said no, he didn’t. “Trump is going to appeal better to African Americans, Hispanics, and others than previous Republican candidates because he's talking about what they want: a fair chance to have a better life economically,” he said.
“I just don’t think there’s that many people who think it’s wrong to have control on our borders. That's not racism,” added Sessions.
Even when I pointed out that Trump is facing the possibility of an unprecedented backlash from black and Hispanic voters, Sessions is convinced he’ll out-perform Romney as people of color come to realize electing Trump is in their economic interest. “How do you appeal to Hispanics and African Americans that we’ve not done well with at all? Is it by saying we’re going to have open borders and more welfare?” asks Sessions, who has himself performed poorly with black voters in his five Senate wins.
When I asked him about his childhood in tiny Hybert, he described “an almost idyllic environment” of swimming in local creeks and ballgames with neighborhood kids who went on to be doctors, lawyers and university presidents.
Then I asked him about racism, and his family’s attitude toward the historic civil rights battles waging a few miles from his porch. “It was pretty brutal, actually,” he said, referring to segregation. “It didn’t appear to be, on the surface… People got along and we had great relationships… but people were in denial about that fact.”
When I asked about the views of family and neighbors during that period, he spoke in generalities but referred to criticism by civil rights advocates as “attacks” on the Alabama system. “They would react defensively and too strongly, so the attacks would be taken as a personal attack on everything I’ve ever done, and basically you’re an evil person,” he said. “Emotionally, it was — one moment would be defensive and the next moment a recognition that this was not a sustainable lifestyle and it had to change, and it was wrong.”
The childhood image that resonates with Sessions is one of two races moving in different directions – the sight of a school bus full of black kids passing his all-white bus every morning, as the two Alabamas rolled on a country road to their separate but unequal educational fates.
“I don’t feel like I did anything to damage the advancement of racial reconciliation and civil rights,” he told me, voice lowered to a near-whisper. “But I didn’t – I wasn’t any hero in it either.”
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