Well it has been a while since I posted and my laptop is acting up thereby taking me longer . . . and resulting in an incomplete post. It has been very busy lately. Teaching progresses and little Simon is a little monkey as usual. Last Friday, he learned "ABCDE" as I was doing flashcards with Lucia. At church he learned AMEN so says the word often. My brother and his wife will be travelling from Toronto to Vancouver to board a cruise to Alaska. They will come out 2 days early to see mother whom they have not seen since 2013. Her condition will be a real shock. I saw my mother last night and spent almost 3 hours brushing her hair. At almost 88 years, she has had quantity of life so now my goal is strictly quality and brushing her hair fills the bill. My furbabes always send a message to Nana — meow, meow, meow! — which makes her smile. As many will know, TomCat's surgery was successful. He posted a brief statement which I will post over to Care2 so everyone will know.
Jig Zone Puzzle
Today’s took me 3:47 (average 5:27). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes
NY Times — It was April 1990, and Mr. Trump was officially opening his third gambling resort in Atlantic City, the biggest project of his career: the, and $1 billion Trump Taj Mahal.
“It’s truly going to be an incredible place,” he told reporters. “We’re calling it the eighth wonder of the world.” …
Then Mr. Trump bought Hilton’s nearly completed casino in the marina district for $320 million, calling it Trump Castle. His company issued $352 million in bonds to finish construction and open the casino, and tacked on an additional $32 million. That casino opened in 1985 and competed directly against his partner’s first casino, Harrah’s Marina.
The following year, Harrah’s scuttled its partnership with Mr. Trump and sold him its stake in Trump Plaza for more than $220 million.
Next Mr. Trump went after the biggest casino of all, the Taj Mahal, which Resorts International, builder of Atlantic City’s first casino, was erecting. After buying a controlling interest in Resorts from the estate of its founder, Mr. Trump battled the talk show host Merv Griffin for control of the company.
In the end, Mr. Griffin got the company, while Mr. Trump won the still-unfinished Taj Mahal.
Even before the Taj opened, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission was concerned about the casino’s viability given its rapidly escalating costs and considered revoking its operating license. Regulators closely monitored the financial performance of the Trump casinos and the developer’s empire.
Mr. Trump told the commission in 1988 that he could rein in expenses, because conventional lenders were lining up to give him money at low interest rates. He said he abhorred junk bonds, which were then popular, because they carried a bigger risk of default and thus came with higher interest rates.
Within months, he reversed course, issuing $675 million worth of junk bonds, with a 14 percent interest rate, to finish construction and get the Taj open. In recent interviews, Mr. Trump has said that with each financing he routinely took money out of the casinos to invest in Manhattan real estate. Total debt on the Taj exceeded $820 million.
Less than two weeks before the casino opened, Marvin B. Roffman, a casino analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, an investment firm based in Philadelphia, told The Wall Street Journal that the Taj would need to reap $1.3 million a day just to make its interest payments, a sum no casino had ever achieved.
“The market just isn’t there,” Mr. Roffman told The Journal.
Mr. Trump retaliated, demanding that Janney Montgomery Scott fire Mr. Roffman. It did.
“It was doomed way before the start,” said W. Bucky Howard, who was promoted by Mr. Trump to president of the Taj five days after it opened, in a recent interview. “I told him it was going to fail. The Taj was underfunded.”
Almost immediately, Mr. Trump had trouble making the debt payments on the Taj and his other casinos. It was also clear that the Taj was cannibalizing the Castle and the Plaza, whose combined gambling revenues dropped by $58 million the year it opened.
Video from Democracy Now. Click on the link for a transcript.
While I was out at physio, I heard a report, or perhaps it would be better put as a prediction, that a Trump presidency would be a disaster for the US economy and indeed the global economy. Think Progress has an excellent article on this prediction.
The heart of Trump’s economic proposals come down to tax, trade, and immigration policy. He’s put forward a tax package that experts have found would cost $9.5 trillion and hand nearly all of the benefits to the wealthiest. He’s promised to levy huge tariffs on imports from countries like China and Mexico and he’s railed against trade deals. And he says he’ll deport 11 million undocumented immigrants while building a wall along the Mexican border.
If all of that were to happen just how Trump proposes it, Moody’s analysis finds that the American economy would dip into a recession beginning in 2018 that would last through 2020 — longer than the Great Recession. It estimates there would be 3.5 million fewer jobs and the unemployment rate would rise to a peak of 7.4 percent, as opposed to the current rate of 4.7.
This post is a detailed article by Russ Buettner and Charles V Bagli outlining Trump's "business acumen", something touted by his supporters as being very important to them. If they only knew that Trump, in venture capital fashion, transferred debt to his properties, cheated contractors, investors and employees, and then declared bankruptcy, not once but four times. He made millions while he left others holding the bag. Is this the kind of performance that supporters want? Unfortunately, his supporters won't understand what he has done or will do. They believe and like his "straight talk", but it is all show and no go. It is pure unadulterated bullshit!
CBC — Donald Trump suggested Sunday that the United States should "seriously" consider profiling Muslims inside the country as a terrorism-fighting tool, the latest example of the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting increasingly backing positions that could single out a group based on their religion.
"Well I think profiling is something that we're going to have to start thinking about as a country," Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. "It's not the worst thing to do."
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee added that he "hate(s) the concept of profiling, but we have to use common sense" over "political correctness."
And the hate just keeps on! The Republicans allowed this travesty to happen so now they must own it even if it means the destruction of the party. We can hope can't we?
Think Progress — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can still arrest someone for an outstanding warrant even if they had no right to stop the person in the first place. …
“This Court has given officers an array of instruments to probe and examine you,” she writes. “This Court has allowed an officer to stop you for whatever reason he wants — so long as he can point to a pretextual justification after the fact. That justification must provide specific reasons why the officer suspected you were breaking the law, but it may factor in your ethnicity, where you live, what you were wearing, and how you behaved. The officer does not even need to know which law you might have broken so long as he can later point to any possible infraction — even one that is minor, unrelated, or ambiguous.”
IMO, Sotomayor is correct and the Injustices, particularly Teabag Thomas, are wrong. The 4th amendment to the US Constitution reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What part of "unreasonable searches and seizures" doesn't Teabag Thomas understand? I suppose he would argue that it is all in the meaning of the word "unreasonable", which I have to admit is rather subjective. I wonder what would happen if a cranky old whirte man were stopped and searched. Can we please have a fair impartial justice to replace Scalia!
My Universe —
17 Responses to “Squatch’s Open Thread 20/06/2016”
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5:10 (5:27) I had to close all my windows and re-start. I'm pretty sure the "drag" in "click and drag" is not supposed to feel like the piece weighs 50 pounds.
NY Times – I am probably alone in this, but I would certainly wonder up front about the business acumen of anyone who named a casino after a tomb. Appropriate, yes, but would a real businessman be that frank about it?
Universe – Oh, poor Optimus! Mean human for putting him in that position!
Thanks for posting TC's update to Care2. I originally posted so fast I missed some content.
CBC – "It's not the worst thing to do." – Does this remind anyone besides me of the nurse, I think it was, in Flint, who said, "It's only 3 or 4 IQ points, it's not the end of the world"? (I'm glad it wasn't I that was said to, or we'd both be lucky to be alive.)
TP – I personally am big on, and hence worried about, the Fourth Amendment, whether it's car stops, break ins, or tapped phones and computers.
BTW I see the Senate voted down all suggested gun legistation, which only came to the floor at all because 39 Dems filibustered. I am assuming our Dem Senators, not being stupid, expected that result, but wanted everyone (especially everyone who is up for reelection) to go on record with that to provide a campaigning tool. I hope it works.
I expect that you are right about the Dems and the vote. In fact maybe half an hour ago, at a friend's house, his wife (also my friend) and I said, almost simultaneously, Well, they are on the record now!"
I suspect few really know the Taj Mahal is a tomb. The name sounds exotic so it may resonate with some as posh.
There was a piece of tape where Drumpf said he has never declared bankruptcy. I guess bankruptcy declared four times is his definition of business acumen.
Sorry to hear about your laptop. Glad your Mom enjoys having her hair brushed. Mildly surprised your brother hasn't visited since 2013. (My brother & sister-in-law just visited our Mom this past week. Last time was 2014 – and then only for her brother's funeral. Guess a good deal of our family has reached the “Weddings & Funerals" stage … but it's sad.)
I'm liking Van Jones suggestion that since the majority of mas shooting are committed by white, male christians – THEY are the ones we should be profiling.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/20/1540741/-Van-Jones-Should-we-now
(LOTS of Links documenting his proposal)
I think and have said for years we should be doing this, but I have no nationa audience, and no authority but my opinion (and even that excepts o=present company,) I suspect atleast one of those Asians thought he was white – but without knowing names one can hardly be sure.
We finally have some serious hot weather here – 100 Sat, 90+ yesterday, 98 today and promised thundershowers didn't materialize, so I am flakier than usual.
My brother has difficulty seeing my mother the way she is. I suspect this time will be even harder for him as she has deteriorated so much.
Sorry to hear about the troubles with your new laptop, Lynn. You do have a good virus/malware scan on board, I hope? A little quality of life is all you can give your mother and you're giving her as much as you can. You're a very dedicated daughter and she's so lucky to have you.
NYT & TP: "But even as his companies did poorly, Mr. Trump did well. He put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen." You really do not need to be Nostradamus to predict what's going to happen to the American economy, which Obama helped to its feet again, should Drumpf make it to the Oval Office. There will be a lot of insane, "huge" projects, mainly related to real-estate, which will fail before they're even completed, putting the government back in huge debt, and paying it off with social security and welfare money and taxing the 99% blind for what little money they have left. The only one to walk away from this richer than ever are Drumpf and his ilk.
The only "good" thing that would come out of it is that America will have made history again, this time by electing a KNOWN con man as their president and digging their own graves by ignoring that analysts predict that "the American economy would dip into a recession beginning in 2018 that would last through 2020."
CBC: Drumpf must have thought that if America is already profiling people on color on a large scale, profiling them on religion is the obvious next step to suggest to the hateful white bigots on whose vote he's counting. And as his popularity is dwindling in the polls his "It's not the worst thing to do" will have him come up with something even more vile to hold on to his angry white male voters. I shudder to think what that may be.
TP: What?! Does Thomas have any idea of the long term effects of this ruling will be? Why isn't there an outrage? It gives police a license for racial (and soon religious?) profiling. Worse, it encourages it! This is akin to striking down the Voting Rights Act. I'm sure this would not have passed had Merrick Garland been appointed to replace Scalia.
My Universe: The one bullying here is Optimus' owner (or "Dad", which I still have trouble using) who makes this dog whimper trying to obey him just for a video. I felt rather sorry for Optimus.
5:01
Under the average, one eye and a lot of pain. Gold star for you Puddy Tat!
NYT/TP: He could have helped AC's economy, but instead filed 4 bankruptcies!! Growing up in the NE, and going to the Jersey shore(s), in the summer, Atlantic City went to H in a handbasket when his casinos came in. When I went to visit AC a few years ago, it had changed, it's really sad.The people who live there, many residents who worked there, were laid off, it's a depressed area now, it's a crying shame, imho. Why isn't he being investigated for this??
CBC: Ugh. Just plain UGH!!
TP: Whaaa?? tH??? This is downright scary.
My Universe: Why do owners post stuff like this?? Seeing an animal, (dog) distressed over a ball bothers me.
Your Simon sounds very smart, and is learning quick. I know you give your mother comfort in brushing her hair. We put my MIL in assisted living, she's 85, and now, she's starting another chapter in her life. My BIL had a mild stroke last Sunday, so it's been an anxious week for me.
Thanks, Lynn for posting.
Let us know how your BIL is doing. Prayers. My mother did very well in assisted living even though she was dealing with dementia. The routine was a life saver for her.
NY Times: Drumpf is only interested in enriching himself at the expense of the investors, contractors, workers. Drumpf is a "wheeler-dealer" who should be tarred & feathered and run out of the country.
Democracy Now: Well worth listening to this brief video re: Drumpf's "business acumen".
Think Progress 1: This report is correct in saying that a Drumpf Presidency would be a world-wide disaster.
CBC: Profiling, if I remember correctly, is against the law.
Think Progress 2: Sotomayor made the right decision in her opinion regarding the 4th Amendment. We already know that the police cannot be trusted. Giving the police this kind of power is the start of abuse, more distrust and more violence against them. Shades and hints of "1984" and beyond. Is this the beginning of a totalitarian state…
Justice Thomas does not belong on the Supreme Court, period.
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My Universe: Guard Kat and patient pup. A bit of cruelty tease on the owner towards the pup.
We really need to label the NRA as a terrorist organization. And get those GOP/TP people who support the NRA out of office!
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I couldn't agree more about Teabag Thomas. Perhaps he'll retire before too long. We can always hope!
NY T: In business Rumpy is nought but a chiseling creep!
CBC: What say we profile high end real estate cheaters?
TP: Thomas is a fool, and it is our responsability to elect Hillary, if for no other reason than the example Thomas, and Scalia provide about SCOTUS having turned into SCROTUS!
Mitch, you're being far to nice to Drumpf . . . "chiseling creep".
Thanks all!