Trump Multi-Faceted Vote Buying Schemes

On Tuesday evening, Trump held one of his lunatic rallies for the pigs in the Wildwood, New Jersey area who support him and his newest puppet, former DCCC-Blue Dog Jeff Van Drew. Trump asserted, absurdly, that Van Drew was a symbol of the future. Then he pulled out of his ass a new refrain he'll be gaslighting America with, claiming "that an increasing number of Americans were 'disgusted' by congressional Democrats who, he said, are 'obsessed with demented hoaxes, this crazy witch hunt and deranged partisan crusades'... They’ve spent the last three years and probably even before I came down on that beautiful escalator with our beautiful future first lady, trying to overthrow the last election, and we will make sure that they face another crushing defeat in the next election." His moron supporters eat that crap up but normal Americans are ready to see him go. The latest YouGov poll, just released by The Economist, shows that if the congressional elections were held today the Democrats would win 48-39% and that 47% of registered voters (and that includes Republicans) want Trump removed while just 46% oppose removing him.

Trump paid Van Drew to switch parties. This is part of the payback. Trump also forced Republican David Richter, the top Republican in the race-- who had just moved into the district-- to withdraw and go run somewhere else (where there already is a Republican challenging Democrat Andy Kim). She immediately derided Richter as a "seat shopper who apparently believes he's entitled to party support-- somewhere, anywhere." Richter is a self-funder who had already given his campaign against Van Drew $500,000. And now he was forced to endorse Van Drew, who he's been denouncing in no uncertain terms for months.

But I'm sure it surprises no one that Trump uses bribery as a political tool. He used to brag about it in 2016 during the campaign-- about buying political favors from slimy politicians. You watch Pam Bondi making a jackass out of herself at the impeachment hearings the other day? Paying back a cash debt. Does this Politico headline surprise you? Trump lures GOP senators on impeachment with cold cash. Alex Isenstadt wrote that "Trump is rewarding senators who have his back on impeachment-- and sending a message to those who don't to get on board. Trump is tapping his vast fundraising network for a handful of loyal senators facing tough reelection bids in 2020. Each of them has signed onto a Republican-backed resolution condemning the inquiry as 'unprecedented and undemocratic.' Conspicuously absent from the group is Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a politically vulnerable Republican who’s refused to support the resolution and avoided taking a stance on impeachment. With his new push, Trump is exerting leverage over a group he badly needs in his corner with an impeachment trial likely coming soon to the Senate-- but that also needs him."

Most eager to sell out to Trump were Cory Gardner (CO), Joni Ernst (IA) and Thom Tillis who signed onto the resolution and just received a fundraising letter from Trump. Another shameless whore, David Perdue (GA), also signed on and is getting a Trump-hosted fundraising event next week. Isenstadt reported that "Attendees are being asked to give up to $100,000." He's also doing one of those for Moscow Mitch.

Party officials said there are likely to be additional Trump-led digital fundraising efforts for senators and that those who weren't included in this wave could be in a later one.

The president has been a fundraising boon for Republican senators. Earlier this month, Texas Sen. John Cornyn sent out an appeal to donors that prominently featured an image of Trump flashing a thumbs-up. The plea asked givers to “Show President Trump you have his back!” and invited them to split their donations between the president and Cornyn’s reelection campaigns.

The Texas senator tweeted afterward that his campaign “had its biggest online fundraising day ever."

“The donors listen to the president, and he has the most capacity to energize small-dollar contributions by making the case that he needs a Senate majority to be successful,” said Scott Jennings, a former political aide in the George W. Bush White House.

A few hours ago, former Gov. Chris Christie told ABC News that Republicans who vote for witnesses should expect retribution. That's the stick part of Trump's carrot and stick strategy for dealing with his own party. "You could very well see the president encouraging or creating primaries against senators that are up this year if they went and voted the other way I could definitely see him at least attempting to do that."

Trump is running the most transactional swampy regime in American history. Fat cats know if they open their wallets for Trump, they get whatever they want. It's all pay-to-play. Scott Reed, the senior political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that "Trump has the ability to turn on the money spigot like no one else."

Another Politico reporter, Ben Schreckinger, wrote another shocking story about the Trump Swamp: Trump allies are handing out cash to black voters. Short version: the Trumpists have begun holding events in black communities where they lavish praise on the president while handing out tens of thousands of dollars in giveaways.

The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.

The tour comes as Trump’s campaign has been investing its own money to make inroads with black voters and erode Democrats’ overwhelming advantage with them. But the cash giveaways are organized under the auspices of an outside charity, the Urban Revitalization Coalition, permitting donors to remain anonymous and make tax-deductible contributions.

The organizers say the events are run by the book and intended to promote economic development in inner cities. But the group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.

"Charities are required to spend their money on charitable and educational activities,” said Marcus Owens, a former director of the Exempt Organizations Division at the Internal Revenue Service who is now in private practice at the law firm Loeb & Loeb. “It's not immediately clear to me how simply giving money away to people at an event is a charitable act.”

Asked about the legality of the giveaways in a brief phone interview, the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s CEO, Darrell Scott, said that most gifts were between $300 and $500, and that the group mandates that anyone who receives over $600 fills out a W-9 form in order to ensure compliance with tax law. He did not respond to follow-up questions about how the giveaways were structured and whether they met the legal standard for a charitable act.

Scott declined to name the donors funding the effort. "I'd rather not,” he said. “They prefer to remain anonymous."

Scott, a Cleveland-based pastor, has been one of Trump’s closest and most prominent black supporters. He struck up a relationship with the real estate mogul in the years before Trump’s presidential run, and-- along with Trump’s former lieutenant Michael Cohen-- co-founded the National Diversity Coalition for Trump to promote that run.

...The group’s “Christmas Extravaganza” event in Cleveland last month featured a $25,000 giveaway and an appearance by Ja’Ron Smith, a deputy assistant to the president. A Cleveland native who worked on Trump’s criminal justice reform, Smith is among the highest-ranking black officials in the White House.

At the event, which also featured an appearance by television personality Geraldo Rivera, Lanier compared the investigative scrutiny faced by Trump to the plight of wrongfully incarcerated black men. He also defended Trump’s record on race.

"President Donald Trump-- the one that they say is racist-- is the first president in the history of this country to incentivize people who have the money to put it into ... urban areas,” he said.

...The election year initiative by the Urban Revitalization Coalition to improve Trump’s image in black communities could bolster those efforts.

The coalition planned a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at Virginia Union University, a historically black school in Richmond. Advertisements for the event said it would feature a $30,000 cash giveaway and would honor Trump as well as his son-in-law, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner.

But school administrators canceled the Jan. 20 event, saying it had been described to them as an “economic development discussion” when it was first booked. In a letter to Lanier, university President Hakim Lucas said: “The event advertised is vastly different from the event VUU agreed to co-host.”

Scott told Politico that the school had initially “begged” him to have the event there. He said that the coalition intends to reschedule it at another venue at a later date.

Scott also said the group was planning to unveil a slate of additional future events and that he would reveal additional details. He did not respond to follow-up queries about the group’s upcoming schedule.

There Are African Americans Who Back Trump-- Between 6 and 8% Of Them

In the aftermath of the 2016 election, the Southern Poverty Law center issued a report on the impact of the campaign on the nation's schools-- and not in terms of what Betsy DeVos has done to harm them since Trump installed her. According to the report, "survey data indicate that the results of the election are having a profoundly negative impact on schools and students. Ninety percent of educators report that school climate has been negatively affected, and most of them believe it will have a long-lasting impact. A full 80 percent describe heightened anxiety and concern on the part of students worried about the impact of the election on themselves and their families. Also on the upswing: verbal harassment, the use of slurs and derogatory language, and disturbing incidents involving swastikas, Nazi salutes and Confederate flags... Teachers overwhelmingly named the source of both the anxiety and the behavior as Donald Trump, then a leading contender for the Republican nomination. Since Trump was elected, media have been awash in reports of hate incidents around the nation, including at schools...This report provides a high-level summary of the findings. Here are the highlights:

• Nine out of 10 educators who responded have seen a negative impact on students’ mood and behavior following the election; most of them worry about the continuing impact for the remainder of the school year.
• Eight in 10 report heightened anxiety on the part of marginalized students, including immigrants, Muslims, African Americans and LGBT students.
• Four in 10 have heard derogatory language directed at students of color, Muslims, immigrants and people based on gender or sexual orientation.
• Half said that students were targeting each other based on which candidate they’d supported.
• Although two-thirds report that administrators have been “responsive,” four out of 10 don’t think their schools have action plans to respond to incidents of hate and bias.
• Over 2,500 educators described specific incidents of bigotry and harassment that can be directly traced to election rhetoric. These incidents include graffiti (including swastikas), assaults on students and teachers, property damage, fights and threats of violence.
• Because of the heightened emotion, half are hesitant to discuss the election in class. Some principals have told teachers to refrain from discussing or addressing the election in any way.

Surprising? If it was, you weren't paying close enough attention during the campaign. And plenty of members of minority groups weren't. This is what percentage of various demographics targeted by Trumpists actually voted for Trump in 2016:

• Latinos: 28%

• Jews: 24%
• Asians: 18%
• Muslims: 16.8%
• LGBTQ: 14%
• Blacks: 8%

So who's the electorally smartest? African Americans... by far. Their communities have suffered the most at the hands of Trump and his right-wing, racist supporters. That isn't stopping Trump from sniffing around for low-hanging fruit among black voters, primarily delusional imbeciles and self-serving hucksters like Gregory Cheadle, Isaiah Washington, Darrell Scott, Don King, Bruce LeVell, Kanye West...

Friday the Associated Press noted that "Trump is trying to pit the black community against immigrants, saying Democrats care more for people who have come to the U.S. illegally than African Americans. Trump says public benefits should be protected for American citizens and says today’s Democratic Party has no idea how to help black Americans... turning several of his hot-button issues into a play for black support... trying to appeal to African American voters by citing crime problems in the nation’s major cities, saying the vast majority of the nation’s most dangerous cities are run by Democrats."

Another AP offering, the following day, expanded on the idea of Trump looking for black votes in Atlanta: "'The Democrats have let you down,' Trump told the crowd of several hundred supporters, including several who wore red 'BLACK LIVES MAGA' hats. 'They’ve dismissed you. They’ve hurt you. They’ve sabotaged you for far too long.' Trump spoke at the launch of a new 'Black Voices for Trump' outreach initiative dedicated to 'recruiting and activating Black Americans in support of President Trump,' according to the campaign. Trump predicted he would win reelection in 2020 with 'a groundswell of support from hardworking African American patriots.' Such prediction have been met with skepticism from critics, however, given Trump’s consistently dismal approval rating with black voters. Trump has spent much of the last four years engaged in racially charged attacks, going after minority members of Congress, claiming 'no human being' would want to live in 'rodent infested,' majority-minority Baltimore and insisting there were 'very fine people on both sides' of the deadly Charlottesville protest against white supremacists."

Shortly after landing in Georgia on Friday, Trump retweeted a call from one black supporter for submissions for a ”#MAGACHALLENGE” competition featuring Trump-friendly rap songs. Trump said he would be announcing the winners and inviting them to the White House to meet with him and perform.

“I think black Americans are not the audience for these outreach efforts,” said Theodore Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice who is an expert in race and politics. While Trump might be able to maintain the low level of black support he received in 2016, or perhaps expand it by 1 or 2 points, Johnson sees little evidence the president can change many minds.

“I think this is not going to move the needle at all,” he said.

Before launching the new effort, Trump met with supporters at a fundraiser that was expected to raise about $3.5 million for a joint committee benefiting the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and the campaign of Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). Nearby, a small group of protesters chanted, “Lock him up!”

Scores of protesters also gathered outside the convention center where Trump was speaking, chanting, “Impeach and remove.”

Carl Dix, of the group Refuse Fascism, said he thought the launch was aimed at trying to send a message to Trump’s white supporters that he’s “not a racist. ‘I’ve got black friends.’”

In 2016, 6% of black voters supported Trump, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of people who participated in its polls and were confirmed to have voted. There is no indication his support is growing. Polling shows that African Americans continue to be overwhelmingly negative in their assessments of the president’s performance, with his approval hovering around 1 in 10 over the course of his presidency, according to Gallup.

Yet Trump’s campaign dismissed the numbers, insisting the campaign has seen favorable movement and arguing the president can increase his margins with black voters by bringing new people into the fold.

...A September AP-NORC poll found that only roughly 3 in 10 Americans say the things Trump has done as president have been good for African Americans. And just 4% of African Americans said they think Trump’s actions have had a positive impact on African Americans in general, while 81% said they think they’ve been bad.

Yet even if he can’t win over black voters, some suspect that’s not the point. As long as the campaign can keep on-the-fence voters from casting their ballots for the eventual Democratic nominee, the campaign will be helping Trump inch closer to a second victory.

“I do think the main objective is to discourage turnout,” said Johnson. “I absolutely think this is about creating doubt in black voters’ minds about the Democratic nominee” so people feel like “there’s almost no one worth voting for.”

And he said fears were growing it might work.

“There is a pretty tangible fear among black Americans that Trump is going to win again because black turnout won’t be enough to mute the white turnout,” Johnson said. “There’s a sense that in 2020 he’s going to win again.”

How's Trump's "New Deal For Black America" Working Out So Far?

Why's everybody laughing?

I'm going to guess you've seen enough human interest stories on white Trump voters by name and that you already either feel their pain or wish they're all on rocket ships headed out to colonize Pluto. But while American media has been tripping all over itself to find Trump voters to talk with, it took a Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Star to ask black voters what they think about the orange-hued calamity that has befallen the country. Daniel Dale traveled down to Petersburg, Virginia, which he describes as "a struggling post-industrial city" south of Richmond. Petersburg isn't Trump country. Hillary won the city overwhelmingly-- 12,005 (87.5%) to 1,448 (10.6%). Petersberg was one of the oldest free black settlements in America and today close to 80% of the residents are African-American. He starts his report talking about a Christian factory worker praying "constantly" for Señor Trumpanzee.

Ernarda Davis, 65, is the kind of person Trump vowed to help, living in the kind of place Trump vowed to heal, and she wants badly for her president to succeed.

You’ve heard this kind of story before. Except people who look like Davis don’t usually qualify for 2017 articles about how voters are feeling about Trump.

She is black.

And when she was asked in Petersburg, Va., last weekend how Trump is doing so far, she curved her fingers into a rigid circle.

Zero.

“He needs to get hate out of his heart and open his eyes. And that might help,” she said. “Get hate out of his heart, open his eyes, and see what’s going on.”

The U.S. media narrative of the past year has been dominated by accounts of white Trump voters standing by their man no matter what they hear on the news. Their unyielding loyalty is important. But also noteworthy is Trump’s inability to earn even the fleeting honeymoon support of just about anyone who didn’t vote for him.

No group is so fiercely opposed to Trump as African Americans, a group he had promised to make a top priority.

In a campaign speech last August, Trump offered a “guarantee”: he would so impress black people that he would get 95 per cent of their votes in 2020. In a poll this month, his approval rating among black people was 12 per cent.

Such loathing is far from inevitable, even for a Republican. George W. Bush got just 9 per cent of the black vote in 2000, similar to Trump’s 8 per cent. By this point in his first term, though, Bush’s black approval rating had spiked to the high 30s.

As the chief promoter of a racist conspiracy about the citizenship of the first black president, Trump assumed the presidency in January with black communities predisposed to dislike him. But in 25 interviews in the majority-black Virginia cities of Petersburg and Richmond, black voters said they were specifically dismayed with actions he has taken since his inauguration.

Some of their complaints were about his general behaviour: his lying, his rage, his incoherence, his cronyism. But there was also broad unhappiness with his handling of particular policy issues important to many black people-- and a widespread perception that he has shown he does not care at all about a community he insisted he would “take care of.”

At campaign rally after campaign rally, Trump asked black voters a provocative question: “What the hell do you have to lose?” In Petersburg and Richmond, voters said they are already losing, Trump’s promised “New Deal for Black America” replaced by the raw deal they knew was coming.

“He’s done more to divide. I don’t think he’s for any non-Caucasian people,” said Angela Taylor, 46, a risk manager having a Mother’s Day meal at a popular black restaurant in Richmond, the state capital. “I think he’s just totally against ‘coloureds.’”

Black voters in Petersburg expressed strong displeasure with Trump’s widely criticized plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, a law that cut the uninsured rate among black people in half.

“I don’t like how he’s cancelling a lot of things without, really, a plan in store. You might not like it, but if you don’t have a plan, why would you cancel the whole thing?” said accountant Corey Young, 26, outside the dollar store that was one of the busiest businesses in Petersburg on a sunny weekend afternoon. “I don’t think he’s rational with his decisions. It’s pretty obvious. He’s just a wild guy. Loose cannon, man.”

Some black voters suspected that Trump’s health-care overhaul is motivated more by a desire to erase Obama’s legacy than to improve Americans’ health. And they took issue, more broadly, with his unceasing stream of disparaging words toward Obama.

“I have a problem with him always saying he has to clean up a mess from the past president,” said Sharon Jones, 52, outside the Richmond restaurant. “Once you become a leader you inherit, you just take over whatever’s there, and not throw other people under the bus.”

Petersburg, a historic 32,000-person city once home to major tobacco plants, has been plagued by poverty, crime and a dysfunctional local government. There was intense concern there about the early activities of Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, a former hard-right Alabama senator who was once denied a federal judgeship over accounts of anti-black racism.

In a rapid-fire series of announcements, Sessions has told federal prosecutors to seek the harshest possible sentences for drug crimes, pulled the federal government back from pressuring cities to reform police forces found to be violating citizens’ constitutional rights, and ordered a review of the reform agreements signed by the Obama administration.

“It’s almost like they’re blinded as it relates to various things that happen in the community involving law enforcement and minorities,” said Rodney Williams, 52, a small-business owner and former deputy sheriff who sits on the chamber of commerce in Petersburg. “That is an issue. For them to say it’s not an issue, it’s like: you are totally ignoring their pain.”

“Just like when Reagan was in office. Low-level offences. It don’t make no sense, and it’s carrying on to this day,” said Frank Lightfoot, 58, a former offender who is now a Richmond college student. “Donald Trump’s doing this country a great injustice. He’s doing a bad job. And I think eventually he’s going to get impeached.”

Trump’s 10-point “new deal” mostly consisted of his general policy platform. But it held out the promise of new infrastructure investment in black communities. Trump has not yet got around to infrastructure, choosing instead to focus on Obamacare and tax reform. In its place, he has issued a 2018 budget proposal that includes a $6-billion cut to Housing and Urban Development.

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said in an interview that the “skinny budget, if adopted, would have a devastating effect on black communities.”

“He’s cutting anything urban-- anything that’s helping the urban community,” said Keyonna Wright, 34, who works in nursing. “I just feel like it’s no acknowledgment as far as the urban community. Talking as an African American, I don’t feel like we’re going to progress any.”

...Trump managed to insult black voters even with his photo-ops. In February, he held an Oval Office meeting with the leaders of historically black colleges, earning cautious praise from some black leaders. This month, though, he signalled that he might end a program that helps such colleges pay for construction projects. Though he backtracked quickly, the damage was done, again.

“I think he can fool the public by showing a picture with African Americans in it. What’s the results? There’s no results,” said John Austin, 70, a retiree from the army and postal service, in Richmond. “I can take a million pictures if I don’t get any results.”

Four of the 25 people interviewed said they had no complaints about Trump. Randy Marriott, a former Toronto Argonauts wide receiver now in Petersburg, said he is still making the same money under Trump as he did under Obama.

Several others brushed off questions about Trump’s treatment of black people-- not because they think Trump is doing a good job but because they think he poses a broader danger. In the view of Steven Lipscomb, a 30-year-old DJ who works at Sam’s Club to pay the bills, Trump’s self-obsession has him failing “not only African Americans but everyone in general.”

“I’m hoping he does OK,” he said, “just for the sake of the country, for everyone’s sake. I want to hope for the best. I just don’t feel like he’s doing anything for anyone.”