Me and Trump

Have to say I was never much of a Trump fan.

I read his "Art of the Deal" book back in the day, and mostly I recall shaking my head and muttering "what an asshole" on pretty much every page. I was especially chagrined by his germ-phobia that prevented him from shaking hands with the commoners.

Looks like he's gotten over that.

But, what I took away from the book was that at the very end he went out of his way to pay respect to the union workers who build his shit. It was a step outside of the overall tone of his tome. He didn't have to do that, but he did.

By the time his next book came out, he was in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings of some sort. "Of some sort" is the key clause here, because after multiple bankruptcy proceedings it is apparently true that, as he claims, he has never filed for personal bankruptcy.

And why would he? Apparently his dear daddy Fred left a legacy of some 15,000 apartment units in NYC, and I've never seen any stories about them being sold off, so I assume they're still somewhere in Trumps portfolio. Given the nature of real estate inflation over the past forty years or so, that alone would make Trump a multi-billionaire, no matter what he did or did not achieve on his own account.

Those bankruptcy proceedings were hugely entertaining. I remember reading shit about how he needs to keep his yacht because it was a platform for hosting fundraisers for charitable organisations. As I recall, the courts let him keep it.

When I was at Frankel we fabbed up the steel for a new Trump casino in Atlantic City. We were a well paid union shop and as far as I know everybody got paid. The Trump casino initiatives eventually went tits up, but not before Trump won huge on them.

But that's the capitalist way, is it not? Move in fast, make your money, let the taxpayer clean up your mess. That happens everywhere all the time. You can't blame Trump for inventing predatory capitalism. And where is capitalism not predatory?

When Trump announced his candidacy for a 2016 White House run I initially thought Mountain Dew Comacho. Yup, Trump is gonna give real-world cred to the film Idiocracy. It's not sci-fi anymore; it's a documentary.

Then he trashed the non-fiction GOP candidates in the primaries, and suddenly I had a new view of Donald J Trump.

Hey! This guy could actually bring down America's rancid, rotten, self-dealing political establishment!

And he could.

That's why the entire right wing of the GOP and the entire PNAC crowd have been deserting the GOP and aligning behind Hillary.

And that's why, if you're against perpetual war, if you're against universal "free trade," if you're against more of the same old same old, you need to take a chance on Donald Trump in November.

Congratulations, Mr. Trump

We're not Trumpers here at the Falling Downs think tank. But we like him because it's been a lot of fun watching a dyed in the wool Manhattan liberal hi-jack the Grand Old Party.

We were one of the first sites anywhere to draw the parallels between President Mountain Dew Comacho and Trump. We obviously underestimated the guy. That started to change when we watched him demolish all those establishment stiffs with their hundred-million-dollar war chests.

In terms of substance, nobody knows where Trump will land on any particular agenda item, because he's made statements on virtually every conceivable issue that are 180 degrees apart. I mean, it's gonna be tough to be both Israel's best buddy and a fair interlocutor in the "Middle East Peace Process," (which expression has been an oxymoron since at least the Oslo Accords) and that's just one example.

So, with Trump, it's wait and see.

With Clinton, we know exactly what we're getting.

That's why Trump is the only candidate who offers any viable hope for the future of America.

Koch millions not enough to revive moribund Walker campaign

The moron from Madison has succumbed to the Trump tsunami and pulled the plug on his run for the White House. That's another way of saying the Koch boys didn't see the point in throwing good money after bad to keep this stiff afloat. Politics is just business, after all, and they were well into the land of diminishing returns on the Walker file.

That leaves four Koch-owned horses in the race. According to the most recent polls, fourth place Rubio is now the top Kochette, polling at 11%, while Jeb is in fifth place with 9%. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are consistently trending downhill and will most likely have thrown in their respective towels by Thanksgiving.

Jeb and Marco combined are trailing Trump by four points.

But, it's early days in the greatest show on earth...

Anything could happen. The think tank here at Falling Downs has been tracking unconfirmed rumours that former President Camacho is considering tossing his beanie into the ring. Just imagine a Trump v Camacho death match for the GOP ticket!

Wouldn't that be a great day for democracy!