Donald Trump

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

 

I think Trump knows exactly what he's doing.

 

People-wise, look around online and you will see some of the following sentiment, more than normal:

 

"@yang_karl: All Scott Pelley did by being disrespectful was make it easier to make up my mind who to vote for and that will be Trump."

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

September 28, 2015

 

Ya' think Trump wasn't aware of this effect going in? Hell, he probably negotiated conditions to ensure it would happen while allowing Pelley to think he had the upper hand.

 

Notice that Trump said he doesn't like lies. And he said it liked he meant it. He yanked the moral high-ground right out from underneath Pelley.

 

When asked about a difficult time in life, rather than inflate some kind of phony rags-to-riches story or make an issue where there is very little issue to be had, he talked about losing his brother to alcoholism.

 

Also, it was kind of funny when Pelley tried to make fun of his vanity by saying he has a lot of magazine covers on his walls and he responded that it was cheaper than wallpaper.

 

Media-wise, Trump no doubt blew 60 Minutes ratings through the roof while ignoring all Sunday talk shows. No prodding. Not even press releases or comments by spokespeople. I can't say for sure, but I bet their ratings went down a bit this morning.

 

After thus clobbering them, he will talk to Roger Ailes this week about his Fox boycott.

 

Let's see if they (and the other media) pull another stunt like they did with that CNN poll. I expect them to, but I also expect them to lay low for a bit.

 

Michael.

[Selene]

I loved the wallpaper line.

You will get no disagreement from me as to him knowing what he was doing.

[Marc]

She makes some good points in her semi-hysterical anti-intellectual way. It fits in nicely with the great unwashed polloi. Take black teenagers' +20% unemployment rate. That's actually little or nothing to do with immigration. For that to obtain several severe things need first to be corrected. It could take a period of time that will probably take much too long for those living to observe happening.

It's not just blacks, but they generally have it worse working off a cultural lived-in victim premise courtesy of the liberals--they think they (hardly all and I can't even say "most") deserve all the benefits they suck in not understanding they're still on the plantation, though this time not working--and most of the rest of us don't understand we're being herded into the same place because of a childhood artificially prolonged into old age and death.

--Brant

Excellent post !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It's out:

Trump Tax Reform

There's a Periscope video on this page where Trump just announced it.

There will probably be a YouTube copy before too long, so we will be able to embed that one.

For those interested the Periscope video is well worth seeing. And it's not too long (even with Q&A).

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A couple of key endorsements:

Grover Norquist blesses Trump's tax plan, brings 'Jobs, jobs, jobs'

and

It’s Official: Carl Icahn Backs Trump For President

More will be coming and things heat up.

Drip... drip... drip...

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Meanwhile a Salon article by Bob Cesca argues that John Boehner's ouster means that:

"Crazies have taken over the [Republican] party".

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now a word from our lovely ladies:

 

 

Below is a link to the movement they are starting.

 

Ditch And Switch Now

 

For the time being, the URL linked redirects to a different site of theirs, but it's still the same movement. The idea is to get people to ditch media "biasness" about Donald Trump and the Democratic party and register as Republicans so they can vote for Trump in the Republican primaries.

 

I imagine this is initially targeted at the black community, but I also see it growing to way beyond. People from all demographics are enchanted by these girls. (I, for one, am. )

 

Diamond and Silk are asking folks to make videos and take pictures of ditching and switching so they can be featured in future shows.

 

From what I see marketing-wise, the girls are doing everything right.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Meanwhile a Salon article by Bob Cesca argues that John Boehner's ouster means that:

"Crazies have taken over the [Republican] party".

Ellen

Ellen,

They haven't begun to see crazy.

These doofuses think that pandering to honest people, making promises they have no intention of keeping and doing idiot things for show like that long series of House resolutions to repeal Obamacare (that they knew would never get to the floor of the Senate) are reasonable.

And that people who expect the doofuses who promise things to keep their word are "crazies."

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A couple of key endorsements:

Grover Norquist blesses Trump's tax plan, brings 'Jobs, jobs, jobs'

and

It’s Official: Carl Icahn Backs Trump For President

I left out this one, Willie Robertson:

'Duck Dynasty' Star Ditches Bobby Jindal For Donald Trump

Marina Fang

09/28/2015

The Huffington Post

From the article:

Willie Robertson, star of the A&E reality show "Duck Dynasty," has thrown his support behind real estate mogul and reality television star Donald Trump, reversing his earlier endorsement of fellow GOP presidential hopeful Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.).

“I do like me some Trump, I've got to admit,” Robertson said on Friday at the Oklahoma State Fair, where Trump held a campaign event.

In hailing Trump, Robertson noted similarities between the two men.

"Here’s the deal. We’re both successful businessmen. We both have pretty big shows on television," he said. "We both have wives that are 1,000 times better looking than us, so I like Trump."

This is the same Willie who said: "When in doubt, figure it out... that's the redneck way."

Or this: "I have a massive wedgie. I shouldn't have wore underwear."

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

Yeah (re #1408). Upside down and inside out. Dishonesty = sanity. Etc. Etc.

Ellen

[Peter]

I thought his tax plan was OK. It seemed well thought out. But who thought it out? Trump can quote it but I just think he has hired some good people to school him on the basics, write the tax plan, and then allow him to take the credit. Well deserved credit because that is the way delegation of duty happens when you are POTUS, or a billionaire wanting to be Prez. Well done Donald.

As an aside I was following several stories from the liberal media, before the release about his budgetary revelations, mostly based on his 60 minutes interview. Those stories pitted Trump against the Tea Party. in other words if you are a Tea Party Patriot, you are going to hate Trump. You do know Hitler loved younger women too, doncha? My advise is don't follow the propaganda. Wait for the quotes and the whole story.

Peter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

From Variety:

Donald Trump Ends Fox News Boycott with Bill O’Reilly Interview

Right on the money.

Actually, a bit faster than even I thought...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark Levin on Trump's tax plan. He thinks it's something Reagan could have done.

 

 

Michael

[Peter]

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Ronald Reagan

Some highlights from Levin’s talk show. We will have a 25 percent top tax bracket under Trump’s plan. It was 27 percent under Reagan. Business taxes will be cut to 15 percent from 39 percent. There will be no marriage penalty. Trump’s plan will cut capital gains from 24 to 20 percent. His plan will bring back foreign money, with a one time 10 percent tax.

And there will be no death tax, and that is tremendously good. Here is an interesting letter from Jimmy Wales when he was first promoting Wikipedia. The Objectivist position on inheritance taxes appeared at the end of Jimbo’s letter, but I will put it first. I think Jimbo wrote it with some cut and paste from The Lexicon.

Inheritance. Question: What is the Objectivist position on inheritance ?

Answer: There is no distinctive Objectivist view on inheritance. Objectivism advocates laissez-faire, a free market economy in which all private trades between consenting adults (that do not violate the rights of another) are legal. It follows that any gifts one would care to give in one's lifetime would be legal. Inheritance, or the ability to leave bequests, is just the limiting case of gift-giving. Objectivism naturally opposes any extraordinary taxation of gifts, and this would in the limit imply opposing most estate taxes. Certainly, in the Objectivist view the state is not entitled to a person's wealth upon their decease. Nor does the wealth belong to "society." The wealth belonged to the deceased, and it was up to the deceased, while alive to, determine its disposition.

Now rights, in the Objectivist view, are principles that apply to us as living beings: the dead as such have no rights. Thus there may be an opening for a theorist working on Objectivist premises to offer some argument against trusts and other instruments by which the dead might exert their will into the future. But Objectivism as such has no position on the matter, and its default view would be that establishing trusts is within the purview of the property owner. Again, it is hard to see why, given that one should be entitled to establish trusts to serve one's purposes while alive, that one should not be able to establish them as one's final living act.

A regime of untaxed bequests sounds likely to create an aristocracy of plutocrats who pass wealth from one generation to the next. But this is an illusion. I researched this matter while in graduate school, and intergenerational correlations of wealth are not very high, and were not even under the more laissez-faire policies of the early 20th-century. Basically, in most families the wealth earned by the grandparents is entirely dissipated by the time the grandchildren are in the prime of life.

This is not surprising to an Objectivist. Objectivism notes that wealth is created by human rationality and productive work. Wealth must be earned to be kept. Those who could not earn it, by and large find themselves unable to keep it.

Thus inheritance should be legal, out of respect for the rights of the living. Heirs deserve no great credit for what they inherit, but they will show by what they do with their inheritance how much they deserve it. Of course, no one is entitled to inherit, and I have no idea what the Objectivist view should be of people who die intestate (without a will).

From: Jimmy Wales
To: atlantis@wetheliving.com
Subject: ATL: Limits of inheritance and the rule against perpetuities
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 08:23:34 -0800

There's a relatively unnoticed revolution going on in U.S. inheritance law that I find philosophically interesting. I believe that a full discussion of the issue would touch on a lot of other interesting issues within Objectivism and 'libertarian' thinking generally, including such issues as deed covenants for example.

Delaware, Florida, and several other states have modified or completely repealed the "Rule Against Perpetuities" in estate law. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities
for a very brief discussion of what the rule is.

In the past, in the United States, it was not possible to directly set up a trust fund that would continue for more than about 100 years. The rule against perpetuities is a balancer between the interests of the person making the gift and the interests of the living.

What can be done, once the rule against perpetuities has been repealed? An example may help to illustrate why this matters.

Suppose that Bill Gates were to leave his entire estate in a trust governed by the laws of a state without the rule against perpetuities. Then he could design it according to the principles of inheritance of the titles of nobility of England (for example), decreeing that the income from the trust should be passed down to the eldest heir for all time to come. Provisions could be made, of course, for other descendants, but in the example I'd like you to imagine, the central purpose of the trust is to maintain and defend the family fortune against dissolution over the generations.

In my scenario, the descendants would be unable to touch the principal, and the trust could dictate that all the assets in the trust are to be professionally managed and invested in a highly diversified manner.

There are tax implications to all of this, but those aren't really philosophically interesting to me. What's philosophically interesting to me is this: to what extent should a proper system of objective laws allow for this sort of 'dead hand control'?

Here's a very brief discussion of the matter by Will Thomas:
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/objectivism/q-and-a-answer.asp?QuestionID=57

So, what are the proper limits to inheritance, and why?

--Jimbo

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Some more dripping...

 

.@Carl_C_Icahn to @TeamCavuto : @realDonaldTrump is the best candidate by far @FoxBusiness pic.twitter.com/HntIOJBFVv

— Neil Cavuto (@TeamCavuto)

September 29, 2015

 

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

To me, it's amazing how Trump's candidacy is showing just what is wrong in O-Land.

Look at this effort by Peter Schwartz in the Huffington Post to analyze Trump and marvel:

Trump and the Meaning of Egoism

Schwartz thinks Trump is the equivalent of a social metaphysician, although he doesn't use that term. He writes as if he thinks Trump is Peter Keating.

And this shows the big gaping hole in understanding marketing among Objectivists in general. Most have heard terms like branding, positioning, and so on, but they couldn't tell you what they mean. They certainly could not tell you the difference between advertising, marketing and public relations. And they wouldn't know how to competently negotiate the details of a business contract if it bit them on the ass.

The idea of knowing your customer is like a foreign language to them--not an easier Romance language, either, but instead, something like Chinese or Farsi. They translate catering to your customer as pandering--and I've seen this often.

To them, it's all phony egoism, sleazy manipulation, dishonesty or things like that. And this explains why they generally fail at using these learned skills. They refuse to learn these skills because they think Rand did not approve of them.

Let's just remember that when Trump builds tall skyscrapers, it is not other people's opinions that hold the girders in place. When he keeps a top TV show themed on excellence running for 14 years straight, that's not the work of a "fragile ego" running on "pseudo self-esteem." When he pops out one bestselling book after another on self-improvement, that's not "a man with a spur-of-the-moment mentality."

But I don't think Peter Schwartz even knows that Trump builds skyscrapers. He sure as hell doesn't know what the word preeminent means when watching someone like Trump strive for the highest--and achieve it. After all, look at Schwartz's own mediocre career. He writes about Trump as if he gets all his information from selectively skimming mainstream press headlines.

I'll tell you this with 100% certainty. If Peter Schwartz were ever to work for Donald Trump as a researcher, intellectual or writer, irrespective of the topic, Trump would fire his ass for incompetence before long. Trump's insistence on high quality is not negotiable.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As a footnote, let me tell ya', if I were running for office, I sure would want Peter Schwartz advising me on how to win it.

Wouldn't you?

After all, he's smarter than the voters.

(At least I would want him as an advisor if I wanted to piss away a lot of campaign resources real quick and didn't really want to win.)

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It looks like the Teamsters folks are interested in a powwow with The Donald. After all, Trump has hired their members for years and it's always been good.

 

 

How's them apples?

 

Think he can make a deal?

 

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Trump on O'Reilly last night. The feud has ended.

 

Part 1

 

 

Part 2

 

 

Notice how Trump didn't flinch even as he said O'Reilly had a point in him calling Rubio a clown.

 

Do you know how this is going to be seen by the public--that is, those supporters and non-supporters who are open to listening to Trump?

 

Big covert message: Trump is not thin-skinned at all.

 

That's the persuasion perception that will be transmitted. This will seriously cut into the thin-skinned narrative that Trump's enemies are plugging. So back to the drawing board for them. 

 

Oh... there will still be some articles and pundits on TV saying this, but I don't think anybody will be listening anymore. And they will perceive it soon enough. So watch for that part of the narrative to change before too long.

 

Michael

[Selene]

None of this surprises either of us Michael.

If the media echo chamber has not gotten it by now, and they never will, is self-funded campaigns can be honest with the voters.

Since the media also lives and breathes on "funding money" = advertising/consultants for the media and donations/consultants for the political pawns that require it for name ID ads, etc...

Too many folks overlooked that he had a 100% name identification...

A...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's a "winner" who says Trump won't win.

 

 

Well, Romney knows how to win presidential elections, don'tcha know?

 

 

Here's the Syria issue that Romney mentioned as I see it, and I'm pretty sure as others see it, too. Conservatives of the Romney bent like to go to wars for all kinds of noble reasons. But the wars always drag on forever. One constant is the backroom oil deals. Another constant is the denial of backroom oil deals--even though everyone can see American companies doing oil over there during and after wars.

 

Trump says he doesn't want to go to war in Syria, not even with Russia going in. Let others fight ISIS and we will deal with the leftovers if necessary. 

 

But if we have to go to war in the Middle East (like to get ISIS out of Iraq--which we never should have conquered), let's go in and knock the hell out of them hard and quick. And don't forget, we then get to keep the oil to pay for our costs and efforts.

 

The openness of saying that alone--and meaning it--gets my vote. I'm sick of the nonstop hypocrisy in foreign policy. Of insiders getting wealthy off the literal blood of young American soldiers while saying it's something else, something noble.

 

Michael

[Peter]

Michael wrote: But if we have to go to war in the Middle East (like to get ISIS out of Iraq--which we never should have conquered), let's go in and knock the hell out of them hard and quick. And don't forget, we then get to keep the oil to pay for our costs and efforts.
end quote

Aaaarh! And hoist the Jolly Roger. I think it should be added that our payment would be legal payment for services rendered.

Conversely, I think Assad's agreement with Syria will turn into a coerced agreement at some point, if not already, and Assad will regret being invaded by Russia.

Peter

[Selene]

Conversely, I think Assad's agreement with Syria will turn into a coerced agreement at some point, if not already, and Assad will regret being invaded by Russia.

Peter

I see that your knowledge of the Maghreb and the Near East is at the "See Dick Run" level.

Assad and Russia are allies along with Iran.

Do you have any idea how compromised our military has become?

A...

[Selene]

As to The Donald's four (4) bankruptcies, according to this article, all were over-leveraged according to Forbes:

Donald Trump has had four businesses declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy, starting in 1991. The bankruptcies include the Atlantic City Trump’s Taj Mahal in 1991; Trump Plaza Hotel in 1992; Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts in 2004; and Trump Entertainment Resorts in 2009. According to Forbes Magazine, these bankruptcies were due to the ventures being over-leveraged.

Interesting, 9 things you don't know about The Donald, http://conservativeamerica-online.com/9-dont-expect-donald-trump-to-shake-your-hand/

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For those who like these things:
 
Meet the man who makes Donald Trump go viral
Justin McConney spearheaded this cycle's biggest innovation: the 15-second Instagram attack ad.
By Ben Schreckinger
10/01/15
Politico

This article is actually not bad.
 
Here are just a few highlight of what McConney got Trump into doing:
 

He convinced a reluctant Donald Trump to complete the ice bucket challenge. He cut the Jeb Bush-bashing Instagram ads that have been called “The future of American politics.” And he is seemingly the only person at Trump Tower other than the boss with an Apple computer at his desk.

Meet Justin McConney, Trump’s 29-year-old social media whiz.
 
. . .
 
It is McConney who has pushed the businessman to deliberately build a social-media presence and experiment with new platforms and types of content.
 
. . .
 
When McConney took on the role in February 2011, Trump had 300,000 followers on Twitter. Today, he has more than 4.3 million followers on the platform, where his campaign has made its biggest mark.
 
. . .
 
McConney... became convinced that Trump should turn his vivid putdowns and pronouncements into fodder for social media, a perfect outlet for his musings on the topics of the day.

Today, Trump, who functions as his own communications strategist, is an avid user of Twitter.
 
 
. . .
 
Long before Trump became a candidate, McConney advised the businessman to tweet multiple times a day and to begin sharing his thoughts in no-frills videos — on YouTube, Vine, and now Instagram — in which he speaks straight to camera from behind his desk.
 
To further drive engagement, McConney encouraged Trump to live-tweet major cultural events, including a 2012 Republican debate.
 
McConney and Trump also began soliciting questions from fans, some of which Trump would then answer in videos uploaded to Facebook to take advantage of a new feature that allowed them to begin playing directly in users homepage feeds.
 
. . .
 
In April, when many political observers still doubted he would enter the presidential race, Trump released a video entitled “Make America Great Again.” Written by Trump and cut by McConney for next to nothing, the 45-second spot intersperses stock footage with Trump speaking direct-to-camera at his desk.
 
. . .
 
“That ad is one of the best ads of the entire cycle,” said Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz, who has tested the video with focus groups. “The amazing thing is that it’s not that well-produced but the tone and the topic are perfect.”
 
 
. . .
 
If McConney makes a lasting contribution to American politics, it will likely be the 15-second videos — kept short to break through in a hyper-saturated media environment — he composes on Instagram...

 

Here's the low production value video from last April that people liked. Luntz is correct. It is effective:

 

 

And here are a couple of other articles from around the web (they are linked to in the original one above) for a little more depth:

 

Exclusive: An interview with Justin McConney, Trump’s director of social media

 

Donald Trump's Instagram Attack Ads Are the Future of American Politics

 

So Trump's reliance on social media is not an accident. Like with all his enterprises, he hires top talent and lets them loose, even though in this case, that talent seems to be home-grown.

 

Justin McConney is not only tech-savvy, he knows how to craft high-impact persuasive messages to his target audience. And his results speak for themselves.

 

I have a feeling he has a brilliant future in entertainment if he decides to pursue that career path.

 

Michael