Okay, so today at a rally in suburban Detroit…
“By the way, I’m spending a lot of money on my campaign. And why isn’t she spending some money on hers? I’m spending a hundred million dollars,” Trump said, after criticizing Clinton for accepting donations from Wall Street bankers and special interest groups. “… I think I’ll be over a hundred million dollars.”
— Trump tells Obama not to pardon Clinton, even though she hasn’t been charged or convicted of anything, Jenna Johnson, Washington Post, today
Look, folks. It’s way, way, way past time that Clinton shout from the rooftops that there are three billionaires who are writing extremely large checks to Trump’s super PAC, two—father-daughter hedge-fund duo Rebekah and Robert Mercer, and oil and gas billionaire Harold Hamm—who are determining Trump’s fiscal and regulatory policy proposals and prospective court and agency-head appointees.
No. One. Knows. This.
She also needs to say, and say again, and again, that the aggregate amounts of “Citizens United money” that will have gone respectively to support her, and Trump’s, campaigns by November 8 is far less important than the amounts one or two or three billionaires are donating to each campaign, and the percentages of the total donations to the respective campaign that these billionaires’ donations comprise.
Earlier today, in the Comments thread to my post from earlier this week titled “What Clinton and her surrogates need to get across to millennials, racial minorities and union members,” I exchanged these comments with reader Eric377:
Eric377 / October 1, 2016 8:57 am
Well it seems to me that Trump got and used a lot less “Citizens United” type money than his Republican opponents and Clinton. The deep suspicion – conviction for many, really – is that voting for Clinton is voting to leave the current elite structure completely unchanged.
Me / October 1, 2016 9:57 am
Here’s the problem with looking only at the aggregate amount each candidate has received in Citizens United money: As I’ve written in AB posts here seemingly ad nauseam since early Aug. when I learned of it, sometime late in the primary season two hedge fund father-daughter billionaires, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, who had been funding Cruz, began instead funding Trump to the tune of many millions of dollars. They live in the Hamptons and began meeting with him and effectively controlling his fiscal and regulatory policy proposals as well as his selections of nominees for the Supreme Court and for agency chiefs. These people are the main funders of Breitbart–thus, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway–and of the Heritage Foundation, thus Stephen Moore and other ostensible economics experts.
The other billionaire who’s been funding Trump–some oil-and-gas billionaire named Harold Hamm–to the tune of many, many millions of dollars is–surprise–recommending appointments as Interior and EPA chiefs.
If Clinton actually wants to energize millennial progressives, all she has to do, I think, is tell them this. She doesn’t–for fear of, y’know, alienating all those moderate suburban Republicans who would be thrilled to see the oil-and-gas industry control Interior and the EPA, and extreme rightwing hedge fund billionaires and the Heritage Foundation make fiscal and regulatory policy.
Meanwhile, today CNN Politics is reporting, in a story reported by Theodore Schleiffer titled “Trump finally hits the big-money jackpot,” that Trump is now also funded by Republican billionaires Sheldon and Marion Trump and the Ricketts family—two of the uber-funders of far-right Republican campaigns, and of Republican candidates who are far-right mainly because Adelson, the Rickets and the Kochs are. About the Adelsons, Schleiffer writes:
Despite only publicly committed $5 million to what is likely to be the de facto Trump super PAC, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are pledging at least $25 million to pro-Trump presidential efforts, according to multiple people briefed on their donations. That sum includes giving to nonprofit group that will never be required to disclose his donations.
As for the Ricketts, their wealth comes from TD Ameritrade, which the current Mr. Ricketts, Thomas, joined at age 30. His father founded the company, but it was entirely a merit hire. In any event, Trump apparently doesn’t know that it is a financial institution. (It’s a large one, Donald.)
Which brings me to a post that was in follow-up to my earlier post, in which I mentioned that there really, truly, honestly is a difference between Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Anyone know who Gary Johnson would name to the Supreme Court? It doesn’t matter, cuz he won’t be naming anyone to the Court. Trump or Clinton will.
So, so much about Clinton’s campaign has just completely missed the mood of a huge swath of voters in this election cycle. Not least is that moderate Republican suburbanites—to whom she’s directed her campaign almost exclusively—would be less likely rather than more likely to vote for Trump if they knew that he indeed has billionaire puppeteers, who they are, what they want, and the extraordinary influence they’re having on his policy proposals and will have on his court and agency-head appointments. It’s way, way, wayyy past time for Clinton to tell the public about this.
Also at that rally today, Trump suggested that he be indicted for his serial criminal fraud, bribery, and tax and other laws related to his charity. Wire fraud, for sure. Johnson reports in that article:
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump called on President Obama on Friday to refuse to pardon Hillary Clinton and her associates, even though they have not been charged with any crimes, let alone convicted of any crimes.
“Mr. President, will you pledge not to issue a pardon to Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators for their many crimes against our country and against society itself?” Trump said to a cheering audience in this Detroit suburb on Friday evening.
He added: “No one is above the law.”
One of the very many thoroughly disorienting characteristics of Trump’s in this campaign is his routine tactic of accusing others of what he is accused, with supporting evidence, of doing. I do think, though, that on this he’s playing with fire. That quote of his will support demands for criminal investigations and civil fines.
Although, I suppose he could assert the defense that he is no one, and therefore is above the law.
I’m guessing that the starkness of Trump’s manic conduct in the last two days—and, really, you don’t need any formal knowledge about severe bipolar illness to recognize that, apart from other obvious mental illness, he is severely manic—will, finally, finish off this candidacy. But the answer to why Clinton isn’t far ahead in the polls is not just the malpractice nature of so much high-profile journalistic coverage of these two candidates—the obscenely overblown emails-and-related-matters obsession, to cited the most obvious news media indulgence. It’s also that Clinton has run as an outdated moderate Republican, almost throughout her campaign dating back to its inception.
There’s really no time like the present for her to start campaigning like it’s 2016. Since, after all, that’s what it is.
I really don’t think Clinton’s highlighting the information you describe would make a whit of difference in the attitudes of the millenials and others towards this election. Those not on board with Clinton seem to believe that it makes no difference who is elected between Clinton and Trump. Once upon a time I had some hope that they would come around. Now, I’m convinced that they are simply “invincibly ignorant” as liberal Catholic theologians used to say.
I think you’re exactly right that an “in” thing has taken hold among millennials that it’s just not cool to vote for either Clinton or Trump. I do think it may be possible to change some minds, though, on the indisputable basis of the Supreme Court and federal agency heads, if these are actually discussed by Clinton and in ads that might reach them on Facebook or whatever. After all, they don’t have to tell anyone that they voted, or that they voted for Clinton instead of Stein or Johnson.
Trouble is I think they are aware of the things you point out and simply don’t care. That makes them bad people in my view but nobody cares about my view, especially them.
So it finally has become evident that the election has been rigged by the oligarch-elites and they will (get their way) win either way. So glad the light finally came on but what about all the other voters who are still in the dark?… Now if only we could get people to realize that the “absolute advantage ” of the so called “free trade” for the lowest labor cost factor is Not free trade of free flows of every countries competitive advantage. This is why we need to push for fair and more balanced trade policies that gives privilege and priority to democratic countries first…Next important point is that we need to close the loophole on differed capital gains and dividends so that we can repatriate off shored profits and halt corporate inversions…Last important point is that no states should be wrongly registering non citizens to be able to vote in the next election. This is a felony and the states election commissions are Not doing their jobs again as were many government agencies were not enforcing the laws on many issues. Just more Obama-Clinton crooked, crony and corruption at the highest levels of government again…IMHO.
WR,
try not to talk.
Clinton has gotten TWENTY TIMES as much from billionaires:
http://time.com/money/4507692/election-2016-billionaires-hillary-clinhttps://www.irs.gov/publications/p536/ar02.htmlton/
Warren your link is bad, actually it runs two URL’s together. And once I found it in Time it links back to Bloomberg and includes this important limiting fact:
“The analysis also excludes billionaire donors who are not on the Bloomberg index, which ranks the world’s 400 richest people. Thomas Barrack, Jay Pritzker and Haim Saban have given millions of dollars to the campaigns. Many of the billionaires included in the analysis could also be giving to nonprofit groups that have no obligation to disclose who funds them. Renaissance Technologies co-founder Robert Mercer has set up a pro-Trump group and seeded it with $2 million, while this month Joseph Ricketts revealed plans to support Trump primarily through similar vehicles. ”
So when you say “billionaires” you mean a subset of billionaires. And when you say “has gotten” you exclude the Citizen United enabled vehicles of choice for the Right. Christ man could you get any lazier? At a minimum don’t eff up the URL and make me have to do the work here.
Sorry about the bad link, Bruce. Please link to evidence for YOUR assertion.
The next President will be either Trump or Clinton. I’ve selected Clinton myself, but others voting for any of the other 3 candidates doesn’t bother me a bit. Both major parties selected nominees with known problems for portions of the electorate and that’s just how it is. This is a “no whining” election for all candidates and their parties. And Democrats in particular have years of experience understanding how their candidate would get treated in some quarters. She’ll probably win, but if not, there will be valuable information from that result, too.