Mojo Misplaced

To blogger Bluegal, it's "Let's say you find out that every word Chris Christie uttered during the Fox Business Debate was a lie that he used to defend himself against Sen. Marco Rubio's criticisms on his record, would you still vote for him? Would you trust anything he said?"  Vox's Dylan Matthews maintains "Christie is just consistently, repeatedly, brazenly lying."

Steve Benen at MaddowBlog calls Christie out for lying at the South Carolina debate about his support for the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, for contributing in the past to Planned Parenthood, and about the purported elimination of Common Core in New Jersey.  Then he linked to the fact checkers at The Washington Post, who questioned Christie's record on gun control.

The coldly objective explanation from Slate's Jim Newell included

“Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey,” Christie retorted. Christie was a strong supporter and early adopter of Common Core standards in his first term as governor, so already Rubio is correct in noting that Christie “has endorsed” the idea. When he decided he wanted to be president, he put the program under review. As Jessica Huseman writes for Slate, “New Jersey is still using the exact same tests as before, ones that are aligned with the exact same Common Core standards for what students should master by each grade level,” but he’s just not calling it Common Core anymore.

On gun control, Christie mentioned a number of the measures he has blocked. “I have vetoed a .50-caliber rifle ban,” he said. “I have vetoed a reduction this clip size. I vetoed a statewide I.D. system for gun owners, and I pardoned six out-of-state folks who came through our state and were arrested for owning a gun legally in another state so they never have to face charges.” It wasn’t always this way. When Christie campaigned in 2009, his campaign sent out a release saying he “supports the assault weapons ban and all current gun laws.” He says now that he’s “changed his mind” on guns and “learned a great deal about guns” since it became politically necessary to do so.

He credits his “experience as a federal prosecutor” for the shift, which is interesting in two respects. He already picked up that “experience as a federal prosecutor” when he was campaigning in 2009 and supporting gun control measures such as the assault weapons ban. And in 2013, when he signed a bill barring people on the federal terrorism watch list from owning guns—something Democrats in Washington are pushing for right now on the federal level, to strenuous Republican objections—what did Christie cite as his justification? “As a former federal prosecutor,” he said in a ceremony, “I understand the obligation of government to ensure the safety and security of its people.”

“I didn’t support Sonia Sotomayor,” he said Thursday night, flat-out. When asked on a radio show in 2009 whether he personally would have selected Sotomayor, Christie said, “She wouldn’t have been my choice, no.” Well, duh. He’s a Republican. But he supported her confirmation anyway. “I support her appointment to the Supreme Court and urge the Senate to keep politics out of the process and confirm her nomination,” then-gubernatorial candidate Christie said in a July 2009 statement.“Qualified appointees should be confirmed and deserve bi-partisan support. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito deserved that support based on their work as Circuit Court Judges. So does Judge Sotomayor. As a result, I support her confirmation.”

As for “the donation he made to Planned Parenthood,” at issue is a quote from 1994 to the Star-Ledger when Christie was running for county office and was asked about public funding for Planned Parenthood, which he opposed due to budget constraints. “I support Planned Parenthood privately with my personal contribution and that should be the goal of any such agency, to find private donations,” he said. Christie doesn’t lie about having been previously pro-choice, but he has little explanation for the “I support Planned Parenthood privately with my personal contribution” line. “I’m convinced it was a misquote,” he told the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin in an interview this week.

The (Newark, NJ) Star-Ledger- which through the Governor's re-election campaign and until Bridgegate thought Chris Christie was just fine- in October editorialized "He lies like the rest of us brush our teeth, as a matter of routine."

He is still, however, not the most loathsome Republican in the presidential race, though the most loathsome man in the presidential race. Moreover, as conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt recently pointed out about GOP debates, "fact checkers don't matter."    And rank dishonesty didn't prevent the New Jersey governor from owning Marco Rubio in South Carolina.

Oh, few if any post-debate analysts noted this. Neither did Politico's Republican "insiders," a plurality of whom, indulged in strong drink, believed Rubio won the debate  (graph below).  Of Chris Christie, the Florida senator stated

We can not afford to have a president of the United States that supports gun control. This president, this president is more interested in funding -- less interested in funding the military, than he is in funding planned -- he's more interested in funding Planned Parenthood than he is in funding the military.

Chris Christie wrote a check to Planned Parenthood. All I'm saying is our next president has to be someone that undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country. It can not be someone that agrees with his agenda.

Because the damage he has done to America is extraordinary. Let me tell you, if we don't get this election right, there may be no turning back for America. We're on the verge of being the first generation of Americans that leave our children worse off than ourselves....

Then Neil Cavuto asked Rubio the "L" question: "is Christie a liberal?" virtually inviting the Senator to fire the kill shot. Instead, Rubio replied

Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, whether it is Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood. Our next president, and our Republican nominee can not be someone who supports those positions.

The correct answer, when running in a GOP race, obviously is an unequivocal "yes."  Christie responded to the Floridian with a three-pronged attack. First, he ridiculed young Marco:  "I stood on the stage and watched Marco in rather indignantly, look at Governor Bush and say, someone told you that because we're running for the same office, that criticizing me will get you to that office. It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marco's ear too."

Then he dishonestly denied backing Sonia Sotomayor, Planned Parenthood, and the core of Common Core. He finished off with one of the oldest banal fantasies- refuted by Christie's own re-election- by claiming "When you're a governor, you're held accountable for everything you do."

Marco Rubio is good at the one-liners he has memorized. But sometimes, the best offense is a good defense (a little late, he responds, below). Rubio could have quoted Christie's old statement of support for elevating Judge Sotomayor to  Justice Sotomayor.  He could have pointed out that Christie still backs standardized testing and that he merely doesn't call it "Common Core" now that he's running for the nomination. Further, when Christie protested "I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood," the Senator could have retorted "I'm sorry. You didn't write a check. You put it on your credit card" or "then you must have paid cash."

Marco Rubio has a lot going for him as a candidate. And if he regains his footing, we may see it. However, when he has to deviate from prepared remarks, he is not as slick- or quite as dishonest- as Chris Christie or Ted Cruz.  And in a contest in which, as Hugh Hewitt implied, facts don't matter, that one might.

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Opportunities Passed Up

Donald Trump is a bad politician. Sure, he's leading the pack among Republicans but most people don't like him.

In the latest CNN poll, 57% of adults expressed an "unfavorable" opinion about Trump, while only 39% had a favorable opinion. By contrast, more individuals are favorable than unfavorable toward Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson.

That may be because Donald Trump is a horrible debater. Whatever the impact of Thursday night's debate in South Charleston, South Carolina upon the race, Trump could have, should have, buried his direct rival, Ted Cruz,

Pundits are applauding Cruz because of how he handled Neil Cavuto's question about his eligibility to be President given the constitutional restriction to "natural-born Citizens" Cruz emphasized

At the end of the day, the legal issue is quite straightforward, but I would note that the birther theories that Donald has been relying on -- some of the more extreme ones insist that you must not only be born on U.S. soil, but have two parents born on U.S. soil.

Under that theory, not only would I be disqualified, Marco Rubio would be disqualified, Bobby Jindal would be disqualified and, interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified.







A moment later, Trump would protest "but I was born here." However, he did not stress the point, wherein he might have said "where your parents were born does not bear on this question. I was born in the USA. You were born in Canada. Case closed."

The case is not closed on behalf of either Cruz's position or Trump's notion, thrown against the wall to see if it sticks. Opinions vary. However, instead of citing Widener law professor Mary Brigid McManamon as someone who argues that only individuals born in this country are "natural-born citizens," Trump cited Laurence Tribe, whom Cruz was able to  label "a left-wing judicial activist, Harvard Law professor who was Al Gore's lawyer in Bush versus Gore" and "a major Hillary Clinton supporter."

Even the issue on which most analysts believe Donald trumped Cruz, that of "New York values," was handled poorly by Trump.  The Texas senator maintained "everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media." He added "And -- and I guess I can -- can frame it another way. Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just saying."

Trump reminded Cruz that the late "William F. Buckley and others" have "come out of Manhattan." Nonetheless, he might have informed Cruz that New York City is not only Manhattan, but Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island- a traditionally Republican borough. He could then have added some (albeit condescending, rarely acknowledged) boilerplate that would have made residents of the outer boroughs sound like the stereotypical Iowan: "hard-working, middle-class men and women who take a lunch pail to work and come home in the evening to their families."







A better politician would have offered a paean to the firefighters and police officers of New York City. And he would have quoted a Republican member of Congress, Peter King, who was born in Manhattan and stated "Memo to Ted Cruz: New York Values are the heroes of 9/11; the cops who fight terror; and the people you ask for campaign donations...."

That would have, however, opened up the matter of the funding sought byTed Cruz, who in an earlier debate rhetorically asked "Why would you then bail out rich Wall Street banks and not Mom and Pop?"  He was recently found to have relied on $500,000-$1,000,000 loans from Goldman Sachs in his first Senate race, in 2012.   A sharp rival would have asked "how can our candidate confront Hillary Clinton on her close ties with Goldman when he himself dances to their tune. I, however, have enough money to pay for my own campaign. Nobody owns me and nobody ever will."

That would have been a win-win but Trump didn't go there, which was nearly- nearly- as curious as why he did not fully exploit the question of Cruz's eligibility for the office.  "If you're playing the drinking game tonight, you must guzzle a gallon of Cuba Libres every time the word 'natural born' comes up," Digby predicted before the debate. Make that a quart and if not sober, you at least would have gone to bed alive.

"Natural-born" came up only three times- and all by Cruz, responding to Cavuto's question. Donald Trump avoided the phrase, which should tell us a lot about his competence as a debater, if not as a campaigner generally.







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Mitch McConnell's Definition Of A Pacifist

Is Mitch McConnell the most reprehensible officeholder in national politics? On last Sunday's "This Week," George Stephanopoulos asked the Senate Majority Leader if he would, as Speaker Paul Ryan has said he might do in the House of Representatives, schedule a vote to give President Obama new authority to fight ISIL. McConnell responded (video below) in part

But I don't want to tie the hands of the next president. The next president may want to actually defeat ISIL. And I think an AUMF, an authorization to use military force, that ties the president's hands behind his back is not something I would want to do to a new president who's going to have to clean up this mess, created by all of this passivity over the last eight years.

As of early December, the USA Air Force, under the Commander-in-Chef who wants to welcome ISIL into Kentucky, had

fired off more than 20,000 missiles and bombs since the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS began 15 months ago, according to the Air Force, leading to depleted munitions stockpiles and calls to ramp up funding and weapons production.

As the U.S. ramps up its campaign against the Islamist terror group in Iraq and Syria, the Air Force is now "expending munitions faster than we can replenish them," Air Force chief of staff Gen. Mark Welsh said in a statement.

"B-1s have dropped bombs in record numbers. F-15Es are in the fight because they are able to employ a wide range of weapons and do so with great flexibility. We need the funding in place to ensure we're prepared for the long fight," Welsh said in the statement. "This is a critical need."

The bombing campaign has left the U.S. Air Force with what an Air Force official described as munitions depot stocks "below our desired objective."

One can only imagine how many missiles and bombs would have been dropped under this Administration if the President really wanted to eliminate ISIL.   Would it have been 40,000? 80,000? A quarter million?

Mitch McConnell hasn't  said. Neither has the man who really is the most reprehensible character in the federal government.




 

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She's Going To Have To Do Better Than This

"And while the GOP rebuttal traditionally blasts the sitting president for his proposed policies," Politico's Rachel Bade writes

Haley also echoed, at least broadly, some of Obama's own comments about the risks of fear-mongering. Observers on both sides of the aisle immediately praised Haley for her poised delivery and nuanced message.

“Great job @nikkihaley ! Fantastic balance and substance. Our party is the new, young and diverse party,” tweeted RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.

Haley made headlines this summer for backing an effort to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds following the racially-motivated massacre of several blacks in an African American church. Since then, she’s only risen in prominence.

Bade was undoubtedly thinking vice-president as she penned her love letter to South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.  The GOP, especially its National Committee, would love to place a woman on this year's ticket, particularly in light of its understandable defensiveness about supporting policies hostile to women's rights.

The reprehensible, despicable, and utterly dishonest Carly Fiorina would prove an interesting attack dog were she to become the running mate to Cruz, Rubio, Trump, or Christie.  However, her precipitous drop in polls of GOP voters suggests that even Republicans have caught on to her. (And aside from Rubio, each of the other guys is thoroughly nasty, anyway).  Moreover, the Party's 2008 nominee went in that direction, giving the nomination to an unqualified, nasty piece of work, and it doomed John McCain.

New Mexico governor Susannah Martinez, whose speech before the 2012 Republican National Convention was well received, remains a live possibility, especially if party faithful are looking for a real fun-loving candidate.

It is true that Governor Haley was able to effect removal of the Confederate flag in a relatively swift manner and with little controversy.  It's true also that Bade wasn't the only member of the mainstream media to swoon when in her rebuttal to the State of the Union message Haley stated

I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants who reminded my brothers, my sister and me every day how blessed we were to live in this country ... My story is really not much different from millions of other Americans. Immigrants have been coming to our shores for generations to live the dream that is America ... Today, we live in a time of threats like few others in recent memory. During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.

Reince Priebus may be thrilled, but Steve M. responds

Really? Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have 50 to 60 percent of your party's presidential primary vote, and you're going to say this?

Two theories: 

* She and the party are still in denial about the fact that the GOP has gone overwhelmingly nativist.

* She thinks (and possibly the party thinks) that Trump or Cruz will crash and burn this year, and Haley -- soon to be a term-limited ex-governor -- will have nothing but time to plan a 2020 run against President Hillary Clinton, by which time all this neo-fascist silliness will be a thing of the past.

I don't know about the latter, but I do know she's not going to be anyone's running mate this year. Anyone who tells you next summer that that's a possibility is an idiot.

I think it's still a possibility- but one diminished by her speech last night.  Asked on "Today" Wednesday morning about the VP slot, Haley admitted "I think that that's a big decision, it's a family decision, it's a state decision, it's something I'd have to think about. But absolutely would sit down with anyone that wanted to talk."

That's as close as any politician- this far out from the convention or at any time- comes to saying "make me vice-president!" But although her remarks were directed at Trump, she
seems blithely unaware that the Party's popular base has passed her by.  No longer is it satisfied when a Republican blames Democrats for deteriorating "health insurance," the national debt, urban crime, terrorism, and a strong national government. GOP boilerplate doesn't cut it anymore.

I still believe Donald Trump won't be nominated. However, this morning (on "Fox and Friends," below) he charged Haley is "weak on illegal immigration." Even if neither he nor Cruz is selected, the candidate (needing to turn out the base) will have to respond to the cultural unease- nay, anger- across the nation. As Trump put it

whoever I pick is going to be very strong on illegal immigration. We’ve had it. We’ve had it with illegal immigration. Believe me—this country, and a lot of other things, especially when you look at what’s going on, at the Iran deal and all of the money that goes out and we get nothing for it. So we’ve had it with a lot of things in this country.














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They're Thinking Of Sex, Sex, And More Sex

When you make Harold Ford sound sensible, it's time to reassess your values.  Salon's Scott Eric Kaufman has reported (with photobelow from Salon)

On “Morning Joe” Monday morning, host Joe Scarborough can’t seem to shake his “fascination” with comparing allegations against former president Bill Clinton with those that led to the arrest of comedian Bill Cosby last week.

“I wonder how the public looks at Bill Cosby and says, ‘this beloved man, who changed American culture as much as any entertainment figure in our lifetime, is going to have to be accountable for the way he treated women behind closed doors.’ How does a public that has come to that conclusion say, ‘the Bill Clinton’s stuff OK’?” He asked Harold Ford in one segment.

Ford shot back, “raising your voice at me doesn’t make this right — comparing Clinton to Bill Cosby is wrong.”

“I’m fascinated to hear why comparing Bill Clinton to Bill Cosby is ‘wrong,'” he replied.

Ford replied that their cases “are completely different,” including the fact that the number of women accusing Cosby approaches fifty, and the “facts are very, very different.” He added that “if Bill Clinton’s political career wasn’t undone by these [allegations], why should Hillary Clinton’s?”

There was a little something called impeachment, which followed a nearly-year long investigation of President Clinton by independent counsel Ken Starr. Indicted- impeached- by the House of Representatives, Clinton was acquitted, by a preponderance of evidence, by the Senate.  Even then, the excuse for removal was an allegation of perjury and a claim that "the cover-up is worse than the crime." The charges against President Clinton were not ignored- merely unsubstantiated.

Now we are reminded that the GOP really was interested- very interested- in sex. Comparing Bill Clinton- or is it Hillary Clinton?- to Bill Cosby is yet another example of the obsession of some Republicans.  There have been not only accusations by far more women against Bill Cosby than against the other Bill, but there is the fundamental issue of consent. Monica Lewinsky was not raped, sexually assaulted, or abused, though to some Republicans (apparently including Scarborought) that is not qualitatively different than consensual sex.

As another Salon contributor, Amanda Marcotte, explains, the GOP urge to "get even" with Democras over sex began with the controversy over the morally reprehensible Clarence Thomas.   She understands as critics conflate Bill Clinton's sexual behavior with Billl Cosby's apparently criminal sexual behavior

A similar thing is happening with conservatives re-floating these old accusations, even though they were quite thoroughly investigated by Ken Starr — who had the level of prosecutorial discretion and funding that is completely impossible to imagine for any other sexual abuse or harassment accusation ever made under any other circumstances — all turning up nothing of substance. Bill Cosby’s name comes up frequently, and you get that same weird tit-for-tat sense, as if conservatives are saying, “OK, you liberals got one, now it’s our turn.”

Except, of course, there’s no actual reason to believe that liberals wanted Cosby to be a rapist, in the same way that conservatives clearly want Bill Clinton to be one. Sure, a lot of liberals didn’t like Cosby because he is a moral scold who feeds blame-the-victim narratives about racism, but there really was zero desire on the left to “take out” Cosby. Most liberals — myself included — were really upset at realizing that the evidence against Cosby was both substantive and substantial. But this notion that there are people out there who are actually interested in justice and not just in scoring points against political opponents is clearly more than right-wing operatives can wrap their heads around.

In Scarborough's case, it may be a simple matter of characteristically fake indignation. But as Marcotte recognizes, many conservatives, intent on making political hay and entrappped by psychological projection, do not understand that most liberals really are interested in justice. It is a concept quite foreign to a party which increasingly fears things foreign.

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Angel Bundy

Where does Salon find these people?  Not quite the bigoted Brittney Cooper, fortunately, Musa al-Gharb, identified as a "political philospher" who is "affiliated with the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflict, writes

In other words, the goal should be to have minorities treated more like white people–not to have Bundy and his militia treated more like Muslims or black people, as many have urged. No U.S. citizens should be treated as terrorists for engaging in civil disobedience. It is a profound threat to our democracy that so many are willing, even eager, to call for an authoritarian clampdown on their ideological opponents under the pretext of fighting terrorism. It is troubling when Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter is branded this way–and it would be just as disturbing to inflate the threat posed by Ammon Bundy in order to justify the use of force against his militia.

This is simply bizarre. Whatever the criticism of Occupy Wall Street, it was rarely if ever referred to as a terrorist group.  Whatever the criticism of Black Lives Matter, it rarely if ever is referred to as a terrorist group. Nonetheless, al-Gharb claims

the militia is not threatening violence, nor even to deface or destroy federal property, if their demands are not met; the only consequence is continued occupation. In the interim, they are being careful not to damage the refuge or its facilities, they have allowed the public to come and go largely unrestricted, and have even claimed that they will vacate the premises if it seems clear that the local population wants them to go. And so, while it is illegal for the militia to be occupying the Malheur Refuge, their actions would be better understood as an act of civil disobedience than an act of terror.

Well, yes, they are terrorists, if the FBI is to be believed. It thinks illegal acts within US territory which "appear intended to intimidate orcoerce a civilian population or to influence the policy of a government by itnimdation and/or coercion" constitute "domestic terrorism." Bundy's people are armed, are "willing to kill and be killed, if necessary," and are determined, as Vox explained it, "ultimately to induce the federal government to turn over government-owned land to local ranchers, loggers, and miners for their use."

Al-Gharb refes to "Muslim-Americans" as he might to "Polish-Americans" or "Italian-Americans," as an ethnic, rather than religious, group. Generously, we can concede that might be only a category error (albeit a significant mistake) rather than a failure to understand that Islam is a religion.  More critically, however, he conflates Muslims, black people, and "minorities" as if the challenges, and opportunites, presented by each group are identical.

Issues surrounding blacks involving a group of Americans, sometimes referred to as "African-Americans" (not synonymous with "blacks," but close enough) and are the legacy of racism and discrimination.  Concern about Muslims among Americans not of that religious faith center upon the threat of terrorism, a far different concern or issue. Al-Gharb's reference to "minorities" is just a mess, a product of an individual whose thinking is so clouded by ideology that his thinking becomes confused.

Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Ammon Bundy (image below from Right WingWatch).  Four of them were practitioners of the art of civil disobedience. The other,who believes the government of the USA is not legitimate, leads a band of men with firearms- and they want us to know it.

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A Passion For Concrete

Jack Shafer writes in Politico Magazine about "strange new respect" that

The American Spectator’s Tom Bethell introduced the concept in a 1992 article to ridicule the practice of liberal journalists who would reward conservative politicians who migrated from right to left by commenting in print on how they were now commanding “strange new respect” in Washington, showing “growth,” “maturity,” “wisdom,” and “thoughtfulness.” Bethell’s initial example was Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was appointed by conservative President Ronald Reagan but soon became a quasi-liberal, and was rewarded with praise by many in the liberal media. Kennedy has only continued to add to his strange new respect stockpile, the Weekly Standard commented in 2005

Shafer cites John McCain, Eric Cantor, former Presidents Carter, Reagan, and GW Bush, and (arguably) "religion" as among the beneficiaries of application of the concept.

Strange new respect is granted more broadly than Bethell claimed.  Numerous other individuals have benefitted from suddenly being regarded more highly by liberals, conservatives, or centrists in the mainstream media and elsewhere. It frequently arises among political candidates when they cross that invisible line, graduating from fringe candidate to serious candidate as interpreted by powerful interests. And so it is that Shafer observes

As journalists and others begin to view as inevitable—or at least genuinely possible—a Trump victory at the Republican National Convention, we should expect a rise in Trump coverage that expresses strange new respect for him. A vestigial example of the genre appeared today in POLITICO. Titled “Donald Trump’s Big Tent,” the piece suggests Trump may be deserving of strange new respect because his “appeal has spread over seven months so far beyond a rabble-rousing, anti-establishment rump to encompass the very elements of the American electorate the GOP has been eager to reach.” Trump isn’t weird, the story implies. He’s the new normal.

Trump himself may ironically benefit less from a sense that he is respectable and laudatory than that he is a rogue character.  Seven months ago, investigate journalist David Cay Johnston posed "21 Questions for Donald Trump," each of which focuses on personal finances and none of which he has seriously been pressed on (an exception- Thom Hartmann- below).  Several of them involved Trump's involvement in La Cosa Nostra.

In October, the Washington Post's Robert  O'Harrow Jr. explained that the 69-year old real estate developer got entangled with "mob-controlled entities" and

As his ambitions expanded in the 1970s and 1980s, Trump had to contend with New York’s Cosa Nostra in order to complete his projects. By the 1980s, crime families had a hand in all aspects of the contracting industry, including labor unions, government inspections, building supplies and trash carting.

“Organized crime does not so much attack and subvert legitimate industry as exploit opportunities to work symbiotically with ‘legitimate’ industry so that ‘everybody makes money,’ ” the organized crime task force’s report found. “Organized crime and other labor racketeers have been entrenched in the building trades for decades.”

In New York City, the mafia families ran what authorities called the “concrete club,” a cartel of contractors that rigged bids and squelched competition from outsiders. They controlled the Cement and Concrete Workers union and used members to enforce their rules.

Nearly every major project in Manhattan during that period was built with mob involvement, according to court records and the organized crime task force’s report. That includes Trump Tower, the glittering 58-story skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, which was made of reinforced concrete.

“Using concrete, however, put Donald at the mercy of a legion of concrete racketeers,” the investigative journalist Wayne Barrett wrote in “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.”

Through (later disgraced and disbarred) attorney Roy Cohn, Trump dealt with La Cosa Nostra, including

S&A Concrete , which supplied building material to the Trump Plaza on Manhattan’s East Side, court records show. S&A was owned by Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino family. The men required that major multimillion-dollar construction projects obtain concrete through S&A at inflated prices, according to a federal indictment of Salerno and others.

Fortunately, the boss of the Genovese crime family did not go unpunished, for

On Feb. 26, 1985, Salerno and 14 others were indicted on an array of criminal activity, including conspiracy, extortion and “infiltration of ostensibly legitimate businesses involved in selling ready-mix concrete in New York City,” the federal indictment said. Among the projects cited was Trump Plaza. Salerno and all but one of the others received terms of 100 years in prison.

Donald Trump frequently brags of having given generously to political candidates seeking office on all levels of government, and having reaped the rewards of having done so. He assiduously avoids the term "bought" but as O'Harrow notes

Trump’s donations were later cited by the organized crime task force’s report as an example of the close financial relationships between developers and City Hall. “New York city real estate developers revealed how they were able to skirt the statutory proscriptions,” the report said in a footnote. “Trump circumvented the State’s $50,000 individual and $5,000 corporate contribution limits by spreading his payments among eighteen subsidiary companies.”

Trump also did business with Cosa Nostra figures in Atlantic City, primarily through Kenny Shapiro, an investment banker for Nicademo "Little Nicky" Scarfo, and with whom he had "a close association," according to The Federalist's David Marcus.  Scarfo and nephew Phillip “crazy Phil” Leonetti "controlled two of the major construction and concrete companies in Atlantic City."

Two months ago, when it seemed to most political observers (and certainly me) that Marco Rubio was the person to beat in the GOP primary, questions were raised about the Florida Senator's personal finances, including his house, a retirement account, and use of a GOP credit card.  It seems Rubio, who has had a terrible 7 or 8 weeks, has trouble handling money.

Donald Trump, it seems, has wallowed in the sewer of  organizedcrime, which has largely been ignored.  Examination of his personal finances should not  be neglected in favor of a "strange new respect."















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