Shoot the Messenger, Like Suing Harvard

Shoot the Messenger: Under pressure to show where the money went, Donald Trump spent 39 minutes berating reporters in a press conference yesterday before he read a list of 41 veterans’ charities that had received money from his January fundraiser. He called one reporter “a real beauty” and another, “a sleaze.” He said, “I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest.”

Reporters have been demanding for Trump’s accounting of the $6 million he claimed to have raised for veterans in January, including $1 million he said he had donated himself.

The total is now $5.6 million, according to Trump, including his $1 million, which he donated only last week. At least a third of the veterans’ groups Trump listed say they received money only last week when Trump’s charity was under heavy scrutiny.

Trump said he delayed disbursements while the charities were vetted; one of them has an “F” rating. He also said he didn’t go public because “I didn’t want to have credit for it,” even though one of his standard campaign lines is how much he has done for veterans.

The Upsell: Documents released in the Trump University fraud lawsuit reveal some of the high-pressure sales tactics and financial targeting used to get customers for Trump’s real estate education courses.

One former salesman testified, “I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.”

Prospects were told the instructors were “hand-picked” by Trump, although they were not. The sales staff were instructed to find potential customers who made at least $200, 000 a year and had $35,000 in liquid assets. Students were constantly encouraged to buy ever more “advanced” courses, costing more and more money. The most expensive package, “Gold Elite” — not just gold and not just elite — cost $34,995.

The Trump playbook says, “If they complain about the price, remind them that Trump is the BEST!!”

Westward: Feeling the Bern at her back, Hillary Clinton has changed her campaign schedule to spend five days in California before the big June 7 primary. Some polls have Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by only two percentage points in California, within the margin for error.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, once a bitter opponent of Bill Clinton, endorsed Hillary. Clinton pretty much can’t lose the nomination, but she needs a healthy margin of elected delegates to deny Sanders the right to complain.

But Sanders said, “I think you know there’s been some discussion that some of the media is going to say the campaign is over, she is the nominee on Tuesday night after the votes come in from New Jersey – that’s not accurate.”

Nation: A 74-year-old former volunteer sheriff’s deputy in Oklahoma City has been sentenced to four years in prison for shooting and killing an unarmed black suspect in April last year. Robert Bates said he had reached for his Taser but pulled his gun and fired instead. The incident, captured on a body camera, became one of the notorious cases that inspired the Black Lives Matter movement.

>Actor Michael Jace, who was a regular on the FX cop series “The Shield,” has been convicted of murdering his wife in front of their two young children. Jace’s wife was a runner. He shot her once in the back, and once in each leg. Jace’s 10-year-old son testified that he heard his father say, “If you like running, then run to heaven.”

Death: The US had a rare uptick in the death rate last year, attributed to more people dying of drug overdoses, suicide, and Alzheimer’s disease. The rate of death from heart disease rose slightly. The death rate rose to 729.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2015, up from 723.2 in 2014.

A Word to the Graduates: Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said in an interview that, suing Trump University is “like saying if you graduate from Harvard and you don’t have the same outcome in your profession as everyone else, you should sue Harvard.”

Sunday, May 5, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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