Trump 42: Racist In Chief

[47of74]

I just told both local hosptals that if something happens where I wind up a patient that Republican politicians are unwelcome in my fucking hospital room and there is no way in fucking goddamn hell that I will be used as a photo op / propaganda piece by these politicians.  And I said I'd have the licenses and jobs of anyone who thinks it a good idea to ignore my wishes. 

[fraurosena]

Turns out they weren't asked.

Turns out, Trump wasn't really there for the victims, but took the opportunity to bash his critics and political opponents. Oh, and to promote his own campaign, of course.

And just to underline how acutely tone-deaf he is, and how absolute his lack of empathy is...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[front hugs > duggs]

I want to go to sleep. And wake up and have this all have been a nightmare.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s openness to extensive background checks for gun buys draws warning from NRA"

Spoiler

President Trump has repeatedly told lawmakers and aides in private conversations that he is open to endorsing extensive background checks in the wake of two mass shootings, prompting a warning from the National Rifle Association and concerns among White House aides, according to lawmakers and administration officials. 

Trump, speaking to reporters Wednesday before visiting Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, where weekend shootings left 31 dead, said there “was great appetite for background checks” amid an outcry over government inaction in the face of repeated mass shootings.

Trump’s previous declarations of support for tougher gun controls, including after the deadly Parkland, Fla., shooting in February 2018, have foundered without a sustained push from the president and support from the NRA or Republican lawmakers. Even Trump’s advisers question how far he will go on any effort.

NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre spoke with Trump on Tuesday after the president expressed support for a background check bill and told him it would not be popular among Trump’s supporters, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss internal talks. LaPierre also argued against the bill’s merits, the officials said.

The NRA, which opposes the legislation sponsored by Sens. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), declined to comment.

Advisers to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would not bring any gun-control legislation to the floor without widespread Republican support. Trump has waffled, current and past White House officials say, between wanting to do more and growing concerned that doing so could prompt a revolt from his political base. Even some supporters of the Manchin-Toomey bill, which would expand background checks to nearly all firearm sales, say it is unlikely to pass. 

“I don’t think the president or his Republican allies are going to become out of nowhere advocates of aggressive gun control,” said Matt Schlapp, who leads the American Conservative Union and is a close ally of Trump. 

Trump has focused on guns extensively since the shootings, calling lawmakers and surveying aides about what he should do — outreach that began Sunday evening. White House officials say there has been a series of meetings on a response, convened by acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, including a session Tuesday morning. The president has discussed with aides the idea of a Rose Garden bill-signing ceremony for gun-control legislation, a notion that seems premature to many in the West Wing.

Trump also asked lawyers about what he could enact through an executive order, officials said. 

“He seems determined to do something and believes there is space to get something done this time around,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who said he had spoken to Trump “four or five times” since the shootings. “The president has a pretty ­common-sense point of view. He’s never been a sports or gun enthusiast. But he is more determined than ever to do something on his watch.”

Manchin said that Trump called him at 6:30 a.m. Monday and that the two spoke again on Tuesday, when Trump said he wanted legislation before September, when the Senate is scheduled to return.

Trump did not express explicit support for the Manchin-Toomey bill but asked a range of questions. Most of the recent mass shootings were carried out with guns purchased legally.

“He was inquisitive, wanting to know why it hadn’t happened. He wanted to know all about it,” Manchin said. “I told him we couldn’t get enough Republicans to help us.”

Manchin said he told Trump that he would need to back any gun-control legislation or it would fail again. Those comments were mirrored by almost a dozen GOP and White House aides.

“If you don’t stand up and say, ‘This is a piece of legislation I support,’ we’re not going to get enough cover to have Republicans stand tall. They won’t be able to do it,” Manchin said. 

On Tuesday, Trump outlined some NRA concerns in a second call with Manchin. “We talked about that,” Manchin said. “I told him, we don’t expect the NRA to be supportive. Mr. President, in all honesty, when you did the bump stocks, they weren’t for you. They were against that, too. You didn’t take any hit on that.”

In March, the administration administratively banned bump stocks, the devices used to make semiautomatic rifles fire rapidly like machine guns.

A White House official said Trump had asked some advisers and lawmakers this week about whether the NRA had enduring clout amid an internal leadership battle and allegations of improper spending, as well as what his supporters would think of the bill. The Washington Post reported this week that LaPierre sought to have the NRA buy him a $6 million mansion in a gated Dallas-area golf club after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, in which 17 students and staff members were killed.

Toomey said he has spoken with the president at least three times since the weekend shootings. He declined to elaborate on the conversations, although he stressed that Trump hasn’t specifically endorsed the bill. Their conversations have been more general, he said, but Toomey noted that they had been “encouraging” and “very recent.” 

“I will just tell you generally the president is open-minded about this,” Toomey said. 

Some measures — such as a ban on assault weapons — have been ruled out, White House officials and legislative aides say. Recent polls indicate a majority of Americans support some form of a ban on assault rifles, though there is a large partisan divide and fewer than half of Republicans support such measures.A July NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll found 57 percent of the public supported a ban on “the sale of semiautomatic assault guns, such as the AK-47 or the AR-15.” Fewer than 3 in 10 Republicans supported the proposal, rising to a slight majority of independents and more than 8 in 10 Democrats. 

“There’s no political space for that,” Graham said. “So I don’t think he’s going to go down that road.”

However, about 9 in 10 Americans support requiring background checks for all gun purchases, including more than 8 in 10 Republicans, Democrats and independents, according to polling.

Trump was vague about what he would do in his comments Wednesday, and current and former White House officials said he is often ambivalent on what he should do after shootings. 

After the Parkland shooting, Trump expressed support for background checks for gun purchases and greater police power to seize guns from mentally disturbed people. But he faced significant resistance from the NRA and Republicans and abandoned the ideas.

On Air Force One after the October 2017 shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 dead, Trump said he wanted to enact a law to keep such shootings from happening again and would question others for ideas but did not have specific proposals.

After shootings, Trump regularly would poll aides about what measures would have political support, but if they did not gain backing, he was not inclined to lead the charge. 

“He would not be blocking it, but he’s not going to be the one forcing it to happen,” one official said.

Some of the president’s more-moderate friends and donors have pressed for more-robust gun-control measures. But Trump has also told advisers that he cannot lose any members of his “base.”

“Republicans are headed for extinction in the suburbs if they don’t distance themselves from the NRA. The GOP needs to put forth solutions to help eradicate the gun violence epidemic,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. 

In public, Trump has promoted “red flag” laws — also known as extreme risk protection orders — that allow family members or law enforcement to petition a judge to ban gun access for someone they believe is an imminent threat to themselves or others. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have such laws already in place, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates more restrictions on firearms. 

White House aides said such a bill was the most likely outcome and had the most support in the West Wing. Schlapp said that Trump could persuade Republicans to support some measures seen as less restrictive. 

“It’s the best route forward because it can pass, the president will sign it and it can actually stop the next attack,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who drafted legislation to encourage more states to pass their own red-flag laws, said in a phone interview Wednesday. He began working on the legislation after the Parkland shooting. 

“If you look at all the studies that have been done, you see that invariably, with perhaps the exception of Las Vegas, they all exhibited signs and warnings to people around them that they could do something,” Rubio said. 

Yet any effort on Capitol Hill to implement firearms restrictions is likely to face, at a minimum, skepticism from conservatives concerned about any measure viewed as restricting gun rights.

Early on in his administration, Trump moved to loosen restrictions on gun purchases by people with mental illnesses, signing legislation overturning an Obama-era regulation that barred certain people with mental health issues from purchasing firearms.

Some Republican officials have pointedly noted that Graham didn’t consult other GOP senators before forging ahead with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on a plan to advance red-flag legislation through the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

A handful of Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, through aides and in public comments, have indicated they are open to policies that would encourage states to implement such laws.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) appeared the most skeptical, with a spokesman saying merely that Sasse has asked to review the legislative language from Graham. A spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said the lawmaker “believes red-flag laws are one of the tools states can consider, but that there are dangers depending on how a state implements these laws,” expressing concern about protecting “due process and our constitutional rights.”

Democrats, while generally supportive of red flag laws, questioned how much congressional efforts would actually help states — particularly conservative ones with Republican governors — enact them. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that Democrats would demand a vote on legislation expanding background checks that had already passed the House and is opposed by the Trump administration in tandem with any Senate vote on red flag laws. 

“The question is, what difference can the federal government make in what is largely a state decision?” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the most vocal advocates of gun control in Congress. “I’m all for federal action on extreme risk protection orders. I’m just not sure it’s going to move the needle.”   

 

[countressrascal]

F**KFACE VON CLOWNSTICK needs to take out his hood and robe out of the closet and wear it to his next rally. Show is true colors.

[GreyhoundFan]

"The foreign policy costs of Trump’s narcissism"

Spoiler

Donald Trump had a busy day Wednesday. He went to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso to meet first responders and victims recovering from last weekend’s deadly assaults. In between those hospital visits, he was active on Twitter.

What were the topics of his myriad tweets? I’m glad you asked. He:

• Commented on the New York Times headline controversy;
• Whined about other countries cutting interest rates in response to trade war uncertainties;
• Complained about Joe Biden’s campaign speech;
• Seethed about critical coverage from Fox News’ Shepard Smith;
• Whined, with absolutely no factual foundation, about the mayor of Dayton and Ohio’s junior senator;
• Ranted about Joaquin Castro;
• Vented about how Democrats keep calling out the president’s racist rhetoric as ... racist.

That’s an awful lot of off-topic commentary for a day ostensibly devoted to helping two wounded communities heal. However, my personal favorite of his tweets was this one:

It took less than 100 characters for the president of the United States to segue from visiting wounded citizens to making it all about himself. As the Daily Beast’s Asawin Suebsaeng put it, “It underscored a reality that’s become obvious to anyone who has ever worked for or even casually observed Trump: He’ll find a way to make nearly any national tragedy into an airing of his personal grievances, and neither he nor nearly anything else will change in the process.” Or, like I said Sunday, Trump cannot comprehend grief, he only understands grievance.

Wednesday was merely the latest example of Trump’s abject failure as a head of state. The past week has also highlighted a deeper pathology within this administration, however: This administration is so dysfunctional that it cannot even stay on top of global tensions.

The administration’s dysfunction is obvious. Trump is obsessed with his day-to-day grievances; his attention span for anything outside migration and trade is minuscule. He has undercut his foreign policy subordinates so frequently that they no longer serve as reliable proxies for him. Would you trust an assurance from John Bolton or Mike Pompeo at this point?

Meanwhile, it is not like the rest of the world has hit pause while the United States sorts out its own unpleasantness. Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass tweeted over the weekend a short list of entropic forces gripping the globe:

According to Axios’ Mike Allen, the Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer recently told his clients his “geopolitical fat tail risks” for the rest of 2019. They included much of what Haass tweeted, and added some others, including U.S. conflicts with Iran and Russia, as well as Italian dysfunction. Bremmer added, “if in a normal geopolitical environment these would be, individually, 1-5% scenarios, over the coming year they’re more like 10-30%. n other words, we should expect at least one or two to actually happen.”

So, in other words, at the same time that all these crises are building, the Trump administration is understrength, underqualified, and led by a man who cannot be distracted from his petty grudges.

Those who advocate foreign policy restraint might suggest that the United States cannot solve every global problem. This is certainly true, but there are two rejoinders worth considering. First, the literal least the United States could do is to not be the global engine of instability — and there are way too many conflicts and flashpoints where this is true.

Second, the United States should be expected to act as an arbiter between loyal allies. It does not serve the U.S. national interest to have Japan and South Korea at each other’s throats. A normal administration would at least attempt to mediate this dispute; according to the New York Times, “State Department officials had said they want the two countries to work it out on their own.” If the Trump administration can’t handle this case between two close allies, then there is zero chance it can mediate between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

Look, I am not saying that the Obama or Bush or Clinton administrations would have solved any of the crises listed above. None of those administrations were perfect, and many of these problems are long-lasting. Still, they would have tried, and I bet they could have patched a few of these conflicts over for a decent spell. Furthermore, other countries would have looked to the United States as the appropriate convener of the salient disputants.

No one thinks this about the Trump administration. The president tweets while the world burns.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

It probably had nice pictures and had a calligraphy of Trump at the top.

Trump says he's received 'beautiful' letter from North Korea's Kim

Quote

President Trump on Friday said he received a “beautiful” letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as the country continues to test ballistic missiles, alarming U.S. allies in the region.

Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a fundraiser in the Hamptons that the two men could meet again in the future to discuss denuclearization.

Trump and Kim have held three face-to-face meetings that have yet to yield concrete plan to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has in recent weeks launched several test missiles, which watchdogs say violates a United Nations treaty. Trump has downplayed the tests, insisting he has a strong personal relationship with Kim.

Alarmed allies? What allies? Putin has a big smile on his face and MBS is still laughing. Those are the allies that count. The ones in Europe and the UN were Obama allies, and therefore cannot be Trumps. Everybody knows that. Sheesh.

[fraurosena]

Anyone know what 'Hollywood' did to incite his ire?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Big smiles and thumbs up? Because yay, we're celebrating a mass murder in my name?

[GreyhoundFan]

Hypocrite-in-chief: :"‘If you’re a good worker, papers don’t matter’: How a Trump construction crew has relied on immigrants without legal status"

Spoiler

OSSINING, N.Y. — For nearly two decades, the Trump Organization has relied on a roving crew of Latin American employees to build fountains and waterfalls, sidewalks and rock walls at the company’s winery and its golf courses from New York to Florida.

Other employees at Trump clubs were so impressed by the laborers — who did strenuous work with heavy stone — that they nicknamed them “Los Picapiedras,” Spanish for “the Flintstones.”

For years, their ranks have included workers who entered the United States illegally, according to two former members of the crew. Another employee, still with the company, said that remains true today.

President Trump “doesn’t want undocumented people in the country,” said one worker, Jorge Castro, a 55-year-old immigrant from Ecuador without legal status who left the company in April after nine years. “But at his properties, he still has them.”

Castro said he worked on seven Trump properties, most recently Trump’s golf club in Northern Virginia. He provided The Washington Post with several years of his pay stubs from Trump’s construction company, Mobile Payroll Construction LLC, as well as photos of him and his colleagues on Trump courses and text messages he exchanged with his boss, including one in January dispatching him to “Bedminster,” Trump’s New Jersey golf course. 

 Another immigrant who worked for the Trump construction crew, Edmundo Morocho, said he was told by a Trump supervisor to buy fake identity documents on a New York street corner. He said he once hid in the woods of a Trump golf course to avoid being seen by visiting labor union officials.

The hiring practices of the little-known Trump business unit are the latest example of the chasm between the president’s derisive rhetoric about immigrants and his company’s long-standing reliance on workers who cross the border illegally. 

And it raises questions about how fully the Trump Organization has followed through on its pledge to more carefully scrutinize the legal status of its workers — even as the Trump administration launched a massive raid of undocumented immigrants, arresting about 680 people in Mississippi this week.

In January, Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons and a top Trump Organization executive, told The Post that the company was “making a broad effort to identify any employee who has given false and fraudulent documents to unlawfully gain employment,” saying any such individuals would be immediately fired.

He also said the company was instituting E-Verify, a voluntary federal program that allows employers to check the immigration status of new hires, “on all of our properties as soon as possible.” And the company began auditing the legal status of its existing employees at its golf courses, firing at least 18.

But nothing changed on the Trump construction crew, according to current and former employees.

A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said Mobile Payroll Construction is enrolled in E-Verify for any new hires. The company is still not listed in the public E-Verify database, which was last updated July 1.

The company did not directly respond to requests for comment about the legal status of the Mobile Construction workers, but said in a statement that “since this issue was first brought to our attention, we have taken diligent steps, including the use of E-Verify at all of our properties and companies.”

“Those efforts continue and where an employee is found to have provided fake or fraudulent documentation to unlawfully gain employment, that individual will be terminated. Fortunately, among the thousands of individuals employed by our organization, we have encountered very few instances where this has occurred,” the statement said.

The White House declined to comment.

The president, who still owns the Trump Organization but has turned over day-to-day operations to his eldest sons, said last month that he does not know if it employs workers who entered the country illegally.

“Well, that I don’t know. Because I don’t run it,” Trump told reporters. “But I would say this: Probably every club in the United States has that, because it seems to me, from what I understand, a way that people did business.”

Since January, The Post has interviewed 43 immigrants without legal status who were employed at Trump properties. They include waiters, maids and greenskeepers, as well as a caretaker at a personal hunting lodge that his two adult sons own in Upstate New York. 

In all, at least eight Trump properties have employed immigrants who entered the United States illegally, some as far back as 19 years, The Post has found.

As president, Trump has launched a crusade against illegal immigration, describing Latino migrants as criminals who are part of an “invasion.” Such remarks drew renewed criticism after Saturday’s mass shooting in El Paso, which is under investigation as a hate crime targeting Mexicans and immigrants.

While poverty and violence have pushed thousands to leave Latin America, U.S. businesses that employ undocumented workers are also a major driver of illegal immigration, experts say.

By employing workers without legal status, the Trump Organization has an advantage over its competitors, particularly at a time when the economy is strong and the labor market tight, according to industry officials. Undocumented employees are less likely to risk changing jobs and less likely to complain if treated poorly. 

 “Nobody’s going to go and complain and say, ‘He’s not providing me with health insurance. He’s not providing me with this or that,’ ” said Alan Seidman, who heads an association of construction contractors in New York’s Hudson Valley, where Trump has a golf course. “They stay below the radar.”

The laborers hired by the Trump construction unit — several of whom live in suburbs north of New York City — are typically dispatched by Trump construction supervisors to different jobs, driving sometimes hundreds of miles to a golf course or resort, according to the current and former employees. Over the years, some passed weeks or months away from home, bunking in buildings at Trump’s properties, they said. 

Their supervisors have paid little attention to their immigration status, even after Trump launched a campaign built around the threat of immigrants and then used his presidency to crack down on border crossings, workers said. 

“If you’re a good worker, papers don’t matter,” Castro said. 

Trump interacted personally with some of the construction workers before he was president — greeting employees by name and commenting on minor details of their work, according to Luis Sigua, an immigrant from Ecuador who is still part of the crew. Sigua posted a photo in December 2014 on his Facebook page of himself standing on a golf course next to Trump, who is grinning and giving a thumbs-up.

Sigua declined to share his immigration status but confirmed that some members of the construction unit did not have proper documentation: “Some yes, some no.”

“Politics is nothing to me,” he added. “The work is everything.” 

'Nobody had papers'

Trump’s itinerant construction crew evolved from an outfit that used to be run by Frank Sanzo, an Italian American stonemason from Yonkers who met Trump in the late 1990s. 

Sanzo was building a stone wall at the Westchester County home of former New York Knicks basketball coach Rick Pitino when Trump stopped by to talk to him one day, Sanzo recounted in an interview last month at his home in Yonkers, N.Y.  

“I’m Donald Trump,” Sanzo recalled Trump telling him. 

“I know who you are,” Sanzo said he replied. 

Trump had purchased a country club out of foreclosure in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., in 1996 and began renovating the golf course and building dozens of homes and condominiums. The project required extensive masonry work to build the stone walls, chimneys and columns on the clubhouse and new homes. Sanzo said Trump hired him to oversee a crew of immigrants who worked on the project for several years.

Morocho said he was one of those laborers. He joined the crew of roughly 15 people in 2000. He said he earned $15 an hour, working Monday through Saturday.

“Nobody had papers,” Morocho said. 

In fact, Morocho recalled, Sanzo instructed the crew to buy fake Social Security numbers and green cards in New York so they would have something to put in the Trump Organization files. Morocho said he bought his papers for $50 in 2002. 

“Frank said, ‘You can go buy a social in Queens. They sell them in Queens. Then come back to work. It’s no problem,’ ” Morocho said. “He knew.”  

In 2002, Morocho recalled, New York labor union officials visited Trump’s Westchester golf club to see the construction site and Sanzo told the immigrant crew to hide for a couple of hours until they left. “We stayed behind some trees,” he said. 

In a phone interview this week, Sanzo said he did not remember Morocho.

When asked whether he told employees to buy fake documents, Sanzo’s wife, Bernice, interrupted: “How would Frank know where to get that stuff?”

Sanzo added, “They can get them on the street, too.” He did not directly address the question.

During the interview at his home last month, when asked about the legal status of his workers, Sanzo replied: “Most of my guys were legal.” 

He was interrupted by his wife. “Do not answer any questions, because it’s going to be misleading,” Bernice Sanzo admonished her husband. She told two Post reporters: “Trump was not involved in that, in the hiring. My husband was.”

“Most of them were legal,” Frank Sanzo said again.

He said he often hired immigrant workers who returned to their home countries and needed to be replaced and that he accepted the documents they gave him. 

“They gave me a social and a license. I put them on the payroll,” Sanzo said. “I don’t know if they were legal or not.”

The longtime stonemason, who retired in 2014 and is now blind, spoke fondly about his work for Trump and their trips together to Mets and Yankees games.

 Sid Liebowitz, who was the Trump Organization’s director of purchasing from 2004 to 2013, said he worked closely with Sanzo on many of his jobs — supplying materials, but not dealing with hiring or payroll. 

Although Trump often had very detailed input on Sanzo’s projects, Liebowitz said he believes Sanzo did not consult the real estate developer about his employees. 

“If he was hiring people that were illegal . . . Donald certainly wouldn’t know,” Liebowitz said. “Because Donald was in New York and Frank was traveling around the country.”

As Trump expanded his golf course holdings, he tapped Sanzo’s team to assist with rock walls, fountains and cart path bridges, according to building permits and former workers. The construction crew sometimes stayed for months on a property, bunking in buildings on-site or in Trump’s hotels, former workers said.

“I used to take the crew state to state,” Sanzo said.

At the Trump golf course in Sterling, Va., Sanzo’s workers built a $35,000 man-made waterfall with an observation deck overlooking the Potomac River in 2011, according to Loudoun County building permits. Building permits with Sanzo’s name also show his laborers built a $35,000 retaining wall and a $165,000 pool house for the club in 2011. 

Sanzo appears in a Trump Organization “before and after” video from 2015 that showed Trump’s son Eric discussing planned renovations for the Trump Winery near Charlottesville.

As part of that project, Sanzo’s team helped renovate the previous owner’s carriage house into a wedding venue and convert the estate’s main house into a boutique hotel, according former workers and winery employees. While on the job, the crew lived in a staff house inside the winery’s gated property, cooking their own meals, according to former workers. 

To the English-speaking bosses, Sanzo’s workers were reliable but largely anonymous. 

“I think they were Ecuadoran,” said one former manager at Trump’s Westchester club who recalled seeing them monthly and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “They were just known as ‘Sanzo’s crew.’ ”

In May 2015, as Trump began ramping up his presidential run, the construction crew got a new legal name: Mobile Payroll Construction, a new company that was registered by a Trump executive, according to corporate filings. The sole owner is Trump, according to his personal financial disclosures.

The workers said little changed except for their paychecks, which once came from other Trump entities and now came from Mobile Payroll Construction. A Trump Organization construction manager named John Gruber, who had taken over the team after Sanzo retired, continued as their boss. Gruber did not respond to requests for comment.

Early this year, amid news reports that Trump’s clubs employed workers without legal status, the Trump Organization began firing them from its golf courses.

Among those let go was Morocho, who by then had left the construction crew for a full-time maintenance job at Trump’s Westchester golf club.

But at Mobile Payroll Construction, there was no scrutiny of the workers’ immigration status, according to Castro. He said his bosses didn’t even mention it.

“It was like it didn’t happen,” he said. 

'Go to Bedminster'

Castro said an assignment would typically begin with a message from Gruber, dispatching him to golf clubs across the Northeast. 

“Hi Mr John happy New year,” Castro texted Gruber on Jan. 3, 2018. “Can you please let me know when I have to go back to work? Thank you.” 

“Happy New Year,” Gruber replied. “Go to Bedminster tomorrow.” 

Earlier this year, Castro asked Gruber for time off. 

“Good morning Mr John. I have a question for you. Can I take my other week of vacation,” he texted on April 12. 

“I need you to work next week,” Gruber responded.  

Before he joined Trump’s crew, Castro had been a banana farmer in an Andean village outside Cuenca, Ecuador. He said he left home in 2007 hoping to earn more for his wife and five children and hired a smuggler to ferry him across the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Three years later, in Miami, he found work doing construction for the Trump Organization through Sigua, a fellow Ecuadoran. 

 Castro said little was required to start working. His colleagues who were also undocumented, he said, helped him fill out the paperwork. When he was first hired in 2010, he said he initially provided the Trump Organization with a fake Social Security number. In 2015, he said, he gave the company a valid “Individual Tax Identification Number” issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

“They said that was sufficient,” he recalled. 

The IRS issues such ITIN numbers to documented and undocumented immigrants. Employers are instructed not to accept them as proof of legal status, said Anastasia Tonello, a New York attorney who is the head of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. 

“It doesn’t even check one of the boxes” for an employer verifying a new hire’s immigration status, said Tonello. If any employer accepted such a document, she said, “they wouldn’t be taking [the process] very seriously.” 

The U.S. government says that employers must accept only immigration and identity documents that “reasonably appear to be genuine.”

The laborers who worked for the roving construction crew were familiar with the style that Trump used at his properties. They knew which carpet Trump wanted in his ballrooms and that walls should be painted a certain shade of eggshell white that Trump had seen on a visit one day to Sanzo’s daughter’s home, according to Sanzo. 

 “You’re paying for the convenience of having these individuals that didn’t have to be trained,” said a former manager at Trump’s golf course in Colts Neck, N.J., who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy. 

By using in-house workers, the Trump Organization could also avoid some permitting costs on their project. And undocumented employees are less likely to demand better pay or jump to competing employers, industry experts said.

Trump “was saving a lot of money with us,” said Castro, whose paychecks show that he made $19 an hour beginning in 2016, which increased to $21 an hour in 2018. He said he did not get health insurance or other benefits.

Castro’s attorney, Anibal Romero, said he had filed a complaint with the New York Labor Department — and planned to file another with the federal Labor Department — alleging that Castro was denied some overtime wages and health benefits because he was undocumented.

Castro’s salary matches the hourly mean wage of stonemasons in the New York area, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But one former carpenter on Trump’s construction unit said he now earns twice his former salary doing similar work for a union crew. 

“The salary for that work was very low,” said the carpenter, who said that after working for Trump for 12 years — from 2006 to 2018 — his salary increased by only $5 per hour, to a final rate of $19 per hour. “That’s why I left.”

The work was often grueling: long hours under the sun laying bricks or breaking rocks or digging trenches. 

“To compare it to the company where I’m working now, this is much better,” said the carpenter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about Trump. 

But he said he values the skills and experience he gained. 

“To work in the Trump company, for me, I learned a lot,” he said. “When I started, I didn’t know much. I couldn’t even speak English.” 

Since Trump was elected, the pace of his company’s acquisitions and renovations slowed considerably. His properties also began relying more on outside contractors who would bring in their own employees, according to former members of the in-house crew. 

What used to be a crew of 25 to 30 workers has dropped to fewer than 10, they say. Trump’s construction crew now does mostly routine fix-it tasks or minor renovations, according to one current and two former construction workers. 

Sigua, who currently lives in Miami, said some weeks he does maintenance work at Trump’s National Doral resort, and then goes elsewhere.  

 “We don’t stay in one place,” he said.

 

[fraurosena]

Aha, this is why he's going off on 'Hollywood'.

[The link leads to Faux News, be mindful if you don't want to give them any clicks]

Trump slams Hollywood amid ‘The Hunt’ backlash: ‘Tremendous disservice to our country’

Quote

President Trump said Hollywood is doing a “tremendous disservice” to America as NBC’s Universal Pictures is set to release “The Hunt,” a film about privileged vacationers hunting “deplorables” for sport.

Trump discussed gun control and expanded background checks for gun owners during a gaggle outside the White House when he condemned the violence depicted in Hollywood blockbusters.

“Hollywood, I don’t call them the elites. I think the elites are the people they go after in many cases. But Hollywood is really terrible,” Trump said. “What they’re doing, with the kind of movie they’re putting out, it’s actually very dangerous for our country. What Hollywood is doing is a tremendous disservice to our country.”

Trump was presumably referring to “The Hunt,” which has been under fire since The Hollywood Reporter reported on Tuesday that the film “follows a dozen MAGA types who wake up in a clearing and realize they are being stalked for sport by elite liberals.”

Trump added that Hollywood honchos “treat conservatives, Republicans totally different” than they treat others.

NBC’s Universal Pictures did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The Hunt” has caused outrage, with critics calling it everything from “political violence” to “sick murder fantasies about right-wingers.” The backlash has resulted in numerous cable news segments and seemingly got the attention of the president.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, characters in the film refer to the victims as “deplorables,” which is the derogatory term Hillary Clinton infamously dubbed Trump supporters during the 2016 election.

“The Hunt” is billed as a satirical take on wealthy thrill-seekers taking a private jet to a five-star resort where they embark on a “deeply rewarding” expedition that involves hunting down and killing designated humans.

NBC Universal’s “The Hunt” is scheduled to hit theaters on Sept. 27.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

An interesting analysis of Dummkopf McLazynuts' schedule: "Trump’s not exactly a 9-to-5 president — especially on Fridays"

Spoiler

As he has dozens of times as president, Donald Trump cut out of work a bit early on Friday, walking out of the White House to board Marine One before flying to one of his private company’s resort properties for the weekend.

This Friday, Trump’s departure was a bit earlier than normal. He usually heads out to the helicopter at about 4 p.m. or so, forgoing that final hour of the typical American workweek. Why he has to leave at 4 isn’t clear. He takes a helicopter to a plane to New Jersey or Florida depending on the season. In other words, he’s not tying up rush hour traffic or anything, so why not just stick around until 5 like the rest of us?

I was curious just how often Trump is at the White House for what would, for the rest of us, be a normal workweek. How often, that is, was Trump at the White House at 9 a.m. on a Monday and then at 5 p.m. on a Friday?

The answer is: sometimes. Setting aside the week in which he was inaugurated and weeks in which he was traveling at the beginning of Monday or the end of Friday — even when that travel was to a campaign rally or to Camp David — I estimate that for 58 of 113 weeks he started Monday at work and finished Friday there, too. If he left after 5 p.m., I counted it as his working the full day. Nonetheless, in 55 weeks, he either wasn’t there on Monday or, more often, wasn’t there at the end of Friday. (In 21 weeks, he was traveling one or both of those days.)

Mind you, this doesn’t mean that Trump was sitting at the ol’ Resolute desk presidenting for all of that time. Usually, Trump’s official schedule begins well after 9 a.m., his mornings filled with “executive time.” He tends to have events past 5 p.m. with some regularity, but his official schedule nonetheless usually wraps up before the end of the day.

In fact, there has been no week that Trump has been president in which his official schedule began at or before 9 a.m. on Monday and ended at or after 5 p.m. on Friday. The closest was a week in which his first appointment Monday was at 9 a.m. and his final meeting on Friday began at or after 4 p.m. That was the week beginning Jan. 23, 2017 — his first full week as president.

Look, we understand that sometimes people don’t have to work on Mondays and Fridays. People take vacations. There are holidays.

But that’s not always why Trump isn’t around. He’s visited a Trump Organization property on 278 days as president, about twice a week on average. 159 of those days were weekends — meaning that 119 were weekdays. And no weekday was more common for a Trump visit than Friday.

(You can see a full calendar of Trump’s visits to his company’s properties at the bottom of this article.)

Being president is almost certainly a more stressful job than yours or mine. It involves being available 24 hours a day, no matter what happens. There’s no down time as president, really.

That said, Trump’s schedule has an awful lot of time built in that gets about as close to downtime as a president gets. That morning executive time — generally spent watching Fox News — and those numerous weekends spent in the familiar confines of his private resorts. On call all the time, sure, but any job in which you can manage a round of golf every 5.3 days, as Trump does, seems from a distance as though it can’t really be all that hectic.

By the way, when we say that he ducked out of the White House a bit early on this Friday? He left before 11 a.m. for some fundraisers in the Hamptons before heading back to his golf club in New Jersey.

 

[fraurosena]

I guess he got wind of David Fahrenthold's damning article that @GreyhoundFan posted above.

 

[fraurosena]

The sociopath in chief is now openly admitting his inhumane policies are purposely hurting children. 

 

[JMarie]

On 8/9/2019 at 2:58 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Is that the first time she's ever held a baby?

[fraurosena]

Another good one from David Frum at the Atlantic.

The Shame and Disgrace Will Linger

Quote

August 10, 1969: SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.—President Nixon accused his predecessor Lyndon Baines Johnson of complicity in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Speaking with reporters on the first day of a 10-day stay at his Pacific Ocean vacation home ….

Of course, that never happened. Obviously. How could it, how dare it? But had it happened, such an accusation—by a president, against a former president—would have convulsed the United States and the world. Today, President Trump accused his predecessor, Bill Clinton—or possibly his 2016 campaign opponent, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—of complicity in the death of the accused sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

Many seem to have responded with a startled shrug. What do you expect? It’s just Trump letting off steam on Twitter.

Reactions to actions by Trump are always filtered through the prism of the ever-more-widely accepted view—within his administration, within Congress, within the United States and around the world—that the 45th president is a reckless buffoon, a conspiratorial racist moron, whose weird comments should be disregarded by sensible people.

By now, Trump’s party in Congress, the members of his Cabinet, and even his White House entourage all tacitly agree that Trump’s occupancy of the office held by Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and Eisenhower must be a bizarre cosmic joke, not to be taken seriously. CNN’s Jake Tapper on August 2 quoted a “senior national security official” as saying: "Everyone at this point ignores what the president says and just does their job. The American people should take some measure of confidence in that.”

Everybody at this point ignores what the president says.

So even though Trump just retweeted the comedian Terrence K. Williams accusing the Clinton family of murder, the people who work for Trump may ignore that, too. They know that the president punches the retweet button like an addled retiree playing the slots through a fog of painkillers means nothing. The days of “taking Trump seriously, not literally” have long-since passed. By this point, Trump is taken neither seriously nor literally. His words are as worthless as Trump Organization IOUs.

But cosmic joke or no cosmic joke, Donald Trump is the president of the United States. You may not like it. I don’t like it. Mike Pompeo doesn’t like it. Mitch McConnell doesn’t like it. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t like it. But it’s still a fact, and each succeeding outrage makes it no less a fact. Grinning and flashing a thumbs-up over an orphaned baby? Yes, still president. Tweeting that a third-tier dictator has threatened him with more missile tests unless he halts military exercises with a U.S. ally——and that he has surrendered to that blackmail? Shamefully, still president. Accusing a former U.S. president of murder? It’s incredible, it’s appalling, it’s humiliating … but, yes, he is the president all the same.

Trump’s circle probably expects the world to sputter for a while and then be distracted by some new despicable statement or act. That is how it has gone for nearly three years, and that is how it is likely still to go. Trump is steering the U.S. and the world into a trade war and perhaps a financial crisis and recession along with it. He is wrecking the structure of U.S. alliances in Asia and his rhetoric is inciting shooting rampages against minorities. Compared to that, mere slurs and insults perhaps weigh lighter in the crushing dumpster-load of Trump’s output of unfitness for the office he holds.

But it shouldn’t be forgotten, either, in the onrush of events. The certainty that Trump will descend ever deeper into sub-basements of “new lows” after this new low should not numb us to its newness and lowness.

Neither the practical impediments to impeachment and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment process, nor the foibles and failings of the candidates running to replace him, efface the fact that this presidency shames and disgraces the office every minute of every hour of every day. And even when it ends, however it ends, the shame will stain it still.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From Max Boot: "Does Trump really want to debate mental fitness?"

Spoiler

President Trump projects so much that it’s a wonder he hasn’t gotten a job in a movie theater. At 6:44 p.m. on Saturday, about the time that normal people are getting ready for dinner, he tweeted: “Joe Biden just said, ‘We believe in facts, not truth.’ Does anybody really believe he is mentally fit to be president? We are ‘playing’ in a very big and complicated world. Joe doesn’t have a clue!”

Is this really the debate that Trump wants to have? Does he really want to have an argument about who is “mentally fit to be president” and who has a “clue” about what’s happening in the world? Because his own utterances of the past few days have confirmed what everyone who hasn’t joined his cult already knows: He is both unfit to be president and utterly clueless.

Just a few hours before launching his attack on Biden, Trump retweeted a comedian’s sick suggestion that the Clintons were responsible for the suicide of accused child molester Jeffrey Epstein: “Died of SUICIDE on 24/7 SUICIDE WATCH? Yeah right! How does that happen #JefferryEpstein [sic] had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead I see #TrumpBodyCount trending but we know who did this! RT if you’re not Surprised #EpsteinSuicide #ClintonBodyCount #ClintonCrimeFamily.”

So Epstein died in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons, which reports to Trump’s own attorney general, but it was the Clintons who were responsible? This is a reminder of all the other deranged theories Trump has promoted over the years, from claiming that Barack Obama forged his birth certificate to suggesting that Ted Cruz’s father helped kill John F. Kennedy. None of it, of course, make the slightest bit of sense. If the Clintons are so powerful as to slay their enemies, why weren’t they powerful enough to change 80,000 votes and defeat Trump in 2016?

To show how clueless Trump is, on Wednesday and Thursday he said he was thinking of pardoning former Illinois governor (and former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant) Rod Blagojevich, who is in prison on corruption charges. Trump claimed that Blagojevich was “treated unbelievably unfairly” by “the same gang, the Comey gang and all these sleazebags that did it.” Of course, as the Associated Press pointed out, James B. Comey “wasn’t in the FBI or anywhere in the Department of Justice during the investigation and indictment of Blagojevich. During that period, he was a vice president and general counsel at Lockheed Martin Corp.” But, hey, if the Clintons could cause someone’s death in a federal prison, why couldn’t Comey frame Blagojevich while in private practice?

Imagine what Trump would say about Biden’s mental fitness if the former vice president were promoting bonkers conspiracy theories like these? Or if he were saying half the things that Trump said at two Hamptons fundraisers Friday? According to the New York Post, owned by Trump’s confidant Rupert Murdoch, the president “made fun of US allies South Korea, Japan and the European Union — mimicking Japanese and Korean accents — and talked about his love of dictators Kim Jong Un and the current ruler of Saudi Arabia.” Trump was particularly effusive about Kim, reportedly saying, “I just got a beautiful letter from him this week. We are friends. People say he only smiles when he sees me.”

This is pathological. In his 2018 State of the Union address — i.e., only about 18 months ago — Trump rightly said “no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.” But now he thinks that he is carrying on a romance with that cruel dictator — who, like a teenager in love, “only smiles when he sees me.”

Needless to say, there is no evidence that Kim reciprocates Trump’s man-crush. In the past three weeks, North Korea has conducted five missile tests in violation of U.N. sanctions. Despite Kim’s vague promises of “denuclearization” at the Singapore summit in June 2018, North Korea has also continued producing fissile material for more nuclear weapons. And despite Kim’s promises when he met Trump at the DMZ on June 30 to restart negotiations, no working-level talks have convened.

But Trump continues to make excuses for Kim, even agreeing with him that military exercises between the United States and its ally South Korea are “ridiculous and expensive.” Trump appears to be more upset about the criticism of him from former aide Anthony Scaramucci on Bill Maher’s HBO show than he is about North Korea’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Biden is notorious for his malapropisms and mistakes, but he has never in his whole life said anything half as batty as what Trump has said just in the past few days. If we are judging presidential candidates on their mental fitness, Trump will be told by the voters: You’re fired! In fact, if Republicans were not in the tank, we would not have to wait until November 2020 to get rid of him. For the safety of the country and the world, Trump should be removed immediately by impeachment or the 25th Amendment.

 

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

From Max Boot: "Does Trump really want to debate mental fitness?"

  Hide contents

President Trump projects so much that it’s a wonder he hasn’t gotten a job in a movie theater. At 6:44 p.m. on Saturday, about the time that normal people are getting ready for dinner, he tweeted: “Joe Biden just said, ‘We believe in facts, not truth.’ Does anybody really believe he is mentally fit to be president? We are ‘playing’ in a very big and complicated world. Joe doesn’t have a clue!”

Is this really the debate that Trump wants to have? Does he really want to have an argument about who is “mentally fit to be president” and who has a “clue” about what’s happening in the world? Because his own utterances of the past few days have confirmed what everyone who hasn’t joined his cult already knows: He is both unfit to be president and utterly clueless.

Just a few hours before launching his attack on Biden, Trump retweeted a comedian’s sick suggestion that the Clintons were responsible for the suicide of accused child molester Jeffrey Epstein: “Died of SUICIDE on 24/7 SUICIDE WATCH? Yeah right! How does that happen #JefferryEpstein [sic] had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead I see #TrumpBodyCount trending but we know who did this! RT if you’re not Surprised #EpsteinSuicide #ClintonBodyCount #ClintonCrimeFamily.”

So Epstein died in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons, which reports to Trump’s own attorney general, but it was the Clintons who were responsible? This is a reminder of all the other deranged theories Trump has promoted over the years, from claiming that Barack Obama forged his birth certificate to suggesting that Ted Cruz’s father helped kill John F. Kennedy. None of it, of course, make the slightest bit of sense. If the Clintons are so powerful as to slay their enemies, why weren’t they powerful enough to change 80,000 votes and defeat Trump in 2016?

To show how clueless Trump is, on Wednesday and Thursday he said he was thinking of pardoning former Illinois governor (and former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant) Rod Blagojevich, who is in prison on corruption charges. Trump claimed that Blagojevich was “treated unbelievably unfairly” by “the same gang, the Comey gang and all these sleazebags that did it.” Of course, as the Associated Press pointed out, James B. Comey “wasn’t in the FBI or anywhere in the Department of Justice during the investigation and indictment of Blagojevich. During that period, he was a vice president and general counsel at Lockheed Martin Corp.” But, hey, if the Clintons could cause someone’s death in a federal prison, why couldn’t Comey frame Blagojevich while in private practice?

Imagine what Trump would say about Biden’s mental fitness if the former vice president were promoting bonkers conspiracy theories like these? Or if he were saying half the things that Trump said at two Hamptons fundraisers Friday? According to the New York Post, owned by Trump’s confidant Rupert Murdoch, the president “made fun of US allies South Korea, Japan and the European Union — mimicking Japanese and Korean accents — and talked about his love of dictators Kim Jong Un and the current ruler of Saudi Arabia.” Trump was particularly effusive about Kim, reportedly saying, “I just got a beautiful letter from him this week. We are friends. People say he only smiles when he sees me.”

This is pathological. In his 2018 State of the Union address — i.e., only about 18 months ago — Trump rightly said “no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.” But now he thinks that he is carrying on a romance with that cruel dictator — who, like a teenager in love, “only smiles when he sees me.”

Needless to say, there is no evidence that Kim reciprocates Trump’s man-crush. In the past three weeks, North Korea has conducted five missile tests in violation of U.N. sanctions. Despite Kim’s vague promises of “denuclearization” at the Singapore summit in June 2018, North Korea has also continued producing fissile material for more nuclear weapons. And despite Kim’s promises when he met Trump at the DMZ on June 30 to restart negotiations, no working-level talks have convened.

But Trump continues to make excuses for Kim, even agreeing with him that military exercises between the United States and its ally South Korea are “ridiculous and expensive.” Trump appears to be more upset about the criticism of him from former aide Anthony Scaramucci on Bill Maher’s HBO show than he is about North Korea’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Biden is notorious for his malapropisms and mistakes, but he has never in his whole life said anything half as batty as what Trump has said just in the past few days. If we are judging presidential candidates on their mental fitness, Trump will be told by the voters: You’re fired! In fact, if Republicans were not in the tank, we would not have to wait until November 2020 to get rid of him. For the safety of the country and the world, Trump should be removed immediately by impeachment or the 25th Amendment.

 

Speaking of mental fitness...

 

[fraurosena]

It's so easy to catch him out in his lies.

 

[formergothardite]

On 8/7/2019 at 10:27 PM, 47of74 said:

I just told both local hosptals that if something happens where I wind up a patient that Republican politicians are unwelcome in my fucking hospital room and there is no way in fucking goddamn hell that I will be used as a photo op / propaganda piece by these politicians.  And I said I'd have the licenses and jobs of anyone who thinks it a good idea to ignore my wishes. 

I've already told my husband and some of my sisters that by all means invite them to my room. Especially Donald Trump. Whip out their phone to record as I tell them all the things I've been wanting to say to their faces. Donald Trump especially would have some sort of a meltdown. He can't handle people saying mean things to him. 

[Curious]

Interesting turn of events, IMO.

Da Mooch just said that he no longer supports Trump for reelection and he not so subtly suggested that someone should "primary" Trump.

I'm not sure what happened over the weekend because I try not to watch any news during the weekend in my effort to break my CNN addiction, but I guess it was big... 

[formergothardite]

9 minutes ago, Curious said:

Da Mooch just said that he no longer supports Trump for reelection and he not so subtly suggested that someone should "primary" Trump.

The GOP won't let that happen. They know that despite his cult following, there are still lots of republicans who would like someone else. If there was another good republican candidate running there is a good chance Trump would lose the primary. Can you imagine who Trump would react if he lost the primary? His last months in office would be nothing but a giant temper tantrum. I doubt he would even stay in the White House. 

I do wonder what caused the Mooch to say this. Is something going on that hasn't been made public yet? 

Edited August 12, 2019 by formergothardite