The 2016 US Election (Part I)

[Mr Bean]

I'd fucking love it if he sued Trump's ass off for copyright infringement.

Chances are he can't, like many musicians he does not own his own music, he sold the rights off years ago and the campaign has purchased the play it in a public venue. Now if it were on me he'd can't say no because the song is old enough to be Public domain but again if you write a song it's yours for an entire lifetime plus seventy years.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's unfortunate.

Still nice to see him call out Trump for it.

[SpottedKitty]

Chances are he can't, like many musicians he does not own his own music, he sold the rights off years ago and the campaign has purchased the play it in a public venue.

If they did, it'd be one of the few times in modern US political history. It's become a "dog bites man" sort of regular news feature that a politician known for micromanaging everything about their campaign will use music hilariously badly suited to their purpose, by a musician virulently opposed to them and everything they've been well paid to act as if they stand for, and "somehow" "forget" to get permission and buy a licence.

Honestly, the only question at this stage is how bad the mismatch is between the candidate's politics and the actual words of the song. A stirring tune or a catchy chorus aren't enough; it's like no-one on the entire campaign team ever actually reads the words and goes

[Elheru Aran]

I look forward to The Donald's dropping out just before assets are declared and the next season of The Celebrity Apprentice.

Actually he went ahead and declared his assets up front... $9 billion. In his announcement, he said straight up, "I'm really rich". And then proceeded to call Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, "but some, I'm sure, are good".

Yeah... Jesus wept.

[Pelranius]

I look forward to The Donald's dropping out just before assets are declared and the next season of The Celebrity Apprentice.

Actually he went ahead and declared his assets up front... $9 billion. In his announcement, he said straight up, "I'm really rich". And then proceeded to call Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, "but some, I'm sure, are good".

Yeah... Jesus wept.

The question becomes, would he actually provide documentation for the $9 billion to the authorities? He has do to date in several months (120 days, IIRC, with extensions included).

I could see him dropping out after those 120 days, but I'd like him to stay until the convention.

[Soontir C'boath]

I'd fucking love it if he sued Trump's ass off for copyright infringement.

Chances are he can't, like many musicians he does not own his own music, he sold the rights off years ago and the campaign has purchased the play it in a public venue. Now if it were on me he'd can't say no because the song is old enough to be Public domain but again if you write a song it's yours for an entire lifetime plus seventy years.

Here is a Rolling Stones article that quotes the ASCAP stating he is allowed to take legal action. So while Trump may have paid for the right to use the song, his campaign did not however seek permission from the artist.

"Yes. If an artist does not want his or her music to be associated with the campaign, he or she may be able to legal action even if the campaign has the appropriate copyright licenses," ASCAP says. "While the campaign would be in compliance with copyright law, it could potentially be in violation of other laws, including "Right of Publicity" and "False Endorsement."

[KroLazuxy_87]

The Problem With Donald Trump's One-Page Summary On His Wealth

JUNE 17, 2015 1:46 PM ET
Peter Overby & Domenico Montanaro

Just how much is Donald Trump worth?

"I'm really rich," Trump declared during his presidential announcement Tuesday in New York at Trump Tower, one of the many buildings around the world donning his name.

But just how rich has always been a question. It was one before the real-estate mogul declared for president and, well, it remains a big question afterward, too, despite Trump holding up a one-page form declaring he is worth roughly $9 billion.

Trump has never liked to get specific about his wealth, but presidents and presidential candidates have no choice. Federal ethics law requires them to file annual disclosure reports, including a financial disclosure form 30 days after officially announcing.

"A lot of pundits on television said he'll never run," Trump boasted. "He's too private, and he's probably not as successful as everybody thinks."

And with that, he brandished his answer: a one-page "Summary of Net Worth," which he said was produced­ by his accounts and a "big accounting firm, one of the most highly respected."

The summary puts Trump's assets at $9.24 billion and his liabilities at just $503 million, giving him a net worth of just over $8.7 billion.

That's more than double an estimate from the Forbes list of billionaires, which pegged it at $4.1 billion. But, particularly at this level of personal wealth, the numbers released hardly tell the whole story. The one-page summary makes it difficult to unravel how the math is calculated. Specific buildings, real estate and holdings are not itemized, like they are required to be in a more detailed candidate financial disclosure.

The properties Trump owns can be assessed at book value — roughly speaking, the initial cost minus depreciation — or they can be assessed at fair-market value. The real-estate market can be volatile, and sometimes there are big gaps, especially if the real estate is Trump Tower and the Grand Hyatt hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Trump appears to be leaving millions of dollars on the table, a real-estate investment adviser said, by paying off his mortgage debt rather than using low-interest loans to leverage the real estate for reinvestment.

Another questioned whether the real-estate values might be overstated. Both advisers asked to speak on the condition on anonymity.

"There's not enough information to really understand it," said Frederick Chinn, an advisor at the Atalon Group in Henderson, Nev. "There are a lot of questions I would have just looking at the statement."

Then there's the value of the Trump brand. Trump's statement judges his "real estate licensing deals, brand and branded developments" to be worth $3.3 billion.

But to Forbes, the brand is worth less than $300 million, said Anand Chokkavelu, managing editor of the Motley Fool investing website Fool.com.

"I side with Forbes," Chokkavelu said. "I don't see any reason to take his self-reported net worth at face value."

Trump has a July 16 deadline for filing the official disclosure. He said he would do it on time.

"Everything will be filed eventually with the government," Trump declared at his announcement, "and we don't [need] extensions or anything. We'll be filing it right on time. We don't need anything."

There are legal liabilities for misreporting. Although the feds can grant deadline extensions, Fox News might not. It has a Republican debate scheduled Aug. 6, and candidates must file if they want to participate.

But even when a candidate files a more detailed disclosure, accuracy is hard to nearly impossible to enforce, watchdogs warn. Newt Gingrich in 2011, for example, filed a disclosure that did not list his paid speeches or television analyst contract. They were lumped in with income from Gingrich Productions, obscuring the details.

"Once you throw your hat in that ring, there's a bunch of laws that are supposed to apply to you, not all of them are enforced with the same level of rigor," Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, told NPR's Joel Rose. "And the financial disclosure is one of those areas where candidates have a lot of leeway to fudge the numbers."

The released summary page is viewable at the source site.

[Pelranius]

Well, if he actually submits a net worth figure of around $4 billion to the FEC, would the exact figure be made public, or just a range like $5 billion - $10 billion?

As I recall, the listing for Congress members usually was in a ballpark range of like $100,00-500,000, $1 million to $5 million, and so forth.

[Dalton]

Trump is polling high at the moment, but his anti-Mexican comments will bite him in the ass. Univision is already bailing out of the Miss USA pageant.

[Dalton]

Trump has been dumped by Univision, NBCUniversal, Ricky Martin, Miss USA, Miss Universe...

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, it's looking like Trump is quite possibly going to flame out soon. There are also some questions being asked about just how closely Jeb Bush is *not* working with his PAC...

[Dalton]

Scott Walker filed
Jim Webb announced
Kasich will announce

DEM: 5 (plus also-rans)
Chafee
Clinton
O'Malley
Sanders
Webb

GOP: 16 (plus also-rans)
Bush
Carson
Christie
Cruz
Fiorina
Graham
Huckabee
Jindal
Kasich
Pataki
Paul
Perry
Rubio
Santorum
Trump
Walker

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump's campaign posted an image of an American flag over Trump's face, the White House, money, and soldiers. Tasteless but fairly representative of what the GOP values. But there's a big twist- the soldiers were Nazi soldiers (or at any rate reenactors). Yes, really.

Rapid backtracking to the effect that it was just an intern who did it followed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wo ... tes-tweet/

Excerpt from the article:

On Tuesday, Donald Trump (or, should we say, Donald Trump's Twitter account), tweeted one more plug for the GOP presidential candidate's campaign.

#MakeAmericaGreatAgain, the hashtag read. Then came an image of the American flag, the stars resplendently laid over a portrait of Trump gazing sternly at something, the stripes over motifs of American triumphalism: cash money, the White House, and soldiers.

[How Mexico is going to make Donald Trump pay]

An all-caps caption declared: "We need real leadership. We need results. Let's put the U.S. back into business!"

Except, there was a problem. As Twitter users quickly pointed out, the soldiers in the bottom-right of the image were not American. They weren't even from an Allied military. They were German World War II soldiers.

Edit: I'm not sure weather this is one of the most absurdly bad mistakes I've ever seen in a campaign or an unusually honest but chilling admission of what the GOP is coming to resemble.

[Gandalf]

As blunders go, that's unfortunate. I would think Trump could hire better PR guys.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah. I mean, I've heard of candidates making fools of themselves, but glorifying Nazi soldiers in the name of America, even by accident, takes it to an unusual level.

Though honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a deliberate move for publicity. Trump is an attention whore. This gets him attention with plausible deniability.

[bilateralrope]

As blunders go, that's unfortunate. I would think Trump could hire better PR guys.

Wouldn't that involve paying them ?

[SpottedKitty]

Edit: I'm not sure weather this is one of the most absurdly bad mistakes I've ever seen in a campaign or an unusually honest but chilling admission of what the GOP is coming to resemble.

We know what he's like over here; a few years ago, he rammed through the construction of a shiny new golf course and resort, over considerable local (and some national) objections. I think the whole boondoggle still isn't completed to the original design. Then he pitched a fit and threatened to take his ball and go home at the hideous idea of a proposal for an offshore wind farm that would completely and utterly spoil the view. Yes, we know what he's like.

Absurd? No question. Bad? So very, very much.

Mistake...?

[Borgholio]

As blunders go, that's unfortunate.

And yet totally in line with what we know to expect from him.

[Pelranius]

Not just any German WWII soldiers, they were Waffen SS.

Trump never did go for half measures.

[The Romulan Republic]

God damn. His campaign actually glorified the fucking SS as American heroes? That's... so twisted and fucked up that its actually kind of funny (presuming that it was, in fact, unintentional).

[Napoleon the Clown]

Trump's campaign complains it was an intern's fault.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Trump's campaign complains it was an intern's fault.

Ah, what Sir Humphrey would call "The Charge of the Light Brigade Excuse." It's halfway between hilarious and terrifying when British satirical TV from the late 70's approximates modern American political figures.

[Elheru Aran]

Trump continues to make a stink by insulting John McCain.

Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, on the other hand, are getting protested at a discussion by a bunch of 'Black Lives Matter' hecklers.

So far it's just the usual bread and circuses...

[Thanas]

God damn. His campaign actually glorified the fucking SS as American heroes? That's... so twisted and fucked up that its actually kind of funny (presuming that it was, in fact, unintentional).

I do however think that the image of the Waffen-SS is how quite a lot of GOP people want their soldiers to look. You know, not-minorities, sexy uniforms and always ready to attack another country without question.

[FaxModem1]

Ted Cruz compares himself to James T. Kirk, says that Kirk would be a Republican, while Picard would be a Democrat.

MSNBC

Ted Cruz: ‘Star Trek’s Captain Kirk was probably a Republican
07/23/15 11:38 AM—UPDATED 07/24/15 10:43 AM
facebook twitter 2 save share group 143
By Benjamin Landy
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz offered some surprisingly strong opinions on the politics of “Star Trek” in an interview published Thursday in The New York Times Magazine, arguing “it is quite likely that Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat.”

“Let me do a little psychoanalysis,” Cruz says when asked about the fictional space captains from the landmark 1960s television series and its ”Next Generation” follow-up, which aired some 30 years later. “If you look at ‘’Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ it basically split James T. Kirk into two people. Picard was Kirk’s rational side, and William Riker was his passionate side. I prefer a complete captain. To be effective, you need both heart and mind.”


“Kirk is working class; Picard is an aristocrat.”
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TEXAS)
The Republican presidential candidate also waded into the politics of the “Star Trek” franchise, which has been praised for its progressive outlook on racial and gender relations, beginning with the original series, which broke ground with a diverse cast, humanitarian plot lines and television’s first interracial kiss.
“The original ‘Star Trek’ was grittier,” Cruz suggests. “Kirk is working class; Picard is an aristocrat. Kirk is a passionate fighter for justice; Picard is a cerebral philosopher. The original ‘Star Trek’ pressed for racial equality, which was one of its best characteristics, but it did so without sermonizing.”

RELATED: Ted Cruz: ‘Religious liberty’ under attack

This isn’t the first time Cruz has speculated about the political leanings of one his idols. Last month, he claimed that former President John F. Kennedy “would be a Republican today.” Cruz argued that because Kennedy was “one of the most powerful, eloquent defenders of tax cuts,” there was “no room” for him in the modern Democratic Party.

Cruz, who chairs the Senate subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness, also noted that he is “more of a Spider-Man guy” when it comes to comics and that he prefers Han Solo to Darth Vader, despite his infamous impression of the “Star Wars” anti-hero on the Senate floor.


William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in the original “Star Trek” series, responded to Cruz later on Thursday afternoon, tweeting that putting “a geocentric label on interstellar characters is silly.”
“Star Trek wasn’t political. I’m not political; I can’t even vote in the US,” said the actor, who was born in Canada. At least he and Cruz have that in common.

I don't really know how to respond to this.