Trump's Coming Revenge

[Eighthman]

Sad to see Trump slipping.  However, he will have one solid piece of revenge.

The death of mass media.

Now, the mainstream media IS dying.  The big newspapers (NY Times, Washington Post) are losing money.  Public trust in the media are at an all time low.  Network TV ratings just dropped by double digits. However, the broad and ceaseless exposure of Clinton corruption - all while they acted as cheerleaders - will accelerate their collapse. And it's not going to end with the election.

If people want news, they will be driven to alternative media as never before, by default.  Bending and manipulating public opinion will become ever more difficult without the rotten mass media around.  What's the point of praising the 1st Amendment if journalists simply whore themselves?

[space otter]

revenue you say?..he's already getting it

Trump's Campaign Might Not be Winning, But His Hotels Sure Are
New campaign filings show big payments to Trump properties in New York, Las Vegas and Washington.
10/28/2016 12:02 am ET | Updated 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON ? Donald Trump's campaign may not be winning the presidential race, but it did a fine job this month of providing business to his hotels.

Trump's new hotel in Washington received $13,432, according to new Federal Election Commission filings late Thursday. His hotel in New York City received $18,014. And his hotel in Las Vegas was paid $79,044.

The FEC filings cover the first 19 days of October and do not specify precisely what services were provided. The Trump campaign did not respond to The Huffington Post's queries.

The payments for the New York hotel were over a number of days and were described as "lodging." The Las Vegas total was a single payment made on Oct. 17, and may have been for the campaign's visit to the city for the third presidential debate on Oct. 19. It also was described as lodging.

The payment to the new Washington hotel at the Old Post Office site, a few blocks from the White House, also was made on Oct. 17 and was for "rental/catering services." The hotel hosted a Sept. 16 Trump press briefing that turned into a tour of his property.

Trump held a "grand opening" ribbon-cutting ceremony there on Wednesday that was far more elaborate. Its costs, though, do not have to be disclosed until the FEC filing that's due a full month after the Nov. 8 election.

Trump's campaign further paid $8,544 to his golf resort in Potomac Falls, Virginia, and $6,040 to his son Eric Trump's winery in Charlottesville, Virginia.

These payments were on top of his monthly rental payments of $9,000 to the Trump Plaza and $169,758 to Trump Tower. The Trump Tower rent jumped fivefold in July over what it had been for most of the campaign, even though the number of employees working there has no more than doubled.

That rent increase coincided with the signing of a joint fundraising deal with the Republican National Committee that started sending Trump tens of millions of dollars in donors' money for the first time.

Trump's staff has justified his insistence on using his personal Boeing 757 jet and renting campaign office space at Trump Tower despite the attendant high costs because of his $2 million per month contribution to his own campaign. (The Clinton campaign rents two floors in a Brooklyn Heights office building at a per-square-foot rate that's a fraction of what Trump pays.)

But Trump so far in October has contributed zero cash to his effort ? only $31,000 of "in-kind" contributions in rent and payroll, meaning office space and staff he was already paying for, but which now is being used for campaign purposes.

Trump has claimed he'll wind up spending $100 million of his own money on his race. But so far, the actual total is only $56 million, according to the FEC filings. To hit $100 million, Trump would have to spend $44 million in the remaining days before the election.

...........................

Trump directs nearly one-fifth of his money to his own businesses

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump has directed nearly one-fifth of his campaign cash to companies that are part of his vast business empire, new federal records show.

Trump, hurting for cash after he suddenly stopped self-funding his campaign last month, has mixed his public campaign and his private ventures for nearly the entire 2016 race. He has promoted Trump products at campaign events, publicly litigated a federal civil suit he's facing over Trump University on talk shows, and, this week, will bring the political press to Scotland for a tour of a Trump golf course.


And it shows in his latest campaign finance report, filed Monday: Trump-linked businesses account for 17% of all campaign expenses to date. He's paid almost $11 million to Trump organizations since launching his campaign a year ago.
The setup shows how unusual Trump's campaign is -- presidential candidates generally don't own buildings or resorts in multiple states or companies that could be used as contractors.

He's paid $420,000 to Mar-a-Lago, the private Florida club where Trump has led many an Election Night celebration, and $4.6 million to TAG Air, so he can use his private jets. Even about $5,000 to Eric Trump Winery Manufacturing LLC, the Virginia producer owned by his son.
That spending has created fodder for Hillary Clinton.


....................................

Trump Living Large On Donors' Dime
The GOP nominee's campaign is spending lavishly on Trump businesses instead of cheaper alternatives.

WASHINGTON – On the night of this spring's Florida primary, the pastor giving the invocation at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago victory party prayed: "Lord, give Mr. Trump the power to rise above the GOP establishment."

Turns out the prayer worked. Not only did Trump win the Republican presidential nomination, but two months later, on May 18, Trump signed a deal with the Republican National Committee giving him access to a top-notch fundraising operation after not having had one at all through the primaries.

That same day, Trump's campaign, now set to receive tens of millions of dollars of other people's money, finally sent five- and six-figure checks to Trump's properties for events that had happened months earlier. Meaning that the GOP establishment had not only been defeated, it was now actually paying for that March 15 victory party attended primarily by members of Trump's Palm Beach country club.

Any way you slice it, this level of self-dealing looks bad. It looks like a candidate who is pocketing donors' money.
Paul S. Ryan, Campaign Legal Center
In all, just shy of $1 million went out the door on May 18. More than $600,000 of that went to Trump-owned businesses, with $423,000 of it going to Mar-a-Lago alone, which hosted that March 15 party, an earlier one on March 1 and a news conference on March 11.

It's unclear from Federal Election Commission filings what other expenses, if any, that payment covered ? it is listed as "facility rental/catering," and the resort does not appear to have hosted any other campaign events. Trump's campaign would not provide an explanation. Had Trump instead chosen to hold those events at the nearby West Palm Beach Marriott, he likely would have spent no more than $45,000 for all three, based on its estimates for catering the number of people who attended his parties.

What's more, the two-month delay in reporting those expenses may have violated Federal Election Commission rules, which require an expense to be disclosed in the same reporting period ? in Trump's case, in the same month ? as it was incurred, said a campaign finance law expert.

It's such a scam.
Stuart Stevens, former aide to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney
"It doesn't look right, even if it is legal," said Paul S. Ryan from the Campaign Legal Center watchdog group. He called Trump's heavy spending on his own properties "unprecedented" and said the timing of the payments is curious. "Any way you slice it, this level of self-dealing looks bad," he said. "It looks like a candidate who is pocketing donors' money."

Increased scrutiny of Trump's spending patterns could not come at a worse time for the developer-turned-reality-TV-star-turned-presidential nominee. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has announced that she and her party raised $143 million in the month of August, a figure that could dwarf the amount pulled in by Trump and the RNC.

Both anti-Trump Republicans and RNC members supporting Trump said most GOP donors probably don't know the details about how Trump's campaign is spending their money.

"I think they're only vaguely aware," said Florida strategist Rick Wilson. "It's Putinesque."

"It's such a scam," added Stuart Stevens, a top aide to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

One RNC member and GOP donor, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to antagonize the nominee, offered this joking defense of Trump's propensity to spend campaign dollars at his own properties: "Great business guy."

RNC Donor Money Meant A Windfall For Trump Businesses

It is the new prominence of donors' money that casts Trump's campaign spending in a radically different light since the signing of that joint fundraising agreement in May. Even as Trump has skimped on traditional expenses like campaign staff or advertising, he has spent campaign money lavishly on his own businesses.

During the primaries, Trump paid about three-quarters of his campaign expenses out of his own pocket, with much of the rest coming from the sale of hats and other campaign merchandise. But since the Republican Party turned over its fundraising operation to him, Trump's own contributions to his campaign have fallen off while money from donors, both large and small, has accounted for the bulk of what is spent.

In the final months of the primary campaign, Trump's own money accounted for 82 percent of the campaign's cash. Since securing the nomination, that figure is down to 12 percent.
In the final five months of the primary campaign, when Trump sensed that the party establishment was trying to prevent him from winning the nomination, he spent an average of $7.6 million of his own money each month. In the three months after locking down his nomination, he has kicked in an average of $2.6 million, with only $2 million in July, the last month on file.

In the final months of the primary campaign, Trump's own money accounted for 82 percent of the campaign's cash. Since securing the nomination, that figure is down to 12 percent, according to a Huffington Post review of FEC filings.

And with that dramatic shift to donors' money has come a dramatic increase in the number and size of checks flowing to Trump's businesses.

Prior to that May 18 deal, Trump had sent only a single five-figure payment to one of his golf clubs: $25,927 on Jan. 26 to Trump National Doral in Miami, where he had earlier staged a rally. Since the deal was signed, there have been a half-dozen such checks.

Trump's golf club in West Palm Beach received $29,715 on May 18. The only campaign event there was an election night "victory" party on March 5. His golf club in Jupiter received $35,845, while the only campaign event at that location was the victory party on March 8, where he displayed "Trump" steaks and other products. Both were attended mainly by dues-paying members of his clubs, rather than staff and volunteers, as is common with most campaigns as a way to reward them for their work.

Trump Restaurants LLC, which operates eateries in Trump Tower, also got a May 18 check for $125,080 for unspecified "rent and utilities."

But the biggest winner on that date was Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, which received $423,372, even though the only campaign events at the property appear to have been the two victory parties and the news conference announcing the endorsement of former rival Ben Carson, all in the first two weeks of March.

The biggest winner on that date was Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, which received $423,372.
The Trump campaign would not provide any information on what other services may have been provided for all that money, despite repeated requests from The Huffington Post and an initial promise to look into the payments.

The preference for spending big at his own properties has continued since the RNC fundraising deal was signed. On July 29, for example, Trump's campaign paid $48,240 to his golf club in Briarcliff Manor, New York, for "facility rental and catering." The only campaign event there had been Trump's June 7 party celebrating his wins in California and New Jersey that formally gave him enough delegates for the nomination.

And Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, received $21,330 on June 30. The only campaign-related events that appear to have taken place there in that time period are meetings between Trump and would-be vice presidential candidates.

A Pattern Of Needless, Excessive Spending

In all of these cases, Trump chose his own properties and likely spent substantially more than he would have had he chosen nearby venues.

For the March 5 and March 8 victory parties, for example, Trump instead could have held the events at the West Palm Beach Marriott, only 5 miles from one of his Palm Beach County golf clubs and 15 miles from the other. It would have cost the campaign about $15,000 for an open bar and light hors d'oeuvres for about 200 people, the approximate attendance at those events, according to a catering manager at the hotel.

Instead of spending $48,000 at his club in Westchester County, New York, Trump could have used a ballroom at the Westchester Marriott 9 miles away. The likely cost there: approximately $20,000, said that hotel's director of catering.

Renting hotels or banquet halls is what campaigns typically do for victory parties ? and it is what Trump has done when he owns nothing nearby. His celebration of his New Hampshire primary win on Feb. 8, for instance, was catered by The Yard restaurant in Manchester and took place at its affiliated banquet facility a few hundred feet away. Trump's FEC filing for that period shows that the restaurant was paid $15,574 the following day.

Trump's preference for expensive venues that he happens to own has also extended to his campaign airplane.
Trump's preference for expensive venues that he happens to own has also extended to his campaign airplane: his 25-year-old 757 jetliner that, thanks to its older, less efficient engines, burns some $10,000 in fuel every hour. That helped Trump rack up among the highest travel costs of all the presidential candidates, despite having kept one of the lightest campaign schedules.

If Trump had used his smaller Cessna business jet (he does, on occasion, when his destination does not have a runway long enough to accommodate the 757), he could have cut his $5.6 million in private air travel costs thus far in half.

While general election candidates typically do switch to using chartered airliners, they have defrayed the costs by letting their traveling press corps fly with them and then billing them for their share of the expense. Trump, instead, has flown only with a few staff members, with the media flying in a separate chartered jet.

Trump's fondness for returning to his Manhattan penthouse every night has also added to his expenses. Instead of staying overnight on the campaign trail, Trump has almost always flown back to New York – spending on average tens of thousands of dollars in jet fuel rather than a few thousand dollars for a block of hotel rooms.

These large, needless expenses mirror the nearly fivefold rent increase Trump began charging his campaign for office space at his Trump Tower in Manhattan, even as his campaign staff actually shrank from its primary season peak.

For more than a year, Trump's campaign workers had been using spare space on the building's fifth floor – a few rooms that once had been a back office for the set of "The Apprentice," which starred Trump. With its unfinished ceilings and makeshift drywall partitions, the space would have been difficult if not impossible for Trump to rent to paying tenants.

But Trump could have used space on the 15th or 17th floors that the building had actually had on the market during that period, but chose not to ? that is, until the RNC deal was signed. At that point, the campaign moved into larger quarters, including the 15th floor, and ramped up its rent payments from $35,500 a month to $170,000 a month.

After The Huffington Post published a report about the rent increase, the campaign said that it had to up the rent because it planned to hire more staff in the coming weeks. But over the time of the rent increases, Trump's staff actually decreased before slightly increasing again. At the end of July, it still remained below its high point in March.

In any event, Trump could have chosen much cheaper office space in New York. The going rate in his midtown neighborhood is about $70 per square foot annually, compared to the $90-$120 per square foot that Trump Tower charges.

Or Trump could have gone to Queens or Brooklyn for his campaign headquarters, like the Clinton campaign did. It rents two floors in a Brooklyn Heights office building for about $32 per square foot.



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Money Flows Down Ballot as Donald Trump Is Abandoned by Big Donors (Including Himself)
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and RACHEL SHOREY
5 hrs ago


With Donald J. Trump facing a potential rout at the hands of Hillary Clinton, a river of cash from some of the Republican Party's biggest donors has begun to flow down to Senate and House races in the final days of the 2016 campaign.

Disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday revealed tens of millions of dollars in late donations and transfers to Republican "super PACs" focused on down-ballot races, suggesting a significant last-ditch effort to protect Senate and House candidates against Mrs. Clinton's surge. Relatively little new money has come into outside groups supporting Mr. Trump.

And Mr. Trump appears to have lost the support of his biggest donor: himself.

Mr. Trump contributed no cash and just $31,000 worth of rent and staff salaries to his campaign in the first three weeks of October, a fraction of the $2-million-a-month self-funding pace he had set since winning the Republican presidential nomination.

As of mid-October, according to the disclosure, Mrs. Clinton was raising $2.8 million each day and had $62 million in her campaign account, four times as much as Mr. Trump.

"I hear that people are concerned that Hillary's going to be president, so you'd better get Republicans in the Senate so you have a firewall," said Stanley Hubbard, a Minnesota billionaire who became one of the country's biggest Trump donors this year. "I think people are done giving. It's too late."

Thursday's filings are a clear sign that the Republican establishment has all but abandoned Mr. Trump — a painful concession that Mrs. Clinton's electoral advantage may be insurmountable. And the biggest beneficiaries are Republicans in the Senate and the House, who have been goaded by Democrats in recent weeks to declare allegiance to the Republican nominee or renounce him.

In the first three weeks of October, ESA Fund, a super PAC tied to the family of Joe Ricketts, the TD Ameritrade founder, took in $5.5 million, more than half of it from Mr. Ricketts's wife, Marlene. The group's advertising in that time has focused on the Senate races in Louisiana and New Hampshire and a House race in Nevada.

The Wisconsin roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, whom Mr. Trump named to his economic policy council in August, poured $4 million this month into a lesser-known group called the Reform America Fund. The super PAC's chief focus in the past two weeks has been attacking Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator who is seeking to reclaim his old seat from Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin.

And the Senate Leadership Fund, a group closely tied to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, took in $18 million during the first three weeks of October, much of it transferred from an affiliated nonprofit group that does not disclose its donors. On Thursday night, the group announced that it had taken in an astonishing $25 million during the past week; the source of that money will remain secret until after Election Day.

"For the past few weeks, Democrats have been pouring money down ballot as they appear to view the presidential race as being in the bank," said Ian Prior, a spokesman for the Senate Leadership Fund. "Fortunately our donors were willing to saddle up and ride into the final battle of the election to try and hold the Senate, even against tough odds."

Democrats have also enjoyed a late surge of money into groups supporting Senate candidates. Senate Majority PAC, a group founded by former aides to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, reported raising $19.2 million during the first three weeks of October, much of it from wealthy liberals who are also investing in Mrs. Clinton's campaign.

The group is resuming advertising in Florida, where the Democratic Senate candidate, Representative Patrick Murphy, has struggled in recent weeks against Senator Marco Rubio.

"With the success of our fund-raising, we're able to put additional resources into the state," said Susan McCue, the group's co-chairwoman.

The few conservative billionaires who rallied around Mr. Trump appear to have closed the spigot. Rebuilding America Now, which took in $4.4 million from a few wealthy Republicans in September, raised $214,000 in the first weeks of October. Make America Number 1, a super PAC controlled by the family of the New York investor and multimillionaire Robert Mercer, raised just $25 — which seems, at first glance, like a typo by Mr. Mercer's standards.

His family was influential in revamping Mr. Trump's campaign over the summer, but Mr. Mercer has invested barely any money in his own pro-Trump PAC since July.



looks like the s s trump is sinking and the heavy money is jumping ship...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[zorgon]

looks like the s s trump is sinking and the heavy money is jumping ship...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Nah that is just more media Huffing and Puffing

The Donald is going to sweep the country

Nothing amyone says right now has any meaning   When it comes to the crunch, it's the numbers that will soon tell us the real picture  UNLESS of course the electoions REALLY ARE RIGGED... then we have no chance anyway

But I am willing to bet the actual results are gonna be a landslide... and many that say they won't vote for him are just saying that but will in reality pick him

My Dragon says so And he is really KEWL

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

Wife and I did early voting today.

TRUMP...

[RUSSO]

Wife and I did early voting today.

TRUMP...

Prophetic? A lot of truth from this 80's classic...

Brewsters Millions - "None of the Above":