biz MAN business
920 belated
myth of rational indep self-made man, robber baron iron man musk edgelord? ~ you didn’t build this BO good old boy pseudo-pop origin stoey BS
see billionaire pluto 3
SEE CRONY CAPIL
see meritocracy nepotism trump romney? kushner....
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intersting jdv does not play i am biz man card b/c hedge fund hated? but elon is savior see waste fraid and ineff BS
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10/23/24 MMA
Wayne Allyn Root and Kari Lake push conspiracy theory that opponent’s campaign is funded by “the Mexican drug cartel”
Root: “This is not clean money. This is dirty money in small amounts, they keep it under the radar.”
Written by Eric Hananoki
Published 10/23/24 1:23 PM EDT
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root claimed during an interview with Arizona Republican Senate nominee Kari Lake that opponent Ruben Gallego’s campaign is getting “their money” from Mexican cartels through his estranged father. Lake replied: “Yep, absolutely. The cartels are in operational control here in Arizona.”
The conspiracy theory is false. After Lake made similar remarks on Newsmax with right-wing host Greg Kelly last month, PolitiFact examined the claims and wrote: “Gallego’s father has been largely absent from Gallego’s life since Gallego was in junior high school and his parents divorced” and “there’s no evidence that Gallego has ‘links to the cartel’ because of his father’s criminal history. Lake’s campaign provided no evidence to support that claim.”
Root is a right-wing conspiracy theorist who recently forwarded the conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene was the result of weather manipulation and said that “everyone involved should be tried for treason. Kamala, [Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas, they all should be tried for treason.”
During an October 18 interview with Lake, Root pushed a conspiracy theory “that the Democrat Party's being funded by China and the Mexican drug cartel because they do so many favors for them,” such as drug and human trafficking.
He then said of Gallego: “Your opponent, his dad, is a convicted member of the Mexican drug cartel, drug dealing syndicate. So, I mean, it's pretty obvious to me where they get their money from, Kari. This is not clean money. This is dirty money in small amounts, they keep it under the radar.”
Lake replied: “Yep, absolutely. The cartels are in operational control here in Arizona.”
Video
CitationFrom the October 18, 2024, edition of Real America Voice's America’s Top Ten Countdown with Wayne Allyn Root
KARI LAKE: It's a tight race, though, because my opponent, as you mentioned, has spent about $100 million in his money and his friends' money attacking me and then painting him in a false light where he's absolutely not what he says he is. You wouldn't believe how much they've lied about this guy's background. I mean, his whole story is a lie, just like they've lied about Kamala’s background. Yeah, you know, he said he lived in a one room apartment and slept on the floor when, in fact, he actually lived in a kind of a nice suburb in a middle class home. And he didn't sleep on the floor. He said, you know, that his dad dabbled in drug dealing. Well, turns out his dad was a convicted felon, Mexican drug trafficker, really much more high up on the cartel food chain.
And so it makes you wonder why he's been voting to empower the cartels with his open border votes. It really does make you wonder, especially as we're watching the cartels smuggle drugs in — fentanyl is pouring in through Arizona, killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. We're looking as these drug and narco terrorists smuggle human beings and traffick children. And he has supported that every step of the way, and it's starting to make more sense when you find out about his background.
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: You know, I talk about it all the time on my show. I'm a businessman and I always give 10% finder's fees to anyone who brings me a deal, right? Sometimes even 15%. I just got a giant deal yesterday and somebody asked for 20 and I said, I'm going to give 15. And we argued and we settled on 15.
My point is, I believe that the Democrat Party's being funded by China and the Mexican drug cartel because they do so many favors for them. They leave the border open. That's how the fentanyl gets in, that's how the sex trafficking, that's how the human trafficking. Everything they do helps China, helps Iran, and helps the Mexican drug cartel. So that's why the money is flowing to Democrats, and now you've got a new low in Arizona.
Your opponent, his dad, is a convicted member of the Mexican drug cartel, drug dealing syndicate. So, I mean, it's pretty obvious to me where they get their money from, Kari. This is not clean money. This is dirty money in small amounts, they keep it under the radar.
LAKE: Yep, absolutely. The cartels are in operational control here in Arizona, and it's really frightening.
Root promoted his interview with Lake by writing: “Watch my TV interview with Kari Lake, the next US Senator from Arizona...if it's not rigged & stolen from her AGAIN.” (Lake is an election denier who has falsely claimed to be the “lawful governor” of Arizona.)
Media Matters has documented that Lake, who has also been a right-wing commentator, has relied on conspiracy theorists and extremists for political support.
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bb 9 24
JD Vance described the cabinet position from which Elon "Leon"Musk will direct a brain trust to save social security from "migrants" and fix the DOD.
In what appeared to be a momentary break from disparaging asylum seekers in the US, JD Vance found his way back to disparaging "migrants" as somehow responsible for the social security fraud that he also imagines. The answer to this is noted Pedo Guy Leon Musk. Following his disastrous re-imaging of "X," most Americans will likely not choose to have Leon fix social security.
Shawn Ryan: Let's talk about government reform.
JD Vance: Yeah.
Ryan: So, it looks like Elon's going to be on the cabinet.
Vance: That's right, yeah.
Ryan: And will be in the charge on the government efficiency department.
Vance: Yep.
Ryan: If that's what you call it.
Vance: Yep.
Ryan: How do you see? How, have you spoken to him about the plan? How he's going to do it?
Vance: Well, I've spoken. You mean with the president or with Elon?
Ryan: With Elon.
Vance: Ok, yeah, with Elon. So, I've spoken with Elon a little bit about it and um, you know, I think that the way that this is envisioned is you set up a, you know, you set up an organization with very smart people from the private sector and a few smart people from government and you go in and you say, 'How are we going to fix all of these inefficiencies?' And the thing that's complicated about this, man, is it's going to look much different in say the Department of Defense versus Social Security, right?
via MTN
Previously:
• Leon Musk complains there is not enough assassinating going on
Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde had state Republican leaders pose as "everyday Wisconsinites" in a series of recently released ads, according to Heartland Signal.
“I hear stories like Kathy’s far too often,” the GOP Senate hopeful wrote in an August 21. "Wisconsinites are struggling to get by because of Biden, Harris, and Baldwin’s policies."
Per Heartland Signal, the "woman referred to as 'Kathy' talks about grocery bills and car payments being 'more expensive under Joe Biden and Tammy Baldwin.'"
READ MORE: 'Who cares?' GOP candidate downplays bank he chairs getting 'money from foreign governents'
Furthermore, in another video published on August 26, "a woman referred to as Nancy'" according to the report, "endorses Hovde’s 'plan to lower costs' and 'protect our health care.' Hovde says that 'Nancy is ready to retire Tammy Baldwin and get our country back on track!'"
The woman is "Nancy Kormanik, who is listed as a board member for the Republican Party of Waukesha County on the organization’s website," Heartland Signal reports.
Watch the video below or at this link.
READ MORE: Control of the Senate will likely come down to this deep-red state
an 6 24
the handful of U.S. Senate races that will decide partisan control of the upper chamber of Congress will come down to whether voters go with battle-tested, highly experienced Democrats or wealthy Republican political neophytes self-funding their campaigns, according to a new report.
On Wednesday, online news outlet NOTUS reported that the Republican Party's inability to fund Senate challengers' campaigns with small-dollar fundraising means the GOP is now depending on multimillionaire candidates to stay competitive with Democrats. Republican Senate primary winners in battleground states have mostly been businessmen with no prior experience in elected office, like Eric Hovde in Wisconsin, Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania, Bernie Moreno in Ohio and Tim Sheehy in Montana.
"We’ve focused on recruiting candidates who are really strong fundraisers or who are capable of making a personal investment in their campaign to try and close the money gap," an unnamed Republican aide told NOTUS.
READ MORE:**Busted: GOP Senate candidate running on rural roots grew up 'three miles from a Trader Joe's'**
Another unnamed senior GOP strategist speaking anonymously to NOTUS told the publication that the Republican Party' "shrinking small-dollar base has left it scrambling" in order to field competitive Senate candidates. The strategist added that the GOP's small-dollar donor base continues to shrink with every election cycle.
"You’re not going to make it up from there, so where are you going to do it?” the strategist said. “And that leaves you with people who have their own funds.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which is the GOP's Senate campaign arm, has still raised nearly $134 million for the 2024 cycle, according to Ballotpedia data as of April 30. That's more than the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) $116 million. However, the DSCC has $41 million in cash on hand compared to the NRSC's $36 million. And Democratic Senate candidates in battleground states still have a significant money advantage over their Republican candidates.
In 2024, Republicans need a net gain of just two Senate seats in order to retake the majority. with Sen. Joe Manchin (I-West Virginia) retiring in a state that's voted for Republican presidential candidates in the last six consecutive elections, that effectively means the GOP needs just one Democratic-held seat to flip. And with multiple Democratic candidates in red states like Montana and Ohio running for another term, the Senate could flip to Republican control by ousting Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) or Jon Tester (D-Montana). The difference may come down to campaign cash.
READ MORE:**These 10 U.S. Senate seats are most likely to flip in 2024**
In the 2024 cycle, Tester has raised more than $36 million, and still has $11 million in cash on hand according to Opensecrets. Brown is similarly flush with cash, having raised more than $39 million with nearly $16 million on hand. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), who is running for a fourth term this fall, has raised an impressive $23 million with almost $12 million still available to spend this cycle. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) is still sitting on more than $10 million in cash on hand with more than $26 million raised so far.
According to Cook Political Report, Republicans are outside of the margin of error in the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Senate races, meaning they'll be leaning heavily on Montana and Ohio in their effort to win back the Senate majority. Latest polling averages show Baldwin and Casey are nearly 10 points ahead of their Republican opponents. RealClearPolling figures show Brown leads Moreno by approximately five points in Ohio, and Tester has a similar lead over Sheehy in the Big Sky State.
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2024 race
an 4 24
businessman Tim Sheehy, who is running for US Senate in Montana, has been hyping his rural connections to voters on the campaign trail. But a new report suggests Sheehy is actually a product of suburbia.
Farm life is a mainstay of Montana. US Census records show that the Big Sky State has the nation's fifth largest concentration of rural residents (behind Vermont, Maine, West Virginia and Mississippi), with 46.6% of its residents living in remote areas. Incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana), who is running for a fourth term this November, is a bona fide lifelong rancher who lost several fingers in a farming accident as a child. So Sheehy has been trying to persuade voters of his rural credentials, saying in a 2023 interview that he "grew up in an old farmstead... surrounded by farmland."
But according to the Daily Beast, Sheehy's upbringing in Minnesota was actually in "a multi-million-dollar lake house in Shoreview, Minnesota, a quiet Twin Cities suburb just north of St. Paul with a population of roughly 27,000."
READ MORE:**These 10 US Senate seats are most likely to flip in 2024**
"According to a 1990 deed, Sheehy’s childhood home on Turtle Lake is 13 miles from the Minnesota State Capitol, 13 miles from the home of the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium, and just over 20 miles from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America," the Beast's Riley Rogerson wrote. "The property sits just three miles from a Trader Joe’s market—much closer than the nearest Fleet Farm, a fishing, hunting, and farm supply store popular in the state."
The Beast further reported that Sheehy claimed the Shoreview home as his residence as recently as 2016, before his parents ultimately sold it for more than $2 million the following year. Rogerson described the community as "a desirable slice of middle to upper-middle class suburbia with quiet spaces and good schools." Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who authored The Great Gatsby, was educated at the nearby St. Paul Academy, the same exclusive private school where Sheehy graduated.
"Niche, a popular online source for school rankings and community reviews, called Shoreview 'one of the best places to live in Minnesota' and even bestowed the community with the distinction of '#1 Best Suburb to Buy a House in Minneapolis-St. Paul Area,'" Rogerson wrote, adding that residents described Shoreview as "the stereotypical suburb."
This isn't the first fib Sheehy has told about his upbringing. Last November, the GOP senate hopeful, who runs an aerial firefighting business, said on a podcast that when launching his company, he and his wife "bought our land, and we lived in a tent, literally, for months, and we built the barn that we lived in for four and a half years. And it was like bootstrap central." However, the Beast reported that his parents actually provided him with a $100,000 loan to get his business venture off the ground.
READ MORE:**GOP Senate candidate running on 'bootstrap' narrative got 6-figure investment from his parents**
The Montana US Senate race is one of the most hotly contested elections this November, and could decide which party controls one half of the legislative branch for the next two years. Tester is the only remaining Democrat representing the Big Sky State in any statewide office, and he has amassed an impressive war chest in his bid for another six-year term. OpenSecrets reports that in the 2024 campaign cycle, Tester – who chairs the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee — has raised more than $24 million.
Sheehy also trails tester in polling. RealClearPolitics' polling average has Tester ahead by more than five points in a head-to-head matchup with Sheehy, and he has not trailed in any previous poll conducted thus far. Montana remains a GOP stronghold, however, and former President Donald Trump is heavily favored to carry the state in November, having easily won it with comfortable majorities in both 2016 and 2020.
Click here to read the Beast's full report (subscription required).
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Don't Let Trump Fool You - He Doesn't Have an MBA from Wharton
January 11, 2018
President Donald Trump likes to brag about having gone to the Wharton School of Finance, a school known for their elite MBA program. As it turns out, however, Trump never got an MBA from the school.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-is-using-the-tricks-of-reality-tv-against-a-and-its-not-going-well/
it’s hardly new or revelatory to say this, but it’s critical to remember the role that “The Apprentice” played in turning Donald Trump, a notoriously bad businessman with a string of bankruptcies, into an American icon of capitalist success. Everything from careful editing to set designers giving the dreary Trump Organization offices a glow-up came together to create the illusion of success where only failure and mediocrity had been before.
It was an experience so profound for Trump that he did something highly unusual: He learned something. He absorbed the idea that a well-constructed illusion of competence gets you all the benefits of being accomplished, without having to do the hard work of actually achieving anything.
Unfortunately, it was a lesson we are all paying the price for now.
On Thursday evening, the New York Times published an exposé about how the Trump White House forced the CDC to publish dangerously misleading coronavirus testing recommendationson its website. the new “guidance said it was not necessary to test people without symptoms of Covid-19 even if they had been exposed to the virus,” Apoorva Mandavilli writes, noting that actual public health experts at the agency strenuously objected because the virus is often spread by asymptomatic people and vigorous testing is crucial to preventing that.
It’s not hard to see that Trump’s reality TV instincts fueled this effort to discourage coronavirus testing. Trump has made clear from the beginning of this pandemic that he would prefer to leave as many coronavirus cases on the editing-room floor as possible, and he thinks the best way to do that is to keep people from getting tested. Trump truly believes that the best way to get coronavirus numbers down is not by preventing people from getting infected in the first place, but by hiding the true number of cases and juking the stats.
Even during this week’s town hall hosted by ABC News, Trump asserted this belief, claiming that the only reason the U.S. has more 20% of the world’s coronavirus cases (despite having only 4.5% of the world’s population) is that “we do much more testing.”
Of course, the U.S. also has more than 20% of the world’s deaths, a fact that exposes that Trump’s instincts aren’t just immoral, but wrong. Those dead Americans tell the real story of what’s happening, and no amount of trying to monkey with the numbers is going to change that.
Trump is also playing the reality TV game with the vaccine. He has been dropping hints for weeks, reality TV-style, that there will be a shocking and heartwarming twist right before the election, which he clearly views as the penultimate episode of this “season,” in which he will dramatically unveil the vaccine that will save us all and also ensure his re-election. He’s even used CDC resources to prop up this insinuation that the big vaccine reveal is coming, right in the nick of time.
“You could have a very big surprise coming up,” Trump said in a press conference last week.
“We’re going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special date. You know what date I’m talking about,” he added. Gee, I have no idea. What date could he possibly mean?
It’s doubtful that Trump cares, one way or another, that he’s making empty promises. In reality TV, it’s normal to hype some big revelation to lure in viewers for the next episode, only to produce some anticlimactic nothing-burger. All that matters is sucking people in, not delivering them what was promised.
Trump’s playing the same game here. He doesn’t care that there won’t be anything close to a readily available vaccine this year. He just wants to hype that idea long enough to somehow scrape out an election victory, legitimate or otherwise, at which point he’ll not only abandon the idea entirely, but most likely interfere with the process of getting one safely on the market.
But of course, trying to deceive people about their own health and lives isn’t just reality TV sleaze. It’s a deeply immoral gambit that appears to have given the CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield, a minor crisis of conscience. At least Redfield he wasn’t willing to lie to Congress flat out, and told the obvious truth that even if a vaccine is approved this year, it probably won’t be widely available until the middle of 2021. He also encouraged mask-wearing, even though Trump seems to think every mask applied to a face is an eff-you personally directed at him.
Trump, as usual, reacted poorly to someone trying to pierce his poorly constructed illusion of competent leadership. He responded by claiming that Redfield had “made a mistake” and offered “incorrect information.”
This is just another example of Trump treating the leaders of important government institutions not as if they were public servants, but as if they were TV producers whose main job is to clean up Trump’s image, cover for his ignorant mistakes and odious statements, and present him to the public as the brilliant statesman he absolutely is not.
Much has been written about the hard work that it took for the team on “The Apprentice” to conceal Trump’s repugnant personality and mediocrity as a businessman.
“What we did, that was a scam,” Bill Pruitt, a former producer on “The Apprentice,” said in the Netflix documentary “The Confidence Man,” which explored how the people behind that show used TV magic to make Trump seem smart and accomplished.
“If you walked around Trump’s actual office in Trump Tower you’d see the wood’s chipped, and what’s that smell?” Pruitt added, noting, “It wasn’t the empire we were going to have to sell to people. We needed to gussy it up a bit. And we did.”
“Most of us knew he was a fake,” Jonathan Braun, another producer, told The New Yorker. “But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.”
In a 2017 essay about “The Apprentice,” New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum wrote that “the Trump of ‘The Apprentice’ receives endless praise, even behind his back. All scandal and debt are erased; Trump’s combative streak is alchemized into Daddy’s tough love.”
For Trump, being a fake success is better than being a real success. For one thing, it’s less work. For another, it feels like cheating the system, and Trump loves to believe he’s doing that. So even with the death toll from the pandemic closing in on 200,000 Americans, Trump still clings to this notion that he doesn’t need to actually do anything about it. He just wants someone to come in and edit reality to make it look like he’s doing something.
While it was undeniably hard work for the team at “The Apprentice” to present this false image of Trump-the-competent-businessman, they at least had the benefit of being able to contain the illusion within the rectangular frame of the TV screen.
The real world, it turns out, is too big to be captured and controlled in an editing bay. Trump’s increasingly futile efforts to make the pandemic disappear through reality-TV antics keep running up into the biological realities of people who get sicker and sicker, wind up in hospital ICUs and then on respirators, and then die. Trump can’t hide that his management of this crisis has been a total failure, and on some lizard brain level, he seems to understand that he’s unpopular. That’s why his next big gambit is to try to replace the real election, which he would almost certainly lose, with a fake one where he’s declared the winner.
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