Posted on 01/22/2016 10:38:17 AM PST by Albion Wilde
Today, The National Review magazine, for decades the must-read monthly of the conservative movement, has published a yellow journal worthy of the best discourse Facebook has to offer. This formerly revered publication, founded and edited by William F. Buckley, Jr, was the premier resource for conservative commentary from 1955 until the illness and retirement of its renowned leader in the mid-2000s.
The New York polite society of pious, trust-fund Ivy Leaguers who formed the backbone of the founding editorial staff had given National Review an air of the lamp-lit gentlemen's club: leather wing chairs, green velvet wall coverings, cigars and brandy in front of the fireplace tended by a person of color, harumphed opinions about "the liberals" -- informed by the pages of The National Review. NR's brand of conservatism was infused with an air of social (and therefore moral) superiority. Yet Buckley, along with the unlikely intellectual partner Ronald Reagan, would provide the intellectual correctives to a post-WWII nation infatuated first with liberalism, then radical Marxist progressivism. Under Buckley's editorial narratives, conservatism became a movement.
Writers such as Ludwig von Mises, Whittaker Chambers, Russell Kirk and Auberon Waugh once graced NR's pages, followed by the likes of Robert Bork, Francis Fukuyama, Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak, Tom Wolfe, John Derbyshire and other crafters of deeply informed opinion. NR and NROnline today, led by Rich Lowry, are struggling to survive in the era of New Media. NR thought its best strategy during the 2007 McCain/Obama contest was to run cover after cover depicting -- who? -- Barack Obama, while the articles inside timidly criticized his candidacy. Any streetcorner vendor can tell you, as he watches an increasingly attention-starved work force stream by his magazine stand morning and evening, what catches the eye is now the message; those pesky little words, not so much.
Few of today's regular contributors except perhaps for Dennis Prager, Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson have garnered name recognition solely on their strengths as writers in the New Media conservative audience, who are experiencing the steady erosion of all that America once promised to those who would work hard and seize opportunities to advance. As the ground beneath them is eroded by the hardened generation of anti-authoritarian narcissists produced by the demise of the traditions, demographics and conservatism that Buckley's editorial heirs have failed to stand athwart, National Review's lead editorial staff have turned to face their own small tent -- and pee'd inside.
The current issue has killed trees and sucked bandwidth not to encourage a new generation to the benefits of conservatism, not to debate the issues as issues, not to promote the best their favored candidates have to offer, but rather to tear down the personality and aspirations of the undisputed leader in the polls of the disenfranchised American middle class, the ones who are flocking by the tens of thousands per event to hear him speak. The aggregate number of Donald Trump campaign rally attendees has, over a six-month span, long passed the million mark. His tweets and Facebook hits stagger the Internet. He has accomplished the "big tent" of fanpersons from all walks of life that the ailing Republican Party has long dreamed about; yet the Party and the National Review despise him for it.
NR and NRO have this week tarnished their brand with 22 mean screeds against The Donald, making it personal. They aim to shame their readers: Trump isn't good enough, smart enough or, doggone it, likeable enough, according to their antique, hypocritical standard of repressed emotions and unspoken agendas, such as projecting onto the guy who has lived the American Dream the blame for the impending death of their genteely elite vision of America -- the elites whose religion was slipping from dominance as early as the 50s and needed to be robustly defended by intellectual Constitutionalism; the elites who spoke of equality under the law but lived in unequal up East enclaves.
To be fair, this smarmy issue of their once respected magazine might cost Trump a few hundred votes.
William Buckley, speaking in 1967 of The National Review's policy towards elections, said, "Our guiding principle has always been to select the most conservative viable candidate...The wisest choice would be the one who would win... the most right, viable candidate who could win."
With the margin so razor-thin and the stakes so catastrophic against the Democrat Party's entrenched big tent of anti-Constitution, anti-Christian, anti-life, anti-sovereignty and pro-repressive movements dominating a dumbed-down, entertainment-addicted, financially gutted electorate, any challenger under the Republican banner deserves a fair review, but is too valuable to slime, even if his politics are only just conservative enough to place-hold while he saves this nation from ruin.
NR could have found what's to love in every Republican candidate whom The People say could win, and showcased their best ties to conservatism. Yet in the face of Trump's overwhelming viability -- his robust poll numbers, demonstrable energy for the tasks ahead, financial independence, courageous dismissal of political correctness, incisive diagnosis of the problems facing us, long experience as a dealmaker in the realms of power and industry -- and believing that they still have time to reject the half-a-loaf that's better than none -- Buckley's heirs have just published the sound of entitled heads exploding.
O-kay. I have no idea what your question was about so it will have to remain a mystery.
Yup.
Rick Santorum is my candidate, he is polling less than 1% for the nomination, and he would be unelectable in the general election.
Curiously, I do not support Santorum because of his religious and cultural views, but because he is the only candidate who understands that massive LEGAL immigration is an existential political threat to American Conservatives.
If Ted Cruz is nominated, I will vote for Cruz, but only because it might slow down the Republican suicide for a couple years if he is elected president.
Tragically, in his heart, Cruz is a George W. Bush Republican on the issue of immigration.
That should surprise no one since Cruz helped to write GWB’s immigration platform in 2000.
The park bench statue seems to reflect his personality more, I think.
please do not ping me with this
You wrote:
Trump's four bankruptcies are Chapter 11 of Title 11 under the United States Bankruptcy Code. ALL the investors, and ALL the vendors, take a financial haircut in Chapter 11. Why else would they be in court? Sometimes the unsubordinated bondholders come out whole.
As to your first statement, your tone reads as an accusation that Trump is trying to defraud today's voters that his bankruptcies were something other than the type that is used for business reorganization. Many posters on this Forum unknowingly confuse Chapter 11 with personal bankruptcy (Chapter 7), which they consider a moral failure. But Trump's were the Chapter 11 type that are limited to that particular business entity, in this case the Trump Taj casino in Atlantic City.
Chapter 11 reorganizations go through the court to, in effect, renegotiate the expectations of the creditors with regard to such things as setting negotiated timelines for repayment, placing limits on interest penalties, controlling what may or may not be seized, and keeping creditors from fighting with one another while the business entity files a plan with the court to continue operating, paying employees, paying off debts and attempting to revive the business -- or at least keep the losses from making a worse collapse in which losses would be greater for all concerned. Trump used part of his personal wealth and relinquished some of his ownership stakes in the business as part of the repayment and reorganization deal.
The business magazine Forbes has been tracking Trump's career for decades, often using him as a poster boy for business stories, good and bad. They are not particularly on his side, and have been newsworthy for estimating Trump's personal net worth a great deal lower than he says (which they recently revised upward from their former lowball guessimate). The following link is their story, which contains terms the layman can understand about the four Ch 11 restructurings. It was written in 2011, well before Trump's current campaign:
Fourth Time's A Charm: How Donald Trump Made Bankruptcy Work For Him
Some of the salient quotes from that article are:
"He has never filed for personal bankruptcy -- an important distinction when considering his ability to emerge relatively unscathed, at least financially."While the bankers may have had some of their anticipated profits reduced, there is never a guarantee to investors that every business will work out perfectly. Reorganization meant that the employees kept their jobs, and the creditors got not only some of their money back, they may have received most of their capital back (I did not read the financials) but may have had to forego a portion of interest, or an "on paper" loss of anticipated returns due to the longer timeline for repayment -- I don't know. But investing always involves risk, and the question is whether he acted in good faith, or rather set out to defraud, to fail or to cheat investors. None of the latter seems to be the case, or he would not have been able to go on as he has.
"'The first bankruptcy was the only time his personal fortune was at stake,' said Ted Connolly, a Boston bankruptcy lawyer who used Trump as model for getting out of debt in his book The Road Out Of Debt: Bankruptcy and Other Solutions to Your Financial Problems. 'He learned from it.'"
"...said Reed Smith partner Michael Venditto, who has represented clients in high profile Chapter 11 cases... 'Chapter 11 is how you reshape and restructure a company that has problems. It doesn't indicate anything nefarious or even bad management.'"
"It's better than the alternative.
"More important, said Venditto, are the repercussions Chapter 11 might have for creditors versus, say, liquidation. 'You can have a visceral reaction to the fact that this company has gone through Chapter 11 multiple times, but the bondholders look at it and the alternatives are much, much worse. What is an empty casino sitting on the Atlantic City boardwalk worth? If it's operating and it's got cash flow and income, it may not be able to pay back every cent on the dollar, but the creditors are better off in the long run.'""Atlantic City lawyer Viscount doesn't believe Donald Trump himself should be held accountable for any of his company's bankruptcies -- his creditors, he said, knew what they were getting themselves into when they lent Trump money over and over again. 'They're all big boys and girls,' he said. 'They've all played this game before, in the insolvency space... What does that tell you? People want to lend him money. He does grandiose things with it.'"
"...Viscount doesn't think Trump has misused the system at all. 'Chapter 11, in my view, is the ultimate business transaction forum,' he said. 'It's the place you go to keep a business alive and well. He's done nothing inappropriate.'"
As to the criminal fraud investigations, since Trump was not prosecuted or convicted, I thought it was obvious that there was "another side to the story." However, how many previous presidential candidates have you supported who were investigated for criminal fraud?
None other than McCain, to my knowlege. I do not know what criminal fraud investigations you refer to, and not being his biographer, I didn't look them up, and you didn't provide a citation, so that's another reason I called your post "on the level of gossip."
I do think several presidential candidates probably should have been. Hillary leaps to mind; and Bill Clinton's Whitewater scandal was a huge part of his campaign. LBJ was accused of massive voter fraud in his political career on the way to the U.S. Senate, IIRC -- there's a detailed account of it in a 4-volume biography by Robert Caro. And I did read that Bill Clinton had to pay $850,000 to Paula Jones for sexually harassing her, and he was also disbarred, which astonishingly hasn't seemed to faze much of the public; nor have they held him to account for the credible accusations of sexual harassment and even of rape that the victims were, in turn, harassed for making by Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton's brother did some shady deal; George W. Bush's brother Neil and John McCain were accused of being in a deal involving bank improprieties, and only the brother seemed to suffer legal punishment for it, not McCain -- but I may be misremembering.
Do I think that gives others a free pass? It doesn't. But from everything I read about the Trump Atlantic City property that has caused all four of the Ch 11 reorganizations, I cannot say that Trump set out to defraud others -- he seems to have very much wanted it to succeed and I'm sure the bad press and stress concerned him greatly -- he has said as much.
Given that he has some 30 other hotel or tower buildings under management and about 7 or 8 golf resorts, this one lemon in Atlantic City was a valuable learning experience relatively early in his career that probably made him much more skilled since then. Thomas Edison spoke about the necessity to fail, even fail many times, before he succeeded in creating the light bulb and recording devices that have revoltutionized the entire world. Failure isn't always totally bad.
As to Trump's voting record, it is authentic. Unfortunately, you failed to read my Comments on that thread. I consulted the original article published by the Daily Mail, which was not the article posted at Free Republic. The "R" does not stand for Republican. The "R" under "Ballot Type" stands for "Regular." The "R" under "Voter Type" stands for "Registered."
Thank you for clarifying the "R"s in the voting record graphic. I will not therfore use it as an illustration any more. It's unfortunate again that you told me I "failed" to read your comments on it on another thread, to which you had not pinged me nor provided a link. I'm not a mind reader, and do think your "tone" could have been less judgmental in that regard. If you can find in in your past pings, I'd appreciate a ping to that thread in which you cited the source as DailyMail.
In your earlier post 232 you wrote,
Four of his companies have filed for bankruptcy protection. In spite of being a billionaire, Trump has made no attempt to pay back the investors and vendors who lost money in those companies."
As the above article and many other articles about the Atlantic City bankruptcies make clear, Trump did indeed pay in large sums of money into the reorganization, including selling his yacht and shuttle plane (which he also used for business) and surrendering shares in the company. So your claim is, as I noted, on the level of common gossip and not researched, accurate or fair.
Also from post 232:
Between 2000-2012, he quit, joined, or re-joined three different political parties six times... Sorry - I don't believe a word the man says.
Again, you write "no attempt", "not a word the man says" -- these are absolute, black-and-white statements that cannot logically or factually be true. He has obviously said many words that even you believe. What your form of expression shows is an unwillingness to look at phenomena below the level of an immediate visceral reaction, as described in the quote from attorney Venditto in the Forbes passages above. As that expert indicated, one can't always draw hard-an-fast conclusions at a glance.
Here is today's Cruz-supporter FR thread about his changing political parties, something I have also done when I was doing business in large cities and then moved to another large city, in order be able to compete for municipal business. How I voted (R) was private. He was a businessman, not a politician:
Who is Right about Donald Trump's Political Party Affiliations?
I'm not going to speculate here on Trump's reasons, but many details of why these changes may have been so are stated or implied in a number of biographical pieces on the net. Long story short, are you voting for a party? An ideology? A person? Or a platform?
Trump seems to fall into the latter two categories. I support him because those who upheld the banner for the party and the ideology for the past years since Reagan, and even Reagan to some extent, have steadily eroded the first two to an unrecognizeable state; and have left the country in ruins either by omission or commission. We are in a grave crisis now and our country needs what corporations call a "turnaround artist"; someone who is a problem-solver, a planner, a builder, a negotiator, a hard nose.
Content yourself with knowing that if he fails as president, it won't be perceived as a failure of Republicanism or of conservativism, although I think he is quite conservative in many regards.
Then again, if he fails as president, and even if he fails to get nominated or elected as president, it won't much matter -- there won't be much of anything left for conservatives to conserve. To me, at present, Trump seems to be the man for a time such as this.
It was a one-time thing, this article; so no problem!
Blessings,
I agree! It must be fun for Penn Students. They honor him with the traditional enthroned figure on a high pedestal in the University's oldest main square, but it must be so great for them just to sit beside him on that sidewalk bench for inspiration.
That's incorrect, Albion. Here is my first statement to you:
“Four of his companies have filed for bankruptcy protection. In spite of being a billionaire, Trump has made no attempt to pay back the investors and vendors who lost money in those companies.”
I never said a word about personal bankruptcy.
As to surrendering part of his personal wealth and exchanging part of his ownership for unpaid debts, he could have done that BEFORE anything went to court. But he did not do that. Instead, the courts had to ORDER him to surrender personal wealth and to exchange equity for unpaid debts.
Re: “But investing always involves risk, and the question is whether he acted in good faith, or rather set out to defraud, to fail or to cheat investors.”
No, that's not the question. In other posts you have praised Trump's business skills, and you have suggested that only someone like Trump can rescue America's fractured finances. Sorry, I disagree. Any politician who has been sued for fraud, and settles out of court, and does not release the full details of that settlement, is instantly suspect in my mind.
Re: “While the bankers may have had some of their anticipated profits reduced...”
Re: “...the creditors got not only some of their money back, they may have received most of their capital back...
Albion, it costs millions of dollars to file for a Chapter 11 corporate restructure.
If the bankers had just lost interest, if the other creditors had received most of their payments, these four cases would have NEVER gone to court.
Re: “I do not know what criminal fraud investigations you refer to...”
In 2002, the SEC investigated Trump for misleading claims in a corporate financial statement.
In 2013, the New York AG investigated Trump for fraud at Trump University.
In the late 70’s and 80’s, Trump was questioned several times by different agencies about his alleged financial relationship with New York area organized crime families.
Re: The “R” issue
The voting record graphic you posted is identical to the graphic posted on the Free Republic post I debunked several days ago.
I assumed you got that graphic at the exact same Free Republic post I read and commented on.
The posted article I read had the Daily Mail link at the bottom. Apparently, I was the only person at Free Republic who had enough curiosity to read the original.
Re: “Between 2000-2012, he quit, joined, or re-joined three different political parties six times.”
2000 - Quit GOP - Joined Reform - Sought Reform’s presidential nomination.
2004 - Quit Reform - Joined Democrats - Sought Democrat presidential nomination
2006 - Sought Democrat nomination for New York governor
2012 - Quit Democrats - Re-joined GOP - Briefly sought GOP presidential nomination
Bottom Line - Do you and the other Trump supporters here at Free Republic have any idea what the election professionals in the Democrat Party and the MSM are going to do Trump in the general election just with the few issues I posted about in this Comment?
I can see you have never been in business. That would have been a catastrophic move. There were so many people involved; it needed to be a negotiated settlement with clear terms spelled out for everyone.
I think that he has come through the fire, and his skills are what we need. You don’t use a pickax and shovel to clear a mountain of debris any more, you use a big, nasty, powerful earth mover. He is a paradigm shifter who sees things others can’t see and then addresses and redevelops them. He is tough. He is a man in a world of terrible, horrible enemies, and he wants to protect us. Had one of his towers fallen down due to faulty engineering and cheap materials, killing thousands, I would say your pecksniffing would have some merit. But no, he has planned hundreds of projects dealing with the absolute and real powers of nature, physics, earth, wind, electricity, water, materials, construction, and engineering, and has succeeded at those parts brilliantly. You want to throw the baby out with the bathwater because the baby peed in the bath?
Any person of means is going to be attacked, and often, by others wanting his money, even if it is government agencies — are our regulators’ hands any cleaner than the rest of our government? New Jersey is one of the dirtiest, most corruption-ridden states in the nation outside of Chicago. You think he could achieve success without people trying to take him down, and if they do, that it’s all because of him, not because of them? This isn’t Victorian times, when the barest accusation of wrong-doing, even if it is dead wrong, could banish a person from “polite society” for life, and America isn’t a virgin debutante.
It is virtually impossible for any human being to go through a long life without making mistakes at some point along the line. Smart people learn from their mistakes, as I amply cited: he owns around 30 towers, many resorts, the rights to 15 bestsellers, television royalties and merchandise lines. Only one property in one location has been plagued by these problems, and you are overlooking the interplay of the New Jersey and Atlantic City governments, the gaming commission, etc. It was their project — he was the developer and they used his recognizable brand name as part of the deal; and now his stake in it is small, but you want to set aside everything he has done to focus on this and insist that it has not made him stronger, when in this election, the obvious corruption of the Clintons and the Constitution-destroying communist ideology of Sanders is at stake. Do we want a naive lamb who faints with shock at wrongdoing to go up against them and their international cartels? I don’t.
You have every right to vote for and support any candidate you want. If you go on other threads about the candidates, you will not find me trying to speculate, make up scenarios out of whole cloth, split hairs or gossip about Cruz’s statements, mistakes, relationships or anything at all about him, even though plenty of other people want to tear him down in morally superior language, because he’s not my candidate. But he has much to offer the American people, he may get the nomination or it could still be Jeb or Rubio — or it could well be Trump.
So what is the point of your tut-tutting and speculating about him as you have speculated about me not knowing where your graphic find came from — but I should have, according to you. Do you think others only live to support your assumptions in life? I was sent it whole by someone else.
I rely on research, fact and logic, not assumptions and speculation. I have Ivy graduate education and a long professional career in business — speculation is a waste of life. There are facts; there is responsible interpretation of those facts; and failing that, there is just gossip.
When you wrote your half-truths and negative interpretations, and since I lived near Atlantic City and had read about the Trump Taj issues for months at that time so many years ago, I did not just answer you from memory but spent time researching what else could be true or clear. I encourage you to do the same when people attack your candidate, or before you post smack about someone else’s candidate in this community.
Why? Because any trash any of us talk on FR about any of the Republicans only helps the Democrats. That is why your “Nosy Nellie, Queen of Morality” tone has bothered me. It helps Hillary and Bernie.
Re: “...it needed to be a negotiated settlement with clear terms spelled out for everyone.”
No - it needed only one clear term:
“Folks, I will pay everybody exactly how much I owe. Nothing less, nothing more.”
He refused to do that.
Perhaps at the time he could not afford to do that.
But, today, he can afford to make all those creditors whole, and he still refuses to do that.
Do you own any U.S. Treasury debt or Federal Agency debt, Albion?
After Trump gets elected, maybe he will default on YOUR investments!
Ok, now it becomes clear. You believe you are owed money by Donald Trump. Bye!
Re: “You believe you are owed money by Donald Trump.”
I have no idea what that means.
The guy put four businesses into Chapter 11 over an 18 year period.
Why would anyone do business with him?
And why do you want to put him in charge of the United States Treasury?
You can’t read, then. Sorry I wasted my time on you. Do not post to me again.
Donald Trump wants the last word:
“I figured it [the bankruptcy] was the bank’s problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, “I told you you shouldn’t have loaned me that money. I told you the goddamn deal was no good.”
From: “Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life”
Author: Donald Trump
Who reads National Review anymore?
Good grief!
Only the people that will turn the tide, of Our Nation.
Ketchup, fortheDeclaration.
I hope that is sarcasm!
Yup, it is.
Are you okay now?
What were you going to do? Get miffed?
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