. . .And One More Thing

As I said yesterday, I assume the "managers" of Donald Drumpf's "presidential" "campaign"--

--I should really just put airquotes around everything associated with this moron.  But onward!

I assume these people had no criminal intent when they sent fundraising letters to Scottish MPs.  Despite technically breaking election law, these emails were (I assume) just part of a mass spamming: The Drumpf campaign probably purchased email lists and then sent messages to everybody on these lists--including foreign parliamentarians.  Frankly, I think the campaign has so far been fortunate that only emails to Scots have come to light.  I'm waiting (OK, fervently hoping) to hear about similar appeals to members of the Duma or the House of Saud.

But here's the thing: Let's give Drumpf and his cronies the benefit of all doubt as mentioned above.  That still means that his campaign paid money for email lists that contain the addresses of Scottish members of Parliament.  In other words, the lists that he spent money on contain email addresses that are already public!  This would be like me spending cash to get the email addresses of American congressmen and -women.  Sure, I guess you could "justify" this expense by claiming that it saves time, but since the "time" we are discussing is essentially a 30-second Google search, that justification is thin to say the least.

In other words, ignore the fact that Drumpf is a racist, misogynist, and completely unqualified candidate.  The one claim that his whole campaign rested on is that he is a smart businessman--but a smart businessman who apparently wastes money on worthless (and possibly illegal) campaign expenses.  And these expenses include things that any semi-intelligent person could get for free!

Teflon Don 2.0

Back in the 1980's, John Gotti, a notorious New York gangster, was frequently referred to in the tabloids as the Teflon Don, owing to the authorities' inability to successfully prosecute him.  Today, apparently, Donald Drumpf is the political Teflon Don: a repugnant candidate whose campaign somehow survives repeated egregious mistakes (if they even are mistakes), any one of which would have not only ended any other political campaign, but would have consigned the offending candidate to political oblivion.

Call the population of an entire country--a neighboring country, with which the United States has basically friendly relations--murderers and rapists?  No biggie.

Spend extensive time on a debate stage discussing the fact that there is "no problem" with the size of your penis?  Ha!  Funny stuff!  (Not that anyone believes him--have you seen his teeny, tiny hands?)

Defraud thousands of vulnerable people of what little money they have by offering a "university" degree worth less than the stock of one of your several bankrupt businesses?  Hey, that's the American way!

Now we find out that Drumpf's campaign has been spamming Scottish parliamentarians with fund-raising appeals.  In addition to being distasteful, tacky, and--considering the fact that Drumpf keeps claiming he's worth about ten billion dollars--suspicious, this act is likely illegal:

The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits “any foreign national from contributing, donating, or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them.”

A couple of campaign watchdog groups are planning to file a complaint against the Trump campaign.

Now, to be "fair," I'm reasonably sure that no one on Drumpf's team actually said, "Hey, here's a thought: Why don't we try to raise money from Scottish politicians!" More likely, the campaign simply purchased a bunch of email lists--one of which contained the MP's addresses--and spammed the hell out of them. Even if this is technically illegal, it smacks more of incompetence or sloppiness than criminal intent--much like Drumpf's hair. 

But imagine if Hillary Clinton's campaign were caught in a similar scandal?  Fox News would interrupt programming with a flashing graphic of "TREASON!" before the first person could "Like" the story on Facebook!

I'm seriously asking: What will it take to bring this jackass down?

Well, Guess That's Settled. . .

Yesterday the Supreme Court overturned a highly restrictive Texas abortion law, emphatically reaffirming the constitutional right to abortion.  Now that the abortion question has been settled once and for all, I guess we need discuss it no further.

Well, it would be nice to think so....

Disingenuously promoted as protecting women's health, Texas' law mandated among other things that abortion clinics meet onerous physical-plant requirements that had nothing to do with making abortions safer.  The actual purpose of these laws, of course, was simply to ensure that very few clinics could meet the enhanced standards and would consequently be forced to close,  And the law was very effective in this regard, as the number of abortion clinics in Texas has been roughly halved since the law's enactment. 

The Supreme Court's decision yesterday reversed an appeals court ruling upholding the law, a ruling, by the way, that summarizes the fundamental flaw behind much anti-abortion legislation.  The appeals court judges upheld the law, claiming that they "had to accept lawmakers’ assertions about the health benefits of abortion restrictions."  Because, after all, who is more knowledgeable about women's health needs than right-wing politicians?

Hillary Clinton seized on the ruling to emphasize the importance of electing a candidate who will choose well-qualified Supreme Court justices--justices who will uphold abortion rights and other liberal concerns.  Donald Trump "made no direct public comments on Monday’s decision."  So in addition to reaffirming women's right to abortion, SCOTUS actually managed to make Drumpf shut the hell up for five minutes.  On the whole, then, a positive--if not miraculous--ruling.