Now for something different. Many of the blog entries poster here are medium-long in comprising two-three thousand words each.
Interest in the 2016 presidential campaign and media coverage has been heating up. Given the exceptional tsunami wall of coverage during the past year, it hardly seems possible, but there it is.
Media attention focused on Trump has deepened and hardened lately. Early coverage was often gauzy and uncritical, or dismissive and skeptical about his intent (a major error on the part of media barons).
In any case, the sheer number of Trump stories available is growing exponentially. There is only so much time in a day for even a dedicated voter to try and make sense of the flood of information, among the puff pieces, press releases, and outright spinners. There are more and more diligent observers laying out Trump’s real actions, business experiences, character traits, and personal qualities for Americans to consider carefully. These stories can pass by unnoticed mixed in with the flotsam and jetsam of the media tidal stream.
This post location may serve as an expanding compass pointer to a number of better documented or well-argued items that I stumble upon scouring news and internet sources every day. Please follow the links and give these authors and stories some thoughtful attention, as you have time. Your 2016 Presidential Election Knowledge Quotient (EKQ) will grow with compound interest with the effort. I triple-dog dare you.
Swiss Vault with 8 Million Coins on Floor*
The Inevitable Scrooge McDuck Comparison
Formal Portrait of Scrooge McDuck Painted by Creator Carl Barks (1947)
Scrooge McDuck was invented by Carl Barks in 1947 for Disney. He was born one year after Donald Trump (DT), he is Scottish, like Trump on his mother’s side; he dresses for effect, as does DT with his clothing line; he has a signature hat, like DT with his logo ball cap; he has a pronounced accent, like DT with his New York patois; he has a nephew named Donald, as DT has a son named Donald; and he is out of this world rich, like DT.**
Amazingly, there is a Forbes Fictional 15 list naming the richest characters in fiction (no, I’m not kidding). On the latest 2013 list, McDuck is World’s number one, clocking in at $65.4 billion, about 15 times more than DT’s $4.5 billion (2016).
From the Wikipedia entry on Scrooge McDuck:
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 as a work-for-hire by Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an elderly Scottish anthropomorphic Pekin duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats. He is portrayed in animations as speaking with a slight Scottish accent, also sometimes known as a Scottish burr. His dominant character trait is his thrift, and within the context of the fictional Duck universe, he is the world’s richest person.
Named after Ebenezer Scrooge from the 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is a wealthy Scottish business magnate and tycoon. He was in his first few appearances characterized as a greedy miser and antihero (as Charles Dickens’ original Scrooge was), but in later comics and animated shorts and the modern day he is more often portrayed as a charitable and thrifty hero, adventurer, explorer, and philanthropist. Scrooge was created by Barks as a comic book character originally as an antagonist for Donald Duck, first appearing in the 1947 Four Color story “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (#178). The character soon became so popular that McDuck became a major figure of the Duck universe. In 1952 he was given his own comic book series, called Uncle Scrooge, which still runs today. Scrooge was most famously drawn by his creator Carl Barks, and later by Don Rosa. Comics have remained Scrooge’s primary medium, although he has also appeared in animated cartoons, most extensively in the television series DuckTales (1987–1990).
Along with several other characters in the Disney franchise, Scrooge has enjoyed international popularity, particularly in Europe, and books about him are frequently translated into other languages. He is the maternal uncle of Donald Duck, the grand-uncle of Huey, Dewey and Louie, and a usual financial backer of Gyro Gearloose. His “Money Bin” and indeed Scrooge himself are often used as humorous metonyms for great wealth in popular culture around the world.***
Herewith are the first five entries in the Trump’s Golden Nuggets (TGN) Accordion File Listing:
Check in periodically for updates as the list expands
TGN #01 Author: Bethania Palma Markus, in Raw Story, dated April 23, 2016:
Current Wharton students absolutely trash Trump: He does not represent our school
“No, he is not a good representation of Wharton,” a student named Myles said. “Because Wharton has an amazing, diverse group of students and people who go here, and Donald Trump is not reflective of what really goes on at Wharton.”
A female MBA student said she would not be voting for Trump.
“I believe in an America where people come together and talk about their problems peacefully and resolve them,” she said. “He speaks for himself. I do not believe that he speaks for Wharton.”
TGN #02 Author: Christina Wilkie, in The Huffington Post, dated April 22, 2016:
Trump Institute Fired Veteran For ‘Absences’ After He Was Deployed To Afghanistan
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has been vocal about the need to take care of U.S. veterans. He’s said that if elected, he’ll “put our service men and women on a path to success as they leave active duty.”
But that’s not what the Trump Institute, a get-rich-quick real estate seminar, did for Richard Wright, a senior master sergeant in the Air Force reserves who worked for the company in 2006 and 2007. Wright was deployed to Afghanistan in the spring of 2007. When he came home to his job, the Trump Institute fired him. “All of your absences,” Wright’s boss at the Trump Institute told him, had forced the company to “reevaluate your position with the Trump Institute.” It is a violation of federal law to penalize an employee for absences caused by military service.
TGN #03 Author(s): Eli Stokols and Kyle Cheney, in Politico, date April 22, 2016:
Delegates face death threats from Trump supporters
At the Republican National Committee’s spring meeting, delegates describe vicious missives demanding they support the GOP front-runner.
The party chairman who said a Trump backer threatened “bloodshed” at the convention also said the man told him he would “‘meet me at the barricades’ if Trump isn’t the nominee.” The chairman spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The Trump campaign needs to publicly reject bullying and threats of violence. They haven’t, yet. It’s not OK to give supporters threatening violence a wink and a nod.”
Trump’s campaign has never explicitly encouraged violence. But it has promoted tactics that have contributed to delegates’ fear. Earlier in April, a top Trump adviser posted online the cellphone number of Tennessee state party chairman Ryan Haynes, along with a message accusing the state party of trying to “STEAL your vote TODAY.”
Haynes told POLITICO at the time that he nearly canceled the party’s delegate selection meeting after a barrage of vitriol and the specter of violence.
TGN #04 Author: Susanne Craig, in the New York Times, dated April 19, 2016:
Donald Trump’s Jet, a Regular on the Campaign Trail, Isn’t Registered to Fly
Mr. Trump’s plane could be grounded for days, or even months, while the issue is sorted out. In the event of an accident, the company that insures the jet could cite the lapsed registration to decline any claims.
The F.A.A. could also fine or assess other penalties against the owner, the operator or both; Mr. Trump owns the plane through a limited liability company. Though it is unlikely that the agency would seek the maximum penalty, flying with no registration could result in a civil penalty of up to $27,500, a criminal fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to three years, it said.
Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, declined to answer several questions about the plane’s registration or use, saying only that the renewal process “is just about complete.” As of late Tuesday, the F.A.A. had not received a registration renewal application for the Cessna, according to Ms. Brown, the agency spokeswoman. She declined to comment on any action the F.A.A. might take.
Update (04/20/16) FAA Decides: Trump Jet Grounded
TGN #05 Author(s): Ben Jacobs and Tom McCarthy, in The Guardian, April 12, 2016:
Trump kids discover they can’t vote for Dad in New York Republican primary
Two of Donald Trump’s children won’t be able to vote for their father in the New York primary next week, after failing to change their party affiliation in time for the state’s 19 April primary.
“They feel very, very, guilty,” Donald Trump said of his two children, Ivanka and Eric, who are both New York residents.
Both Trump children are registered to vote as independents, and therefore cannot participate in New York’s Republican primary.
The deadline for the two to change their party affiliation under the state’s stringent voter registration laws was 9 October 2015. In contrast, the deadline for new voters to register was on 25 March, nearly a month before the Empire State’s contest. Ironically, considering her miscue, Ivanka Trump has appeared in videos encouraging Trump supporters to register to vote and change their party affiliation since missing the deadline.
*This Swiss bank vault (built 1912) was placed for auction in 2014 including 8 million coins and 1619 safe deposit boxes complete with keys.
It’s time to start living your dreams, and by that I mean the big dream — the Scrooge McDuck dream where you have a money bin filled with liquid currency you can swim around in. Yes, it sounds outlandish, but that’s just what is being auctioned off by luxury marketplace James Edition. For an undisclosed sum, you get one Swiss bank vault complete with 8 million Swiss coins.
**The temptation to link, compare, and contrast the outsized and often overblown characters of McDuck and Donald Trump is simply too seductive to drive past.
[I want to thank my dear friend REK for inspiring part of this riff. For as long as I have known him, he has had a large framed print (say 3 feet by 4 feet) in his private office, showing a McDuck character sitting on a giant pile of greenbacks, staring forlornly out at a bleak horizon. I believe REK is reminding himself, and others who think about it, how hollow the mindless pursuit of money above all else really is. At least that is how I see it.]
Here is a YouTube animation from June, 2015: “The Story Of Donald Trump, As Told By 13 GIFs Of Scrooge McDuck.” There may be some confusion between McDuck and his fictional nephew Donald in the choice of the last several pictures
Here is the 2011 Forbes Fiction 15 profile listing for McDuck:
Penny-pinching poultry keeps majority of his fortune in gold coins stored in massive “money bin” high in the hills above Duckburg; also invests in pearls, gems, other “hoardables.” Still refers to August 15th, 1971 –the day President Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard– as “Black Sunday.” Habitually marks anniversary by calculating net worth as percentage of the value of the gold in Fort Knox (21.4%). Famously frugal: Once fought a bear over a $2 jar of honey, never gives to charity, still has the first dime he ever earned. Nonetheless, known to sprout the occasional wild feather and jet off to exotic locales on ill-conceived “treasure-hunts” with troublesome great-nephews –and presumed heirs– Huey, Dewey and Louie. Featured in Disney’s Uncle Scrooge comic books and cartoons.
Scrooge McDuke Regained First Place on Forbes Fictional 15 its in 2013
Here is a YouTube video from 2013 showing McDuck playing golf on top of his golden piles inside his money bin. There is no explicit connection with Trump. Was the animation author psychic?
***Just exactly how much money is there in McDuck’s money bin anyway? The question has been subject to semi-rigorous mathematical analysis. See this report by Corey Chan in Gizmodo from 2012.
$486,830! But if you adjust for inflation as Scrooge McDuck was first drawn in 1947 that would mean 5.2 billion dollars in one pile. And if you guesstimate how many pile are in the room, the final tally comes out to 31.2 billion dollars.
But hold on a minute! Chan’s story is based on original estimates published by Matt Powers in The Billfold in April 2012: How Much Money You Need To Realistically Recreate The Scrooge McDuck ‘Gold Coin Swim’.
Powers made his calculations based on data derived from this picture of the McDuck money bin. He used a height of 5 feet for the reference money pile.
Chan illustrated his article with this picture of McDuck going for the money swim. Simple inspection of this illustration shows McDuck swimming in an ocean of gold 90 feet deep (look at the sign, left foreground).
Who’s right? Someone has made a huge money estimation error here. Chan’s illustration doesn’t match his facts. Reminds one of the real Donald’s trouble with exact numbers while speaking in public. A reminder that you need to be very careful around numbers and projections. It’s easy to get tripped up.
The old adage, often attributed to Mark Twain (1908), applies: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Double check everything, especially if it sounds too good to be true.
Point taken.