politics to go: jeff dunetz

Bigotry for political gain: Trump’s running game

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During an August press conference in Dubuque, Iowa, Donald Trump told reporters: “I know the system better than anybody. The fact is that whether it’s Jeb, or Hillary, or any of ’em — they’re all controlled by these people! And the people that control them are the special interests, the lobbyists and the donors. You know what’s nice about me? I don’t need anybody’s money.”

When it comes to the political disease of being controlled by lobbyists, Trump is part of the problem. He’s one of those special interests who control politicians — not for the “people’s interests,” but to fill his already full pockets. And just as he’d done 16 years earlier, he’s used racism and bigotry to get his political point across.

In 2000, Trump, and his longtime friend and Republican strategist Roger Stone, paid fines because they failed to disclose the fact they were paying for anti-casino advertising. Stone was part of this year’s Trump campaign but was ousted in an internal battle. The St. Regis Mohawks wanted to build a casino in the Catskills and Trump, heavily invested in casinos in Atlantic City, secretly ran the ads to encourage people to call their New York legislators to vote against permitting the casino.

“Donald J. Trump and his associates have agreed to pay $250,000 in fines and to issue a public apology because they failed to disclose to the state lobbying commission that he had secretly financed newspaper advertisements opposing casino gambling in the Catskills,” the New York Times report. “It would be the largest civil penalty ever imposed by the commission.”

The Times reported that Trump agreed to spend $50,000 “on advertising acknowledging that he had paid for seven ads that appeared last spring under the name of the Institute for Law and Society, an anti-gambling group in Rome, NY.”

The Times quoted Trump as saying,” It’s been settled. We’re happy it all worked out nicely.”

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