MY e mail to Rep Wexton D-VA and Senators Kaine D-VA and Warner D-VA on the drumpf / trump-musk-vance proposal to privatize the USPS. 19DEZ24

 MY e mail to Rep Wexton D-VA and Senators Kaine D-VA and Warner D-VA on the drumpf / trump-musk-vance proposal to privatize the USPS.

CONVICTED felon (NOT MY) pres-elect drumpf / trump wants to privatize the USPS because it is loosing money (?).  One thing drumpf / trump does know about is businesses loosing money, the number of times he and / or his businesses have filed for bankruptcy proves that. If he privatizes the USPS mail delays, price increases, and working conditions will only get worse. We can’t let the drumpf / trump-musk-vance regime ruin the USPS. Congress must block drumpf’s / trump's plans to privatize the USPS!

"Trump eyes privatizing U.S. Postal Service" SIGN THE PETITION: Stop Trump's plan to privatize the Post Office Says Donald Trump has "bankrupted his companies not once, not twice but four times."& 18DEZ24 & 21JUN16

CONVICTED felon (NOT MY) pres-elect drumpf / trump wants to privatize the USPS because it is loosing money (due to lack of management of the director of the USPS by congress). One thing drumpf / trump does know about is businesses loosing money, the number of times he and / or his businesses have filed for bankruptcy proves that. Please sign this petition from Demand Progress, and if you have the time e mail a quick note to your representative and senators telling them to stop any attempt by the drumpf / trump-vance administration to privatize the USPS ( I did ). This from Demand Progress and Politifact.....

TELL CONGRESS: Trump has interest in privatizing the Post Office. If he does, mail delays, price increases, and working conditions will only get worse. We can’t let the Trump-Musk regime ruin the USPS. Sign the petition: Urge Congress to block Trump’s plans to privatize the USPS!

ADD YOUR NAME

Trump just said his administration is interested in privatizing the Post Office¹ in what would be a major boon for corporate profiteers and a significant blow to consumers and workers.

So-called “efficiency” and privatization are taking center stage again in the Trump-Musk transition, even as Trump’s handpicked Postmaster General Louis DeJoy runs a USPS with serious delay issues and constant price increases. A bipartisan outcry has continued for months over DeJoy’s handling of the mail service, but privatization will make things so much worse at USPS.

Sign the petition: Urge Congress to block Trump’s plans to privatize the USPS!

ADD YOUR NAME

A top Trump official said private companies are much better than the USPS. He added that the first Trump administration “didn’t finish the job” on privatization, “but we should finish it now.”²

During his first term, Trump called the Post Office a joke and withheld emergency funding from the agency unless it jacked up prices.³ Now he wants to fully hand over the USPS to private operators. Our leaders need to stand in the way.

Sign the petition: Urge members of Congress to stand against any plan to privatize USPS!

Thanks for taking action,

Joey and the team at Demand Progress

DONATE

Sources:

1. Washington Post, “Trump eyes privatizing U.S. Postal Service, citing financial losses,” December 14, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

 

---

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Yep, Donald Trump's companies have declared bankruptcy...more than four times

Hillary Clinton mocked Donald Trump’s business failings in a major speech arguing that the presumptive Republican nominee would be disastrous for the economy.

"He’s written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end at Chapter 11," Clinton quipped, adding. "He bankrupted his companies not once, not twice, but four times."

We rated a similarly worded claim from Trump’s former primary rival Carly Fiorina Mostly True, because it’s not accurate to say Trump is solely to blame. (For the record, Trump doesn’t deny the charge and instead argues it was a smart business decision.) At the time, we found four bankruptcies, but since then, we’ve found two more for a total of six. So Clinton was right that Trump bankrupted companies four times, and she could have offered a higher count as well.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Bankruptcy No. 1: The Trump Taj Mahal, 1991

Trump’s first bankruptcy may have hit the businessman, personally, the hardest, according to news reports.

He funded the construction of the $1 billion Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J., which opened in 1990, primarily with junk bonds at a whopping 14 percent interest. A year later, the casino was nearly $3 billion in debt, while Trump had racked up nearly $900 million in personal liabilities. So Trump decided to file for Chapter 11 reorganization, according to the New York Times.

As a result, Trump gave up half his personal stake in the casino and sold his yacht and airline, according to the Washington Post.

Bankruptcy No. 2: Trump Castle, 1992

Within a year of his first Chapter 11 filing, Trump found himself in bankruptcy court again for Trump Castle, which opened in 1985. It was his "weakest gambling hall," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and ironically faced competition from Trump Taj Mahal. In March 1992, the Castle filed a prepackaged bankruptcy plan, and Trump gave up his 50 percent share in the casino for lower interest rates on $338 million worth of bonds.

Bankruptcy No. 3: Trump Plaza and Casino, 1992

The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, which opened in 1984, declared bankruptcy at the same time as the Castle. A $210 million joint project of Trump’s and Harrah’s, the casino had racked up $250 million in debt by 1992, after a staggering 80 percent decline in cash flow. So Trump Plaza filed for prepackaged bankruptcy that spring as well.

Bankruptcy No. 4: Plaza Hotel, 1992

Later that year, Trump filed bankruptcy on another Plaza, this one in New York. Trump purchased the Plaza Hotel in Midtown Manhattan for $390 million in 1988, but it accumulated more than $550 million in debt by 1992. In December 1992, Trump relinquished a 49 percent stake in the Plaza to a total of six lenders, according to ABC News. Trump remained the hotel’s CEO, but it was merely a gesture; he didn’t earn a salary and had no say in the hotel’s day-to-day operations, according to the New York Times.

Bankruptcy No. 5: Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts, 2004

Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts filed for bankruptcy again in 2004 when his casinos -- including the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Marina and Trump Plaza casinos in Atlantic City, and a riverboat casino in Indiana -- had accrued an estimated $1.8 billion in debt, according to the Associated Press. Trump agreed to reduce his share in the company from 47 percent to 27 percent in a restructuring plan, but he was still the company’s largest single shareholder and remained in charge of its operations. Trump told the Associated Press at the time that the company represented less than 1 percent of his net worth.

Bankruptcy No. 6: Trump Entertainment Resorts, 2009

Trump Entertainment Resorts -- formerly Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts -- was hit hard by the 2008 economic recession and missed a $53.1 million bond interest payment in December 2008, according to ABC News. It declared Chapter 11 in February 2009. After debating with the company’s board of directors, Trump resigned as the company’s chairman and had his corporate stake in the company reduced to 10 percent. The company continued to use Trump’s name in licensing.

Whose fault is it anyways?

Experts told us during the primary season Trump alone didn’t cause the bankruptcies. While six in 25 years is a lot, five were tied to a struggling gaming industry.

Trump was acting, they said, as any investor would. Investors often own many non-integrated companies, which they fund by taking on debt, and some of them inevitably file for bankruptcy, Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown University, previously told us.

He added that people typically wouldn’t personally blame former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney or investor Warren Buffett for individual failures within their investment companies, Bain Capital and Berkshire Hathaway, respectively.

"The only difference is that Trump puts his name on his companies, which means people associate them with him, but he's not at all the leader in the bankruptcy space," Levitin said.

Our ruling

Clinton said, Trump has "bankrupted his companies not once, not twice but four times."

Trump has actually filed Chapter 11 six times, four times within two years in the 1990s, once more in 2004 and once more in 2009. But experts told us Trump shouldn’t bear all the responsibility, as Clinton’s wording suggests, as the majority of bankruptcies happened as the overall casino industry struggled.

We rate her claim Mostly True.

Share The Facts

Carly Fiorina

Presidential candidate

Says Donald Trump was "forced to file for bankruptcy not once, not twice, four times."

In a debate – Wednesday, September 16, 2015

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Republican Who Rails Against Student Loan “Bailout” Got $1.5M of Loans Forgiven 23MAR23r

WHY do these self-righteous, neo-nazi, greedy pig republicans think they are so much better than everyone else? Rep burgess owens fr-UT has no problem walking away from $1.5 million of his own debt but is opposed to student debt relief. This from Truthout.....

Republican Who Rails Against Student Loan “Bailout” Got $1.5M of Loans Forgiven

Rep. Burgess Owens, who has declared bankruptcy five times, led a hearing railing against student debt forgiveness.

By

 

Sharon Zhang , 

TRUTHOUT

Published

March 23, 2023

On Thursday, Republican Rep. Burgess Owens (Utah), who has declared personal bankruptcy five times and had $1.5 million of his debt discharged, held a hearing aimed at attacking President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan to forgive up to $20,000 of debt for borrowers.

In the hearing by the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, Owens railed against the concept of student debt forgiveness, saying that it was unfair for those who pursued higher education to seek forgiveness and place the burden of their loans on the public — an argument that debt forgiveness activists have long disputed.

“Many people in this room probably have student loans. However, the blanket bailout that turns loans into target grants and saddles future generations with someone else’s debt is not a solution,” Owens said in his opening statement.

He railed against individuals for taking on loans that created “short-sighted, self-centered and intergenerational debt,” and complained that the education that borrowers received is “low quality,” perpetuating a thread of right-wingers attacking higher education for spurious reasons while disregarding the fact that the vast majority of jobs now require a college degree.

However, debt activists are pointing out that Owens is a raging hypocrite. During his first campaign for office in 2020, it was revealed that Owens filed for personal bankruptcy five times between the 1990s and 2000s. Records show he filed twice under Chapter 7 and three times under Chapter 13.

RELATED STORY

OP-ED 

| 

EDUCATION & YOUTH

Biden Can Still Cancel Student Debt — Not Just Up to $20,000, But All of It

I won’t be paying my student loan debt back and neither should you — here’s why.

By

 

Maddy Clifford , 

TRUTHOUT

December 11, 2022

Under Chapter 13, a debtor creates a plan to repay debts between three to five years, after which point some debtors get their remaining debts discharged. Creditors then can’t come after the bankruptcy filer — unlike for student debtors, who are ruthlessly hounded by creditors even when it would be nearly impossible to pay off the debt in full.

Under Chapter 7, debtors don’t create a plan to repay debts but rather have non-necessary assets sold to pay off creditors. The rest of the debt is discharged, which happens to the vast majority of people who successfully apply for Chapter 7.

There aren’t court records available for Owens’s Chapter 7 filing in New York from 1991. However, as The Salt Lake Tribune uncovered, records show that Owens filed for Chapter 7 in 2005 for $1.7 million in debt. $200,000 of the debt was paid, and the rest, along with his three Chapter 13 bankruptcies, were dismissed — meaning, essentially, that Owens had $1.5 million in debts discharged by courts, per the Salt Lake Tribune.

Student debt is one of the types of debt that is almost explicitly carved out of Chapters 7 and 13. Some student debtors have been successful at using these methods to have their debts discharged, but it is extraordinarily difficult, and judges have even condemned people who think that it’s possible; student debt used to be fully dischargeable under bankruptcy, but lawmakers changed that under Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s. (Still, debt activists encourage people to try, especially if they are facing loans that they will never be able to pay off.)

The bankruptcies weren’t Owens’s only financial trouble during his campaign. During his campaign, it was found that Owens had accepted at least $135,500 in contributions that were over legal limits, which amounted to about 40 percent of the funding that his campaign had on hand during the last stretch of the contested run. Later, he was handed a fee by the Federal Election Commission for failing to report $34,000 in contributions to his campaign.

Debt activists also pointed out the hypocrisy of other Republicans on the subcommittee. As the Debt Collective pointed out in a fact sheet, tuition at the University of Miami, which Owens attended on a football scholarship between 1968 and 1972, is now three times as expensive as it was when Owens graduated. The federal minimum wage then was higher than it is now, adjusted for inflation.

For Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina), the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, tuition at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was $310 when she graduated in 1968, or about $2,700 in today’s dollars. Now, tuition there is about $7,000, or an effective increase of 258 percent. Minimum wage then was $14 in today’s dollars — a large contrast to the current minimum wage of $7.25 federally and in North Carolina.

 

FAMILY VALUES

We Can't Stop Clicking on This Donald Trump Scandal Generator 4NOV16

donald drumpf's life is 70 years of taking advantage of everyone who makes the poor decision to get involved with him. He is guilty of abusing, adultery, cheating, deceiving, demeaning, manipulating, assaulting, lying, scamming and fraud. He is an incorrigible narcissist and if elected will do serious and possibly irreversible damage to our nation. Click the article title below in this from +Mother Jones to access reports on drumpf's / trump's unethical and illegal activities....

We Can't Stop Clicking on This Donald Trump Scandal Generator

It's addictive.

AJ VICENS AND BEN BREEDLOVENOV. 4, 2016 5:30 AM

For the last few months of this unforgettable campaign, Mother Jones has brought you the "The Trump Files," a daily dose of telling episodes, strange-but-true stories, and curious scenes from the life of Republican nominee Donald Trump. The time Trump claimed he would have fared better in business as a black man? Covered it. His uplifting words to a grieving mother about how hard he'd once tried to sleep with her? That one, too. Or when Trump alleged an election had been rigged—that is, a race for Top Scot that was sponsored by a whiskey company? You bet. In all, we published more than 100 Trumpian tales. Unsure where to start? Click below to select a Trump File at random.

AJ VICENS

AJ Vicens is a reporter at Mother Jones. You can reach him at avicens@motherjones.com. For more of his stories, click here.

BEN BREEDLOVE

Ben is a Mother Jones web developer. GITHUB | RSS | TWITTER

Mother Jones is a nonprofit, and stories like this are made possible by readers like you. Donate or subscribe to help fund independent journalism.

GET THE SCOOP,  STRAIGHT FROM MOTHER JONES.

DRUMPF BUSINESS SENSE

If You Tell Me You Are Supporting Trump, I Already Know Seven Things About You 30SEP16

If You Tell Me You Are Supporting Trump, I Already Know Seven Things About You

By SemDem  

Friday Sep 30, 2016 · 9:57 PM EDT

I agree with everything this man has to say except his judgement on Christians. I do not understand how a Christian could support donald drumpf/trump but I will not challenge their claim to faith but will leave that to God, He will deal with them. From +Daily Kos.....

Tell me you are conservative.  Tell me you are Christian. Tell me you are Republican. Tell me any of these things, and I won't make too many assumptions about you. Sure, I may assume you go to church every Sunday, eat red meat, and get most of your news from Fox and Friends, but beyond that, I will withhold judgment on the kind of person you are until I get to know you. In fact, as a Southern white male veteran who lives in a very rural area, most of the people in my circles are of the right-leaning variety. I can attest that most people are fairly decent when you get to know them. 

This equation changes when you tell me unequivocally that you are voting for Trump. Instantly, I know there are certain things about you and your character that I can assume that I wouldn't if you told me you supported any other GOP candidate. Ain’t none of them good.

Tell me you are a strong Trump supporter, then you are telling me:

1.  You want to be ruled, not governed.

The single trait that predicts the Trump supporter has nothing to do with race, income, or education. A researcher at the University of Massachusetts found that the top predictor of whether a voter supports Trump is his or her proclivity towards authoritarianism. 

Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened. From pledging to “make America great again” by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States, Trump is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations.

So spare me your lectures about market freedoms or any constitutional rights you claim to hold dear. You want a dictator in the style of Putin, which pretty much makes you anti-American.

2.  You have no class.

Seriously. You don’t. I’m sorry. I tried to revisit this one several times but I don’t know how to sugar-coat it.

It is NOT OKAY that Trump mocked a disabled person. If Hillary did that, it would be a deal-breaker for me. I'd go third-party, or write in my own name. I have standards. You apparently don't. Some people try to justify this by saying Trump didn't really do it. Except he really did, and it was awful.

No one even tries to defend Donald Trump mocking POWs, because he said it loud and clear: "I like people who weren't captured". It was that insult to John McCain that I thought would have killed his chances within the GOP ranks, since they claim to be pro-veteran. I grossly overestimated their character. By the time we get around to the part about Trump lusting after his own damn daughter or justifying statutory rape, I have already given up on you as a decent person. 

And please. Don't tell me that you didn’t know about any of this. You know. You just don't care. Hence, my statement that you don't have class.

3. You are definitely not someone to do business with.

Yes, all politicians lie, but Trump is obscene with his falsehoods. He says whatever he feels like to whatever crowd he is speaking to, and then will deny ever saying it. I am not okay with someone who lies to me constantly. If you are, I have to wonder: would you fudge the numbers? If you caught someone on your team doing something unethical, would you be okay with that?

I already know that integrity is not high on your list. Furthermore, you clearly have no trouble with someone who has a long history of fraudulent business practices. Having a bumper sticker on your truck for any other conservative wouldn't be a problem for me—but Trump? 

You might do good work, but this is a risk I would not take.

4.  You are either a racist, or at best, have no problem with racism.

Trump threw out all the dog whistles and fully embraced the alt-right movement. Heled the campaign to de-legitimize Obama's presidency. He constantly complains that black Americans are violent and stated that Mexican immigrants bring "crime" and are "rapists." He demanded that any judge who tries him be white! He retweets from handles like “@WhiteGenocideTM,” and goes to anti-Semitic websites for material to attack his opponents.   

Your embrace of this kind of hate makes me wonder what things you say about my family behind my back. Going back to #3, if I was to hire you, you would be expected to work with people who don’t share your ethnic background or religion, and that might be a problem. Which brings me to #5.

5.  You have an issue with women.

Trump has brought a level of vulgarity that we have never before seen in national politics. From his attack on Megyn Kelly, to insulting Rosie O’Donnell twice in national debates, to bragging about his genitalia on television in front of millions, to his suggestion that Hillary and Carly Fiorina are too ugly to be president. Anyone who supports a man who doesn’t think twice about calling women “pigs” or “dogs” is not someone I want to deal with. 

I can say in all honesty that if it was the Democratic candidate who kept bragging about his sexual dominance and ranked all women he met by their looks, that person would not get my vote. I don’t give a damn who I think he might put on the Supreme Court. (And frankly, I wouldn’t trust him even if he claimed to share my party.) You see, I have children. I can’t very well raise them with a message of self-respect and decency if I overthrow my principles just because he decided to put a “D" after his name. Demanding that a man treat women with a basic level of respect is a pretty low bar. I have a problem with someone who can’t even meet that, along with this person’s supporters.

6.  You aren't really Christian.

Sure, tell me you are. But if you read Scripture, it’s pretty clear on this. (Or if you can’t be bothered, there's always youtube). Trump, a man who refuses the fundamental tenet of asking God’s forgiveness, is the anti-thesis for everything Christianity is. As Christian author Philip Yancey says:

I am staggered that so many conservative or evangelical Christians would see a man who is a bully, who made his money by casinos, who has had several wives and several affairs, that they would somehow paint him as a hero, as someone that we could stand behind.

And now you find out that Trump, the top of the GOP ticket, sent you instructions at 3am to go watch a sex tape with a former Miss Universe who insulted him.  And no, of course there is no sex tape. He lied about that too.  (As it turns out, there was a sex tape that was uncovered, but it was a 2000 Playboy soft-core porn that starred Donald Trump!)  Your candidate.

7.  You don’t believe in the Constitution.

For eight years I have listened to your rabid rantings on how Obama doesn’t follow the Constitution. Yet you support a man who said the US government should shut down mosques, curb our First Amendment rights, and forego due process on people he doesn’t like.  These protections are enshrined in our Bill of Rights, and you want to give them up. Trump also said he wants to end birthright citizenship, which is also in the Constitution. Maybe Mr. Khan should have made more copies for Trump’s supporters.

That’s the thing that really bothers me, though. I respect people who hold convictions, even if they are different than mine, but Trump supporters don't really believe in anything. They are authoritarian-prone sheep who will justify anything Trump says or does. Unfortunately, once you decide to sell your soul, there is no limit to how low you will go. Kimmel proved this in a bit that was both funny and horrible.  He had someone ask Trump supporters on the street about the surprises on Trump's fictitious tax returns.  Trump supporters vigorously defended everything they thought he did--writing off his wives as entertainment expenses, buying Putin a tiger, donating large sums of money to Jared Fogle—nothing they could come up with remotely bothered any of them.

Now, I will always be nice, but I won’t respect you. How could I? Suffice it to say, if you tell me you are in the tank for Trump, please end your conversation there. I already know everything I need to know about you. 

And good day, sir.

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