The Secret Of Trump’s Wealth | Flew Too Close To The Red Light | Southern Comfort Kills

“Families are always rising and falling in America.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Wealth never survives three generations.” – Chinese proverb

Daddy I Want A Fortune: President Trump is now in his seventies. He has been a well-known individual in New York for nearly five decades, and elsewhere for almost that long. Many well-researched books have been written examining years of Trump’s life and business dealings. He has been the subject of countless magazine and newspaper articles. His name is emblazoned on buildings in various parts of the world. He has been a television celebrity since 2004, observed by the entire international community quite vividly for the past three years. So it with wonder how anyone could be surprised by the “revelations” in the most recent New York Times investigation into the president’s financial background and his claims of being a self-made business whiz-kid.

What the article does bring into clear focus is the role Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, played in his son’s accumulation and expenditure of massive amounts of wealth. The foundation was the vast real estate operation Fred had been growing from the early 1930s on, taking advantage of post-depression Federal Housing Authority loans during the Roosevelt administration to build thousands of apartments and row houses spread through low-income neighborhoods in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. Fred was also making influential political friends that afforded him easy passageway past irksome legalities. He was extremely frugal, cutting corners, squeezing pennies, and eschewing ostentation, unlike his flamboyant, publicity-loving son Donald.

In truth, Donald began reaping wealth from his father’s empire as a toddler, his assertions of amassing fortunes solely from being a gifted businessman and deal-maker just part of the self-made myth. But Fred clearly approved of his adult son’s modus operandi, and always came to Donald’s financial rescue when some ill-advised or overly ambitious project went bust, and there were many. Together the two men and their stable of lawyers and accountants devised ingenious ways to underreport income and cash gifts, use duplicitous tax schemes and write-offs, vastly undervalue real estate holdings, and surreptitiously siphon off estate assets. President Trump will never willingly make public his tax returns, because they would belie everything he’s ever claimed.

Flew Too Close To The Red Light: Amsterdam has a problem. It’s suffering, not just from too much tourism, but bad-behaving tourists. Its mayor, Femke Halsema, is trying to clean it up a bit; she’s introduced some new measures. There’s on-the-spot collection of fines for public urination, drunkenness or excessive noise, rigorous street cleaning, and security workers in orange T-shirts going around supplying information and reminding people not to drink in the streets or photograph the prostitutes. (NYT)

Congrats To Iraq: Iraqis finally have a president and prime minister, after months of internal quibbling and outside rivalry between the US and Iran for influence over Iraq’s leadership. Tuesday the parliament elected veteran Kurdish politician Barham Salih, 58, as president; almost immediately he asked 76-year-old former oil minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite, to form the next government. The selection of these men appears to show the intense sectarian loyalties of the past 15 years could be giving way to more pragmatic coalitions cutting across sectarian lines. (WaPo)

Kick Em While They’re Down…From All The Poison: Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke at an energy forum Wednesday. During his remarks he called the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal a “scumbag” and a “traitor.” Putin vehemently denied involvement in the nerve-agent poisoning of Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England last March. Britain says the two were poisoned by Russian intelligence officers. Putin himself is a former intelligence officer who in the past has said he cannot forgive disloyalty and “traitors will kick the bucket.” (Guardian)

– “Rédoine Faïd: French helicopter jailbreak gangster captured: The country’s most wanted fugitive, he was detained north of Paris, reportedly with his brother and two men.” (BBC)

– “‘There was a lot of fear’: how Heidelberg changed when the US army left town” (Guardian)

– “‘We see mothers die and children die’: Uganda’s teen pregnancy crisis” (Guardian)

– “German energy secretary backs forest clearance to build coal mine:Thomas Bareiß says use of polluting fuel at RWE plant is needed to keep the lights on” (Guardian)

Are you a decision maker-slash-order giver? It might seem like “delegate” is your middle name, but managers and bosses can often be oblivious to the impact of their words and actions. Many of them heap unnecessary work on the people below them in the pecking order—and are downright clueless that they’re doing it. Robert I. Sutton of The Wall Street Journal wants to help show those in charge how they can be sensitive to their teams, and make their commands more effective.

A Horrible Consequence: In Senegal, it is practically impossible to get an abortion. Women who find themselves with a “taboo pregnancy”, which is one outside marriage no matter if occasioned by rape or incest or affair, commonly choose infanticide rather than inflict dishonor on their families. If discovered, they are arrested and imprisoned. Drug-trafficking is the number one reason women are jailed in Senegal; the number two reason is infanticide. In 2015, 19 percent of the 283 female prisoners were there for having killed their newborns. (NPR)

Additional read: “Across Senegal, the Beloved Baobab Tree Is the ‘Pride of the Neighborhood’: Baobabs have endured for centuries as essential cultural symbols. But increasingly, they are threatened by climate change, urbanization and a growing population.” (NYT)

The Best Defense Is Defense: A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that 34 percent of Republican registered voters and 32.5 percent of Democratic registered voters said they did not know the names of their party’s congressional candidates in their districts. But as a political science professor at the University of North Carolina said: “People aren’t voting for their side as much as they are voting against the other side. It really doesn’t matter what the names are these days.” (Reuters)

ICE Is On Thin Ice: In a report released on Tuesday, it was revealed that there are “serious issues…that pose significant health and safety risks”within the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Southern California. Some examples of the issues were children being held for more than the legal length (3 days), unusually long wait times in entry port lines, and the lack of information to aid in the reunification of families. During a May inspection of the facility which houses 2,000 detainees, inspectors discovered nooses made of sheets in some of the cells. Following this report, a full inspection has been scheduled for 10/10/18. (NPR)

The South(‘s Blood Pressure) Will Rise Again: Comfort food is proving to make you a little too comfortable. A study in The Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded that the southern diet is causing an increase risk of hypertension and high blood pressure in the African American community. The University of Alabama discovered through a decade long test of 7,000 Americans that comfort food contributed to the development of hypertension more than stress, exercise habits, and income. Unfortunately for black Americans, the study also proved that they partake in the southern diet much more than any other demographic. Health experts are advising people to stay away from southern and soul food as much as they can. (NPR)

– “Bottle of Whisky Sells for a Record $1.1 Million: The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 is “one of the rarest and most desirable bottles ever produced,” according to a specialist at Bonhams, the auction house in Scotland that made the sale.” (NYT)

– “The Comforting Fictions of Dementia Care: Many facilities are using nostalgic environments as a means of soothing the misery, panic, and rage their residents experience.” (New Yorker)

– “I Know Brett Kavanaugh, but I Wouldn’t Confirm Him: This is an article I never imagined myself writing, that I never wanted to write, that I wish I could not write.” (Atlantic)

– “We Can’t Just Let Boys Be Boys: Locker rooms are not the place to learn about sexual ethics. Neither is the internet.” (NYT)

– “5 Simple Ways To Encourage Brain Development In Your Little One” To help get them ready for school and Fortnite. (NPR)

– “What happens when life insurance companies track fitness data?: It could be a win-win, it could cause privacy concerns” (Verge)

– “The Existential Void of the Pop-Up ‘Experience’: I went to as many Instagramable “museums,” “factories” and “mansions” as I could. They nearly broke me.” These are cool and all, but no one does unnecessarily useless showcases of flair quite like Japan. (NYT & Messy Nessy)

– “‘The Simpsons’ at 30: Six Era-Defining Episodes”

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Please consider making a donation to Daily Pnut, an independently operated and bootstrapped publication. Many thanks to everyone who already supports us!