#Zach Everson, "Stay to Play," Mother Jones, September/October, 2020.
"As if anticipating questions about why the hotel [Trump's DC hotel] wasn't raking in more, the sales pitch for the hotel claimed the Trumps had lost out on $9 million in revenue in 2019 by not seeking business from foreign governments. If he loses [the election] his prized hotel could easily revert to what it was before his 2016 win -- discounted and empty."
"When the GSA solicited bids for the property in 2011, Trump offered the agency a higher rent payment than any of his rivals, according to one of those competitors. and his company pledged $200 million to renovate the Old Post Office, $170 million of which was lent by the good folks at Deutsche Bank. That loan and five others -- totaling about $479 million -- came over the next four years, creating a possible financial squeeze for the Trump Organization, and a whole new ethical morass." "The GSA has said the projected room rate for all bidders on the project averaged $626 a night. But to recoup its massive investment, the Trump Organization needed to charge at least $750 a night on average."
"Analyses by NBC News and New York magazine found plummeting prices on available rooms on dates when other DC luxury hotels, including the historic Hay-Adams, were sold out, or were charging higher rates."
#Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, October 26, 2020.
What Barrett had to offer in her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice, she offered "a study in the extent to which not giving an answer can be an expression of extremism."
"When Kamala Harris pressed her on the reality of climate change, and its consequences, Barrett protested that the Senator was 'eliciting an opinion from me that is on a very contentious matter of public debate,' adding that, 'and I will not do that.' "
"Diane Feinstein asked her if the Constitution gives the President the power 'to unilaterally delay a general election.' " Barrett replied that she didn't want to give an 'off the cuff answers'-- that would make her a 'legal pundit.' A President defying the Supreme Court is the definition of of a constitutional crisis, but Barrett would say only that the Court 'can't control a renegade president.'
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