Above is from:: http://www.rrstar.com/news/20180105/candidate-petitions-challenged-in-16th-67th-elections
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Saturday, January 6, 2018
What do we know concerning the resignation of Boone County’s Head of Assessments?
Here is what Mr. Zielinski said to Cal Skinner’s McHenry County Blog.
Al Zielinski Staying as Grafton Township Assessor
Posted on 01/05/2018 by Cal Skinner
This is a press release from Grafton Township Assessor Al Zieliniski:
Four more years of accurate and fair assessments for Grafton Township
HUNTLEY, IL – Grafton Township property owners can look forward to four more years of accurate and fair assessments based on Al Zielinski’s decision to take his oath of office for the 2018 through 2021 term.
Zielinski’s first term as Grafton Township Assessor ran from January, 2014 through December, 2017.
He won re-election in 2017 as a write-in candidate.
An amazing team of professionals generating exemplary results
“Grafton Township is blessed to have skilled and experienced professionals making its valuations.” said Zielinski.
“Based on my emphasis on continuing education and the township’s investments in its Deputies, Grafton has one of the most qualified assessment staffs in the state.
“We have
- one Certified General Appraiser (the highest appraiser designation in the state)
- one CIAO-S (the second highest designation offered by IPAI, the Illinois Property Assessment Institute) and
- two CIAO-I designations (the third highest designation offered by the IPAI).
Given our focus on using the market approach to value and our openness to review and revise assessments each year, property owners can rest assured their assessments are truly based on current market values.”
Focusing on Grafton Township
When asked about his decision to relinquish his appointment as Boone County’s Chief Assessment Officer, Zielinski was forthright.
“I was told I was too blunt with the township assessors. I
“don’t know how anyone can demand absolute compliance with the Illinois Property Tax Code, the Board of Review’s Rules and his/her oath of office in a more delicate manner.
“Because the County Board was unwilling to accommodate my commitment to excellence so we could achieve results similar to Grafton, it accepted my resignation.
“I achieved a lot in my time there creating processes that will help them improve future accuracy and equity.
“They have my best wishes.”
Looking to the future and building on an established record
Based on the 2017 results obtained from McHenry County, Grafton Township has consistently exceeded the Illinois Department of Revenue’s accuracy (sales ratio) and equity (coefficient of dispersion) specifications for each of the four years during Zielinski’s first term.
“We’re not resting on our laurels.
“To th
Comments
Al Zielinski Staying as Grafton Township Assessor — 17 Comments
ss on 01/05/2018 at 12:14 pm said:
SH*T
HonestAbe1 on 01/05/2018 at 12:52 pm said:
Accurate and fair ?
That’s a joke, right Al ?
Hey Al, if you haven’t noticed or have been in a
coma for the past few years, Huntley home owners
have been fleeing in record numbers year after year.Why is that, Al ?
The Land Of Leaving ….
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/land-of-leaving-moving-companies-rank-illinois-no-1-for-outbound-vans/Al Zielinski on 01/05/2018 at 1:04 pm said:
No joke (unless one thinks the Department of Revenue’s accuracy and fairness metrics are laughable – which they aren’t).
Assessments and taxes are not directly correlated.
Assessments could be cut by half and property taxes would be the exactly same because the tax rate would double.
The driving force behind the tax rate is the numerator (levy) not the denominator (EAV).
What our accuracy and fairness provide is a bright, clear light allowing focus on the levy.Grafton Taxpayer on 01/05/2018 at 1:05 pm said:
That’s right!
Al Zielinski resigned from a job paying over $70k to stay on a job that pays….less than half of that! And you were so intent on quitting that Boone job that….you held the Annual Boone Assessors meeting less than three weeks ago, which is a meeting to discuss the upcoming assessment year.
http://www.boonecountyil.org/news/public-notice-2017-annual-assessors-meeting
I’m sure Al wasn’t fired at all.
And now he returns to a job position that…he didn’t want to have replaced after he left! (He was recommending that the office not replace his position, but roll his responsibilities over to a Deputy Assessor) so he’s really useful and consistent around here. And again, it wasn’t his fault in Boone, it was those darn non-compliant township assessors. I wonder how you deal with those. I mean, I know one that was sued and told to resign from the Grafton Township board multiple times.
We have all the reason to believe you Al. Since you’ve done nothing but lie to us so far.
Bald_Eagle on 01/05/2018 at 1:47 pm said:
Time to end townships.
Currently the county board has the power to put a referendum on ballot.
Franks what are you waiting for?
“I’m sure Al wasn’t fired at all.”
At least that part is accurate.35 ILCS 200/3-10 is very clear.
“The county board, by a vote of 2/3 of its members, may dismiss a supervisor of assessments before the expiration of his or her term for misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance in the performance of the duties of the office.”Since none of those occurred, it wasn’t a “firing” but a resignation as stated.
Hopefully some readers can/will relate to the fact that honor still takes precedence over salary.
Thank you for providing the link to the Assessors’ Meeting.
That same page provides a link to the presentation that was made.
After reading it, it’ll be clear that:
– compliance (as conveyed in the press release) was a critical fundamental and
– my honor and integrity have always been, and remain, inviolate.AlabamaShake on 01/05/2018 at 4:04 pm said:
**Huntley home owners have been fleeing in record numbers year after year.**
Something tells me it isn’t because of property assessments.
Truth2Power on 01/05/2018 at 4:20 pm said:
Townships must go. 17 Counties got rid of them and the pension losers that go with them.
You know it’s funny Al.
– You “resigned” from a job and went back to one that was half the salary. Over Integrity? Do you really think we were born yesterday? By the way, were you drawing a pension over there? And when did you start drawing a full time salary over there?
– There was a Closed Meeting on December 19th in Boone County that was a “Special Finance, Taxes and Salaries Committee Meeting.” Before that meeting, your name was on the Boone website. Not long after that meeting, your name was off the website. The minutes will eventually be released from said meeting. I’m sure the minutes will not undermine the supposed ethical unicorn that you are.
https://www.boarddocs.com/il/boone/Board.nsf/Public
(You’ll have to click a meeting and scroll to 2017)
– You point fingers at everyone. You’ve pointed fingers at the Grafton Board, The County Assessor, the Grafton Township Attorney, Grafton citizens, and now Boone County. (I’m pretty sure you’ve pissed off the Mchenry County Board of Review too.) Everyone else is dishonest and corrupt except you. Here’s a hint: Honest people don’t pass blame to literally everyone else.
But the pathetic facade you attempt to present in this blog is hilarious.
Hey Al…another thing. You can keep pointing the finger at the tax levies for people moving, but like it or not you are the most powerful person in the taxing process. And people would rather move than deal with your line of idiocy. There was even a homeowner interviewed by the Northwest Herald that had sold his home in Huntley and moved to Florida. And what was one of the moving factors? When you jacked his home value in that illegal 2014 reassessment. It’s funny how you keep touting accuracy, from your woefully underassessed 1.4 acre estate.
And the funny thing is…there is probably a reason you never flat out quit Grafton and went to Boone. In the private sector, you give your two weeks notice and leave one job before going to another. And most people in the government sector do that too. The Grafton Board told you multiple times to resign. But you kept your foot in the Grafton door didn’t you? Down deep, you probably knew the people at Boone might find out if you were a squib. And I’m guessing they did.
**like it or not you are the most powerful person in the taxing process.**
I have absolutely no skin in the Al game.
I don’t have a side.
But… this attack is asinine.
If you really think that the assessor is the most powerful person in the taxing process, you’re either blatantly lying or intentionally ignorant.
The assessor assesses the value.
He/she does not set tax levels.
This isn’t hard to understand.
Billy Bob on 01/05/2018 at 10:47 pm said:
In the aggregate, it’s a zero sum game, but to the individual homeowner, a bad assessment will have a far greater effect on his or her property tax bill than the tax rate.
Alabama Shake…first I’m glad you don’t have skin in this game. Jealous.
The problem with the Grafton assessor is his failure to assess uniformly through the township.
He showed preference to certain neighborhoods by lowering their assessments and shifted a tax burden to others when he raised theirs.
That is power in the taxing process.
One citizen had to sue for neighborhood data because Z wouldn’t give what should be very public neighborhood information. (The citizen got the data. one thing found out: Z lowered values in his neighborhood despite sale prices rising in the same period.)
And the fun part is a citizen can’t do much more than appeal their own home value…but not appeal with homes outside their neighborhood.
You will hear him spout how he the numbers fit all his way, and how hes a man of integrity.
He will spin and spin and spin.
But notice how he doesn’t post data.
And do you trust a guy by what he says or what he does?
Try asking him hard questions and see how far you get.
Cal Skinner on 01/06/2018 at 12:40 pm said:
I can’t speak to the micro (neighborhood) data, but the margin of error (Coefficient of Dispersion) inGrafton Township last year was second lowest in McHenry County.
Cal…Grafton had the lowest Coefficient of Dispersion in McHenry long before Z took over.
There is fairly uniform housing compared to other townships, (Del Webb for example) which leads to a lower COD anyway.
Also…Z fails at another key metric: the Sales Assessment Ratio. Don’t forget, the target ratio is 33.3%. Well, in 2014, the year Z (illegally) reassessed, the Raw Median was 31.16%. IN 2015, when he reassessed for the Quadrennial, the sales ration was WORSE at 29.06%.
This is stupid for a few reasons:
– His rationale for reassessing in 2014 was because some neighborhoods fell to 29% or 31% sales ratios. So why was it so bad in 2013, but acceptable when he took over?
– The Grafton Sales Assessment ratio in 2013, the year before Z took office, was 33.6%. JUST 0.3% FROM THE TARGET. And the COD was lowest in the county too. That’s about as close to perfect as you can be. Yet Z comes in one year before the Quadrennial, and says “We need to reassess” and then the sales ratio drops under Z, and then drops again?
Here’s the link to the IDOR Sales Ratio numbers in 2013 (You need to scroll down a few pages)
http://www.revenue.state.il.us/AboutIdor/TaxStats/PropertyTaxStats/Table-1/2013-AssessmentRatios.pdf
– And don’t forget…some neighborhoods got RAISED values in 2014. Meanwhile other neighborhoods definitely dropped. Who got some shade? And what happened when a citizen asked for neighborhood data? He had to take Z to court.
The premise that Z is accurate is a blatant lie where he cherry picked some numbers.
If, as the proposed wizard of statistics Grafton Taxpayer opines, the Coefficient of Dispersion is truly related solely to “fairly uniform housing compared to other townships,” how could Burton Township, with its much greater diversity of housing, be the only township to have a lower CoD than Grafton for 2017?
If someone is going to spout statistics, one should know (at least a little) of what they speak (especially when their commentary relates to what happened three and four years ago).
What I said.
“Based on the 2017 results obtained from McHenry County, Grafton Township has consistently exceeded the Illinois Department of Revenue’s accuracy (sales ratio) and equity (coefficient of dispersion) specifications for each of the four years during Zielinski’s first term.”
TRUE based on Department of Revenue statistics which don’t “spin” and have no personal agenda.
To my knowledge, no other township McHenry County can make that claim.
The purpose of the press release was to advise Grafton taxpayers they can look forward to four more years of accuracy and fairness (especially no deals).
It’s my firm belief that’s what the vast majority want (except those who long for the ‘ol days of “Let’s Make a Deal!).
e contrary, we’re using our past record as the minimum acceptable performance level for the next four years.” said Zielinski.
Above is from: http://mchenrycountyblog.com/2018/01/05/al-zielinski-staying-as-grafton-township-assessor/
Below is the 2018 Fiscal Year budgeted salaries and benefit costs for the Supervisor of Assessment Office of Boone County.
Mr. Zielinski’s Boone County salary is $72,000 and benefits including health valued at an additional $22,338.
Interesting new website: Federal Employees/Salaries in your area
GO TO: https://www.openthebooks.com/map/?Map=5874&MapType=Pin
And you can find information similar to this:
The effect of PAYGO on Medicare
Senate Tax Bill Would Trigger Medicare Cuts
Measure would increase the federal debt, lead to mandatory reductions in 'safety net' programs
by Dena Bunis, AARP, November 28, 2017|Comments: 235
Getty Images
The $25 billion reduction would affect the payments that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers receive for treating Medicare patients.
If you read through the umpteen pages of the Senate tax bill, you won’t find a clause that says it dramatically cuts Medicare spending. But the effect of the legislation being debated this week would be to slash up to $25 billion from the health program in 2018 and possibly more in the future.
That’s because the tax measure would prompt the “pay-as-you-go” law, commonly referred to as PAYGO. The law was designed to keep the deficit in check by requiring the administration to institute spending cuts in many mandatory federal programs if Congress passes any measure that increases the deficit but doesn’t include offsetting revenues.
The Senate tax proposal would add $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years. Under PAYGO, if this bill were to become law, the government would have to lop off $150 billion in spending every year for 10 years.
Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and other social safety net programs are exempt from the PAYGO law, which went into effect in 2010. But Medicare and other programs — such as federal student loans, agricultural subsidies and the operations of the Customs and Border Patrol — are not exempt.
The law caps how much the government can trim from Medicare at 4 percent. That’s $25 billion the first year, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The annual amount could increase in subsequent years depending on the size of the deficit and Medicare’s budget.
The $25 billion reduction would affect the payments that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers receive for treating Medicare patients. Individual benefits would not change and neither would premiums, deductibles or copays. But with so much less money going to providers, the cuts could have major impacts on patient access to health care — such as fewer physicians accepting Medicare patients.
“We’re deeply concerned that the tax proposals being made will very directly affect the ability of Medicare to maintain services, and we do not think it is fair that older Americans who have paid into Medicare their entire working lives get stuck with the bill for a tax overhaul,” says Cristina Martin Firvida, AARP director of financial security.
The Senate is scheduled to debate the bill this week. The tax bill the House of Representatives passed earlier this month would also add $1.5 trillion to the deficit and lead to automatic spending cuts.
Congress has the authority to waive the PAYGO law and forestall such cuts. But it is not yet clear whether lawmakers would do so. And waiving the rules would simply cause higher deficits in later years.
Above is from: https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/advocacy/info-2017/senate-tax-medicare-cuts-fd.html
Friday, January 5, 2018
Unusual volume trading on Chrysler stock
Fiat Chrysler shares surge 22%; company won't comment on talks
Greg Gardner, Detroit Free Press Published 5:31 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2018 | Updated 6:31 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2018
Mike Manley, head of the Jeep and Ram brands for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, says a new Wrangler and Ram 1500 and refreshed Cherokee will make for a good year. Wochit
(Photo: Carlos Osorio, AP)
CONNECTTWEETLINKEDINCOMMENTEMAILMORE
Shares of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles surged more than 20% this week on heavy trading volume, raising the possibility that a potential acquirer is buying shares.
Under U.S. securities law, any investor who acquires 5% or more of a publicly traded company must disclose that holding and any additional shares thereafter. So far no one has made that disclosure.
The automaker's largest shareholder is Exor, an Italian investment company controlled by the Agnelli and Elkann families. The fund owns 25.3% of FCA.
FCA shares rose 5.4% Friday to close at a record high of $21.77. Since Tuesday, the stock has risen 22%. In each of the last three days, more trading volume has ranged between 10.6 million and 14.3 million shares, well above the average daily volume of 3.1 million.
By contrast, Ford and General Motors shares have gained 5.6% and 7.5%, respectively over that period, on light trading.
An FCA spokesman declined to comment on whether the company was currently in talks with a potential partner or acquirer.
CEO Sergio Marchionne has looking for a buyer for more than two years. He plans to retire by 2019 and the company has not signaled who might succeed him.
In May 2015, Marchionne pleaded with competitors to explore mergers and partnerships to deal with the rapidly rising cost of global manufacturing and new autonomous vehicles technologies.
Last August, a spokesman for Great Wall Motors, a Chinese manufacturer that sells mainly SUVs, said his company was interested in FCA's Jeep brand.
Read more: What happens to Fiat Chrysler if Chinese automaker Great Wall buys Jeep?
Last March at the Geneva auto show in Switzerland, Marchionne said, "I have no doubt that at the relevant time Volkswagen may show up and have a chat" for a merger. He said it in the context of General Motors sale of its Opel and Vauxhaul brands to PSA.
One month later he backed off, warning, "we need to be very careful that we don’t start unrealistic dreams about consolidation."
Then in early December he said FCA could potentially partner with Hyundai on hydrogen fuel cell technology.
On Wednesday, FCA reported its December sales in the U.S. fell 11% from a year earlier. But it is about to unveil a redesigned Ram pickup at this month's Detroit auto show. A redesigned Jeep Wrangler goes on sale soon.
While North America has generated most of the automaker's profit since Fiat took control of Chrysler following its 2009 taxpayer-funded bankruptcy, FCA doubled its operating profit in Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2015 to 2016, and is expected to show an increase for 2017 when it reports fourth-quarter results, said Richard Hilgert, a Morningstar analyst in Chicago.
Marchionne has talked about spinning off its Magneti Marelli components unit.
How could that deal raise the stock price?
"That would be like taking a car apart, selling the parts and realizing you get more than the price of selling the car," said Hilgert.
Maryann Keller, a former industry analyst and founder of MK&A Global Automotive Strategy, downplayed acquisition speculation. She said selling off nonessential holdings such as Magneti Marelli, paying down debt and a much lower tax rate on its U.S. earnings are driving the stock price.
"If someone were truly going to make a bid for FCA, they wouldn't be silently buying shares. They would be talking," Keller said. "The Chinese are not going to buy in dribs and drabs."
Despite is smaller scale, FCA was ahead of the curve by halting sales of small and midsize passenger cars in the U.S.
Unlike General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Nissan and others, FCA has outsourced its autonomous vehicle effort to Waymo, the Google spin-off, to which it has provided more than 500 Chrysler Pacifica minivans that Waymo equips with the sensors and navigation components. Waymo is testing those vehicles in the Phoenix area and elsewhere.
As a result, FCA is spending much less than competitors on this technology that initially will be introduced in ride-sharing and delivery fleets.
Contact Greg Gardner: 313-222-8848 or ggardner99@freepress.com. Follow him on Tiwtter @GregGardner12
Above is from: https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2018/01/05/fiat-chrysler-shares-surge-22-company-wont-comment-talks/1007349001/
Thursday, January 4, 2018
10 things from the explosive new book drawing fire and fury from Trump
10 things from the explosive new book drawing fire and fury from Trump
Senior Editor
,
Yahoo News•January 4, 2018
Journalist Michael Wolff’s upcoming book about President Trump’s first year in office, “Fire and Fury,” is sending shockwaves through the administration. On Wednesday, the White House released an extraordinary statement denouncing Steve Bannon for his devastating remarks about Trump in the book, saying the president’s former chief strategist had “lost his mind.”
It was one of three separate statements from the administration about Wolff’s book, which will be published Jan. 9. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump was “furious” and “disgusted” by Bannon’s comments, and described the book as “trashy tabloid fiction.”
Related SearchesBook Fire And Fury TrumpFire And Fury WolffMichael Wolfe Fire And Fury TrumpFire And Fury Author
So what in the book has Trump so worked up? Excerpts published by the Hollywood Reporter and New York magazine and a separate report on the book posted by the Guardian paint the picture of a chaotic and dysfunctional administration filled with backstabbing and infighting, and led by a commander in chief compared by one confidant to a “semiliterate” child.
Below are 10 notable revelations from the excerpts released so far.
_____
Trump’s public defenders privately lamented having to defend the president
According to the excerpt published by the Hollywood Reporter, former press secretary Sean Spicer reportedly couldn’t believe he had to defend Trump’s claim of having the biggest inaugural crowd in history.
“You can’t make this s*** up,” Spicer is quoted by Wolff as saying shortly after giving his first press briefing. “Soon enough,” Wolff writes, Spicer “adopted this as a personal mantra.”
After his appointment as chief of staff, Reince Priebus wasn’t sure he’d last until the inauguration, according to Wolff. And Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager and special counselor, “would put a finger-gun to her head in private about Trump’s public comments.”
_____
Rupert Murdoch walks with Donald Trump at Trump’s golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, June 25, 2016. (Photo: Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
Rupert Murdoch described Trump as a “f***ing moron”
During Trump’s first year in office, the media mogul frequently placed calls to the president to offer him advice. But in private, Wolff writes, Murdoch “continued to derisively ridicule” Trump.
“What a f***ing moron,” Murdoch reportedly said after one such call.
Trump’s Cabinet held similarly low opinions of the president, according to Wolff.
To Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Wolff writes, Trump “was a moron.” (An even saltier version of that assessment was made public last year.) For chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, Trump “was dumb as s***.” For national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Trump “was a hopeless idiot.” For Bannon, Trump “had lost his mind” — coincidentally, the same thing Trump said about Bannon on Wednesday.
_____
Aides quickly became frustrated by Trump’s inability to comprehend basic policy briefings
According to Wolff, White House aides noticed that President Trump, soon after taking office, “didn’t process information in any conventional sense.”
“He didn’t read,” Wolff writes. “He didn’t really even skim. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semiliterate. He trusted his own expertise — no matter how paltry or irrelevant — more than anyone else’s. He was often confident, but he was just as often paralyzed, less a savant than a figure of sputtering and dangerous insecurities, whose instinctive response was to lash out and behave as if his gut, however confused, was in fact in some clear and forceful way telling him what to do. It was, said [deputy chief of staff Katie] Walsh, ‘like trying to figure out what a child wants.’”
Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg recalled his attempt to explain the Constitution to the candidate.
“I got as far as the Fourth Amendment,” Nunberg said, “before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head.”
_____
Trump was increasingly repeating stories and could not recognize old friends
Before taking the chief of staff job, Priebus had been reportedly warned about Trump’s penchant for “constantly” repeating himself.
“Here’s the deal,” a close Trump associate told Priebus. “In an hour meeting with him, you’re going to hear 54 minutes of stories, and they’re going to be the same stories over and over again.”
“Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions,” Wolff writes. “It used to be inside of 30 minutes he’d repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories — now it was within 10 minutes.”
And at Mar-a-Lago late last month, Trump “failed to recognize a succession of old friends.”
_____
Donald Trump Jr. greets his father during a town hall debate in St. Louis, Oct. 9, 2016. (Photo: Rick Wilking-Pool/Getty Images)
Bannon thought the infamous Trump tower meeting was “treasonous”
In one excerpt, published by the Guardian, Bannon reportedly told Wolff that the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who claimed to have compromising information on Hillary Clinton should have been reported to the FBI at the time.
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor — with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers,” Bannon said, according to the excerpt published in the Guardian. “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
And Bannon believes that Trump Jr. not only briefed his father on that meeting — he also introduced the participants to the candidate.
“The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero,” Bannon was quoted as saying.
_____
Bannon also believed that the Mueller investigation would “crack Don Junior like an egg”
The Breitbart chief predicted that the federal investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, led by special counsel Robert Mueller, would end badly for the president’s son.
“They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” Bannon said, according to the Guardian.
_____
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner listen as President Trump holds a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Oct. 16, 2017. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Ivanka Trump has mused about becoming president
Wolff writes: “Both Jared and Ivanka decided to accept roles in the West Wing over the advice of almost everyone they knew. It was a joint decision by the couple, and, in some sense, a joint job. Between themselves, the two had made an earnest deal: If sometime in the future the opportunity arose, she’d be the one to run for president. The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton; it would be Ivanka Trump.”
_____
Ivanka was known to make fun of her father’s comb-over
“She often described the mechanics behind it to friends: an absolutely clean pate — a contained island after scalp-reduction surgery — surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray,” Wolff writes. “The color, she would point out to comical effect, was from a product called Just for Men — the longer it was left on, the darker it got. Impatience resulted in Trump’s orange-blond hair color.”
_____
Trump’s eccentricities were on display when he moved into the White House
Wolff writes: “In the first days, he ordered two television screens in addition to the one already there, and a lock on the door, precipitating a brief standoff with the Secret Service, who insisted they have access to the room. He reprimanded the housekeeping staff for picking up his shirt from the floor: “If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor.” Then he imposed a set of new rules: Nobody touch anything, especially not his toothbrush.
And Trump’s love of fast food has an unusual origin, according to Wolff: “He had a longtime fear of being poisoned, one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s — nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade.”
_____
President-elect Trump arrives at his inauguration ceremony in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2017. (Photo: Win McNamee/Pool/Reuters)
Donald Trump didn’t even want to be president
In the excerpt published by New York magazine, Wolff wrote that even on Election Day, “almost everyone” in the Trump campaign was convinced he would not win.
Wolff writes: “Even though the numbers in a few key states had appeared to be changing to Trump’s advantage, neither Conway nor Trump himself nor his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — the effective head of the campaign — wavered in their certainty: Their unexpected adventure would soon be over. Not only would Trump not be president, almost everyone in the campaign agreed, he should probably not be. Conveniently, the former conviction meant nobody had to deal with the latter issue.”
“Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary,” Wolff continues. “His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared would be international celebrities. Steve Bannon would become the de facto head of the tea-party movement. Kellyanne Conway would be a cable-news star. Melania Trump, who had been assured by her husband that he wouldn’t become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching. Losing would work out for everybody. Losing was winning.
“Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Night, when the unexpected trend — Trump might actually win — seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost,” Wolff adds. “Melania was in tears — and not of joy.”
According to Wolff, the unexpected victory “set the stage for the chaos and dysfunction that have persisted throughout his first year in office.”
“The mistaken outcome trusted by everyone in Trump’s inner circle — that they would lose the election — wound up exposing them for who they really were,” Wolff says.
Above is from: https://www.yahoo.com/news/10-things-explosive-new-book-drawing-fire-fury-trump-160710575.html
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