Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[BasilValentine]

I remember quite a few presidents by now, and at NO time was there such visceral, vile takedowns of the person who got the office, even when it was deserved like Lyndon Johnson who was a nasty piece of work.

It could be there is no real civil public discourse anymore, just mudslinging. Well, I am still not used to it, coming from a different time and education.

Do you remember a president who was a career criminal before running for office? A president forced to pay a multi-million dollar judgment for defrauding thousands of his fellow citizens while conducting his campaign? A president publicly admitting to a pattern of sexual assault? A president who conspired with a foreign power to defraud U.S. voters? A president who was fingered as an unindicted co-conspirator in two felonies in the first two years of his presidency? Trump is, fortunately, a unique case in the history of the presidency. Unique cases inspire unique responses. 

[zamyrabyrd]

Do you remember a president who was a career criminal before running for office? A president forced to pay a multi-million dollar judgment for defrauding thousands of his fellow citizens while conducting his campaign? A president publicly admitting to a pattern of sexual assault? A president who conspired with a foreign power to defraud U.S. voters? A president who was fingered as an unindicted co-conspirator in two felonies in the first two years of his presidency? Trump is, fortunately, a unique case in the history of the presidency. Unique cases inspire unique responses.

I remember a president who was already doing shady drug trafficking business as a governor in Arkansas.
https://www.amazon.com/Hillary-Bill-Drugs-Clinton-Trilogy/dp/0978573358

I remember his lack of respect for the Oval Office by his scurrilous behavior in it. I recall the criminal Clinton Foundation which literally screwed the Haitians who HATE the Clintons to this day.

I don't recognize Trump in any of your blown-up allegations.

[BasilValentine]

I remember a president who was already doing shady drug trafficking business as a governor in Arkansas.
https://www.amazon.com/Hillary-Bill-Drugs-Clinton-Trilogy/dp/0978573358

I remember his lack of respect for the Oval Office by his scurrilous behavior in it. I recall the criminal Clinton Foundation which literally screwed the Haitians who HATE the Clintons to this day.

I don't recognize Trump in any of your blown-up allegations.

Lack of respect for the Oval Office? You mean the room itself? Like he got jizz on the desk or something? Do you remember what Trump did in the Oval Office? He tried to get James Comey to drop an investigation of the foreign agent, traitor and perjurer (Michael Flynn) whom he had appointed National Security Advisor. Clinton's stain on the Oval Office could be removed with furniture polish. Trump's stain requires senate hearings, intelligence committee investigations, the appointment of a special prosecutor and, eventually, dragging his ass in front of a grand jury.

You don't recognize Trump as the man who paid a $25 million judgement to the thousands defrauded by Trump University? The man whose casinos in New Jersey were charged with over a hundred counts of money laundering in one year? Whose real estate developments were convicted of discriminatory rental practices? The man who has been charged with self-dealing and misappropriation of funds from a supposed charitable foundation that is now under criminal investigation by the AG of New York? And the man who is now an unindicted co-conspirator in violations of campaign finance law? I suggest you read actual news sources rather than the idiotic conspiracy theories you have located on amazon.com. 

[Karl Henning]

Nah.  Trump has told her that he was a successful and smart businessman, what more does she need?

[Karl Henning]

They're just floozies, sez zb.

Michael Cohen says he worked to silence two women 'in coordination' with Trump to influence 2016 election

[Karl Henning]

This too will pass, sez zb.

Last week the prosecutors of the Southern District of New York delivered a 1-2 punch to President Trump. First, they finally struck a deal with Trump's former fixer and personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to eight felony counts. In addition, he directly implicated Trump in an illegal plot to conceal pay-offs to alleged paramours before the 2016 election. Backing up Cohen is the audio tape previously released wherein they discussed hushing up Karen McDougal in the context of other campaign-related matters.

Then on Friday prosecutors struck a second time. The Post reported:

A federal investigation that led President Trump's longtime lawyer to implicate Trump in two campaign finance crimes this week also secured the cooperation of one of the top-ranking executives at Trump's private company.

Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors in New York who were investigating Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, according to people familiar with the probe. . . .

The decision to grant Weisselberg immunity gave prosecutors access to one of the highest-ranking figures inside the president's private company, an executive who is considIn ered practically part of Trump's family.

Over the decades, Weisselberg rose from serving as an accountant to the keeper of Trump's personal books. After Trump's election, he was appointed to help run the trust that controls the president's assets, along with two of the president's sons, Donald Trump Jr., a fellow trustee, and Eric Trump, chairman of the trust's advisory board.

No wonder Trump was harping about the practice of "flipping" — the time-honored tradition of extracting information from subordinates to provide evidence to convict their bosses. In many cases those bosses are Mafioso figures, as Trump's current TV lawyer Rudolph A. Giuliani knows all too well from his time as a prosecutor in the very same office. In the case of Trump, prosecutors not only have the two personal associates most involved in Trump's pre-campaign private and financial dealings but also a slew of documents including emails, texts and, let's not forget, Cohen's audio tapes.

In piercing the veil of lies, secrecy and obfuscation that have protected Trump's finances and dalliances from public scrutiny, prosecutors reasserted the primacy of facts. There is an objective reality that conscientious men and women can determine through rational inquiry and professional skill. The Southern District of New York has held an esteemed place in the annals of criminal justice, nabbing stock swindlers, mob bosses and corrupt politicians. Last week we saw why the prosecutors' reputation is well-earned. In doing the people's business and reasserting that no one is above the law, they have injected constitutional sanity into the Trump era and given their fellow Americans hope that the country can be roused from our national nightmare. For all of this, we can say, well done gentlemen and ladies of the SDNY.

[zamyrabyrd]

They're just floozies, sez zb.

Michael Cohen says he worked to silence two women 'in coordination' with Trump to influence 2016 election

They are also gold-diggers.
No one seems to have questioned the heinous allegation of "influencing the election".
Well, what the heck is campaign money supposed to be spent on, if not influencing an election?
Gawd!!!

[drogulus]

     How does it remedy generalizing about Trumpists to generalize about Hillaryists and how they sound?

     First, generalization isn't a problem. If it don't apply, you don't convict. Bad generalizations, like all Trumpists have horns instead of only half of them, is a problem of inaccuracy, not generalization.

     Second, in case I'm not getting through, the Hillaryist "sound just like" generalization lacks substance. I'm not ready to accept they are alike as Trumpists about hating nonwhites and illegal people not from Norway. Dems don't all want borders as open as I do. They are not free traders in labor and capital to a great extent. I am to a degree. So when I look for agreement I look with care and don't see enough among Dems, less than I see deep disagreement with Trumpists. This isn't surprising, is it? Repubs used to be diverse like Dems still are, now they're not.

[BasilValentine]

They are also gold-diggers.
No one seems to have questioned the heinous allegation of "influencing the election".
Well, what the heck is campaign money supposed to be spent on, if not influencing an election?
Gawd!!!

Campaign money has to be declared as campaign money. When instead its source is disguised by creating fraudulent business documents (The Trump organization tried to hide it as retainer payments to Cohen) and it is undeclared, that is a felony. When criminal fraud is used to influence an election, that is a felony. Is that really difficult to understand?

[Mahlerian]

Well, what the heck is campaign money supposed to be spent on, if not influencing an election?

I have to admit, I thought I had gotten used to reading zamyrabyrd's Trump apologia, but this still took me aback.

[zamyrabyrd]

Campaign money has to be declared as campaign money. When instead its source is disguised by creating fraudulent business documents (The Trump organization tried to hide it as retainer payments to Cohen) and it is undeclared, that is a felony. When criminal fraud is used to influence an election, that is a felony. Is that really difficult to understand?

Obama forgot to declare significant campaign money, the penalty was to pay a fine. That is the law.
Dershowitz is no dummy and says that hush money is not criminal.

[drogulus]

RIP to the scumbag warmonger John McCain, who suggested Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks to justify the push for the Iraq war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2pxuv_teQk

     There's a small pool of politicians adept enough to do war and peace well and the hardest part is making the switch. McCain could have run my war any day, G.W.Bush no day.

     Here's the difficulty I see, some warlike types can't do war very well and don't get that the nature of the peace is where the win happens.

     Some peacemongers can fight wars, an expression of the kind of flexibility and general competence I value in its own right.

     Also, I differ on whether it's policy or principle that's at stake on war/peace. It should be policy, or I don't like you.

[JBS]

Obama forgot to declare significant campaign money, the penalty was to pay a fine. That is the law.
Dershowitz is no dummy and says that hush money is not criminal.

Obama was not involved in that omission,  Trump was in this one.
Dershowitz is an idiot.   It was somewhat apparent before now, but clear as a bell now.
The true mark of his idiocy was complaining that he was being given the cold shoulder in Martha's Vineyard, as if that's something to complain about.

[JBS]

I remember a president who was already doing shady drug trafficking business as a governor in Arkansas.
https://www.amazon.com/Hillary-Bill-Drugs-Clinton-Trilogy/dp/0978573358

I remember his lack of respect for the Oval Office by his scurrilous behavior in it. I recall the criminal Clinton Foundation which literally screwed the Haitians who HATE the Clintons to this day.

I don't recognize Trump in any of your blown-up allegations.

Maybe the Haitians do hate the Clintons.
But all the Haitians I know living here in Miami who could vote, did vote.  And voted one and all for Hillary.

[SimonNZ]

Obama forgot to declare significant campaign money, the penalty was to pay a fine. That is the law.
Dershowitz is no dummy and says that hush money is not criminal.

There's been a considerable response to this attempted spin and diversion from Trump over the weekend from a wide variety of sources, all contradicting him. Here's just one:

Why Michael Cohen's campaign finance crimes were more serious than the Obama campaign's infraction

worth reading the whole piece - not that you will - but here's the end:

"What is the difference between Cohen's crimes and the Obama campaign's violation?

The Obama campaign's violation was a civil infraction of campaign finance law, which resulted in an administrative penalty.

Dan Petalas, former acting general counsel and head of enforcement at the FEC who signed the settlement agreement with the Obama campaign, said such infractions are far more common than criminal violations to which Cohen pleaded guilty.

Civil infractions often arise out of inadvertent paperwork errors, which are not uncommon for a presidential campaign that files fundraising reports that are thousands of pages long, Petalas said.

"There is no good-faith comparison of that sort of conduct with allegations — if proven true — that a candidate him or herself directed his agents to knowingly violate campaign finance laws," as Cohen said Trump did, Petalas said.

"It is ethically and morally, entirely of a different character," Petalas said.

Trump claimed Wednesday that the Obama campaign was treated differently in 2012 because there was a different attorney general leading the Justice Department. However, the Obama campaign penalty was levied by the FEC, which handles civil infractions, not the Justice Department, which prosecutes criminal violations of election law."

[drogulus]

     The Clinton Foundation directed spending to outside groups on the same criteria that other outsiders used, that money given to the Haitian government would be stolen. This is a problem with international aid generally, who should get it and who should control the getting. Haitians blame the name, the name is Clinton. Nothing in this says Clintons shouldn't be blamed.

     As for the Foundation, it's well thought of by thinky people who know things.

[drogulus]

     The biggest peacemonger on MSNBC is Chris Matthews. He rants about wars constantly, and I say good for him. He's willing to be wrong in order to be right about what he cares about most.

     His greatest hero is Winston Churchill.

[BasilValentine]

Obama forgot to declare significant campaign money, the penalty was to pay a fine. That is the law.
Dershowitz is no dummy and says that hush money is not criminal.

What you describe with respect to the Obama campaign is a minor technical violation, a matter of sloppy paper work. There is no intention to defraud or deceive, no knowing wrong doing, no criminal intent. That is why it was penalized by a fine. Trump's violations involved the willful, knowing concealment of large contributions through criminal fraud. We've all heard the tape of Trump and Michael Cohen actually conspiring to commit the crime!

Dreshowitz asserts that hush money in itself is not criminal. But paying hush money is not the offense for which Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator. If hush money is used for the purpose of influencing an election, which is what Cohen plead to and what he implicated Trump in, that money is a campaign contribution. Willfully and knowingly failing to report a campaign contribution is a crime. Falsifying business documents to cover this deception is a crime. Trump is on the hook for campaign funding violations, not paying hush money. The Trump Organization is on the hook for creating fraudulent business documents, as is Trump as the executive of the organization who ordered it. Got it now?

[SimonNZ]

Got it now?

Not as long as Fox can provide tenuous counter narratives that one can cling to like a life preserver.

[71 dB]

Before the 2016 election I was pretty ignorant about the US politics. I thought the Republicans are bad and the Democrats are good. I thought Obama was a good president and Hillary was a good candidate. I believed Hillary will win the election easily. Of course I was totally wrong, totally ignorant without any understanding of politics in the US. I looked at it the same way I look politics in my own country Finland.

Then Trump won to the shock of pretty much every European. How was that even possible? I got interested to dig deeper into the secrets of american politics. Why do people call Hillary a criminal and a bad candidate? I started to learn that the US politics is INSANELY corrupted, something I never expected from a first world "democracy", especially a country called the leader of the free World, the country of freedom and democracy!

I learned not only are Republicans bad, but so are most Democrats! Only a handful of left wing politicians are good. Media is all bought to do corporate propaganda from Republican, Democratic or bipartisan perspective. It's not that Americans don't want medicare for all. It's that the goverment doesn't want to give them that, because they serve only the top 1 % and that's where the money comes and corrupts the system with horrendous results.

On top of this corruption Trump is the president. It didn't take me for long to understand why he won. Despite of being completely incompetent and also a criminal, impeachment doesn't look reality. The situation is absurb. You see something like this in banana republics, but we are talking about the supreme superpower in the World.

For the first year or so Trump's presidency has been interesting to follow for all the covfefe tweets, but lately I have become more and more fed up with all this lunacy. Lack of medicare for all is bad for Americans themselves only, but Trump's presidency causes so much damage to the whole World (climate change, trade war, boom bust cycle, escalation of wars, support of dictatorships etc.)

The US is intellectually bankcrupt. An empire facing total collapse if radical actions aren't taken fast. Democracy must be restored removing money in the politics. Military budget should be halfed and the saved money directed to social programs and education. Media should stop advanging corporate propaganda. The richest country in the World should stop acting like a poor Banana republic with third world problems like lead in the tap water, tape worms, lack of healthcare and overall poverty.

I'm so fed up by now. So fed up with all the bigoted fake news snowflake safe space crap that has NOTHING to do with a developped civilized society. A monkey cage in a zoo contains more intellect than Trump's "made great again" America. Even Kyle Kulinski's excellent Youtube commentaries make me shudder by now. I feel like starting to ignore American politics again and coming "back" when Trump is out, how many years that will take I don't know... ...maybe there's a blue progressive wave?

Obama didn't give Americans medicare for all. Instead he gave them a right wing think tank bs system that ranks the worst among the developped countries. He also increased 2 wars into 7 wars. Obama's presidency was a mixed bag at best. However, Trump has taken the presidency to record breaking lows. An amazing achievement by itself.