Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

Trump supporters are compelled to believe that he is some kind of business genius who acts and speaks outlandishly in order to distract his enemies while he goes about his oh-so-wonderful agenda. If they see him as he truly is - incompetent, narcissistic, immature, vindictive, self-centered liar - what does that say about them?

 

Edit: add gullible conspiracy theory addict to the Trump list.

[RedSpawn]

Trump supporters are compelled to believe that he is some kind of business genius who acts and speaks outlandishly in order to distract his enemies while he goes about his oh-so-wonderful agenda. If they see him as he truly is - incompetent, narcissistic, immature, vindictive, self-centered liar - what does that say about them?

The problem is people in America have a bad habit of voting against their own interests and politicians prey on this weakness. Hell, a lot of voting Americans can't clearly define or articulate their political interests; thus, they rely on (D) and (R ) labels to avoid the hard work of vetting the candidates.

[ldrews]

Trump supporters are compelled to believe that he is some kind of business genius who acts and speaks outlandishly in order to distract his enemies while he goes about his oh-so-wonderful agenda. If they see him as he truly is - incompetent, narcissistic, immature, vindictive, self-centered liar - what does that say about them?

 

And yet when Trump became president the economy started improving, jobs were created, some companies started returning to the US, unemployment went down, stock market went up (think pension plans and 401Ks), illegal immigration went down, other NATO members started to catch up on their contributions, the US started negotiating better trade deals and avoided some bad international agreements, consumer confidence went to record highs, ISIS was routed/defeated.

 

Probably just a coincidence, right?

[ldrews]

The problem is people in America have a bad habit of voting against their own interests and politicians prey on this weakness. Hell, a lot of voting Americans can't clearly define or articulate their political interests; thus, they rely on (D) and ® labels to avoid the hard work of vetting the candidates.

 

Well, I think I can articulate my political interests, and I am a US citizen. Maybe there are others as well, perhaps even participants in this forum.

[Zelandakh]

<typical ldrews shite and nonsense>

Probably just a coincidence, right?

Saying the same things over and over does not them true. Richard might be able to put it in more direct words that even a total wanker like yourself can understand.

[Winstonm]

Trump's accomplishments so far are attempts to discredit any Obama legacy, appointments that damage government institutions, damaging our reputation worldwide, and legitimizing hate speech and racism.

 

The Supreme Court nomination is due to Mitch McConnell - not Trump.

Jobs and the economy are not responding to Trump as he has not accomplished any legislation to influence them.

[ldrews]

 

The Supreme Court nomination is due to Mitch McConnell - not Trump.

 

Are you saying that Trump did not nominate Gorsuch?

[hrothgar]

Are you saying that Trump did not nominate Gorsuch?

 

No, he is saying that McConnell was the one who stole the seat to begin with giving Trump the chance to make an appointment...

 

With this said and done, I fail to understand why filling a vacant seat when your party controls the Senate is such a great accomplishment.

[ldrews]

No, he is saying that McConnell was the one who stole the seat to begin with giving Trump the chance to make an appointment...

 

With this said and done, I fail to understand why filling a vacant seat when your party controls the Senate is such a great accomplishment.

 

You think the Republican party is unified? Gimme a break!

[RedSpawn]

Well, I think I can articulate my political interests, and I am a US citizen. Maybe there are others as well, perhaps even participants in this forum.

Imagine if you will that you are on the Board of Directors (BOD) of a $4.1 trillion enterprise and you need a CEO to run it.

 

I want you to look me in my virtual eyes and tell me that you would interview a candidate who is known to run his companies into bankruptcy court four times to be the leader of the "corporation". Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-filed-bankruptcy-times/story?id=13419250

 

You want a consummate businessman to run this behemoth and what better person than to have someone who is very familiar with Chapter 7, 11, and 13 Bankruptcy Codes because of his own repeated business failures?

 

The average BOD wouldn't even call Trump to interview for the position. If they did, they probably would ask to see at least a few years of filed taxes since his businesses haven't fared well. Oh that's right! President Trump is defensive about his inability to ensure his businesses operate as going concerns. Full disclosure isn't his strong suit so we won't be seeing his filed taxes anytime soon.

 

So what do disillusioned Americans do? They believe that he IS a savvy businessman and that his celebrity on an Apprentice Show will translate into transferable skills for the Office of the President. We have a REALITY SHOW CELEBRITY as President of the United States and we have people who are standing by their woefully inexperienced tragic hero.

 

Is this delusional or voting against your own interests? You tell me?!

[ldrews]

Imagine if you will that you are on the Board of Directors (BOD) of a $4.1 trillion enterprise and you need a CEO to run it.

 

I want you to look me in my virtual eyes and tell me that you would interview a candidate who is known to run his companies into bankruptcy court four times to be the leader of the "corporation". Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-filed-bankruptcy-times/story?id=13419250

 

You want a consummate businessman to run this behemoth and what better person than to have someone who is very familiar with Chapter 7, 11, and 13 Bankruptcy Codes because of his own repeated business failures?

 

The average BOD wouldn't even call Trump to interview for the position. If they did, they probably would ask to see at least a few years of filed taxes since his businesses haven't fared well. Oh that's right! President Trump is defensive about his inability to ensure his businesses operate as going concerns. Full disclosure isn't his strong suit so we won't be seeing his filed taxes anytime soon.

 

So what do disillusioned Americans do? They believe that he IS a savvy businessman and that his celebrity on an Apprentice Show will translate into transferable skills for the Office of the President. We have a REALITY SHOW CELEBRITY as President of the United States and we have people who are standing by their woefully inexperienced tragic hero.

 

Is this delusional or voting against your own interests? You tell me?!

 

According to Wikipedia The Trump Organization has 500+ subsidiaries. Out of that you have identified 4 that have gone into bankruptcy. You should have such a record. And by the way, taking a company into bankruptcy is often a good business strategy; it is not always a sign that the business has failed.

 

Trump has taken a 1 million dollar loan from his father and turned it into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. He has survived and prospered in the NY real estate market, probably the toughest real estate market in the US. So I would assume that he has some business acumen.

 

Trump would probably never apply for the CEO position of your hypothetical company. If he was interested in that business he would probably just buy it.

 

But yes, as I look into your virtual eyes, I am happy to announce that I would gladly consider Trump for the position of CEO.

[hrothgar]

According to Wikipedia The Trump Organization has 500+ subsidiaries. Out of that you have identified 4 that have gone into bankruptcy. You should have such a record. And by the way, taking a company into bankruptcy is often a good business strategy; it is not always a sign that the business has failed.

 

Trump has taken a 1 million dollar loan from his father and turned it into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. He has survived and prospered in the NY real estate market, probably the toughest real estate market in the US. So I would assume that he has some business acumen.

 

Trump would probably never apply for the CEO position of your hypothetical company. If he was interested in that business he would probably just buy it.

 

But yes, as I look into your virtual eyes, I am happy to announce that I would gladly consider Trump for the position of CEO.

 

Comment the first: Trump's "business enterprise" is laundering money for the Russian mob and South America drug cartels. He was forced to go into this line of business because he screwed over so many counter-parties that no one in the US will extend his any credit. (The only reason that Deutsche Bank loans him any money is that they are also massively in hock to the Russians)

 

Comment the Second: Trump didn't survive and prosper. He went bankrupt. On multiple occasions. On several of these, Daddy needed to bail him out (for example, purchasing millions of dollars of chips at Trump Casinos)

 

Comment the Third: If you'd actually trust Trump to manage your business, you're even more stupid than I thought

 

Comment the Fourth: There's a lot of debate over the amount of money that Trump inherited from his father. I've heard as much as $250 million and never less than about 40M. However, 1M seems ridiculously low. Of course, the real "value" that Trump got from dear old dad was all the political connections in and around New York and he still managed to ***** things up.

[ldrews]

Comment the first: Trump's "business enterprise" is laundering money for the Russian mob and South America drug cartels. He was forced to go into this line of business because he screwed over so many counter-parties that no one in the US will extend his any credit. (The only reason that Deutsche Bank loans him any money is that they are also massively in hock to the Russians)

 

Comment the Second: Trump didn't survive and prosper. He went bankrupt. On multiple occasions. On several of these, Daddy needed to bail him out (for example, purchasing millions of dollars of chips at Trump Casinos)

 

Comment the Third: If you'd actually trust Trump to manage your business, you're even more stupid than I thought

 

Comment the Fourth: There's a lot of debate over the amount of money that Trump inherited from his father. I've heard as much as $250 million and never less than about 40M. However, 1M seems ridiculously low. Of course, the real "value" that Trump got from dear old dad was all the political connections in and around New York and he still managed to ***** things up.

 

Can you cite actual evidence to support your assertions? And what prompted the gratuitous insult?

[Zelandakh]

Can you cite actual evidence to support your assertions? And what prompted the gratuitous insult?

Your trolling earns every last insult you get here shitface. Get used to it.

 

On a lighter note, can anyone from over The Pond tell me where you come from. I am a little

.

 

Edit: and on the case of money, the WP was the top link when I googled trump inheritance:

 

One of Marco Rubio’s top zingers in the debate last week was that if Trump hadn’t gotten an inheritance of $200 million from his father, he’d be “selling watches” in the streets of Manhattan. Rubio got the figures about Trump’s inheritance wrong — $200 million is actually what Trump’s dad’s fortune was estimated at in the 1970s, not Trump’s inheritance — but Trump clearly benefited from the wealth and connections of his father, Fred Trump.

 

One of the richest people in America in the 1970s, Fred Trump built a real estate empire developing apartments for middle-class families in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island after World War II. After the younger Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1968, he joined his dad’s firm and, in 1971, took over the business. He built on his dad’s success, deploying leveraged capital on risky ventures that paid off: the Grand Hyatt Hotel on East 42nd Street, the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and Trump Plaza on 61st and Third Avenue.

 

What Trump benefited most from initially was his dad’s credit-worthiness, says D’Antonio. “When he wanted to go into business on his own, his father’s credit was available to him, and that was worth tens of millions of dollars.”

 

Still, there are questions over how much wealth Trump created. In the debate last week, Trump claimed that he took a loan of $1 million from his father and he turned it into a fortune of $10 billion. But The Post's fact checkers say that neither claim is quite right.

 

The $1 million loan doesn’t include any of the benefits Trump received from his family’s connections and joining his father’s real estate business after he graduated from college, and it doesn’t count an estimated $40 million inheritance in 1974. The $10 billion figure, which is what Trump claims as his current net worth, is also disputed. Bloomberg News has estimated Trump's net worth at only $2.9 billion, while Forbes put it at $4.1 billion. Since Trump’s businesses aren’t public, the true figure isn’t clear.

 

As my colleague Max Ehrenfreund has argued, even if Trump has many billions of dollars, there's an open question over whether that reflects true business acumen.

 

Business Week estimated Trump’s net worth at $100 million in 1978. If Trump had merely put that money in an index fund based on the Standard & Poor's 500 index — the kind many Americans use to save for retirement — he would be worth $6 billion today.

 

PS: I answered your questions. Now try answering mine.

[hrothgar]

Can you cite actual evidence to support your assertions?

 

Can I prove any of this in a court of law? Don't have to... that what we have the Mueller investigation for.

 

With this said and done, there have been a whole bunch of articles about all of this.

 

1. On the money laundering front, I recommend searching on

 

Trump money laundering Bayrock

Trump Money Laundering International Hotel & Tower Baku

Trump Money Laundering Ocean Club in Panama

 

2. Trump's multiple bankrupcy's are well documented. With respect to Daddy bailing him out:

 

In a 2007 deposition, Trump admitted he had borrowed “a small amount” from his father’s estate: ‘I think it was like in the $9 million range.” And as Trump’s casinos ran into trouble, Trump’s father also purchased $3.5 million gaming chips, but did not use them, so the casino would have enough cash to make payments on its mortgage — a transaction which casino authorities later said was an illegal loan.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/live-updates/general-election/real-time-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-the-first-presidential-debate/fact-check-how-much-help-did-trumps-father-give-his-son/?utm_term=.df61ec7ca114

 

3. With respect to Deutsche Bank and Russian money laundering

 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/31/investing/deutsche-bank-us-fine-russia-money-laundering/index.html

 

They've already been fined $630M in the US for money laundering.

The investigations are far from over...

 

And what prompted the gratuitous insult?

 

Your posting history

[ldrews]

Your trolling earns every last insult you get here shitface. Get used to it.

 

On a lighter note, can anyone from over The Pond tell me where you come from. I am a little

.

 

Edit: and on the case of money, the WP was the top link when I googled trump inheritance:

 

 

 

PS: I answered your questions. Now try answering mine.

 

I guess you are right, I should get used to insulting behavior from you since that does seem to be your nature. I will try.

 

if I am aware that someone I know has committed a felony and not only choose not to report it but also actively attempt to derail the investigation, that is going to land me in some very hot water. When the POTUS does it, is it just carrying out the duties of the Executive branch?

 

I do believe that the situation you describe would be obstruction of justice if proven. However, didn't one of Trump's attorneys take the blame for sending that tweet? If that is indeed the case, then Trump is still off the hook. And there is also the legal theory being asserted by some that the Pressident, as the head of the justice system, cannot obstruct justice to begin with and is probably not indictable. Impeachable yes, indictable no.

 

Did I answer your question?

[ldrews]

Can I prove any of this in a court of law? Don't have to... that what we have the Mueller investigation for.

 

I didn't ask you to prove it in a court of law, I asked if you have any evidence of your assertions. Sounds like you are just engaging in fantasies.

[hrothgar]

I didn't ask you to prove it in a court of law, I asked if you have any evidence of your assertions. Sounds like you are just engaging in fantasies.

 

Sounds like you are too lazy to read more than the first line of a post...

 

In all seriousness, by ignoring 90% of what I posted - all the factual data that directly documented my assertions - you are being completely dishonest.

Not only that, you doing so in a remarkably stupid way because its blatantly obvious what you're doing.

 

You wonder what some many people on this list treat you like scum...

 

Its just this sort of behaviour... lazy ignorant belligerence

[ldrews]

So what does everyone think about the full-scale audit of the Department of Defense? Seems to me to be long overdue and hopefully a step toward reigning in the DOD spending. We didn't see anything like this under previous presidents.

[Winstonm]

It is queer to hear the Trump narrative repeated with such accuracy. And just like Fox News, the repetition does not mean accurate facts.

 

How do we know that Trump is a successful businessman? Because he says so. But without seeing his tax returns or knowing who he is indebted to and how much he owes, any claim of success or wealth is only that: a claim from a known consistent liar. The only things we know for sure are the bankruptcies.

 

Did the claim that Trump's lawyer wrote his tweet let Trump off the hook? The law is not on the side of that alibi. The law looks on the assistance of a lawyer as evidence that the tweet is even more accurate. Had it only been Trump without his lawyer he would have had a better argument that it was a mistake - he pays his lawyer to help him avoid those mistakes. That's how the courts will look at it. His lawyer wrote it at his direction; therefore, it is more likely an accurate reflection of his knowledge at that time. Oops!

[blackshoe]

So what does everyone think about the full-scale audit of the Department of Defense? Seems to me to be long overdue and hopefully a step toward reigning in the DOD spending. We didn't see anything like this under previous presidents.

1. Yes, it's long overdue, etc., and no, we've never seen it before.

2. The next step should be to audit the Fed.

[Winstonm]

So what does everyone think about this week's coordinated attack on Bob Mueller, the FBI, and the Justice Department by Fox News talking heads?

[Winstonm]

Here is new data that helps explain what Trump has accomplished thus far as president:

 

The percentage of people who identify as or lean Republican has fallen 5 points from 42 percent of the population to 37 percent, according to the poll comparing November 2016 with November 2017, which was released last week. The percentage of voters identifying as Democratic has remained at 44 percent.

[barmar]

I do believe that the situation you describe would be obstruction of justice if proven. However, didn't one of Trump's attorneys take the blame for sending that tweet? If that is indeed the case, then Trump is still off the hook. And there is also the legal theory being asserted by some that the Pressident, as the head of the justice system, cannot obstruct justice to begin with and is probably not indictable. Impeachable yes, indictable no.

Why does it matter who sent the tweet? It describes something the President did. If it's accurate, it describes obstruction.

 

And impeachment is an indictment, but with the House of Representatives taking the role of the Grand Jury. If they impeach him, he's tried by the Senate, with the Chief Justice presiding as the judge. See Wikipedia for a summary of the full process.

[Zelandakh]

I guess you are right, I should get used to insulting behavior from you since that does seem to be your nature. I will try.

Oh it's not, you can ask anyone here. I reserve the insults specifically for pieces of ***** like you, and only then when they have outlived their amusement value. You remain a joke at BBF, just that the disruption from your trolling is more detrimental to these forums than the entertainment your attempts to support the indefensible provide.

 

 

I do believe that the situation you describe would be obstruction of justice if proven. However, didn't one of Trump's attorneys take the blame for sending that tweet? If that is indeed the case, then Trump is still off the hook.

Legally there is not a huge difference between what Trump's lawyer states in his name and what DT himself says or writes, other than what he says without legal advice can sometimes be inadmissable. The tweet itself is naturally alone not proof of obstruction but it certainly is evidence that can be used against him.

 

 

And there is also the legal theory being asserted by some that the Pressident, as the head of the justice system, cannot obstruct justice to begin with and is probably not indictable. Impeachable yes, indictable no.

"Some" presumably means the lawyers of Trump and Nixon. I am not sure it is a great accolade for the POTUS to be placed in a group of two with RN.

 

 

Did I answer your question?

Close enough. I assume this answer means in turn that you would support impeachment if further evidence were to come to light that DT was involved in OoJ, correct?