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Thread: Trump Thread

  1. #2281

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    There's been some pretty dire shit going on in the past week or two of these bad times, including the President of the United States claiming to have the power to revoke or abrogate Constitutional rights by executive fiat

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    not even with reference to some national emergency requiring the temporary derogation of protections, but with reference to the President's opinion on what the Constitution ought to say


    so it's time for a

    HUMOR BREAK


    A young right-wing provocateur Jacob Wohl was just outed for attempting to frame the Special Counsel Mueller with discrediting sexual assault allegations. His plot was apparently as follows (in this summation where I'm missing something, it's probably a detail that makes the whole enterprise even dumber and you can delve and chuckle for yourselves):

    1. Pose as a fake woman contacting reporters claiming that Republican operatives are paying her to lodge false accusations of sexual assault against Mueller.
    2. Contact a real woman and offer her money to sign a sworn affidavit alleging that Mueller sexually assaulted her nearly 50 years ago.
    3. Use a fake firm to put out a fake report containing anonymous allegations of sexual assault by Mueller through Gateway Pundit, a far-right fake news mill that, among other things, pushed the narrative in October 2016 that pro-Trump FBI agents were going to leak damaging information about Clinton as an October Surprise (FBI Director James Comey infamously got out ahead of this by effectively leaking himself)
    4. Something something MeToo
    5. ???
    6. Glory to God-Emperor Trump!

    Apparently the front site they setup to distribute the final product (the report and accusations) was filled with stock photos of actors and models, and included/was registered to Wohl's personal email and phone number - as well as a phone number registered to his mother.

    Wohl stopped responding to NBC News after being told Surefire's official phone number redirects to his mother's voicemail.
    <insert preferred gif>

    Mueller quickly got wind of it and the FBI is investigating. Wohl will be lucky to escape a federal prison sentence for suborning perjury among other things.

    @GilrandirThis is what politically-motivated accusations look like. Their hallmark is that they are very easy to debunk.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 11-01-2018 at 01:50.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
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  2. #2282
    Member Member Gilrandir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    There's been some pretty dire shit going on in the past week or two of these bad times, including the President of the United States claiming to have the power to revoke or abrogate Constitutional rights by executive fiat

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    not even with reference to some national emergency requiring the temporary derogation of protections, but with reference to the President's opinion on what the Constitution ought to say


    so it's time for a

    HUMOR BREAK


    A young right-wing provocateur Jacob Wohl was just outed for attempting to frame the Special Counsel Mueller with discrediting sexual assault allegations. His plot was apparently as follows (in this summation where I'm missing something, it's probably a detail that makes the whole enterprise even dumber and you can delve and chuckle for yourselves):

    1. Pose as a fake woman contacting reporters claiming that Republican operatives are paying her to lodge false accusations of sexual assault against Mueller.
    2. Contact a real woman and offer her money to sign a sworn affidavit alleging that Mueller sexually assaulted her nearly 50 years ago.
    3. Use a fake firm to put out a fake report containing anonymous allegations of sexual assault by Mueller through Gateway Pundit, a far-right fake news mill that, among other things, pushed the narrative in October 2016 that pro-Trump FBI agents were going to leak damaging information about Clinton as an October Surprise (FBI Director James Comey infamously got out ahead of this by effectively leaking himself)
    4. Something something MeToo
    5. ???
    6. Glory to God-Emperor Trump!

    Apparently the front site they setup to distribute the final product (the report and accusations) was filled with stock photos of actors and models, and included/was registered to Wohl's personal email and phone number - as well as a phone number registered to his mother.



    <insert preferred gif>

    Mueller quickly got wind of it and the FBI is investigating. Wohl will be lucky to escape a federal prison sentence for suborning perjury among other things.

    @GilrandirThis is what politically-motivated accusations look like. Their hallmark is that they are very easy to debunk.
    This accusation abounds in "fake" words, so its not really an accusation. Just old woman's tales. Real accusations are not like that. But, anyway, be it real or false, any accusations of a politician which are that old are politically motivated.
    Quote Originally Posted by Suraknar View Post
    The article exists for a reason yes, I did not write it...

  3. #2283
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    POTUS continues to prove that he's the epitome of the average American. It's neither guns nor hamburgers, neither baseball nor cowboys. No, it's just pure and sheer ignorance of geography. Poor Melania.

  4. #2284
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Crandar View Post
    Poor Melania.
    She's a call girl on retainer. She sold out for as much as she could get. That is her choice - but I've no sympathy since if she wants she's free to divorce him... I assume the terms of the pre-nup mean she stands to loose too much.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
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  5. #2285
    Member Member Gilrandir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
    She's a call girl on retainer. She sold out for as much as she could get. That is her choice - but I've no sympathy since if she wants she's free to divorce him... I assume the terms of the pre-nup mean she stands to loose too much.

    I can refer those words to lady Di as well.
    Quote Originally Posted by Suraknar View Post
    The article exists for a reason yes, I did not write it...

  6. #2286
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
    She's a call girl on retainer. She sold out for as much as she could get. That is her choice - but I've no sympathy since if she wants she's free to divorce him... I assume the terms of the pre-nup mean she stands to loose too much.

    I am not quite so emotionally cynical as to assume any marriage is a form of prostitution (which is possible inductive extrapolation of your statement).

    Her choice to remain with him is, as you note, her choice.

    I do not know the tenor of their relationship with one another, or what guidelines they have worked out between and for themselves. Their union, their choice. Not my concern.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

    "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken

  7. #2287

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    A great essay comparing the Trump worldview to the movie Goodfellas. I urge you to read it :

    The most interesting connection between Goodfellas and Trump isn’t that “Trump behaves like a mafia don.” It’s that the President thinks that being a mafia don is the best possible life. And that is desperately sad.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Praising its “stellar cast,” Mr. Trump has referred to the 1990 film as “great entertainment.” — CBS News

    Goodfellas is the Rosetta Stone for the Trump Presidency (some spoilers ahead). My brother (we’ll call him N.) and I were watching the heartwarming, blood-splattered classic over Thanksgiving. In the second half, Henry Hill is rolling in money from his Pittsburgh coke connection. Henry’s wife Karen is flaunting their regained wealth to Morrie and Belle. Karen pushes a button on a remote control. A pair of doors swing open, revealing the most garish home entertainment center this side of a Dubai strip club. It’s Scorsese taking a cold-eyed look at Seventies mob taste. My brother and I started laughing. N. said, “This is what Trump thinks is classy.” And that’s the key to our glorious President: he thinks he’s in this story.

    I’m not the first to note parallels between Scorsese’s 1990 crime epic and Trump. Back in August, the New York Times noted:

    “When I first heard that Trump said to Comey, ‘Let this go,’ it just rang such a bell with me,” said Nicholas Pileggi, an author who has chronicled the Mafia in books and films like “Goodfellas” and “Casino.” ... Mr. Pileggi traced the president’s language to the Madison Club, a Democratic Party machine in Brooklyn that helped his father, Fred Trump, win his first real estate deals in the 1930s. ... Mr. Trump honed his vocabulary over decades through his association with the lawyer Roy Cohn, who besides working for Senator Joseph McCarthy also represented Mafia bosses like Mr. Gotti, Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante.

    But these are surface comparisons, and miss the point. The most interesting connection between Goodfellas and Trump isn’t that “Trump behaves like a mafia don.” It’s that the President thinks that being a mafia don is the best possible life. And that is desperately sad.

    Henry begins the film by telling us, “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.” Trump is what happens when you try to have it both ways.
    With the possible exception of Fight Club, Goodfellas is the most misinterpreted movie in history. Let me clarify. If you watched Goodfellas, and took away “They’ve got it made,” if you watched The Sopranos and thought “Man, Tony’s got it figured out”—or if you watched Breaking Bad and said “Wow, Walter has grown into a hero”—then, my friend, have I got tough news for you.

    Goodfellas is one long gag on the audience—You really think the mob is about glamour and loyalty? Check these guys out! Trump is the kind of man who takes a joke literally. It’s almost as if the movie was designed to appeal to him. The story of Henry Hill is essentially a narrative about half-witted narcissistic sociopaths with weird hangups … who take themselves and “respect” incredibly seriously. Paulie’s weirdness about using the phone could be a Trump peccadillo. Trump’s dearest associates are either people who believe this, or are criminal grifters. Both of these types appear in Goodfellas.

    Thirty years after its release, Goodfellas shadows over all crime fiction. Scorsese’s masterpiece has perfect atmosphere. There are details about postwar Mafia culture that only close-hand observers would know. The film seems inexpensive but never cheap. As Bill Burr once said, every scene’s a closer.


    And Goodfellas illustrates the squalor of Henry’s world. And Trump’s.

    As someone once said, Trump is a dumb man’s idea of a smart rich man. But we forget just how dumb that idea is. I mean, here’s a guy in big awkward suits, surrounded by dopey cronies, who lives in a golden penthouse, uses words like “rats,” and chooses to spend his time with thick-necked real estate brokers in Mar-a-Lago.
    Goodfellas nailed Trump’s type down to a T. Even if you believe wealth and power and strength are inherently admirable (they’re not), Goodfellas portrays the cheapest, shoddiest versions of those glories—the Trumpian versions, as it were.

    During my twentieth time watching it, I was reminded of how weird and broken the characters are, and honestly how little they settle for. Their idea of money is a couple of free hundreds. Their idea of masculinity is bullying their friends. And their idea of power is—what, not getting bothered by the cops and scoring a seat at the Copa?
    Trump: A man whose idea of power is large crowds. A man whose loyalty goes one way. A man who forgoes clever lying for easily disproven brags. A thin-skinned man who gives into performative public explosions instead of building power wisely. A profoundly dull, needy, unimaginative man, easily provoked and easily upset.
    The underworld of Henry Hill seems so shabby once you’ve read about people with real wealth and real power and real strength. Selling your soul is bad enough, but doing it for so little is doubly humiliating. In the play A Man For All Seasons, Thomas More says: “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for Wales?”

    Another point that Goodfellas is very clear about: everyone here is deluded. Just as Trump is deluded. Every claim Henry makes for The Life is disproven in the course of the film. The whole movie is one long, extended exercise in How Men Miss The Point. And Henry, from the first to the last, takes the wrong lesson. Much as Trump does. That’s the tragic thing about nihilists. They sacrifice so much just to believe in nothing. And nothing is what they get.

    We’re told again and again in the film how much loyalty matters. But loyalty doesn’t matter. Not in this film, and not to Trump. The respect economy is make believe. The point of Goodfellas is that these are literally not “good fellas.” Organized crime is a business pretending to be a family. Goodfellas is a story about false laughter, false camaraderie, false everything. These are predators pretending to be blood brothers. That’s why so much of the male friendship in the movie has this bizarre, edgy dream logic to it. These are paranoid, insecure, desperate losers clawing at each other to stay afloat. Human feeling is alien to them, as it is to Trump.

    Goodfellas feeds into the The Sopranos, and The Sopranos feeds into Trump. As one Reddit user put it, Tony Soprano’s descent into dark misanthropy—his alienation of everyone in his life—is the path of the MAGA suburban dad. Tony is unable to stop being selfish, or to tell himself the truth. He couldn’t face his own choices, any more than Henry or Karen could. That’s Trump’s base, and it’s Trump himself.

    Sure, Horatio Alger was the lie that square America told itself. But the edgy alternative, Goodfellas, is also a shabby untruth. The lie that, with the right friends, or the right crew, or the right deal, you can jump in line ahead of all those suckers. People who take Goodfellas at face value are distantly related to people who take Fox News seriously. There’s nobody easier to con than people who think they can’t be conned. When you get a free second, ask an Alex Jones listener about nutritional supplements.

    The Trump White House (like Goodfellas) is full of people who spent their lives conning other people, only to fall for the biggest con of all, as Paul Manafort’s week has detailed. They all played themselves into following a deluded schmuck, and believing his childish lies. Like Henry Hill, Trump wants to avoid living his life like an average nobody. But the point of the movie is that only a schnook would seriously believe in The Life. There’s no fool like a man desperate to be nobody’s fool, and guess what? He’s the President. Donald, you sure are a funny guy.


    EDIT: I especially appreciate the article because I only ever saw the middle third or half of Goodfellas on TV some years ago.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 11-29-2018 at 00:41.
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    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  8. #2288

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Did Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer just trick Trump into having a "Trump shutdown"???

    Anyway, another piece on the GOP going fashy, but what caught my attention was a comment:

    I live in a state with 1-party rule. Complete, lock stock and barrel, north to south, 1-party rule.

    I live in California.

    Two reasons mitigate the authoritarian tendency that I can think of – removal of gerrymandering as a means of voter control, and removal of mandatory R vs D fall elections. Come election time, I have a choice between 2 people within (typically) the same party, the top two vote getters in the primary. With policy differences that matter. I must research the candidates to understand their platforms, while with R vs D it would be a party line. The polarization is gone, the cookie cutter reflexivity to party line is gone. Town halls and open offices are held more frequently. If you are disconnected from your constituents, you will lose as the other guy is no longer ideologically the opposite. It no longer pays to be extreme.

    The key difference is a fundamental respect for voting rights and transparency. I am free to vote for whomever in the primary, and the differences between the two candidates in the fall are the differences that matter to my district, not to a political party. I get a text saying when my absentee ballot is counted. My representative didn’t get to influence my district boundaries. My vote is respected.

    In a way, California has gone back to the basics, the initial idea of America, where there were no political parties.
    @ACIN
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  9. #2289

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    Did Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer just trick Trump into having a "Trump shutdown"???

    Anyway, another piece on the GOP going fashy, but what caught my attention was a comment:



    @ACIN
    The best part of the recent election was the Senate race between the moderate Dianne Feinstein and the ultra progressive Kevin de Leon (the Republican candidate came in 3rd in the primary and did not qualify).

    Californian Republicans still don't understand how to think for themselves, they saw another name besides Feinstein and voted for him. I wonder what would have gone through their mind if they had successfully helped the San Fran progressives put their chosen candidate into office. Top fucking LOL.


  10. #2290

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Those outside the state will write off our views as nothing but Dems having enough "illegals" inflating their numbers to institute one party rule.
    Meanwhile, the next generation of CAL conservative students wants to forgo the public relations effort that CALGOP tries to hind behind, and prefers to call their non-white non-binary citizens "degenerates".
    https://www.chronicle.com/article/Degenerate-and/244871


  11. #2291
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    No trick needed at all. Trump likes to be tough. The trumpeteers listen to Limbaugh who assures them that government shutdowns are good and show how the government isn't all that necessary. Say no to a Trump policy you loathe and that his Trumpeteers adore. Trump gets to bathe in the purity of his followers love. His followers thank him for the shutdown. The media and the Dems tie the shutdown to the GOP with a huge Christmas bow (happens every time, regardless of who is in power in what branch or combo, GOP earns the stupid shutdown points).

    Those relatively modern elements of the GOP get hammered for it, encouraging the GOP ever further into the Trumpeteer corner and ramping up the polarization even more.

    I don't know who will make a move towards sensible governance. Conservatives like me drift away from the GOP day by day leaving only the Reactionaries and the out-and-out White Supremacists. Sad, sad, sad....

    And in doing so, the DEMS have managed to ramp up their fruitbat fringers into a self-chosen bi-coastal elite who presumes that the Heartland and the South are congenital idiots who need to be kept semi-sedated and away from the adult table. Doesn't make the DEMS all the appealing either. Though I will admit that Euro-style social democracy is less damaging than Trump's reactionary zeitgeist.


    A plague on both their houses. I'd love a fusion party running a ticket like governors Bullock and Sandoval. The USA is in pretty good shape, we don't need to be revamped from top to bottom on some idiot quest for ideological purity.


    Too old now. Will probably not live the 5 decades needed to see us reach some reasonable political climate again. Gah.
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  12. #2292
    Old Town Road Senior Member Strike For The South's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...fugees/577993/

    What is the point of this? Why would you ever deport these people? 1995 was nearly 25 years ago, the war even longer than that, what are they supposed to go back too?

    Stephen Millers fingerprints are all over this naked cruelty.
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  13. #2293

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
    https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...fugees/577993/

    What is the point of this? Why would you ever deport these people? 1995 was nearly 25 years ago, the war even longer than that, what are they supposed to go back too?

    Stephen Millers fingerprints are all over this naked cruelty.
    ICE arrested 170 immigrants seeking to sponsor migrant children

    So then of course you have to keep the kids in the camps, because the family, adopters, or foster parents who would have taken them were themselves deported or sent to the camps.

    Fuck the Herrenvolk
    Last edited by Montmorency; 12-14-2018 at 05:03.
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  14. #2294

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
    https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...fugees/577993/

    What is the point of this? Why would you ever deport these people? 1995 was nearly 25 years ago, the war even longer than that, what are they supposed to go back too?

    Stephen Millers fingerprints are all over this naked cruelty.
    Now all pre-1995 arrivals are exempt from the 2008 agreement’s protection.
    This reminds me of this poem:

    First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a socialist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

    -German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller
    Wooooo!!!

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  15. #2295
    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Remember how Obama totally came for the gun owners....

    These freedom lovers seem pretty quiet now if they're not marching with tiki torches.
    Last edited by Husar; 12-14-2018 at 16:45.


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  16. #2296

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    So Trump's charity, the Trump Foundation, is currently being sued into oblivion by the State of New York for being up to 100% fraud and is now being dissolved.

    The largest donation in the charity’s history — a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 — appeared to benefit Trump’s business: It paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. The smallest, a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year, appeared to benefit Trump’s family. It matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year that his son Donald Trump Jr. was 11.
    lol

    Of course, like much of Trump's criminality, this has been an open secret for a long time.

    IN ORDER TO understand the Eric Trump Foundation, you need to understand the Donald J. Trump Foundation. The president was never known for giving his foundation much money, and from 2009 to 2014, he didn't give it anything at all. Outsiders still donated, though, allowing Trump to dole out their money to a smattering of more than 200 charities as if it were his own, with many of the donations helping his business interests.
    Until this board turnover, the Eric Trump Foundation pretty much did what it told its donors it would: send its money to St. Jude [pediatric cancer research center]. But starting in 2011, more than $500,000 was redirected to a variety of other charities, many of which were personal favorites of Trump family members and several of which had nothing to do with children's cancer--but happened to become clients of Trump's golf courses.



    Some half-jokingly speak about guillotining/eating the rich, but I have a better idea. White collar prosecution is at one of its all-time lows, because going after the rich and powerful is difficult and unpopular (with the rich and powerful). After this family is put away, the IRS should have its funding restored, the Special Counsel's Office should be redesignated as a White Collar Task Force, and they should be set loose on a mission to ruthlessly investigate and prosecute all the riches. Since there is a hangup over giving elites real jail time, the penalties should be largely (and severely) expropriative. But don't worry, none of the targets will starve with mere millions remaining.

    Investigate how many 0.1%ers?

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 




    Edit: Any White Collar Task Force should be funded to the tune of billions, in order to pursue its mission properly. It'll pay for itself soon enough. Perhaps also fairer and more efficient than disproportionately auditing people literally on the poverty line.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 12-18-2018 at 23:05.
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  17. #2297
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Rooting out fraud in business dealings of all sorts SHOULD be a government function -- and this coming from a small government oriented fellah.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

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  18. #2298
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    I think this is something that should be done - if for no reason than to make hiding the money harder.

    And here's how I would do it (NB I have nothing bar Google so I'm probably missing loads of more convoluted ideas)

    1) Move the money to an overseas Foundation. as such you are neither the controller or owner of it. Of course all the assets are for your personal access. Doing this is quite easy and legal. The document stating who has access to the money is not a publicly visible document.
    2) Have overseas companies owned by the Foundation - preferably in different jurisdictions. They can do things like invest and make it all the more difficult to even find out what is at the top of the pile.

    The costs for setting up this framework starts at a few thousand pounds. That's nothing really. So finding where the money is would be quite the undertaking (since if anyone starts even starting proceedings on one entity you can fold it, move all the assets to another off-the-shelf asset (so the date of creation is potentially years ago), destroy all the paperwork and the search starts afresh.

    And aside from those with conspicuous displays of wealth (such as Donald and brood), holidays are paid by money from abroad, the contents of one's house is paid from abroad - hell, have second or third houses all not technically owned by oneself. So knowing who has modest means and who only appears to have modest means would be extremely difficult to discern.

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  19. #2299

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
    I think this is something that should be done - if for no reason than to make hiding the money harder.

    And here's how I would do it (NB I have nothing bar Google so I'm probably missing loads of more convoluted ideas)

    1) Move the money to an overseas Foundation. as such you are neither the controller or owner of it. Of course all the assets are for your personal access. Doing this is quite easy and legal. The document stating who has access to the money is not a publicly visible document.
    2) Have overseas companies owned by the Foundation - preferably in different jurisdictions. They can do things like invest and make it all the more difficult to even find out what is at the top of the pile.

    The costs for setting up this framework starts at a few thousand pounds. That's nothing really. So finding where the money is would be quite the undertaking (since if anyone starts even starting proceedings on one entity you can fold it, move all the assets to another off-the-shelf asset (so the date of creation is potentially years ago), destroy all the paperwork and the search starts afresh.

    And aside from those with conspicuous displays of wealth (such as Donald and brood), holidays are paid by money from abroad, the contents of one's house is paid from abroad - hell, have second or third houses all not technically owned by oneself. So knowing who has modest means and who only appears to have modest means would be extremely difficult to discern.

    I agree, but you're placing an emphasis on international tax evasion in your post. As Trump and others have demonstrated, one can openly flout domestic laws using domestic methods and institutions, and the government will do basically nothing, or else maybe sue you a little bit, maybe enter into a little non-prosecution agreement promising to clean the slate if you pay back a small portion of your ill-gained/kept wealth. Second, rich individuals and large corporations can commit all sorts of crimes or offenses, not strictly tax-related, but that nevertheless may be related to self-enrichment and impose externalities on society/workers/contractors. Trump was infamous for ignoring building safety codes and renter protections and other regulations, as well as for simply not paying debts or for services rendered.

    If that's the wannabe-bourgeois Trump family, imagine what billionaires and big multinationals must get up to. Well, you don't need to with the latest in exposed malfeasance.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Basically Johnson & Johnson knew about injurious asbestos contamination of its talc products for generations, worked to suppress this information, and successfully lobbied lawmakers against setting more stringent industrial regulations wrt asbestos.


    Notice that the related settlements adjudicated against J&J this year, $4.7 billion and $26 million before reduction that I can find, do not clearly negate the margin of profit for neutralizing government action and concealing and suppressing the data on their product and materials. If such a thing could even be reliably calculated over a period of so many decades. Also note that if you google the subject, the first result on every page is a J&J ad informing the reader that "Our Talc Is Safe‎. Thousands of Tests Repeatedly Confirm This. Don't Take Our Word For It - Learn More Today."

    This type of (at best) aggressive negligence happens so often and in so many guises that it's background noise for most of us. As I said recently, if shareholder value is the foremost and only priority, and the cost of crime and sub-illegal devastation remains below the returns, businesses MUST maximize the damage to the public.

    A neat ordeal to impose would be to give a year's notice for firms and individuals to clean up their crimes and negligence, while proceeding with investigations. After a year, start hitting the worst offenders with the most severe penalties conceivable. I'm talking corporate death penalty, estate seizure (for individuals), expropriation, nationalization, and prosecution of the C-suite. Give no regard to the size or alleged indispensability of the targets. Begin diverting the proceeds to a sovereign wealth fund. Now we have a test of the system. Either:

    1. Lesser offenders are deterred into adjusting their behavior. Maybe the economic framework is sustainable in some form.
    2. "And then the murders began". The economic framework is an annihilation spiral.
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  20. #2300

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Mattis is leaving. The last adult in the room is gone. That weird bald headed dude that loves Trump is arguing on CNN right now that the government is shutting down just before christmas if we dont have a border wall funded.

    It is finally happening? Is this the beginning of chaos?


  21. #2301

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...cid=spartanntp
    “Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,” Mattis said in the letter to Trump released by the Pentagon.
    Wooooo!!!

  22. #2302
    Stranger in a strange land Moderator Hooahguy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    If the reports that Mattis stopped some of the truly boneheaded Trump ideas (like assassinating Assad) are true, then I think this is worrying, depending on who he replaces him with.
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  23. #2303
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Trump is a geopolitical neophyte. His base's orientation is much more isolationist than any candidate since Buchannon an any President since Hoover.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

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  24. #2304

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
    Trump is a geopolitical neophyte. His base's orientation is much more isolationist than any candidate since Buchannon an any President since Hoover.
    Misconception! Trump is not an isolationist at all in mindset, rhetoric, or policy - he is a unilateralist.

    His understanding of strength, because he is a weak and insecure man, is embodied through throwing our weight around and intimidating other countries (especially friendly ones).

    An isolationist does not see an active role for a country in world affairs. Trump merely intensifies the logic of American interventionism as a mechanism to deliver goodies. There is no pretense that multilateral arrangements should be something other than tribute-taking exercises. Recall the infamous blog in 2011 in which brainstormed occupying Libya in exchange for "half their oil".

    Don't call Trump an isolationist, it's not evidenced. This is his vision for American participation:


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  25. #2305
    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Well, yes, "America First".

    Of course many say that every leader should think like that, to which I say we had them shortly before WW1, see how that turned out.


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  26. #2306
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    Misconception! Trump is not an isolationist at all in mindset, rhetoric, or policy - he is a unilateralist.

    His understanding of strength, because he is a weak and insecure man, is embodied through throwing our weight around and intimidating other countries (especially friendly ones).

    An isolationist does not see an active role for a country in world affairs. Trump merely intensifies the logic of American interventionism as a mechanism to deliver goodies. There is no pretense that multilateral arrangements should be something other than tribute-taking exercises. Recall the infamous blog in 2011 in which brainstormed occupying Libya in exchange for "half their oil".

    Don't call Trump an isolationist, it's not evidenced. This is his vision for American participation:


    I tend to think of him as a Russell Mead "Jacksonian" isolationist. I don't think you and I are far off on this, but I do take your point.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

    "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken

  27. #2307

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
    I tend to think of him as a Russell Mead "Jacksonian" isolationist. I don't think you and I are far off on this, but I do take your point.
    I read the article I inferred you were referring to. It has a serious lmitation: it doesn't at any point elaborate what Jacksonian foreign policy was, nor what connections can be made to either Trump's rhetoric or administration. As it turns out, I have no knowledge of Jackson's particular foreign policy record other than the typical antebellum conflicts being fomented over Texas on one hand and the Canadian border on the other.

    That's a weakness of these kinds of micro-profile articles [didn't I just write on the Org recently about having written this phrase on the Org before???] is they're more concerned with painting a picture of the subject and conveying an impression to the reader rather than relaying many facts of the underlying matter.

    The fairest simple apprehension may be to take into account the differing baselines between time periods. In the pre-liberal United States, isolationism meant something with respect to European geopolitics specifically. Pretty much everyone in the young United States favored expansion within the Western hemisphere on the other hand. Today however almost no one is really an isolationist in that sense. Not even Ron Paul believed that the United States could or should simply ignore great power politics in the world. The term probably should not be applied anymore unless proceeding from a unique contemporary distinction.


    Another way to put this is that Trump carries the 'one step forward, two steps back' logic of US internationalism to its logical conclusion. That is, the US created a law-based, norm-based, rights-based international order, and then proceeded to undermine it very cynically to the point that lawless gangsterism became the real norm. Trump merely finally came forward and proclaimed, 'Hell yeah I'm a gangster too. My dream is to become the biggest gangster ever, dattebayo!' *raises fist for bump from Duterte, Putin, etc.*

    For example, the US had criticized Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba, among other countries - including John Bolton referring to them as a "troika of tyranny" a few months ago - for rejecting the authority of Latin American transnational human rights frameworks like the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Now the US under Trump has the same kind of posture as Cuba does, and is ranked among the bottom tier by those same human rights bodies.




    EDIT: Meanwhile, here is the President suggesting that he might invoke national emergency powers to proceed with construction of the "Wall".

    Meanwhile meanwhile, here is an essay published a few weeks ago describing the hundreds of emergency powers the office of POTUS is imbued with that could literally be used to instate a totalitarian system of government if the office holder were so inclined.

    Happy New Year everybody, welcome to 20XX
    Last edited by Montmorency; 01-05-2019 at 00:04.
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  28. #2308
    Member Member Gilrandir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post

    EDIT: Meanwhile, here is the President suggesting that he might invoke national emergency powers to proceed with construction of the "Wall".
    Click image for larger version. 

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    Quote Originally Posted by Suraknar View Post
    The article exists for a reason yes, I did not write it...

  29. #2309
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    The Jacksonian thing is to mostly avoid foreign entanglement. When forced to act, smack the crap out of them hard (unconditional surrender), but then Jacksonians tend to opt out and go home.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

    "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken

  30. #2310
    Mr Self Important Senior Member Beskar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Trump actually signed something productive into law.
    https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-...bill/2076/text
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