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Serious Trumps White House falling apart and apart again

johnny333

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
Everyone seems to be fixated on this Russia crap. The fact remains that even if there was collusion it is not a crime and even if it was a crime Trump would still have to be removed by an impeachment process which would mean being found guilty by a whopping two thirds of the senate.

The likelihood of a two thirds majority ranges from zero to remote.

Bill Clinton committed the high crime of perjury, a crime which has sent lesser mortals to jail for a long time. However he was acquitted by the senate.

If the same process was enacted against Trump the result would be exactly the same.

The swamp is wasting its time and effort fighting Trump. It will get them nowhere. Their only hope is that he lasts only one term. He's 71 and overweight. Nature will probably take care of him long before the Dems deal him a telling blow.

It is quite common in this forum for people to spew all sorts of rubbish and pass judgement over matters they know next to nothing about. You are no exception.

I suggest you stop listening to the fake news networks and do your own research if you want to understand American politics.


After all the digging Bill Clinton was only caught for his hanky panky right? Trump was also shown to be a womanizer but he still won the elections. At least Bill Clinton turned out to be a decent president whereas I can't say the same for Trump.

He is trying to turn the US presidency into a family business. Hiring & firing so many key personnel in the 1st 6 months. Is it any wonder that only 35% of americans think he is doing a good job. 66% of those surveyed don't even trust Trump.
 

Leongsam

High Order Twit / Low SES subject
Admin
Asset
After all the digging Bill Clinton was only caught for his hanky panky right? Trump was also shown to be a womanizer but he still won the elections. At least Bill Clinton turned out to be a decent president whereas I can't say the same for Trump.

He is trying to turn the US presidency into a family business. Hiring & firing so many key personnel in the 1st 6 months. Is it any wonder that only 35% of americans think he is doing a good job. 66% of those surveyed don't even trust Trump.

The same polling predicted a massive Hillary win and gave Trump nothing more than a 2% chance of victory.

If you believe all the fake news polls you're even dumber than I first thought.

Trump is the best President ever. He's the only one who has the right priorities.
 

johnny333

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
The same polling predicted a massive Hillary win and gave Trump nothing more than a 2% chance of victory.

If you believe all the fake news polls you're even dumber than I first thought.

Trump is the best President ever. He's the only one who has the right priorities.



Trump is a demagogue. He made many promises but has accomplished very little. He has no idea how to get things done in Washington. What do you think his supporters will think of Trump when he fails to deliver? Currently he is only appealing to his shrinking base & alienating the majority of Republicans.

So how can anyone expect him to accomplish anything:confused:
He is also under investigation & they will probably turn up many skeletons.

He claims that being president was harder than he thought & yet he's already filed the paper work for a second term http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ral-elections-commission-filing-a7558236.html :biggrin:

I'm interested in the US is because I have investments there & I'm waiting for the financial reforms that will be a positive for the markets. However it now appears that Chump may not be able to deliver.
 

Leongsam

High Order Twit / Low SES subject
Admin
Asset
Trump is a demagogue. He made many promises but has accomplished very little. He has no idea how to get things done in Washington. What do you think his supporters will think of Trump when he fails to deliver? Currently he is only appealing to his shrinking base & alienating the majority of Republicans.

So how can anyone expect him to accomplish anything:confused:
He is also under investigation & they will probably turn up many skeletons.

He claims that being president was harder than he thought & yet he's already filed the paper work for a second term http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ral-elections-commission-filing-a7558236.html :biggrin:

I'm interested in the US is because I have investments there & I'm waiting for the financial reforms that will be a positive for the markets. However it now appears that Chump may not be able to deliver.

He's only been in office for 6 months for goodness sake. The whole American system is designed to slow things down so that change is next to impossible. The founding fathers designed the system that way.

He's not a career politician so it goes without saying that he will take a bit of time to learn the ropes. The transition from businessman to politician is one of the toughest career changes. In NZ most businessmen give up after 1 term simply because they end up so frustrated with the red tape that they feel like hanging themselves with it.

John Key, the previous NZ PM is one of the few who made the jump successfully but that was because he never tried to change things at all. He just went with the flow and concentrated on the PR aspects of the job while pandering to Maori demands.

Trump could have easily played the same game and sailed through his term while enjoying the baubles of office. The fact that he is fighting the system tooth and nail shows just how determined he is to transform the way Washington works

However the swamp is deep and slimy and it will take a man of exceptional ability to drain it completely.
 

scroobal

Alfrescian
Loyal
Its hilarious when he uses the White House to stop the investigation into his finances. Shows a desperate man.
 

Leongsam

High Order Twit / Low SES subject
Admin
Asset
Its hilarious when he uses the White House to stop the investigation into his finances. Shows a desperate man.

His finances are his own business and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be investigating them.
 

scroobal

Alfrescian
Loyal
Not if you are the president. NZ requires its leaders put their business interest in a blind trust. That a measure not to pretty a pig. This guy has employed his daughter, his son-in-law and the only thing missing is his Solvenian in-laws. And his business is run by his proxy son.

He should not have run for President.

His finances are his own business and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be investigating them.
 

Leongsam

High Order Twit / Low SES subject
Admin
Asset
Not if you are the president. NZ requires its leaders put their business interest in a blind trust. That a measure not to pretty a pig. This guy has employed his daughter, his son-in-law and the only thing missing is his Solvenian in-laws. And his business is run by his proxy son.

He should not have run for President.

There is no such law in the United States. I applaud Trump for showing the swamp establishment the middle finger. He's the President. He won, Hillary lost. The Dems should get over it.



Trump could be president and still run his businesses


There are no laws keeping Donald Trump from running both the country and his companies — or promoting policies that advance his interests.

By Evan Horowitz GLOBE STAFF JUNE 08, 2016

Donald Trump could become president of the United States and still keep his day job as chairman of the Trump Organization and impresario of all things Trump-branded. He could even promote policies that advance his business interests.

Historically, presidents have gone to great lengths to avoid these conflicts of interest,
but there’s no law requiring them to do so. And Trump has said little about how he would separate his economic interests from his presidential responsibilities. When pressed, he has stated that he might hand control over to family members, but during his run for office he has funneled campaign money to his own companies and tweeted that his presidential prominence might give new life to the allegedly-fraudulent Trump University.

For her part, Hillary Clinton has faced deep-reaching questions about how her tenure as secretary of state boosted her husband’s speaking fees and whether a stint in the Oval Office might benefit well-connected friends via her family’s Clinton Global Initiative. But when it comes to personal investments, the Clintons have structured their holdings to minimize the perception that their political acts might affect their own wallets.

Trump has made no such plans. And absent some thoroughly vetted reorganization of his enterprises, it seems likely that his decisions as president would be shadowed by questions about benefits that could accrue to him personally.

Aren’t there laws to prevent conflicts of interest?


Most people in government are subject to fairly strict rules regarding conflicts of interest. Cabinet members, for instance, have to recuse themselves from any decisions that might benefit them financially — including issues that would affect close family members.


But the president and vice president are exempt from these rules.

That doesn’t mean they can do anything they like to pad their bank accounts while in office. It is still illegal for a president to hand taxpayer money directly over to his companies — say through a government contract. But these restrictions leave a lot of room for dubious dealing.

Imagine a president who owned large debt-collection agency. Hiring that agency to collect student loan debt would be unacceptable. But the president could still sign new laws to tighten bankruptcy rules, encourage high-risk mortgages, or loosen restrictions on payday lending — even though these changes would undoubtedly boost his income and his companies’ bottom line.

Trump’s operations are so broad that they could be affected by all manner of policy changes: think beachfront property and climate change, overseas golf courses and foreign policy, or tax laws and his own hidden tax returns.

Is Trump really different from other rich candidates?

America has had its share of wealthy presidential candidates, from Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy to Mitt Romney and John Kerry. But Trump is something different — not just a wealthy scion, but an active businessman managing a global enterprise.
This makes it much harder for him to set aside his economic interests during his time in office.

Other wealthy figures have generally taken one of two tacks. Either they have moved their money into more benign assets like passive index funds, Treasury bills, or simple bank accounts — the path followed by President Obama.

Or they have established blind trusts, where all investment decisions are made by a fiduciary stranger and kept secret; that was the preferred approach of both President Bushes and the proposed solution of business-mogul candidates like Ross Perot and Steve Forbes.

Trouble is, these strategies work best with paper assets, like stocks and bonds, which can be secretly shuffled between different investments behind a president’s back. But Trump’s assets aren’t like that. If some temporary custodian started selling off Trump’s golf course or buildings, that would be nearly impossible to hide.

One approach would be to follow the lead of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who ran for office while still overseeing the massive enterprise that is Bloomberg media. He eventually found a compromise to keep his economic interests from overlapping with his political decisions, handing daily control over to his executive team even as he held onto a huge ownership stake.

Bloomberg’s arrangement drew its share of criticism, but it was sanctioned — and partially strengthened — by the city’s “Conflicts of Interest Board.”

Trump could try to follow this approach, but there is no presidential “conflict of interest board” ready to vet his plans. And being president would give him economic sway that Bloomberg never had as mayor.

Perhaps the more troubling parallel would be with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, another business giant turned national leader. Among other things, his lightly regulated tangle of business and political interests spawned a whole new genre of lobbying. Companies eager to curry favor with the Italian government would do sweetheart deals with Berlusconi’s companies, adding up to over $1 billion extra.

And while you might hope that self-dealing on that scale would be its own undoing, Berlusconi held power for nearly nine years and survived multiple lawsuits.

What about Clinton’s conflicts of interest?

Hillary Clinton has a slightly different problem when it comes to conflicts of interest.

It’s less about her personal finances, which are organized to blunt concerns about the entanglement of public policy and self-interest. A large share of the Clinton’s net worth is in a savings account. Another big chunk is in an index fund that follows the market as a whole — not picking winners and losers.

But there are other ways for political power to translate into economic advantage. Over the last 15 years, the Clintons collected more than $150 million in speaking fees, including money that Bill Clinton earned while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. In some cases, Bill Clinton even addressed companies with issues actively under consideration by the State Department.

Beyond that, there are lingering questions about the well-heeled family foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative. Its efforts to solve global problems by bringing together business and political leaders has become a major part of Bill Clinton’s post-presidential legacy. But it has also stoked criticism that donors have been effectively paying for access to the Clintons — or worse, that they were seeking preferential treatment during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

Despite the criticism, Hillary Clinton has said that her family will continue to be involvedin the foundation even if she captures the presidency.

Wouldn’t Trump put national interest ahead of personal interest?

On the few occasions where Trump has addressed possible conflicts of interest, he’s insisted that his focus on national issues would drive out any business concerns. “If I become president,” he has said, “I couldn’t care less about my company. It’s peanuts.”


One reason to believe him is that he certainly doesn’t need the money, given his already vast store of wealth.

But a large part of his net worth is caught up in his personal brand — which you can think of as the amount of money people are willing to spend for the right to put the Trump label on their products, anything from steak to golf courses.

A seat in the Oval Office could easily boost the value of Trump’s personal brand, something the candidate himself openly celebrated in a tweet suggesting that as president he might reopen lawsuit-plagued Trump University: “After the litigation is disposed of and the case won, I have instructed my execs to open Trump U(?), so much interest in it! I will be pres.”

Note, too, that on a number of occasions, Trump has paid his own companies for services provided to the campaign, essentially taking money from his campaign pocket and putting it back in his business pocket.

These kinds of campaign behaviors would seem to raise questions about how Trump plans to balance public and private interests if he becomes president.

But there’s also a more general cause for concern. Reason is fragile, and people easily seek out noble-sounding rationales for acts that benefit them personally. That’s the reason we have conflict-of-interest laws in the first place. And while the president may be exempt from those laws, he’s not immune to the broader problem. In the words of Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”



 

scroobal

Alfrescian
Loyal
Never suggested there was one.

ps. Both us have to remind ourselves every now and then not to play the foil at the same time.

There is no such law in the United States. I applaud Trump for showing the swamp establishment the middle finger. He's the President. He won, Hillary lost. The Dems should get over it.
 

tanwahtiu

Alfrescian
Loyal
Trump is a good business trainer. Soon many seasoned politicans will know how to make deals than follow instructions.
 

scroobal

Alfrescian
Loyal
The guys is an embarrassment even for the association of second hand car dealers. At least they don't get for their lies until the deal is done.

He was literally begging Neito to save his face.

Trump is an embarrassment, not only to the American people but to the position of Commander-in-Chief.
If further proof is needed just take a look at the transcripts of conversations he had with both Nieto and Turnbull.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/grap...ia-mexico-transcripts/?utm_term=.b06e509ee484
 

johnny333

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
His finances are his own business and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be investigating them.


LKY would probably agree with you :biggrin:

What business is it for people to question the integrity of their leaders. Once people have voted they are suppose to blindly trust their leaders. According to LKY there can only be conductor.

Is it any wonder that the Lees are such an exceptional family & probably the wealthiest in Spore, Batam & some say in Malaysia :wink:
 

johnny333

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
He's only been in office for 6 months for goodness sake. The whole American system is designed to slow things down so that change is next to impossible. The founding fathers designed the system that way.

He's not a career politician so it goes without saying that he will take a bit of time to learn the ropes. The transition from businessman to politician is one of the toughest career changes. In NZ most businessmen give up after 1 term simply because they end up so frustrated with the red tape that they feel like hanging themselves with it.

John Key, the previous NZ PM is one of the few who made the jump successfully but that was because he never tried to change things at all. He just went with the flow and concentrated on the PR aspects of the job while pandering to Maori demands.

Trump could have easily played the same game and sailed through his term while enjoying the baubles of office. The fact that he is fighting the system tooth and nail shows just how determined he is to transform the way Washington works

However the swamp is deep and slimy and it will take a man of exceptional ability to drain it completely.

Some people are just not cut out to be president. Just look at LHL & how unsuitable he is to be PM of Spore.

There have been many newbies who were elected president & they went on to do a better job than Trump
Why? Maybe because Trump is unwilling or unable to learn. At 71 Trump is no spring chicken & too set in his ways to learn.

Trump is also a pathological liar. It has helped him to succeed in the business world but it will not work if you are president because it is not presidential. Skeptical reporters are also able to do fact checks

Trump also seems to be a vain person. Anyone who gets more attention than Trump will soon be kicked out of his cabinet.
Trump is also a vengeful person & if you get on the wrong side you will soon find out about it on twitter.
 

yellowarse

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
The world is slowly realizing the emperor's got no clothes ...


Australia’s Prime Minister Slowly Realizes Trump Is a Complete Idiot


By Jonathan Chait

03-trump-turnbull.w710.h473.jpg



The transcript of Donald Trump’s discussion with Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull obtained by the Washington Post reveals many things, but the most significant may be that Trump in his private negotiations is every bit as mentally limited as he appears to be in public.

At issue in the conversation is a deal to settle 1,250 refugees who have been detained by Australia in the United States. I did not pay any attention to the details of this agreement before reading the transcript. By the time I was halfway through it, my brain could not stop screaming at Trump for his failure to understand what Turnbull was telling him.

Australia has a policy of refusing to accept refugees who arrive by boat. The reason, as Turnbull patiently attempts to explain several times, is that it believes giving refuge to people who arrive by boat would encourage smuggling and create unsafe passage with a high risk of deaths at sea. But it had a large number of refugees who had arrived by sea, living in difficult conditions, whom Australia would not resettle (for fear of encouraging more boat trafficking) but whom it did not want to deport, either.
The United States government agreed under President Obama to vet 1,250 of these refugees and accept as many of them as it deemed safe.

In the transcript, Trump is unable to absorb any of these facts. He calls the refugees “prisoners,” and repeatedly brings up the Cuban boatlift (in which Castro dumped criminals onto Florida). He is unable to absorb Turnbull’s explanation that they are economic refugees, not from conflict zones, and that the United States has the ability to turn away any of them it deems dangerous.

Turnbull tries to explain to Trump that refugees have not been detained because they pose a danger to Australian society, but in order to deter ship-based smuggling:

Trump: Why haven’t you let them out? Why have you not let them into your society?

Turnbull: Okay, I will explain why. It is not because they are bad people. It is because in order to stop people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product. So we said if you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Noble [sic] Prize winning genius, we will not let you in. Because the problem with the people —

At this point, Trump fails to understand the policy altogether, and proceeds to congratulate Turnbull for what Trump mistakes to be a draconian policy of total exclusion:

Trump: That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am … Because you do not want to destroy your country. Look at what has happened in Germany. Look at what is happening in these countries.

Trump has completely failed to understand either that the refugees are not considered dangerous, or, again, that they are being held because of a categorical ban on ship-based refugee traffic.

He also fails to understand the number of refugees in the agreement:

Trump: I am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people and I agree I can vet them, but that puts me in a bad position. It makes me look so bad and I have only been here a week.

Turnbull: With great respect, that is not right – It is not 2,000.

Trump: Well, it is close. I have also heard like 5,000 as well.

Turnbull: The given number in the agreement is 1,250 and it is entirely a matter of your vetting.

Then Trump returns to his belief that they are bad, and failing to understand the concept that they have been detained merely because they arrived by sea and not because they committed a crime:

Trump: I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.

Turnbull: I would not be so sure about that. They are basically —

Trump: Well, maybe you should let them out of prison.

He still thinks they’re criminals.

Later, Trump asks what happens if all the refugees fail his vetting process:

Trump: I hate having to do it, but I am still going to vet them very closely. Suppose I vet them closely and I do not take any?

Turnbull: That is the point I have been trying to make.

After several attempts by Turnbull to explain Australia’s policy, Trump again expresses his total inability to understand what it is:
Trump: Does anybody know who these people are? Who are they? Where do they come from? Are they going to become the Boston bomber in five years? Or two years? Who are these people?

Turnbull: Let me explain. We know exactly who they are. They have been on Nauru or Manus for over three years and the only reason we cannot let them into Australia is because of our commitment to not allow people to come by boat. Otherwise we would have let them in. If they had arrived by airplane and with a tourist visa then they would be here.

Trump: Malcom [sic], but they are arrived on a boat?

After Turnbull has told Trump several times that the refugees have been detained because they arrived by boat, and only for that reason, Trump’s question is, “But they are arrived on a boat?”

Soon after, Turnbull again reiterates that Australia’s policy is to detain any refugee who arrives by boat:

Turnbull: The only people that we do not take are people who come by boa. So we would rather take a not very attractive guy that help you out then to take a Noble [sic] Peace Prize winner that comes by boat. That is the point.”

Trump: What is the thing with boats? Why do you discriminate against boats? No, I know, they come from certain regions. I get it.

No, you don’t get it at all! It’s not that they come from certain regions! It’s that they come by boat!

So Turnbull very patiently tries to explain again that the policy has nothing to do with what region the refugees come from:

Turnbull: No, let me explain why. The problem with the boats it that you are basically outsourcing your immigration program to people smugglers and also you get thousands of people drowning at sea.

At this point, Trump gives up asking about the policy and just starts venting about the terribleness of deals in general:

I do not know what he got out of it. We never get anything out of it — START Treaty, the Iran deal. I do not know where they find these people to make these stupid deals. I am going to get killed on this thing.

Shortly afterward, the call ends in brusque fashion, and Turnbull presumably begins drinking heavily.


 

THE_CHANSTER

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
Now Steve Bannon has gone.

The Trump administration really is beyond a joke. No doubt we'll soon be hearing from the administrator of this forum in his defence.
Embarrassing and pathetic. :rolleyes:
 

THE_CHANSTER

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
1. F̶l̶y̶n̶n̶
2. S̶p̶i̶c̶e̶r̶
3. P̶r̶i̶e̶b̶u̶s̶
4. M̶o̶o̶c̶h̶ ̶
5 .B̶a̶n̶n̶o̶n̶
6. Gorka
7. Jared
8. KellyAnne
9. Pence
10. Trump
 
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