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Crooked Donald and Company
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OptimisticOwl Offline
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Post: #141
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
I started this with my question, which primarily was aimed to find out what the antiTrump people wanted to accomplish with the blanket protests and ferocious obstructionism. Still don't know.

One thing that keeps coming through from the protests is that Trump is "unqualified" to be president, but as the Constitutional scholars here know, the qualifications are very few and Trump meets them all. So it must be a subjective standard, one different for each person, he does not meet.

Kellyanne screwed up, plain and simple. She reacted to badgering, and said something she shouldn't have. It should be enough to apologize, retract, and not do it again, but the left is out for blood and here is some red meat. Good thing they cannot enforce a firing squad, as if she had been cavalier with government secrets. This reaction is part of the visceral hatred of all things (people) Trump.

On the tax return, I think JAAO covered why he should not release them - he and the millions of other critics predisposed to be negative are not tax professionals. Many people just take their returns to a CPA or H and R Block, and accept the result handed back to them, and then we are supposed to let these people tell us from a cursory inspection of a noninformative document(the 1040) what the facts are? I can just hear it now - "Line 73 is blank. what is he trying to hide?", or "How can a man with so much wealth show so little income from _____? What is he hiding?" It would never stop.

Trump is a new kind of animal, and the old ways followed by profession politicians(PP) will not work with him. The PP have had decades to sanitize their returns and make sure they are prepared campaign documents. The PP are able to segregate their salaries (on the 1040) from campaign contributions and giftsby others to their foundations and charities (not on the 1040),

Same for the blind trust. May work well for PP, but this is a new situation. Old solutions to new problems?

The whole point of the blind trust is to isolate his decisions from self-interest, and I never though a blind trust did that. But in any case, we have never had a president with such wide spread business interests and and so much wealth. Not since Washington, anyway.

Plenty of evidence he is NOT misogynistic. He has hired and promoted women, and many of his female employees are enthusiatic supporters. The evidence for such an accusation seems to rest primarily on the joke, from 15 years ago. I find the joke distateful and unfunny, but I have heard much worse from literally hundreds on men, and probably said something worse at some point in my life. The primary difference between me, millions of other men, Donald Trump, and Bill Clinton on the matter of sex seems to be that nobody has recorded any of the rest of us. Not evidence of misogyny, unless you think the hiring and promotion practices in his companies is just a cover up.

Being of partial Hispanic descent, and having family on both sides of the Rio Grande, my first reaction to the "rapists" remark was a quick flare of antagonism toward him. But then ten seconds later, I realized that he was talking (a) about illegal aliens, not Mexicans, and (b) not ALL illegal aliens at that. People who want to interpret it racially really have to want to. Same for the "Muslim ban" that does not prohibit Muslims from 200 countries from entering. I see no evidence of xenophobia.

So all this hysteria about he is racist, he is xenophobic, he is the next Hitler, seems to me to just be way overblown and incorrect, but it sure fuels the anger and despair of the people protesting.

I have never seen the problem with choice in schooling. It seems the problem is mainly that DeVos is TRUMP's choice.

I agree he overreacts, but what are we going to do? Burn a trash can to make him stop?

Short of death or impeachment, he is here for 47 more months. Should we spend those months gnashing our teeth and rioting in the streets? I was not happy with the election of Obama. But somebody told me to give him a chance, so I reined in my criticisms what what he was or wasn't and of what he was going to do, and sat back to wait and see. Is that a possibility now? It seems not, with angry demonstrations about everything and everybody he has anything to do with, without regard for who or what they are, but just because they are Trump's. And the demonstrators seem to not really know what they are demonstrating against or what remedy they hope for. At least during the draft and civil rights demonstrations of my youth, the demonstrators knew what they wanted - no draft, no war, more civil rights.

My memory goes back to Eisenhower. Seen changes in power from one party to another many times. Never saw a reaction like this. Hope to never see it again. I think it is shameful.

JMHOs.
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2017 01:02 PM by OptimisticOwl.)
02-13-2017 12:53 PM
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RiceLad15 Offline
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Post: #142
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
Back to more commentary on Donald's crew. I had no idea that Stephen Miller was so scary: http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-...5968067895

Some pretty shocking statements and rhetoric. I hope that this was all due to editing, but I doubt it.
02-13-2017 03:31 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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Post: #143
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
(02-13-2017 12:53 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I started this with my question, which primarily was aimed to find out what the antiTrump people wanted to accomplish with the blanket protests and ferocious obstructionism. Still don't know.
One thing that keeps coming through from the protests is that Trump is "unqualified" to be president, but as the Constitutional scholars here know, the qualifications are very few and Trump meets them all. So it must be a subjective standard, one different for each person, he does not meet.
Kellyanne screwed up, plain and simple. She reacted to badgering, and said something she shouldn't have. It should be enough to apologize, retract, and not do it again, but the left is out for blood and here is some red meat. Good thing they cannot enforce a firing squad, as if she had been cavalier with government secrets. This reaction is part of the visceral hatred of all things (people) Trump.
On the tax return, I think JAAO covered why he should not release them - he and the millions of other critics predisposed to be negative are not tax professionals. Many people just take their returns to a CPA or H and R Block, and accept the result handed back to them, and then we are supposed to let these people tell us from a cursory inspection of a noninformative document(the 1040) what the facts are? I can just hear it now - "Line 73 is blank. what is he trying to hide?", or "How can a man with so much wealth show so little income from _____? What is he hiding?" It would never stop.
Trump is a new kind of animal, and the old ways followed by profession politicians(PP) will not work with him. The PP have had decades to sanitize their returns and make sure they are prepared campaign documents. The PP are able to segregate their salaries (on the 1040) from campaign contributions and gifts by others to their foundations and charities (not on the 1040).
Same for the blind trust. May work well for PP, but this is a new situation. Old solutions to new problems?
The whole point of the blind trust is to isolate his decisions from self-interest, and I never though a blind trust did that. But in any case, we have never had a president with such wide spread business interests and and so much wealth. Not since Washington, anyway.
Plenty of evidence he is NOT misogynistic. He has hired and promoted women, and many of his female employees are enthusiatic supporters. The evidence for such an accusation seems to rest primarily on the joke, from 15 years ago. I find the joke distateful and unfunny, but I have heard much worse from literally hundreds on men, and probably said something worse at some point in my life. The primary difference between me, millions of other men, Donald Trump, and Bill Clinton on the matter of sex seems to be that nobody has recorded any of the rest of us. Not evidence of misogyny, unless you think the hiring and promotion practices in his companies is just a cover up.
Being of partial Hispanic descent, and having family on both sides of the Rio Grande, my first reaction to the "rapists" remark was a quick flare of antagonism toward him. But then ten seconds later, I realized that he was talking (a) about illegal aliens, not Mexicans, and (b) not ALL illegal aliens at that. People who want to interpret it racially really have to want to. Same for the "Muslim ban" that does not prohibit Muslims from 200 countries from entering. I see no evidence of xenophobia.
So all this hysteria about he is racist, he is xenophobic, he is the next Hitler, seems to me to just be way overblown and incorrect, but it sure fuels the anger and despair of the people protesting.
I have never seen the problem with choice in schooling. It seems the problem is mainly that DeVos is TRUMP's choice.
I agree he overreacts, but what are we going to do? Burn a trash can to make him stop?
Short of death or impeachment, he is here for 47 more months. Should we spend those months gnashing our teeth and rioting in the streets? I was not happy with the election of Obama. But somebody told me to give him a chance, so I reined in my criticisms what what he was or wasn't and of what he was going to do, and sat back to wait and see. Is that a possibility now? It seems not, with angry demonstrations about everything and everybody he has anything to do with, without regard for who or what they are, but just because they are Trump's. And the demonstrators seem to not really know what they are demonstrating against or what remedy they hope for. At least during the draft and civil rights demonstrations of my youth, the demonstrators knew what they wanted - no draft, no war, more civil rights.
My memory goes back to Eisenhower. Seen changes in power from one party to another many times. Never saw a reaction like this. Hope to never see it again. I think it is shameful.
JMHOs.

Except that I'm not Hispanic, every word of that could be mine.
02-13-2017 07:14 PM
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Jonathan Sadow Offline
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Post: #144
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
(02-12-2017 12:13 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  It's good that the anarchists wear a uniform - all black, face covers - so we can differentiate them.

True most - not all - of the Berkeley violence was this bunch, and that seems to be the case in Portland, also.

A well organized network of ananrchists headed by a central authority, seems counter intuitive, though.

Video clearly shows ununiformed people, presumably regular protesters, participating in the violence. And it shows that at a variety of locations not involved with the uniformed anarchists.

In any case, you are known by the company you keep, for right or wrong. The protesters and anarchists seem to united by a common enemy - Trump. I don't remember these anarchists protesting the previous President or his policies. If they are truly just against government in general, why weren't they against it when Obama was in charge? I wonder where they have been and why they appear now.

That is indeed the question. The anarchists seem quite comfortable attending protests sponsored by leftwing organizations (and said organizations don't appear to be discomfited by their presence) and not comfortable with attending protests sponsored by rightwing organizations. Why is that?

(02-13-2017 10:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(02-13-2017 10:13 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  
(02-13-2017 10:05 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I know parents of special needs children who voted for Trump and supported him enthusiastically. I know people who took great offense at Trump's alleged misogyny, but looked the other way when Bill Clinton did worse, just as I know plenty who were outraged at Bill but looked the other way with Trump. Not to mention thatTrump's opponent basically enabled Bill.
My bottom line is that I am going to take RiceLad's comment and go with it. It all depends on what color glasses you are looking at things with.
Incomprehensible to me that any parent of a special needs child could support Trump, especially now that we have an education secretary who wants to both gut public schools and doesn't support IDEA. And "alleged misogyny"? Good grief, it's on countless tapes.
But I don't know that we'll get anywhere with this conversation. Mostly wanted to address OO's and tangtonic's questions about the visceral dislike of Trump.

Misogyny refers to a mental state, which means it won't be on any tape. I am willing to accept attacks on Trump's dealings with women from anyone who attacked Bill Clinton's dealings with women with equal vigor. Do you fit that description?

Some parents of special needs children are not happy with the way that their children are treated under the existing system, including IDEA. And many people don't see that making public schools compete is "gutting" them. If a public school is doing a crappy job, why shouldn't they lose funding?

My point is that this is way more in the eye of the beholder than anything else.

Add me to the list, in a sense, as my special-needs adult sister-in-law voted for Trump. I don't think she was terribly enthusiastic about him, but any concerns about him were outweighed by Hillary Clinton's love of abortion, among other things. With the advancements in genetic testing in utero and the nature of human beings, Clinton's advocacy of virtually unrestricted abortion would inevitably mean fewer people like her would ever have the chance to experience the fullness of life.

The point about Bill Cinton's dealings with women is well-taken. In terms of disrespectful behavior toward women, Trump appears to be a talker and Clinton appears to be a doer, and actions speak louder than words. I note with some interest that the kind of people loudest about Trump's failing in this matter were among the most quiet about Clinton's failing (and in some cases they are the very same people). It's also worth noting that Bill Clinton appears to have suffered no consequences from Hillary Clinton for this behavior. Having set herself up as a sort of exemplar of feminist achievement in this past presidential election, we see now perhaps why some voted for Trump, despite his faults: the alternative was a feminist who put up with the savaging of her ideals by her husband for the sake of her own political ambition. Was this the kind of person fit for our nation's highest office?
02-14-2017 01:59 AM
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RiceLad15 Offline
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Post: #145
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
Back Ron Crooked Donald and Company...

Michael Flynn has stepped down due to the revelations of his potential contact, communications, and relationship to Russia.
02-14-2017 07:40 AM
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JustAnotherAustinOwl Offline
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Post: #146
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
All this jumping through hoops to try and excuse away the blatant nativist appeals of the Trump campaign is why Republicans and conservatives have such a hard time appealing to minorities and people who live in and like diverse cities. It's not like the "rapists" comment was his only foray into it. It was a fundamental part of his campaign. When you have incidents where white students start chanting "Trump" at the opposing mostly Hispanic team, or white students telling Hispanic, Asian, and Muslim students "Trump's president now, you're going to be deported", do you really think that comes out of thin air? Why does Trump keep lying about crime stats to make people scared of blacks and Hispanics?

The research on his primary win so far has been pretty clear. Authoritarianism and/or racial resentment are the two most predictive factors of support for Trump in the primary. The other one I've seen is "hostile sexism", but not nearly as much. Many Republicans voted for him in the general despite these things, not because of them, but it's how he got the nomination.

For me, and many that oppose Trump, these are disqualifying. And they were for many Republicans too. He crossed too many lines for me. And then he crossed many more.

Having said all that, I'm retiring from this subtopic. Plenty of substantive policy issues to talk about.
02-14-2017 10:50 AM
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RiceLad15 Offline
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Post: #147
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
He isn't part of the crew anymore, but reports coming out that Flynn lied to the FBI about discussing sanctions with Russian officials, which is a felony. However, it seems unlikely to be something they prosecute due to the fact that Flynn was not 100% adamant about that in his interview, saying things like he couldn't remember all that they talked about.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat...1257c5795c
(This post was last modified: 02-16-2017 10:28 PM by RiceLad15.)
02-16-2017 10:27 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Online
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Post: #148
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
(02-13-2017 03:31 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Back to more commentary on Donald's crew. I had no idea that Stephen Miller was so scary: http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-...5968067895

Some pretty shocking statements and rhetoric. I hope that this was all due to editing, but I doubt it.

Duke graduate - what a shocker. I'm surprised he didn't play basketball there.
02-16-2017 11:29 PM
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RiceLad15 Offline
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Post: #149
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
And I just saw that Fox News last night has reported that not only did Flynn 100% remember what was said in those interviews (he apparently was very forthright with the WH counsel) but also, that Trump knew that Flynn had these conversations and allowed the lie that Flynn didn't to be drug out.

https://mobile.twitter.com/FoxNews/statu...2974131200
(This post was last modified: 02-17-2017 07:55 AM by RiceLad15.)
02-17-2017 07:50 AM
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RiceLad15 Offline
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Post: #150
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
And the hits keep coming for Flynn - he did not report his pay from a foreign government as he is supposed to, from the time he was paid to go to Russia and speak. This coming from a Fox News report: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/...ances.html

All of these questionable decisions by Flynn make you seriously question how well anyone was vetted by the WH prior to their appointments. Obviously he has some character issues with the lying that are coming out, but this is an issue that likely could have been caught had proper due diligence been conducted ahead of time.
02-17-2017 12:17 PM
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RiceLad15 Offline
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Post: #151
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
Crooked Donny and Co. are trying to make their economic policies look extra rosey through some interesting assumptions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...0175c979fd
02-21-2017 07:50 AM
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RiceLad15 Offline
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Post: #152
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
Those darn, liberal rags RedState and Washington Examiner have it out for Trump! Article is titled: "Trump Using Mar-A-Lago As Pay For Access Scheme"

http://www.redstate.com/patterico/2017/0...ay-access/
03-06-2017 02:43 PM
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JustAnotherAustinOwl Offline
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Post: #153
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
It's almost been lost in all the other stuff, but we continue to find out how dishonest and corrupt the Trumps are. Since the last post on this thread, I think the issue of the State Department website basically advertising Mar-A-Lago has come up, at least two issues with Trump and or Kushner businesses getting special treatment in China, and I'm sure another couple things I'm forgetting.

But this is beyond despicable:

"Trump Foundation funneled $100K in donations into revenue for Trump Organization: report"
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrati...-for-trump

Donations intended for St. Jude's Children's Hospital!
(This post was last modified: 06-07-2017 08:31 AM by JustAnotherAustinOwl.)
06-07-2017 08:29 AM
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JustAnotherAustinOwl Offline
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Post: #154
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
Following up on this, it should be noted that Eric Trump DID raise millions for St. Jude. But it sounds like what happened is Crooked Donald decided he was going to charge his own son's charity for using Trump facilities. Now that's sleazy but not illegal. Unless of course you charge more than market rates. Apparently Donald charged Eric's charity up to 500% of market rates.

Shocking/not shocking. This is the same guy who defrauded people with Trump University and regularly stiffed contractors. It's who he is.

Edit: The original Forbes article. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexande...-business/
(This post was last modified: 06-09-2017 09:19 AM by JustAnotherAustinOwl.)
06-09-2017 09:04 AM
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JustAnotherAustinOwlStill Offline
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Post: #155
RE: Crooked Donald and Company
The Trump administration is such a @#$%show that its corruption doesn't even make headlines any more.

Here's a list of the scandals we've forgotten about from last July. Wonder how many more there have been since then?

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/...out-215420
01-05-2018 10:16 AM
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