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General Category => General Forum => Topic started by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 06, 2016, 11:47:22 am



Title: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 06, 2016, 11:47:22 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160101_NewYearFireworks_zpspy3n1l5l.jpg) (https://twitter.com/rodemmerson/status/683010733500567552)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 06, 2016, 11:47:33 am

from The Washington Post....

British lawmakers will soon debate whether
to ban Donald Trump from the U.K.


By ADAM TAYLOR and NIRAJ CHOKSKI | 4:05PM EST - Tuesday, January 05, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160105bt_BanTrump_zpsb81t5wiw.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2015-12-09/Getty/500588086.jpg&w=1484)
Front pages of British newspapers on December 9th, which were published after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said
that the Metropolitan Police are scared to patrol certain Muslim areas of London. — Photograph: Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images.


BRITISH lawmakers have scheduled a debate for later this month on whether to ban Donald Trump from entering their country.

The decision comes after more than 560,000 people signed a petition (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/114003) calling for such a ban — well over the 100,000 legally required to prompt a parliamentary debate. A separate petition (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/114907) opposed to banning Trump generated nearly 40,000 signatures.

The debate will be held January 18th and can be watched online (http://parliamentlive.tv/Commons).

House of Commons Petitions Committee Chairwoman Helen Jones said that the debate “will allow a range of views to be expressed,” according to the Associated Press (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/british-lawmakers-to-debate-call-to-bar-trump-from-country/2016/01/05/ad7e9f3c-b3df-11e5-8abc-d09392edc612_story.html). Any conclusion reached by the lawmakers will not be binding, the wire service reported.

The petition to ban Trump was launched after the American billionaire and leading Republican presidential candidate issued a series of controversial comments about Muslims. Trump's comments — particularly his suggestion that some areas of London are so full of radical Muslims that police are too scared to go there — have earned rebuke from a number of prominent Britons.

In an unusually disdainful statement, London's Metropolitan Police said (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/08/london-police-offer-donald-trump-a-reality-check), “Mr. Trump could not be more wrong.”

London Mayor Boris Johnson, a member of the right-wing Conservative Party who is tipped by some to be the next British leader, also responded: “The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron described Trump's comments (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-35114623) as “divisive, stupid and wrong.”

But the petition to ban Trump from entering Britain could go beyond words. The British Home Office really does reserve the right to refuse entry to foreigners coming to the country to speak under the unacceptable behaviors or extremism exclusion policy.

Anti-Muslim American speakers such as Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-23064355) have been blocked from entering the country by these rules before, as have extremist Islamic preachers and others whose presence the home secretary has decided would “not be conducive to the public good.”

Some prominent politicians, including Jack Dromey, home affairs spokesman of the opposition Labour Party, and Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, have backed the proposed Trump ban.

To an American reader, banning someone from entering the country because of words they've uttered may seem extreme, but Britain and much of Europe have a very different attitude toward free speech. There has been some debate in the country as to whether to ban the Islamic State's signature flag (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/08/could-britain-ban-the-islamic-state-flag), for example. In theory, at least, anti-Muslim sentiment is dealt with just as seriously.

Even so, Trump, who has considerable business interests in Britain and personal ties to Scotland in particular, may be in luck.

Helen Fenwick, a professor at Durham Law School, notes that some supporters of the Trump ban say that the American businessman should be banned from the country because he has incited hatred on the grounds of religion, something made illegal by Britain's hate speech legislation. However, Fenwick doubts that Trump's comments would fall within that definition — his comments were insulting rather than threatening, she notes.

Fenwick adds that if the current home secretary, Theresa May, took a broader definition of “hate speech,” Trump could possibly be banned; but that would be unlikely.

The British government has indicated that it would not refuse Trump entry, despite the apparent popularity of the sentiment. George Osborne, a high-ranking Conservative cabinet member, told the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12040805/Donald-Trump-petition-UK-Muslims-ban-live.html) in December that it wouldn't be right for Britain to ban candidates before the U.S. election, adding that although Trump's comments were “profoundly wrong,” it would be better to engage him in debate.

That appears to be the approach of the Muslim Council of Britain (http://www.mcb.org.uk/donald-trump-does-not-represent-the-america-we-know), which released a statement to say that if Trump does visit Britain in the near future, it would be happy to organize a multi-faith delegation to accompany him as he tours areas of London with large Muslim populations.

The council said it would even pay for his lunch.


• Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.

• Niraj Chokshi is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • London police offer Donald Trump a reality check (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/08/london-police-offer-donald-trump-a-reality-check)

 • Scotland cuts ties with Donald Trump. He says it should be ‘thanking me’ instead. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/10/scotland-cuts-ties-with-donald-trump-he-says-it-should-be-thanking-me-instead)

 • The world reacts to Trump's proposed ban on Muslims entering the U.S. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-world-reacts-to-trumps-proposed-ban-on-muslims-entering-us/2015/12/08/50eea1dc-9d4a-11e5-9ad2-568d814bbf3b_story.html)

 • Do other countries have Donald Trumps? Of course they do. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/09/do-other-countries-have-donald-trumps-of-course-they-do)

 • Poll: Canadians reject Donald Trump's rhetoric on Muslims (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/18/poll-canadians-reject-donald-trumps-rhetoric-on-muslims)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/05/british-lawmakers-will-soon-debate-whether-to-ban-donald-trump-from-the-u-k (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/05/british-lawmakers-will-soon-debate-whether-to-ban-donald-trump-from-the-u-k)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 06, 2016, 12:14:16 pm
funny thing i heard the english empire doesn't rule the world anymore but they are still sucking up to saudi arabia because those murderous scum have bought up a lot of london and the brit banks and government are kissing their asses

if trump becomes the american leader watch them brit gov fascist crawl out from under their damp rocks and kiss trumps ass

screw the corrupt british government if trump becomes president he can ban them dictator pussies from coming to america or even have them redcoats whacked by the cia lol



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 06, 2016, 12:26:57 pm
screw the corrupt british government if trump becomes president he can ban them dictator pussies from coming to america or even have them redcoats whacked by the cia lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 06, 2016, 01:08:00 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160101_TrumpStatueOfLiberty_zpsb9r4kwin.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/12/27/Editorial-Opinion/Images/EOYtoles12092015.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on January 06, 2016, 01:20:48 pm
The strange thing about Trump, is no matter what outrageous statement he makes, his popularity keeps rising.
Actually, I guess it shows more what people think of Obama, that they are that desperate....  :-\


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 06, 2016, 02:26:59 pm
music break

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk0V_GGa2XM


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 06, 2016, 02:45:48 pm
The strange thing about Trump, is no matter what outrageous statement he makes, his popularity keeps rising.
Actually, I guess it shows more what people think of Obama, that they are that desperate....  :-\


Well.....it actually shows that there are a shitload of retards & simpletons in certain parts of the USA.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 06, 2016, 02:49:05 pm
....mmmm.....soon we will be able to watch as Hillary brings Putin and the fundamentalist ragheads under control ;)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 06, 2016, 03:17:07 pm
ktj your stupid name calling is wasted in this group
you should get out in the real world,dump your government train driving job and go on welfare because at the moment you're being paid much more than your worth.
and you would save our nz taxpayers some money we can give your job to a poor syrian refugee for lower wages a win win for the left

get out take over the world call, yourself chairman bruce chief commissar of the workers party then make the earth into a communist wet dream with a commie boot on every neck  ;D

some us people would vote for hillary clinton's head on a stick it's a shame that her husband bill is a well known rapist and sexual preditor at least 14 women say so how progressive is that.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 06, 2016, 03:53:46 pm
...we can be assured that Hillary won't suck up to anybody......she'll give Monica a call to do the dirty work :P


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 06, 2016, 04:38:06 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LA%20Times%20Pix%202015/latimes_20151209dh_zpss6b3yndt.jpg)[/ur]
 (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-fascist-inclinations-20151209-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 06, 2016, 04:46:43 pm
.....mmm.....I reckon those three in the foreground need to be interviewed...they look suspicious  ::)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 06, 2016, 06:44:47 pm
BRUCEY the stupid CHUMP



chairman bruce chief commissar of the workers party please fix the racial problem in america where all the white people are racist lol

some whites are racist some blacks are racist and now i understand why
it's because braindead shits like brucey and horsey and the left wing media
are trying to cause it
because of their twisted backward logic

1 the best thing to do would be separate blacks and whites right ?

2 or stop whining like a bitch dog and get on with your life ?

3  we have a race war and all kill each other ?

so i will need to get rid of my black brown and yellow friends to keep the black racist people happy  ;D


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 07, 2016, 02:29:00 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDJ5hcO5J6A


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 09, 2016, 11:34:51 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Will Donald Trump crash the Golden Globes?

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PST - Friday, January 08, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160108dh_zpsn3dbjcjv.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-568f119e/turbine/la-na-tt-trump-crash-golden-globes-20160107)

WITH the Golden Globes on Sunday, we have entered the heart of the awards season. The Grammys are coming up and, at the end of February, the big one: the Academy Awards. With so much attention aimed at so many stars, how will the country’s biggest political prima donna be able to resist a grab for the spotlight?

For more than half a year, Donald Trump has demonstrated the power of celebrity. He has taken and held the lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination largely through his ability to hog attention. The media reaction to Trump has been truly Pavlovian; Trump rings the bell of controversy, and political reporters and pundits start salivating and wagging their tails.

This last week, Trump managed to grab a prominent spot on the cable and broadcast news shows for several days with the cheapest of cheap shots: attacking Bill Clinton's legendary horniness. In the 1990s, comedians and cartoonists mined the details of Clinton's seamy sex life for every last ounce of satire. Who knew anyone could still find a nugget of interest in this overworked material?

Apparently Trump knew. Just a few tweets about the randy days of Hillary Clinton's once-wayward husband got Trump another several days of free publicity. Trump is hooked on the attention. Whenever the political chatter begins to veer toward other candidates, The Donald pulls up Twitter and sends out another 140 characters of insult and bombast.

Soon, the Hollywood stars will begin striding down the red carpets, getting interviews and face time on camera. How can Trump not want to be there, too? Maybe he will not physically crash the party, but he doesn't have to. Imagine if Jeffrey Tambor picks up some gold for his portrayal of a transsexual in Transparent (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3502262) or Eddie Redmayne is a winner for a similar role in The Danish Girl (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810819). Trump could quickly tweet something about perverts and political correctness and instantly be in the news. What if Julia Louis-Dreyfus gets another award for Veep (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1759761), in which she plays a self-promoting, wildly incompetent female president? The Trump tweet comparing Julia to Hillary writes itself.

And, should Max Max: Fury Road (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190) come up with a Golden Globe, Trump could boldly tweet a claim to be the perfect leader for a dystopian future where everyone is angry and the biggest bully rules. For once, he would not be exaggerating.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-crash-golden-globes-20160107-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-crash-golden-globes-20160107-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 09, 2016, 12:35:41 pm
Yet more verbal vomit & bullshit from Horsey.

A wee piece of advice for the gullible........Horsey is full-of-shit.

Believe anything he says or posts or publishes at your peril. ;)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 09, 2016, 12:48:00 pm
Yet more verbal vomit & bullshit from Horsey.

A wee piece of advice for the gullible........Horsey is full-of-shit.

Believe anything he says or posts or publishes at your peril. ;)


Have you ALWAYS been too STUPID to think up things for yourself instead of merely copying what others with superior intellectual capacity to you have already posted?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 09, 2016, 02:28:25 pm
(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/08_Laugh.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Calliope on January 10, 2016, 08:55:52 am
Perhaps we should be asking what is Trump's agenda. What does he expect to gain from all this. Apart from the "celebrity" angle, what motivates this man. in one word - Power. Now we all now what they say about power.
Quote
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 17, 2016, 11:47:30 am

from The Washington Post....

Trump's idea of tough is when somebody else gets hurt

By TOM TOLES | Tuesday, January 12, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160112_TrumpTheChump_zps073iak19.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/blog1-12-16.0001.jpg&w=1484)

ANOTHER BLANK SPOT of the map of Donald Trump has been filled in. The “strong” vs “weak” thing has been clarifying now for some time. This dichotomy is pretty clearly near the heart of his psyche. Don't expect suble here. Strong = good. Weak = bad.

But now we have a little more granular detail that is quite revealing. Donald likes other people to sustain the physical damage part of his “strong” monomania. For example, he likes his football players to be tough and take those concussions (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/01/10/donald-trump-nfl-football-has-become-soft-like-our-country-has-become-soft) for the important goal of his entertainment pleasure. It is quite simply no FUN for him to watch athletes engaged in sporting events if they walk off the field with undamaged brains and the likelihood of a full, unimpaired adult life.

And I'm sure we can look forward to the same kind of attitude about strength in his foreign policy. What good is a foreign policy if American soldiers aren't taking some good solid hits? Donald would be willing to do the same himself. Sure he would. When he was of draft age during the Vietnam War, he was willing to suffer from heel spurs to avoid being drafted. You can be sure he suffered them strongly.

We await further details on this map of Mr. Trump. I expect that if someone discovers he has a porn collection, it will consist of the movie Patton (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066206).


• Tom Toles is the editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post and writes the Tom Toles blog. See all of his cartoons HERE (https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/tom-toles).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2016/01/12/trumps-idea-of-tough-is-when-somebody-else-gets-hurt (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2016/01/12/trumps-idea-of-tough-is-when-somebody-else-gets-hurt)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 19, 2016, 12:51:14 pm

from The Washington Post....

U.K. Parliament debate: Donald Trump gets pummeled by the British

By GRIFF WITTE | 3:48PM EST - Monday, January 18, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160118_GoofyTrump_zpsvhnbvjxr.jpg) (http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/political-cartoon/the-weeks-best-donald-trump-cartoons-and-memes-to-make-you-lol)

LONDON — The British Parliament on Monday hosted an extraordinary debate over whether to ban U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump from visiting the United Kingdom.

The debate, which was triggered by an online petition that described Trump's comments about Muslims as “hate speech”, did not produce any binding decisions. Authority to ban someone from the country rests with the home secretary, not with Parliament. But the exchange gave British lawmakers an unusual chance to weigh in directly on U.S. politics.

Here's how the debate went down at the Palace of Westminster. All times are Eastern Standard Time:

11:30 a.m. — The debate begins with Flynn reading two petitions — one calling for Trump to be banned, and the other saying Britain should “mind our own business!” The petition favoring a ban attracted more than 570,000 signatures. The one opposing a ban received about 40,000. The debate is being held outside the main chamber of the House of Commons, with members gathered in a semi-circle. Several dozen members appear to be present.

11:34 a.m. — Flynn cites other cases when the United Kingdom enacted bans. Many of those, he says, involved “an immediate threat of violence,” which he stresses is different than this case.

11:39 a.m. — Flynn pays tribute to the Unites States as the land of “Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama.” The debate, he says, isn't about disrespecting the United States; it's about the comments of one man.

11:42 a.m. — Flynn says as much as he disagrees with Trump, he worries that banning him would give him a “halo of martyrdom.”

11:44 a.m. — Flynn has been interrupted several times by other members, one of whom calls Trump “a ridiculous figure.” No one has expressed a word of support for Trump, and some have suggested Flynn may be going easy on him.

11:50 a.m. — Labour lawmaker Paul Flynn concludes with a turn-the-other-cheek message, saying Britain should respond to Trump's “words of prejudice” with “a hand of friendship.” Flynn wants to invite Trump to Britain, and show him around. And with that, Flynn yields the floor. Looks like a lot of others are ready to speak.

11:53 a.m. — Scully emphasizes that it's not up to Parliament to decide whether Trump is banned. It's up to the Home Secretary, Theresa May. But, he says: “I'm sure she'll be listening.”

11:55 a.m. — Scully says other bans have been enacted for reasons of “incitement or hatred.” Referring to the idea of banning Trump, he says: “I've never heard of one for stupidity. I'm not sure we should be starting now.”

11:58 a.m. — Paul Scully, a Conservative, says Trump's comments were born out of “fear.” He says he wants to emphasize the positive contributions that immigrants make to British society.

12:06 p.m. — Tulip Siddiq, a Labour member from north London, is the next to rise. She supports keeping Trump out, saying, “I draw the line at freedom of speech when it imports a violent ideology.” The government's option to ban people is intended to protect the public. It should be applied to Trump, and he should be banned from visiting “the multicultural country that we are so proud of.”

12:10 p.m. — Edward Leigh, a Conservative backbencher, says those who want to shut down a demagogue may be guilty of demagoguery themselves. “If we only allow freedom of speech for those we agree with, is that free speech at all?” He condemns Trump, and says he's personally pro-gun control, pro-public health care and has nothing in common politically with Trump. But he says banning Trump is an attempt to “shut down the debate over immigration.”

12:15 p.m. — There doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for a ban — at least so far. Robinson adds his voice to those saying Trump should be invited to Britain so he can be shown how wrong he is, rather than banned. Trump, he says, is “a ridiculous xenophobe. But someone we don't need to promote any further.”

12:19 p.m. — Gavin Robinson, a member of the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland, is also using the opportunity of this debate to rip his opponents, including republicans in Northern Ireland and nationalists in Scotland who, he says, once welcomed Trump with open arms but now condemn him. Trump, who's of Scottish heritage, has invested heavily in Scottish golf courses and was until recently a business ambassador for Scotland.

12:27 p.m. — Add another to the list of those opposing a ban. Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative backbencher, says the United Kingdom has no business intervening in American politics. “While I think this man is crazy,” Tugendhat says, “I will not be the one to silence his voice.”

12:30 p.m. — Naz Shah, a Labour member, brings up the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. who, she says, “deserves more recognition today than does Donald Trump.” She says the way to defeat Trump is to “challenge him with goodness.” As a Muslim woman, she would be banned from the United States under Trump's plan. But she won't support banning him from the United Kingdom. Instead, she wants to invite him to Bradford, “the curry capital of Britain.” She would serve him food and take him to the mosque, she said.

12:37 p.m. — Trump has weighed in. Or at least, one of his executives has. Sarah Malone, executive vice president of Trump International Golf Links, said in a statement (https://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/689129088175464448): “It is absurd that valuable parliamentary time is being wasted debating a matter raised as part of the American Presidential election. For the UK to consider banning someone who made a statement in America, about American boarders [sic] during a US election campaign is ridiculous.”

12:38 p.m. — Everyone is condemning Trump today — even the ones who oppose a ban. The opponents say the proponents are inadvertently helping him by “fueling the man's publicity machine.” Or so says Victoria Atkins, a Conservative MP, who says New York was named after a hamlet in her district.

12:42 p.m. — Ahmed-Sheikh says that by condemning Muslims, Trump has condemned Britain's Olympic athletes, its newscasters and its members of Parliament. And he's playing into the Islamic State's narrative, by portraying a clash of civilizations between the West and the Muslim worlds. Others have been banned for anti-gay rhetoric or for Islamist extremism. The government needs to be consistent, and ban Trump for his hateful rhetoric against Muslims. “His remarks are condemning an entire religion,” she says.

12:46 p.m. — Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, a Scottish National Party member, is interrupted by a questioner who describes Trump's comments as “buffoonery,” which should be met “not with a ban, but with the great British response of ridicule.” There are a few cheers for this idea.

12:54 p.m. — If the United Kingdom ban's Trump, where would it stop? So asks a member who seems to be with the majority of the speakers in opposing a ban. Lots of people have extremist views, he says. If you start banning people for saying things that are offensive, “how long would the list be?” He says Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban would be on it.

1:01 p.m. — Monday's debate comes as Britain is grappling with extremism — both Islamist and Islamophobic. Jack Dromey, Labour’s spokesman on home affairs, says allowing Trump to come to the United Kingdom at such a time would be “damaging, it would be dangerous, it would be deeply divisive.” He imagines Trump bringing his rhetoric to Birmingham, a city with a substantial Muslim population, and wonders how that would affect young people there, saying, “the consequences of that would be very serious indeed.” He says Trump and Muslim extremists feed off one another, adding, “ISIS needs Donald Trump and Donald Trump needs ISIS.” Dromey closes with a call for a ban: “Donald Trump is free to be a fool. But he's not free to be a dangerous fool in Britain.”

1:11 p.m. — Before the debate, Trump had threatened to withdraw his planned investment in his Scottish golf courses if Britain went through with a ban. That threat may have had an impact. Corri Wilson, a Scottish National Party member who represents the area that is home to Turnberry, one of the billionaire businessman's golf resorts, read off statistics about the number of jobs created in her area by Trump. She opposes the ban.

1:19 p.m. — Philip Davies, a Conservative, accuses those who want to stamp out intolerance of being intolerant themselves. He says that it's easy to be for “motherhood and apple pie,” but that it takes “real guts” to say things that are controversial. He's not defending Trump. But he is defending Trump's right to speak. Davies is interrupted by another Conservative, Adam Holloway, who says the debate is “embarrassing” for Britain. “We should apologize to the people of the United States,” he says. “It's for them to decide, not us.”

1:24 p.m. — British members of Parliament are exhausting a thesaurus using words to condemn Trump. They've called him “a buffoon”, “a demagogue”, “a joke”. One member called him “an idiot” about five times in three minutes.

1:31 p.m. — Kwazi Kwarteng, one of a relatively small number of black members of Parliament, notes that the debate has been “sanitized” because it has ignored the long tradition of nativism and xenophobia in U.S. history. Nativism, says the historian and Conservative member, is very much within the American political tradition. And Trump is part of that history. He may want to ban Muslims, but “the answer to his ban is not to ban him.” Doing so would only give him more publicity, generating “headlines around the world.” And besides, Trump could win. “And then we would be in the absurd situation of having banned the president of the United States.”

1:45 p.m. — Through a thick brogue, McLaughlin notes that Trump is “the son of a Scottish immigrant. And I apologize for that.” She accuses Trump of “hypocrisy” in his views on immigrants, and urges him to “look to Lady Liberty for some advice.” She says the strongest argument for banning him is “equality.” Others have been banned for similarly hateful remarks, she notes.

1:58 p.m. — Lots of amateur analysis of American politics going on in Parliament right now. Scottish National Party member Anne McLaughlin was just interrupted by a member who wanted to talk about GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz. “Where is the Republican Party going, putting one [candidate] up who's as bad as the other?” she was asked.

2:05 p.m. — Starmer says Trump's most extreme comments came after a recent mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. He was “not the first, and won't be the last, to make comments about a community in the wake of an atrocity.” That points to the need to blame individuals, not communities, following a mass killing. Starmer says it's important to show the Muslim community how much it’s valued. And he says Trump's views are “repugnant.” But he calls a ban on Trump “far too simplistic.”

2:14 p.m. — Keir Starmer, a Labour leader and former chief prosecutor, invites Trump to his constituency, which he says is diverse and where people live in relative harmony. But he notes that his invitation is just one at the end of a long list. If Trump comes to Britain, he'll be very, very busy.

2:18 p.m. — We're well into the evening now, and the debate is winding up. Brokenshire is summarizing for the governing Conservatives. There's no contradiction between being Muslim and being British, he says. Britain would never consider the kind of ban that Trump has proposed.

2:24 p.m. — James Brokenshire, the immigration minister, is being challenged on Prime Minister David Cameron's announcement on Monday that immigrants who are in the United Kingdom on a spousal visa can be ordered to leave the country if they don't make sufficient progress in learning English. Brokenshire says the proposal is not aimed at Muslims. And he steers the conversation back to Trump: “The best way to defeat nonsense like this is to engage in robust democratic debate.” That suggests the government isn't planning a ban.

2:30 p.m. — Paul Flynn, the Labour member who began the debate three hours ago, is back on his feet. People watching — including those in the United States — “have seen Parliament at its very best. They've seen a diverse debate from a diverse Parliament,” he said.

2:31 p.m. — The chair does a cursory call for “aye's” and “no's”. But there’s no actual vote. The debate is over. Watch this space for a recap.


Karla Adam contributed to this report.

• Griff Witte is The Washington Post's London bureau chief. He previously served as the paper's deputy foreign editor and as the bureau chief in Kabul, Islamabad and Jerusalem.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • The many insulting adjectives the British Parliament used to describe Donald Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/18/the-many-insulting-adjectives-used-to-describe-donald-trump)

 • London police offer Donald Trump a reality check (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/08/london-police-offer-donald-trump-a-reality-check)

 • The number of Britons petitioning to ban Donald Trump is equivalent to 1.3 million Americans (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/10/the-number-of-brits-petitioning-to-ban-donald-trump-is-equivalent-to-1-3-million-americans)

 • Do other countries have Donald Trumps? Of course they do. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/09/do-other-countries-have-donald-trumps-of-course-they-do)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/british-parliament-set-to-debate-banning-donald-trump/2016/01/18/7351d87a-ba14-11e5-85cd-5ad59bc19432_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/british-parliament-set-to-debate-banning-donald-trump/2016/01/18/7351d87a-ba14-11e5-85cd-5ad59bc19432_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 19, 2016, 06:01:37 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160118_DonaldTrump_zpsdkuqbile.jpg) (http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/political-cartoon/the-weeks-best-donald-trump-cartoons-and-memes-to-make-you-lol)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 19, 2016, 07:14:32 pm

from The Washington Post....

The many insulting adjectives the British
Parliament used to describe Donald Trump


By KARLA ADAM | 6:24PM EST - Monday, January 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGT3nwfqTA4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGT3nwfqTA4)

LONDON — During the three-hour debate (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/british-parliament-set-to-debate-banning-donald-trump/2016/01/18/7351d87a-ba14-11e5-85cd-5ad59bc19432_story.html) here in Westminster Hall on whether to ban Donald Trump from the United Kingdom, many British lawmakers extended the hand of friendship.

Trump was invited to have a curry in the city of Bradford, where about a quarter of the population is Muslim, and go on a walkabout in the multi-ethnic area of Brixton, a neighborhood in south London. More than one politician invited him to come along for a visit to a mosque.

But British politicians were notably less courteous when searching for words to describe the Republican presidential front-runner, with lawmakers from across the political spectrum dishing up a dictionary's worth of insulting adjectives.

If Trump were to wander into one of the pubs in her constituency, the Conservative MP Victoria Atkins said, he should be prepared to be called a “wazzock” — British slang for an annoying person. (The Guardian explains that “wazzock” is a mild insult (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/19/james-blunt-wazzock-chris-bryant-guide) that can be “used on telly without frightening your gran.”) She said that banning Trump would be a disproportionate response but also said his call last month to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the the United States was “bonkers!”

The overall tone of the evening debate was civil and high-minded, with weighty issues thoughtfully discussed amid the name-calling.

And plenty of name-calling there was. Although Britons are normally famous for their understatement, they didn't appear to hold back during the debate, which was triggered after more than 575,000 people signed a petition on a parliamentary website calling to ban Trump from the U.K.

Gavin Robinson, a Northern Irish member of Parliament who said that Trump should be allowed to visit the U.K. so that people could challenge his views, nonetheless called him a “buffoon” and a “ridiculous xenophobe”.

Naz Shah, the Labour politician who invited Trump to join her for a curry, said he was a “demagogue who panders to people’s fears, rather than their strengths.”

To Marcus Fysh, a Conservative politician who said that banning Trump would be counterproductive, he was “the orange prince of American self-publicity.”

Labour shadow minister Jack Dromey, one of the few members of Parliament who argued in favor of the ban — Trump shouldn't be allowed within a thousand miles of the U.K., is how he put it — said that Trump was a “fool” but that he wasn't free to be a “dangerous fool in Britain.”

Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, another lawmaker who supported the ban, said that Britain needed to prevent “a poisonous, corrosive man from entering our country.”

Not everyone was scornful of the business tycoon. Philip Davies, a Conservative politician who didn't go so far as to agree with Trump's views on banning Muslims, praised him for being “straight-talking” and said that Britain needed more people who were less concerned about being politically correct.

It was advice that, arguably, wasn't needed in Westminster Hall on Monday night.


Griff Witte contributed to this report.

• Karla Adam is a reporter in The Washington Post's London bureau. Before joining the Post in 2006, she worked as a freelancer in London for the New York Times and People magazine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/18/the-many-insulting-adjectives-used-to-describe-donald-trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/18/the-many-insulting-adjectives-used-to-describe-donald-trump)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 20, 2016, 04:31:06 pm

from The Washington Post....

Donald Trump stirs up the bile of the British

By DANA MILBANK | 6:59PM EST - Monday, January 18, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118dt_DonaldTrump_zpsjvnpzg5z.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/18/Editorial-Opinion/Images/DV2211645-1415.jpg)
In a file picture taken on January 16th, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures while addressing the South Carolina
Tea Party Convention at the Springmaid Beach Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. — Photograph: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images.


THE British Parliament set out on Monday afternoon to debate a question that is often argued on this side of pond but has never before been taken up in the halls of Westminster: Is Donald Trump dangerous? Or is he merely a buffoon?

The man who would Make America Great Again, it turns out, has already done a great job of unifying Great Britain. Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum took turns insulting the American billionaire.

“Daft and offensive.”

“Ridiculous xenophobe.”

“Impulsive, not well informed.”

“Objectionable and hateful.”

“Buffoonery.”

“The orange prince of American self-publicity.”

“What is under his hair?”

British legislators giggled as a colleague read aloud some of the puffy plutocrat's utterances on global warming (“it's freezing and snowing in New York”) and on the “great” and “inexpensive” border wall he wants to build.

“Let's be clear: Donald Trump is an idiot,” said Gavin Newlands, an MP from the Scottish National Party.

A Tory MP, declaring Trump “crazy” with “no valid points to make,” said he would like to see Americans challenge Trump with the words that brought down Joe McCarthy: “Have you left no sense of decency?”

“I don't think Donald Trump should be allowed within 1,000 miles of our shores,” said Labour MP Jack Dromey. “Trump is free to be a fool, but he is not free to be a dangerous fool in Britain.”

Still, the result was good news, of sorts, for the Republican presidential candidate: While there was universal consensus that the billionaire developer is appalling, there was little interest in banning him from entering Britain — if only because that would make him a martyr.

Half a million Britons, reacting to Trump's pledge to ban Muslims from entering the United States, had signed a petition calling for Trump to be banned from Britain. A travel ban is up to the Home Office, not Parliament, but legislators decided to have a debate because, as Labour MP Paul Flynn said in introducing the topic, “it is very difficult to ignore the vox pop.”

Flynn was apologetic about the debate because it “might well be interpreted as disrespect” to America. But for Americans watching, it was useful proof that Trump is a reviled and preposterous figure to our most important ally and that America would be the laughing-stock of the world if we elect him.

MP Sarah Wollaston, who represents Dartmouth, noted that the Pilgrims sailed from there four centuries ago “to escape the kind of religious persecution that we are addressing today.” She argued that if Britain were to ban Trump, it “would send a very clear message to the people of the United States about what we feel about those who demonize an entire people for no reason other than their religion.”

On Monday, Trump was at Liberty University in Virginia, warning his evangelical Christian audience that “our country is disappearing fast.” Across the Atlantic, in the Grand Committee Room of Westminster Hall, Tulip Siddiq, a Muslim and an MP, was at that moment speaking about the “need to stop a poisonous, corrosive man from entering our country.” She listed some of his many attacks on women, his racist “dog whistles” and his proposed ban on Muslims.

Some conservatives lamented the sad state of the Republican Party. MP Edward Leigh noted that he's “an extreme right winger” in Britain but asked: “Would I survive in the Republican Party?” (No way.)

Steve Double, another Tory, said he was “surprised” by Trump's support because he “seems to cut right against the heritage and the values that I understand the Republican Party to have.”

But while there was no defense of Trump in the House of Commons, most in the debate thought it counterproductive to ban him from Britain, rather than employing, as one put it, “a classic British response of ridicule.”

That British natural resource was in abundant supply in Parliament on Monday.

Conservative Paul Scully, though calling Trump's conduct “not acceptable for an aspiring world leader,” said travel bans to Britain are issued for “incitement and hatred, but I've never heard of one for stupidity.”

Gavin Robinson, from Northern Ireland, described Trump's style of discourse: “He throws a dead cat on the table, and people stop and listen to him.”

One of the most powerful contributions came from Naz Shah, a “proud British Muslim woman” who called Trump “evil” and a “demagogue”. But she said she wouldn't ban Trump from Britain but rather “invite him for a curry.”

“Given that it is Martin Luther King Day,” she said, invoking the American holiday, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”


• Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation's capital. He joined The Washington Post as a political reporter in 2000.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Dana Milbank: Trump brings the bigots out of hiding (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-brings-bigots-out-of-hiding/2015/12/18/8a02e4ac-a587-11e5-9c4e-be37f66848bb_story.html)

 • George Will: If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-conservative-party-jeopardized-by-trump/2015/12/23/3335339c-a8e2-11e5-8058-480b572b4aae_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/british-bile-at-trump-shows-that-his-election-would-make-us-laughingstock/2016/01/18/51a67258-be2e-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/british-bile-at-trump-shows-that-his-election-would-make-us-laughingstock/2016/01/18/51a67258-be2e-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 20, 2016, 04:36:49 pm
...sooooo..is Trump still allowed to go to the UK if he should so wish? ::)

...my money is still on John Key's favourite ;)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 20, 2016, 04:54:13 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump's bad bet: How too much debt drove his biggest casino aground

By ROBERT O'HARROW Jr. - Investigative Reporter | 7:03PM EST - Monday, January 18, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118u_TrumpTajMahal_zpsqtxeuary.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/08/Investigative/Images/AP_9004050201452274692.jpg)
Donald Trump, who currently seeks the Republican nomination in the presidential election, stands next to a genie lamp at the Trump Taj Mahal,
marking the grand opening of the venture in Atlantic City, New Jersey on April 5th, 1990. — Photograph: Mike Derer/Associated Press.


FOR months in 1987, Donald Trump maneuvered to take control of the hulking, unfinished Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. He snapped up stock in the parent company after its owner died and then made a surprise bid to take the company private.

With the Taj, along with two casinos he already owned in the city, Trump could dominate gambling on the East Coast. But first he needed to convince state gambling regulators that he was financially stable and could raise enough cash to complete the $1 billion project.

On February 8th, 1988, at a licensing hearing in front of the state Casino Control Commission (http://www.nj.gov/casinos), Trump said he could pull it off for one main reason: He was Donald Trump. Because of his reputation as a dealmaker, he said, bankers were lining up to lend him money at prime rates. That meant he could avoid the risky, high-interest loans known as junk bonds.

“I'm talking about banking institutions, not these junk bonds, which are ridiculous,” Trump testified, according to transcripts of the hearing. “The funny thing with junk bonds is that junk bonds [are] what really made the companies junk.”

Trump received the approvals he needed for the Taj, but the prime-rate loans never materialized. Determined to move forward, he turned to the very junk bonds he had derided in the hearing. He agreed to pay the bond lenders 14 percent interest, roughly 50 percent more than he had projected, to raise $675 million. It was the biggest gamble of his career.

In April 1990, the Taj opened as the world's largest casino-hotel complex, joining Trump's other holdings already operating in Atlantic City, the Trump Plaza and Trump's Castle. But Trump could not keep pace with his debts on the three casinos. Six months later, the Taj defaulted on interest payments to bondholders as his finances went into a tailspin. In July 1991, Trump's Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy, the first and most significant of the four that his companies have experienced.

The bad bet on the Taj Mahal continues to haunt Trump, the leader in the race to become the Republican nominee for president. During recent GOP debates, opponents and journalists have repeatedly asked why he should be trusted to manage the country after losing lenders hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump responded that he was shrewd for using “the laws of the country to my benefit” and has distanced himself from the Taj's troubles, saying he never personally declared bankruptcy.

Much has been written about this period of Trump's career. But much has been forgotten over the past quarter-century — or overlooked in this lightning-fast election cycle. The Washington Post reviewed hundreds of pages of legal, regulatory and financial records relating to the Taj Mahal. The Post found that Trump's statements during the campaign about his companies' bankruptcies play down his personal role in the downfall of the Taj. Trump took extreme risks in a shaky economy, leveraged the Taj deal with high-cost debt, and ignored warnings that Atlantic City would not be able to attract enough gamblers to pay the bills, documents and interviews show.

In an interview with The Post, Trump said his work on the Taj Mahal was ultimately successful and earned him a lot of money. He said the bankruptcy was the result of external forces beyond his control, specifically an extremely bad economy in 1990. He said he had “the prerogative” to change his mind about using junk bonds in the financing.

“I didn't want to have any personal liability, so I used junk bonds. I accept the blame for that, but I would do it again,” he said. But Trump vehemently denied that the deal represented a personal failing or affected his personal wealth.

“This was not personal. This was a corporate deal,” he said. “If you write this one, I'm suing you.”

Documents and interviews show he left a legacy of bitterness among onetime proponents, including city officials, casino regulators and citizens. Some came to see that the giant Taj, while outwardly impressive, had little financial substance behind it. Steven P. Perskie (http://politickernj.com/2008/01/happy-birthday-to-steve-perskie-21-years-younger-than-frank-lautenberg), former chairman of the Casino Control Commission and a former state Democratic lawmaker, called it a “Potemkin village”.

Trump made promises to Atlantic City that he did not keep, Perskie said. “When I read and hear him say he was beloved in Atlantic City, that was before [the bankruptcy]. He remembers to perceive how he started, not how he was perceived when he left.”

The Taj bankruptcy was a corporate filing, as Trump has noted. But there was much overlap between Trump the corporation and Trump the man. He owned 100 percent of the casino, documents indicate. As the Taj tumbled, so did Donald Trump, documents show. He eventually gave up half of his stake in three casinos and sold off other holdings, including the 282-foot Trump Princess yacht.

Roger Gros, publisher of Global Gaming Business magazine (http://ggbmagazine.com) in Las Vegas, witnessed Trump's rise and fall in the casino business. He has tracked Trump's presidential campaign. Gros said the version of events Trump shares on the campaign trail does not square with the events that unfolded a quarter-century ago in Atlantic City.

“His claims now just are not credible,” Gros said.

The story of the Taj offers insight into the man who wants to succeed Barack Obama as president of the United States. Then, as now, Trump sold himself aggressively as a consummate entrepreneur and manager. He positioned himself as an outsider with unique talents and said he could achieve things far beyond the grasp of competitors.

In the Republican presidential debate in October (http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/28/vote-who-won-the-cnbc-republican-presidential-debate.html), he said that his experience with companies that went through bankruptcy would help him manage the nation's debts.

“That is what I could do for the country,” he said. “We owe $19 trillion. Boy, am I good at solving debt problems. Nobody can solve it like me.”


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118v_Trump_zpsqhrrpfvr.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalC.jpg)

By the time he became interested in Atlantic City, as early as 1976, Trump was gaining a reputation as a highflying developer in Manhattan. He had taken over his father's sprawling real estate empire and was looking to expand.

He kept watch as support for a referendum permitting casinos gathered steam in New Jersey's statehouse. The city then was a struggling resort town, “barren and hostile, with its boarded-up shells and vacant lots,” investigative reporter Wayne Barrett wrote in Trump: The Deals and the Downfall (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060167041), published in December 1992. Gambling promoters promised that casinos would change everything.

After the first casino opened in Atlantic City in May 1978, Trump traveled from his offices in Manhattan to scout out the Boardwalk for possible sites to build his own hotel. Paul Rubeli, then chief of gaming operations for the new Tropicana hotel and casino, recalled hearing that Trump wanted to tour the property. Rubeli said Trump was very thorough and insisted on seeing everything from “the bottom of the building to the top of the building.”

“He was an up-and-coming guy,” Rubeli told The Post.

Trump began buying land along the Boardwalk and successfully sought to be qualified for a gaming license. In 1982, he teamed up with Holiday Inn to build the casino that came to be known as the Trump Plaza. When it opened in 1984, the Plaza was the city's tallest building and its largest casino.

The next year, Trump bought the Hilton Hotel, secured approval to operate it as a casino and renamed it Trump's Castle. Both did well, but his ambition remained unsated.

From the beginning, Trump kept an eye on the Resorts International Hotel and Casino, which opened in May 1978 as the city's first gambling hall. It raked in cash for the company owned by its legendary founder, James Crosby (http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/12/obituaries/james-m-crosby-58-founder-of-hotel-and-casino-concern.html).

In 1986, Crosby died unexpectedly during surgery. His company was suddenly rudderless at a time when profits had begun to wane. Resorts was also overwhelmed by what had been Crosby's grand vision for a new casino: the Taj Mahal. Over the previous three years, Resorts had poured as much as $500 million into the massive structure, which promised more than 1,000 rooms. But it was only half done, and construction funding was running low.

Some people considered the Taj to be a money pit. Trump, then 40, saw it as a potential money machine. In March 1987, he made a move on Resorts, agreeing to buy a controlling chunk of the company's voting stock from Crosby's heirs — giving him control of assets potentially worth $1 billion. Market watchers applauded Trump's verve. But some industry insiders wondered about his timing.

Resorts was deeply in debt. The projected completion costs of the Taj had quadrupled to more than $800 million and were rising. To cash in on his investment, Trump would have to finish the Taj, and do it at a time when financing was becoming difficult to arrange.

At the same time, the gambling market was becoming more complex. Revenue in Atlantic City had risen to record levels. But casino profits had dropped in recent years because of mismanagement and fierce competition. In 1986, the city's casinos recorded $2.5 billion in gambling revenue but only $74 million in profit, according to one report.

Some gambling analysts were becoming bearish about the prospects for future growth. In June 1987, Marvin Roffman, a prominent analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, said the opening of the Taj Mahal would only intensify the pressure on profits. He wrote that “we are projecting that 1990 may be a very tough year for the Atlantic City casino operators.”

Trump appeared to be undaunted. In July 1987, he became the chairman of Resorts' board of directors and finalized the stock deal, spending $79 million and receiving 72 percent of the voting shares in the corporation. Trump installed his brother Robert and another associate on the board. Trump wasn't acting merely as an investor or manager. He began to press for a lucrative “comprehensive services agreement” that would require Resorts to pay him to arrange for financing and manage the Taj's construction. It was estimated to be worth $108 million over five years.

Lending became exceedingly tight after October 19th, 1987, known as Black Monday (http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/48), when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged by almost 23 percent. In the aftermath, Resorts stocks continued a long slide down.

On December 16th, despite the downturn in the market and qualms about Trump's management fees, the commission approved his services agreement.

Five days later, Trump delivered a surprise. He offered to buy the remaining Resorts stock at the depressed prices and take the company private.

In a news release, Trump offered gambling regulators a tough choice: They could support his new direction, or he would walk away and the Taj project would languish. The release warned that “only with the financial backing of the Trump Organization will it be possible to build the Taj Mahal.”

It was a striking display of self-confidence. “Instead of drawing the millions in fees due under his carefully arranged management contract, without any down­side risk, Donald was repositioning himself to rise or fall with the Taj,” Barrett wrote.

While his offer to buy the Taj was pending, Trump went before the commission to win approval for a casino license in his name for the complex. At the hearing on the morning of February 8th, 1988, the commission, unsettled by Trump's recent maneuvers, asked him to provide more details about his plans.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118w_Trump_zpsqgxgic8z.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalA.jpg)

Trump, testifying under oath, said his attempts to raise financing had faltered because bankers did not have enough faith in Resorts and were uneasy about his lavish services agreement. He said it was not until he moved to take total control of the company that bankers responded well to his request for a big loan.

With him in charge, Trump said banks were willing to give him loans at 9 percent interest or less, “prime rates” far below what other developers could hope for. “I also, as I said before, don't have to use junk bonds. I can use my own funds or I can use regular bank borrowings, so I can build at the prime rate,” he told the commission. “I mean, the banks call me all the time. ‘Can we loan you money? Can we do this? Can we do that?’”

Trump took time to elaborate on the importance of avoiding junk bonds.

“I'm telling you that whether it's General Motors or Procter & Gamble, or any other company, if they have to go out and get junk bonds to do their borrowings, they are not a strong company,” he said. “They make them junk. So it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy almost.”

The commission and its lawyers expressed skepticism. How could Trump get such a good deal when others had to pay so much more to borrow?

“It's easier to finance if Donald Trump owns it,” he said. “With me, they know there's a certainty they would get their interest.”

Trump said he held another appeal for bankers: “I get it done, and everybody is happy and it turns out successfully,” he said.

He was asked, in general terms: “Is there anything that can go wrong, that you're aware of?”

“We can have a depression,” Trump responded. “The world could collapse. We could have World War III. I mean, a lot of things can go wrong. I don't think they will.”

The commission pressed Trump about his projected costs. His plans would bring spending on the Taj to $1 billion, with added luxury suites, gourmet restaurants and opulent fixtures, something the commission referred to as “extras”.

“Don't people have to live within their means?” one commissioner asked.

Trump said the added costs were insignificant and were necessary to help impress customers. “We are probably talking about a difference of $50 million or so,” he said.

“I mean, the worst thing to happen with the Taj Mahal is for the building to open and for people to have been disappointed with it,” he said. “Because word of mouth on something like this, it's like a Broadway show.”

“My basic attitude has always been that I want to do what is good for Atlantic City,” Trump said.

Ten days later, commissioner Valerie Armstrong said Trump's testimony was “laced with hyperbole, contradictions and generalities which make it difficult to evaluate” his fitness for licensing, according to a transcript of a subsequent commission hearing on February 18th, 1988.

“While it might be possible to conclude that the events of the past eight months resulted from happenstance, impulse, fate and/or events beyond Trump's or Resorts' control, it is also just as easy, perhaps easier, to conclude that many of the events leading to Mr. Trump's current [takeover] proposal have been carefully staged, manipulated and orchestrated,” Armstrong said.

A month later, a day before Trump's deal for Resorts was set to go through, his plan hit a snag. Merv Griffin, the television host and producer, made a competing high-priced offer.

Griffin said he would pay $245 million for Resorts if Trump agreed to vote in favor of the takeover and canceled his services agreement. Trump declined. For weeks, the two fought a highly publicized battle.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118x_Trump_zpsyr6lcpwn.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalD.jpg)

On May 27th, they agreed to a complicated settlement (http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/48) that split the company and its assets. Griffin got the existing Resorts casinos in Atlantic City and Bahamas. Trump received a substantial payment to release Resorts from his services agreement. More important, he got the Taj.

Trump later wrote that acquiring “the Taj wasn't something I had planned.”

“Our compromise, which gave me $12 million and the unfinished Taj Mahal, turned out to be one of the best deals I ever made,” Trump wrote in Trump: The Art of the Comeback (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812929640). “At the time, I thought his chances of making Resorts successful were about as good as his chances of getting Sharon Stone pregnant.”

Within days, Trump formed a company called Trump Taj Mahal Funding to seek a loan for the construction. Despite his claims to the commission, Trump could not line up the prime loans. He had to make do with the junk bonds he had so forcefully derided.

In November 1988, a financial firm working with Trump issued junk bonds that paid 14 percent. He would have to pay about $95 million a year in interest payments, not counting the debt from his other casinos and holdings, according to one analyst's report.

“The Taj was going to be the biggest and the best and greatest,” Rubeli, the former Tropicana executive, told The Post. “As Donald would say, ‘It was going to be huge’.”

Trump's Taj Mahal kept expanding. It was now going to be bigger and costlier than anything Crosby envisioned — the largest, most expensive casino ever constructed. The complex would include 1,250 hotel rooms, a 120,000-square-foot casino and about 6,500 employees.

Trump paid little heed to a growing drumbeat of concerns about Atlantic City. In July 1989, Roffman, the market analyst, issued another gloomy report for investors. Its headline: “Atlantic City, New Jersey — Top Heavy in Debt — Houses of Cards”.

Roffman’s message was stark. Five years earlier, the city's nine casinos recorded almost $169 million in profit on winnings of almost $1.8 billion. In 1988, profit dwindled to under $15 million, even though winnings had soared to $2.7 billion.

The problem was debt. “The Taj itself looks like a big gamble,” Roffman wrote of Trump's heavily leveraged operation.

Trump and his executives knew of Roffman. “After he did his deal with Merv Griffin, he called me on the telephone and said, ‘Marvin, didn't I do a fantastic deal?’” Roffman recently told The Post. “I said, ‘I think you made a mistake, Donald’. I said, ‘Why own three casinos?’”

Trump brushed it off. “This is going to be a monster property,” Trump said, according to Roffman.

On March 20th, two weeks before the Taj opening, the Wall Street Journal published remarks Roffman made about the casino, in a story that said the Taj would need to gross up to $1.3 million or more every day to pay the bills and the loans, more than any casino had ever taken in.

“When this property opens, he will have had so much free publicity he will break every record in the books in April, June, and July,” Roffman told the Journal. “But once the cold winds blow from October to February, it won't make it. The market just isn't there.”

Trump was furious. He faxed a threatening letter to Roffman's boss. “You will be hearing shortly from my lawyers unless Mr. Roffman is immediately dismissed or apologizes.”

Trump also called Roffman directly, according to an account in Roffman's book Take Charge of Your Financial Future: Straight Talk on Managing Your Money From the Financial Analyst Who Defied Donald Trump (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155972207X). Roffman said Trump urged him to “write me a letter stating that the Taj is going to be one of the greatest successes ever, and I'm going to have it published.”

Under pressure, Roffman signed a letter of apology drafted by his firm. But when Trump asked for changes, Roffman retracted it in a follow-up note to Trump. A day later, he was fired.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118y_Trump_zpsodzj4tdi.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalB.jpg)

Roffman pursued arbitration, saying his dismissal was unjustified. He won a $750,000 settlement from his firm.

“Understand that I was with the firm for 17 years, and I was a vice president of research. I loved my job,” Roffman told The Post. “I didn't want to lose it. And I had never lost a job.”

He also sued Trump, settling for an undisclosed amount. Roffman declined to discuss the settlement.

The Post examined documents from Roffman's lawsuit, including a deposition of Trump.

In his deposition, Trump said he could not recall reading any of Roffman's reports. He described Roffman's remarks in the Journal as a “vicious attack” and “not a nice thing on a human basis.”

Trump testified it was not his intention to get Roffman fired, despite what his demand letter said. Trump said he only wanted Roffman to withdraw remarks that “were totally inappropriate.”

“I didn't have the right to fire Mr. Roffman by any stretch,” Trump said in his deposition.

The Taj Mahal opened on April 2nd, 1990 (http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/donald-trump-in-atlantic-city-jackpot-or-crackpot/article_7ae16c2c-3d14-11e5-aa3b-5b415c6c45e9.html). Over the next several days, gamblers lined up around the block. Michael Jackson appeared as the star guest. Publicists called it the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.

Behind the glitter loomed extraordinary financial problems. The Taj and Trump's two other casinos labored under a total of $1.3 billion in mortgage bonds. Trump's empire owed an additional $2.1 billion to institutional lenders, of which Trump had personally guaranteed $833 million, according to the Casino Control Commission.

Trump's net worth became a subject of intense interest. Trump said it was about $1.4 billion. Forbes pegged it at $500 million (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2015/06/16/trump-exaggerating-his-net-worth-by-100-in-presidential-bid). The commission later reported he was actually worth just $206 million.

In August, as Trump scrambled to remain solvent, accountants hired by him to assess his financial condition said in a report that his debts could exceed by $295 million the value of all his casinos, hotels, office buildings, his airline and other properties, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer article. In response to “severe cash flow difficulties,” he got a $65 million line of credit to keep Trump's Castle, Plaza, Taj and other Trump enterprises afloat, commission documents show.

Another crisis came to a head in November when Trump was unable to pay interest on the Taj's massive debt and defaulted. In December 1990, when Trump did not have enough money to pay the interest on the Castle's debt, he turned to his father, a successful development tycoon.

On December 17th, a lawyer representing Fred Trump went to the Castle's casino cage, handed over a check for $3.35 million as “front money”, filled out several forms and walked out with an equivalent amount of $5,000 chips in a briefcase, commission documents show. The lawyer repeated the procedure the next day, this time the exchange was worth $150,000.

Trump used the money to pay the interest, and the casino recorded the exchange as an outstanding gaming liability, documents show. But state officials later ruled it was a surreptitious loan and said it violated casino regulations. The state Division of Gaming Enforcement fined the Castle $65,000.

By March 1991, Trump was in “non-compliance” on $1.1 billion in loans across his empire, including the Taj, Trump Shuttle airline, the Castle, Trump Palm Beach Corporation and Mar-a-Lago, the spectacular estate in Florida.

Nearly all of his real estate holdings were “funded by external financing,” such as mortgages and construction loans, an internal commission report stated on April 15th, 1991. His lifestyle, meanwhile, was also sapping his wealth, the report said.

“Mr. Trump expects to exhaust his financial resources in July 1991,” the commission's report said. “Furthermore, as a result of his severely limited financial resources, Mr. Trump cannot be relied upon as a financial resource for Taj Mahal, Castle, or Plaza.”

On July 16th, 1991, Trump Taj Mahal filed a petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. Trump described himself in documents as the “sole Shareholder of Trump Taj Mahal, Incorporated.”

The consequences of the Taj bankruptcy rippled through Atlantic City and Donald Trump's empire.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118z_TrumpTajMahal_zpsv8ukhrmh.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/07/Investigative/Images/Atlantic_City_01_PASKOVA_0071452184267.jpg)
The Trump Taj Mahal, shown in Atlantic City, New Jersey this month, opened in 1990 as the world's largest casino-hotel complex.
 — Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Washington Post.


On August 28th, 1991, a federal judge approved the bankruptcy petition after a bondholders' representative said “it would be a disaster” if the Taj were simply liquidated, according to a New York Times account.

Under the agreement, Trump gave up half his stake in the Taj to bondholders in exchange for support in reorganizing his debt, according to the Taj's annual report for 1992.

Large institutions took the brunt of the losses. But many small-time investors who had bought the bonds, directly or through retirement funds, also suffered losses, according to Bryant Simon, a professor at Temple University and author of Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195308093). So did the small-business owners who sold Trump paint, equipment, food, limousine services and much more. Many were eventually paid only a fraction of what they were due.

“He was a brutal and ruthless negotiator,” Simon told The Post. “People paid the price.”

Trump acknowledged that he drove hard bargains but said he created many opportunities for lots of people in Atlantic City.

“I wasn't the nicest person on earth,” he told The Post. “Many of these same people, if not all, made a lot of money with me.”

On March 9th, 1992, Trump's Castle and Plaza casinos also filed for bankruptcy protection.

To resolve those debts, Trump gave up half of his stake in each casino to his lenders. As part of his reorganization, the casino commission put him on a short leash, requiring him to file regular reports about his other businesses, delinquent taxes and personal spending. Trump eventually sold the Trump Princess yacht, his Trump Shuttle airline and other holdings.

Even in the face of Trump's obvious financial instability, the commission allowed him to keep his gaming licenses because “he was too big to fail,” said Perskie, the former commission chairman. “The consequences for the city and the industry, and everything we cared about, would have been horrific.”

In his recent interview with The Post, Trump emphasized that his companies were not alone during the long downturn in the gambling industry in the city, saying that a number of other casinos also declared bankruptcy.

“I was able to take my great casino empire, which makes me far and away the number-one player in Atlantic City, and bring it through a horrific storm,” Trump wrote in “The Art of the Comeback” in 1997.

At its peak, Atlantic City had 12 operating casinos. Today, there are eight left. Trump is no longer involved, having sold his interests or given up equity through bankruptcy proceedings years ago. The Castle is thriving under new ownership, the Plaza is closed, and the Taj is operating under supervision of a bankruptcy court.

“Trump was welcomed with open arms by everybody and provided the sense he was able to do everything he promised,” Perskie said. “His name and his legacy in the city were significantly tarnished. The business community and regulators no longer accepted the music of the Pied Piper.”

Over the years, Trump has modified his business approach and rebounded with a focus on selling himself as a brand.

He now claims that he is worth $10 billion. Trump has developed a dedicated following, in part because of his brashness and wealth. He owns or has a financial interest in properties around the world.

When talking about his legacy in Atlantic City, he expressed no regrets. “The Taj Mahal was a very successful job for me,” he told The Post.

“It's not personal. This was just business,” he said. “I got out great.”


Alice Crites and Walter Fee contributed to this report.

• Robert O'Harrow Jr. is a reporter on the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He writes about law enforcement, national security, federal contracting and the financial world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/trumps-bad-bet-how-too-much-debt-drove-his-biggest-casino-aground/2016/01/18/f67cedc2-9ac8-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/trumps-bad-bet-how-too-much-debt-drove-his-biggest-casino-aground/2016/01/18/f67cedc2-9ac8-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 20, 2016, 05:00:57 pm
..couldnt be bothered reading it all..but looks like bad press for trump...yeah I guess we should feel sorry for him...should really pass the hat around do you think...must be down to his last 20 zillion....

...and lets face it...politicians who are smart enough to make moneyoften make good leaders..you have to look no further than NZ and how lucky we are to have John Key :P


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 20, 2016, 05:33:28 pm

Trump has shown he is too dishonest to run a casino.

So based on his history, he is definitely too dishonest and too much of a “Flash Harry” to run a country.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 20, 2016, 06:19:43 pm

Trump has shown he is too dishonest to run a casino.

So based on his history, he is definitely too dishonest and too much of a “Flash Harry” to run a country.

...sooooooo....no doubt if he has broken the law , he will be facing charges...can you tell me what the charge is?, and when is the court date for the case ::)

...the conviction will end his bid for pres ;)...look forward to seeing it ::)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Alicat on January 20, 2016, 06:29:43 pm

Trump has shown he is too dishonest to run a casino.

So based on his history, he is definitely too dishonest and too much of a “Flash Harry” to run a country.

...sooooooo....no doubt if he has broken the law , he will be facing charges...can you tell me what the charge is?, and when is the court date for the case ::)

...the conviction will end his bid for pres ;)...look forward to seeing it ::)

Just because someone is dishonest it doesn't mean they are breaking the law. It just means they are dishonest.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 20, 2016, 06:33:59 pm
if Trump is found to be telling fibs, it will reduce his chance of being pres........but I am still backing John Key's favourite to be the next pres...unless Trump gets more popular :)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 21, 2016, 02:16:25 am
no reward without risk

obama is a bullshit artist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg9m1F8B2_c


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 24, 2016, 11:39:36 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160119tt_TajMahal_zps9cfytj5r.jpg) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2016/01/19/donald-trump-boasts-exactly-the-experience-we-should-steer-well-clear-of)
(click on the cartoon to view the source and read more…)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 29, 2016, 11:29:13 pm

(http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/g/f/e/i/image.gallery.galleryLandscape.940x628.gjrcxr.png/1454023858422.jpg) (http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/g/f/e/i/image.gallery.galleryLandscape.940x628.gjrcxr.png/1454023858422.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: reality on January 30, 2016, 04:18:23 pm
...surely it wont be Hillary V Trump.... :o



AN ABSENT TRUMP “WINS” ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Not sure if “winning” social media counts for much, but it does show that the mindshare is with Trump, and even a formal Fox Republican presidential candidate debate doesn’t have sufficient momentum to change the Trump Juggernaut.

Donald Trump was the big winner across social media during the seventh Republican presidential debate – despite the fact that he was not even there.

Trump was the most searched-for candidate on Google during the debate, according to data supplied by the search engine, which co-sponsored the event with Fox News.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush also gained traction on Google.

Trump dominated Twitter mentions among all candidates during the debate, according to Brandwatch, a social media monitoring company.


The billionaire businessman received roughly 130,000 Twitter mentions during the debate, according to Brandwatch. This marked a roughly 40,000-tweet decline from the previous GOP debate – which he attended. 

In all, Trump commanded 36% of the Twitter traffic during Thursday night’s debate (local time), according to the social media company.

Trump – who boycotted the event after Fox News refused to yield to his demand that network anchor Megyn Kelly be yanked as a moderator and after Fox News issued a sarcastic news release about the contretemps – hosted his own event in Des Moines, a fund-raiser for veterans. He was rewarded with positive social media buzz.

Not long after he took the stage at his event at Drake University, a group of protesters chanted loudly. Trump responded: “I love the protesters in the big arena because the cameras [don’t move away from] my face.”

That quip won him praise on social media, and his Twitter sentiment measured largely positive during the event, according to social media analytics firm Zoomph.

“An unbelievable night in Iowa with our great Veterans!” Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) tweeted. “We raised $6,000,000.00 while the politicians talked!”

Trump wins because everyone wants to know what he has to say, and he speaks directly to them, not filtered by the Media Party.

Meanwhile Ted Cruz proves why he is known as a complete c*nt.

At the debate, Ted Cruz came out swinging against Trump in his initial comments, mocking the tycoon’s penchant for brash criticism.

“I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,” joked Cruz, in an effort to, as he put it, get “the Donald Trump portion” of the program out of the way.

Cruz’s joke became one of the standout moments in the first half of the debate, gaining momentum on Twitter among news outlets and average Twitter users alike.

The idiot doesn’t realise that everyone was still talking about Trump as was he.

The donors will move shortly…and Cruz and Rubio are going to find themselves out of cash.

 – ODT
by Cameron Slater on January 30, 2016 at 11:30am


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 30, 2016, 10:27:43 pm

Hahaha....that Slater retard again.

The dumbshit who disagrees with the need for an underground rail loop in Auckland city, even though John Key has finally seen the light.

Now either you agree that Slater is full-of-shit, or if he isn't full-of-shit, then it must be John Key who is full-of-shit.

So which one is it who is full-of-shit?

Are you going to provide a straight answer, or are you going to resort to your usual obfuscation & bullshit?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on February 02, 2016, 10:08:18 am



..."This whole notion that he is devoid of advisers is wrong. We have a lot of smart guys around us and a lot of smart people helping us," Sam Clovis, Trump's chief policy adviser, told me in an interview. "There's a lot more to this than what our opponents and the pundits think. We play them like a five-string banjo because at the end of the day, they are going to look stupid. We don't mind doing that"...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11583282





Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Molly on February 02, 2016, 12:04:05 pm
Love him or hate him, he has certainly added some interest to this election.     He is much more fun to watch than that old bag Hillary Clinton. 


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on February 02, 2016, 01:50:07 pm
Love him or hate him, he has certainly added some interest to this election.     He is much more fun to watch than that old bag Hillary Clinton. 

His advisor said "we play them like a five-string banjo because at the end of the day, they are going to look stupid. We don't mind doing that"...

Sam Clovis his puppeteer?   

Poor old Hillary's puppeteer- Huma Mahmood Abedin must be strikingly devoid of humour. Hot air guitar from her imnsho.






Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on February 02, 2016, 03:27:42 pm
Oh dearie me

TRUMP'S DUMPED!

         (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/08_Laugh.gif)


Clinton and Sanders neck and neck

SKY NEWS NOW


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on February 02, 2016, 04:01:01 pm
(http://static.infowars.com/politicalsidebarimage/billionairesmari_large.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 02, 2016, 04:10:00 pm

Hahaha....Trump is all bullshit & bluster and no substance.

The good folks of Iowa can see right through the one-man idiot entertainment show.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on February 03, 2016, 12:12:27 am
US President Barack Obama lines up NZ visit

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/75747724/US-President-Barack-Obama-lines-up-NZ-visit?cid=outbrain:starter

(http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/9/3/l/8/a/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.193jbg.png/1452461694236.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 17, 2016, 09:33:07 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160212_BigHeads_zpsgul7ebao.jpg) (http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/56bc4fde1d07c01d7d30a2b8/1455181816954/HeadsW.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 17, 2016, 09:33:28 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160215_Valentine_zpswttcfejc.jpg) (http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/56c03b7c07eaa0ab1e1b9800/1455438757909/Valentine.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on February 17, 2016, 11:01:19 am
Why do I get the feeling that Trump may be the reincarnation of Claudius?

..."After the death of Emperor Caligula and his family at the hands of the Praetorian Guard, the future Emperor Claudius (41-54 CE) was found quivering behind a set of curtains, fearing for his own life, and named emperor.  Historian Cassius Dio wrote, “At first the soldiers, supposing that he was someone else or perhaps had something worth taking, dragged him forth; and then, on recognizing him, they hailed him emperor and conducted him to the camp.  Afterwards they together with their comrades entrusted to him the supreme power ....”

Read the rest at
http://www.ancient.eu/claudius/

Scroll down to "Claudius as Emperor"

                  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/40_WTF.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on February 18, 2016, 02:27:05 am
(http://i0.wp.com/www.youngcons.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/z.jpg)
(http://www.radixnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Bernie-and-Barry.jpg)

(http://cdn3.epictimes.com/richardebeling/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2015/11/Sanders-one-size-fits-all-shoes-cartoon.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 20, 2016, 12:54:36 pm

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9c1f4b617321f9776cc7f15d7a2d90b5a7cbd743/0_0_2400_4006/master/2400.jpg?w=940&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=bae1dbc046fdc8e931d7d0d34af1df74) (https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9c1f4b617321f9776cc7f15d7a2d90b5a7cbd743/0_0_2400_4006/master/2400.jpg?w=940&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=bae1dbc046fdc8e931d7d0d34af1df74)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on February 21, 2016, 01:40:11 am
Trump has vowed if he get elected that he will tell america who was responsible for 911 and release the 28 pages about it that were deemed top secret in which rumors suggest that members of the saudi government were involved,us government ordered its air force to stand down and 8 of the 911 investigators that were part of the 911 commission said the 911 report was a deliberate cover up and whitewash.

it would be nice to know how 2 panes brought down 3 towers and why was iraq then then attacked when they had nothing to do with the 911 attacks? but george bush said he had wmd's but as we now know it was all a pack of lies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8gNaG3XIcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_0S80jMeg0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wxJlMH3jZA


 


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 22, 2016, 02:32:47 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160219_PapalDecree_zpszkqwtvd8.jpg) (https://twitter.com/domesticanimal/status/700783184238120961)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: dragontamer on February 22, 2016, 09:30:09 pm
Did America lose a bet?
BAAAAAAHAHAHA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGTznIy6i4w (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGTznIy6i4w)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on February 23, 2016, 07:47:35 am

I find a striking physical and philosophical resemblance between the gentleman being (unjustly?) lampooned in this thread and a certain politician on the other side of the world by the name of Boris Johnson.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson/12077292/2016-will-be-the-year-of-Boris-Johnson.html

So yas haven't heard of him yet?

Hang around a bit, his time is coming too

                    (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/49_Petrified.gif)




Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 23, 2016, 11:22:20 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160223_Headgear_zpszarfblz0.jpg) (http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/56cac112f850827f40a81e41/1456128293229/HeadgearW.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on February 23, 2016, 03:19:28 pm
(http://media.freedomsback.com/2015/08/Bernie-Sanders-NRD-600.jpg)



(http://heralddemocrat.com/sites/heralddemocrat.com/files/styles/large/public/field/media/web1_0_no_image_title_165.jpg?itok=bPUSAsNE)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: dragontamer on February 23, 2016, 05:09:22 pm
Trump plays to the lowest common denominator.  Unfortunately, that's a big swag of voters.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on February 23, 2016, 05:14:52 pm
(http://beforeitsnews.com/contributor/upload/385908/images/avat2_2.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 23, 2016, 05:27:40 pm

So....what do you suppose will happen when Trump builds that wall along the border with Mexico, then sends the bill to Mexico....and the Mexicans tell him to go and fuck himself?  Who do you think will pay the bill then apart from the American taxpayers? Well??  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/09_ROFLMAO.gif)  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/07_LaughOutLoud.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on February 23, 2016, 05:34:39 pm
And money jolly well spent!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on February 23, 2016, 05:57:25 pm

If Canada has any sense, they'll build a huge wall (with absolutely NO gateways in it) along their entire border with the USA if that idiot Trump becomes Prez.

And they'll also deny Americans from flying through Canadian airspace to get to and from Alaska.

After all, the Americans are already doing it to the Canadians, denying them access through American airspace when flying from one part of Canada to another.

What is good enough for the goose should also be good enough for the gander.

And when that wall prevents Ford and General Motors from building their cars in Mexico to take advantage of cheap labour and they are instead forced to build them in the USA again, with the resultant doubling in price of those vehicles, just watch ordinary Americans go apeshit!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: ssweetpea on February 23, 2016, 07:21:54 pm
Trump plays to the lowest common denominator.  Unfortunately, that's a big swag of voters.

You would hope that the only people considering voting for Trump would be white christian or atheist males, he has seriously insulted and threatened removal of rights from everybody else including every woman. Unfortunately there are plenty in the US who are so insulated from the rest of the world that they might think that voting for Trump is a good idea -i.e. the ones who think Europe is a country.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on February 23, 2016, 08:07:53 pm
https://youtu.be/pqK6QYpxm3o


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Alicat on February 26, 2016, 08:37:45 am
Trump plays to the lowest common denominator.  Unfortunately, that's a big swag of voters.


It was almost amusing to start with - now it's just plain scary


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on February 26, 2016, 09:33:09 am
I'm actually not sure which give me the chills most, Trump or Clinton.
Trump is a successful businessman. I don't care how he got his start - His wealth has risen and fallen to nothing several times.  However, you don't become a billionaire by being an idiot. I think that most of the buffoonery would dissipate should he gain the white house.

Clinton comes with way too much establishment baggage and has been demonstrated to be a liar on a number of occasions. And while everyone is aware that that congenital lying is a politicians stock in trade, it is very unpolitic to be caught doing so.

Of course, this presupposes that Clinton will win the Democratic nomination.  That's not a done deal.  Nor is Trump.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Alicat on February 26, 2016, 09:48:36 am
Whoever ends up being President - what will be will be. The choices aren't that flash.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on February 26, 2016, 12:40:54 pm
I'm actually not sure which give me the chills most, Trump or Clinton.
Trump is a successful businessman. I don't care how he got his start - His wealth has risen and fallen to nothing several times.  However, you don't become a billionaire by being an idiot. I think that most of the buffoonery would dissipate should he gain the white house.

Clinton comes with way too much establishment baggage and has been demonstrated to be a liar on a number of occasions. And while everyone is aware that that congenital lying is a politicians stock in trade, it is very unpolitic to be caught doing so.

Of course, this presupposes that Clinton will win the Democratic nomination.  That's not a done deal.  Nor is Trump.


Yeahbut


Clinton said some of the disputed emails became classified AFTER she sent them.  I guess that could have happened.

Refresh me on what other umm indiscretions/untruths she has perpetrated since she was reborn as a Presidential candidate

Or even BEFORE

        ?(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/16_Whistling.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 02, 2016, 12:22:22 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160301_Amazing_zpspir2gs8u.jpg) (http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/56d40e2b60b5e9ac2136dce4/1456737872123/Amazing+copyW.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 02, 2016, 02:24:53 pm

(http://i84.servimg.com/u/f84/19/34/67/98/ccyxiu10.jpg) (http://i84.servimg.com/u/f84/19/34/67/98/ccyxiu10.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on March 02, 2016, 11:19:16 pm




v













v









v




and his daughter is due to have a baby
http://www.vanityfair.com/

or

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/ivanka-trump-pregnancy-flying


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 07, 2016, 10:14:34 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160307_DonaldDuck_zpsbd35fqfc.jpg) (http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/56dc8ebe3c44d8dcc8515073/1457295058480/DuckW.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 16, 2016, 11:35:10 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160316_AllYouNeedIsHate_zpsizcclkwp.jpg) (https://twitter.com/TalkingPicsABC/status/709612157944508416)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 16, 2016, 11:35:31 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160316_TrumpSteaks_zpskuokfkiq.jpg) (https://twitter.com/Patbagley/status/709924247372566528)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 17, 2016, 08:48:58 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160317_Trumpocalypse_zpsxinz3flo.jpg) (https://twitter.com/rodemmerson/status/710162986720227328)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 17, 2016, 08:49:52 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160317_HateTrumpStyle_zps8sp72p2i.jpg) (https://twitter.com/RonSexsmith/status/710213567539224576)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on March 18, 2016, 01:10:33 am
it seems ironic to me that the left seems to be bent on letting the world go on as usual with the normal global mafia in charge as it has always been, yet they have the cheek to call themselves progressives

i can see leftist don't want change they just want continue on with their normal mindfuck games to me this shows they have zero common sense it's a form of destructive insanity.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on March 19, 2016, 02:08:41 pm


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/03/18/the-simpsons-predicted-a-trump-presidency-16-years-ago-tomorrow-the-writer-explains-why

Worth a read!  Lol



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on March 19, 2016, 05:03:59 pm
i think at certain times  we all have the ability to scan a little bit into the future but it gets confused or should i say coloured by our imagination to the point where we often don't even notice.

has anyone else ever experienced this?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on March 20, 2016, 01:51:50 pm
i think at certain times  we all have the ability to scan a little bit into the future but it gets confused or should i say coloured by our imagination to the point where we often don't even notice.

has anyone else ever experienced this?


Yep, a recurring dream that I wrote down and years later I found the place I had described. I showed #1 daughter and she agreed the description fit

👻


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 31, 2016, 12:31:00 pm

from The Washington Post

Some uses for women in Trump's America (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2016/03/30/some-uses-for-women-in-trumps-america)

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160330_DonaldTrumpBimbos_zpsbcv94guq.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/06/03/Style/Images/511380229.jpg)
Donald Trump talks with Miss Colorado USA 2012, Marybel Gonzalez, on the last day of rehearsal for the Miss USA 2012 competition,
on June 2nd, 2012, in Las Vegas. — Photograph: Miss Universe Organization/Greg Harbaugh/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


Yep....in Donald Trump's opinion, women are mere accessories to make him look good!

Well....in his dumbarse eyes, eh? (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/crazy2.gif)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on March 31, 2016, 03:18:07 pm
(http://beforeitsnews.com/contributor/upload/385908/images/avat2_2.gif)

you do know trump is into show business ktj ?
and about women they do have the right to do as they please now days, they can even go into a beauty pageant if they wish
it's a thing called freedom, and if it's what they want and it makes them happy who are you to poo poo them "do you want to be their jailer ktj ?

lol ktj wants women to be bush rats maybe with shaved heads and hairy legs and armpits dyed green lol but the world has other idea's that doesn't fit into his cunning plan  ;D

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H37kkY72O8U/VdqRzj0sKLI/AAAAAAAADpU/q6tndDd_mEQ/s1600/T2374_3.png)

(https://dangerwaffles.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/bernie-bankrupt-meme1.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on April 01, 2016, 11:48:55 am
There doesn't appear to be one of those women who appears unhappy to be there.....
I'm just jealous that its Trump there with them and not me!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on April 01, 2016, 02:38:56 pm
women are too influenced from watching too much tv and believing they need to look like hookers for men to like them
i like women who don't need to wear makeup or tattoos to be beautiful and have a nice pleasant attitude toward life

if you ever find one of those ladies let me know haha


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on April 12, 2016, 07:49:41 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202016/WhiteFlourTrump_zpsp9zlnvzv.jpg) (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/3/1509712/-Anti-Trump-posters-and-laughtivism)
(click on the picture)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on April 12, 2016, 11:07:00 pm
(http://www.therightplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Bernie-Sanders-Socialist-e1446817113649.jpg)
(http://www.thepubliceditor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Bernie_Sanders_Pull_My_Finger.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on April 13, 2016, 06:41:03 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Miscellaneous%20Stuff/DonaldTrump_LessFakeTan_zpsy2nqqkvo.jpg) (https://twitter.com/thisjenlewis/status/717108151221248001)
(click on the picture and scroll-down to see more)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on April 13, 2016, 09:21:42 pm
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b4/ea/57/b4ea57acddea32e4bcb53a0c3c5ed437.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on April 20, 2016, 01:52:57 pm

from The Washington Post....

Oh, thank heaven! We now KNOW how
Trump will make America great again.


By DANA MILBANK | 6:04PM EDT - Tuesday, April 19, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160419dt_DonaldTrump_zpsgk6nkrcc.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/04/19/Editorial-Opinion/Images/GOP_Trump_2016-0c7d5-1164.jpg)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump listens to introductory remarks before speaking in New York's Trump Tower building
on Monday, April 18th, 2016. — Photograph: Richard Drew/Associated Press.


It's very close to my heart because I was down there, and I watched our police
and our firemen down at 7-Eleven, down at the World Trade Center right after
it came down, and I saw the greatest people I've ever seen in action.

— Donald Trump, April 18th, 2016

May 1st, 2017
Remarks by the President
The White House


President Trump: I want to welcome all of my Cabinet secretaries here for this meeting. We have completed our first 100 days in office and already we have made America Great Again. Amazing! The best!

I know everybody took a Big Gulp when I changed 9/11 to 7-Eleven last year (http://fortune.com/2016/04/19/donald-trump-911-711). They thought I was a stupid person. A loser! Erin Gloria Ryan (https://twitter.com/morninggloria/status/722437076013162496) of Vocativ said I would start talking about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Jam and the Native Americans' Trail of Sears. Other terrible people — the worst! — thought I would refer to the eBay of Pigs, the Normandy landing on DQ Day, the Dodge Challenger disaster, Black & Decker Tuesday of 1929, the 1906 San FranCisco Systems Fire and the 1814 burning of the White Castle by the British.

Wrong! Turning 9/11 into 7-Eleven was the beginning of something huge. Phenomenal! The people at 7-Eleven — great retailer, decent coffee, convenient! — loved it. Loved it! They said to me: Mr. Trump, if you could mention us and other corporations more often at unexpected moments, we think it would really help to Make America Great Again. And I said: We will do even better. We will Make America Great Again by selling some of our greatest assets to you and to America's other great corporations.

We are meeting here in the MapQuest Room of the Trump National White House because our new Crate & Barrel Cabinet Room is being refurnished. Next we'll have a drink in the Johnnie Walker Blue Room, and we'll eat in the Allstate Dining Room. Look out the window there and you'll see amazing billboards going up on the Washington Mutual Monument, across the reflecting pool from the Lincoln Financial Group Memorial. In the distance you'll see the white dome of Capital One, the Tide Basin and Boeing National Airport. Huge!

Jeff Sessions, our phenomenal secretary of Homeland Depot Security — great guy! — tells me Mexico has already paid for the wall. It's now the Aeromexico Wall — “because the only way around it is over it!” Great slogan! We are making only the best deals, throughout the Federal Express government and across the entire United States of American Eagle Outfitters.

They said I couldn't unify the Republican Party. But then I renamed the Navy the Ted Cruz Line. They said I couldn't hold on to the evangelical Christians. But then I renamed the Liberty University Bell and Niagara Falwells.

Most of all, they said I couldn't get rid of the entire federal debt — $19 trillion! — in one year. They said I was stupid — a loser! But I traveled this land, from the Redwood Inn forest to the Gulfstream G-650 (http://www.businessinsider.com/tour-the-65-million-gulfstream-g650-2014-10), and knew that everybody wanted to buy American! So I sold the Treasury Department to Citigroup, the Pentagon to Lockheed Martin, the Food and Drug Administration to Pfizer, HHS to CVS, the EPA to Waste Management, the FBI to Apple, the NSA to Google and the Grand Canyon to GMC. Great deals! China gave up all $1.3 trillion of our debt — and all I had to give them was the Walt Disney Company. Phenomenal deal!

Now we are placing corporations' names in amazing places — the greatest — and we are winning, winning, winning, and we are making a lot of money. A lot. We are bringing out the best in America, the fast and convenient spirit of 7-Eleven, and I say: Oh, thank heaven. We are Making America Great Again.

[APPLAUSE]


• Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation's capital. He joined The Washington Post as a political reporter in 2000.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • Oops, Donald Trump accidentally says 7-Eleven instead of 9/11 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/18/oops-donald-trump-accidentally-says-7-eleven-instead-of-911)

 • Trump's vanity project becomes a train wreck (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/04/19/trumps-vanity-project-becomes-a-train-wreck)

 • Robert Kagan: Trump is the GOP's Frankenstein monster. Now he's strong enough to destroy the party. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-the-gops-frankenstein-monster-now-hes-strong-enough-to-destroy-the-party/2016/02/25/3e443f28-dbc1-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html)

 • Danielle Allen The moment of truth — We must stop Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/moment-of-truth-we-must-stop-trump/2016/02/21/0172e788-d8a7-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html)

 • Richard Cohen: The GOP would unite around Trump at its own peril (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-no-uniting-around-trump-and-winning-the-election/2016/04/18/7ee3d9f0-0586-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/oh-thank-heaven-we-now-know-how-trump-will-make-america-great-again/2016/04/19/94e546c6-066c-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/oh-thank-heaven-we-now-know-how-trump-will-make-america-great-again/2016/04/19/94e546c6-066c-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on April 20, 2016, 07:02:48 pm
the elite and their fake mainstream media hate trump because he don't need their bribes and so cant be owned


(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgdTjVQWsAAVYZt.jpg)


http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/primaries/NY


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 03, 2016, 01:10:15 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump doesn't know what he doesn't know about foreign policy

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Monday, May 02, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160502dh_zpswu8pbk0q.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-5726a134/turbine/la-na-tt-trump-foreign-policy-20160501)

WHEN it was announced that Donald Trump would be giving a major foreign policy speech, I imagined he might actually have something to say — or at least that whoever may be advising him about international relations would be writing a speech for the candidate to read that would lend coherence to the random notions that he has expressed throughout the early and middle stages of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Silly me. Last week's “speech” was no more than a somewhat formalized regurgitation of the proudly ignorant and potentially dangerous ideas the Republican front-runner has been spouting for months.

Reviews of the speech from the voices of serious journalism were not kind. The New York Times said the speech “did not exhibit much grasp of the complexity of the world, understanding of the balance or exercise of power, or even a careful reading of history.” The Economist said Trump's “description of statecraft as a series of deals, brokered in eyeball-to-eyeball negotiations with foreign powers, bears no resemblance to real diplomacy.” The Wall Street Journal said, “For prepared remarks, or for that matter even an after-dinner talk, Mr. Trump's speech was especially rife with contradictions.”

Among those contradictions: Trump said he would give unflinching support to American allies, even as he denigrated NATO and said he would demand that U.S. strategic partners, from Europe to Japan, cough up more cash to pay the defense bill or else suffer certain unnamed consequences. He pledged to destroy Islamic State but gave no clue as to how he would do it or betray any complex understanding of the underlying forces that gave rise to ISIS. He insisted he wants friendly relations with China while condemning President Clinton for letting the Chinese into the World Trade Organization.

Trump could not resist straying from the script to dip into his trademark riffs about things that are “tremendous” and “beautiful” or people “who don't know what they are doing”.

The truth is, Trump does not appear to know what he is doing, especially when it comes to foreign policy. Disturbingly, though, he evidences no awareness about how much he doesn't know, instead indicating that his own self-described brilliance puts him at a level of qualification higher than anyone who has spent a career studying and working within the complex realm of international policy. Although Vladimir Putin has expressed admiration of Trump — either because he sees Trump as a kindred spirit or as a guy he can easily bamboozle — the rest of the world, and American allies in particular, are appalled that, by November, there might actually be a majority of Americans confused enough to put this braggart in charge of the world.

Average Americans have never been especially savvy about international policy, ignoring events in foreign lands until they are called upon to send their sons and daughters into battle to crush the latest threat from abroad. Voters generally prefer candidates who talk tough and keep things as clear cut as an action movie. Even though we have the recent example of George W. Bush whose bold talk and simple thinking got the country into costly, tragic trouble overseas, we never seem to learn.

Most people will not have heard or read Trump's foreign policy address. Those who are inclined to support him will merely take note that Trump read some big words about foreign affairs in front of an audience of gray-haired guys in suits and they will hear chatter on cable news that this performance makes Trump look “more presidential”. That will be enough to confirm that he is their guy and all will be right with the world.

If only it were that simple.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-foreign-policy-20160501-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-foreign-policy-20160501-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 03, 2016, 04:18:26 am
(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/311117801429742344/951F0FF9F56B0C6790F6D0BB7681424440904470/)


(http://41.media.tumblr.com/25867b7aa34a3c84f143d8bbeadd97e0/tumblr_mthy4kFvlD1qz5q5lo1_500.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 03, 2016, 05:16:18 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxaKUo5naoY


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 03, 2016, 09:06:50 pm

In a Trump versus Clinton contest, the next President of the USA will be MADAM PRESIDENT.

I'm gonna piss myself with laughter when that happens.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 04, 2016, 07:47:52 am
 ;D

(https://theuniversalspectator.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/weekend-at-bernies.jpg)
(http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/ff499/redmder/weekendathillarys_zpsbbydjfat.png)
(http://polisat.com/Images/Clinton,BillAndObama-001a-Hows-Hillarys-Head-500x726.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 16, 2016, 11:41:40 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57VpjQF0bDA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57VpjQF0bDA)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 18, 2016, 08:47:35 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_9Faxz1s5g


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 18, 2016, 09:27:40 pm

from The Washington Post....

Donald Trump: Stonewaller, shape-shifter, liar

By RUTH MARCUS | 7:06PM EDT - Tuesday, May 17, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160517_DonaldTrump_zpstxkllici.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/04/15/National-Politics/Images/BotsfordTRUMP160415NY47091460763074.jpg)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Hartford, Connecticut. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

THE past few weeks have offered Americans a chilling glimpse of three faces of Donald Trump: the stonewaller, the shape-shifter and the liar.

Trump the stonewaller has been on display in his refusal to release his tax returns. “It's none of your business,” Trump flatly told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-refuses-reveal-tax-rate-business/story?id=39086788) when asked about his effective tax rate.

Stephanopoulos: “Yes or no, do you believe voters have a right to see your tax returns before they make a final decision?”

Trump: “I don't think they do. But I do say this, I will really gladly give them.”

Sure, he'd be happy to — except that he isn't. And it is our business. Voters are entitled to know this information about a candidate for president, a person who would help steer the nation's finances. For decades, presidential candidates have routinely made this material available (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/every-presidential-candidate-should-release-full-tax-returns/2016/04/12/e79af5b4-00c2-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html).

It is astonishing that Trump believes he is exempt from this norm — that a pending audit makes his returns less important to see, not more, or that he is not obliged to find some other way of providing the information, such as returns from earlier years or summary data for the years still under review.

Even more worrisome is what this high-handed approach augurs for a Trump presidency: to airily promise transparency while repeatedly failing to deliver. It is an iron law of politics that candidates do not magically become more forthcoming once in office. Their behavior on the campaign trail, when under pressure to satisfy voters, represents a better version of what they would do on the job.

Then there is Trump the shape-shifter, a man without fixed views and whose policy proposals are mere opening gambits. What does he believe? What is a core principle, and what is up for negotiation?

“I'm allowed to change,” Trump told Stephanopoulos on the minimum wage (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-walks-back-tax-plan-negotiated/story?id=38959168). (He didn't want it raised, then he did, now maybe not.) Certainly, flip-flopping is a chronic and common political condition (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070102233.html); it can be evidence of open-mindedness rather than craven politicking or ideological spinelessness.

Yet Trump's proclaimed “flexibility” is unsettling because it does not rest on an existing edifice of long-expressed conviction and recorded votes. When everything is a starting bid, how are voters supposed to judge — or guess — where Trump might end up?

Trump's campaign is a vast policy desert, so declaring that the sparse fronds of detail are eminently negotiable erases any confidence that voters know what they are getting. Voting for Trump is like nailing Jell-O to your ballot.

Finally, most appallingly, Trump the liar. That is a strong charge, but it appears warranted in the matter of Trump masquerading as his own spokesman (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-alter-ego-barron/2016/05/12/02ac99ec-16fe-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html) (disturbing enough) and then outright denying it (way more disturbing).

“It was not me on the phone,” Trump told NBC's Savannah Guthrie (http://www.today.com/news/donald-trump-denies-posing-spokesman-recordings-washington-post-uncovered-t92421). “And it doesn't sound like me on the phone. I will tell you that. And it was not me on the phone. And when was this, 25 years ago?”

Yes, and Trump could have said any number of things: This was a silly prank, long ago. Of course he shouldn't have done it.

Instead, Trump opted to lie. How do we know? Because in a quote back then to People magazine (http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-posing-as-spokesperson) about supposed spokesman “John Miller”, Trump described his posing as a “joke gone awry”. Because numerous reporters have described having similar encounters with phony Trump spokesmen.

Because Trump himself admitted in court that “I believe on occasion I used that name” — referring to a different alias, “John Barron” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/13/trump-claims-he-didnt-regularly-use-an-fake-name-thats-not-what-he-said-under-oath). Because who are you going to believe: Trump or your lying ears?

This is a fib, you might argue, so trivial as to be meaningless. Yet a candidate willing to lie about something so small will be a president willing to lie about something big — and this is hardly Trump's only lie (e.g., thousands of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11).

The popular understanding may be that all politicians lie, but there is a difference between the ordinarily distasteful political diet of spin, fudge, evasion and hyperbole and the Trumpian habit of unvarnished, unembarrassed falsehood.

“Who cares?” Trump would breezily assure the horrified Mar-a-Lago house historian (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/us/politics/donald-trump-butler-mar-a-lago.html) after regaling guests with the untrue tale of how Walt Disney himself created the nursery rhyme-themed tiles in his daughter's room.

Who cares, indeed — an important question for voters. Americans have elected presidents who subsequently lied to them (and, yes, that includes the husband of a current candidate). Knowingly electing one who lies while trying out for the job would be a tragic mistake.


• Ruth Marcus is a columnist for The Washington Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • Eugene Robinson: Trump's bizarre, dangerous neediness (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-bizarre-dangerous-neediness/2016/05/16/32a86be4-1b9a-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)

 • Michael Gerson: Conservatives make a deal with the devil (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/conservatives-cave-to-the-cave-man/2016/05/16/314bbf6e-1b89-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)

 • The Washington Post's View: The rank nihilism driving the GOP’s acceptance of Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rank-nihilism-driving-the-gops-accepatance-of-trump/2016/05/16/f6e02c14-1b9e-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html)

 • Richard Cohen: Reince Priebus, fool (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reince-priebus-fool/2016/05/16/decae58a-1b88-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-stonewaller-shape-shifter-liar/2016/05/17/954129bc-1c49-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-stonewaller-shape-shifter-liar/2016/05/17/954129bc-1c49-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 18, 2016, 11:01:15 pm
(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/M6mxwajmL3V9LYaX8MNSNw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztxPTg1O3c9NjUw/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/3_photos_of_Donald_Trump-facfcc4a473206e525ded209f9babcb3)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 19, 2016, 08:34:29 am

Ooooooh, look....a typical stupid, retarded Donald Trump supporter (click on the cartoon to reveal more)....

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160518dh_zpsqrznquz2.jpg) (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-mindset-o-j-jury-20160518-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 19, 2016, 06:18:49 pm
Former Trump girlfriend blasts New York Times and demands APOLOGY for 'false' retelling of how she met Donald Trump: 'He was a gentleman ... They feel like they need to do something to make him look bad!'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3592787/Former-Trump-girlfriend-BLASTS-New-York-Times-false-retelling-met-Donald-Trump-gentleman-feel-like-need-make-look-bad.html#ixzz4950mBnXE


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on May 21, 2016, 10:15:51 am

Tim Wison, Seven Sharp presenter :


https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/meet-one-adorable-kiwi-kids-impersonated-trump

(http://smfsupport.com/support/Smileys/smfnew/smitten.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 23, 2016, 01:02:16 pm

from The Washington Post....

Donald Trump: Stonewaller, shape-shifter, liar

By RUTH MARCUS | 7:06PM EDT - Tuesday, May 17, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160517_DonaldTrump_zpstxkllici.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/04/15/National-Politics/Images/BotsfordTRUMP160415NY47091460763074.jpg)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Hartford, Connecticut. — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.

THE past few weeks have offered Americans a chilling glimpse of three faces of Donald Trump: the stonewaller, the shape-shifter and the liar.

Trump the stonewaller has been on display in his refusal to release his tax returns. “It's none of your business,” Trump flatly told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-refuses-reveal-tax-rate-business/story?id=39086788) when asked about his effective tax rate.

Stephanopoulos: “Yes or no, do you believe voters have a right to see your tax returns before they make a final decision?”

Trump: “I don't think they do. But I do say this, I will really gladly give them.”

Sure, he'd be happy to — except that he isn't. And it is our business. Voters are entitled to know this information about a candidate for president, a person who would help steer the nation's finances. For decades, presidential candidates have routinely made this material available (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/every-presidential-candidate-should-release-full-tax-returns/2016/04/12/e79af5b4-00c2-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html).

It is astonishing that Trump believes he is exempt from this norm — that a pending audit makes his returns less important to see, not more, or that he is not obliged to find some other way of providing the information, such as returns from earlier years or summary data for the years still under review.

Even more worrisome is what this high-handed approach augurs for a Trump presidency: to airily promise transparency while repeatedly failing to deliver. It is an iron law of politics that candidates do not magically become more forthcoming once in office. Their behavior on the campaign trail, when under pressure to satisfy voters, represents a better version of what they would do on the job.

Then there is Trump the shape-shifter, a man without fixed views and whose policy proposals are mere opening gambits. What does he believe? What is a core principle, and what is up for negotiation?

“I'm allowed to change,” Trump told Stephanopoulos on the minimum wage (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-walks-back-tax-plan-negotiated/story?id=38959168). (He didn't want it raised, then he did, now maybe not.) Certainly, flip-flopping is a chronic and common political condition (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070102233.html); it can be evidence of open-mindedness rather than craven politicking or ideological spinelessness.

Yet Trump's proclaimed “flexibility” is unsettling because it does not rest on an existing edifice of long-expressed conviction and recorded votes. When everything is a starting bid, how are voters supposed to judge — or guess — where Trump might end up?

Trump's campaign is a vast policy desert, so declaring that the sparse fronds of detail are eminently negotiable erases any confidence that voters know what they are getting. Voting for Trump is like nailing Jell-O to your ballot.

Finally, most appallingly, Trump the liar. That is a strong charge, but it appears warranted in the matter of Trump masquerading as his own spokesman (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-alter-ego-barron/2016/05/12/02ac99ec-16fe-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html) (disturbing enough) and then outright denying it (way more disturbing).

“It was not me on the phone,” Trump told NBC's Savannah Guthrie (http://www.today.com/news/donald-trump-denies-posing-spokesman-recordings-washington-post-uncovered-t92421). “And it doesn't sound like me on the phone. I will tell you that. And it was not me on the phone. And when was this, 25 years ago?”

Yes, and Trump could have said any number of things: This was a silly prank, long ago. Of course he shouldn't have done it.

Instead, Trump opted to lie. How do we know? Because in a quote back then to People magazine (http://www.people.com/article/donald-trump-posing-as-spokesperson) about supposed spokesman “John Miller”, Trump described his posing as a “joke gone awry”. Because numerous reporters have described having similar encounters with phony Trump spokesmen.

Because Trump himself admitted in court that “I believe on occasion I used that name” — referring to a different alias, “John Barron” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/13/trump-claims-he-didnt-regularly-use-an-fake-name-thats-not-what-he-said-under-oath). Because who are you going to believe: Trump or your lying ears?

This is a fib, you might argue, so trivial as to be meaningless. Yet a candidate willing to lie about something so small will be a president willing to lie about something big — and this is hardly Trump's only lie (e.g., thousands of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11).

The popular understanding may be that all politicians lie, but there is a difference between the ordinarily distasteful political diet of spin, fudge, evasion and hyperbole and the Trumpian habit of unvarnished, unembarrassed falsehood.

“Who cares?” Trump would breezily assure the horrified Mar-a-Lago house historian (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/us/politics/donald-trump-butler-mar-a-lago.html) after regaling guests with the untrue tale of how Walt Disney himself created the nursery rhyme-themed tiles in his daughter's room.

Who cares, indeed — an important question for voters. Americans have elected presidents who subsequently lied to them (and, yes, that includes the husband of a current candidate). Knowingly electing one who lies while trying out for the job would be a tragic mistake.


• Ruth Marcus is a columnist for The Washington Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • Eugene Robinson: Trump's bizarre, dangerous neediness (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-bizarre-dangerous-neediness/2016/05/16/32a86be4-1b9a-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)

 • Michael Gerson: Conservatives make a deal with the devil (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/conservatives-cave-to-the-cave-man/2016/05/16/314bbf6e-1b89-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)

 • The Washington Post's View: The rank nihilism driving the GOP’s acceptance of Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rank-nihilism-driving-the-gops-accepatance-of-trump/2016/05/16/f6e02c14-1b9e-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html)

 • Richard Cohen: Reince Priebus, fool (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reince-priebus-fool/2016/05/16/decae58a-1b88-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-stonewaller-shape-shifter-liar/2016/05/17/954129bc-1c49-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-stonewaller-shape-shifter-liar/2016/05/17/954129bc-1c49-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 23, 2016, 01:02:42 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump bets on mass amnesia

By DANA MILBANK | 9:24AM EDT - Friday, May 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160520dteo_DonaldTrumpEugeneOregon_zpsimj4hfta.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/05/18/National-Politics/Images/Election-Oregon-Presidential_Campaign-ab99b.jpg)
Trump speaks during a rally in Eugene, Oregon. — Photograph: Ted S. Warren/Associated Press.

JUST how gullible does Donald Trump suppose the American voter is?

The billionaire showman has been the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for only a couple of weeks, yet his general election strategy is already becoming clear: hope for a mass nationwide outbreak of short-term memory loss. His top strategist, Paul Manafort, has said that the “part that he's been playing is now evolving” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/21/trump-is-playing-a-part-and-can-transform-for-victory-campaign-chief-tells-gop-leaders). But this isn't evolution — it's reincarnation.

That call Trump made “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-preventing-muslim-immigration)? Turns out that was “just a suggestion” (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/279576-trump-muslim-ban-just-a-suggestion), he now says.

The federal minimum wage increase, which he repeatedly opposed? Now he's “looking at” an increase (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/278778-trump-expresses-openness-to-raising-minimum-wage), he says.

The massive tax cut he proposed during the primary, which analysts said would add $10 trillion to the federal debt (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/donald-trump-tax-plan-analysis-deficit-214211)? Never mind! He's hired experts to rewrite it (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-taxes-tax-reform-223041) in a way that cuts taxes less for the wealthy.

Those tax returns he promised “certainly” to release (http://www.hughhewitt.com/donald-trump-on-2016-and-trolling-the-gop)? Not going to happen, he says now (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/279481-trump-wont-release-tax-returns-before-election).

One of his key surrogates, Representative Chris Collins (Republican-New York), now declares that he doesn't expect Trump to build a border wall or deport 11 million illegal immigrants — the cornerstones of Trump's primary campaign. The congressman told the Buffalo News (http://politicsnow.buffalonews.com/2016/05/17/trumps-promise-of-wall-is-virtual-and-deportations-are-rhetorical-collins-says-in-news-interview) that Trump would build a “virtual wall” and that his deportation plan was “rhetorical”.

Remember all those companies Trump blasted for sending jobs overseas? Ford was a “disgrace” (http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2016/04/05/ford-new-mexico-plant/82649976), Disney had “outrageous” (http://nypost.com/2016/05/19/trump-invested-in-companies-he-continually-bashes) practices, Carrier deserved higher taxes (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-utx-idUSMTZSAPEC2EIWOEVW), Apple should be boycotted because it didn't help the FBI in a terrorism case, and Trump's never eating an Oreo again (http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/politics/donald-trump-chris-christie-oreos) because Nabisco outsourced. Financial disclosures this week showed Trump has invested in all of the above (http://fortune.com/2016/05/19/donald-trump-investments).

Or his incendiary (and retracted) claim that women who have abortions should face criminal punishment? What he really was saying was “women punish themselves” (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/280317-trump-im-saying-women-punish-themselves-with-abortion), he told The New York Times Magazine.

The list goes on and on. Trump, who said that “if you're running for president, you shouldn't be allowed to use a teleprompter,” has used that very device in at least two recent speeches.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdRKT0231Co (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdRKT0231Co)

Trump, who previously boasted that “I don't have pollsters” (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-pollster-223251) because “I want to be me,” hired a pollster, Tony Fabrizio. And Trump, who campaigned against the Republican foreign policy establishment, has been hobnobbing with James Baker and Henry Kissinger (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-to-meet-with-henry-kissinger-wednesday).

Some of those who backed Trump must feel like suckers. But will his clumsy effort to somersault into the mainstream appeal to the rest of the electorate? Perhaps. Yet it also reaffirms the biggest worry about Trump: He says whatever comes out of his mouth. He has no mooring other than self-love — and that's why he's dangerous.

To rationalize these wild shifts in position, let's bring in John Miller, the Trump “publicist” who called journalists in the 1990s to praise Trump but who was actually Trump himself. My Washington Post colleague Marc Fisher unearthed a recording of a 1991 call from “Miller” to People magazine (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/13/transcript-the-full-text-of-john-miller-interview-about-donald-trump-with-people-reporter), about Trump's shifts from Ivana to Marla to Carla Bruni and others. Substitute policies for women, and the words go a long way toward explaining Trump's political views today as he flirts with positions then discards them:


  • “He really decided that he wasn't, you know, he didn't want to make any commitment.”

  • “He's somebody that has a lot of options, and, frankly, he gets called by everybody. He gets called by everybody in the book, in terms of women.”

  • “Marla would've liked to get married, obviously, but it was just something he didn't want to do.”

  • “I think that he's got a whole open field really… Actresses, people that you write about just call to see if they can go out with him and things.”

  • Madonna “called and wanted to go out with him, that I can tell you.”

  • “Marla wants to be back with him.”

  • “Ivana wants to get back with Donald.”

  • “I mean, he's living with Marla, and he's got three other girlfriends.”

  • “So now he has somebody else named Carla who is beautiful.”

  • “He's not making any commitments to Carla either, just so you understand.”

There were words from “Miller” that ring true today: how Trump is “immune” from and “actually thrived” on bad press, and how self-interest drives him above all else, because “he does things for himself.”

Trump immediately said the unearthed recording wasn't of him. Given the sound of the voice and Trump's prior admission to posing as his own publicist, this was obviously false. But perhaps to Trump it wasn't a lie. Back then, he spoke of Ivana, Marla, Carla and Madonna. Now it's Muslims, the minimum wage, taxes and the wall. In both, Trump's idea of the truth means whatever words last came out of his mouth.


• Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation’s capital. He joined The Washington Post as a political reporter in 2000.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Charles Krauthammer: Donald, Hillary and the Bernie factor (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-hillary-and-the-bernie-factor/2016/05/19/cc594044-1de6-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)

 • Robert Kagan: This is how fascism comes to America (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html)

 • Editorial from The Washington Post: The rank nihilism driving the GOP's acceptance of Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rank-nihilism-driving-the-gops-accepatance-of-trump/2016/05/16/f6e02c14-1b9e-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html)

 • George Will: The GOP must keep Trump out of the White House (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-trump-is-nominated-the-gop-must-keep-him-out-of-the-white-house/2016/04/29/293f7f94-0d9d-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-bets-on-mass-amnesia/2016/05/20/76ba97f4-1e82-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-bets-on-mass-amnesia/2016/05/20/76ba97f4-1e82-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 23, 2016, 01:02:55 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump once revealed his income tax returns.
They showed he didn't pay a cent.


By DREW HARWELL | 1:00PM EDT - Friday, May 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160520dtnj_DonaldTrumpNewJersey_zpsmubqvpw3.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/05/20/National-Politics/Images/trump151463703251.jpg)
Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a fund raising event at the New Jersey National Guard Armory in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
 — Photograph: Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post.


THE last time information from Donald Trump's income-tax returns was made public, the bottom line was striking: He had paid the federal government $0 in income taxes.

The disclosure, in a 1981 report by New Jersey gambling regulators, revealed that the wealthy Manhattan investor had for at least two years in the late 1970s taken advantage of a tax-code provision popular with developers that allowed him to report negative income.

Today, as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump regularly denounces corporate executives for using “loopholes” and “false deductions” to “get away with murder” when it comes to avoiding taxes.

“They make a fortune. They pay no tax,” Trump said last year on CBS. “It's ridiculous, okay?”

The contrast highlights a potentially awkward challenge for Trump.

He has built a political identity around his reputation as a financial whiz, even bragging about his ability to game the tax code to pay as little as possible to the government — a practice he has called the “American way”. Moreover, he has aggressively pursued tax breaks and other government supports to bolster his real estate empire. But that history threatens to collide with his efforts to woo working-class voters who resent that they often pay higher tax rates than the wealthy who benefit from special loopholes.

Trump's personal taxes are a mystery. He has refused to release any recent returns, meaning the public cannot see how much money he makes, how much he gives to charity and how aggressively he uses deductions, shelters and other tactics to shrink his tax bill.

Trump, who said last week on ABC that his tax rate is “none of your business,” would be the first major party nominee in 40 years to not release his returns.

In an interview this week, Trump said that he has paid “substantial” taxes but declined to provide specifics.

He reiterated that he fights “very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”

“One of the reasons is because the government takes your money and wastes it in the Middle East and all over the place,” he said.

Trump's contradictory approaches have been apparent for years.

He criticized 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney for delaying the release of his returns. Romney, a former private-equity executive, had come under fire for paying a low tax rate because most of his income came from investments.

“It's a great thing when you can show that you've been successful, and that you've made a lot of money,” Trump said at the time.

Romney eventually released returns showing that, for his 2011 taxes, he chose not to take certain deductions, bringing his tax rate more in line with that of average Americans.

Trump, early in his campaign, seemed ready to give voters a look at his tax filings.

In January, he said on NBC's “Meet the Press” that he was ready to disclose his “very big … very beautiful” returns.

But as his campaign gained momentum, Trump backed away from his declaration. He first claimed that ongoing audits by the Internal Revenue Service prevent disclosure.

Then last week, he told the Associated Press that voters are not interested in seeing his tax filings and that “there's nothing to learn from them.”

Trump's new position has unnerved some tax experts, who see value in the tradition of transparency by presidential contenders.

“At some point, he could be the tax collector in chief. He'd supervise the IRS, making sure all of us live up to our own tax responsibilities,” said Joe Thorndike, a director at Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that specializes in tax policy. “People deserve to know … how a person like that plays the game.”

Trump's stance has become an issue in the campaign.

Romney said on Facebook last week (https://www.facebook.com/mittromney/posts/10153487016861121) that refusing to release tax returns should be “disqualifying” for any nominee and speculated that Trump's returns could be hiding a “bombshell of unusual size.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) weighed in this week, telling reporters that Trump will “have to make that decision himself” but that presidential candidates' releasing their returns has “certainly been the pattern for quite some time.”

Trump's likely Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who has disclosed decades of tax returns, released a 60-second ad last week asking, “What's Donald Trump hiding?

“You've got to ask yourself: ‘Why doesn’t he want to release it?’” Clinton said at a New Jersey rally last week. “Yeah, well, we're gonna find out.”

Bob McIntyre of the liberal group Citizens for Tax Justice suspects Trump's tax returns, if made public, would undermine the political image the candidate has crafted of a brilliant businessman with what his campaign has called “tremendous cash flow”.

Trump may be worried that “he'd show very little income on his tax returns compared to his wealth claims,” McIntyre said, adding that Trump's returns could also show that he “writes off everything he has in his life — the hairdo, the plane — as business expenses.”

Trump has repeatedly said that he would be open to sharing his returns. In 2011, he said he would release them after President Obama released his long-form birth certificate but never did after the certificate's release. In 2014, he said he would “absolutely” release them “if I decide to run for office.” Last year, he said he would release them when “we find out the true story on Hillary’s emails.”

To back his refusal, Trump has released a letter from his tax lawyers that said his tax returns had been audited by the IRS since 2002, and that audits on the returns since 2009 were still underway.

The lawyers' letter also said returns from 2002 to 2008 had been closed administratively by the IRS, meaning their audits had been completed. Trump said in an interview that he would still not release those returns because “they're all linked.”

But experts say that Trump is free to release his tax records. President Richard Nixon released his returns while under audit. Nothing, including an audit, “prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information,” an IRS spokesman said.

The only window into Trump's handling of his income taxes came during the 1981 New Jersey gambling commission report.

Trump had submitted his 1978 and 1979 returns to the regulators as part of an application for a casino license. State records summarizing the returns show that Trump claimed that his combined income during those two years was negative $3.8 million, allowing him to pay no taxes. A few years earlier, he had told The New York Times he was worth more than $200 million.

Tax analysts say it is possible that Trump pays very low income taxes, or no taxes at all, using tactics available to wealthy investors and developers, such as depreciating the value of real estate.

When asked this week whether he pays income taxes, Trump said, “I will give that to you as soon as I get my audit finished.” He added later, “But with that being said, when you're in the real estate business, you do have certain tax advantages.”

Trump has benefited from public money by aggressively seeking large tax reductions at developments including Trump Tower.

His first major development, the Grand Hyatt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, built in partnership with Chicago's wealthy Pritzker family, was made possible with the help of a New York City tax subsidy worth $400 million over 40 years, according to city records.

It was New York's first-ever tax abatement for a commercial property, secured by Trump with help from his developer father's political allies, according to Trump: The Deals and the Downfall (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060167041), a biography on Trump's developments by investigative reporter Wayne Barrett.

Trump has defended his use of public tax assistance to boost private projects. He said opponents of such government supports, including some conservatives, are out of touch with reality.

“The true conservative philosophy is that a thing like that shouldn't happen. But they're in the world of the make-believe,” Trump said in an interview. “The real world is that without certain tax abatements, you have a choice. The job could get built … or you don't have to have anything. It could just go stagnant, and a town can die.”

Trump's strategy to ease his company's tax burden has resulted in sore feelings in some communities, where local governments rely heavily on tax receipts from large businesses.

In Ossining, New York, home to a Trump National Golf Club, town officials say that a tax break being sought by the company would cost their coffers more than $200,000 a year.

In seeking the reduction, Trump’s lawyers have claimed that the club is worth far less than the roughly $15 million value assessed by the city.

Trump's lawyers have filed papers with the state claiming that the “full market value” of the property is $1.4 million. The same golf course appears on Trump's new financial disclosure form released this week as part of his presidential campaign — valued by him at more than $50 million.

Trump lawyer Alan Garten did not respond to questions about the discrepancy.

Ossining Town Supervisor Dana Levenberg, a Democrat, expressed frustration that Trump seemed to be gaining “at other people’s loss.”

“It's hard to look at someone who talks about their wealth frequently and think they got that successful on other people's backs,” she said.


• Drew Harwell is a national business reporter at The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • The Fix: The 10 most tortured Republican responses to Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/20/the-10-most-tortured-republican-responses-to-donald-trump)

 • Fact Checker: Trump's false claim that ‘there's nothing to learn’ from his tax returns (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/12/trumps-false-claim-that-theres-nothing-to-learn-from-his-tax-returns)

 • Mitt Romney believes ‘there's a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/24/mitt-romney-believes-theres-a-bombshell-in-donald-trumps-taxes)

 • Yes, Donald Trump could release his old tax returns if he wanted to (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/01/former-irs-commissioner-trump-could-release-his-old-tax-returns-if-he-wanted-to)

 • Trump's business booms as he runs for president, financial disclosures show (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-business-booms-as-he-runs-for-president-financial-disclosures-show/2016/05/18/60adedb6-1d11-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-income-tax-returns-once-became-public-they-showed-he-didnt-pay-a-cent/2016/05/20/ffa2f63c-1b7c-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-income-tax-returns-once-became-public-they-showed-he-didnt-pay-a-cent/2016/05/20/ffa2f63c-1b7c-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 23, 2016, 01:06:00 pm

from The Washington Post....

When it comes to lying, Trump is in a class by himself

By RUTH MARCUS | 9:00PM EDT - Friday, May 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160520hcdt_HillaryClintonDonaldTrump_zps8dhajycy.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/05/05/Editorial-Opinion/Images/AFP_A920J.jpg)
Hillary Clinton, left, and Donald Trump. — Photograph: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.

STONEWALLER, shape-shifter, liar. I wrote this week (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-stonewaller-shape-shifter-liar/2016/05/17/954129bc-1c49-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html) about how an all-but-certain presidential nominee embodied these characteristics, prompting comments from readers observing, with varying degrees of snarkiness, that they had assumed I was referring to Hillary Clinton.

My target was Donald Trump, but these readers raise a reasonable and important question: Can't the same criticism I heaped on the presumptive Republican nominee be applied to the Democratic front-runner? To all politicians, for that matter? Am I just whaling on Trump and going soft on Clinton because I disagree with Trump's positions and agree, for the most part, with Clinton's?

Some will conclude that I am simply in the tank for Clinton, willfully blind to her faults. (On that score, full disclosure: My college-age daughter has volunteered for the Clinton campaign as an unpaid intern this summer.)

But I'd make two countervailing points. First, I have been a tough critic of Clinton where it was merited: on her bone-headed decision to use a private email account (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-hillary-clinton-is-unlikely-to-be-indicted-over-her-private-email-server/2016/03/08/341c3786-e557-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html) and her clumsy handling of its aftermath (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-if-clinton-isnt-indicted/2016/03/29/81a1033e-f5d7-11e5-8b23-538270a1ca31_story.html), on her relentless speechifying and her refusal to disclose the transcripts (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-trump-and-clinton-have-in-common-a-resistance-to-transparency/2016/02/26/c72f8634-dcb7-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8_story.html) of these remarks, on her about-face on trade (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ms-clinton-why-hurt-us-workers/2015/10/09/07a4e3cc-6ea3-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html).

Second, and this goes to the question of whether my assessment of Trump is motivated, intentionally or subconsciously, by ideological disagreement: In the three presidential election cycles during which I have been an opinion writer, I have never used language anywhere near that strong about previous Republican nominees.

Because Trump is different — in degree more than in kind, but in his case the difference of degree is a yawning chasm. All politicians deflect unwanted questions and demands for information (stonewaller). All evolve, if not outright flip-flop (shape-shifter). All, at times, say things that turn out to be untrue (liar). What puts Trump in a different league is his outright unwillingness to abide by the customary norms of disclosure (releasing tax returns (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/every-presidential-candidate-should-release-full-tax-returns/2016/04/12/e79af5b4-00c2-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html)); his reversals on issues within the course of a single interview, no less a single campaign; and his determined refusal ever to acknowledge error even when confronted with irrefutable facts to the contrary.

Contrast Clinton, which is not to say that she is pure or angelic.

On stonewalling, it is fair to say that Clinton has a penchant for secrecy. When Bill Clinton first ran for president in 1992, the Clintons declined to release tax returns prior to 1980 (http://ctj.org/ctjinthenews/2012/07/cbs_news.php#.Vz864vkrJpg), which would have revealed the quick $100,000 profit that Hillary Clinton made trading commodities. At the same time, the Clintons did release more than a decade's worth of tax returns back then, and more since. Transparency is not Clinton's first instinct. But Trump's refusal to release his returns is so far outside historical practice that he makes Clinton look like the epitome of openness.

On shape-shifting, Clinton is not alone among politicians in altering positions in ways that can fairly be interpreted to accord with political interests. She said she was opposed to same-sex marriage when that position was politically convenient, and she changed that position when the political climate changed. She was for free trade agreements before she was against them, first praising the Trans-Pacific Partnership as the “gold standard” of trade deals and then assailing it.

Yet voters, agree or disagree, can have reasonable confidence about Clinton's basic worldview and where she stands on issues. Trump is erratic. He stakes out a position one minute (punishing women who have abortions) and abandons it the next. He is against raising the minimum wage, but then supports a higher wage, or maybe not. He has a tax plan but might totally change it.

On lying, one of the common counts against Clinton involves her statements about what prompted the Benghazi, Libya, attack. Space prevents re-litigating that issue here, but the accusation of deliberate lying remains unfounded. As PolitiFact concluded (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/feb/09/what-did-hillary-clinton-tell-families-people-who-), “There simply is not enough concrete information in the public domain for … anyone to claim as fact that Clinton did or did not lie to the Benghazi families.” The Washington Post's fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, similarly found there was not “enough evidence to label Clinton a liar” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/10/30/is-hillary-clinton-a-liar-on-benghazi).

Clinton's handling of another “lie” is instructive. At several points during the 2008 campaign, Clinton described “landing under sniper fire” in Bosnia in 1996 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102989.html); video debunked that account. But confronted with conflicting evidence, Clinton acknowledged that she “misspoke”. Has Trump ever backed down from his bevy of demonstrably false statements?

My point here is not that Clinton is a perfect politician — far from it. Still, she plays within the goal posts of ordinary political behavior. Trump operates far outside any of the usual lines.


Ruth Marcus (https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/ruth-marcus) is a columnist for The Washington Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-it-comes-to-lying-trump-is-in-a-class-by-himself/2016/05/20/e7668d42-1e9a-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-it-comes-to-lying-trump-is-in-a-class-by-himself/2016/05/20/e7668d42-1e9a-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 24, 2016, 01:12:29 pm
do you know much about that old crow hillary clinton

she's the world record holder for biggest liar


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on May 24, 2016, 03:24:23 pm
Quote
My point here is not that Clinton is a perfect politician — far from it. Still, she plays within the goal posts of ordinary political behavior
And there you have the problem laid bare.
The people have had a gutsful of conventional politicians and their carpetbagging, devious deceit.

I have American friends who don't really want to vote for Trump, but who state they will, in an effort to prevent the disaster of Clinton attaining the presidency.
I personally don't like the chances of stopping her.  As soon as she has kneecapped the rest of her democrat rivals, most of their supporters will come over to the Clinton camp and will then overwhelm Trump, much the same as McCain was overwhelmed when he was in the identical position as Trump an election ago.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 25, 2016, 11:57:31 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20News%20Pix/sfgate_morfordbanner2.jpg) (http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford)

Like cancer endorsing rabies: The NRA embraces Trump

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist (mmorford@sfgate.com) | 2:01PM PDT - Tuesday, May 24, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160524a_NraTrump_zpsxoy2xwl8.jpg) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/like-cancer-endorsing-rabies_2/nra-trump.jpg)
A poisonous symmetry.

IT WAS exactly as gross an act of public coitus as you might imagine, the moment the Cult of the Gun embraced the Gloating Orange Madman, AKA when the National Rifle Association officially endorsed Donald Trump for president (http://www.salon.com/2016/05/23/the_white_right_to_bear_arms_mass_incarceration_vigilantism_and_trumps_nra_embrace). And lo, the heavens did cringe and history did bury its face in its hands, and scream.

It must be acknowledged: There is a kind of pitiless symmetry here. Trump and the NRA make a far more insidious bedfellows than it might initially appear, given how both are comprised of the same sociocultural toxins: vicious intolerance, outlandish conspiracy theories (http://www.npr.org/2016/05/24/479331275/a-guide-to-the-many-conspiracy-theories-donald-trump-has-embraced), fake statistics, patriarchal megalomania, racism, shameless lying (http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump) and truly acidic levels of paranoia, all coupled to a love of authoritarianism, mass incarceration and 5th-grade fantasies of macho vigilante justice. Both agree, in no uncertain terms, that concepts like kindness, inclusiveness and thoughtful humanitarianism are for “losers”, and have no place in American discourse.

Which is why it’s only moderately ironic that Trump doesn't really care about gun culture, per se — and when he has mentioned it in the past, his views were sometimes fairly… liberal. He formerly supported the assault weapons ban, agreed with Obama regarding the horrific Newtown massacre, seemed to hold relatively reasonable opinions — if you can call anything that passes through his miasmatic slaughterhouse of a brain an actual opinion — on gun control.

But everyone knows Donald Trump cares as much for unwavering principles as a rat cares for classical music. Trump doesn't do integrity, or compassion. He does rage, illogic and free-association defamation, all tied to a bully's shrugging contempt for honesty, intelligence and empathy.

Translation: Trump might not care about guns, but he definitely cares about what guns — and the NRA — represent: fear, authority, keeping the masses drunk on ignorance and anxiety (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/11/donald-trump/donald-trump-falsely-claims-hillary-clinton-wants-), so as to maintain his influence and ensure the TV cameras are always pointed his way.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160524b_Newton_zpseiglladn.jpg) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/like-cancer-endorsing-rabies_2/newton.jpg)
It's almost... thoughtful. But don't be fooled.

As for the NRA, turns out Trump is a perfect sort of bloviated antihero. He cares even less about facts and truth (http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump) than they do. He is even more apt to spin the dark lie of America's bogus exceptionalism into “truth”. He's even more likely to posit insane, childish conspiracy theories about what kind of dangerous (Muslim Mexican feminist scientific intellectual progressive) wolf is at the door.

Translation: As long as kissing the barrel of a gun on camera brings raves among Trump's white male base, he's all for it. Never mind that guns, of course, bring nothing of value to the American experiment. Never mind that they do not protect, they do not heal, they do not unite. Who cares that communities, families, neighborhoods, relationships, marriages and melting pots and cultural harmony all suffer and bleed under their rule.

It always bears repeating: Guns are designed, built and sold for a single purpose: to annihilate life — usually human — as quickly and efficiently as possible. They are handheld apocalypse (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/10/02/shooting-up-america). They are the devil in a billion tiny metal casings. Where guns dominate, love forsakes. Where vulgar paranoia rules, guns profligate. No wonder Trump is the NRA's new BFF. They are equal-opportunity destroyers.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160524c_Rifles2_zpsz9aw5nkx.jpg) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/like-cancer-endorsing-rabies_2/rifles2.jpg)
Trump knows how to prey on the paranoid fears of angry white males.

To defend Trump or the NRA at any real depth is to defend the worst in the human animal, the ugliest tendencies and most cynical, antagonistic compulsions. They both endorse the same spiritual gracelessness, the same moral disintegration. They are both anti, not pro. They both constrict, not expand. They offer zero joy, only fear. They both mean the world ill.

Do you wish to test this fact? That's easy: just try to criticize either one.

You will receive death threats, savage wishes for violence or gruesome illness on your person and that of your loved ones, be called names so puerile and full of hate as to be wrought of faeces and phlegm and the blood of spiders.

Conversely, offer either one your blind, unending support, and get yourself a creepy pat on the back and membership into a deeply paranoid cult of white males who've been trained and indoctrinated — by Rush, by Fox News, by mal-education — to have all sorts of reasons to be furious, none of which they fully understand, largely because they're not really true in the first place. Who cares? Rage is the new STFU.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160524d_TrumpGun_zpszkeefkos.jpg) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/like-cancer-endorsing-rabies_2/trump-gun.jpg)
Like a child with a bomb.

Meanwhile, as you were reading that paragraph, someone was just killed by a handgun in America. Probably a woman. Or a toddler. Or a toddler shot and killed someone else (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/13/the-macabre-truth-of-gun-control-in-the-us-is-that-toddlers-kill-more-people-than-terrorists-do). Meanwhile, while you were reading this column, someone's heart was made perceptibly more cold and uncaring by Trump.

Calculating the exact number of gun deaths in America per day, week, or year is extremely difficult, but one thing's for sure: the data is gruesome and culturally ruinous (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/us/americas-overlooked-gun-violence.html), no matter who's counting. And polls about Trump's popularity — or savage lack thereof — are everywhere.

Far more difficult to measure is the toxic atmosphere of fear, of lies, of the American experiment gone dark and sour that both Trump and the NRA simultaneously create and feed on. The air they breathe is pure poison. Gun culture is already our nation's most debilitating cancer, and it eats at our very core. Throw in Trump's rabid attack-dog worldview, and the country is in for one devastating infection indeed.


Email: Mark Morford (etc@markmorford.com)

Mark Morford (http://www.markmorford.com) on Twitter (http://twitter.com/markmorford) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/markmorfordyes).

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2016/05/24/like-cancer-endorsing-rabies-the-nra-embraces-trump (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2016/05/24/like-cancer-endorsing-rabies-the-nra-embraces-trump)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 25, 2016, 12:42:39 pm
mark moron just had to slip  that in

Quote
Trump knows how to prey on the paranoid fears of angry white males.

why?

because mark moron is a weak paranoid lil boy who get his jollies calling people naughty names
he needs to sit down to pee

i would love to watch someone shove his coffee cup right up his arse

with a bit of luck someone might shoot him and save him from feeling all that white guilt,he's ashamed of being a white male,

maybe these gentlemen could do the job just for fun

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d95_1463357893
 



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 25, 2016, 01:30:07 pm

Mark Morford “hits the nail right on the head!”


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 25, 2016, 03:14:49 pm

from The Dominion Post....

The prospect of a President Donald Trump
is a hair-raising thought indeed


By JOE BENNETT | 5:00AM - Wednesday, 25 May 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202016/20160525_1464040725086s_zpszrvuyalc.jpg) (http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/b/r/s/m/f/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.1btaxu.png/1464040725086.jpg)
All hail the chief? Is the world ready for a President Donald Trump? — Photo: Reuters.

SIX MONTHS from now the Americans will elect Trump as president. To find out why you can look at his policies, such as they are, or his hair, such as it is. Each will tell you the same thing.

His policies, such as they are, aren't much, but they have the virtue of simplicity, which appeals to the voters he appeals to. Those policies all derive from the slogan ‘Make America great again’, implying a return to the good old days when cars were big, Mexicans maids, blacks barely visible and the Chinese knew their place which was in poverty. And in the Soviet Union there was a clearly defined national enemy to enjoy pointing an unbeatable military at.

To get back to this Eden, Trump plans to export immigrants, build a wall, slap tariffs on Chinese goods and demonise Islam. None of it will work as policy but that doesn't matter. What matters is that it is working as rhetoric and will get him into the White House.

For obvious reasons Americans like the notion of making America great again and I have no doubt that Trump thinks that's what he wants to achieve. But it isn't. It's just Trump's conscious mind finding a way to justify a decision that his unconscious mind has already taken. The reason Trump wants to be president has nothing to do with America. He wants to be president only so as to be president.

In this, of course, he differs not one jot from Hillary Clinton or indeed from our own prime minister who admits he wanted the job from the age of 10. At 10 years old John Key didn't want to be prime minister because he believed that New Zealand needed to be put on the right true neo-liberal path to prosperity. No, he wanted the job because he wanted the job. But at least he admits it. Trump doesn't. Indeed I doubt that Trump knows it.

Trump is 69, just one year shy of the Biblical allocation, an age at which the balloon of virility can go limp. And what better to reinflate that balloon than an injection of power? It's like trading in an old wife for a young one. It's compensation for a waning sperm count. And if you doubt that this is Trump's real reason for wanting the presidency you have only to look at his hair. The vanity, the arrogance, the lack of self-knowledge and the terror of impotence, they are all there in that thing on his head, that helmet, that pelt, that combed roadkill.

The United States of America invented age denial and it remains the only place on earth where the late Joan Rivers' face could be considered a face. Granddad in any American sitcom has a full set of gull-white teeth and a thatch of hair like the shagpile in Trump Tower. Even when Reagan's brain was short-circuiting, his quiff still stood an inch tall and dripped hair dye. This is a society where the symptoms of age are the stamp of weakness rather than of wisdom. So deny it, fake it, deceive others if you can. Hence Trump's hair. Just like his policies it is founded on nostalgia for a lost golden age.

“Look,” he exclaimed at a rally, tugging on his forelock, “look, it's all mine, it's REAL!” That he bothers to say it shows he knows it isn't so. His coiffure is as elaborate as an 18th century dandy's wig. The places where his hair still grows are the places where my hair still grows, which is on the sides and the back. And there he lets it grow to prodigious length and then he flicks it up and over to the places where a young man's hair grows which are top and front. And there he curls it and bouffes it and sprays it into place and his forehead disappears and his pate disappears and lo he is young again.

It is truly remarkable that he can look in the mirror and think that this concoction looks OK, that it doesn't look like roadkill, that it suggests his sperm are still doing press-ups. And it is even more remarkable — and here is the real arrogance born of poverty of mind — that he imagines the voting public will also fall for it, will be deceived by this absurd confection into seeing him as in his prime and just the chap they need to lead the biggest army on the planet. But the most remarkable thing of all is that it's working.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/80309154 (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/80309154)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 25, 2016, 05:47:16 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT7SDjso9uo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m8efcUhvDA


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on May 28, 2016, 02:35:11 pm


 ::)

20 things Donald Trump wishes we'd forget

http://viralmozo.com/2016/03/17/20-facts-donald-trump-wishes-wed-forget/11/?utm_medium=Discovery&utm_source=Outbrain&utm_campaign=trumpfactstoforge


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 28, 2016, 06:10:59 pm
lol  ;D

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


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 29, 2016, 11:42:30 am
nukes are a really silly idea lol


Donald Trump supports having nukes.

Ooooops, I forgot....Donald Trump is really silly in the intellect department....(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/uglystupid2.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 29, 2016, 12:13:49 pm
You call him silly
but i think Donald Trump might have a cunning fox living on his head telling him what he needs to say to win the elections  ;D lol

It's Time To Make America Great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I8soRz1cAA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9B8-eAR1gA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcPHf48r5pE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fu6KmEk9JQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_PczITyQIo

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


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 29, 2016, 11:37:40 pm

from The Washington Post....

Judge bashed by Trump orders release of company records

By TOM HAMBURGER | 5:45PM EDT - Saturday, May 28, 2016

A FEDERAL JUDGE has ordered the release of internal Trump University documents in an ongoing lawsuit against the company (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/was-donald-trumps-education-venture-trump-university-a-scam/2015/09/13/299ed9c8-52c0-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html), including “playbooks” that advised sales personnel how to market high-priced courses on getting rich through real estate.

The Friday ruling, in which Judge Gonzalo Curiel cited heightened public interest in presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, was issued in response to a request by The Washington Post. The ruling was a setback for Trump, whose attorneys argued that the documents contained trade secrets.

Curiel's order came the same day that Trump railed against the judge at a boisterous San Diego rally (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/27/in-san-diego-trump-shames-local-mexican-judge-as-protesters-storm-streets) for his handling of the case, in which students have alleged they were misled and defrauded. The trial is set for November.

Trump, who previously questioned whether Curiel's Hispanic heritage made him biased due to Trump's support for building a wall on the Mexican border, said on Friday that Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” Trump called the judge a “hater of Donald Trump” who had “railroaded” him in the case.

“I think Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself. I think it's a disgrace that he is doing this,” Trump said.

In his order, Curiel noted that Trump had emerged as a leading presidential candidate over the course of the civil case against Trump University and that Trump had “placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.” The judge pointed to a previous case to say that courts deciding on public disclosure must weigh “whether a party benefitting from the order of confidentiality is a public entity or official; and … whether the case involves issues important to the public.”

Trump University was started in 2004 to offer courses in entrepreneurship under the Trump brand. Trump gave his blessing, according to court documents reported previously by The Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/was-donald-trumps-education-venture-trump-university-a-scam/2015/09/13/299ed9c8-52c0-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html), becoming a 93 percent owner of the new enterprise.

Two class action lawsuits being considered in San Diego have accused Trump University of using deceptive practices as it brought in millions of dollars from customers who were told they would learn Trump's techniques to become successful in the world of real estate. Trump and his attorneys have vigorously denied the fraud claims, pointing to high ratings that students gave their courses at the time.

The Post intervened in April, arguing that Trump's pursuit of the presidency made his business dealings a matter of public interest and that an inactive company had no compelling reason to maintain secrecy.

Some of the firm's internal documents previously became public. A 2010 “playbook” published by Politico, for instance, directed sales people to rank students based on their liquid assets to determine who to target for buying courses.

Trump and his attorneys have said the company would return in some form after the case is resolved and that it would be damaged by the release of the marketing material.

Curiel seemed unconvinced. Trump's “assertion that the information retains any commercial value is speculative given the lack of any support for the statement that Trump University ‘may’ resume operations,” the order released on Friday said.

Curiel ordered that the playbooks and other records, numbering about 1,000 pages, be released by Thursday, June 2nd, allowing time to redact telephone numbers and other personal information about the company.

In addition to the class action cases, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a $40 million lawsuit in 2013 alleging that Trump had defrauded more than 5,000 individuals through Trump University, which was never licensed as an educational institution.

Schneiderman alleged in the suit that Trump personally earned $5 million from the enterprise, in which sales personnel were assigned to get people to pay $1,495 for a three-day seminar in real estate techniques. In selling the courses, Trump released a marketing video that said, “We are going to have professors and adjunct professors that are absolutely terrific … and these are all people who are going to be handpicked by me.”

One of the university's top executives, Michael Sexton, subsequently testified in one of the class action suits that “none of the professors at the live events” were handpicked by Trump. Depositions released in March quote Trump acknowledging a lack of close involvement with mentors and students.

The fraud allegations were highlighted during this year's campaign for the GOP presidential nomination (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/29/a-trio-of-truthful-attack-ads-about-trump-university) by some of Trump's competitors and by a super PAC that opposed Trump.

Campaign and legal representatives for Trump could not be reached for comment on Saturday. However, Jill A. Martin, vice president and assistant general counsel for the Trump Organization, said in a written statement in March that the allegations had “no substance.” She added that “Trump University was a professionally run company which provided students with a valuable and substantive education and the tools to succeed in business and real estate.”


• Tom Hamburger covers the intersection of money and politics for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Donald Trump billed his ‘University’ as a road to riches, but critics call it a fraud (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/was-donald-trumps-education-venture-trump-university-a-scam/2015/09/13/299ed9c8-52c0-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html)

 • What Trump said under oath about the Trump University fraud claims (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/03/what-trump-said-under-oath-about-the-trump-university-fraud-claims-just-weeks-ago)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judge-orders-release-of-internal-trump-university-documents/2016/05/28/2e960e5e-24f9-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judge-orders-release-of-internal-trump-university-documents/2016/05/28/2e960e5e-24f9-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 30, 2016, 01:41:16 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEawIQRGHg8


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on May 30, 2016, 07:10:50 am
Re mess# 115

5.7K. Replies?   ::)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 30, 2016, 07:58:33 am

5.834K comments posted now.

Imagine wading your way through that lot and reading each one?

Good to see the judge effectively telling Donald Trump to “get stuffed!”


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on May 30, 2016, 09:29:07 am
nukes are a really silly idea lol


Donald Trump supports having nukes.

Ooooops, I forgot....Donald Trump is really silly in the intellect department....(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/uglystupid2.gif)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 30, 2016, 10:29:01 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160530_Dopey_zpszqgxxudd.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 31, 2016, 04:13:38 am
HOLY FESTERING COMMIE ARSHOLES BAT MAN

(http://res.moviezine.se.s3-external-3.amazonaws.com/5a23b/5a23b7f2e724f5c6b222b3bbc5814707/strea_l.jpg)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erwf4jre98Q#t=270.121

CLEANING UP THE SHIT

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/07/23/17/2AC3824C00000578-3172365-image-a-1_1437667604638.jpg)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on May 31, 2016, 10:17:23 am

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160530_ShootIt_zps1vsrekul.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 31, 2016, 05:44:51 pm
Snakes Alive

(http://universalfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/271-pope-obama-soros-moon-sachs-940.png)

(http://www.comedyzoo.biz/The%20Wizard%20of%20Oz%20Obama.PNG)

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ZkSSURCm3FI/SwOdg7zqreI/AAAAAAAAD3w/pwF-4eXQu_A/s400/2699713470_4f0c0b9410_o.jpg)

(https://2012patriot.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/nobama-soros.jpg?w=450&h=694)

(https://shakeymclovin.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/soros1.jpg?w=524&h=393)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on May 31, 2016, 07:21:41 pm
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/Ash01/Memes/trumpator_zpsel2qfxut.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Ash01/media/Memes/trumpator_zpsel2qfxut.jpg.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on May 31, 2016, 07:40:46 pm
(https://scontent-syd1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13232912_1180827995283441_3346240459315376712_n.jpg?oh=44c20257ded89759612c37ec40dacdec&oe=57C69403)




that hits the nail right on the head Yak lol

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/Ash01/Memes/trumpator_zpsel2qfxut.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Ash01/media/Memes/trumpator_zpsel2qfxut.jpg.html)




Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 12:23:10 pm

(https://newmatilda.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Spot.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on June 01, 2016, 01:02:43 pm
That's easy. 
One refers to Donald Trump, the other refers to Hilary Clinton!



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 05:47:46 pm

ROFLMAO.....North Korea (http://smfsupport.com/support/Smileys/smfnew/smitten.gif)Donald Trump....



from The Washington Post....

North Korean state media offers support
for 'wise politician' Donald Trump


By ADAM TAYLOR | 10:31AM EDT - Tuesday, May 31, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160531dt_DonaldTrump_zpswypz83jj.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/05/26/Production/WashingtonPost/Images/05330603.jpg&w=1484)
Donald Trump attends a campaign rally in Boca Raton, Florida, in March.
 — Photograph: Erik S. Lesser/European Pressphoto Agency.


DONALD TRUMP, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has faced an unusual amount of criticism from foreign leaders — in large part because of his combative tone and unorthodox policy suggestions. This week, however, he found an unlikely international voice of support — in North Korean state media.

State outlet DPRK Today published an editorial on Tuesday (http://www.dprktoday.com/index.php?type=2&no=11611) that called the business mogul a “wise politician” and said he could be good for North Korea. “There are many positive aspects to Trump’s ‘inflammatory policies’,” the author of the article wrote, according to a translation from NK News (https://www.nknews.org/2016/05/north-korean-editorial-supports-donald-trump). “Trump said he will not get involved in the war between the South and the North, isn't this fortunate from North Korea's perspective?”

The author of the editorial also dismissed Hillary Clinton, Trump's likely Democratic rival in the presidential race, calling her “dull” and saying that she hopes to use the “Iranian model to resolve nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula.”

It's an unusual change in tone for North Korean state media, which has largely avoided talking about the U.S. campaign directly. The article claims to have been written by a guest contributor — Han Yong Mook, who is introduced as a Chinese North Korea scholar — but the fact that it was published by a notoriously patriotic outlet may well suggest that the ideas contained within it are likely to hold serious sway in Pyongyang.

Trump has made several recent comments about U.S. policy toward the Korean Peninsula. In an interview with The Washington Post's editorial board in March (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board), he had argued that the U.S. defense deal with South Korea was not fair, adding, “We're reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing.” In a subsequent interview with The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald-trump-interview-highlights.html), Trump had suggested that he would withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea if elected, noting that Seoul may need to build its own nuclear weapons to protect itself. Trump then told Reuters in May (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-exclusive-idUSKCN0Y82JO) that he would be willing to speak to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him,” he said.

Such comments had caused concern in Seoul, with JoongAng Ilbo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-japan-and-south-korea-bewilderment-at-trumps-suggestion-they-build-nukes/2016/03/28/03eb2ace-f50e-11e5-958d-d038dac6e718_story.html), one of South Korea's biggest newspapers, dubbing Trump's ideas “myopic”. North Korean officials also had appeared to be initially confounded by his comments. During an interview with CNN in April (http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/17/politics/north-korea-donald-trump), one Pyongyang-based official said Trump's comments about nuclear proliferation were “totally absurd and illogical.” Later, North Korea's ambassador to Britain said his country had no interest in talking with Trump, calling the candidate's overtures (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/north-koreas-uk-ambassador-rejects-trumps-offer-of-talks/2016/05/24/8184ee92-21ce-11e6-b944-52f7b1793dae_story.html) “the dramatics of a popular actor.”

Han Yong Mook writes, however, that North Korea should welcome Trump's proposals, suggesting that they could help Pyongyang achieve its goal of removing U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula. “Yes do it, now,” the editorial reads. “Who knew that the slogan ‘Yankee, Go Home’ would come true like this? The day when the ‘Yankee, Go Home’ slogan becomes real would be the day of Korean Unification.”


• Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related story:

 • 47 not-very-positive things foreign leaders have said about Donald Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/06/47-not-very-positive-things-foreign-leaders-have-said-about-donald-trump)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/31/north-korean-state-media-offers-support-for-wise-politician-donald-trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/31/north-korean-state-media-offers-support-for-wise-politician-donald-trump)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 01, 2016, 07:23:45 pm
every one loves donald


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 08:23:30 pm
every one loves donald


Correction....BRAIN-DEAD MORONS who like being LIED TO love Donald Trump.

The American news media has been keeping records of everything Donald Trump has said, and they are also keeping records of him being caught-out lying, flip-flopping, being inconsistent, and generally changing his views to the complete opposite. Also his failure to engage his brain into gear before he farts out of his mouth. The fact that Trump supporters see nothing wrong with all those numerous examples of inconsistency, flip-flops and down-right LIES shows that they are STUPID SIMPLETONS & RETARDS who not only will swallow anything, but are TOO THICK to work out they are being taken for a ride in order to feed one despot's ego. It's going to be hilarious when those STUPID SIMPLETONS & RETARDS finally wake up to the fact they have been bullshitted to by the clown they are worshiping. I'm going to piss myself laughing at the IDIOTS when that happens.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 01, 2016, 09:09:34 pm
everyone realises the american media are a bunch of liars who are owned by the same elites who have been screwing the americans in the arse for years.
nobody with a mind believes anything the american media says.

the country needs a new management team  which is something trump has lot of experience at
he will make america great again and get rid of the bludger pigs who are all mercenary puppets of the corrupt elite.

if trump wins and doesn't get murdered like jfk there will be real changes and not bullshit like obama who is just a radical arsehole
that divides the people and blows the race card trumpet every chance he gets because obama is a dead ball leftist lying wanker.

has obama ever kept any of his election promises?= HELL NO

the only thing obama is interested in is toilet policing because he's full of shit  ;D

A List Of 23 Famous Obama Quotes That Turned Out To Be Broken Promises Or Cold-Hearted Lies

(http://1tjy1il8myg2badl72uj53gv.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Barack-Obama-takes-one-last-look-in-the-mirror-before-going-out-to-take-the-oath-of-office-300x214.jpg)Obama Turns Lying Into A Fine Art

How many lies can one president tell and still retain any credibility? What you are about to see is absolutely astounding. It is a long list of important promises that Barack Obama has broken since he has been president. If he had only told a few lies, perhaps the American people would be willing to overlook that. After all, pretty much all of our politicians our liars. Unfortunately, many of the lies that Obama has told appear to have been quite cold-hearted in nature. For example, Barack Obama repeatedly made the promise that “you will be able to keep your health care plan” under Obamacare. But now we are learning that he knew that this was a lie all along. Not only that, the Democrats in Congress knew that this was a lie all along too. In fact, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, said the following when she was asked about Obama’s promise to the American people recently: “He should’ve just been specific. No, we all knew.” Barack-Obama-takes-one-last-look-in-the-mirror-before-going-out-to-take-the-oath-of-officeYou can see video of her making this statement right here. The truth is that they all knew that millions upon millions of Americans would lose their current health care policies under Obamacare. They deliberately lied just so that they could get the law passed.

And of course this is far from the only major lie that Obama has told in recent years. The following is a list of 23 famous Obama quotes that turned out to be broken promises or cold-hearted lies…

#1 “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

#2 “My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.”

#3 “We agree on reforms that will finally reduce the costs of health care. Families will save on their premiums…”

#4 “I don’t want to pit Red America against Blue America. I want to be the president
 of the United States of America.”

#5 “We’ve got shovel-ready projects all across the country that governors and mayors are pleading to fund. And the minute we can get those investments to the state level, jobs are going to be created.”

#6 “And we will pursue the housing plan I’m outlining today. And through this plan, we will help between 7 and 9 million families restructure or refinance their mortgages so they can afford—avoid foreclosure.”

#7 “I will sign a universal health-care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.”

#8 “We reject the use of national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.”

#9 “For people with insurance, the only impact of the health-care law is that their insurance is stronger, better, and more secure than it was before. Full stop. That’s it. They don’t have to worry about anything else.”

#10 “We will close the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, the location of so many of the worst constitutional abuses in recent years.”

#11 “Allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are lower outside the U.S.”

#12 “We will revisit the Patriot Act and overturn unconstitutional executive decisions issued during the past eight years.”

#13 “Will ensure that federal contracts over $25,000 are competitively bid.”

#14 “We reject sweeping claims of ‘inherent’ presidential power.”

#15 “Will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This will eliminate taxes for 7 million seniors — saving them an average of $1,400 a year– and will also mean that 27 million seniors will not need to file an income tax return at all.”

#16 “We support constitutional protections and judicial oversight on any surveillance program involving Americans.”

#17 “If we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home, we will end this war. You can take that to the bank.”

#18 “Will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.”

#19 “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

#20 “We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism…. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, ‘Not this time….’”

#21 “We’ve got to spend some money now to pull us out of this recession. But as soon as we’re out of this recession, we’ve got to get serious about starting to live within our means, instead of leaving debt for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.”

#22 “[T]oday I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay – and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.”

#23 “I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States.

http://freedomoutpost.com/list-23-famous-obama-quotes-turned-broken-promises-cold-hearted-lies/


only thing hes interested in is toilet policing because he's full of shit  ;D



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 09:48:15 pm

Say what you like about American media....(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/19_HammerHead.gif)....but there is actual TELEVISION FOOTAGE of Trump saying one thing....(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/19_HammerHead.gif)....then actual TELEVISION FOOTAGE of Trump saying the opposite....(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/19_HammerHead.gif)....I guess Trump supporters are too stupid (and too gullible) to switch their brains on and compute that when Trump says opposite things he is LYING on at least one of those occasions. And there is example after example after example after example of Trump saying one thing....(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/19_HammerHead.gif)....then saying the complete opposite. YouTube is FULL of video clips of Trump's lies and inconsistencies. Only the STUPID cannot see it. Are YOU one of those STUPID THICKOS?  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/19_HammerHead.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 09:53:27 pm

Trump saying one thing and doing the complete opposite....



from The Washington Post....

Trump has profited from foreign labor he says is killing U.S. jobs

By ROSALIND S. HELDERMAN and TOM HAMBURGER | 10:19PM EDT - Sunday, March 13, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160313_TrumpShirt1_zpsuyttrach.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/03/10/Others/Images/2016-03-10/TrumpShirt021457635751.jpg)
Donald Trump’s line of clothing and accessories is made in Bangladesh, China, Honduras and other low-wage countries.
 — Photograph: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post.


DONALD TRUMP wanted to market a line of men's clothing that would bear his name.

He told people working with him to help find a company known for producing quality merchandise on a mass scale. In the end, Trump signed on with Phillips-Van Heusen, a manufacturer of affordable shirts produced in factories in 85 countries.

The 2004 deal — one of the first of many merchandise-licensing arrangements in which Trump attached his name to products made by foreign workers and sold in the United States — is relevant today as the billionaire businessman wages a populist presidential campaign in which he accuses companies of killing U.S. jobs by moving manufacturing overseas to take advantage of cheap labor and lax workplace regulations.

Documents and interviews reveal the personal role Trump played in negotiating the deal. Participants said they could not recall him expressing a preference that products be made in the United States.

“Finding the biggest company with the best practices is what was important to him,” said Jeff Danzer, who was vice president of the company hired by Trump to broker the deal. “Finding a company that made in America was never something that was specified.”

Today, Donald J. Trump Collection shirts — as well as eye­glasses, perfume, cuff links and suits — are made in Bangladesh, China, Honduras and other low-wage countries.

Trump's daughter Ivanka, a vice president at his company and frequent campaign surrogate, markets hundreds of additional products under her own line of jewelry and clothing. Many are made in China.

The contradiction between Trump's business decisions and his political agenda illustrates the sometimes-awkward transformation of an aggressive, profit-oriented marketer and real estate mogul into a firebrand champion of the struggling working class.

When Trump began cutting licensing deals more than a decade ago, many business executives and politicians in both parties argued that free trade and overseas production were beneficial to everyone — a needed boost for poor, developing economies abroad and a path to cheap goods for middle-class consumers in the United States.

Trump, though, has emerged as the Republican presidential front-runner largely by tapping into growing anger among voters who think free-trade policies — such as the ones that have added to Trump's fortune — have devastated U.S. communities that have lost manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere.

Trump's rivals and critics say he is a hypocrite, enriching himself with overseas labor while blasting the practice for political gain.

Representatives for the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesman for Ivanka Trump's product line declined to comment.

On the campaign trail, Trump has blasted Ford Motor Company for opening factories in Mexico, criticized a U.S. drug company that moved its headquarters offshore and said he will eat no more Oreo cookies because its maker, Nabisco, moved part of its production to Mexico.

When news broke three weeks ago that the air-conditioner maker Carrier was moving 1,400 jobs from a plant in Indianapolis to Monterrey, Mexico, Trump wrote on Facebook: “We cannot allow this to keep happening. It will NOT happen under my watch.”

Moreover, Trump has mentioned labor conditions overseas in support of his position that goods should be made in the United States, telling CNN last year that Chinese laborers are “paid a lot less and the standards are worse when it comes to the environment and health care and worker safety.”

During Thursday night's Republican candidates’ debate, Trump said he knows how to fix the policies that encourage outsourcing because he spent so many years taking advantage of them.

“Nobody knows it better than me,” he said. “I'm a businessman. These are laws. These are regulations. These are rules. We're allowed to do it…. But I'm the one that knows how to change it.”

Trump's rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have tried — so far to no avail — to undercut his popularity among working-class voters by portraying him as someone who rampantly outsources jobs. A similar line of attack proved effective four years ago against then-GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Senator Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida) called on Trump during a March 3rd debate to announce that “all the Donald Trump clothing will no longer be made in China and in Mexico but will be made here in the United States.” Trump dismissed the notion, arguing that China's currency policies “make it impossible for clothing makers in this country to do clothing in this country.”


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160313_TrumpShirt2_zpsxh8gzxz6.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/03/10/Others/Images/2016-03-10/TrumpShirt031457635751.jpg)
This shirt in Donald Trump's clothing line was made in Bangladesh.
 — Photograph: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post.


Critics say Trump is being disingenuous.

Robert Lawrence, a professor of trade and investment at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, has reviewed Trump-brand products for sale online and found that a large percentage are imported.

For example, the website selling Ivanka Trump's merchandise line links to 838 products — 628 of them imported. Of those, 354 are from China, a country that Donald Trump often says takes advantage of the large U.S. trade deficit.

Ivanka Trump's products also were marketed alongside her father's on the Trump Organization website. But amid criticism last week of the family's outsourcing practices, his daughter's page was removed.

“I don't decry what he and his daughter do,” said Lawrence, who served on the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton. “But at the same time, for him to claim that this is somehow immoral and go after companies that have relocated manufacturing when he has done the same puts him in conflict with his own rhetoric.”

Lawrence said that some of Trump's proposals could hurt his own businesses. His proposed 15 percent tax on companies that outsource jobs, or a proposed 20 percent tax for importing goods, could result in higher prices for consumers buying Trump-brand products. Recently, he has discussed placing a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports.

Lawrence estimated that Trump's $250 suits made in China would suddenly be priced in the United States at $350 or more. “The impact would be staggering and widespread,” he said.

Michael Strain, deputy director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that Trump's trade rhetoric is “deeply irresponsible” because isolating the U.S. economy could devastate businesses and hurt consumers.

Trump struck the 2004 deal with Phillips-Van Heusen, which owns Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, at a critical moment for his brand — the same year his hit show “The Apprentice” premiered.

Several people engaged in the negotiations said that Trump was personally involved. None could remember him specifically mentioning the U.S.-worker issue.

“If he's concerned about jobs in the United States, it should have been a question he asked,” said one person involved in the deal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending Trump. “And I can tell you that in none of the meetings did it come up.”

The shirtmaker used factories in some countries, including Bangladesh, China and Honduras, where labor violations such as forced overtime are common, according to Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a group that monitors factory conditions.

The agreement signed by Trump and Phillips-Van Heusen placed no restrictions on where Trump dress shirts, tuxedo shirts and neckwear could be manufactured.

Phillips-Van Heusen agreed that any products “manufactured by it or for it anywhere in the world” would not be made using child labor “as defined in the relevant jurisdiction of production,” according to the contract, which was filed in a later lawsuit in New York between the broker company and Trump.

Mark Weber, who was chief executive of Phillips-Van Heusen at the time, said the company employed a “global sourcing network” to produce clothes for Trump's line and other brands.

Weber described Trump as a master negotiator who correctly predicted the brand would be a smashing success and persuaded a wary Phillips-Van Heusen to sign on.

In a deposition filed in the New York lawsuit, Trump recalled that the massive clothier had been eager for the deal. “They were very hot to make a deal with us,” Trump said, according to a deposition transcript provided to The Washington Post by Jay Itkowitz, an attorney for the broker company that unsuccessfully sued Trump.

Weber, who is supporting Trump for president, said he concluded at the time that Trump was a patriot.

“He had a clear preference to support American values and what was good for America,” Weber said.

Asked whether Trump ever specifically expressed a preference for items bearing his name to be made in America, Weber said, “You're asking me for specifics that are very hard to recollect.”

Weber said that at the time, the industry's widely shared goals — promoted through overseas production — were to improve standards of living for workers in the Third World and to offer U.S. consumers lower prices.

“That was a time when America was very much in favor of building a better life for the people of our hemisphere,” he said, referring to factories in Central America.

“While we care about Americans, we care about people all over the world, too,” Weber said.

He also said that Trump never attempted to require that products be made in the United States as part of the contract between the two companies.

“No one can tell us where to make our products,” said Weber, who left the company in 2006. “I have never signed a contract in my 40 years of experience where someone could tell me where to make my goods.”

After Trump drew scrutiny over the summer for disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants, Macy's, which sold his clothing line, announced it was ending its relationship with him. Phillips-Van Heusen, now called PVH Corporation, quickly followed suit, saying that its licensing deal with Trump would be unwound.

Dana Perlman, a spokeswoman for the company, said last week that it no longer manufactures Trump clothing. She declined to comment further.


Alice Crites contributed to this report.

• Rosalind Helderman is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-decries-outsourced-labor-yet-he-didnt-seek-made-in-america-in-2004-deal/2016/03/13/4d65a43c-e63a-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-decries-outsourced-labor-yet-he-didnt-seek-made-in-america-in-2004-deal/2016/03/13/4d65a43c-e63a-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html)



I guess Trump gets away with it because there are plenty of STUPID, UNINTELLIGENT PEOPLE (including in NZ at the junction of SH2 and SH5) who are gullible enough to believe all sorts of bullshit, eh?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 09:59:11 pm

An example of Trump's SUCCESSFULL (NOT) business skills.

Not to worry....there are even IDIOTS in New Zealand (at the junction of SH2 and SH5) who are gullible enough to believe Trump is a success.



(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/TooFunny.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingPinkPanther.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ROFLMAO_Dog.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingHard.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ItchyBugga.gif)



from The Washington Post....

Trump's bad bet: How too much debt drove his biggest casino aground

By ROBERT O'HARROW Jr. - Investigative Reporter | 7:03PM EST - Monday, January 18, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118u_TrumpTajMahal_zpsqtxeuary.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/08/Investigative/Images/AP_9004050201452274692.jpg)
Donald Trump, who currently seeks the Republican nomination in the presidential election, stands next to a genie lamp at the Trump Taj Mahal,
marking the grand opening of the venture in Atlantic City, New Jersey on April 5th, 1990. — Photograph: Mike Derer/Associated Press.


FOR months in 1987, Donald Trump maneuvered to take control of the hulking, unfinished Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. He snapped up stock in the parent company after its owner died and then made a surprise bid to take the company private.

With the Taj, along with two casinos he already owned in the city, Trump could dominate gambling on the East Coast. But first he needed to convince state gambling regulators that he was financially stable and could raise enough cash to complete the $1 billion project.

On February 8th, 1988, at a licensing hearing in front of the state Casino Control Commission (http://www.nj.gov/casinos), Trump said he could pull it off for one main reason: He was Donald Trump. Because of his reputation as a dealmaker, he said, bankers were lining up to lend him money at prime rates. That meant he could avoid the risky, high-interest loans known as junk bonds.

“I'm talking about banking institutions, not these junk bonds, which are ridiculous,” Trump testified, according to transcripts of the hearing. “The funny thing with junk bonds is that junk bonds [are] what really made the companies junk.”

Trump received the approvals he needed for the Taj, but the prime-rate loans never materialized. Determined to move forward, he turned to the very junk bonds he had derided in the hearing. He agreed to pay the bond lenders 14 percent interest, roughly 50 percent more than he had projected, to raise $675 million. It was the biggest gamble of his career.

In April 1990, the Taj opened as the world's largest casino-hotel complex, joining Trump's other holdings already operating in Atlantic City, the Trump Plaza and Trump's Castle. But Trump could not keep pace with his debts on the three casinos. Six months later, the Taj defaulted on interest payments to bondholders as his finances went into a tailspin. In July 1991, Trump's Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy, the first and most significant of the four that his companies have experienced.

The bad bet on the Taj Mahal continues to haunt Trump, the leader in the race to become the Republican nominee for president. During recent GOP debates, opponents and journalists have repeatedly asked why he should be trusted to manage the country after losing lenders hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump responded that he was shrewd for using “the laws of the country to my benefit” and has distanced himself from the Taj's troubles, saying he never personally declared bankruptcy.

Much has been written about this period of Trump's career. But much has been forgotten over the past quarter-century — or overlooked in this lightning-fast election cycle. The Washington Post reviewed hundreds of pages of legal, regulatory and financial records relating to the Taj Mahal. The Post found that Trump's statements during the campaign about his companies' bankruptcies play down his personal role in the downfall of the Taj. Trump took extreme risks in a shaky economy, leveraged the Taj deal with high-cost debt, and ignored warnings that Atlantic City would not be able to attract enough gamblers to pay the bills, documents and interviews show.

In an interview with The Post, Trump said his work on the Taj Mahal was ultimately successful and earned him a lot of money. He said the bankruptcy was the result of external forces beyond his control, specifically an extremely bad economy in 1990. He said he had “the prerogative” to change his mind about using junk bonds in the financing.

“I didn't want to have any personal liability, so I used junk bonds. I accept the blame for that, but I would do it again,” he said. But Trump vehemently denied that the deal represented a personal failing or affected his personal wealth.

“This was not personal. This was a corporate deal,” he said. “If you write this one, I'm suing you.”

Documents and interviews show he left a legacy of bitterness among onetime proponents, including city officials, casino regulators and citizens. Some came to see that the giant Taj, while outwardly impressive, had little financial substance behind it. Steven P. Perskie (http://politickernj.com/2008/01/happy-birthday-to-steve-perskie-21-years-younger-than-frank-lautenberg), former chairman of the Casino Control Commission and a former state Democratic lawmaker, called it a “Potemkin village”.

Trump made promises to Atlantic City that he did not keep, Perskie said. “When I read and hear him say he was beloved in Atlantic City, that was before [the bankruptcy]. He remembers to perceive how he started, not how he was perceived when he left.”

The Taj bankruptcy was a corporate filing, as Trump has noted. But there was much overlap between Trump the corporation and Trump the man. He owned 100 percent of the casino, documents indicate. As the Taj tumbled, so did Donald Trump, documents show. He eventually gave up half of his stake in three casinos and sold off other holdings, including the 282-foot Trump Princess yacht.

Roger Gros, publisher of Global Gaming Business magazine (http://ggbmagazine.com) in Las Vegas, witnessed Trump's rise and fall in the casino business. He has tracked Trump's presidential campaign. Gros said the version of events Trump shares on the campaign trail does not square with the events that unfolded a quarter-century ago in Atlantic City.

“His claims now just are not credible,” Gros said.

The story of the Taj offers insight into the man who wants to succeed Barack Obama as president of the United States. Then, as now, Trump sold himself aggressively as a consummate entrepreneur and manager. He positioned himself as an outsider with unique talents and said he could achieve things far beyond the grasp of competitors.

In the Republican presidential debate in October (http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/28/vote-who-won-the-cnbc-republican-presidential-debate.html), he said that his experience with companies that went through bankruptcy would help him manage the nation's debts.

“That is what I could do for the country,” he said. “We owe $19 trillion. Boy, am I good at solving debt problems. Nobody can solve it like me.”


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118v_Trump_zpsqhrrpfvr.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalC.jpg)

By the time he became interested in Atlantic City, as early as 1976, Trump was gaining a reputation as a highflying developer in Manhattan. He had taken over his father's sprawling real estate empire and was looking to expand.

He kept watch as support for a referendum permitting casinos gathered steam in New Jersey's statehouse. The city then was a struggling resort town, “barren and hostile, with its boarded-up shells and vacant lots,” investigative reporter Wayne Barrett wrote in Trump: The Deals and the Downfall (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060167041), published in December 1992. Gambling promoters promised that casinos would change everything.

After the first casino opened in Atlantic City in May 1978, Trump traveled from his offices in Manhattan to scout out the Boardwalk for possible sites to build his own hotel. Paul Rubeli, then chief of gaming operations for the new Tropicana hotel and casino, recalled hearing that Trump wanted to tour the property. Rubeli said Trump was very thorough and insisted on seeing everything from “the bottom of the building to the top of the building.”

“He was an up-and-coming guy,” Rubeli told The Post.

Trump began buying land along the Boardwalk and successfully sought to be qualified for a gaming license. In 1982, he teamed up with Holiday Inn to build the casino that came to be known as the Trump Plaza. When it opened in 1984, the Plaza was the city's tallest building and its largest casino.

The next year, Trump bought the Hilton Hotel, secured approval to operate it as a casino and renamed it Trump's Castle. Both did well, but his ambition remained unsated.

From the beginning, Trump kept an eye on the Resorts International Hotel and Casino, which opened in May 1978 as the city's first gambling hall. It raked in cash for the company owned by its legendary founder, James Crosby (http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/12/obituaries/james-m-crosby-58-founder-of-hotel-and-casino-concern.html).

In 1986, Crosby died unexpectedly during surgery. His company was suddenly rudderless at a time when profits had begun to wane. Resorts was also overwhelmed by what had been Crosby's grand vision for a new casino: the Taj Mahal. Over the previous three years, Resorts had poured as much as $500 million into the massive structure, which promised more than 1,000 rooms. But it was only half done, and construction funding was running low.

Some people considered the Taj to be a money pit. Trump, then 40, saw it as a potential money machine. In March 1987, he made a move on Resorts, agreeing to buy a controlling chunk of the company's voting stock from Crosby's heirs — giving him control of assets potentially worth $1 billion. Market watchers applauded Trump's verve. But some industry insiders wondered about his timing.

Resorts was deeply in debt. The projected completion costs of the Taj had quadrupled to more than $800 million and were rising. To cash in on his investment, Trump would have to finish the Taj, and do it at a time when financing was becoming difficult to arrange.

At the same time, the gambling market was becoming more complex. Revenue in Atlantic City had risen to record levels. But casino profits had dropped in recent years because of mismanagement and fierce competition. In 1986, the city's casinos recorded $2.5 billion in gambling revenue but only $74 million in profit, according to one report.

Some gambling analysts were becoming bearish about the prospects for future growth. In June 1987, Marvin Roffman, a prominent analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, said the opening of the Taj Mahal would only intensify the pressure on profits. He wrote that “we are projecting that 1990 may be a very tough year for the Atlantic City casino operators.”

Trump appeared to be undaunted. In July 1987, he became the chairman of Resorts' board of directors and finalized the stock deal, spending $79 million and receiving 72 percent of the voting shares in the corporation. Trump installed his brother Robert and another associate on the board. Trump wasn't acting merely as an investor or manager. He began to press for a lucrative “comprehensive services agreement” that would require Resorts to pay him to arrange for financing and manage the Taj's construction. It was estimated to be worth $108 million over five years.

Lending became exceedingly tight after October 19th, 1987, known as Black Monday (http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/48), when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged by almost 23 percent. In the aftermath, Resorts stocks continued a long slide down.

On December 16th, despite the downturn in the market and qualms about Trump's management fees, the commission approved his services agreement.

Five days later, Trump delivered a surprise. He offered to buy the remaining Resorts stock at the depressed prices and take the company private.

In a news release, Trump offered gambling regulators a tough choice: They could support his new direction, or he would walk away and the Taj project would languish. The release warned that “only with the financial backing of the Trump Organization will it be possible to build the Taj Mahal.”

It was a striking display of self-confidence. “Instead of drawing the millions in fees due under his carefully arranged management contract, without any down­side risk, Donald was repositioning himself to rise or fall with the Taj,” Barrett wrote.

While his offer to buy the Taj was pending, Trump went before the commission to win approval for a casino license in his name for the complex. At the hearing on the morning of February 8th, 1988, the commission, unsettled by Trump's recent maneuvers, asked him to provide more details about his plans.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118w_Trump_zpsqgxgic8z.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalA.jpg)

Trump, testifying under oath, said his attempts to raise financing had faltered because bankers did not have enough faith in Resorts and were uneasy about his lavish services agreement. He said it was not until he moved to take total control of the company that bankers responded well to his request for a big loan.

With him in charge, Trump said banks were willing to give him loans at 9 percent interest or less, “prime rates” far below what other developers could hope for. “I also, as I said before, don't have to use junk bonds. I can use my own funds or I can use regular bank borrowings, so I can build at the prime rate,” he told the commission. “I mean, the banks call me all the time. ‘Can we loan you money? Can we do this? Can we do that?’”

Trump took time to elaborate on the importance of avoiding junk bonds.

“I'm telling you that whether it's General Motors or Procter & Gamble, or any other company, if they have to go out and get junk bonds to do their borrowings, they are not a strong company,” he said. “They make them junk. So it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy almost.”

The commission and its lawyers expressed skepticism. How could Trump get such a good deal when others had to pay so much more to borrow?

“It's easier to finance if Donald Trump owns it,” he said. “With me, they know there's a certainty they would get their interest.”

Trump said he held another appeal for bankers: “I get it done, and everybody is happy and it turns out successfully,” he said.

He was asked, in general terms: “Is there anything that can go wrong, that you're aware of?”

“We can have a depression,” Trump responded. “The world could collapse. We could have World War III. I mean, a lot of things can go wrong. I don't think they will.”

The commission pressed Trump about his projected costs. His plans would bring spending on the Taj to $1 billion, with added luxury suites, gourmet restaurants and opulent fixtures, something the commission referred to as “extras”.

“Don't people have to live within their means?” one commissioner asked.

Trump said the added costs were insignificant and were necessary to help impress customers. “We are probably talking about a difference of $50 million or so,” he said.

“I mean, the worst thing to happen with the Taj Mahal is for the building to open and for people to have been disappointed with it,” he said. “Because word of mouth on something like this, it's like a Broadway show.”

“My basic attitude has always been that I want to do what is good for Atlantic City,” Trump said.

Ten days later, commissioner Valerie Armstrong said Trump's testimony was “laced with hyperbole, contradictions and generalities which make it difficult to evaluate” his fitness for licensing, according to a transcript of a subsequent commission hearing on February 18th, 1988.

“While it might be possible to conclude that the events of the past eight months resulted from happenstance, impulse, fate and/or events beyond Trump's or Resorts' control, it is also just as easy, perhaps easier, to conclude that many of the events leading to Mr. Trump's current [takeover] proposal have been carefully staged, manipulated and orchestrated,” Armstrong said.

A month later, a day before Trump's deal for Resorts was set to go through, his plan hit a snag. Merv Griffin, the television host and producer, made a competing high-priced offer.

Griffin said he would pay $245 million for Resorts if Trump agreed to vote in favor of the takeover and canceled his services agreement. Trump declined. For weeks, the two fought a highly publicized battle.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118x_Trump_zpsyr6lcpwn.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalD.jpg)

On May 27th, they agreed to a complicated settlement (http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/48) that split the company and its assets. Griffin got the existing Resorts casinos in Atlantic City and Bahamas. Trump received a substantial payment to release Resorts from his services agreement. More important, he got the Taj.

Trump later wrote that acquiring “the Taj wasn't something I had planned.”

“Our compromise, which gave me $12 million and the unfinished Taj Mahal, turned out to be one of the best deals I ever made,” Trump wrote in Trump: The Art of the Comeback (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812929640). “At the time, I thought his chances of making Resorts successful were about as good as his chances of getting Sharon Stone pregnant.”

Within days, Trump formed a company called Trump Taj Mahal Funding to seek a loan for the construction. Despite his claims to the commission, Trump could not line up the prime loans. He had to make do with the junk bonds he had so forcefully derided.

In November 1988, a financial firm working with Trump issued junk bonds that paid 14 percent. He would have to pay about $95 million a year in interest payments, not counting the debt from his other casinos and holdings, according to one analyst's report.

“The Taj was going to be the biggest and the best and greatest,” Rubeli, the former Tropicana executive, told The Post. “As Donald would say, ‘It was going to be huge’.”

Trump's Taj Mahal kept expanding. It was now going to be bigger and costlier than anything Crosby envisioned — the largest, most expensive casino ever constructed. The complex would include 1,250 hotel rooms, a 120,000-square-foot casino and about 6,500 employees.

Trump paid little heed to a growing drumbeat of concerns about Atlantic City. In July 1989, Roffman, the market analyst, issued another gloomy report for investors. Its headline: “Atlantic City, New Jersey — Top Heavy in Debt — Houses of Cards”.

Roffman’s message was stark. Five years earlier, the city's nine casinos recorded almost $169 million in profit on winnings of almost $1.8 billion. In 1988, profit dwindled to under $15 million, even though winnings had soared to $2.7 billion.

The problem was debt. “The Taj itself looks like a big gamble,” Roffman wrote of Trump's heavily leveraged operation.

Trump and his executives knew of Roffman. “After he did his deal with Merv Griffin, he called me on the telephone and said, ‘Marvin, didn't I do a fantastic deal?’” Roffman recently told The Post. “I said, ‘I think you made a mistake, Donald’. I said, ‘Why own three casinos?’”

Trump brushed it off. “This is going to be a monster property,” Trump said, according to Roffman.

On March 20th, two weeks before the Taj opening, the Wall Street Journal published remarks Roffman made about the casino, in a story that said the Taj would need to gross up to $1.3 million or more every day to pay the bills and the loans, more than any casino had ever taken in.

“When this property opens, he will have had so much free publicity he will break every record in the books in April, June, and July,” Roffman told the Journal. “But once the cold winds blow from October to February, it won't make it. The market just isn't there.”

Trump was furious. He faxed a threatening letter to Roffman's boss. “You will be hearing shortly from my lawyers unless Mr. Roffman is immediately dismissed or apologizes.”

Trump also called Roffman directly, according to an account in Roffman's book Take Charge of Your Financial Future: Straight Talk on Managing Your Money From the Financial Analyst Who Defied Donald Trump (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155972207X). Roffman said Trump urged him to “write me a letter stating that the Taj is going to be one of the greatest successes ever, and I'm going to have it published.”

Under pressure, Roffman signed a letter of apology drafted by his firm. But when Trump asked for changes, Roffman retracted it in a follow-up note to Trump. A day later, he was fired.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118y_Trump_zpsodzj4tdi.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/13/Investigative/Images/bb-trumptajmahalB.jpg)

Roffman pursued arbitration, saying his dismissal was unjustified. He won a $750,000 settlement from his firm.

“Understand that I was with the firm for 17 years, and I was a vice president of research. I loved my job,” Roffman told The Post. “I didn't want to lose it. And I had never lost a job.”

He also sued Trump, settling for an undisclosed amount. Roffman declined to discuss the settlement.

The Post examined documents from Roffman's lawsuit, including a deposition of Trump.

In his deposition, Trump said he could not recall reading any of Roffman's reports. He described Roffman's remarks in the Journal as a “vicious attack” and “not a nice thing on a human basis.”

Trump testified it was not his intention to get Roffman fired, despite what his demand letter said. Trump said he only wanted Roffman to withdraw remarks that “were totally inappropriate.”

“I didn't have the right to fire Mr. Roffman by any stretch,” Trump said in his deposition.

The Taj Mahal opened on April 2nd, 1990 (http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/donald-trump-in-atlantic-city-jackpot-or-crackpot/article_7ae16c2c-3d14-11e5-aa3b-5b415c6c45e9.html). Over the next several days, gamblers lined up around the block. Michael Jackson appeared as the star guest. Publicists called it the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.

Behind the glitter loomed extraordinary financial problems. The Taj and Trump's two other casinos labored under a total of $1.3 billion in mortgage bonds. Trump's empire owed an additional $2.1 billion to institutional lenders, of which Trump had personally guaranteed $833 million, according to the Casino Control Commission.

Trump's net worth became a subject of intense interest. Trump said it was about $1.4 billion. Forbes pegged it at $500 million (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2015/06/16/trump-exaggerating-his-net-worth-by-100-in-presidential-bid). The commission later reported he was actually worth just $206 million.

In August, as Trump scrambled to remain solvent, accountants hired by him to assess his financial condition said in a report that his debts could exceed by $295 million the value of all his casinos, hotels, office buildings, his airline and other properties, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer article. In response to “severe cash flow difficulties,” he got a $65 million line of credit to keep Trump's Castle, Plaza, Taj and other Trump enterprises afloat, commission documents show.

Another crisis came to a head in November when Trump was unable to pay interest on the Taj's massive debt and defaulted. In December 1990, when Trump did not have enough money to pay the interest on the Castle's debt, he turned to his father, a successful development tycoon.

On December 17th, a lawyer representing Fred Trump went to the Castle's casino cage, handed over a check for $3.35 million as “front money”, filled out several forms and walked out with an equivalent amount of $5,000 chips in a briefcase, commission documents show. The lawyer repeated the procedure the next day, this time the exchange was worth $150,000.

Trump used the money to pay the interest, and the casino recorded the exchange as an outstanding gaming liability, documents show. But state officials later ruled it was a surreptitious loan and said it violated casino regulations. The state Division of Gaming Enforcement fined the Castle $65,000.

By March 1991, Trump was in “non-compliance” on $1.1 billion in loans across his empire, including the Taj, Trump Shuttle airline, the Castle, Trump Palm Beach Corporation and Mar-a-Lago, the spectacular estate in Florida.

Nearly all of his real estate holdings were “funded by external financing,” such as mortgages and construction loans, an internal commission report stated on April 15th, 1991. His lifestyle, meanwhile, was also sapping his wealth, the report said.

“Mr. Trump expects to exhaust his financial resources in July 1991,” the commission's report said. “Furthermore, as a result of his severely limited financial resources, Mr. Trump cannot be relied upon as a financial resource for Taj Mahal, Castle, or Plaza.”

On July 16th, 1991, Trump Taj Mahal filed a petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. Trump described himself in documents as the “sole Shareholder of Trump Taj Mahal, Incorporated.”

The consequences of the Taj bankruptcy rippled through Atlantic City and Donald Trump's empire.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160118z_TrumpTajMahal_zpsv8ukhrmh.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/01/07/Investigative/Images/Atlantic_City_01_PASKOVA_0071452184267.jpg)
The Trump Taj Mahal, shown in Atlantic City, New Jersey this month, opened in 1990 as the world's largest casino-hotel complex.
 — Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Washington Post.


On August 28th, 1991, a federal judge approved the bankruptcy petition after a bondholders' representative said “it would be a disaster” if the Taj were simply liquidated, according to a New York Times account.

Under the agreement, Trump gave up half his stake in the Taj to bondholders in exchange for support in reorganizing his debt, according to the Taj's annual report for 1992.

Large institutions took the brunt of the losses. But many small-time investors who had bought the bonds, directly or through retirement funds, also suffered losses, according to Bryant Simon, a professor at Temple University and author of Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195308093). So did the small-business owners who sold Trump paint, equipment, food, limousine services and much more. Many were eventually paid only a fraction of what they were due.

“He was a brutal and ruthless negotiator,” Simon told The Post. “People paid the price.”

Trump acknowledged that he drove hard bargains but said he created many opportunities for lots of people in Atlantic City.

“I wasn't the nicest person on earth,” he told The Post. “Many of these same people, if not all, made a lot of money with me.”

On March 9th, 1992, Trump's Castle and Plaza casinos also filed for bankruptcy protection.

To resolve those debts, Trump gave up half of his stake in each casino to his lenders. As part of his reorganization, the casino commission put him on a short leash, requiring him to file regular reports about his other businesses, delinquent taxes and personal spending. Trump eventually sold the Trump Princess yacht, his Trump Shuttle airline and other holdings.

Even in the face of Trump's obvious financial instability, the commission allowed him to keep his gaming licenses because “he was too big to fail,” said Perskie, the former commission chairman. “The consequences for the city and the industry, and everything we cared about, would have been horrific.”

In his recent interview with The Post, Trump emphasized that his companies were not alone during the long downturn in the gambling industry in the city, saying that a number of other casinos also declared bankruptcy.

“I was able to take my great casino empire, which makes me far and away the number-one player in Atlantic City, and bring it through a horrific storm,” Trump wrote in “The Art of the Comeback” in 1997.

At its peak, Atlantic City had 12 operating casinos. Today, there are eight left. Trump is no longer involved, having sold his interests or given up equity through bankruptcy proceedings years ago. The Castle is thriving under new ownership, the Plaza is closed, and the Taj is operating under supervision of a bankruptcy court.

“Trump was welcomed with open arms by everybody and provided the sense he was able to do everything he promised,” Perskie said. “His name and his legacy in the city were significantly tarnished. The business community and regulators no longer accepted the music of the Pied Piper.”

Over the years, Trump has modified his business approach and rebounded with a focus on selling himself as a brand.

He now claims that he is worth $10 billion. Trump has developed a dedicated following, in part because of his brashness and wealth. He owns or has a financial interest in properties around the world.

When talking about his legacy in Atlantic City, he expressed no regrets. “The Taj Mahal was a very successful job for me,” he told The Post.

“It's not personal. This was just business,” he said. “I got out great.”


Alice Crites and Walter Fee contributed to this report.

• Robert O'Harrow Jr. is a reporter on the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He writes about law enforcement, national security, federal contracting and the financial world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/trumps-bad-bet-how-too-much-debt-drove-his-biggest-casino-aground/2016/01/18/f67cedc2-9ac8-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/trumps-bad-bet-how-too-much-debt-drove-his-biggest-casino-aground/2016/01/18/f67cedc2-9ac8-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 10:02:55 pm

I can post example after example after example after example of Trump's inconsistencies and business incompetence without even breaking out in a sweat, because I have already posted heaps of examples, and as I always format stories like that on notepad documents first (including inserting source code to place images, hotlinks, etc.,) I simply have to dig out those saved notepad documents (which are filed by date order using a simple numerical code consisting of an eight-digit number before the article title, with that number consisting of the year, month and date) and repost them to show up stupid, gullible Trump supporters.

It's just like shooting fish in a barrel.



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 01, 2016, 10:07:05 pm
he's already stated many times that he plays the system

i can't see a big deal with that when you're in business it's about making a profit you can't blame him for that, he admits it's wrong but it's caused by US government policy decisions which forces businessmen to adapt to it or go broke.

lets face it you only hate trump because he has lots of money and you want it because you're a rabid communist ;D


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 01, 2016, 10:16:51 pm
your examples are as weak as your limp wrist lol

everyone has a few failures in life that's how people learn from making mistakes lol


and if you owe a bank a couple of hundred thousands they will take you to the cleaners but when you borrow millions banks are never as keen to force you into bankruptcy because you have them by the balls and they are forced to make deals.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 10:19:01 pm

Hahaha.....look at all those stupid Americans bending over and taking it up the arse from Donald Trump while he brings in foreign workers and uses them in his businesses instead of employing those stupid Americans who continue to take it up the arse.

STUPID people, eh?  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/2funny.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 01, 2016, 10:33:25 pm
you have all the rantings of a mad man lmao

you're dirt poor trump is rich get over it you whining pussy lol

you the one that's butt hurt
(http://subversify.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/butthurt-cream-dawgmaspatentedbutthurtcream1-1024x423.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 01, 2016, 11:54:29 pm

There's a very good reason why the Chinese (http://smfsupport.com/support/Smileys/smfnew/smitten.gif)Donald Trump....



from The Washington Post....

President Trump would hand the world to China (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-trump-would-hand-china-the-world/2016/05/31/e4d1b1f8-2771-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html)



I wonder what all those STUPID Trump supporters are going to do when they wake up to the fact that President Trump has sold them out to China?

It should be bloody hilarious when the penny drops, eh?  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/08_Laugh.gif)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 02, 2016, 12:01:16 am
The Washington Post is broken ass left wing toilet paper

so its handy for something  ;D

(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_2DUpnqeUQ/VnV8MELadBI/AAAAAAAA2Fg/DNkDZbQn39E/s1600/giphy-2.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 02, 2016, 12:13:31 am

The Washington Post has a huge database of Trump's inconsistencies in what he says and what he does.

They can back it all up with FACTS and real-time recordings of Trump, unlike Trump himself who just farts more bullshit whenever he is caught out.

Not to worry....Trump has plenty of stupid gullible people who hang on his every word of bullshit.

It's going to be hilariously funny when President Trump sells-out all those white-trash stupid Americans to China.

I will be pissing myself with laughter!




And with that....I'm going to leave the STUPID to it and head off to bed....(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/36_NightGrave.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 02, 2016, 01:13:08 am
(http://ilovemyfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/trump-victory.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 02, 2016, 11:51:09 am

Hahaha....make America great again.....well they were great once, but then they started all those oil wars and ended up in hock to the tune of trillions of dollars to the Chinese due to living beyond their means with all that warmongering; and now the 21st century is gradually becoming the Chinese Century with the Americans gradually slipping into has-beens and owing trillions to and having their economy propped up by those Chinese.

Funny shit how Trump thinks he is going to reverse that. People of his ilk are like those Britishers who look longly back at the 19th century, which was the British Century prior to the 20th century becoming the American Century. There sure are a lot of stupid delusional Americans who will blindly follow President Trump into the annihilation of their country when he borrows a shitload more money to indulge in yet more warmongering. Funny shit, eh?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on June 02, 2016, 12:15:56 pm


I wonder how many he lost/won. ?


Trump has been involved in thousands of law suits

More than three thousand five hundred over the past thee decades ....


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2016/jun/01/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-poll-sanders-election-2016-live

At least there should be no surprises coming out of the woodwork in the future for whoever wins this election:

Seems to me there can't be many more left to find?

(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/47_Faint.gif)




Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 02, 2016, 12:38:59 pm

He's still hiding his tax files, which tends to tell us he REALLY DOES have something to hide.

I reckon he has been avoiding paying tax and sponging off his fellow tax-paying Americans.

Filth like Donald Trump always have heaps of skeletons like that in their cupboard.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 02, 2016, 12:39:48 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160517_1464601038404s_BuildAWall_zpsopis994i.jpg) (http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/b/n/s/z/q/image.gallery.galleryLandscape.600x400.1954k3.png/1464601038404.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 03, 2016, 12:07:01 am

from The Washington Post....

PGA Tour moves tournament from Miami
Donald Trump course … to Mexico


By DAVE SHEININ | 6:14PM EDT - Wednesday, June 01, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160601tcc_TrumpCadillacChampionship_zpsxhyxyeew.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/01/Production/Daily/Sports/Images/PGA_Tour_Mexico_Golf-013e1-1271.jpg)
Donald Trump drives cart around the course to watch the final round of the Cadillac Championship golf tournament
in Doral, Florida, in March. — Photograph: Luis M. Alvarez/Associated Press.


THE Donald Trump-owned golf course in Miami that has hosted a storied professional golf tournament for the past 55 years lost that event Wednesday when the PGA Tour announced it was moving its elite World Golf Championship out of South Florida. Beginning in 2017, the tournament will be played instead in — of all places — Mexico City.

The move highlighted the uneasy relationship between the sport of golf and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, an avid golfer who has spent much of the past decade building a golf empire that includes some of the most coveted properties in the world. Some of golf's governing bodies have moved to distance themselves from Trump since he made controversial remarks about Mexicans and Muslims.

At a news conference on Wednesday, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem initially said the move was not “a political exercise” but a financial one, prompted by the decision by Cadillac not to renew its title sponsorship of the tournament. Later, however, Finchem said, “Donald Trump is a brand — a big brand — and when you are asking a [sponsor] to invest millions of dollars in branding a tournament and they're going to share that brand with a host … it's a difficult conversation. The politics may have contributed some since he's been running.”

Trump apparently broke the news himself on Tuesday night during an appearance on Fox News, telling host Sean Hannity, “I just heard that the PGA Tour is taking their tournament out of Miami and moving it to Mexico…. They're moving it to Mexico City — which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance. But they're moving it to Mexico City. And I'm saying, you know, what's going on here? It's so sad when you look what's going on with our country.”

On Wednesday, Trump released a statement calling the move “a sad day for Miami, the United States and the game of golf.”

Trump purchased the Doral Resort and Spa — which had held a tour event every year since 1962 — out of bankruptcy in 2012 and rebranded it Trump National Doral Miami, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into renovating the property and redesigning the signature Blue Monster tournament course. In 2013, he signed a 10-year deal with the PGA Tour to keep the tournament there, although the tour had an out clause in the event of a title-sponsor change.

After Cadillac's decision last year not to renew its sponsorship contract following the 2016 tournament, the tour spent a year searching for a new title sponsor, Finchem said. That became increasingly difficult after Trump announced he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, claiming many Mexicans were “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” and vowing to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of the United States.

Asked about the decision to end its title sponsorship, Eneuri Acosta, a spokesman for Cadillac, said in an email, “We thank the PGA Tour for a great six years” with the tournament. Acosta did not respond to a question regarding Trump.

The tour previously warned of a potential move from the Trump property, saying in a statement in December — not long after Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States — that those remarks “were inconsistent with our strong commitment to an inclusive and welcoming environment in the game of golf…. Immediately after the conclusion of the [March] 2016 tournament, we will explore all options regarding the event's future.”

This isn't the first time Trump has lost a golf tournament over his controversial stances. Last summer, the PGA of America announced it was moving the Grand Slam of Golf — contested in October — out of a Trump-owned course in Los Angeles. However, the 2017 U.S. Women's Open and Senior PGA Championship both remain on track to be played at Trump properties — the latter at the Trump National Golf Club of Washington, D.C., in Sterling, Virginia. The 2022 PGA Championship is scheduled to be played at Trump's club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

As for the former WGC-Cadillac Championship, the new tour event, christened the WGC-Mexico Championship, will be played at the Club de Golf Chapultepec outside of Mexico City.

“It's quite ironic we're going to Mexico after being at Doral,” Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy, the world's third-ranked golfer, said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We'll just jump over the wall.”


• Dave Sheinin has been covering baseball and writing features and enterprise stories for The Washington Post since 1999.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • Trump National loses PGA Tour's Grand Slam of Golf in 2015 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/pga-of-america-moves-event-from-trump-course-future-events-unclear/2015/07/07/b2b06316-24e0-11e5-aae2-6c4f59b050aa_story.html)

 • Trump teed up $25 million in upgrades at Trump National in D.C. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2015/06/23/trump-tees-up-25-million-in-upgrades-at-loudoun-golf-club)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/pga-tour-moves-tournament-from-miami-donald-trump-course--to-mexico/2016/06/01/0a625456-2838-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/pga-tour-moves-tournament-from-miami-donald-trump-course--to-mexico/2016/06/01/0a625456-2838-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 03, 2016, 12:36:41 am

from The Washington Post....

Trump's personal, racially tinged attacks
on federal judge alarm legal experts


By JOSE A. DELREAL and KATIE ZEZIMA | 8:19PM EDT - Wednesday, June 01, 2016

DONALD TRUMP's highly personal, racially tinged attacks on a federal judge overseeing a pair of lawsuits against him have set off a wave of alarm among legal experts, who worry that the Republican presidential candidate's vendetta signals a remarkable disregard for judicial independence.

That attitude, many argue, could carry constitutional implications if Trump becomes president.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is handling two class-action lawsuits against Trump University in San Diego, has emerged as a central target for Trump and his supporters in recent weeks. The enmity only escalated after Curiel ordered the release of embarrassing internal documents detailing predatory marketing practices at the for-profit educational venture; that case is set to go to trial after the November election.

“I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He's a hater,” Trump said at a campaign rally in San Diego, adding that he believed the Indiana-born judge was “Mexican.”

He also suggested taking action against the judge after the election: “They ought to look into Judge Curiel, because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace. Okay? But we will come back in November. Wouldn't that be wild if I am president and come back and do a civil case? Where everybody likes it. Okay. This is called life, folks.”

The courtroom proceedings come with high stakes for Trump, whose likely tough­general-election fight against Hillary Clinton will leave him open to intense scrutiny of his character, business practices and temperament. Clinton said on Wednesday that the Trump University allegations are “just more evidence that Donald Trump himself is a fraud.”

Trump's strikingly personal attacks on Curiel are highly unusual and have prompted questions about how he would react to adverse judicial decisions should he become president. Trump's remarks also stand out because he has a personal financial stake in the case.

“Having a presidential candidate embroiled in litigation totally unrelated to the political system … that is what is so novel about this. And then you add to this the personal criticism,” said Arthur Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “It's personal all the way, and that's what makes this different.”

Conflicts between the courts and the political branches are common and, to some degree, expected. The Constitution mandates lifetime tenure for federal judges who serve in “good behavior” and protects them against recrimination by forbidding that their salaries be diminished.

Judicial appointments are among a president's most lasting legacies, and in the current presidential campaign, candidates from both parties have gone beyond the comfort level of many legal experts by issuing litmus tests. On the Democratic side, Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont) have said overturning the Supreme Court's controversial Citizens United ruling should be a priority, while Republican candidates went after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for his votes upholding the Affordable Care Act.

President Obama prompted outrage among conservatives in 2010 when he blasted the Citizens United ruling in his State of the Union address. Republican members of Congress criticized the president for attacking the decision with members of the court seated just feet away from him, while Democrats defended the comments as within the bounds of policy debate.

Trump's attacks on Curiel stand out for their personal nature, for the racial remarks and for the suggestion by a potential president that someone “ought to look into” the judge.

Charles Gardner Geyh, a professor at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law, said he has no problem with presidents or presidential candidates criticizing judges or judicial decisions. But, he said, “there's a line between disagreement and sort of throwing the judiciary under the bus that I think is at issue here.”

One of Trump's earlier jeremiads came in February, when he told Fox News that Curiel was biased against him because of his controversial immigration comments and proposals, including his promises to build a giant wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and deport 11 million illegal immigrants.

“I think it has to do with perhaps the fact that I'm very, very strong on the border,” Trump said then. “Now, he is Hispanic, I believe. He is a very hostile judge to me.”

Trump returned to ethnicity at last week's San Diego rally, where he erroneously suggested Curiel was from Mexico: “The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great. I think that’s fine. You know what? I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump when I give all these jobs, okay?”

Curiel, who through his office declined to comment, was born in East Chicago, Indiana (https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GonzaloCuriel-PublicQuestionnaire.pdf), and is a 1979 graduate of the Indiana University law school. He gained acclaim prosecuting drug traffickers along the Tijuana corridor and was reportedly targeted for assassination by the Felix cartel; he joined the federal bench in 2012 after being nominated by Obama.

Katrina Pierson, a spokeswoman for Trump, has expanded on the accusations of bias, wrongly suggesting Curiel is part of a group organizing protests at Trump rallies around California. Curiel is a member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, a professional group that she appeared to confuse with the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy group.

Luis Osuna, the president of the lawyers association, said the group is not an advocacy group and supports candidates on both sides of the aisle. He said Trump's attempts to discredit Curiel should give voters serious pause, not least because his comments reduce Hispanics in the legal profession to their heritage.

“Every time there is a comment like this, it is disheartening,” Osuna said. “It is not, unfortunately, surprising, given the source of the comments. But it displays a complete lack of understanding of the role that we have as attorneys and judges and the role that we have in upholding the Constitution.”

“He's definitely using it as a dog whistle to his supporters,” he added. “Obviously, I don't know what is in his heart. I can only judge based on the way he has acted in the past, but this has been a recurring theme in his campaign.”

Trump is not without recourse if he thinks that Curiel has engaged in misconduct. Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Trump could file a complaint with the federal court of appeals. He said Trump would have to provide evidence that Curiel was biased in his behavior against the real estate mogul and could then proceed with a disqualification motion. Wheeler said Trump could also ask Curiel to recuse himself from the case because of impartiality. If Curiel declined, Trump could file an appeal.

But Wheeler added that, based on what he has seen, Curiel “has been nothing but fair in this case.”

As part of the ongoing class-action lawsuit against Trump University that he is overseeing, Curiel ordered the release of internal documents that showed Trump played a key role in the marketing for the business and how staff members were guided to push customers to purchase expensive follow-ups costing up to $35,000 after taking free introductory courses.

The order came in response to a request by The Washington Post, which argued that Trump's presidential bid made the documents a matter of public interest. In the order, Curiel said that Trump had “placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.”


Robert Barnes contributed to this report.

• Jose A. DelReal covers national politics for The Washington Post.

• Katie Zezima is a national political correspondent covering the 2016 presidential election. She previously served as a White House correspondent for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related:

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/06/01/437ccae6-280b-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/06/01/437ccae6-280b-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 03, 2016, 06:03:22 am
i hope donald did hurt that judges feewings  ;D


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 03, 2016, 08:48:51 am
i hope donald did hurt that judges feewings  ;D


It seems to me it is TRUMP who is chucking his toys out of the cot because of his hurt feelings. Face facts, he is a LOSER, but his feelings get hurt when he LOSES, as he did in the ruling by this judge revealing how Trump ripped off university students. All the judge did was to issue a ruling which was correct under the laws of the land. Not hurt feelings there on the part of the judge....merely doing his job exposing a conman, liar and thief.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 03, 2016, 08:52:16 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Donald Trump campaigns in his own weird ‘Wonderland’

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Thursday, June 02, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160602dh_zpsoh8mxypb.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-574fd445/turbine/la-1464849627-snap-photo)

DONALD TRUMP is like a character from “Alice in Wonderland”. He has his own unusual look, his own surreal life and, most of all, his own curious logic. Disney could have cast him in the studio's new movie, “Through the Looking Glass”, if only he were not so busy rhetorically lopping off the heads of his opponents, the media and anyone else who crosses him.

In that way, Trump very much resembles the Queen of Hearts, who screamed “Off with their heads!” at any slight provocation. Trump's news conference at Trump Tower in New York City on Tuesday was like that. When reporters asked perfectly normal questions about his curiously tardy contributions to various veterans' organizations and about the dubious business practices of the now-defunct Trump University, he responded with insults and aggression. He called ABC's political correspondent “a sleazy guy.” He called the press, in general, dishonest and said he finds “the political press to be unbelievably dishonest.”

Trump is not the first political figure to make a habit of criticizing the media — an odd thing, since his campaign has benefited greatly from constant media attention and dozens of lightweight, obsequious interviews — but he is setting a new standard for redefining reality. When confronted with his own provocative statements, he will deny he ever said them. On Wednesday, for instance, he insisted he never said Japan should have nuclear weapons, even though The New York Times has recordings of him saying that very thing in an interview with the newspaper's editorial board.

When asked by reporters why he failed to give details about his money-raising for vets, he said he wanted to keep it all hush-hush. “I wanted to keep it private because I don't think it's anybody's business if I wanted to send [money] to the vets,” Trump insisted. The man has a strange definition of “private”, given that he kicked off the fundraising in a nationally televised event that was competing with a Fox News Republican candidates' debate that he was pointedly skipping.

And now, with the release of court records that detail the loathsome tactics his minions used to bilk suckers out of their money through his bogus “university”, Trump makes up his own facts and deflects queries by claiming he is being wrongly disparaged by an antagonistic judge who appears suspiciously “Mexican”. (The federal judge, Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing the class-action lawsuit brought by former Trump University students, was born in Indiana.)

Truth simply does not matter to Trump. He prefers fantasies that reinforce his preconceived notions or that help him in his ceaseless self-promotion. Four years ago, he invested his time and attention in the “birther” cause — the crazy and subliminally racist accusation that America's first black president was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. At a pivotal point in this year's primary battle, he latched onto fictitious reports that Ted Cruz's Cuban father hung out with Lee Harvey Oswald in the days before the assassination of President Kennedy. Last week in California, he seized on the blatantly bizarre notion that the years-long drought that has cut deeply into the state's water supply is a hoax.

In March, Politico magazine scrutinized every Trump statement and speech over one week of the campaign and found a steady stream of mischaracterizations, exaggerations and clear falsehoods — little lies that came at the rate of one every five minutes. For anyone who has listened with a sharp ear as Trump talks, the only surprise in the Politico analysis is that the fibs did not clock in with even more frequency.

It is not hard to recognize Trumpian logic in this exchange between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in “Through the Looking Glass”:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that's all.”

Mastering the opposition, mastering the media, mastering anyone who has the temerity to question or criticize him — that is all that matters to Trump. In Tuesday's news conference, an alarmed reporter asked Trump if his new level of contentiousness was a passing thing or “is this what it's going to be like if you are president?”

“Yes it is,” said Trump.

Finally, a simple, honest answer.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-in-wonderland-20160602-snap-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-in-wonderland-20160602-snap-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 04, 2016, 11:18:27 pm

from the San Francisco Chronicle....

Trump University model: Sell hard, demand to see a warrant

By JEFF HOROWITZ and Michael BIESECKER - Associated Press | 1:31PM PDT - Thursday, June 02, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160602_TrumpUniversity_zpsyzfydqso.jpg~original) (http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/46/64/44/10176827/11/920x920.jpg)
In this May 23rd, 2005, file photo, Donald Trump, left, listens as Michael Sexton introduces him at a news conference
in New York where he announced the establishment of Trump University. The manual for Trump University events
was precise: the room temperature should be 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Seats should be arranged in a theater-style
curve. And staff should only provide records to an attorney general if compelled by subpoena. Instructing
employees how to stall law enforcement investigations might seem like an unusual part of running
a seminar company, but at Trump University it was par for the course.
 — Photograph: Bebto Matthews/Associated Press.


WASHINGTON D.C. — The manual for the staff at Trump University events was precise: The room temperature should be 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Seats should be arranged in a theater-style curve. And government prosecutors had no right to see any documents without a warrant.

Instructing employees how to stall law enforcement investigations might seem like an unusual part of running a real estate seminar company. But at Trump University — which drew investigations by Democratic and Republican attorneys general alike — it was par for the course.

Trump University guides unsealed this week by a federal judge in southern California undercut Trump's portrayal of his one-time real estate seminar course as an uncontroversial operation. Instead, the manuals reflect boiler-room sales tactics — the proceeds of which went largely to Trump.

One guide encouraged staff to learn prospective enrollees' motivations in order to better sell them on products: “Are they a single parent of three children that may need money for food?” the guide asked. When people balked at paying for expensive courses, the suggested response for Trump University staff was harsh.

“I find it very difficult to believe you'll invest in anything else if you don't believe enough to invest in yourself and your education,” the guide offered as a recommended response.

Those who bought into Trump University ended up paying as much as $34,995 for what was purported to be private mentoring with supposed real estate experts — some of whom Trump himself later acknowledged were unqualified.

“It's fraud… straight-up fraud,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman during an MSNBC interview on Thursday morning. Schneiderman is suing Trump over Trump University in separate but similar case. “He was clearly in charge of pitching this scam university to people.”

With past Trump-affiliated business failures and controversies, Trump has often distanced himself by noting that his only financial involvement was a branding agreement. In the case of Trump University, however, Trump's ownership is not in dispute — Trump wanted the business for himself.

When future Trump University President Michael Sexton pitched Trump on the deal, he wanted to pay Trump a flat fee in a licensing deal. Trump rejected that, Sexton said in a deposition.

Trump “felt this was a very good business, and he wanted to put his own money into it,” said Sexton, who ended up receiving $250,000 a year from Trump to run a business in which Trump held more than a 90 percent stake. The design of the Trump University operating agreement “was entirely in the hands of the Trump legal team,” Sexton said.

Other court records and depositions showed that Trump and senior members of the Trump Organization were responsible for reviewing and signing all checks — and that Trump withdrew at least $2 million from the business.

Trump reviewed the advertising for Trump University's courses, Sexton said. And he did not believe Trump ever looked at what the three-day seminars included.

“Mr. Trump is not going to go through a 300-page, you know, binder of content,” Sexton said.

The impression of Trump's involvement given to potential customers was quite different, according to a script for Trump University telemarketers.

“You know who my boss is, right?” the script reads. “Mr. Trump is on a mission to create the next wave of independently wealthy entrepreneurs in America. Is that YOU?”

Trump has defended Trump University by citing surveys in which 98 percent of students reported being pleased with the program. But those surveys took place before students had experienced the full program and were not anonymous, plaintiffs lawyers have said. A higher percentage demanded refunds later.

On Thursday, Trump stood by Trump University in public comments on social media, writing that he planned to reopen Trump University. Such a move would be surprising, however, because Trump University has ceased to exist, has no assets, and according to a deposition by Sexton, was not meeting the Trump Organization's financial expectations.

As scores of students complained that Trump University was a rip-off, the Better Business Bureau in 2010 gave the school a D-minus, its second-lowest grade. State regulators also began to take notice.

Besides the probe that led to Attorney General Schneiderman's suit in New York, the office of then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, opened a civil investigation of “possibly deceptive trade practices.” Abbott's probe was quietly dropped in 2010 when Trump University agreed to end its operations in Texas. Trump subsequently donated $35,000 to Abbott's successful gubernatorial campaign, according to records.

A spokesman for Abbott, now Texas governor, declined to comment.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi briefly considered joining with Schneiderman in a multi-state suit against Trump University. Three days after Bondi's spokeswoman was quoted in local media reports as saying the office was reviewing the New York lawsuit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution to a political fundraising committee supporting Bondi's re-election campaign. Bondi, a Republican, soon dropped her investigation, citing insufficient grounds to proceed.


http://www.sfgate.com/news/texas/article/Trump-University-model-Sell-hard-demand-to-see-7960034.php (http://www.sfgate.com/news/texas/article/Trump-University-model-Sell-hard-demand-to-see-7960034.php)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 05, 2016, 10:42:35 pm

from The Washington Post....

Donald Trump said ‘university’ was all about education.
Actually, its goal was: ‘Sell, sell, sell!’


By TOM HAMBURGER, ROSALIND S. HELDERMAN and DALTON BENNETT | 4:52PM EDT - Saturday, June 04, 2016

WHEN Donald Trump introduced his new university from the lobby of his famous tower, he declared that it would be unlike any of his other ventures.

Trump University would be a noble endeavor, he said, with an emphasis on education over profits. It was a way for him to give back, to share his expertise with the masses, to build a “legacy as an educator”.

He wouldn't even keep all the money — if he happened to make a profit, he would turn the funds over to charity.

“If I had a choice of making lots of money or imparting lots of knowledge, I think I'd be as happy to impart knowledge as to make money,” Trump said at the inaugural news conference in the spring of 2005.

The launch of Trump University coincided with two auspicious developments for the real estate mogul: Through his then-year-old hit TV show “The Apprentice”, the billionaire was developing an image as America's savviest boss, while the nation's booming real estate market was giving hope to many who dreamed of striking it rich.

Ads touted Trump University as “the next best thing to being Trump's apprentice.” Trump, who every week on TV singled out someone to be fired, pledged in a promotional video to “hand-pick” instructors. “Priceless information” would help attendees build wealth in the same real estate game that made Trump rich.

In the end, few if any of these statements would prove to be true.

Trump University was not a university. It was not even a school. Rather, it was a series of seminars held in hotel ballrooms across the country that promised attendees they could get rich quick but were mostly devoted to enriching the people who ran them.

Participants were enticed with local newspaper ads featuring images of Trump, then encouraged to write checks or charge tens of thousands of dollars on credit cards for multi-day learning sessions. Participants were considered “buyers”, as one internal document put it. According to the company’s former president, Trump did not personally pick the instructors. Many attendees were trained by people with little or no real estate expertise, customers and former employees have alleged in lawsuits against the company.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160604tua_TrumpUniversityObjection_zpspyb90lgt.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/03/National-Enterprise/Images/trumpuniversity_objection.jpg)
Excerpt from a 2010 internal strategy guide for Trump University, known as a playbook, advising staff on how to sell
more expensive classes. — From 2010 Trump University playbook.


“I was told to do one thing,” said James Harris, a Trump University instructor whose sessions have been repeatedly cited in the litigation, in an interview with The Washington Post. “And that one thing was: … to show up to teach, train and motivate people to purchase the Trump University products and services and make sure everybody bought. That is it.”

A Trump spokesman said Harris's comments “have no merit” and accused Harris of “looking for media attention to further his own agenda.”

All told, Trump University received about $40 million in revenue from more than 5,000 participants before it halted operations in 2010 amid lawsuits in New York and California alleging widespread fraud. The New York attorney general estimated Trump netted more than $5 million during the five years it was active. He has since acknowledged that he gave none of the profits to charity.

This account is based on a review of hundreds of pages of internal company records that have become public as a result of the lawsuits, as well as new interviews with former Trump University employees and customers.

Many of the company's internal records, including several “playbooks” that advised employees on strategies for pressuring customers, were unsealed in court over the past week in response to a request by The Post.

Trump and his lawyers have vigorously disputed the allegations, predicting that they will win in court and reopen the business. They point to positive customer-satisfaction surveys that have been submitted in the lawsuits and suggest they have been unfairly targeted by trial lawyers and a politically motivated attorney general in New York.

“We continue to believe that people got substantial value and that people were overwhelmingly satisfied,” said Trump’s general counsel, Alan Garten. “We are not going to be stopping what we are doing. We are going to continue to zealously defend this case because, at the end of the day, we know we are not being tried by The Washington Post or by CNN — but in a courtroom by a jury.”

Garten acknowledged that Trump never gave away the profits to charity. He said it was always Trump's intention but that the lawyers leading the class-action suits against the company “got a hold of this and … whatever profits existed sort of evaporated.” The unfulfilled promise was first reported last year by Time magazine (http://time.com/4101290/what-the-legal-battle-over-trump-university-reveals-about-its-founder).

In his defense, Trump has often cited the many positive reviews by former customers. A number of them submitted sworn statements in court explaining their positive experiences at Trump University.

Kissy and Mark Gordon, who own a residential development company in Virginia and jointly signed up for the most expensive program in 2008, said in an interview that they still use techniques they learned from the course today.

“Did we have an expectation that Trump was going to teach us? No,” Kissy Gordon said. “We have a building background and the economy changed, and we were looking for something in the same field to do something with it. So we were there to learn.”

Gregory Leishman, another former customer, recalled speaking to his assigned Trump University mentor on the phone weekly and touring potential properties for purchase with him in New Haven, Connecticut. “They gave me information I didn't have otherwise,” he said. “You can probably get all that information from reading books. But Trump University was a crash course. You pay more, you get more.”

Nonetheless, the company has emerged as one of the most potent lines of attack against Trump's campaign for president.

In the Republican primary, Senator Marco Rubio (Florida) cited it as a “fake university” and sought to use it to help build a case that Trump was a “con artist”.

In recent days, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and her campaign have picked up on that theme.

“Trump U is devastating because its a metaphor for his whole campaign: promising hardworking Americans a way to get ahead, but all based on lies,” tweeted press secretary Brian Fallon.

Trump also last week invited a torrent of criticism, including from legal scholars on the left and right, for accusing the judge presiding over the California suits, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, of being biased because he is of Mexican descent. Trump has said that Curiel is “Mexican”, although the 62-year-old was born in Indiana, and that because Trump wants to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border the judge cannot properly do his job.

The focus on Trump University also reignited a controversy in Texas over the decision there by the state attorney general not to file a fraud case against the business. Newly disclosed documents reported by Texas media show that investigators had probed the company for seven months and recommended a lawsuit. The inquiry was shut down when Trump University closed up shop in the state.

Trump later gave $35,000 to the gubernatorial campaign of then-Attorney General Greg Abbott. A spokesman for Abbott, now the Republican governor of Texas, has said it's “absurd” to suggest a connection between the case and the donation that came several years later and that Trump University was “forced out of Texas and consumers were protected.”

Garten also dismissed any connection between the Texas decision and Trump's donation, saying investigators reviewed “a few complaints … and decided not to proceed.”


‘Sell, sell, sell’

The Trump University sales pitch began at free seminars, such as one hosted at a Holiday Inn just outside of Washington in 2009.

A placard outside the ballroom read, “Trump, think BIG”. Inside, aspiring real estate investors heard the theme song from “The Apprentice”, the O'Jays classic, “For the Love of Money”.

Then, a Trump University instructor took the microphone. “All right, you guys ready to be the next Trump real estate millionaire? Yes or No!?” he yelled, according to a Washington Post account at the time.

The purpose of these free 90-minute introductions was not to turn attendees into millionaires, but rather to “set the hook” for future sales, according to employee playbooks.

The playbooks directed leaders of the free seminars to conclude introductory events by getting “in the sales mindset”, “ready to sell, sell, sell!”


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160604tub_TrumpUniversityBulletPoints_zpsayxsadt9.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/03/National-Enterprise/Images/trumpuniversity_bullets.jpg)
Excerpt from a 2010 internal strategy guide for Trump University, known as a playbook, advising staff on how to sell
more expensive classes. — From 2010 Trump University playbook.


Three-day courses typically cost $1,495, the records show. But people who paid to attend them were then urged to sign up for even pricier “elite” programs.

A “workshop enrollment form” distributed to participants laid out the options in categories, starting with the “Trump Gold Elite” program. At $34,995, it was the most expensive option — providing three days of personal, in-the-field mentorship as well as special programs on real estate investment, “wealth preservation” and “creative financing”.

The “Trump Silver Elite” package, priced at $19,495, offered real estate and finance training. The “Trump Bronze Elite”, priced at $9,995, offered similar, but fewer, courses.

Employees distributed “profile” surveys on the first day of the seminars, in which participants would outline their financial goals, as well as current assets and liabilities. Attendees were told that the information would help them figure out how much they had to invest in real estate, according to customer complaints.

But in the evenings, after seminars had concluded for the first day, staff members were instructed to use the information to rank each participant according to assets they had available to spend on more Trump University programs.

“If they can afford the gold elite,” the playbook advised, “don't allow them to think about doing anything besides the gold elite.”

A 43-page “sales playbook” offered guidance on using psychological tools to convince students that they needed to sign up for the classes to fulfill their own goals — overcoming their worries that they might not need or be able to afford the classes.

“Customers don't have needs — they have problems,” the book advised. “Problems are like health. The more a problem hurts now, the more the need for a solution now. And the more it hurts, the more they'll be prepared to pay for a speedy solution.”

In a section devoted to “negotiating student resistance,” sales people were offered sample responses to common objections from potential students. If a potential customer said he was concerned about going into debt to pay for the classes, staff were advised to needle them: “I see, do you like living paycheck to paycheck?”

If doubts persisted, staffers were advised to invoke the big boss himself.

“Mr. Trump won't listen to excuses and neither will we,” the instructors were told to say.

Former students have said they were instructed to call their credit card companies on the spot and raise their borrowing limit to pay for the program.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Washington%20Post%20Pix%202016/20160604tuc_TrumpUniversityExcuses_zpstnhapmkm.jpg) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/03/National-Enterprise/Images/trumpuniversity_excuses.jpg)
Excerpt from a 2010 internal strategy guide for Trump University, known as a playbook, advising staff on how to sell
more expensive classes. This from a part of the playbook advising staff how to respond if potential customers raise
potential objections to buying. — From 2010 Trump University playbook.


Harris, the former instructor, recalled one of his typical pitches to urge customers to find money for programs: “Do you have any equity on your home? Do you have a 401(k) or IRA?”

Harris, 47, said he was one of Trump University's biggest sellers. Garten, Trump's lawyer, said Harris was one of the most highly rated instructors.

Instructors had to sell hard to turn participants at free seminars into paying customers.

For the four years Trump University operated, more than 80,300 people attended the free introductory sessions. Those previews were offered 2,000 times in nearly 700 locations around the country.

But only around 6,000 people paid between $995 and $1,995 to attend three-day seminars, director of operations Mark Covais said in a 2012 affidavit. According to Covais, 572 people paid the full $34,995 for the top-level Trump University mentorship.


All about Trump

The entire program was built around Trump — his picture, his quotes and the promise of obtaining access to his special formula for prosperity.

One ad for the free Trump University seminars that appeared in a Corpus Christi, Texas, newspaper in 2009 promised attendees that they would “Learn from the Master,” below a picture of Trump.

“I can turn anyone into a successful real estate investor,” read a quote on the ad, attributed to Trump.

The California class-action lawsuit contains 49 separate instances of Trump University attendees being told their instructor or future mentor was personally chosen by Trump in 2009 alone.

“Donald Trump personally picked me,” one instructor told a group at a free seminar in May 2009, according to a transcript of the session filed as part of the New York case. “He could have picked anybody in this world but he picked me and the reason he picked me is because I've been very, very successful helping average people make a lot of money.”

Harris, the former instructor, told an introductory meeting of potential customers in 2009 that Trump's personal generosity was a core element of the program.

“He did not have to start this university,” Harris told the group, according to a transcript in the New York case. “He does not need the money…. He does not get a dime of it. Does everyone understand this? Please say ‘yes’, He does not need the money.”

In one presentation cited in the New York lawsuit, Harris described Trump as instrumental to his own efforts to turn his life around just after high school.

“I lived on the streets of New York, mostly down in the subways for the first nine months, and I did a lot of things to make some money,” he told a group attending a 2008 event. “And then I met a gentleman and he took me in, and I lived with him for a year and he taught me how to do real estate. He is still my mentor today. So the reason I am here is because Donald Trump picked me.”

In an interview, Harris said he met Trump once in the early 1990s, backstage at an event at the Taj Mahal casino. “Here is the truth,” he said. “When I was at Trump University, I had not one interaction with him ever. Not one.”

In reality, the instructors were not close to Trump, and many were not experts in real estate, according to several ex-staffers who have testified in the lawsuits.

“The Trump University instructors and mentors were a joke,” said Jason Nicholas, who worked for the company for seven months in 2007 and submitted a statement in the lawsuit. “In my opinion, it was just selling false hopes and lies.”

Michael Sexton, who was president of Trump University, acknowledged in sworn testimony in the New York case that none of the event instructors were hand-picked by Trump. Trump told lawyers in California that he would not dispute Sexton's statement — nor could he remember a series of instructors, including Harris, by name or face.

Trump also did not review course curriculum, Sexton said.

“He would never do that,” Sexton said. “Mr. Trump is not going to go through a 300-page, you know, binder of content.”

Only when it came to marketing material was Trump deeply involved, reviewing every piece of advertisement, Sexton testified.

“Mr. Trump understandably is protective of his brand and very protective of his image and how he's portrayed,” Sexton said. “And he wanted to see how his brand and image were portrayed in Trump University marketing materials. And he had very good and substantive input as well.”

Garten, the Trump attorney, said Trump was engaged as any CEO would be in the operations. Outside experts designed the curriculum, Garten said, but Trump was “intimately involved” in the process. While Trump may not have selected every instructor, Garten said he was “very much involved in the process and the discussion of what type of instructor was desired.”


Selling success

At the courses, students were supposed to learn Trump's secrets of real estate success.

But in sworn testimony in New York, Sexton could recall only one Trump practice that was incorporated into the courses: Invest in foreclosed properties.

The lesson underscored how Trump University, which was formed to teach aspiring business people to profit from the fast-expanding housing market, tailored itself after the 2008 economic crash to offer guidance on profiting from the aftermath.

One ad placed in the San Antonio Express-News in October 2009 promised that seminars would allow participants to “learn from Donald Trump's handpicked experts how you can profit from the largest real estate liquidation in history.”

At a seminar called “Fast Track to Foreclosure”, students were instructed to find OPM, “other people's money,” to buy homes out of foreclosure at depressed prices, dress them up with new paint and attractive landscaping — then flip them for profit.

Attendees were advised to use credit cards to invest in real estate, and they were told how to persuade credit card companies to raise their credit limits. If a credit card company representative asked for their income, they were advised to add $75,000 in anticipated earnings from their real estate venture before providing a figure for their expected earnings for the year.

Some customers have also alleged they were told there would be a personal appearance at the session by Trump. Instead, they received the opportunity to get their photograph taken with a life-size cardboard cutout of the mogul.

John Brown, a customer who provided a sworn statement in the New York case, described how he “came to realize that I was not adequately trained, which caused me to feel that Trump University had taken advantage of me.”

Brown said he paid $1,495 for a three-day seminar in 2009 and then used multiple credit cards to charge a $24,995 Trump mentorship program. Three years later, he said he had made no real estate investments using Trump knowledge — but was still paying off $20,000 from the courses.

“Because of the Trump name,” he said, “I felt these classes would be the best.”


Alice Crites contributed to this report.

• Tom Hamburger covers the intersection of money and politics for The Washington Post.

• Rosalind Helderman is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post.

• Dalton Bennett is a political video reporter covering the 2016 election for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related story:

 • In downturn, aspiring moguls turn to Trump U. for wisdom (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/25/AR2009092502307.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-said-university-was-all-about-education-actually-its-goal-was-sell-sell-sell/2016/06/04/5b6545d0-2819-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-said-university-was-all-about-education-actually-its-goal-was-sell-sell-sell/2016/06/04/5b6545d0-2819-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 05, 2016, 10:43:19 pm

I think a more appropriate title for this thread would be, “TRUMP the thieving, lying CUNT!”


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Calliope on June 05, 2016, 11:49:51 pm
Donald Trump Leaked PornHub Parody Video Gives You Even More Of The Donald
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-porn-parody-video-pornhub_uk_5751428be4b0b23a261a03ee (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-porn-parody-video-pornhub_uk_5751428be4b0b23a261a03ee)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 07, 2016, 03:57:34 am
ktj is a frustrated festering lefty who might need to visit pornhub for some relief into an old sock (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/08_Laugh.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 07, 2016, 08:21:52 am

YOU can't handle the truth, which is that your HERO is a rip-off artist, a conman, a thief, a criminal, a liar, a bully, a piece of shit!

Trump must be a total idiot if he thought the news media weren't going to dig into his past and drag up all this unsavoury stuff about the TRUE Donald Trump.

The hilarious thing is the number of stupid, gullible people in the USA who are either too thick, or who choose to ignore the evidence which is everywhere.

In fact, there are even stupid, gullible people in New Zealand who are too thick, or who choose to ignore the evidence of Trump's unsavoury dealings and TRUE charactor.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 07, 2016, 01:23:47 pm
the media have fuck all on trump those lying media cunts make shit up like you do ktj

ktj you talk such a load of hate filled leftist cock sucker bullshit next to you trump is an angel

you are so funny ktj when you call people idiots but it's you who really are the dumbest prick i ever heard
i'm ashamed that you're a white trash racist kiwi arse hole because you are giving us good kiwis a bad you're such a dead ball twat.

so let's get your story right everyone one is an idiot except you you lying wanker hahaha


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 07, 2016, 03:43:03 pm

The media have a shitload of Trump's unsavoury history, including telling lies, ripping people off, getting stuff made cheap in China and Mexico so he can maximise his profits, then ranting & raving about Chinese and Mexicans taking American jobs. The thing about Trump is that he has always been a narcissistic character who has manufactured his own high profile, with the result that he has been reported on in the news media, and interviewed and recorded with video cameras and audio recording devices at his numerous self-called news media conferences over the decades. And guess what? All those recordings and videos still exist. So Trump can deny all he likes that he DIDN'T say things, but those recordings exist in news media archives to PROVE he is a LYING PIECE OF SHIT.

Then, there are the gullible, simpleton idiots who believe Trump's bullshit in spite of all that archived audio and video footage and numerous documents. Which just goes to show that those simpleton idiots are stupid retards.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on June 07, 2016, 04:25:26 pm
I'm not too sure about those paragons of virtue, the Clintons, Bushes - the Obamas....

Strangely enough, in recent times Reagan is one I cant recall dirt on - but I'm sure its only a momentary glitch in my memory.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 08, 2016, 01:48:02 am
media's job is hypnotising the masses
the media is owned by the big six corporations and being so this means it is controlled by the elite, they are portraying the things they need the masses to believe in so they can hold on to their corrupt power which they use to control the hearts and minds of the mindless.
lately they have been losing their grip as a lot of the people have all began waking up and they have started to peer behind the curtain which is upsetting their handlers

trump is like a breath of fresh air with his un pc style of speaking his mind and not caring or afraid about what he says and hes saying what a lot of the awake humans already know.

that is the fact that almost everything we are told by the media is a lie.

trump is not in it for the power or the money as he already has both of those 2 things,he is putting his life on the line and is in great danger and he knows this.
the people who support trump hope that he will improve their lives and restore america back to the way it was intended to be when it was founded not as a democracy but a constitutional republic ruled by the people and for the people with true justice and rights for all unlike it has become now where 2 wolves can vote to eat the sheep for dinner.

i believe he does have good intentions and wants to make a better future for the american people plus his own children and grandchildren.

the powers that be and the ones screaming the most are controlled and funded by the elite who control both the left and the right as it serves their interest to cause division among the masses and get them all fighting against each other.

us schools have become state run brainwashing institutions full of leftist teachers training children to behave like self centred spoilt brats who for some strange reason think they are important without need to have any honor and believe the world owes them a free ride, they are such a worthless generation of fools walking around with iphones glued to their eyes,most are unable to read,their minds are like grasshoppers that jump from one stupid fad to the next.

i am afraid soon these kids are about to get a rude awakening as they will need to learn to live in the real world and will be forced to grow up.

at this moment the kids in america are so screwed up i feel sorry for them but at the moment they are having fun chanting fuck donald trump lol.

my hope is trump can do away with all the forms of control and the red tape which is screwing up the whole planet.

who knows trump might turn out to be an arsehole like all the others were but where there's a chance for real changes to this world it gives me something good to hope for,i hope for real change and not just words.




Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 10, 2016, 12:29:53 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump bigotry has shameless defenders, from GOP pols to CNN shills

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Thursday, June 09, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160609dh_zps31f6xm0m.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-57591392/turbine/la-1465455668-snap-photo)

IT IS a wondrous thing to watch the mental and moral gymnastics Republican politicians and political surrogates put themselves through to defend Donald Trump. This week, they've had to work especially hard for their 30 pieces of silver to justify Trump's bigoted remarks about a “Mexican” judge.

The target of Trump's latest self-serving rant is U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing a class-action lawsuit brought by hundreds of people who claim they were bamboozled by the billionaire's bogus Trump University. Trump alleges that Curiel is treating him unfairly — the big baby is always whimpering about being treated unfairly by someone — because the judge is a Mexican.

Actually, Curiel is an Indiana-born American, but his parents are from Mexico and Trump told the Wall Street Journal that amounts to “an absolute conflict.” Why? Because Trump wants to build a wall along the Mexican border and, because Curiel might not approve of that, he is bound to be biased in his rulings. At least that is Trump's skewed reasoning, based on no evidence.

Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who tried to minimize the impact of his endorsement of Trump for the GOP presidential nomination by publishing it in his hometown newspaper in Wisconsin, was at least direct in his characterization of Trump's comments. He called the candidate's words a “textbook definition of a racist comment.” Other Republicans were less forthright.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell went before reporters to tell Trump he should “quit attacking the various people you competed with and various minority groups and get on message.” His concern, apparently, was less what Trump said than it was his lack of campaign discipline. Utah GOP Senator Orrin Hatch showed little concern about Trump's bigoted assertion that a Latino judge's ethnicity should be disqualifying. Hatch told the media that, because poor little Donald is new to politics, they should “be nice to him.” Trump's prized lap dog, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, defended his new master. “I've known him for 14 years,” Christie said. “And Donald Trump is not a racist.”

The most brazen defense was put up by two of Trump's shills at CNN on Tuesday night. The first zinger came from Kayleigh McEnany, one of the gaggle of vacuous young women who are vying to establish themselves in the lucrative business of conservative punditry. McEnany, a constant guest on CNN, is notorious for her inability to veer from Trump-friendly talking points. She outdid herself this time when she tried to change the subject from Trump's remarks to the terribly unfair way the man has been treated by the media. Incredibly, it took other panelists several seconds too long to point out that Trump's successful campaign has been built almost entirely on unlimited free media attention and a long string of softball interviews.

McEnany's inanity was exceeded only by CNN's favored Trump surrogate, Jeffrey Lord. The veteran political operative who was an aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp is usually much more nuanced in his Trump pumping. But this time his spin veered into the surreal. Trump's comments weren't racist, he argued, Trump was “calling attention to racism.” Lord went on to accuse Ryan and McConnell of playing the race card by critiquing Trump.

Wow. That's what you call bold. And loyal. And twisted.

The most venal thing about what Trump said actually goes beyond racism. It is that he is intentionally stirring up ethnic animosity in order to deflect scrutiny of the abundant evidence that he and his trained sharks bilked hundreds of people out of the many thousands of dollars they paid for worthless courses at his “university”. And, in so doing, Trump is defaming Curiel, a respected jurist and former prosecutor whom the last Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, calls a hero in the fight against Mexican drug cartels.

If the Republican politicians who are defending Trump had not lost their sense of decency, they would be ashamed of themselves. CNN's Trumpistas McEnany and Lord are, obviously, incapable of shame. They are what they are, professional spinmeisters angling for a better TV gig or a job in the Trump White House. Too bad Trump University is defunct. McEnany and Lord could have been professors.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-bigotry-20160609-snap-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-bigotry-20160609-snap-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 12, 2016, 12:13:42 am

Donald Trump addressed a major gathering of the American Indian Nation.

He spoke for almost an hour about his plans for increasing every Native American's present standard of living.
 
Though vague in detail, he spoke about his ideas for helping his “red sisters and brothers”.

Afterwards, the Tribes presented him with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name, “Walking Eagle”, which he proudly accepted.

After Trump left, a news reporter asked the chiefs how they came to select this name.
 
They explained that “Walking Eagle” is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly.





(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/TooFunny.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingPinkPanther.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ROFLMAO_Dog.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingHard.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ItchyBugga.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 13, 2016, 11:59:38 am
ktj him speak with fork tongue lol


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 13, 2016, 04:54:38 pm

FACT-CHECKER (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker)


....where Donald Trump's LIES & BULLSHIT & FALSEHOODS are exposed by FACTS, as are the lies & untruths spouted by other politicians, although it's interesting to note that Donald Trump's LIES seem to come up more often than the LIES of any other politician.

No doubt the STUPID (ie....Trump-supporters) will avoid FACT-CHECKER like the plague, because they'll be too scared of learning they are gullible idiots!



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 13, 2016, 07:39:25 pm

from The Washington Post....

As its stock collapsed, Trump's firm gave
him huge bonuses and paid for his jet


By DREW HARWELL | 3:28PM EDT - Sunday, June 12, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160612dt_DonaldTrump_zpsklrrnkyp.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/03/23/Production/Daily/A-Section/Images/AP_9506070565.jpg)
Donald Trump appears above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange on June 7th, 1995, the day that Trump Hotels
and Casino Resorts went public at $14 a share. — Photograph: Kathy Willens/Associated Press.


IT WAS promoted as the chance of a lifetime: Mom-and-pop investors could buy shares in celebrity businessman Donald Trump's first public company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts.

Their investments were quickly depleted. The company known by Trump's initials, DJT, crumbled into a penny stock and filed for bankruptcy after less than a decade, costing shareholders millions of dollars, even as other casino companies soared.

In its short life, Trump the company greatly enriched Trump the businessman, paying to have his personal jet piloted and buying heaps of Trump-brand merchandise. Despite losing money every year under Trump's leadership, the company paid Trump handsomely, including a $5 million bonus in the year the company's stock plummeted 70 percent.

Many of those who lost money were Main Street shareholders who believed in the Trump brand, such as Sebastian Pignatello, a retired private investor in Queens. By the time of the 2004 bankruptcy, Pignatello's 150,000 shares were worth pennies on the dollar.

“He had been pillaging the company all along,” said Pignatello, who joined shareholders in a lawsuit against Trump that has since been settled. “Even his business allies, they were all fair game. He has no qualms about screwing anybody. That's what he does.”

Trump's bid for the White House relies heavily on his ability to sell himself as a master businessman, a standout performer in real estate and reality TV.

But interviews with former shareholders and analysts as well as years of financial filings reveal a striking characteristic of his business record: Even when his endeavors failed and other people lost money, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee found a way to make money for himself, to market his Trump-branded products and to pay for his expensive lifestyle.

Trump was the chairman of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts in Atlantic City from 1995 to 2009, his only outing as the head of a major public company. During that time, the company lost more than $1 billion, financial records show. He also was chief executive from 2000 to 2005, during which time share prices plunged from a high of $35 to as low as 17 cents.

Trump received more than $44 million in salary, bonuses and other compensation during his time at the company, filings show. He also benefited from tens of millions of dollars more in special deals, advisory fees and “service agreements” he negotiated with his company.

Trump's campaign did not make him available to respond to specific questions about the company, but in a recent Washington Post interview, Trump said he “made a lot of money in Atlantic City,” adding, “I make great deals for myself.”

He expounded: “They say, ‘Why don't you take the casinos public or something?’ You know, if you take them public, you make money on that. All I can say is I wasn't representing the country. I wasn't representing the banks. I wasn't representing anybody but myself.”

Corporate governance experts say it's rare for executives of public companies to suggest that they haven't been looking out for the shareholders who financed them.

“When companies go public, when they first invite investors in … they say: ‘I promise you, you will come first. We are here to create shareholder value, and that's why you should trust us’,” said Nell Minow, the vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, which advises shareholders on corporate governance issues. “For them to say, ‘I don’t really care about you’, it's basically your [sell] signal. Who's going to make sure my interests as a shareholder are going to be protected?”


Whatever price he wanted

Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts started out as a holding company that owned the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, and then it steadily added other Trump properties.

Because it was publicly traded, Trump could sell shares and quickly raise money while other corners of his empire were in distress. Virtually all of Trump's other businesses are privately held, so key information about their performance is hidden from view.

The company began advertising its public offering of stock in 1995, saying shareholders would benefit (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/943320/0000950130-96-000349.txt) from “the widespread recognition of the ‘Trump’ name and its association with high quality amenities and first class service.”

When it debuted that year on the New York Stock Exchange, Trump's company raised $140 million from investors, at $14 a share, and said the money would go toward expanding the Plaza and developing a riverboat casino in Indiana.

But much of that money went to pay off tens of millions of dollars in loans Trump had personally guaranteed, filings show. Those loans were taken out before the company went public, but Trump's private fortune could have been at risk if they went unpaid.

The company got off to an encouraging start. An improving national economy and an upturn in Atlantic City gambling helped shares soar to a peak of $35 in 1996. That boosted the value of Trump's stake in the company and helped him return to the Forbes 400 list — the magazine's ranking of America's wealthiest people — for the first time since 1989.

The early success didn't last long. In less than a year, the company paid premium prices for two of Trump's deeply indebted, privately held casinos, the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Castle. In essence, he was both buyer and seller, able to set whatever price he wanted. The company bought his Castle for $100 million more than analysts said it was worth. Trump pocketed $880,000 in cash after arranging the deal, financial filings show (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/943320/0000940180-97-000299.txt).


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160612tm_TajMahal_zps5lx1wosi.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1024w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/12/National-Economy/Images/GettyImages-73578904-0485.jpg)
The Trump Taj Mahal, seen in this March 14th, 2007 photo, was one of two Atlantic City
properties sold to Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts in 1996.
 — Photograph: William Thomas Cain/Getty Images.


By the end of 1996, shareholders who had bet on a rosy Trump future were now investors in a company with $1.7 billion of Trump's old debt. The company was forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on interest payments, more than the casinos brought in, securities filings show. The unprofitable company couldn't afford the upgrades it needed to compete with newer gambling rivals.

Spooked investors fled the company in 1996, sending its share price down to $12. As millions of dollars in shareholder value evaporated, the company gave Trump a $7 million pay package, including a 71 percent raise to his salary, financial filings show. Trump defended his compensation by telling the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB860714452669000), “Other than the stock price, we're doing great.”

“He ran these companies into the ground,” Graef Crystal, an executive-pay consultant who watched the company at the time, said in an interview.

As the company spiraled downward, it continued to pay for Trump's luxuries. Between 1998 and 2005, it spent more than $6 million to “entertain high-end customers” on Trump's plane and golf courses and about $2 million to maintain his personal jet and have it piloted, a Washington Post analysis of company filings shows.

Trump also steered the company toward deals with the rest of the Trump-brand empire. Between 2006 and 2009, the company bought $1.7 million of Trump-brand merchandise, including $1.2 million of Trump Ice bottled water, the analysis shows.

“If you're chairman of the company, there have to be safeguards to avoid that kind of blatant self-dealing,” said Pignatello, who said he lost tens of thousands of dollars in the investment. “He was milking the company.”


A ‘basket of goodies’

The grand promises and boasting Trump had become famous for as a private businessman became a source of tension with public investors. Wall Street traders spoke of the “Donald discount” to highlight the gap between what Trump promised and what they believed his stock was actually worth.

Trump said in 1997 (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/05/19/trump-solo) that he was “the biggest there is in the casino business.” But that March, when the stock was trading at a quarter of its price 10 months before, Chase bond analyst Steve Ruggiero said (http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/09/business/long-odds-for-the-shares-of-trump-s-casino-company.html) the company wasn't “forthcoming” about its financial performance with analysts, which he said “raises suspicions.”

The company at times ran into trouble. In 1998, the U.S. Treasury fined one of the Trump casinos $477,000 for failing to file reports designed to help guard against money laundering. Trump did not comment then on the action. The company agreed last year to pay a $10 million civil penalty after regulators found that it had continued to violate the reporting and record-keeping requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act (https://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/bsa).

In 2000, Trump and his partners paid $250,000 to settle a case brought by New York state alleging that they had secretly funded an ad blitz opposing the opening of competing casinos in the Catskill Mountains. “It's been settled. We're happy it all worked out nicely,” Trump said then (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/06/nyregion/trump-and-others-accept-fines-for-ads-in-opposition-to-casinos.html).

In 2002, federal securities regulators issued a cease-and-desist order against the company, saying it had misled shareholders by publishing a news release with numbers “deceptively” skewed to appear more upbeat. The company said it quickly corrected the error and was not fined. Trump defended the release by saying (http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB101119802590296360) it “was just a statement that was too verbose.”

The company lost money every year of Trump’s leadership, and its share price suffered. A shareholder who bought $100 of DJT shares in 1995 could sell them for about $4 in 2005. The same investment in MGM Resorts would have increased in value to about $600.

In 2004, the year Trump took home a $1.5 million salary, stock-exchange officials froze trading in the company — and, later, delisted it entirely — as word spread that it was filing for bankruptcy because of about $1.8 billion in debt.

Under the company's Chapter 11 reorganization plan, shareholders' stake in the company shrunk from roughly 40 percent to about 5 percent. Trump, meanwhile, would remain chairman — and receive a $2 million annual salary, a $7.5 million beachfront tract in Atlantic City and a personal stake in the company's Miss Universe pageant.

“I don't think it’s a failure. It's a success,” Trump said in 2004 (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6556470/ns/business-us_business/t/trump-casinos-file-bankruptcy) about the bankruptcy. “The future looks very good.”

Shareholders sued, saying in court filings that the “sweetheart deal” amounted to a “basket of goodies” for Trump. “Chairmen of public companies usually don't celebrate when millions of dollars of shareholder equity are being wiped out,” attorneys wrote in a court filing that year. “Donald Trump apparently does.”

Trump settled, agreeing to give creditors $17.5 million in cash and the proceeds from an auction of the Atlantic City land.

Trump has said he had no regrets about the company's performance. “Entrepreneurially speaking, not necessarily from the standpoint of running a company but from an entrepreneur's standpoint, [the stock offering] was one of the great deals,” he told Fortune in 2004 (http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/04/19/367357/index.htm).


The ‘imperial CEO’

Company decisions were, as in most public companies, approved by a board of directors. None of the original directors responded to requests for comment. Trump wrote in his book “Trump: Surviving at the Top” that he “personally didn't like answering to a board of directors.”

Charles Elson, the director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said that Trump exemplified the corporate-American role once known as the “imperial CEO”: an unchallenged, dominant leader who singlehandedly steered the company.

“The CEO ran the show … and the board was the creature of the CEO,” Elson said. “These days, it's very different,” he added, because of a shift toward greater oversight from company directors and the increasing presence of activist shareholders.

One later director was close to Trump: his daughter. Ivanka Trump was named to the board of directors in 2007, when she was 26 and had been working for two years at her father's private company, the Trump Organization. The public company paid her $188,861 in cash and stock awards that year, filings show. Representatives for Ivanka Trump declined to comment.

Ivanka and Donald Trump both resigned from the company in 2009, after Trump declared in a statement that he strongly disagreed with bondholders who had been pushing the company to file again for bankruptcy.

“The company has represented for quite some time substantially less than 1 percent of my net worth, and my investment in it is worthless to me now,” Trump said at the time.

The company, now called Trump Entertainment Resorts, never escaped its crippling debt and filed for bankruptcy twice more, in 2009 and 2014. Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor Trump has called a friend, took control of the public company this year.

Trump's corporate reign was disruptive enough to give even his biggest supporters pause. Jimmy Mullins, a Trump superfan who once paid for specialty “TRMP 1” license plates, said he bought some of the company's first publicly traded shares believing that Trump would lead the casinos to glory. “How could you lose money at a casino?” Mullins said in a recent interview.

But in 2009, after losing money, Mullins told the Press of Atlantic City newspaper: “He let us down… I could have bought another [car]. That's how much money I lost in this company.”

Mullins, now 64 and working part time at a catering hall in New York, said Trump called him after the story appeared and offered him complimentary hotel stays at the casino. Mullins said he was upset when interviewed in 2009 but no longer feels that way. He said he intends to vote for Trump for president.

“Other people did lose money,” Mullins said. “But he took care of me.”


Alice Crites contributed to this report.

• Drew Harwell is a national business reporter at The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/as-its-stock-collapsed-trumps-firm-gave-him-huge-bonuses-and-paid-for-his-jet/2016/06/12/58458918-2766-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/as-its-stock-collapsed-trumps-firm-gave-him-huge-bonuses-and-paid-for-his-jet/2016/06/12/58458918-2766-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 13, 2016, 08:24:41 pm
when people gamble some people win and some lose i love to gamble sometimes i lose but i dont cry about it lol

tell us all about your life experiences ktj, your great investments and goals and how are they going i am guessing you never made any mistakes so you learnt nothing except how to blame everyone one else  for your own failures

what have you ever done that has saved any of the world's people from their hardships

i bet you done nothing except just moan like a bitch and stir as much shit as you can
how wonderful lol

fuck off to africa and dig some wells that's all you're good for


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 13, 2016, 08:48:42 pm

The only time Trump as run a public company with other shareholders' money, he ripped them off and mis-managed the company, while at the same time lining his own pockets, like the incompetent businessman and thief he really is.

Imagine trusting him with the US Treasury (ie....American taxpayers' money) to enrich himself with?

His public business history tells us Trump is a crook, so he is the last person who is fit to be Prez of the USA.

Trump the LIAR, Trump the CROOK!!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 13, 2016, 09:42:37 pm
you're so full of bullshit your words and your self hating white life add up to nothing lol


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 14, 2016, 12:23:49 pm

Read the article.....click on the hotlinks contained within the article.....it is all backed up with FACTS.

FACTS you are deliberately refusing to see, because it doesn't fit with the delusion which is your view of the LIAR and CROOK Donald Trump.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 14, 2016, 07:12:46 pm
the washington post have been accused of making shit up now why would they do that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INYmeH8EFTM
so its hard for me to believe any of it that is unless i am wearing wearing my stupid commie goggles

there is no scripted mainstream news brainwashing for the dumbed down public zombie

there's nothing happening here believe your masters people and go back to sleep zzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/knuppel2.gif)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZVv2AOCnaA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCfTIapds0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfQ6wYiGQak

but wait there's more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5Wy66GSuGs


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 14, 2016, 08:29:45 pm

It still doesn't change the fact that Trump is a MORON, a LIAR and a CROOK.

Nor does it change the fact that there are a lot of stupid people who are gullible enough to believe all of Trump's bullshit.

Hahaha....if Trump announced he was GOD, no doubt all of those stupid people would bow down and worship him, 'cause that's how mentally-retarded Trump supporters are.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 14, 2016, 09:54:48 pm
you need to watch thode films below to see how your brain work ?

well you should know all about trump because you are all the same things you call him  ;D

trumps your daddy be funny if he win drafts all the leftist pc moron trolls and sends them all over to fight isis

i would pay good money to watch that on tv haha


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 17, 2016, 07:12:04 pm

from The New Zealand Herald....

Dear America, can we do a deal on Trump?

For the love of the human race, please don’t put
this vindictive xenophobe in the White House.


By TOBY MANHIRE | 5:00AM - Friday, June 17, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160614_TheWall_zpsvxlw3kna.jpg) (http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/i/3/f/9/image.gallery.landscape.620x413.1t3j0.png/1466061765336.jpg)

DEAR LAND OF THE FREE and home of the brave,

Gidday from New Zealand, a small country in the depths of the Pacific. All Blacks, Hobbits, Lorde, all that. Steven Adams? I'm like a shorter, fatter, less good at basketball version of him.

I'm writing on behalf of everyone in New Zealand, and everyone in our vassal state Australia, and actually pretty much everyone outside the United States. That might seem a bold claim — and don't be misled by any comments underneath the online version of this column disputing the fact that I'm speaking for everybody; I had them arranged in the cause of verisimilitude — but boldness has a lot to recommend it. As business mogul Donald Trump explained in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal, “a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.”

As it happens, my cause for writing on behalf of everyone is the very same Donald Trump.

It was all good fun for a while, him mouthing off like a deranged, carrot-stained car salesman, a 4-year-old on a sugary bender: jaw-dropping, sure, but inescapably destined to fall out of favour as the Republican primaries wore on. And yet, there he is: the actual GOP candidate. It isn't funny any more, and so as great admirers of America and Americans, we beseech you: don't do it. Don't.

It gives me no pleasure to write this. Open letters make me squirm — such a mawkish device; to be avoided at all costs, unless the future of the world is at stake. There's genuine risk, what is more, in outsiders wading over democratic borders. When Britain's Guardian newspaper in 2004 encouraged readers, with half a tongue in its cheek, to write to voters in Clark County and encourage them to support John Kerry over George Bush, not everyone loved it. Among the advice from residents of the knife-edge swing county: “weenie-spined limeys” from a “crappy little island full of yellow teeth” should understand that “real Americans aren't interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions”. In the end, there was a swing. To the Republicans.

Nevertheless, it falls to me to convey the mood of pretty much all the world. Our concern has compounded in recent days as Trump pounced on the massacre of 49 people in Orlando and exploited it for base political gain, beginning with a tweet that read, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism” and continuing into a double-down on the promise to ban Muslim immigration, adding migrants from all countries who have any terrorist history to the prohibition, despite the fact that the Orlando murderer was born in New York.

We get it, he's a consummate attention-seeker, a loudmouth, a blowhard. As four-time bankrupt reality TV personality Donald Trump explained in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal, “One thing I've learned about the press is that they're always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better … If you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.” But what might have been entertainingly outrageous when it sprung from the rubbery orifice of some ephemeral campaign novelty becomes downright terrifying when there's a real chance this guy could become the most powerful person in the world.

At his worst, America, this human Cheezel of yours makes Robert Mugabe seem palatable. Pro-torture, pro-gun, anti-free-speech. He calls Mexicans “criminals” and “rapists”, says a US-born judge of Mexican ethnicity is biased against him, boasts about his penis size in debates, encourages violence against people protesting at his rallies, believes Barack Obama was born in Kenya, claims to have seen huge crowds celebrating 9/11 in New Jersey that literally no one else did, thinks Belgium is a city. On it goes. The guy is a rejected, absurdly overblown villain from a sloppily inked cartoon strip, made flesh.

This week he banned one of the world's finest newspapers, the Washington Post, from attending his events, the latest on a growing blacklist. He might know how to get media coverage, but when he doesn't like it, he has a solution: he's “going to open up the libel laws so that … when they write hit pieces, we can sue them, and they can lose money.”

But what's most worrying, America, is the nukes. On this I agree with Donald Trump, who said: “The biggest problem we have is nuclear, having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon.” Speaking for the world, we're worried about that, too, which is why we don't want him to have the opportunity to single-handedly order the world's biggest nuclear arsenal. And that's not hyperbole: in a long feature this week for Politico (another blacklisted publication) detailing the process by which a nuclear attack is launched, nuclear security expert Bruce G Blair writes that a President Trump “would be free to launch a civilisation-ending nuclear war on his own any time he chose”.

You may say: come on, he'd obviously go to his advisers, seek guidance from experts — right? But as hot-tempered xenophobe and deeply vindictive person who could actually become president Donald Trump explained in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal: “Committees are what insecure people create to put off making hard decisions.” His overarching decision-making philosophy: “Listen to your gut.”

Forgive me, forgive us all, for interfering in an election that is yours, but we don't want to have the future of the world at the mercy of Donald Trump's gut. Please.

The latest polls suggest, America, that you're cooling on the idea of a President Trump. As you-know-who explained in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal, “You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion, you can get all kinds of press … but if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.” You're no suckers.

But your old friends out here in the world thought we'd write all the same, because the polls have been volatile, and god only knows what kind of email-related catastrophe could yet derail the Hillary Clinton campaign. We're not all convinced about Clinton's suitability, but we are united in agreeing her most compelling and unanswerable asset is Not Being Donald Trump. We'll take anyone but Trump. We'd prefer a lamb casserole were president. Do we have a deal?


__________________________________________________________________________

Related commentary:

 • Paul Thomas: Donald Trump so far from suitable to be US President yet so near levers of power (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11658254)


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11657958 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11657958)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 18, 2016, 05:38:37 am
so in ww2 if you didn't let the japs come here you were being a xenophobic

maybe this is too hard for some to understand but islam is anti anyone who is not muslim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEMHKO5MC6c


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 18, 2016, 01:55:26 pm

from The Washington Post....

The challenges in covering Trump's relentless assault on the truth

By EUGENE ROBINSON | 7:22PM EDT - Thursday, June 16, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202016/20160615dt_LiarLiarPantsOnFireTrump_zpsykpjdjmw.jpg) (http://www.capitolhilloutsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/liar-liar-pants-on-fire-trump1.jpg)

DONALD TRUMP must be the biggest liar in the history of American politics, and that's saying something.

Trump lies the way other people breathe. We're used to politicians who stretch the truth, who waffle or dissemble, who emphasize some facts while omitting others. But I can't think of any other political figure who so brazenly tells lie after lie (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jun/16/10-biggest-falsehoods-year-trump), spraying audiences with such a fusillade of untruths that it is almost impossible to keep track. Perhaps he hopes the media and the nation will become numb to his constant lying. We must not.

Trump lies when citing specifics. He claimed that a “tremendous flow of Syrian refugees” (http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/06/15/482184991/fact-check-donald-trump-and-syrian-refugees) has been entering the country; the total between 2012 and 2015 was around 2,000 (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/heres-what-it-takes-to-enter-us-as-a-syrian-refugee), barely a trickle. He claimed that “we have no idea” who those refugees are (http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/politics/donald-trump-syrian-refugees/index.html); they undergo up to two years of careful vetting before being admitted.

Trump lies when speaking in generalities. He claimed that President Obama has “damaged our security by restraining our intelligence-gathering and failing to support law enforcement.” (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-addresses-terrorism-immigration-and-national-security) Obama actually expanded domestic intelligence operations and dialed them back only because of bipartisan pressure after the Edward Snowden revelations.

Trump lies by sweeping calumny. “For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this,” he said of Omar Mateen (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/16/report-us-officials-say-muslims-frequently-report-terror-threats.html), the shooter in the Orlando massacre. But according to law enforcement officials, including FBI Director James B. Comey, numerous potential plots have been foiled precisely because concerned Muslims reported seeing signs of self-radicalization.

Trump lies by smarmy insinuation. “We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind,” he said of Obama (http://time.com/4366278/orlando-shooting-donald-trump-president-obama). “There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on.” He also said of Obama: “He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands — it's one or the other and either one is unacceptable.”

You read that right. The presumptive Republican nominee implies that the president of the United States is somehow disloyal. There is no other way to read “he gets it better than anybody understands.”

Trump claims that Hillary Clinton (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/13/donald-trumps-defiant-double-down-on-well-everything), the all-but-certain Democratic nominee, “wants to take away Americans' guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.” Clinton has made clear that she doesn't want to take anyone's guns away, nor does she want to eliminate the Second Amendment, as Trump also claims. And the idea that Clinton actually wants to admit would-be slaughterers is grotesque.

I write not to defend Obama or Clinton, who can speak for themselves — and have done so. My aim is to defend the truth.

Political discourse can be civil or rowdy, gracious or mean. But to have any meaning, it has to be grounded in fact. Trump presents a novel challenge for both the media and the voting public. There is no playbook for evaluating a candidate who so constantly says things that objectively are not true.

All of the above examples come from just five days' worth of Trump's lies, from Sunday to Thursday of this week. By the time you read this, surely there will have been more.

How are we in the media supposed to cover such a man? The traditional approach, which seeks fairness through nonjudgmental balance, seems inadequate. It does not seem fair to write “Trump claimed the sky is maroon while Clinton claimed it is blue” without noting that the sky is, in fact, blue. It does not seem fair to even present this as a “question” worthy of debate, as if honest people could disagree. One assertion is objectively false and one objectively true.

It goes against all journalistic instinct to write in a news article, as The Washington Post did on Monday, that Trump's national security address (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pushes-expanded-ban-on-muslims-and-other-foreigners/2016/06/13/c9988e96-317d-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html) was “a speech laden with falsehoods and exaggeration.” But I don't think we're doing our job if we simply report assertions of fact without evaluating whether they are factual.

Trump's lies also present a challenge for voters. The normal assumption is that politicians will bend the truth to fit their ideology — not that they will invent fake “truth” out of whole cloth. Trump is not just an unorthodox candidate. He is an inveterate liar — maybe pathological, maybe purposeful. He doesn't distort facts, he makes them up.

Trump has a right to his anger, his xenophobia and his bigotry. He also has a right to lie — but we all have a duty to call him on it.


• Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Washington Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper's Style section.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • The Washington Post: FACT-CHECKER (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker)

 • Ruth Marcus: Donald Trump — Stonewaller, shape-shifter, liar (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-stonewaller-shape-shifter-liar/2016/05/17/954129bc-1c49-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)

 • Ruth Marcus: When it comes to lying, Trump is in a class by himself (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-it-comes-to-lying-trump-is-in-a-class-by-himself/2016/05/20/e7668d42-1e9a-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html)

 • The Washington Post's View: Trump lies and lies and lies again (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/counting-donald-trumps-lies/2016/05/25/bc0d93a8-229f-11e6-aa84-42391ba52c91_story.html)

 • The Washington Post's View: Mr. Trump spreads dangerous lies about Syrian refugees (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-trump-spreads-dangerous-lies-about-syrian-refugees/2015/11/17/3757f1f6-8d78-11e5-baf4-bdf37355da0c_story.html)

 • Dana Milbank: If only Trump came with a money-back guarantee (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-a-one-man-lloyds-of-london/2016/05/31/1b1c6e42-276d-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-challenges-in-covering-trumps-relentless-assault-on-the-truth/2016/06/16/076b367a-33fd-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-challenges-in-covering-trumps-relentless-assault-on-the-truth/2016/06/16/076b367a-33fd-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 19, 2016, 05:28:21 pm
haha the commie washing machine post
attempts to control the dimwitted hearts and minds with another hit at the don
so it's more of the same stupid left wing pc garbage.

if i had half of trumps money a lot of the people who make up all this bullshit would end up meeting with horrible accidents
a bit like the trail of dead bodies the clintons have left behind them.

watch all the terror attacks that are coming to america very shortly caused by obama letting unvetted muslims into the us,then watch the washing machine post try to blame any of these attacks on trump and guns,they will blame it on anything except islam when really it's the left who have hopped into bed with islam but they will say it's all trumps fault because they are pathetic sissies.
also the gays have started stocking up with guns no longer wanting to be victims good on them,

watch the coming terror attacks in the us the stupid bonehead radical muslims will get trump elected to prez lol

watch what happens when the obama government tries to take guns off the americans there would be civil war and nowhere safe for the traitors to hide.
gun sales are going up they are a great investment opportunity


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 19, 2016, 06:36:26 pm

Doesn't change the fact that virtually everything which vomits out of Trump's mouth is a pack of LIES.

As shown up by the numerous fact-checker websites on the internet.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 20, 2016, 11:26:16 am
fact checking sites are a joke i think we need a fact checking site that fact checks other fact checking sites

it dont change the fact that all a sjw can do is call people names because they got no balls


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 20, 2016, 01:11:05 pm

Fact-checking sites are only a joke to the perpetually STUPID who love being LIED to and don't like FACTS showing how gullible they are.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 20, 2016, 02:47:21 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIN8MmMloZE

Quote
Fact-checking sites are only a joke to the perpetually STUPID who love being LIED to and don't like FACTS showing how gullible they are.
have you ever fact checked the claims about global warming especially the things Al Gore said by now he is in deep water that lying bastid lol


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 20, 2016, 03:26:41 pm

from The Washington Post....

THE FIX: The brutal numbers behind
a very bad month for Donald Trump


By PHILIP BUMP | 9:10AM EDT - Sunday, June 19, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160619dt_DonaldTrump_zpsvpliahrr.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/08/National-Politics/Images/2016-06-08T012109Z_01_HRB507_RTRIDSP_3_USA-ELECTION-TRUMP-3548.jpg)
Trump speaks on primary night at the Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
 — Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters.


SUPPORTERS of Donald Trump got an unexpected plea on Saturday: a request to send the billionaire money.

It was an “emergency” request, The Hill reported (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/284004-trump-campaign-wants-100000-in-donations-by-end-of-day), representing an urgent need for an infusion of $100,000 to put ads on the air in battleground states. Why Trump couldn't simply write a check to cover the costs apparently wasn't explained, but the missive was useful regardless: It demonstrates clearly the difficult position of the Trump campaign with only 142 days to go.

We looked at Trump's sliding poll numbers (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/17/dear-republicans-heres-why-it-might-be-time-to-start-panicking-about-donald-trump-in-1-chart) on Friday, but it's worth adding a bit more context.

"[T]here's no way to look at Trump's national polling that avoids the grim reality that he is at a lower ebb than any general election candidate has hit in the last three elections," the National Review's Dan McLaughlin wrote last week (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/436652/trump-doing-worse-polls-mccain-or-romney).

Not only are Trump's poll numbers slipping, they are at a low that no one, Republican or Democrat, has seen in the past three election cycles. Looking at the window of time between 200 and 100 days before each of those elections, you can see that Trump has consistently polled worse than George W. Bush in 2004, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. He caught up briefly after clinching the GOP nomination — and then sank again.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160619ga_Graph1_zps0g4cdvhw.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2016/06/RCP_Support.jpg&w=1484)

The margin by which he trails Hillary Clinton now mirrors McCain's deficit to Barack Obama in 2008. McCain rebounded after the Republican convention — but it's important to remember that we're comparing Trump to the worst Republican performance in a general election since 1996.

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160619gb_Graph2_zpsyk6qecyl.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2016/06/RCP_Lead.jpg&w=1484)

There's every reason to think that those numbers will get worse. Trump essentially has no campaign at this point; there's no sign that he has started staffing up significantly. We looked this month at how his staffing compared with the two final Democratic candidates (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/10/this-staffing-chart-tells-the-story-of-the-2016-campaign). His campaign was never a traditional, national effort.

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160619gc_Graph3_zpscq96ofzp.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2016/06/Staffing.jpg&w=1484)

He has indicated that he doesn't plan to increase staff, either. On Friday, the Associated Press reported that Trump intended, in effect, to outsource his campaign to the Republican Party. As of right now, “the campaign estimates it currently has about 30 paid staff on the ground across the country,” according to the report.

On Sunday morning, NBC News's Mark Murray shared numbers on ad spending by Trump and Clinton (https://twitter.com/mmurraypolitics/status/744492469589446656). In June 2012, the Romney campaign and PACs supporting it spent about $38 million on ads in battleground states — a bit behind the $44.6 million spent by Obama and his allies.

This June? Trump is getting skunked.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160619gd_Graph4_zpsaz70p2do.jpg~original)

In their look at the 2012 election, our John Sides and UCLA's Lynn Vavreck found that ads made a difference (http://themonkeycage.org/2013/05/how-much-did-the-2012-air-war-and-ground-game-matter) in the race when the balance was lopsided, as it is now. They also found that the presence of staff on the ground made a slight difference in the margin for a candidate in that region. (Without his field operation, they estimate, Obama probably would have lost Florida.) It's very early; Sides and Vavreck also found that ads right before the election made the biggest difference.

The current gap in ad spending exists because Trump can't or won't spend money on ads, just as he can't or won't spend money on staff. He will probably trail Clinton in fundraising even if he were to focus on it (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/08/donald-trumps-got-political-money-problems), and he has said in the past that he didn't need to spend (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-08/trump-says-no-reason-to-raise-1-billion-for-campaign) because he got so much free media.

In essence, Trump is running a real-time experiment in a new form of presidential campaigning. And the early numbers suggest that the experiment is shaping up to be a failure.


• Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix at The Washington Post. He is based in New York City.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/19/the-brutal-numbers-behind-a-very-bad-month-for-donald-trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/19/the-brutal-numbers-behind-a-very-bad-month-for-donald-trump)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 20, 2016, 03:28:02 pm

Hahaha....TRUMP is going to LOSE the presidential election and take the GOP with him.

The Democrats will rule the White House, the Senate and the House of Congress.

Donald Trump's stupid white-trash supporters will be the cause of that for blindly believing and following a RETARD.

Funny shit, eh?  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/09_ROFLMAO.gif)  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/07_LaughOutLoud.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 20, 2016, 03:46:27 pm
So if i create a website and call it fact checker you will believe me right nancy boy?

if i have  a hidden agenda and tweak and twist those facts just a little bit like the media do, a thing called spin,
maybe ill add a bit of the emotional heart string pulling stuff to it,

like save the children or save the poor animals or save the whales,or save the earth or save those poor drowning mofos muslim refugees invite them into your home, give them money and dont make a fuss when they rape your daughter or your son at the pool.
someone should fact check that


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: guest49 on June 20, 2016, 03:50:25 pm

Hahaha....TRUMP is going to LOSE the presidential election and take the GOP with him.

The Democrats will rule the White House, the Senate and the House of Congress.

Donald Trump's stupid white-trash supporters will be the cause of that for blindly believing and following a RETARD.

Funny shit, eh?  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/09_ROFLMAO.gif)  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/07_LaughOutLoud.gif)

And you think that will be a good thing?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 20, 2016, 03:52:14 pm
well ktj you're a sexist white trash racist for not giving your train driving job to a black person or a women right you snowflake


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 20, 2016, 04:07:53 pm
with trump
it's not over till the fat lady? in the pants suit sings
maybe she will be in sing sing?

But Hitlery Clinton she might get the sympathy vote if Bill will just up and die,
because poor old bill clinton looks like he's on his last legs i think he's
getting very sick from being under pressure from all those rape and pedifile allegations that he surely knows trump is going to be targeting him with shortly in the campaign lmao.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 20, 2016, 04:16:13 pm
So if i create a website and call it fact checker you will believe me right nancy boy?


If you can come up with PROVEN facts, as opposed to the snake-oil bullshit Trump spouts.

Those FACT-CHECKER websites, such as the one run by The Washington Post can usually put up video footage of Trump saying something in the past that is the opposite to what he is saying now. Or else multiple news reports written by journalists from different news media organisations at the time.

Trump seems to forget that there is a shitload of video footage, sound recordings and multiple news reports of virtually anything he has ever publicly said, so when he tells bullshit that is different to what he has spouted in the past, he is ALWAYS going to come unstuck. And that is exactly what the numerous FACT-CHECKER websites have been doing.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 20, 2016, 06:11:00 pm
when america was great and it can be again with trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKwDFd4gfYU


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 20, 2016, 07:21:30 pm
when america was great and it can be again with trump




(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/TooFunny.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingPinkPanther.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ROFLMAO_Dog.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingHard.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ItchyBugga.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 21, 2016, 02:40:35 pm
there was a time in america when they made the best products had the best engineering skills and had full time good jobs
and they had culture


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 21, 2016, 04:16:14 pm

from The Washington Post....

The Trump campaign is becoming an outright catastrophe

By PAUL WALDMAN | 9:12AM EDT - Monday, June 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160620dtt_DonaldTrumpTampa_zpsjo8hum9d.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/11/National-Politics/Images/GOP_2016_Trump-0af68.jpg)
Donald Trump speaks to a crowd in Tampa. — Photograph: Chris O'Meara/Associated Press.

EVERY presidential campaign has its ups and downs, its moments when everything seems to be going right and those when it looks to be hurtling toward defeat. This is one of the latter moments for Donald Trump, with him falling in the polls after a series of controversial statements (and frankly, “A Series of Controversial Statements” could be his campaign motto). Ed O'Keefe reports (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/19/anti-trump-delegates-raising-money-for-staff-and-a-legal-defense-fund) that panicked Republicans are waging a last-ditch effort to convince convention delegates to switch from Trump to someone or other, and they claim “that they now count several hundred delegates and alternates as part of their campaign.” The effort will almost certainly fail, but the fact that it consists of more than a few desperate people is an indication of how bad things are for Trump.

But wait — doesn't he have plenty of time to turn this campaign around? So he trails Hillary Clinton by somewhere between 6 and 8 points in all the reputable polling averages — didn't George H.W. Bush trail Michael Dukakis by 17 points after the Democratic convention in 1988?

Yes, Trump has time to reverse the current situation. But today's polls aren't meaningless, even if they don't tell us exactly what will happen in November. The problem for Trump isn't the size of his polling deficit (which isn't all that large); it's the magnitude of challenges his campaign faces.

While he could manage a stunning turnaround, at the moment Trump seems to have put together one of the worst presidential campaigns in history. Let's take a look at all the major disadvantages Trump faces as we head toward the conventions:

A skeletal campaign staff. Trump succeeded in the primaries with a small staff whose job was to do little more than stage rallies. But running a national campaign is hugely more complex than barnstorming from one state to the next during primaries. While the Clinton campaign has built an infrastructure of hundreds of operatives performing the variety of tasks a modern presidential campaign requires, the Trump campaign (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trum-battleground-states-shortage) “estimates it currently has about 30 paid staff on the ground across the country,” a comically small number.

Not enough money, and little inclination to raise it. Trump hasn't raised much money yet, and he doesn't seem inclined to do so; according to one report (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-republican-national-committee-224403#ixzz4BkhWs5iu), after telling Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus that he'd call 20 large donors to make a pitch, he gave up after three. Fundraising is the least pleasant part of running for office, but unlike most candidates who suck it up and do what they have to, Trump may not be willing to spend the time dialing for dollars. Instead, he's convinced that he can duplicate what he did in the primaries and run a low-budget campaign based on having rallies and doing TV interviews. As he told NBC's Hallie Jackson (http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-june-19-2016-n595186), “I don't think I need that money, frankly. I mean, look what we're doing right now. This is like a commercial, right, except it's tougher than a normal commercial.” It's not like a commercial, because in interviews Trump gets challenged, and usually says something that makes him look foolish or dangerous. But he seems convinced that his ability to get limitless media coverage, no matter how critical that coverage is, will translate to an increase in support.

Outgunned on the airwaves. As a result, Democrats are pouring money into television ads attacking Trump and promoting Clinton with no answer from the other side. As Mark Murray reported (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/clinton-democrats-dominate-2016-battleground-airwaves-n594676) yesterday, “So far in June, Clinton and the outside groups backing her have spent a total of $23.3 million on ads in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.” And how much have Trump and his allies spent on ads in those states? Zero. Nothing. Nada.

Not enough backup from his allies. There may never have been a presidential nominee with so little support from the people who are supposed to be out there persuading people to vote for him. Every day sees new stories about Trump being criticized by Republican leaders or about Republicans distancing themselves from him. And that includes the people who have endorsed him. Last week the chair of Trump's leadership committee in the House begged reporters (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/283800-duncan-hunter-i-am-not-a-trump-surrogate) to stop making him defend Trump.

That lack of unity can have a large impact on how Republicans view their vote. While the rote arguments between Democrats and Republicans may seem too predictable to change many minds, when intra-partisan unanimity breaks down, it sends a signal to people that it's okay to disagree with your party's nominee — and even to reject him altogether.

A popular president opposing him. Every political science election model says that the view of the current president matters a great deal in determining whether voters decide to change which party controls the White House. Right now President Obama's approval rating (http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx) is over 50 percent for the first time in a long while, and he'll be campaigning vigorously against Trump.

A demographic disadvantage. Trump is running on what is essentially an ethno-nationalist appeal to white voters, at a time when the country grows less white every year. He would have to do significantly better than recent Republican nominees among large minority groups in order to win, yet rather than court them, he has done just the opposite. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll (https://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/15/National-Politics/Polling/release_427.xml), 89 percent of Hispanics said they had an unfavorable view of Trump, an absolutely stunning figure. That's not to mention the enormous gender gap he's opening: 77 percent of women also viewed him unfavorably in that poll.

An electoral college disadvantage. Any Republican candidate faces a challenge in the electoral college, where Democrats start with a built-in advantage. In all of the past four elections, Democrats have won 17 states (plus D.C.) that give them 242 of the 270 electoral votes they need to win. That means that for Trump to win, he has to sweep almost every swing state. But instead of trying to do that, Trump is worried about holding on to red states such as Utah (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/284049-trump-vows-to-campaign-in-utah-after-meeting-with-states) and Arizona (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-trump-effect-could-arizona-go-blue-for-the-first-time-in-20-years/2016/06/18/a1ffe53e-34aa-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html).

A candidate with a lethal combination of dreadful strategic instincts and absolute certainty of his own brilliance. Trump's inexperience in politics has shown itself in many ways, such as his utter ignorance about policy and how the U.S. government works. It also means that when confronted with new situations, he often does something politically foolish, as when he responded to the Orlando shooting by congratulating himself (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/742034549232766976) for predicting that there would one day be another terrorist attack. And while for a time we kept hearing that he was going to “pivot” to the general election, instead he seems to be running as though he's still trying to persuade his own supporters to stay with him. Those supporters comprise a plurality of a minority of the whole electorate.

Perhaps even more importantly, unlike some neophyte candidates, Trump not only doesn't know what he doesn't know, but also insists that he doesn't need to know it. Whatever deep insecurities drive his constant preening bluster, he isn't going to let anyone tell him that he's anything less than a genius and things aren't going great. Which means that as the campaign goes on and his situation gets worse, he'll be exceedingly unlikely to make the kind of changes he needs to reverse his fortunes.

Trump is no stranger to failure, but in his life as a businessman he could segregate those failures from the rest of his enterprises, at least enough to keep moving forward and find other ways to make money. He could fail at the casino (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html) business, or the steak (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/hey-trump-wheres-the-beef-trump-steaks-are-so-rare-we-cant-even-find-one/2016/03/22/175b682a-ebc3-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html) business, or the vodka (http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-trump-vodka) business, or the magazine (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/remembering-failed-wealth-porn-trump-magazine-article-1.2528638) business, or the airline (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/04/the-crash-of-trump-air.html) business, or the football (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/sports/football/donald-trumps-less-than-artful-failure-in-pro-football.html) business, or the real estate seminar (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/was-donald-trumps-education-venture-trump-university-a-scam/2015/09/13/299ed9c8-52c0-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html) business, or the vitamin pyramid scheme (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/23/the-trump-network-sought-to-make-people-rich-but-left-behind-disappointment) business, and maintain the viability of his overall brand. But he has never been on a stage like this one before. He didn't have hundreds of reporters on the steak beat scrutinizing every twist and turn in the decline of Trump Steaks and putting the results of their reporting on every front page in America.

But now he does, and he can't just drop one scheme and move on to the next one. In that interview with Hallie Jackson, Trump said, “We really haven't started. We start pretty much after the convention, during and after.” But his problem isn't that he hasn't started; it's that he started a year ago — digging himself into a hole it's going to be awfully hard to climb out of.


• Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/06/20/the-trump-campaign-is-becoming-an-outright-catastrophe (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/06/20/the-trump-campaign-is-becoming-an-outright-catastrophe)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 21, 2016, 04:28:59 pm

♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪

The wheels are falling off the Donald Trump bus…

Tra…la…la…la…la…la…la…la…la…

♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Alicat on June 21, 2016, 06:44:50 pm

(http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt252/Aliscottycat/Obamalamadingdong.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 21, 2016, 07:23:33 pm

from The Washington Post....

Six weeks to sanity: The anti-Trump surge is finally here

By JENNIFER RUBIN | 10:15AM EDT - Monday, June 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160620dt_DonaldTrump_zpsbzzebdzw.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2016-03-30/Getty/518238588.jpg)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump films a town hall meeting for MSNBC with Chris Matthews in March.
 — Photograph: Tom Lynn/Getty Images.


IN MAY (was it only last month?), Donald Trump's Republican competitors left the presidential primary race. GOP officials scrambled to endorse him. There was talk big donors were coming on board. Many conscientious conservatives were in a funk, disillusioned with a party (albeit only a plurality of primary voters) who could select a charlatan and a bigot. Lifelong Republicans were appalled at the elected leaders willing to carry water for a demagogue. There was widespread anxiety Trump would beat expectations in the general election just as he did in the primaries.

Six weeks later, it is a much brighter picture for #NeverTrump (https://twitter.com/hashtag/nevertrump) Republicans and the country at large. The media is critically examining his record, challenging his bigotry and inane pronouncements. When he suggested the president might be in league with Islamist terrorists, the media pounced. Trump's temper tantrum in barring The Washington Post from his campaign events underscored his frustration with a new level of scrutiny.

A short but impressive list of Republicans have declined to endorse or have un-endorsed Trump. Trump is “threatening” (huh!?) to fund his own campaign because donors have not come on board. A delegate rebellion, once a pipe dream, is now a reality. You know it is worrying to Trump if he simultaneously claims it is a Jeb Bush plot (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/284010-trump-responds-to-convention-coup-its-illegal) and a media hoax. Meanwhile, his own “campaign” is a joke — a skeleton of a presidential operation (http://theweek.com/speedreads/631058/donald-trump-doesnt-even-have-enough-staff-members-each-state) lacking the staff and data needed to win a national election (as opposed to a series of small primaries where true believers could carry the day).

Moreover, it turns out the vast majority of Americans do not take kindly to a racist, do not appreciate his proposal for a Muslim ban and do not approve of his response to the Orlando terrorist attack. In the primaries, “gaffes” seemed only to enhance his standing. The dumber his debate answers, the higher he went in the polls. Now, however, his outlandish comments are driving his poll numbers down. Maybe most Americans have not lost their minds, turned to political nihilism and rejected the American spirit of inclusion and fairness. It turns out what worked in the primaries doesn't work in a general election context.

It is increasingly likely that either Trump will get dumped or he will lose by a healthy margin to Hillary Clinton. The Republic, it seems, may escape a brush with authoritarian buffoonery. (All caveats apply about Clinton's FBI investigation, a severe economic downturn and other developments that could upend the race.)

That does, however, raise the troubling question: Why couldn't the GOP have figured all this out before Trump got to 1,237 delegates (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/primaries/delegate-tracker/republican)? Right-wingers will smell a plot. (The MSM held back until he had the nomination!) But there were a number of factors in the primary — a huge field (dividing the not-Trump vote and shielding him in debates), a press entranced with his media show, the novelty of his “act”, and the collapse of his opponents at critical times (e.g., Senator Marco Rubio's pre-New Hampshire primary debate) — that aided Trump.

Still, there is something fundamentally amiss on the right that in a mere six weeks the country has figured out Trump, whereas Republicans in nine months plainly could not see the character they were embracing. That should highlight some troubling deficiencies on the right.

First, the anti-immigration obsession that had transfixed the right-wing inured many supposed gate-keepers (e.g., magazines, pundits) as well as the base to a candidate peddling a dangerous brew of nativism, protectionism and isolationism. If the “respectable” publications rant and rave about “amnesty”, one can imagine why Trump's idea for a wall might have gotten traction rather than guffaws. It's no coincidence Trump's closest ally is Senator Jeff Sessions (Republican-Alabama), an anti-immigration zealot who found Trump the perfect spokesman for his cause. Thankfully, the general electorate, including Republicans who did not vote in the primary, take a dim view of his xenophobia. They oppose mass deportation and a Muslim ban.

Second, over the past seven years, the anti-government tirades from talk radio, from Beltway groups such as Heritage Action and even from Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) saturated the base, convincing them that everyone with experience “betrayed them” and only outsiders devoid of exposure to governance had the secret sauce for peace and prosperity. In the general election, by contrast, Clinton has skewered Trump's inane ideas and ridiculed his ignorance in ways the GOP field did not do consistently and zealously from the get-go.

Third, the “establishment” — the officialdom of the Republican National Committee — facilitated Trump's rise, convinced he'd run as an independent (did they not realize how cheap he is?). Refusing to condemn him, declining to press him on releasing his tax returns, maintaining an excessively large debate contingent and actively condoning his candidacy all enabled Trump to achieve a degree of legitimacy he otherwise would never have gotten. A soulless party chairman who lacked fidelity to the ideals of the party unwittingly may have handed the election to Clinton and decimated the party itself.

One, therefore, is left with an unpleasant reality: A plurality of GOP voters wanted Trump. They did not care or may have actively embraced his lunacy, bigotry and ignorance. His rotten character and abject honesty elicited shrugs. They wore his “pants on fire” fact checks like badges of honor. A significant segment of the GOP primary electorate itself lacked common sense, standards of decency, and intolerance of bigotry and cruelty. No group was worse than the evangelical “leaders” who cheered him along the way.

A Republican wag joked that the GOP needs not only a new candidate but also a new base. There is something to that. In the 2016 postmortem, it will be worth examining the extent to which the GOP has promoted crackpots, become ghettoized in distorted right-wing media and lost track of what 21st-century America believes and looks like. That suggests conservative “leaders” need to do more leading, and less following, and the party as a whole has to expand its vision and its base. It's time to stop reveling in ignorance and celebrating lost causes.

Barry Goldwater's widow (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/17/barry-goldwater-would-be-appalled-by-trump-raising-money-in-his-home-his-widow-says) was recently quoted as saying, “Barry would be appalled by Mr. Trump's behavior — the unintelligent and unfiltered and crude communications style. And he's shallow — so, so shallow.” She continued, “Barry was so true to his convictions and would never be issuing these shallow, crude, accusatory criticisms of the other party or the other person.” She's right, of course. And yet the GOP primary electorate did not see all that. It's a problem when the rest of the country has to rescue the GOP and the country from Republican voters' terrible judgment.


• Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Washington Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/20/six-weeks-to-sanity-the-anti-trump-surge-is-finally-here (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/06/20/six-weeks-to-sanity-the-anti-trump-surge-is-finally-here)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 21, 2016, 10:14:49 pm

from The Washington Post....

What actually happens when Trump blacklists a reporter

By PAUL FARHI | 4:19PM EDT - Monday, June 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160620dtny_DonaldTrumpNewYork_zpslwqf17f5.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/14/Editorial-Opinion/Images/2016-05-31T170116Z_01_NYC112_RTRIDSP_3_USA-ELECTION-TRUMP.jpg)
Trump, seen here in New York last month, has made a habit of yanking press credentials from media outlets that displease him.
 — Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters.


A DAY after Donald Trump revoked The Washington Post's credentials to cover his campaign last week, one of the newspaper's reporters walked into his rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, and began reporting on it. The only difference was that the reporter, Jenna Johnson, entered on a general-admission ticket, not a press pass. She sat in the audience instead of the designated media “pen” and later filed a story (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/14/trump-takes-aim-at-clinton-over-immigration-hits-her-on-womens-and-lgbt-rights).

So much for being barred from covering Donald Trump.

Johnson's experience says much about the practical impact of Trump's efforts to banish news organizations whose reporting has displeased him. For the most part, Trump's sanctions against the press haven't made much difference. Although the dozen or so news outlets that have been blacklisted certainly object to being shut out, they say the restrictions are largely symbolic, an attack on traditional norms, and don't deter reporting on the presumptive Republican nominee.

“Access has never been central to our journalism, and we think the best reporting done on Trump, by us and others, is from the outside,” said Ben Smith, the editor of Buzzfeed (https://www.buzzfeed.com), which hasn't been accredited by Trump since he announced his candidacy a year ago.

Getting on Trump's blacklist does present a few logistical hassles. Reporters from affected organizations have to wait longer to enter Trump's events; they can't attend or ask questions at his news conferences; and they tend not to get interviews with Trump or his staff.

But for every restriction, there's a workaround. The Des Moines Register (http://www.desmoinesregister.com), banned by Trump since last summer, gets audio and video footage of the candidate's events and copies of his press statements from friendly third parties in the news media, said Annah Backstrom, who oversees the paper's political reporting. The paper's reporters have covered his events the same way The Post did: by securing a publicly available ticket. If all else fails, a verboten news organization can hire a freelancer to cover for it.

It's not entirely clear how Trump decides who or what organizations to ban. The most obvious element is a persistent pattern of stories he doesn't like — although one strike is sometimes enough, too.

The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com), for example, went into Trump's penalty box early on by consigning coverage of him to its entertainment section (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-note-about-our-coverage-of-donald-trumps-campaign_us_55a8fc9ce4b0896514d0fd66?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016&section=politics). (It has since changed its mind (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/a-note-on-trump_b_8744476.html) but is still banned.) The Washington Post got the hook a week ago for a headline (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/13/donald-trump-suggests-president-obama-was-involved-with-orlando-shooting) suggesting that he had tied President Obama to the nightclub massacre in Orlando — even though The Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com) ran a similar headline (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/06/13/trump-suggests-obama-sympathetic-to-islamic-terrorists) on its story without incurring his wrath. Both The Des Moines Register and the New Hampshire Union Leader lost access not for news stories but for anti-Trump (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/caucus/2015/07/20/donald-trump-end-campaign/30439253) editorial columns (http://www.unionleader.com/Joseph-W-McQuaid-Trump-campaign-insults-NH-voters-intelligence).

Trump has banned only two TV networks — the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision (http://www.univision.com) and the Fusion (http://fusion.net) channel, which is part-owned by Univision — and only briefly at that. This suggests that the onetime reality-TV star has been careful not to alienate TV broadcasters, thus preserving his access to the medium he likes best, although he has frequently disparaged TV reporters (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trump-claims-to-like-scrutiny-but-blasts-media-for-asking-questions-about-fundraiser/2016/05/31/c4b68c78-2752-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html) on Twitter (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html) and at news conferences. The two networks were frozen out after Univision dropped its telecast of the Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant following Trump's remarks that Mexican immigrants are “rapists”. (Trump sued Univision (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/30/418990895/donald-trump-sues-univision-for-500-million) over the cancellation but dropped his lawsuit (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/02/11/trump-univision-settle-beauty-pageant-lawsuit/80238188) in February.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6QEqoYgQxw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6QEqoYgQxw)

Reporters banned by Trump get their credential requests turned down via a robo-email from the Trump campaign that says the following: “During the 2016 Presidential Primary race, the Donald J. Trump Campaign fully recognizes and respects all media but due to various venue sizes, media space, and safety, we must limit the number of credentialed media and give priority to our national and local outlets. We appreciate your understanding.”

Those still on the banned list have found that Trump's restrictions are often arbitrarily enforced and vaguely defined. Reporters from some blacklisted outlets still receive news releases from his campaign; others don't. A day after Trump sanctioned The Post, one of the paper's reporters got a call back from Trump's press handlers (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html), suggesting the lines of communications are still open (the campaign has been responsive (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/18/donald-trump-says-its-not-nice-to-call-women-tough) to other Washington Post reporters in recent days, including Johnson). But others face a complete blackout. The campaign did not respond to several requests for comment for this article.

The Washington Post doesn’t know yet whether Trump's sanctions against the newspaper extend to the Republican convention next month or to the team of reporters who are producing a book about him. The Post's book team has interviewed Trump many times, including two weeks ago, when he expressed enthusiasm for the project and invited the journalists back for more interviews. But Trump has also publicly trashed the book, telling Fox News at one point that the paper has been asking him “ridiculous questions” (http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/05/12/hannity-trump-attacks-jeff-bezos-and-floats-conspiracy-about-washington-posts-reporting/210404) about his past.

The real objections to Trump's actions from the press aren't about the inconvenience; they're about the seemingly undemocratic nature of his actions. Candidates of every party rarely like the coverage they get, but few have resorted to banning a reporter, let alone entire news organizations.

“When I was in Moscow, Vladimir Putin's Kremlin gave me credentials to cover his re-election campaign to a second term even after several years of critical coverage of his crackdown on Russian media and rollback of democratic reforms,” said Susan Glasser, the editor of Politico (http://www.politico.com), whose beat reporter was banned by Trump in March (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politico-reporter-barred-from-trump-event-after-unflattering-article/article/2585947). “It is just astonishing that something like this is happening in the United States.”


• Paul Farhi is The Washington Post's media reporter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-actually-happens-when-trump-blacklists-a-reporter/2016/06/20/aff81a2c-3319-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-actually-happens-when-trump-blacklists-a-reporter/2016/06/20/aff81a2c-3319-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 22, 2016, 12:57:24 pm

from The Washington Post....

New anti-Trump movement grows to include hundreds of GOP delegates

By ED O'KEEFE | 5:39PM EDT - Monday, June 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160620dtrv_DonaldTrumpRichmondVirginia_zps9m6juqzd.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/11/National-Politics/Images/Botsford160610TrumpVA55331465616770.jpg)
Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia, on June 10th, 2016.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


A CAMPAIGN to stop Donald Trump from becoming the Republican presidential nominee has the support of nearly 400 delegates to the GOP's convention next month, according to organizers, quickly transforming what began as an idea tossed around on social media into a force that could derail a national campaign.

While organizers concede their plan could worsen internal party strife, they believe they are responding to deep-rooted concerns among conservatives about Trump, who is suffering from declining poll numbers after weeks of mis-steps and embarrassing headlines.

“Short-term, yes, there's going to be chaos,” said Kendal Unruh, a co-founder of the group, Free the Delegates. “Long-term this saves the party and we win the election. Everything has to go through birthing pains to birth something great. We're going to go through the trauma of the birthing pains, but the reward will be worth it.”

Unruh, of Colorado, said her cause is “winning support from the non-rabble rousers. The rule-following, churchgoing grandmas who aren't out protesting in the streets. This is the way they push back.”

The campaign's growing support came amid a significant shake-up in Trump's campaign. On Monday, he fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, one of his most loyal and vocal aides. The move was seen as an urgent attempt to ease GOP concerns over the campaign's direction.

Unruh and other GOP delegates from Colorado hatched the idea of trying to stop Trump by introducing a rule change: Instead of binding delegates to the results of the caucuses and primaries — as many party leaders insist they are — the convention's 2,472 delegates should instead be able to vote their conscience and select whomever they want.

For weeks, Unruh, her colleague Regina Thomson and other Colorado Republicans sought out like-minded delegates in other states. After Unruh appeared in newspaper interviews and called in to a few radio talk shows, she said other delegates with similar concerns in places such as Louisiana and Missouri reached out. By this past weekend, Unruh was consulting a lawyer about possible fundraising plans while Thomson was compiling the list of interested delegates, building a website and booking a conference call phone line that could host 1,000 participants.

“As we carefully consider not only the presidential nominee but the rules of the convention, the platform of the Republican Party and the vice-presidential nominee, remember that this is true reality TV — it is not entertainment,” Thomson said on a conference call she hosted late Sunday.

Thomson said at least 1,000 people participated in the call. Delegates who participated said they plan to spend this week wooing others to the cause.

“Trump claims to be pro-life, but he used to be pro-abortion. He claims to be for traditional marriage, but he never used to talk that way. His lifestyle is such that I cannot support him,” Utah delegate Gayle Ruzicka said. “Trump doesn't even seem to understand Christian principles.”

Talmage Pearce, a delegate from Arizona, said he is backing the movement because Trump's “deceit, bullying, insulting, blackmailing and liberal views all make it impossible for me to cast him my endorsement.”


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160620dtag_DonaldTrumpAugustaGeorgia_zps6kkzzryg.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/20/National-Politics/Images/Georgia_State_GOP_Convention-0e618-2881.jpg)
Maria Murray, center, holds up pictures of Donald Trump during the Georgia Republican State Convention on June 4th, 2016,
in Augusta, Georgia. — Photograph: Todd Bennett/The August Chronicle/Associated Press.


In recent days Trump has called attempts to strip him of the party nomination “totally illegal” and a rebuke of the millions of people who voted for him. Over the weekend he accused former opponents Jeb Bush and Senator Ted Cruz (Texas) of trying to undermine his candidacy. Both men say they have nothing to do with the new movement.

On the call during Sunday night, leaders of Free the Delegates repeatedly insisted they are not working on behalf of any of Trump's former opponents. They also lashed out at Chairman Reince Priebus and other officials at the Republican National Committee who have dismissed the delegates' efforts as silly and a media-driven myth.

“Mr. Priebus needs to understand that leadership has not answered the call of the most important people in the Republican Party, and that's the conservatives. We have always been there; we've endured a lot of one-way loyalty,” said Chris Ekstrom, a Dallas-based businessman and founder of Courageous Conservatives PAC, which supported Cruz's campaign but is now backing the new movement.

Steve Lonegan, a Republican consultant from New Jersey who is advising the dissidents on fundraising and media outreach, asked participants in the call to donate to Ekstrom's PAC. The money would be used to help track down more delegates and to help any delegates who may face threats or pressure back home.

Delegates in several states are under pressure not to join anti-Trump groups. In North Carolina, some have proposed fining delegates or kicking them out of the party if they vote against Trump. In other states, party leaders are threatening to strip delegates of their credentials if they buck primary results and vote against Trump, according to delegates who have contacted The Washington Post. Some reached out on the condition of anonymity, saying that their spouses are fearful of physical threats if they speak out publicly.

But several delegates said they were buoyed by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Republican-Wisconsin), who told NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday that “it is not my job to tell delegates what to do, what not to do, or to weigh in on things like that. They write the rules. They make their decisions.”

Said Unruh: “Paul Ryan signed our permission slip.”

One delegate from Colorado supporting the campaign, who requested anonymity to avoid harassment, wrote in an email that “we will not put our delegates in an ethical dilemma” if they are unbound. “We live in America. The land of the free. As delegates, we should be free to vote our conscience.”

Cecil Stinemetz, a delegate from Iowa angered by what he views as intimidation tactics, released an email he received on Friday from Steve Scheffler, who holds one of Iowa's seats on the Republican National Committee and is a leader of the Iowa Christian Alliance.

“Stop this madness Cecil!!” Scheffler wrote. “All the other candidates have either folded their campaigns or suspended them. You are hurting Iowa! Can't you behave yourself? You are an embarrassment! The binding for Iowa is what it is and your trying to make a name for yourself in the press is disgusting! Christians don't behave this way!”

Scheffler declined to comment about the exchange.

“My whole adult life I have been a loyal Republican. But this whole experience has really opened my eyes to what some folks I previously thought were nuts were warning us about,” Stinemetz said. “If you want to know how it's possible for someone like Donald Trump to rise this far in our party, it's because we have leaders like this.”


• Ed O'Keefe is covering the 2016 presidential campaign for The Washington Post. He's covered presidential and congressional politics, Congress and federal agencies and spent a brief time covering the Iraq war.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • The Kochs' powerful operation isn't aimed at helping Trump — but it might anyway (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-network-focuses-on-senate-races--but-voters-want-to-talk-trump/2016/06/20/e643e2de-349d-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html)

 • As the GOP's anti-Trump, Ben Sasse picked a big fight. What would it mean to win? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/as-the-gops-anti-trump-ben-sasse-picked-a-big-fight-what-would-it-mean-to-win/2016/06/20/f4b6bbe4-2cb8-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-anti-trump-movement-grows-to-include-hundreds-of-gop-delegates/2016/06/20/88fb25cc-36f7-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-anti-trump-movement-grows-to-include-hundreds-of-gop-delegates/2016/06/20/88fb25cc-36f7-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 22, 2016, 12:57:40 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump fires top aide in an urgent move to reboot his floundering campaign

By PHILIP RUCKER, JOSE A. DELREAL and SEAN SULLIVAN | 11:21PM EDT - Monday, June 20, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160620cl_CoreyLewandowski_zpsb7lft2zn.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/20/National-Politics/Images/527984094-2883.jpg)
Corey Lewandowski, seen here talking with reporters in New York in May, was fired on Monday as presumptive Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign manager. — Photograph: Spencer Platt.


DONALD TRUMP abruptly fired top aide Corey Lewandowski on Monday in an urgent move to reboot his floundering general-election campaign, which has been besieged by organizational turmoil, strategic mishaps and an erratic message.

Trump's dismissal of Lewandowski — his combative campaign manager and one of his longest-serving aides — was seen as an effort to calm allies, donors and Republican officials who have grown increasingly alarmed by recent mis-steps and unwanted dramas that threaten to undermine the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's chances in November.

A Trump loyalist whose mantra was “Let Trump be Trump” — Lewandowski chafed at suggestions that the candidate behave more presidentially. His departure consolidates power around veteran GOP operative and lobbyist Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman and senior strategist, who has been trying with limited success to professionalize the campaign.

Lewandowski's internal turf battles with Manafort were intense and at times paralyzed the campaign. The manager's relations with senior staff at the Republican National Committee had so deteriorated that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus implored Trump to make a change, according to two Republicans briefed on the matter who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

Lewandowski also ran afoul of Trump's family, especially his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who convinced Trump he needed a centralized management structure for the general election, according to people briefed on the decision. Trump fired Lewandowski at a meeting on Monday morning that was attended by the candidate's adult children, one of those people confirmed.

Lewandowski was escorted from Trump Tower flanked by security guards.

The campaign he leaves behind faces immediate challenges: The fundraising operation is sputtering; the ground game in battleground states is shockingly thin; key jobs at the national headquarters in New York have gone unfilled for months; the campaign has not aired a single television advertisement to counter Democrat Hillary Clinton's swing-state ad blitz; and aides struggle to coordinate strategy and basic operational tasks with the RNC.

Monthly fundraising totals released on Monday night underscored Trump's difficulties. In May, his campaign reported raising $3.1 million and entered June with $1.3 million on hand — a meager total akin to a House candidate's. That puts him at a severe disadvantage against Clinton, who raised $28 million in May and ended the month with $42 million on hand.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump supporter who is considered a possible running mate, said Trump and his team are “rapidly learning the general election, 50 states simultaneously, is a much bigger, more complex system.”

Gingrich praised Lewandowski for what he described as a historic primary campaign. But Gingrich said in an interview, “The general election is like a gigantic football team — it takes a whole different set of requirements both for the candidate and for the team.”

It remains to be seen whether Lewandowski's ouster is the beginning of a general-election pivot by the candidate or by his political operation. Supporters, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Republican), have been privately urging a change to avert what they fear could be certain defeat on Election Day.

In the seven weeks since he secured the delegates to claim the GOP nomination, Trump has rejected calls to develop a more inclusive and disciplined message. Instead, he has relished distracting feuds, one after another, which appear to have contributed to his decline in public polls.

Some leading Republicans were doubtful the staff shake-up would have a meaningful effect on the campaign's trajectory, which they see as strongly favoring Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. GOP leaders are concerned that Trump's incendiary rhetoric could doom the party at large, endangering the Republican Senate and House majorities.

“The problem is Trump,” said veteran Republican strategist Mike Murphy, a Trump critic. “You can fire all the yes men you want, but the campaign reflects on the candidate, and the candidate is hopelessly flawed.”

John Weaver, another GOP strategist and Trump critic, said: “Corey's core message was that he was allowing Trump to be Trump. So my question is, now that Corey is gone, will Trump stop being Trump? That's the only way to fix this.”

Lewandowski told CNN on Monday that he did not know why he was fired.

“I think in all campaigns you have detractors and you have supporters. That's the nature of the beast,” he said. He painted a rosy portrait of the campaign, denied there were internal skirmishes, and refused to criticize Trump or rivals in the campaign.

In March, Trump repeatedly defended Lewandowski against charges that he had assaulted a reporter at a news conference in Florida. But despite his earlier loyalty, Trump let his top aide go.

In a statement released on Monday, campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said: “The Donald J. Trump Campaign for President, which has set a historic record in the Republican Primary having received almost 14 million votes, has today announced that Corey Lewandowski will no longer be working with the campaign. The campaign is grateful to Corey for his hard work and dedication and we wish him the best in the future.”

Trump praised Lewandowski in a Fox News interview that aired on Monday night, calling him “a good man” and “a talented person”. Explaining his decision, Trump said: “We're going to go a little bit of a different route from this point forward. A little different style.”

Lewandowski was not the only senior aide to leave the campaign. Michael Caputo, a communications and political adviser, resigned on Monday afternoon after sending a tweet mocking Lewandowski with a “Wizard of Oz” reference: “Ding dong the witch is dead!” The tweet, Caputo wrote in his resignation letter, “was too exuberant a reaction to this personnel move.”

The campaign sought to project an image of competence on Monday after Lewandowski's ouster, which many staffers first heard about through news reports. Manafort led a staff-wide phone call in which he complimented Lewandowski's work and said the campaign would expand its ranks in the coming weeks, according to people on the call.

Trump held a private strategy meeting with family members and senior advisers, which was described as “upbeat” and “very forward-looking” by one person briefed on the session. The team discussed plans for the mid-July Republican National Convention in Cleveland, the selection of a vice-presidential running mate and fundraising. They also mapped out paths to victory in key battleground states and crafted a message tightly tailored to the economy and national security, said this person, who demanded anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The Trump team faces an immediate test Tuesday and Wednesday with a series of New York fundraising events. Steven Mnuchin, Trump's national finance chairman, has been scrambling to get commitments from major GOP donors. One fundraiser involved in the effort said it was “a question mark” whether the events would be successful.

One of Trump's first campaign hires, Lewandowski was an architect of his successful strategy, based on extensive media attention and massive rallies, throughout the primaries. Lewandowski became a force of personality, building a loyal stable of lieutenants at Trump Tower in New York and in states across the country.

He became known for his short temper and would explode at staff members and reporters who challenged or angered him — something he would brag about as a strength. Over the course of the campaign, Lewandowski repeatedly was caught saying things that were untrue, although he seemed to face no public repercussions for doing so.

In March, conservative reporter Michelle Fields accused Lewandowski of roughly grabbing her arm after a news conference at one of Trump's golf courses in Florida. Lewandowski denied having touched Fields and tweeted that she was “totally delusional,” but video from Trump's security cameras, later released by Florida authorities, showed Lewandowski grabbing Fields.

Lewandowski lost the trust of Trump's three adult children involved in the campaign — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric — when they learned he had been pitching reporters to write negative stories about Kushner, Ivanka's husband, who had emerged as a rival adviser, according to a Republican briefed on the episode.

Lewandowski came under scrutiny for the campaign's connection to a pro-Trump super PAC run last year by Mike Ciletti, a Colorado Republican operative who worked closely with Lewandowski in previous jobs. Lewandowski initially told The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-inside-story-of-donald-trumps-connections-to-a-big-money-super-pac/2015/10/18/532b61d4-72b5-11e5-8248-98e0f5a2e830_story.html) that he did not know Ciletti, then was forced to admit they were longtime associates. In the wake of The Post's reporting, Ciletti shuttered the super PAC last fall.

After that, the Trump campaign began directing large sums to a printing company, WizBang Solutions, where Ciletti serves as a director. In all, the campaign paid WizBang more than $2 million for printing, design and telemarketing through the end of April, making the company the campaign's fourth-largest vendor.

Trump himself has been under heavy fire in recent weeks for a string of damaging controversies — from his clumsy response to the mass shooting in Orlando that included unfounded accusations against American Muslims to his highly personal attacks against a federal judge overseeing two lawsuits against him to his campaign's failure to disburse pledged donations for veterans' charities.

Just as alarming to Trump's supporters is his failure so far to build a national infrastructure and fundraising apparatus in the same league as Clinton's. Trump heard these worries firsthand last week as he embarked on a cross-country fundraising trip.

Mica Mosbacher, a longtime Republican fundraiser who helped Trump and the RNC arrange donor events in Texas, said that “you need seasoned operatives” running a general-election campaign.

“Corey did a good job,” she said, but added, “I would not call him a seasoned operative.”

Former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating echoed the sentiments of many Republican establishment figures when he said Trump needs to show how he would govern.

“Donald Trump may be a billionaire businessman,” Keating said. “But the question is, will he be a trillionaire political and governmental leader? Switching your campaign manager, if that will bring some stability, that's all good. But all of us who love our party and our country want to see specifics from him as to what he's going to do, when and why.”


Matea Gold and Jenna Johnson contributed to this report.

• Philip Rucker is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post, where he has reported since 2005.

• Jose A. DelReal covers national politics for The Washington Post.

• Sean Sullivan has covered national politics for The Washington Post since 2012.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related media:

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Who is former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/who-is-trump-campaign-manager-corey-lewandowski/2016/03/29/b9bd175c-f5e2-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_gallery.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-fires-top-aide-in-an-urgent-move-to-reboot-his-floundering-campaign/2016/06/20/5f36ac9e-36f6-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-fires-top-aide-in-an-urgent-move-to-reboot-his-floundering-campaign/2016/06/20/5f36ac9e-36f6-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 22, 2016, 12:58:18 pm

ROFLMAO.....the Trump campaign for Prez is imploding.

Let's hope he takes the GOP with him.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 22, 2016, 06:40:13 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20News%20Pix/sfgate_morfordbanner2.jpg) (http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford)

Apple disses Trump, because of course they should

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist (mmorford@sfgate.com) | 3:41PM PDT - Tuesday, June 21, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160621a_Cook2_zpsxfpber83.jpg~original) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/dear-trump-fans-try-blackberry/cook2.jpg)
Not exactly worried about Trump's boycott.

WILL hardcore Trump supporters — like this sweet, all-American Arizona voter (see video clip below) — stop buying iPhones? Will iPhone fans who also love Trump now hurl their devices into the sewer and switch to Samsung, a vaguely creepy foreign company that doesn't give a damn about US politics, and will therefore happily support a hunk of rotting asparagus if it will sell them more Galaxy S'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ups4FeSuHvY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ups4FeSuHvY)

In short, will Apple's rather unprecedented decision to not supply the GOP with any financial or product support for this year's convention (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/apple-wont-aid-gop-convention-over-trump-224513), which it has done for both parties for many years, all because of Trump's poisonous stances, spur a new outbreak of the Mac/PC wars that no one really cared about in the first place? Will Apple's stock tumble? Will Trump supporters revolt? Do they even read? You already know the answer.

Did you miss this thoroughly boring news item? It's OK; Apple's surprise move (http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/apple-pulls-support-for-gop-convention-over-trump) might be the least newsworthy hunk of Trump-molested news of the week, amidst a slew of stories about the Donald's flailing, broke (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/21/trump-s-campaign-is-disastrously-short-on-cash.html), understaffed, grossly mismanaged non-campaign that's getting more absurd by the day.

But Apple's decision to avoid the GOP convention does bespeak one newsworthy aspect: Just how remarkable it is that a company the gargantuan scale and massive global reach of Apple is actually willing to take a (modest, not at all damaging) stance against… well, whatever the hell noxious stew of racist sexist bigoted hategurgle Trump embodies. Google didn't have the nerve. No one cares about Microsoft to notice either way. Facebook wimped out, as expected.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160621b_Apple_zpsmamgi8ip.jpg~original) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/dear-trump-fans-try-blackberry/apple.jpg)
Trump fans, beware! Best go buy a Blackberry!

It just doesn't happen, much, particularly with companies of Apple's stature. They mostly tend to avoid any political stance or endorsement, at least publicly, to avoid insulting any potential customers. Sure, they sometimes band together, like Apple did with a wide range of companies against North Carolina's viciously homophobic “bathroom use” legislation. Sure, Walmart and Target, et al, eventually had to put a stop to Open Carry morons marching through their stores with rifles strapped to their bloated, paranoid white beer-bellies. But that's less of a stance than a function of running a fair-minded business.

But let’s be honest: Apple's move is hardly radical — and they know it (Tim Cook is even hosting a breakfast for Paul Ryan (http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Apple-CEO-Tim-Cook-will-fundraise-for-Republicans-8314165.php), to indicate the company's general bipartisanship). Banning Trump, blocking Trump, lamenting being anywhere near Trump, feeling your soul ripped to bloody shreds because you associate with Trump is quickly becoming a new American pastime. Dude is radioactive. So much so that it probably would have done more harm to Apple to have its brand even tacitly associated with the GOP convention, while Trump is its carcinogenic king.

So no, silly PC writer dudes (http://www.pcmag.com/commentary/345422/apple-is-now-the-anti-trump-computing-platform) and bored pundits, Apple is not now the “anti-Trump platform” — if anything, they're actually the “pro human-decency” platform.  This isn't going to cause the slightest blip in the eternally insipid “Mac/PC wars” that no one really cared about in the first place. There will be no violent anti-Apple rally. Apple will feel zero sales slump; if anything, more Americans will admire Apple for setting a clear boundary against the Rabid Orange Monster.


(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160621c_Cook_zpspzoa6p30.jpg~original) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/dear-trump-fans-try-blackberry/cook.jpg) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160621d_DonaldTrump_zpskbsu7ibz.jpg~original) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/dear-trump-fans-try-blackberry/donald-trump.jpg)
LEFT: Definitely voting for Hillary. Shhh. | RIGHT: Once told supporters to boycott Apple… while tweeting from his iPhone. He's got a big brain! (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/09_ROFLMAO.gif)

After all, Trump hates Apple already (http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/19/donald-trump-apple-boycott-iphone), and Apple… clearly could not care less. Tim Cook & Co. know there isn't a single American company of note that would willingly link itself to the Trump “brand” at this point. He's an abysmal businessman, a laughable thinker, a disastrous politician and has proven himself even dumber than Bush when it comes to inane conspiracy theories, bashing immigrants, understanding the rudimentary fundamentals of American policy.

Which is to say, Apple is merely doing what everyone with a functioning heart is doing right now: getting as far from the ticking warhead of slavering disaster that is the Trump campaign as possible, before it poisons everyone's drink. Just good business smarts, really.


Email: Mark Morford (etc@markmorford.com)

Mark Morford (http://www.markmorford.com) on Twitter (http://twitter.com/markmorford) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/markmorfordyes).

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2016/06/21/apple-disses-trump-because-of-course-they-should (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2016/06/21/apple-disses-trump-because-of-course-they-should)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 22, 2016, 08:03:45 pm
Quote
if anything, they're actually the “pro human-decency” platform.
(https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/knuppel2.gif)

I diss Apple, because of course i should

Apples China Worker Slaves Management System Is Rotten To The Core

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8GQNJ0WJb4


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 22, 2016, 08:32:55 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/SFGate%20Pix%202016/20160621d_DonaldTrump_large_zpskywlousa.jpg~original) (http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/wp-content/blogs.dir/2467/files/dear-trump-fans-try-blackberry/donald-trump.jpg)
Trump once told supporters to boycott Apple… while tweeting from his iPhone. He's got a big brain!  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/09_ROFLMAO.gif)




(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/TooFunny.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingPinkPanther.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ROFLMAO_Dog.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingHard.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ItchyBugga.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 22, 2016, 08:54:49 pm
hahaha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU3vcvGpALQ#t=1118.281


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 23, 2016, 03:42:08 pm
Is that snowflake below laughing at his commie religion (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/17_Clapping.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 23, 2016, 04:15:47 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump's top example of foreign experience:
A Scottish golf course losing millions


By JENNA JOHNSON | 6:21PM EDT - Wednesday, June 22, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622sta_ScotchTrump1_zpsepf91qbr.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/21/National-Politics/Images/TrumpScotland_Shannon-431462807631.jpg)
Scot Isaac Lennox drives off the tee at Trump International Golf Links in Balmedie, north of Aberdeen, Scotland.
 — Photograph: Shannon Jensen Wedgwood/The Washington Post.


BALMEDIE, SCOTLAND — When Donald Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/trump) arrives this weekend at the golf course he built on the rugged dunes of this remote, windswept corner overlooking the North Sea, he will celebrate it as an example of his international business success.

He bought the property north of Aberdeen more than a decade ago as his first European project — a chance to establish the Trump brand in his mother's native country. He has pointed to it as a precursor to his bid for the U.S. presidency.

“When I first arrived on the scene in Aberdeen, the people of Scotland were testing me to see just how serious I was — just like the citizens in the United States have done about my race for the White House,” Trump wrote in a column (https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/editors-picks/886208/donald-trump-exclusive-pj-column-full-scotland-will-help-become-president) published this spring in a local newspaper under the headline “How Scotland will help me become president”.

“I had to win them over — I had to convince them that I meant business and that I had their best interests in mind,” he wrote. “Well, Scotland has already been won — and so will the United States.”

But to many people in Scotland, his course here has been a failure. Over the past decade, Trump has battled with homeowners, elbowed his way through the planning process, shattered relationships with elected leaders and sued the Scottish government. On top of that, he has yet to fulfill the lofty promises he made.

Trump has also reported to Scottish authorities that he lost millions of dollars on the project — even as he claims on U.S. presidential disclosure forms that the course has been highly profitable.

Trump's original plan: a sprawling resort in the ancestral home of golf with two courses, a 450-room luxury hotel and spa, a conference center, employee housing, a turf-grass research center and a holiday community with hundreds of villas, condos and homes. The project would pump millions of dollars into the local economy and create 6,000 jobs — maybe even 7,000 jobs, Trump said at one news conference. Tourists would travel here from around the world, he promised, along with well-known celebrities such as Scottish actor Sean Connery.

Today, the Trump International Golf Links near Aberdeen employs 150 people and consists of one golf course that meanders through the sand dunes, a clubhouse with a restaurant and 19 rooms for rent in a renovated mansion and former carriage house. There is also a maintenance facility and a road running through the property. Lonely and desolate, the resort has attracted no major tournaments, and neighbors say the parking lot is rarely, if ever, full.

Trump, in a recent interview, blamed the delays in finishing the project on tedious local regulations and litigation over an offshore wind farm that he says would spoil his view. Trump said he or his children will eventually expand the hotel and build “thousands” of houses — but not until someday after the presidential campaign.

“In all fairness, right now it's not exactly top of my mind because I'm running for president,” Trump said. “But what I've done is made the land incredible…. It's a piece of land that's fully sculpted, it's beautiful, it's ready, and I can go anytime I want.”


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622stb_ScotchTrump2_zpsoqamo2dl.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/21/National-Politics/Images/TrumpScotland_Shannon-841462807753.jpg)
Promotional material sits on the guest book at Trump International Golf Links.
 — Photograph: Shannon Jensen Wedgwood/The Washington Post.


‘Extremely implausible’

When Trump first announced the Aberdeen project in early 2006, he said he had scouted more than 200 locations in the region — and stopped looking as soon as he saw the majestic sand dunes on about 800 acres of coastline.

The land, which was previously used for hunting, presented a series of challenges. The ever-shifting dunes were supposed to be protected from development. There were plans for a wind farm just off the coast, with turbines as tall as Big Ben that threatened to ruin Trump's perfect view. And there were a handful of neighbors who would probably have to move.

Some locals puzzled over why Trump would build a golf course in a spot regularly shrouded in cold fog.

“It is fabulous news for the area, of course, and also for knitwear manufacturers, who will make a killing when the world's top players step out on the first tee and feel as though their limbs are being sawn off by a north-east breeze that hasn't paused for breath since it left the Arctic,” one local columnist wrote.

Still, much of the focus at the start was the potential economic windfall for the community. When Trump visited Aberdeen that spring, the local paper wrote that his arrival “could turn out to be as economically historic as the discovery of oil under the North Sea.” Local leaders greeted his private Boeing 727 at the airport, along with a bagpiper playing “Highland Laddie”. They were all a bit confused as Trump repeatedly referred to himself as “Scotch”.

Soon after the visit, Trump was named a global business ambassador for the country. At the same time, the wind project that worried Trump — first proposed in 2003 — reduced its number of planned turbines from 33 to 23. The total would later be reduced to 11.

Trump's formal proposal to a local planning board several months later was even grander than expected. A Trump official told locals they could expect their property values to go up 20 percent and see the creation of 1,200 permanent jobs and more than 6,000 jobs over 10 years. Trump said he would spend the equivalent of $1.5 billion on the project.

“Mr. Trump's promises were extremely implausible,” recalled Martin Ford, who led the local planning council at the time. “The number of jobs seemed ridiculously high, and the amount of money seemed also to be implausibly large.”

Ford cast the deciding vote against the plan in late 2007, throwing the Trump Organization into lobbying mode.

Trump refused to appeal the decision and threatened to move the project to Ireland. Then-First Minister Alex Salmond huddled with Trump's staff at a hotel in Aberdeen, and officials announced the next day that the national government would handle the application and hold a lengthy public hearing.

The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen declared that the series of events “smells of sleaze”. But Salmond said that at the time there was no indication that Trump wasn't genuine in his promises, and he worried that barring the foreign investment would scare away others looking to do business in Scotland.

“There was nothing to suggest that there wasn't serious intent behind it,” Salmond said. “We all wish that we had 20/20 hindsight, but I'm afraid that we are not given to having 20/20 hindsight.”


Battling with neighbors

The public inquiry started six months later, in June 2008. The world had dramatically changed since Trump first discovered the site. The global recession and collapse of the real estate market eventually pushed the Trump Organization to delay or cancel a number of projects. Trump stuck with the Scotland project, even as it became increasingly complicated.

While testifying at the hearing, Trump said that “the world is in chaos” and that the housing development might have to wait until after the economy recovered. But he promised to see the project through.

His testimony was filled with exaggerations — such as when he claimed to know more about the environment than his consultants — and seemed to show a lack of understanding of Scotland's laws and customs. At the hearing, Trump came face-to-face with Ford, who suggested the businessman did not properly research his purchase.

“You know, nobody has ever told me before I don't know how to buy property,” Trump responded. “You're the first one. I have done very well buying property. Thanks for the advice.”

Months later, in November 2008, Trump received the green light. Construction began the next year.

With that battle seemingly ended, Trump quickly shifted his focus to challenging the proposed wind farm and the neighbors living near the golf course who refused to sell their properties at his offered price.

Unable to negotiate sales directly with the neighbors, Trump began to pursue compulsory purchase — similar to eminent domain in the United States — to force them out of their homes. Not only did he want their land, Trump said he didn't want the views from his luxury hotel “obliterated by a slum.”


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622stc_ScotchTrump3_zpsik9zjnql.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/04/24/Interactivity/Images/143305709.jpg)
Michael Forbes stands beside his shed near Trump’s golf course in Balmedie, Scotland, in April 2012.
 — Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.


The largest property is owned by Michael Forbes (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/16/if-trump-cant-beat-scottish-wind-farmers-how-can-he-out-negotiate-putin), a farmer, fisherman, quarry worker and jack-of-all-trades who lives with his wife in a farmhouse surrounded by a collection of outbuildings. Trump once said that Forbes “lives like a pig”; Forbes painted “NO MORE TRUMP LIES” on the side of one of his buildings.

Trump's threat to seize property angered many Scots. A group of activists purchased a chunk of Forbes's land and piled their names onto a deed — making it much more complicated to seize it. Although elected leaders had bent to Trump's demands in the past, they stood firm against kicking locals off their own land to make way for a private business.

It appeared the two sides would be forced to live alongside each other — and not peacefully. The development took steps to shield neighboring properties from the course, prompting years of feuding.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622std_ScotchTrump4_zpsmvzrvfdh.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/21/National-Politics/Images/TrumpScotland_Shannon-951462807756.jpg)
Susan Munro lives next to the parking lot of Donald Trump's golf course north of Aberdeen.
 — Photograph: Shannon Jensen Wedgwood/The Washington Post.


In one case, Trump workers blocked in the cottage belonging to Susie and John Munro, constructing a two-story-high hill in their front yard and then adding a fence and locked gate, the couple said. Whenever it rains, they say, their yard fills with water and their steep dirt road turns into a mudslide.

During a dispute over property lines, workers ripped out a fence near the home of David and Moira Milne, who live in a converted coast-guard station on a hill above the golf course. The Trump workers installed their own fence — and then sent the Milnes a bill for it.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622ste_ScotchTrump5_zpsjmwfbqky.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/21/National-Politics/Images/TrumpScotland_Shannon-491462807632.jpg)
David Milne, who lives in a converted coast-guard lookout on the bluff above Trump's course, points out features
on the original Trump plans. — Photograph: Shannon Jensen Wedgwood/The Washington Post.


“It ain't getting paid. I'm never paying it,” said David Milne, an energy consultant who chuckles at the thought of Trump trying to get Mexico to pay for a massive border wall when he couldn't collect on the bill for a slatted wood fence no more than five feet tall.

Trump's workers also planted a row of trees that blocked the Milnes' view of the sea. When the first batch died, the workers ripped them out and planted a second.


‘A very small job for me’

The 18-hole golf course opened in July 2012 — and even critics acknowledge that it is beautiful, meandering through the stabilized sand dunes with sweeping views of the coastline. Even on days when the course is full, which is rare, golfers say they feel as if they are playing by themselves on the edge of the earth, as other tees are hidden away by the rolling landscape.

Trump likes to say that this is a course designed by God himself. He considers it his masterpiece, comparing it to a treasured, multimillion-dollar painting.

“There are lots of ways that he can make money, and there are lots of ways that he can make a fast buck, and this was a project that was about his legacy, it was about his family, it was about his love of the game of golf,” said Sarah Malone, the executive director of the development.

Also in 2012, Trump halted work on the resort to challenge the proposed wind farm, which was still on track to be built. In a letter to Salmond, Trump dubbed him “Mad Alex” and warned that the wind project would make him “the man who destroyed Scotland”. Trump also took out advertisements in the local press criticizing the wind farm.

During a hearing in June 2012, Trump accused the Scottish government of luring him into investing in the country on the false promise that the turbines would never be built — an assertion that officials deny. At one point, one of the questioners asked Trump whether he was fighting the wind turbines as a way to back out of the project without embarrassing himself.

“I've created something that's magnificent — I've created what some people and myself are considering the best golf course anywhere in the world. That's what I said I was going to do,” Trump said at the hearing. “We're a very rich organization. We're a very substantial organization. This is a very small job for me. This is not a big job.”

The next year, Trump sued the government to block the turbines, kicking off an expensive legal battle. Late last year, Britain's highest court ruled against Trump (http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/12/16/trump-loses-bid-to-block-scottish-wind-f?videoId=366709592).

His company released a statement: “History will judge those involved unfavorably and the outcome demonstrates the foolish, small-minded and parochial mentality which dominates the current Scottish Government's dangerous experiment with wind energy.”


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622stf_ScotchTrump6_zpsiom2zcgs.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/21/National-Politics/Images/TrumpScotland_Shannon-151462807506.jpg)
Scott Easton, a local player, takes his putt. — Photograph: Shannon Jensen Wedgwood/The Washington Post.

‘Nobody wants him around’

Trump has provided starkly contradictory portraits of the financial health of his golf course here, along with two other projects in the region.

According to reports filed with the British government, Trump said the Aberdeen course has lost more than 4.71 million pounds since 2012 — the equivalent of $6.9 million at current exchange rates. British authorities were told that the course lost 1.14 million pounds, or about $1.67 million, in 2014 alone.

Yet in a July 2015 disclosure filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Trump valued Aberdeen at “over $50 million” and put his income from the course at $4.2 million between mid-2014 and the end of 2015.

A similar pattern holds for records filed for his Turnberry golf resort on Scotland's west coast, which he will also visit this week, and at a third Trump course in Ireland's County Clare — millions in losses reported in overseas records, millions in profits reported on U.S. forms.

Trump told Bloomberg News, which first reported on the gap between the reports (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-02-24/a-look-inside-trump-s-global-deals-exposes-trouble-in-many-spots), that the amounts he listed on his U.S. filings were “projected future income”.

Trump's son Eric, who takes the lead in golf course developments, said in an interview that the U.S. disclosure forms report gross revenue, not net income. He also said the British and Irish courses are losing money only because the Trump Organization is spending aggressively to turn them into leading international resorts.

“We are incredibly pleased with Aberdeen,” Eric Trump said. “… It is the most beautiful course I have ever seen. It is a spectacular project that will continue to be the gem of Trump Golf for years to come.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump's recent calls on the campaign trail for the United States to temporarily ban foreign Muslims from entering the country has sparked outrage here in Scotland. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stripped Trump of his business ambassadorship, and Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen rescinded an honorary degree it gave Trump in 2010.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcy0c1ZSaH8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcy0c1ZSaH8)

Opposition to Trump is particularly strong in the Aberdeen area. Forbes and Milne — two of the neighbors that Trump feuded with — have erected Mexican flags on their properties in anticipation of his visit. And when more than 500,000 Britons signed a petition this year calling for Trump to be barred from the country, the highest concentration of signatures came from here.

“He would have us think that he is widely respected and loved, that Scotland he has won over…. That's just delusional, I'm sorry to say,” said Aberdeen's Suzanne Kelly, who organized the national petition. “Nobody wants him around…. And he refuses to see or refuses to accept what is reality.”


Tom Hamburger in Washington contributed to this report.

• Jenna Johnson is a political reporter who is covering the 2016 presidential campaign for The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-top-example-of-foreign-experience-a-scottish-golf-course-losing-millions/2016/06/22/12ae9cb0-1883-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-top-example-of-foreign-experience-a-scottish-golf-course-losing-millions/2016/06/22/12ae9cb0-1883-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 23, 2016, 05:44:12 pm
i am glad i hate golf get your head out of your arse snowflake


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 23, 2016, 06:49:16 pm

Trump is a FAILURE when it comes to doing business.

He has failed in the casino (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html) business, the steak (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/hey-trump-wheres-the-beef-trump-steaks-are-so-rare-we-cant-even-find-one/2016/03/22/175b682a-ebc3-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html) business, the vodka (http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-trump-vodka) business, the magazine (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/remembering-failed-wealth-porn-trump-magazine-article-1.2528638) business, the airline (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/04/the-crash-of-trump-air.html) business, the football (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/sports/football/donald-trumps-less-than-artful-failure-in-pro-football.html) business, the real estate seminar (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/was-donald-trumps-education-venture-trump-university-a-scam/2015/09/13/299ed9c8-52c0-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html) business, and the vitamin pyramid scheme (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/23/the-trump-network-sought-to-make-people-rich-but-left-behind-disappointment) business (to name just a few examples, of which there are many).

Click on all of those links, one by one, to read all about Donald Trump's business failures. And notice how he always walks away and leaves a shitload of debt behind and hurts a shitload of innocent workers, contractors, sub-contractors, other businesses, etc.

In other words, Donald Trump is a selfish, incompetent rip-off artist, thief, and LIAR who doesn't give a shit how much damage he does to other people.

Talk about a narcissistic wanker....yet some people are STUPID enough to think he'd make a great President of the USA?

FAAAAAAAAAARRKK!!  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/idiot2.gif)  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/uglystupid2.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 23, 2016, 08:22:41 pm

from The Washington Post....

Confident. Incorrigible. Bully: Little Donny
was a lot like candidate Donald Trump


By PAUL SCHWARTZMAN and MICHAEL E. MILLER | 6:26PM EDT - Wednesday, June 22, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622dtpb_DonaldTrumpPeterBrant_zpskee6fav1.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/21/Style/Images/Trump61466538190.jpg)
Donald Trump and Peter Brant, both about 11 years old, playing with snorkel gear in the pool of the Roney Plaza Hotel
in Miami Beach. — Photograph: Courtesy of Peter Brant.


AS A 5-YEAR-OLD, the boy followed his babysitter on an urban safari, descending into a sewer that was under construction beneath New York City. The light fading, the sitter grew concerned that the boy would panic. But little Donny Trump kept walking into the gathering darkness.

In elementary school, Donny impressed classmates with his athleticism, shenanigans and refusal to acknowledge mistakes, even one so trivial as misidentifying a popular professional wrestler. No matter his pals' ridicule, one recalled, he doubled down, insisting wrestler Antonino Rocca's name was “Rocky Antonino”.

At the military academy where he attended high school, Donny grew taller, more muscular and tougher. Struck with a broomstick during a fight, he tried to push a fellow cadet out a second-floor window, only to be thwarted when two other students intervened.

Long before he attained vast wealth and far-reaching fame, Donald J. Trump left an indelible impression in the prosperous Queens neighborhood where he evolved from a mischievous, incorrigible boy into a swaggering young man.

He was Trump in miniature, an embryonic version of the bombastic, flamboyant candidate who has dominated the 2016 presidential race, more than three dozen of his childhood friends, classmates and neighbors said in interviews. Even Trump has acknowledged the similarities between himself as an adult and when he was the boy whom friends alternately referred to as “Donny”, “The Trumpet” and “Flat Top” (for his hair).

“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same,” the 70-year-old presumptive Republican nominee once told a biographer. “The temperament is not that different.”

His face crowned by a striking blond pompadour, young Donald commanded attention with his playground taunts, classroom disruptions and distinctive countenance, even then his lips pursed in a way that would inspire future mimics. Taller than his classmates, he exuded an easy confidence and independence.

“Who could forget him?” said Ann Trees, 82, who taught at Kew-Forest School, where Trump was a student through seventh grade. “He was headstrong and determined. He would sit with his arms folded with this look on his face — I use the word surly — almost daring you to say one thing or another that wouldn't settle with him.”

If nothing else, the military academy taught young Donald a lesson that would prove valuable in adulthood as he navigated two divorces, bankruptcy and regular spasms of bad publicity: No matter the crisis, he could prevail.


The home that stood out

In Jamaica Estates, the Queens neighborhood where Donald grew up, the Trumps' house on Midland Parkway was distinct, if not for its size then for what it suggested about the wealth of its builder, Fred Trump.

Seventeen brick steps led up a sloping hill to the entrance, which was framed by a Colonial-style portico, a stained-glass crest and six white columns. Two Cadillacs were in the driveway, their license plates bearing their owner's initials, “FCT1” and “FCT2”.

“No one had individualized license plates in those days,” said Ann Rudovsky, who grew up nearby. “Everyone talked about the Trumps because of the house and the cars.”

Unlike most families in the neighborhood, the Trumps had a cook, a chauffeur and an intercom system. Their color television, a rarity at the time, was among the Trumps' accoutrements that most impressed Mark Golding, Donald's childhood friend.

“He had the most amazing train set,” recalled Golding, a lawyer in Portland, Oregon. “He had all these special gadgets and gates and switches, more extensive than anything I'd seen. I was very envious.”


__________________________________________________________________________

About “Trump Revealed”… (https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/trumprevealed)

This story is based on reporting for “Trump Revealed”, a broad, comprehensive examination
of the life of the presumptive Republican nominee for president. The biography, written
by Washington Post reporters Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher in a collaboration
with more than two dozen Post reporters, researchers and editors,
is scheduled to be published by Scribner on August 23rd.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622tr_TrumpRevealed_zpspm0x6gmj.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1024w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/17/Investigative/Images/TrumpRevealed.jpeg)
__________________________________________________________________________

Donald is the fourth of Fred and Mary Trump's five children, the first of whom, Fred Jr., a gregarious airline pilot, suffered from alcoholism and died at the age of 43. Maryanne Trump, Donald’s older sister, became a U.S. Appeals Court judge. Another sister, Elizabeth, was an administrative secretary. His younger brother, Robert, went into business.

Their mother, Mary, a Scottish immigrant, relished attention, thrusting herself to the center of social gatherings. She also loved pageantry, spending hours watching on television the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth.

Mary Trump suffered a hemorrhage after Robert's birth that forced doctors to perform an emergency hysterectomy. She also developed an abdominal infection that required several more surgeries, during which she nearly died.

At one point, Fred Trump informed his daughter that her mother “wasn't expected to live, but I should go to school and he'd call me if anything changed,” Maryanne Trump once told Gwenda Blair, who authored a detailed history of the family. “That's right — go to school as usual!”

Maryanne Trump declined to comment for this article except to say, “He's still a simple boy from Queens. You can quote me on that.” Neither Elizabeth nor Robert Trump responded to messages.

Fred Trump, with his thick mustache and hair combed back, was a stern, formal man who insisted on wearing a tie and jacket at home. A conservative Republican who admired Barry Goldwater, Fred Trump and his wife forbade their children from cursing, calling each other by nicknames and wearing lipstick.

Fred Trump “was really very kind of tightfisted,” said Peter Brant, a newsprint magnate who was among Donald's closest childhood friends. “He didn't give Donald a whole bunch of rope.”

When Fred Trump visited one of his contractors, he sometimes brought Donald along and hired a teenage boy who lived next door to watch him during the meeting. One afternoon, recalled the sitter, Frank Briggs, 81, he led Trump on a sewer adventure during which “it was pitch black and you couldn't see the entrance.”

“The thing that amazed me,” Briggs said, “was that Donny wasn't scared. He just kept walking.”

Dennis Burnham was four years younger and lived around the corner from Donald. He inherited his own impression of his neighbor from his mother, who warned that he should “stay away from the Trumps.”

“Donald was known to be a bully, I was a little kid, and my parents didn't want me beaten up,” said Burnham, 65, a business consultant in Texas.

Once when she left Dennis in a playpen in a back yard adjoining the Trumps' property, Martha Burnham returned to find Donald throwing rocks at her son. “She saw Donald standing at the fence,” Dennis Burnham said, “using the playpen for target practice.”


Creating mischief

For kindergarten, Donald went to the private Kew-Forest School, which required skirts for girls and ties and blazers for boys. Everyone had to rise when their teacher entered the classroom.

Donald was among a group of boys who pulled girls' hair, passed notes and talked out of turn. “We threw spitballs and we played racing chairs with our desks, crashing them into other desks,” recalled Paul Onish, a classmate, describing himself and Trump as “probably the two worst.”

Donald spent enough time in detention, Onish said, that his buddies nicknamed the punishment “DTs” — short for “Donny Trump.”

“He had a reputation for saying anything that came into his head,” said Donald Kass, 70, a retired agronomist who was a schoolmate. When Trump misidentified Rocca, the pro wrestler, Kass recalled, “We would laugh at him and tell him he was wrong, and he'd say he was right. The next time, he would make the same mistake, and it would be the same thing all over again.”

In his neighborhood, Donald and his friends were known to ride their bikes and “shout and curse very loudly,” said Steve Nachtigall, who lived nearby. Nachtigall said he once saw them jump off their bikes and beat up another boy.

“It's kind of like a little video snippet that remains in my brain because I think it was so unusual and terrifying at that age,” recalled Nachtigall, 66, a doctor in New Jersey. “He was a loudmouth bully.”

At times, Trump's classmates fought back.

After he yanked her pigtails, Sharon Mazzarella hit Donald over the head with her metal lunch pail as she followed him down the stairs outside the school. “I must've been quite annoyed,” Mazzarella said of the incident, which she described as her only memory of Trump.

In his memoir, “The Art of the Deal”, Trump wrote that his main focus as a youngster was “creating mischief.” As a second-grader, he wrote, he “actually” gave his music teacher a black eye because “I didn't think he knew anything about music, and I almost got expelled.”

None of Trump's childhood friends recall the incident or Donald talking about it then. Asked about the punch recently, Trump said, “When I say ‘punch’, when you're that age, nobody punches very hard.”

At a 2009 reunion, Kass said, the teacher, Charles Walker, told him that Trump had never struck him. But Walker, who died last year, claimed no affection for Trump. In the final stages of his life, according to his son, Charles Walker learned that Trump was considering a presidential bid.

“When that kid was 10,” Peter Walker recalled his father telling family members gathered at his bedside, “even then he was a little shit!”


Aiming to overpower

If his grades suffered and he annoyed his teachers, Trump found success on the playground. During dodgeball games, he was known for jumping and pulling his knees up to avoid balls thrown at him.

“The Trumpet was always the last man standing,” recalled Chrisman Scherf, 70, a classmate who is a surgeon in Arizona.

Trump's best sport was baseball, a passion that inspired him, at 12, to write a prose poem that was published in the yearbook.

I like to hear the crowd give cheers, so loud and noisy to my ears,” Donald wrote. “When the score is 5-5, I feel like I could cry. And when they get another run, I feel like I could die. Then the catcher makes an error, not a bit like Yogi Berra. The game is over and we say tomorrow is another day.

By sixth grade, Donald's power as a right-handed hitter was enough that fielders shifted to left field when he batted. “If he had hit the ball to right, he could've had a home run because no one was there,” said Nicholas Kass, a schoolmate. “But he always wanted to hit the ball through people. He wanted to overpower them.”

A catcher, Trump's uniform was often the dirtiest on the field, and he shrugged off foul balls clanging off his mask. After once making an out, Donald smashed neighbor Jeff Bier's Adirondack bat on the pavement. The bat cracked, Bier said, but Trump did not apologize.

In those years, youngsters yearned for the new mitts with intricate webbing that Rawlings had begun manufacturing. Peter Brant persuaded his father to help pay for the $30 glove, but Donald could not persuade Fred Trump to buy him one.

Too expensive, Fred told Donald, though he did agree to buy him a cheaper model.


Straight to boarding school

In 1958, when they were 12, Trump and Brant liked to board an E train bound for Manhattan, a distant land of soaring, exotic promise. They did not ask their parents for permission for their Saturday expeditions. Manhattan was too far and too dangerous for two boys from the tranquil, low-slung reaches of Queens.

Exiting the train at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue, Donald and Peter felt like an urban version of Lewis and Clark. They explored Central Park's bucolic recesses, watched African American men play basketball on courts along the East River and observed the panhandlers and hustlers in midtown.

Around Times Square, they discovered novelty shops, where they bought stink bombs, hand buzzers and fake vomit — perfect accessories for pranking their pals. The shops also sold switchblades. On Broadway, “West Side Story” was a smash, and the boys, imagining themselves as gang members, bought knives to fit the part.

Near the end of seventh grade, Fred discovered Donald's knives and was infuriated to learn about his trips into the city. He decided his son's behavior warranted a radical change. In the months before eighth grade, Fred Trump enrolled Donald at the New York Military Academy, a boarding school 70 miles from Jamaica Estates.

D'Antonio, the biographer who wrote Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250042380), said Fred Trump's decision was “a very severe response to a kid who hadn't gotten arrested and wasn't involved in drinking and drugging. He was essentially a smart aleck.”

“This was a profound rejection of Donald,” he said.

Donald did not announce his departure to his friends, who, when word filtered out, struggled to understand. “It was a very, very sudden thing and I was really surprised and sad,” Brant recalled. “I always said to myself, ‘Is there something I didn't know about his past that would make his father send him to the military academy?’”

Irik Sevin, a prominent executive who was a year behind Trump at Kew-Forest, described Donald as a “normal, rambunctious kid.”

“The rug was pulled out from under him,” Sevin said.


Confidence and aggression

At the military academy, Trump wore a crew cut, a thick wool uniform and was awoken daily by a recording of reveille.

Instead of steaks prepared by his family's cook, Donald sat in a crowded mess hall and filled his plate from vats of meatloaf, spaghetti and something called “mystery mountains”, a stew of deep-fried leftovers remade as meatballs.

Instead of his own bathroom, he had to shower with fellow cadets.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160622dtnyma_DonaldTrumpNYMilitaryAcademy_zpsotrewybr.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/22/Style/Images/2AB3F91E00000578-3168648-Never_in_uniform_again_Trump_was_photographed_at_New_York_Milita-a-1_1437442288495_copy1466607310.jpg)
Trump's yearbook photograph for the New York Military Academy.
 — Photograph: From the New York Military Academy yearbook.


Instead of his father, Donald's new taskmaster was Theodore Dobias, a no-nonsense combat veteran who had served in World War II and had seen Mussolini's dead body hanging from a rope.

Dobias, who died recently, would smack his cadets with an open hand if they ignored him, students recalled. He set up a boxing ring and forced students with poor grades and disciplinary problems to fight each other.

“At the beginning, he didn't like the idea of being told what to do, like make your bed, shine your shoes, brush your teeth, clean the sink, do your homework,” Dobias said in an interview last fall, referring to Trump. “We really didn't care whether he came from Rockefeller Center or whatever. He was just another name.”

Dobias said he recognized in Trump an innate drive: “He wanted to be number one. He wanted to be noticed. He wanted to be recognized. And he liked compliments.”

Trump won medals for neatness and took pride in his grades. He distinguished himself on both the baseball and football teams.

To his classmates, Trump was a blend of friendly and cocky. He boasted that his father's wealth doubled every time he completed a real estate deal. “He was self-confident and very soft-spoken, believe it or not, as if he knew he was just passing time until he went on to something greater,” said classmate Michael Pitkow.

In his room, Trump played Elvis Presley and Johnny Mathis albums. He liked to screw an ultraviolet light into the overhead socket and lie down for a tan. “We're going to the beach,” Trump would announce to his roommate, David Smith.

By senior year, Trump was known for bringing stylish women to campus and showing them around. “They were beautiful, gorgeous women, dressed out of Saks Fifth Avenue,” recalled classmate George White.

“Ladies Man” read the caption beneath a photo in the senior yearbook of Trump.

At times, Trump clashed with fellow cadets, including Ted Levine, with whom he shared a room at one point. Donald, Levine recalled, folded his towels and underwear so that “every single one was perfectly squared. Like, insanely neat.”

“Mr. Meticulous” was Levine's nickname for Donald.

After finding Levine's unmade bed while on inspection duty, Trump tossed the sheets on the floor. Levine, who was a foot shorter than Trump, said he “grabbed everything that was grabbable,” hurling a combat boot at Donald and hitting him with a broomstick.

Enraged, Trump shoved Levine toward a second-floor window. “He tried to push me out,” Levine said, but two cadets intervened.

Within the academy's testosterone-driven culture, Levine said, Trump's aggression was understandable. “Would I have respected him if he didn't?” he asked. “No. If he took that shit from the little crap I was, he wouldn't be where he is today.”


Destiny on Fifth Avenue

In his senior year, the academy appointed Trump to the prestigious position of captain of A Company. As a leader, recalled Peter Ticktin, a company platoon sergeant, Trump could inspire respect without raising his voice.

“He never yelled at anyone,” said Ticktin, now a Florida lawyer who touts Trump's candidacy on his Facebook page. “He'd just look at you, the eyebrows kind of raised. The kind of look that said you can't disappoint him.”

A month after senior year started, Trump faced a crisis. One of his platoon sergeants shoved a plebe, Lee Ains, against a wall because the freshman was too slow snapping to attention. At the time, the academy was already dealing with a serious hazing incident and was sensitive to new allegations of abuse. The administration reassigned Trump as a battalion training officer.

Ains said the academy concluded that Trump had not monitored his officers “as closely as he should have.”

Trump described his reassignment as a promotion. “I did a good job and that's why I got elevated,” he said.

After his transfer, Trump led a drill team in New York City's Columbus Day parade. Standing on Fifth Avenue, Trump turned to Major Anthony “Ace” Castellano and declared his ambition.

“You know what, Ace?” Castellano recalled Trump saying. “I'd really like to own some of this real estate some day.”

College awaited, but Trump seemed to know that he would follow his father into business, telling a roommate that he “felt like he might be missing out” if he did not. He considered attending film school in California but then decided New York would be his destination.

In 1964, after graduating from high school, Trump joined his father at the dedication of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Amid the pageantry, Donald noticed that no one paid homage to the bridge's 85-year-old Swedish designer, who had traveled from Europe for the occasion.

“I realized then and there that if you let people treat you how they want, you'll be made a fool,” he later told a reporter. “I realized then and there something I would never forget: I don't want to be made anybody's sucker.”

By his 18th year, Donald Trump had a clear sense of his own destiny, a vision he shared with a fellow cadet, Jeff Ortenau.

“I'm going to be very famous one day,” Donald promised.

“You know what?” Ortenau recalls telling Trump. “You're probably going to be president.”


• Paul Schwartzman specializes in political profiles and narratives about life, death and everything in between.

• Michael E. Miller is a foreign affairs reporter for The Washington Post. He writes for the Morning Mix news blog.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related media:

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: What was Donald Trump like as a kid? See pictures from his childhood. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/what-was-donald-trump-like-as-a-kid-see-pictures-from-his-childhood/2016/06/22/18806d4a-38a3-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_gallery.html)

 • Who does Donald Trump listen to? Other Trumps. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/who-does-donald-trump-listen-to-other-trumps/2016/06/22/36835908-37c5-11e6-a254-2b336e293a3c_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/young-donald-trump-military-school/2016/06/22/f0b3b164-317c-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/young-donald-trump-military-school/2016/06/22/f0b3b164-317c-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 25, 2016, 01:41:26 pm

Oh dear....somebody in Scotland doesn't like an idiot American capitalist visiting his golf course....

(https://fbcdn-photos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-0/s526x395/13537554_1297520986928067_8966242966378594967_n.png?oh=e9479d9675096e9bde7d0ed9dab9489e&oe=57F4E919&__gda__=1476552392_b03e49ce551ac906b4ac5671deaf9ce9)

I wonder if the person being protested about is a mate of Boris Johnson?

Hahaha....it even kind-of rhymes too!!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 25, 2016, 09:49:54 pm
oh well at least she can spell

but you seem to have trump on the brain
my dog has a couple of fixations as well

i am not sure you are going to affect american politics from this website
mostly it's only you spamming trump to me it seems a waste of energy lol

have you tried yet starting a kill trump youtube channel (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/31_HeHe.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 04, 2016, 05:39:15 pm

from The Washington Post....

Editorial: Mr. Trump's fake charity

By EDITORIAL BOARD | 7:37PM EDT - Sunday, July 03, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160703tcts_TrumpCharityTearSheet_zps5r3svbqo.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/24/National-Politics/Images/trumpcharity_tearsheet.jpg)
A list of some of the contributions made by the Donald J. Trump Foundation in 1988. — Illustration: The Washington Post.

DONALD TRUMP, perhaps the greatest braggart ever to aspire to national office, is hardly shy about flaunting — or rather hyping — his good works. So it has been with his charitable giving, which, for the better part of 30 years, he has regularly exaggerated to the point of plain mendacity (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07/01/donald-trump-used-money-donated-for-charity-to-buy-himself-a-tim-tebow-signed-football-helmet).

That Mr. Trump in his public utterances is a serial embellisher is no surprise. Still, the shamelessness by which his actual giving to worthy causes has trailed his public claims of generosity is stunning. And given the relish with which he boasted of his giving (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/4-times-donald-trump-touted-his-charitable-giving/2016/04/11/d137f6ea-000a-11e6-8bb1-f124a43f84dc_video.html), his campaign's assertion that he has made private, quiet charitable gifts strains credulity.

A painstaking review by The Washington Post's David A. Fahrenthold, comparing Mr. Trump's public statements with available records of his giving (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-promised-millions-to-charity-we-found-less-than-10000-over-7-years/2016/06/28/cbab5d1a-37dd-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html), found a pattern of exaggeration and unfulfilled pledges (https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/what-we-know-about-trumps-charitable-giving/2016/06/28/8b189cea-3d5f-11e6-9e16-4cf01a41decb_video.html).

Speaking of his royalties from the reality television show “The Apprentice”, which had recently debuted in 2004, Mr. Trump told the radio personality Howard Stern that “I'm giving the money to charity,” mentioning that as the show's host he had been paid “a lot more than” $1 million. The money, Mr. Trump said, would go to AIDS research and the Police Athletic League. Yet that year Mr. Trump's foundation — the entity he established to bestow charitable gifts — gave just $1,000 for AIDS research and $106,000 to the Police Athletic League.

And while he promised in the late 1980s to give royalties from his successful book, The Art of the Deal (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399594493), to charities for the homeless, Vietnam veterans, AIDS and multiple sclerosis, only 8 percent of his charitable giving in those years went to those causes. Much more went to society galas, his alma maters and the exclusive schools his children attended.

The issue is not that Mr. Trump has been stingy, although he has made no bequests to his foundation since 2008, and his giving levels before that appear to have been far lower than those of others who have the wealth Mr. Trump insists he enjoys. The issue is the cavernous gulf between his words and deeds.

This appears not to concern the mogul in the least; if it did, he could easily dispel doubts by releasing his tax returns, as all other presidential candidate have done for decades. Because Mr. Trump has bragged of paying as little in taxes as possible, his returns would presumably make clear precisely what charitable gifts he has made — to which organizations and in what amounts — and for which he claimed deductions.

The truth is, Mr. Trump's exaggerated eleemosynary claims match his long history of embroideries, overstatements and wildly inflated assertions of prowess in other endeavors. The GOP candidate's whoppers come so fast and thick that it’s easy to lose track, and it's tempting to ignore much of what he says. That would be a mistake. Contempt for the truth is a disqualifying feature in a candidate for the presidency.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-trumps-fake-charity/2016/07/03/fbcd52e2-3e44-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-trumps-fake-charity/2016/07/03/fbcd52e2-3e44-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 04, 2016, 05:43:50 pm

What a DESPICABLE lying, cheating arsehole Donald Trump is.

Imagine that??!!??  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/shocked.gif)

Fancing actually telling LIES about giving money to charities or even creating FAKE charities!!

What a scumbag/piece-of-human-trash!!  (https://cdn.smfboards.com/Smileys/smf/tickedoff.gif)



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on July 05, 2016, 10:33:01 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbM6WbUw7Bs


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 14, 2016, 02:27:57 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump promises ‘showbiz’ at convention,
but stars on stage will be relatively dim


By PHILIP RUCKER | 7:02PM EDT - Wednesday, July 13, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160713tic_TrumpImageCleveland_zpscggfzx1f.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/04/National-Politics/Images/Botsford160604CLEVELAND53541465069994.jpg)
A downtown Cleveland shop displays an image of the man who will be on everyone's mind next month.
 — Photograph: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post.


CLEVELAND — When Democrats gather for their national convention in Philadelphia, the list of speakers praising Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy is expected to feature the president, the vice president, the first lady, a former president and a galaxy of well-known political luminaries.

But when the Republican convention opens next week in Cleveland, presumptive nominee Donald Trump will showcase an assortment of family members, defeated primary opponents and politicians whose names barely register with the general public. Many of the GOP's past, current and future leaders are staying away from the spotlights at the Quicken Loans Arena.

The star-power disparity between the conventions speaks volumes about the state of the two parties — one is united and marching together toward what it hopes will be its fifth win of the past seven presidential elections, while the other remains divided and still not fully accepting its new standard bearer.

“Republicans have always had a terrible star-power deficit — the Democrats have the latest hip-hop or pop act and we've got Lee Greenwood and the Oak Ridge Boys — but now it's going to be even more pronounced,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist who is not supporting Trump.

Looking ahead to Philadelphia, Wilson said of the Democrats, “Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren — they're all going to be out there swinging for the fences. But the Republicans, it'll be like a hostage video of people forced on stage.”

Warren, a senator from Massachusetts who is considered a finalist to be Clinton's running mate, is expected to give a major address, as are two other vice presidential prospects, Senators Timothy M. Kaine (Virginia) and Cory Booker (New Jersey). Other expected speakers include Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont), who on Tuesday ended his presidential campaign and endorsed Clinton after weeks of holding out.

On the Republican side, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wisconsin) looks to be the highest-profile party leader. He will officially chair the convention and plans to give a speech in addition to his ceremonial duties. His remarks are expected to center on his conservative House agenda, “A Better Way”, and a call for Republican unity.

The highlight performances next week could come from members of Trump's family. His wife, Melania Trump, rarely speaks in public, but has been preparing remarks, and his three adult children, especially daughter Ivanka Trump, could open a window into their father's character. Four years ago, Ann Romney delivered one of the most memorable speeches of the GOP convention in Tampa when she spoke of the love story with her husband, Mitt.

Still, the absences in Cleveland will be notable.

The past two Republican nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain? Not coming.

The party's only two living past presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush? They're skipping, too, as is Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor who lost to Trump in the early primaries.

What about the diverse constellation of stars oft-promoted by the GOP in the six years since they swept into office, including South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez and Senator Marco Rubio (Florida)? You won't see them speaking in Cleveland, either.

“The fact that the party elders aren't willing to come make his case says a lot about the state of the Republican Party,” said Bill Burton, a Democratic strategist. “To the extent that Trump is having trouble getting speakers who can tell his story and tell the story he wants to tell about Hillary Clinton — it's a larger lift.”

Russell Schriefer, a longtime Republican strategist who helped run the party's 2012 convention, said, “You don't hear of any major Democratic figures saying they're staying home because Hillary Clinton's the nominee. That is the case with Trump.”

But Schriefer said the absence of more established luminaries presents “an opportunity for Republicans for stars to be born at the convention.” He noted that Barack Obama's breakout turn came at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, when he was an Illinois state senator.

For months now, Trump has promised that his convention would be unlike any other — a dazzling, spectacular affair that soars above traditional political theater. In an April interview with The Washington Post, he said the Tampa gathering four years ago was “the single most boring convention I've ever seen.” He vowed to bring a “showbiz” quality to Cleveland.

“It's very important to put some showbiz into a convention, otherwise people are going to fall asleep,” he said.

Trump has teased various plans for Cleveland, such as a “winner's night” starring sports heroes and cultural icons of decades past. But he and his campaign team have been tight-lipped about a lineup.

A list of speakers still had not been released as of Wednesday afternoon — a full week since Trump promised to do so — suggesting a last-minute scramble to book speakers. Republican operatives have complained privately this week that likely speakers have not been given final word on when they will address the delegates or what themes the Trump team would like them to discuss in their remarks. Such late uncertainty is unusual, as political conventions tend to be tightly scripted and highly choreographed.

Members of the Republican National Committee, which puts on the convention and is meeting in Cleveland this week, said they have been kept in the dark about the convention program.

“Donald Trump has run an unconventional campaign from the get-go, and he said right from the outset he wanted an unconventional program with not the usual speakers,” said Steve Duprey, an RNC member from New Hampshire. “Frankly, it might stir up more interest than parading out past luminaries of a party. Maybe the Trump way will work.”

The celebrities planning to be in Cleveland next week include Caitlyn Jenner, a former Olympian, reality television star and transgender advocate, and musical acts Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rascal Flatts and Big & Rich.

The Democrats traditionally draw more A-list celebrities, and this year will be no different. Among the actors and recording artists planning to attend are Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg, Fergie, Lenny Kravitz, Idina Menzel and Bryan Cranston.

In Cleveland, Republicans who have been supportive of Trump will get top billing. They include Senator Joni Ernst (Iowa), who burst onto the scene in 2014 with a playful campaign ad vowing to apply her hog-castration skills in Washington to “make 'em squeal.” Trump eyed her as a possible vice-presidential running mate, and they met on July 4th, although she later took herself out of consideration.

Senator Tom Cotton (Arkansas), who also joined the Senate last year, plans to speak as well. Cotton is among a handful of young Republicans considered likely future presidential candidates. Another is Senator Ben Sasse (Nebraska), although he is a vocal Trump critic and will not be in Cleveland. Instead, Sasse plans to “take his kids to watch some dumpster fires across the state,” his spokesman provocatively told reporters (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-sasse-donald-trump-dumpster-fire_us_577e8f5ce4b01edea78ce106).

At least two of Trump's primary opponents — Senator Ted Cruz (Texas) and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker — are planning to address delegates in Cleveland.

Cruz and Walker are trying to rebuild their profiles after being wounded in the nomination battle, looking to another run in four years. Yet neither has fully endorsed Trump, and it is unclear whether either plans to vouch for him.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, another 2016 contender, also plans to speak.

Among the former Trump rivals not planning to address the convention is John Kasich, who as governor of Ohio is something of a host for the week-long gathering. He has said that he plans to be in Cleveland next week but that he does not intend to step foot in the convention hall or speak on Trump's behalf.

Trump's vice-presidential running mate will give a formal address, although the runners-up also could have a turn on stage. A trio of finalists — Indiana Governor Mike Pence, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Georgia) — have been top supporters of Trump, as have Senators Jeff Sessions (Alabama) and Bob Corker (Tennessee).

Some Republican strategists worry, however, that the Cleveland convention will not showcase the full breadth of the GOP's diversity, both racially and generationally. In addition to Rubio and Martinez, two rising stars, Representatives Mia Love (Utah) and Elise Stefanik (New York), are staying home.

“On Earth 2,” Wilson said, “you'd be showing the Republican Party isn't this stupid white boys' club. But Donald Trump has rejected everybody who's not in the stupid white boys' club. At this point, we might as well have a giant cross burning out front.”

An antidote to that picture of the party are two Republicans from South Carolina: Haley, the state's first Indian American governor, and Senator Tim Scott, its first black senator. Both will be in Cleveland for the festivities (http://www.postandcourier.com/20160621/160629857/gov-nikki-haley-sen-tim-scott-to-attend-gop-national-convention) — but neither plans to take the stage.


• Philip Rucker is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post, where he has reported since 2005.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: What Cleveland looks like as it prepares for the Republican National Convention (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/what-cleveland-looks-like-as-it-prepares-for-the-republican-national-convention/2016/06/06/ac80d676-2c3a-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_gallery.html)

 • GRAPHIC: We narrowed Trump's vice-presidential possibilities to 35. Now you pick one. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/vice-presidential-candidate-finder/republican)

 • While the GOP worries about convention chaos, Trump pushes for ‘showbiz’ feel (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/while-the-gop-worries-about-convention-chaos-trump-pushes-for-showbiz-feel/2016/04/17/482cc914-0322-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html)

 • Trump closes in on running mate, says he seeks experience to unite GOP (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-closes-in-on-running-mate-says-he-seeks-experience-to-unite-gop/2016/07/11/37912b62-477f-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html)

 • This is the last stand for the ‘Never Trump’ movement. Here's what might happen. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07/13/your-definitive-guide-to-the-rnc-rules-committee-meeting)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-promises-showbiz-at-convention-but-stars-on-stage-will-be-relatively-dim/2016/07/13/2e28d14e-4453-11e6-bc99-7d269f8719b1_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-promises-showbiz-at-convention-but-stars-on-stage-will-be-relatively-dim/2016/07/13/2e28d14e-4453-11e6-bc99-7d269f8719b1_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 15, 2016, 10:40:10 pm

from The Washington Post....

Get ready for the Trumpiest Show On Earth

By PAUL WALDMAN | 1:07PM - Thursday, July 14, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160714rncv_RepublicanNationalConventionVenue_zpsrdjocl9e.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/07/13/National-Politics/Images/546270822.jpg&w=1484)
The Republican National Convention venue in Cleveland, Ohio. — Photograph: Angelo Merendino/Getty Images.

IT'S being reported that Donald Trump has chosen (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-to-pick-indiana-gov-mike-pence-for-vp) Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, and assuming the story holds up, this will be the single most boring thing Trump has done during the course of this campaign. Fortunately, the Republican convention starts next week, and Pence's appearance is unlikely to alter an event that stands to be positively historic in its chaotic splendor.

The standard complaint about contemporary political conventions is that it's just a big show for the TV cameras. Unlike in the old days, when backroom deal-making would actually determine the party's nominee, today everything is planned and scripted, little more than an elaborate display of bunting, balloons, and talking points.

Well get ready, because the Republican convention that starts on Monday (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-conventions-non-conventional-list-model-astronaut-and-trump-clan/2016/07/14/a40686ac-49b9-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html) is going to be the Trumpiest Show On Earth. We're now learning about the speakers, about the themes of each night, about the platform to which this party is pledging its allegiance, and about the chaos likely to ensue outside the hall. Equal parts entertaining and horrifying, the GOP gathering will probably get some of the highest TV ratings in history as Americans tune in to witness the political equivalent of a 747 crashing into a freight train full of toxic waste as it plunges off a cliff right onto a carnival freak show. It should be quite a sight.

Let's start with the speakers. While there's a long list of Republican politicians who suddenly found urgent appointments (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/large-number-of-gop-senators-skipping-trumps-convention/2016/07/14/37284e6c-4996-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_story.html) that required them to be as far from Cleveland as possible, the organizers managed to put together a fabulous lineup of electrifying orators. Aaron Blake breaks down the speakers list (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/14/the-very-odd-list-of-speakers-at-the-republican-national-convention), but here are a few highlights:


  • No fewer than four Trump children, including Tiffany Trump, daughter of Marla Maples and the Zeppo of the Trump brood.

  • NFL washout Tim Tebow, world #484-ranked golfer Natalie Gulbis, and Ultimate Fighting Championship chief Dana White.

  • Tech lottery winner Peter Thiel, famous for trying to sue news organizations out of business (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/the-billionaire-the-wrestler-the-tabloid-and-you/484382) and create offshore havens (http://mashable.com/2011/08/17/peter-thiel-seasteading-institute) where billionaire libertarians could live outside the reach of taxes and laws.

  • The rabbi who converted Ivanka Trump to Judaism.

  • Rudy Giuliani, there to explain why black kids are a bunch of criminals who need the educational benefits that only a fusillade of bullets from police officers' guns can provide; a sheriff known for his criticism of Black Lives Matter is also on the bill.

  • Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom you might have heard of because she announced an investigation of Trump University (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e16a8223c24048d290883370dc6abe5b/florida-ag-asked-trump-donation-nixing-fraud-case), then four days later solicited and received an (apparently illegal) $25,000 contribution from Trump's family foundation, then promptly dropped the investigation.

  • A man whose son was killed by an undocumented immigrant.

  • A guy who owns a casino.

  • The guy who runs Trump's winery.

  • Antonio Sabato, Jr., I guess because why the hell not.

This is, to say the least, not exactly the lineup you'd put together if you were really trying to appeal to the broad electorate. It's also notable for who's missing. It wasn't long ago that the party touted its rising minority stars, a generation of charismatic young politicians of color who could change the image of the party as a bunch of angry old white guys. Officeholders like Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Brian Sandoval, Tim Scott, and Mia Love (and even this kid from Florida named Marco) could show American a different face of the GOP. Four years ago, all of them addressed the Republican convention that nominated Mitt Romney (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/08/politics/rnc.schedule). But this year, not one of them is on the schedule.

And what about the themes of the convention? If you had asked a diehard liberal what Republicans would showcase, he'd have probably responded sarcastically, “I'll bet they'll do a whole night on Benghazi, then show a video attacking Bill Clinton for his affairs.”

Well guess what: the first night of the convention will revolve around Benghazi, and at some point there will be some kind of “presentation” about Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions.

The party will be ratifying a platform that has become not just more conservative than ever before, but in an almost comical way. Among other things (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-moves-closer-to-the-base-and-away-from-the-broader-public-in-party-platform/2016/07/12/c02ef2f8-4840-11e6-90a8-fb84201e0645_story.html), it endorses a wall across our entire southern border, declares pornography a “public health crisis,” changes its previous references to “illegal immigrants” to now say “illegal aliens,” and reiterates the party's opposition to gay people being allowed to marry or adopt children, transgender people being able to use the right bathrooms, women serving in combat, any restrictions on AR-15s or large-capacity magazines, and the Soviet plot to contaminate our precious bodily fluids (okay, I'm kidding about the last one).

Meanwhile, outside the convention hall, a group called Bikers for Trump is coming en masse to start cracking skulls if they see any nogoodniks stirring up trouble. “We're anticipating a victory dance, but it sounds like there's a lot of agitators and a lot of troublemakers coming to town,” the group's leader told CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/13/politics/republican-national-convention-protests). “You can definitely count on the Bikers for Trump standing with the police department in the event they need it.”

I'm sure the cops are glad to hear it, because if there's one thing that will keep everything calm and civil, it’s a bunch of gun-toting Trump-supporting bikers ready to throw down.

And there will be guns, because Ohio's laws allow you to carry them pretty much anywhere. People coming to the area around the convention will be barred from carrying things like canned goods, drones, and tennis balls; most fittingly, you'll be arrested if you're carrying a water pistol, but carrying an actual pistol is just fine (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/what-are-the-firearms-rules-for-the-gop-convention/2016/07/13/7907c2fc-4939-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_story.html).

If you're worried about missing out by not being there in person, you might console yourself with the fact that there's a reasonable chance that a powerful alien empire will decide to vaporize the entire Cleveland area with a death ray in order to forestall the threat this lunacy poses to the galaxy. While we hope no one actually gets killed, it's a good bet that this is going to be the most fascinating and ghastly convention in modern times. In other words, it will be a perfect reflection of the man the Republican Party has chosen to nominate.


• Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related story:

 • Billboard depicting Donald Trump, Ted Cruz kissing goes up on Cleveland's West Side (http://www.cleveland.com/rnc-2016/index.ssf/2016/07/billboard_depicting_donald_tru.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/14/get-ready-for-the-trumpiest-show-on-earth (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/14/get-ready-for-the-trumpiest-show-on-earth)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 18, 2016, 05:16:58 pm

from The Washington Post....

‘Make America Great Again’ is not a policy.
It's an exercise in mass psychology.


By ROBERT J. SAMUELSON | 7:40PM EDT - Sunday, July 17, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160717dt_DonaldTrump_zpsjxfahdqn.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/07/16/Editorial-Opinion/Images/GOP_2016_Trump_Profile-0b86c-1236.jpg)
Donald Trump in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. — Photograph: Randall Hill/Associated Press.

THE Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week ought to be interesting, but whether it will be informative is another question. Barring a last-minute surprise, the delegates will nominate real estate magnate Donald Trump to be the GOP presidential candidate, and he will pledge — probably repeatedly — to “make America great again.”

Just how he plans to do this (or whether the slogan is simply a clever sound bite) is something of a mystery, because Trump has advanced only the sketchiest of agendas. By now, its main elements are well-known: He would evict the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants (http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/11/politics/donald-trump-deportation-force-debate-immigration); ban Muslims from entering the United States; slap stiff tariffs (35 percent and 45 percent, respectively) on Mexican and Chinese imports (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-trade-idUSKCN0WQ0WG); and push Congress to pass a tax cut of $9.5 trillion over a decade (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/trumps-tax-and-spending-plan-could-sharply-raise-interest-rates).

It's doubtful that this program could be enacted in its entirety. Shipping 11 million people out of the country — to take an obvious example — is, at best, a cruel and daunting logistical exercise. It would surely face legal and political challenges. But even if the full program were adopted, it wouldn't restore America to some prior period of grandeur.

Think about it. If 11 million people left the country, there would be less spending. The economy would weaken. Likewise, production of many items made in Mexico and China would not return to the United States but would shift to other low-wage countries. There would probably be retaliation against U.S. exports to Mexico ($236 billion in 2015 (https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/mexico)) and China ($116 billion (https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china)), costing American jobs.

As for the massive tax cut, the economy doesn't need more “stimulus” now. The unemployment rate is 4.9 percent (http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000). If taxes were cut anyway, or used to offset a Trump-induced recession, large budget deficits would grow still larger. (This assumes — as seems likely — that the tax cuts wouldn't be fully offset by spending reductions.)

None of this constitutes a plausible program for economic renewal. It's a hodgepodge of mostly bad ideas that's supposed to hypnotize large numbers of Americans who feel (understandably in many cases) that they've been misused by an economy that mainly serves a wealthy upper class. Their incomes are squeezed; their jobs are less secure.

The pledge to “make America great again” is not an economic project. It's an exercise in mass psychology. The idea is to get people to displace their anger and frustration onto groups that (in Trump's view) have eroded America's “greatness” — Mexicans, Muslims, the Chinese, political and financial elites, and “the media.” The Trump treatment is to peddle hatred and resentment for his political gain.

As an election strategy, this might succeed if enough people subscribe to his self-serving stereotypes. But as economic policy, it's mostly a dud. It won't change most people's objective circumstances. In some cases, it may protect them from imports. But for most, it won't provide jobs, and any income gains from tax cuts are skewed toward the rich. Sooner or later, people will recognize that they've been had.

Trump's serious deficiencies are of character, not intellect. He is a salesman whose favorite product is himself. His moral code is defined by what works. What works to build his popularity is legitimate, even if it's untrue, tasteless, personally cruel or inconsistent with what he has said before. What doesn't work is useless, even if it involves inconvertible truths, important policies or common courtesies.

One consequence is a paucity of genuine policy debates. Consider budget deficits. Based on current policies, the Congressional Budget Office projects that annual deficits will go from today's 3 percent of the economy (gross domestic product) to 8 percent of GDP by the 2040s (https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51580-LTBO.pdf). What should be done? Trump hasn't had much to say. (To be fair, neither has Hillary Clinton.)

There's no secret as to what's happening. A slowing economy is colliding with a rising demand for government benefits, driven mainly by an aging society and its impact on federal programs for the elderly. Even now, Social Security and Medicare represent nearly half of non-interest federal spending. Their share will grow.

How much should we allow the expanding benefits for the elderly to degrade the rest of government — from defense to highways to subsidized school lunches — by slowly squeezing spending that's not for the elderly? This is a central political question of our time, and it has been evaded for obvious reasons (either taxes must go up or spending must go down).

The role of campaigns and elections in democracies is to let the people speak. Ideally, it is to shape public opinion by informing it and allowing it to coalesce around widely shared beliefs. But when the information being served up is false, incomplete or deceptive, the process is perverse. It sows disillusion, not progress.


• Robert J. Samuelson writes a weekly column on economics for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Robert J. Samuelson: We're not a poor country, Mr. Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-not-a-poor-country-mr-trump/2016/03/27/70bbe9fc-f2bd-11e5-85a6-2132cf446d0a_story.html)

 • Catherine Rampell: President Trump would be the biggest threat to the U.S. economy (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-biggest-threat-to-the-us-economy/2016/06/20/af1f0120-371e-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html)

 • The Washington Post's View: Donald Trump sets a new record for economic recklessness (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-sets-a-new-record-for-economic-recklessness/2016/05/06/e1d1d2a0-13b5-11e6-93ae-50921721165d_story.html)

 • Catherine Rampell: Donald Trump's trade policies are dangerous (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-dangers-of-a-trade-war/2016/05/23/ac977b80-2120-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299_story.html)

 • Henry M. Paulson Jr.: When it comes to Trump, a Republican treasury secretary says: Choose country over party (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-it-comes-to-trump-a-republican-treasury-secretary-says-choose-country-over-party/2016/06/24/c7bdba34-3942-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-america-great-again-is-not-a-policy-its-an-exercise-in-mass-psychology/2016/07/17/e316d5a2-4ab5-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/make-america-great-again-is-not-a-policy-its-an-exercise-in-mass-psychology/2016/07/17/e316d5a2-4ab5-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 20, 2016, 05:05:50 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160718_TrumpClownCircusConvention_zpsf8a1cyg9.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/rodemmerson/status/755120224878288896)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on July 20, 2016, 08:19:02 pm
(http://ddees.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/debate.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 21, 2016, 12:39:12 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160720_RunningMate_1468927148107s_zps3bgif11w.jpg~original) (http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/c/z/i/u/3/image.gallery.galleryLandscape.600x400.1954k3.png/1468927148107.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 26, 2016, 01:08:50 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160726_ZeroElectoralExperience_zpsqne50nzp.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/halltoons/status/757307182329241600)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on July 26, 2016, 04:36:58 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYRUOd_QoM


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 28, 2016, 02:56:54 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump invites Russia to meddle in the U.S. presidential
race with Clinton's emails


By PHILIP RUCKER, ROBERT COSTA and JOSE A. DELREAL | 5:39PM EDT - Wednesday, July 27, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160727dtp_DonaldTrumpPennsylvania_zps3qhlcoj0.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/07/27/National-Politics/Images/2016-07-27T160106Z_01_CRA106_RTRIDSP_3_USA-ELECTION-TRUMP.jpg)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said the United States gets “no respect” from Russian President Vladimir Putin
during a town hall event in Scranton, Pennsylvania on July 27th. — Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters.


PHILADELPHIA — Republican nominee Donald Trump pleaded directly on Wednesday with the Russian government to meddle in the U.S. presidential election by finding and releasing tens of thousands of private emails from his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton — an extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented maneuver in American politics.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said during a news conference at one of his South Florida resorts. He added later, “They probably have them. I'd like to have them released.”

Asked whether Russian espionage into the former secretary of state's correspondence would concern him, Trump said, “No, it gives me no pause. If they have them, they have them.”

The emails cited by Trump are from Clinton's time at the State Department, where her use of a private server prompted a federal investigation. The FBI concluded that no prosecution was necessary.

Those are different than emails from the Democratic National Committee that were leaked ahead of the party convention here, possibly with the involvement of Russia. The FBI is investigating whether Russian state actors were responsible for leaking the politically damaging messages last Friday in an episode that forced the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

President Obama, who was scheduled to address the convention on Wednesday night, told NBC News in an interview on Tuesday (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-dnc-leaks-obama-hints-at-possible-motive-for-russia-to-help-trump/2016/07/26/cfd33692-538a-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html) that Russia could be working to influence the election.

“What we do know is that the Russians hack our systems, not just government systems but private systems,” Obama said. “What the motives were in terms of the leaks, all that — I can't say directly. What I do know is that Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin.”

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook responded to Trump's Wednesday comments with a tone of disbelief, telling reporters the apparent hacking was “a national security issue.”

“It appears the Russians did steal these emails from the DNC,” Mook said at a lunch sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. “It appears as if they were active in releasing them for the purpose of hurting the campaign.”

Democrats have labored all week to put Trump on the defensive over his business and personal ties to Russia, as well as his professed admiration for its president, Putin, as a model leader. Some have portrayed Trump as Putin's Manchurian candidate.

The candidate and several of his top advisers have business connections to Russia. Campaign chairman Paul Manafort has made millions of dollars in business deals with pro-Russia oligarchs as well as advised the Putin-aligned president of Ukraine whose 2014 ouster triggered Russia’s intervention there.

Trump seemingly played into Democratic hands on Wednesday by praising Putin's leadership qualities and vowing that U.S. relations with Russia would improve if he is elected in November.

“I don't think Putin has any respect whatsoever for Clinton,” Trump said. He added: “He has a total lack of respect for President Obama. Number one, he doesn't like him. And number two, he doesn't respect him. I think he's going to respect your president if I'm elected. And I hope he likes me.”

In a series of afternoon tweets, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the candidate was merely encouraging other countries to turn over any information relating to Clinton's emails to U.S. authorities.

“To be clear, Mr. Trump did not call on, or invite, Russia or anyone else to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails today,” Miller wrote.

Still, Trump's provocation alarmed many Republican leaders and foreign policy experts — not only for his disjointed discussion of Russia, but also for the signal it sent about their standard-bearer's worldview. Many were also alarmed by Trump's remark that he would be “looking at” whether Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, should be recognized as Russian territory (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/27/the-other-remarkable-pro-russia-thing-that-donald-trump-just-said).

Rather than approaching Russia with trepidation, Trump embraced Putin as a future ally and said he hoped to develop a chummy and mutually beneficial rapport with one of the globe's notorious strongmen. In doing so, Trump broke with decades of Republican instincts that were honed during Ronald Reagan's presidency at the end of the Cold War.

“It is a very big deal,” said Eliot A. Cohen, a former counselor in George W. Bush's State Department. “Foreign governments sometimes express preferences about who should be elected; that's already problematic. But to do something in the nature of dirty tricks would be a very, very serious problem.”

Trump's running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, issued a statement minutes after Trump's remarks that hewed closely to established GOP orthodoxy. Instead of baiting the Russians to reveal Clinton's emails, Pence said that the FBI must “get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking.

“If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences,” the statement continued.

A spokesman for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Republican-Wisconsin), Brendan Buck, said in a statement: “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election.”

It was unclear whether Trump's declaration would hurt or help him politically. Such comments by a normal candidate in a normal election year would be a seminal and possibly fatal episode. Yet neither Trump nor this year are typical — and as with past controversies, voters may not take Trump's commentary seriously.

Partisan figures rallied immediately to Trump's defense, blaming the mainstream media for blowing Trump's comments out of proportion and trying to shift the focus from Clinton's judgment.

“What's irresponsible is that more than 30,000 emails were deleted by a crook who broke the law,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Republican-Georgia) said in an interview. “I don't care if it's the Bulgarians, the Chinese or Haitian immigrants studying at Stanford. Let's see the 30,000 emails.”

Veteran GOP strategist Mike Murphy said many longtime Republicans were appalled by Trump's gambit.

“This is what happens when you nominate an egomaniacal bozo as your candidate for president of the United States,” Murphy said. “He has jumped the shark into complete embarrassment…. He'll please his half of the Republican Party every day until the end, but that's not enough to win a general election.”

On stage here this week at the Democratic National Convention, Clinton's supporters have tried to cast Trump as a pawn in Russia’s global ambitions.

“The truth is that a Trump victory in November would be a gift to Vladimir Putin, and given what we have learned about Russia's recent actions, Putin is eager for Trump to win,” former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright said. “And that should worry every American.”

Trump has repeatedly tried to do business in Russia, and Russian investors have been important to his real estate empire, particularly in recent years.

In 2008, Trump's son Donald Jr. told a real estate conference in New York that Russians constitute “a pretty disproportionate cross-section” of Trump's real estate assets. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” he added.

According to litigation filed in Florida, Trump’s partners on a Panama project traveled to Moscow in 2006 to sell condos to Russian investors. Trump also sold a mansion in Palm Beach in 2008 for $95 million to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev; he had purchased the home at a bankruptcy auction four years earlier for $41.4 million.

Trump has also sought to build a tower in Moscow numerous times since the late 1980s, when he said he had a deal to explore a Trump project in partnership with the Soviet government. His most recent effort came after a Putin ally, Aras Agalarov, known as the Trump of Russia, paid Trump millions to bring the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013. Agalarov has told The Washington Post that he signed a preliminary deal to bring a Trump project to the Russian capital.

“We will be in Moscow at some point,” Trump promised in a 2007 deposition.

Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, also outlined the company's interest in Russia to The Post in May. “We're always looking to expand and do projects all over the world. I have no doubt, as a company, I know we’ve looked at deals in Russia. And many of the former Russian republics,” he said.

Trump tried to swat away several questions from reporters on Wednesday about his ties to Russia. “I have nothing to do with Russia,” he told one journalist. “How many times do I have to say that? Are you a smart man? I have nothing to do with Russia.”

Trump has also surrounded himself with aides with ties to Russia, in addition to Manafort. One of his foreign policy advisers, Carter Page, once ran the Moscow office of Merrill Lynch and has advised Russian oil giant Gazprom. Page has said his Russian business associates are excited at the prospect that a Trump presidency would result in the end of Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, which has crimped their business.

Another Trump adviser, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was on his short­list of potential running mates, has advocated for a stronger alliance with Moscow to fight Islamic State terrorists. Flynn sat near Putin at a 2015 dinner in Moscow honoring RT, an English-language media service aligned with the Kremlin.

At his news conference Wednesday, Trump imagined his presidency ushering in an era of good relations with Russia.

“I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there's nothing that I can think of that I'd rather do than have Russia friendly, as opposed to the way they are right now, so that we can go and knock out ISIS together with other people and with other countries,” Trump said. “Wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with people?”


Joaw DelReal reported from Milwaukee. Rosalind S. Helderman in Washington and Tom Hamburger and Anne Gearan in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

• Philip Rucker is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post, where he has reported since 2005.

• Robert Costa is a national political reporter at The Washington Post.

• Jose A. DelReal covers national politics for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Trump again proves he's the chaos candidate (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-the-candidate-of-chaos-strikes-again-with-comments-about-russia/2016/07/27/4b613876-5413-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html)

 • The other remarkable, pro-Russia thing that Donald Trump just said (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/27/the-other-remarkable-pro-russia-thing-that-donald-trump-just-said)

 • The Fix: The many problems with Trump's comments (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/27/donald-trump-basically-just-encouraged-russia-to-spy-on-hillary-clinton)

 • Former Bush adviser: Trump's appeal to Russia was ‘appalling’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/27/trump-urges-russia-to-help-expose-clintons-emails-when-will-this-be-too-much-for-republicans)

 • Republicans have a problem: Trump-Putin (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/07/27/republicans-have-a-problem-trump-putin)

 • By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/27/by-november-russian-hackers-could-target-voting-machines/)

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-takes-to-the-campaign-trail-in-michigan-and-iowa/2015/08/13/9124f9bc-4206-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_gallery.html)

 • Inside Trump's financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Putin (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html)

 • Former mafia-linked figure describes association with Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-mafia-linked-figure-describes-association-with-trump/2016/05/17/cec6c2c6-16d3-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html)

 • In business as in politics, Trump adviser Manafort is no stranger to controversial figures (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-business-as-in-politics-trump-adviser-no-stranger-to-controversial-figures/2016/04/26/970db232-08c7-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-invites-russia-to-meddle-in-the-us-presidential-race-with-clintons-emails/2016/07/27/a85d799e-5414-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-invites-russia-to-meddle-in-the-us-presidential-race-with-clintons-emails/2016/07/27/a85d799e-5414-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on July 29, 2016, 08:07:14 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpJ3rykZUI8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_T749zVYhQ


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on July 30, 2016, 02:21:21 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160730_WhatAJoke_zpsw2qkebkm.jpg~original)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on July 31, 2016, 12:46:46 am


Bill at Hillary's speech

(http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/clintonsleepANIM.gif)

zzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: clint eastwood on July 31, 2016, 03:39:01 am
Haha and as soon as poor old worn out Hillary finally gets her title of president she will also be asleep at the wheel


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 04, 2016, 01:05:59 am

from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump's idea of sacrifice is all about amassing more wealth

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Wednesday, August 03, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160803dha_zpskndbskmp.jpg~original) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-57a169c6/turbine/la-1470196198-snap-photo)

HEADING OUT of Philadelphia last Friday after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, I caught a ride with a cabbie named Aziz. When he learned I had been covering the convention, he was eager to talk.

An immigrant from Tunisia, Aziz told me about his 35 years in the United States. He proudly mentioned his eldest son, a field organizer for the Democratic Party, who got his start in politics in 2008 at the age of 15 campaigning for Barack Obama. His younger son is now a party volunteer who drives voters to the polls.

“I am an American,” Aziz said. “I love this country.”

But he sure does not like the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Aziz said Trump reminds him of a certain notorious and now-deceased North African politician, Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi. In Trump, he sees the same pompous arrogance and delight in belittling insults.

With his vague scheme to block the inflow of Muslim refugees, Trump has not endeared himself to Muslim Americans like Aziz, and in the last few days, his standing has not improved. Trump has been swamped by a stream of criticism since he sent out a series of obnoxious tweets in response to a Democratic convention speech delivered by a Pakistani emigré, Khizr Khan. Khan's son, a U.S. Army captain, was awarded the Bronze Star for sacrificing himself to save the lives of the men under his command in Iraq.

Khan criticized Trump for his disparaging comments about Muslim immigrants and refugees. “Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America,” Khan said. “You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

Khan's words provoked Trump — no surprise there. It seemed to especially bother the reality-star-turned-politician that Khan said Trump had never sacrificed for his country.

“I think I've made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump said in an ABC-TV interview. “I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot.”

Trump was quickly lampooned for suggesting that working hard to make himself richer is any kind of sacrifice. Twitter users busied themselves making up lists of things Trump might have sacrificed in his life, including once playing on a municipal golf course, settling for 18 karat gold bathroom faucets because the 24 karat ones were out of stock or dealing with the bad aftertaste of having a silver spoon in his mouth when he was born. There have been people sacrificed on the altar of the Trump name, of course, but those were the workers, customers, subsidiary suppliers and contractors whom Trump has cheated and conned over the years.

Trump questioned why Captain Khan's mother stood in silence while his father spoke on the convention stage. The implication was that she was a muzzled Muslim woman. That did not go over well with very many people, including Khan's wife, Ghazala. In a Washington Post commentary, she spoke directly to Trump, explaining that she chose to be silent “because without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain. I am a Gold Star mother. Whoever saw me felt me in their heart.”

Trump's derision of a slain soldier's mother caused a rush among Republicans to put some distance between themselves and Trump. Ohio Governor John Kasich tweeted, “There's only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with honor and respect.” Former Florida governor and Trump foe Jeb Bush characterized Trump's comments as “incredibly disrespectful of a family that endured the ultimate sacrifice for our country.” After reiterating his opposition to Trump's Muslim immigration ban, Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan said, “Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Captain Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice — and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — should always be honored. Period."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Arizona Senator John McCain and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham chimed in with criticisms, too. On Monday, when the Trump campaign asked for senators and members of Congress to rise to the defense of the GOP standard-bearer, only Trump fan Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama volunteered for the distasteful job.

“I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention,” poor Donald said in one tweet. “Am I not allowed to respond?”

Of course he is allowed. In fact, he can't be stopped, anymore than Kadafi could have resisted a new flamboyant costume for his wardrobe. And that may be Trump's biggest weakness. There are times when it is smarter to stay silent than to spout off, but that is a lesson the Republican nominee will never learn.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-sacrifice-20160802-snap-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-sacrifice-20160802-snap-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 04, 2016, 07:57:24 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160804_Trump_zpswvn5oweq.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/rodemmerson/status/760916775668031490)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 04, 2016, 10:38:08 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNE_cjSFCXU


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 05, 2016, 04:35:40 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160804_GagOrder_zpsl8cixzn8.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/rob__mccallum/status/761184769778475009)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: clint eastwood on August 05, 2016, 06:15:40 pm
But Trump is right..we all know that Muslim women are often treated like 2nd class citizens by their husbands...and that's on a god day


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 05, 2016, 06:40:31 pm

Yep, Clint Eastwood has been making a dork of himself alright!


from The Washington Post....

Clint Eastwood really regrets that whole empty-chair bit at the 2012 GOP convention (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2016/08/04/clint-eastwood-really-regrets-that-whole-empty-chair-bit-at-the-2012-gop-convention)

Eastwood doesn’t endorse Trump, but praises him as anti-PC (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/eastwood-doesnt-endorse-trump-but-praises-him-as-anti-pc/2016/08/03/af859c36-59e3-11e6-8b48-0cb344221131_story.html)


I think Clint Eastwood must be getting more than a wee bit senile with old age, eh?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: clint eastwood on August 05, 2016, 06:54:14 pm
You feeling lucky.......punk


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 05, 2016, 08:30:30 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNuyQL6nTTg


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 05, 2016, 09:09:47 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_veZUk93gI


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 06, 2016, 02:26:22 pm

from the Los Angeles Times....

Panic in GOP ranks will not stop Trump from being Trump

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Friday, August 05, 2016

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Tribune%20Newspapers%20Pix%202016/latimes_20160805dha_zps97lwg1m9.jpg) (http://www.trbimg.com/img-57a450b0/turbine/la-1470386388-snap-photo)

I REMEMBER a year ago when Donald Trump began to dominate the political news, I thought he had mastered a brilliant campaign tactic: Every few days he would insult a competitor or tweet a politically incorrect statement or pull an off-the-wall policy out of his fertile imagination and the manic, 24/7 media machine would stay focused on him while leaving other candidates starved for attention.

Now, though, I realize this was not some cleverly designed tactic, it is just who he is and how he rolls. The widespread expectation that Trump would, at some point, adopt a more cautious, more calibrated, more “presidential” style was simply another failure of conventional thinkers to understand the man. Trump cannot stop being Trump.

Day after day, week after week, Trump’s critics have been waiting for him to finally go too far, become too boorish, spout one rude remark too many. And day after day, week after week, Trump's freewheeling braggadocio has only seemed to make him more beloved by his supporters and more impervious to the attacks from other campaigns and the media. When he bragged a couple of months ago that he could gun down someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York and his people would still love him, he was absolutely right. Nothing he has said or done has shaken the ardor of his faithful following.

But he has done plenty to shake up the Republican establishment. Many of the GOP's biggest patrons, including the billionaire Koch brothers, want no part of him. Very few Republicans in Congress have given him a ringing endorsement, many have denounced him and the rest have taken the awkward position of supporting “the party's nominee” while barely masking their revulsion at the disrupting person who is that nominee. Trump's running feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a heroic Army captain killed in Iraq, pushed several notable Republicans, including past California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, to announce that they are supporting Hillary Clinton. And the Republican foreign policy brain trust, already freaked out by Trump's bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been agitated further by their nominee's recent musings that Putin's land grab of Crimea was justified.

Reportedly, Republican Party operatives are so worried about the disorganized state of Trump's campaign that they are making contingency plans in case The Donald decides to quit the presidential race — something that seems highly unlikely, but not totally out of the realm of possibility with such an unorthodox candidate. One Trump critic, Rick Wilson, a GOP consultant in Florida, told the Los Angeles Times, “He just seems willfully destructive and willfully sort of sadistic about other Republicans. Finally, people are like, ‘No more. We're done. We're not playing this game anymore’.”

Trump is still playing the game, however. At a rally in Daytona Beach, Florida, Trump reviewed several of his biggest controversies — from his spat with Fox News personality Megyn Kelly to his sick parody of a disabled journalist — almost as if they were a greatest hits list. He seems a bit bewildered that so many people have taken offense. What could possibly be wrong with dissing a Gold Star mother or telling a mom with a crying baby to get out of his sight? His people love it and, though journalists and pollsters say his unrepentant, unleashed behavior is hurting him, it is not entirely clear that is true.

Despite all the outrage and controversy, Trump is doing no worse in the polls than the last two GOP nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain. And Trump has something they did not have: a huge contingent of followers who love what he says, do not care who he offends and will be with him when it counts on election day.


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-panic-20160805-snap-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-panic-20160805-snap-story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 06, 2016, 07:09:42 pm
(http://static.conservativetribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/screenshot.36-470x367.jpg)

(http://www.floppingaces.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/snowden-clinton.jpg)


(http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/hillary-clinton-wall-street-640x340.jpg)


(http://www.bnd.com/opinion/editorial-cartoons/glenn-mccoy/l04ija/picture78265862/ALTERNATES/FREE_960/gm160517)

(https://grrrgraphics.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/crooked_hillary_house_rgb.jpg?w=640&h=476)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 10, 2016, 11:18:46 pm

from The Washington Post....

EDITORIAL: Trump's reckless call to ‘Second Amendment people’

By EDITORIAL BOARD | 7:29PM EDT - Tuesday, August 09, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20160809dtnc_DonaldTrumpNorthCarolina_zpspmknqf8y.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/08/09/Editorial-Opinion/Images/587760622.jpg)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at a rally August 9th in Wilmington, North Carolina.
 — Photograph: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images.


“HILLARY WANTS TO ABOLISH, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” Donald Trump said on Tuesday (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/09/trump-appears-to-encourage-gun-owners-to-take-action-if-clinton-appoints-anti-gun-judges). “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.”

The day after Mr. Trump delivered a relatively restrained speech on economic policy (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/08/donald-trumps-economic-speech-annotated), the candidate once again trampled on Republican hopes that he would suddenly disguise himself as an acceptable politician.

“You aren't just responsible for what you say,” General Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, said in response to Mr. Trump's remark. “You're responsible for what people hear.”

What did people hear? Many no doubt assumed Mr. Trump to be recycling ugly Tea Party rhetoric that contemplates “Second Amendment remedies”, a term former Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle used in her 2010 campaign (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/06/sharron_angle_floated_possibil.html) to suggest armed resistance to government “tyranny”. The voters rightly rejected Ms. Angle at the ballot box, and she receded from public view. But Mr. Trump's flirtation with such rhetoric poses a greater threat. By seeming to encourage armed insurrection against a Hillary Clinton administration, Mr. Trump has recklessly magnified the danger of his previous claim that the election is being “rigged” against him.

And encouraging armed resistance against the federal government is not the most worrisome of possible meanings. Other listeners assumed that Mr. Trump was encouraging supporters to train their weapons on Ms. Clinton herself.

As is often the case, Mr. Trump was incoherent enough to permit more than one plausible interpretation of his words. If he had not so often celebrated violence and wielded dark innuendo against political opponents, minority groups, journalists and others, it would be easier to give him the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Unfortunately, a spokesman's after-the-fact explanation (https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/763117660330655744/photo/1) did not clear the bar of plausibility. “Donald Trump was obviously talking about American voters who are passionate about their Second Amendment rights and advocating they use that power at the ballot box,” the spokesman said. No; Mr. Trump was talking about what would happen if Ms. Clinton were elected.

If Mr. Trump were not a major-party presidential nominee, his comment on Tuesday might have earned him a stern visit from the Secret Service. Instead, it will simply be added to the ever-growing list of Mr. Trump's disqualifiers — and to the ever-growing burden of Republican leaders who continue to insist that their candidate is suitable to serve.


__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • From Trump's words, a pattern: Outrage, headlines, then denial (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/from-trumps-controversial-words-a-pattern-outrage-headlines-and-then-denial/2016/08/09/4feadec0-5e71-11e6-8e45-477372e89d78_story.html)

 • Kaine on Trump: ‘I really, frankly couldn’t believe he said it’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/09/kaine-responds-to-trumps-encouragement-of-gun-owners-i-really-frankly-couldnt-believe-he-said-it)

 • Eugene Robinson: This campaign could get worse — a lot worse. Here's why. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-this-campaign-could-get-even-uglier/2016/08/08/1a9cd018-5d9d-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html)

 • Garrison Keillor: Trump as president is unthinkable. That's why so many find it fascinating. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-as-president-is-unthinkable-thats-why-so-many-find-it-fascinating/2016/08/09/49aa1d28-5e58-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html)

 • Jennifer Rubin: Trump's big speech only hurt him (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/08/09/trumps-big-speech-only-hurt-him)

 • E.J. Dionne Jr.: Trumponomics: Workers get the words, the wealthy get the money (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/08/09/trumponomics-workers-get-the-words-the-wealthy-get-the-money)

 • Senator Susan Collins: Why I cannot support Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gop-senator-why-i-cannot-support-trump/2016/08/08/821095be-5d7e-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-reckless-call-to-second-amendment-people/2016/08/09/a6aa4be2-5e76-11e6-af8e-54aa2e849447_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-reckless-call-to-second-amendment-people/2016/08/09/a6aa4be2-5e76-11e6-af8e-54aa2e849447_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 11, 2016, 11:21:28 am
haha more desperate spin,

why not just make shit up?

"dem media is pathetic and full of bullshit".


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 11, 2016, 03:03:51 pm

Trump was stupid enough to say it.

And there is video footage of him saying it, so how can it be bullshit?

And....the Secret Service has questioned Trump about his nasty threats....


Secret Service spoke to Trump campaign about 2nd Amendment comment (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/10/politics/trump-second-amendment)

I hope they prosecute the nasty arsehole.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: clint eastwood on August 11, 2016, 04:15:01 pm
Jeeezzz...some people can't even have a joke anymore...the lefties need to lighten up a bit ::)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 11, 2016, 07:16:40 pm

i would have no problem with trump making a joke about chopping hillary and bill up with an axe and feeding their poxy bodies to the sharks.



Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 11, 2016, 08:00:38 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhrDw7Pwdy0


INFOWARS FORCES HILLARY TO DISAVOW ORLANDO SHOOTER’S FATHER
Viral article called for candidate to denounce anti-gay, Taliban supporter

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/090816mateen2.jpg)

The Hillary Clinton campaign disavowed support from the Orlando gunman’s father Tuesday following a viral Infowars article demanding she do exactly that.
According to campaign spokesman Nick Merrill, Clinton “disagrees with his views and disavows his support.”
The comment regarding anti-gay, Taliban supporter Seddique Mateen, whose son murdered 49 people at a gay nightclub in June, came after Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson questioned why Hillary hadn’t spoken out against Mateen – who was prominently featured behind her at a recent Florida rally.

http://www.infowars.com/hillary-disavows-orlando-shooters-father-following-infowars-article/


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 11, 2016, 09:16:17 pm
Jeeezzz...some people can't even have a joke anymore...the lefties need to lighten up a bit ::)


So you think inciting people to kill somebody is a joke?

What a fucked-up person you are.

Perhaps somebody should suggest that somebody shoot a member of your family, eh? I bet you'd find that hilariously funny, dickhead!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 11, 2016, 11:13:04 pm
Trump meant the active voting support from the 2nd amendment people even a fool like you should be able to see that lol

If you believe the spin on what was said in Trump's speech from the bias left bullshit media you're the dumbest fuck in the world.

They are like you they make shit up out of their arsehole lmao

(http://static.infowars.com/politicalsidebarimage/hill-op1.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 11, 2016, 11:20:23 pm
Quote
Perhaps somebody should suggest that somebody shoot a member of your family, eh?

you stupid mindless pile of shit

maybe someone should kill your family ? but first they would need to get them to crawl out from under their rock.

drop dead you stupid mother fucker

song for the dumb arse(http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/54_Wkr.gif)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5f22AFQyAE


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 12, 2016, 04:31:32 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160811_TrumpSpeechShotput_zps98r6wmxu.jpg~original)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 18, 2016, 06:53:23 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160817_TheHistoryDon_1471432059639s_zpsmhf63sli.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 18, 2016, 06:53:31 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160817_TheHistoryDon_1471432059639s_zpsmhf63sli.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: clint eastwood on August 18, 2016, 08:17:17 pm
Yup...looks like John Key will be proven correct....again ;)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on August 21, 2016, 07:50:35 pm
so looks like obama and hillary did arm isis


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1oEoCRkLRI


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: clint eastwood on August 22, 2016, 07:11:26 am
Under the Democrats, America is in steady decline as a superpower...Russia and China are happy to take up the slack, the beginning of the decline of individual freedom....but don't worry....it wil be the following generations who will pay for the mistakes :P


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on August 22, 2016, 08:20:51 am
Under the Democrats, America is in steady decline as a superpower...Russia and China are happy to take up the slack, the beginning of the decline of individual freedom....but don't worry....it wil be the following generations who will pay for the mistakes :P


clint eastwood my arse.

And your previous nickname, reality, is no good, 'cause you clearly lack any sense of reality.

You should go to your profile and change your name to something more appropriate to you, such as idiot or stupid or clown.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: clint eastwood on August 22, 2016, 08:37:38 am
Who the hell is this reality dude you are obsessed with?


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on September 06, 2016, 03:49:45 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160830_KinderDonald_zpsni103d6h.jpg~original) (http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/57c400ab5016e1eb7941e6fc/1472463065190/KINDERW.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on September 27, 2016, 06:34:34 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20160926_SoStrong_zpsdrecadfa.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/dcagle/status/780592030665715712)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on September 30, 2016, 06:26:08 pm
POLLS: TRUMP WON FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE – HANDS DOWN!
The American people have spoken

Check out our survey of more than 30 sites below:

http://www.infowars.com/poll-who-won-the-first-presidential-debate/


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: nitpicker1 on October 01, 2016, 12:48:49 am


http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/09/donald_trump_vs_hillary_clinto_22.html


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 01, 2016, 12:59:42 pm
POLLS: TRUMP WON FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE – HANDS DOWN!
The American people have spoken

Check out our survey of more than 30 sites below:

http://www.infowars.com/poll-who-won-the-first-presidential-debate/


Hahaha....infowars.com?

Seriously??

Faaaaaaaaark!!  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/19_HammerHead.gif)  (http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/XtraNewsCommunity2/Animated%20emoticons/42_Whip.gif)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on October 01, 2016, 03:23:44 pm
another good news site for you to whine about ktj

http://www.drudgereport.com/

wow there's a few mainstream news sites there telling us lying hillary has a bit of a problem

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/drudge-poll135.jpg)

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/fortune-2-poll.jpg)
(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/time-debate-poll.jpg)

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/cbs-new-york-poll.jpg)

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/cnbc-poll3.jpg)

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/breitbart-poll-debate.jpg)

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/poll-washingtontimes1.jpg)

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/8news-poll1.jpg)

(http://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/breitbart-poll-debate.jpg)








Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 03, 2016, 11:21:09 pm

from The New York Times....

Donald Trump Tax Records Show He Could Have Avoided
Taxes for Nearly Two Decades, The Times Found


By DAVID BARSTOW, SUSANNE CRAIG, RUSS BUETTNER and MEGAN TWOHEY | Saturday, October 01, 2016

DONALD J. TRUMP declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.

The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.

Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump's 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/New%20York%20Times%20pix/20161001tt_TrumpTaxes1_zpseqt8vzqa.jpg~original) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/01/us/01TRUMPTAXES-DOC-RIP-SUB/01TRUMPTAXES-DOC-RIP-SUB-master675.jpg)
A line from one of Mr. Trump's 1995 tax returns obtained by The New York Times.

Although Mr. Trump's taxable income in subsequent years is as yet unknown, a $916 million loss in 1995 would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years.

The $916 million loss certainly could have eliminated any federal income taxes Mr. Trump otherwise would have owed on the $50,000 to $100,000 he was paid for each episode of “The Apprentice (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/business/media/donald-trump-apprentice.html), or the roughly $45 million he was paid between 1995 and 2009 when he was chairman or chief executive of the publicly traded company he created to assume ownership of his troubled Atlantic City casinos. Ordinary investors in the new company, meanwhile, saw the value of their shares plunge to 17 cents from $35.50, while scores of contractors went unpaid for work on Mr. Trump's casinos and casino bondholders received pennies on the dollar.

“He has a vast benefit from his destruction” in the early 1990s, said one of the experts, Joel Rosenfeld, an assistant professor at New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate. Mr. Rosenfeld offered this description of what he would advise a client who came to him with a tax return like Mr. Trump's: “Do you realize you can create $916 million in income without paying a nickel in taxes?”

Mr. Trump declined to comment on the documents. Instead, the campaign released a statement that neither challenged nor confirmed the $916 million loss.

“Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the statement said. “That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”

The statement continued, “Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it.”


Donald Trump's Letter (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/01/us/politics/donald-trump-letter.html)

Separately, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Marc E. Kasowitz, emailed a letter to The Times arguing that publication of the records is illegal because Mr. Trump has not authorized the disclosure of any of his tax returns. Mr. Kasowitz threatened “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action.”

Mr. Trump's refusal to make his tax returns public — breaking with decades of tradition in presidential contests — has emerged as a central issue in the campaign, with a majority of voters saying he should release them. Mr. Trump has declined to do so, and has said he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.

At last Monday's presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton suggested Mr. Trump was refusing to release his tax returns so voters would not know “he's paid nothing in federal taxes,” and when she also pointed out that Mr. Trump had once revealed to casino regulators that he paid no federal income taxes in the late 1970s, Mr. Trump retorted, “That makes me smart.”

The tax experts consulted by The Times said nothing in the 1995 documents suggested any wrongdoing by Mr. Trump, even if the extraordinary size of the loss he declared would have probably attracted extra scrutiny from I.R.S. examiners. “The I.R.S., when they see a negative $916 million, that has to pop out,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.

The documents examined by The Times represent a small fraction of the voluminous tax returns Mr. Trump would have filed in 1995.


Pages From Donald Trump's 1995 Income Tax Records (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/01/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html)

The documents consisted of three pages from what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax returns. The pages were mailed last month to Susanne Craig, a reporter at The Times who has written about Mr. Trump's finances. The documents were the first page of a New York State resident income tax return, the first page of a New Jersey non-resident tax return and the first page of a Connecticut non-resident tax return. Each page bore the names and Social Security numbers of Mr. Trump and Marla Maples, his wife at the time. Only the New Jersey form had what appeared to be their signatures.

The three documents arrived by mail at The Times with a postmark indicating they had been sent from New York City. The return address claimed the envelope had been sent from Trump Tower.

On Wednesday, The Times presented the tax documents to Jack Mitnick, a lawyer and certified public accountant who handled Mr. Trump's tax matters for more than 30 years, until 1996. Mr. Mitnick was listed as the preparer on the New Jersey tax form.

Mr. Mitnick, 80, now semi-retired and living in Florida, said that while he no longer had access to Mr. Trump's original returns, the documents appeared to be authentic copies of portions of Mr. Trump's 1995 tax returns. Mr. Mitnick said the signature on the tax preparer line of the New Jersey tax form was his, and he readily explained an obvious anomaly in the way especially large numbers appeared on the New York tax document.

A flaw in the tax software program he used at the time prevented him from being able to print a nine-figure loss on Mr. Trump's New York return, he said. So, for example, the loss of “-915,729,293” on Line 18 of the return printed out as “5,729,293.” As a result, Mr. Mitnick recalled, he had to use his typewriter to manually add the “-91,” thus explaining why the first two digits appeared to be in a different font and were slightly misaligned from the following seven digits.

“This is legit,” he said, stabbing a finger into the document.

Because the documents sent to The Times did not include any pages from Mr. Trump's 1995 federal tax return, it is impossible to determine how much he may have donated to charity that year. The state documents do show, though, that Mr. Trump declined the opportunity to contribute to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Fund, the New Jersey Wildlife Conservation Fund or the Children's Trust Fund. He also declined to contribute $1 toward public financing of New Jersey's elections for governor.

The tax documents also do not shed any light on Mr. Trump's claimed net worth of about $2 billion at that time. This is because the complex calculations of business deductions that produced a tax loss of $916 million are a separate matter from how Mr. Trump valued his assets, the tax experts said.

Nor does the $916 million loss suggest that Mr. Trump was insolvent or effectively bankrupt in 1995. The cash flow generated by his various businesses that year was more than enough to service his various debts.

But fragmentary as they are, the documents nonetheless provide new insight into Mr. Trump's finances, a subject of intense scrutiny given Mr. Trump's emphasis on his business record during the presidential campaign.

The documents show, for example, that while Mr. Trump reported $7.4 million in interest income in 1995, he made only $6,108 in wages, salaries and tips. They also suggest Mr. Trump took full advantage of generous tax loopholes specifically available to commercial real estate developers to claim a $15.8 million loss in 1995 on his real estate holdings and partnerships.

But the most important revelation from the 1995 tax documents is just how much Mr. Trump may have benefited from a tax provision that is particularly prized by America's dynastic families, which, like the Trumps, hold their wealth inside byzantine networks of partnerships, limited liability companies and S corporations.

The provision, known as net operating loss, or N.O.L., allows a dizzying array of deductions, business expenses, real estate depreciation, losses from the sale of business assets and even operating losses to flow from the balance sheets of those partnerships, limited liability companies and S corporations onto the personal tax returns of men like Mr. Trump. In turn, those losses can be used to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income from, say, book royalties or branding deals.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/New%20York%20Times%20pix/20161001tt_TrumpTaxes2_zps8ncjly1j.jpg~original) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/02/us/01trumptaxes3/01trumptaxes3-master675.jpg)
Mr. Trump bought the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan in 1988. — Photograph: Marty Lederhandler/Associated Press.

Better still, if the losses are big enough, they can cancel out taxable income earned in other years. Under I.R.S. rules in 1995, net operating losses could be used to wipe out taxable income earned in the three years before and the 15 years after the loss. (The effect of net operating losses on state income taxes varies, depending on each state's tax regime.)

The tax experts consulted by The Times said the $916 million net operating loss declared by Mr. Trump in 1995 almost certainly included large net operating losses carried forward from the early 1990s, when most of Mr. Trump's key holdings were hemorrhaging money. Indeed, by 1990, his entire business empire was on the verge of collapse. In a few short years, he had amassed $3.4 billion in debt — personally guaranteeing $832 million of it — to assemble a portfolio that included three casinos and a hotel in Atlantic City, the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, an airline and a huge yacht.

Reports that year by New Jersey casino regulators gave glimpses of the balance sheet carnage. The Trump Taj Mahal casino reported a $25.5 million net loss during its first six months of 1990; the Trump's Castle casino lost $43.5 million for the year. His airline, Trump Shuttle, lost $34.5 million during just the first six months of that year.

“Simply put, the organization is in dire financial straits,” the casino regulators concluded.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/New%20York%20Times%20pix/20161001tt_TrumpTaxes3_zpso6i8cg98.jpg~original) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/02/us/02TRUMPDOCUMENT3/02TRUMPDOCUMENT3-master675.jpg)
Reports published by New Jersey regulators in 1993, top, and 1995, above, highlighted the effects of Mr. Trump's
net operating losses.


Reports by New Jersey's casino regulators strongly suggested that Mr. Trump had claimed large net operating losses on his taxes in the early 1990s. Their reports, for example, revealed that Mr. Trump had carried forward net operating losses in both 1991 and 1993. What's more, the reports said the losses he claimed were large enough to virtually cancel out any taxes he might owe on the millions of dollars of debt that was being forgiven by his creditors. (The I.R.S. considers forgiven debt to be taxable income.)

But crucially, the casino regulators redacted the precise size of the net operating losses in the public versions of their reports. Two former New Jersey officials, who were privy to the unredacted documents, could not recall the precise size of the numbers, but said they were substantial.

Politico, which previously reported (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-no-taxes-224498) that Mr. Trump most likely paid no income taxes in 1991 and 1993 based on the casino commission's description of his net operating losses, asked Mr. Trump to comment. “Welcome to the real estate business,” he replied in an email.

Now, thanks to Mr. Trump's 1995 tax records, the degree to which he spun all those years of red ink into tax write-off gold may finally be apparent.

Mr. Mitnick, the lawyer and accountant, was the person Mr. Trump leaned on most to do the spinning. Mr. Mitnick worked for a small Long Island accounting firm that specialized in handling tax issues for wealthy New York real estate families. He had long handled tax matters for Mr. Trump's father, Fred C. Trump, and he said he began doing Donald Trump's taxes after Mr. Trump turned 18.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Mitnick said he could not divulge details of Mr. Trump's finances without Mr. Trump's consent. But he did talk about Mr. Trump's approaches to taxes, and he contrasted Fred Trump's attention to detail with what he described as Mr. Trump's brash and undisciplined style. He recalled, for example, that when Donald and Ivana Trump came in each year to sign their tax forms, it was almost always Ivana who asked more questions.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/New%20York%20Times%20pix/20161001tt_TrumpTaxes4_zps0mursuuq.jpg~original) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/02/us/01trumptaxes4/01trumptaxes4-master675.jpg)
The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, one of the failed casino properties in Atlantic City that had been owned
by Mr. Trump. — Photograph: Douglas Graham/Congressional Quarterly via Getty Images.


But if Mr. Trump lacked a sophisticated understanding of the tax code, and if he rarely showed any interest in the details behind various tax strategies, Mr. Mitnick said he clearly grasped the critical role taxes would play in helping him build wealth. “He knew we could use the tax code to protect him,” Mr. Mitnick said.

According to Mr. Mitnick, Mr. Trump's use of net operating losses was no different from that of his other wealthy clients. “This may have had a couple extra digits compared to someone else's operation, but they all benefited in the same way,” he said, pointing to the $916 million loss on Mr. Trump's tax returns.

In “The Art of the Deal”, his 1987 best-selling book, Mr. Trump referred to Mr. Mitnick as “my accountant” — although he misspelled his name. Mr. Trump described consulting with Mr. Mitnick on the tax implications of deals he was contemplating and seeking his advice on how new federal tax regulations might affect real estate write-offs.

Mr. Mitnick, though, said there were times when even he, for all his years helping wealthy New Yorkers navigate the tax code, found it difficult to face the incongruity of his work for Mr. Trump. He felt keenly aware that Mr. Trump was living a life of unimaginable luxury thanks in part to Mr. Mitnick's ability to relieve him of the burden of paying taxes like everyone else.

“Here the guy was building incredible net worth and not paying tax on it,” he said.


Steve Eder and Patricia Cohen contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

• A version of this article appears in print on October 2nd, 2016, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: “Trump's 1995 Tax Records Claim $916 Million Loss”.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • A Trump Empire Built on Inside Connections and $885 Million in Tax Breaks (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-breaks-real-estate.html)

 • Trump Casinos' Tax Debt Was $30 Million. Then Christie Took Office. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/politics/trump-chris-christie-casinos.html)

 • Donald Trump's Deals Rely on Being Creative With the Truth (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/us/politics/donald-trump-business.html)

 • Why We Ask to See Candidates' Tax Returns (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/opinion/why-we-ask-to-see-candidates-tax-returns.html)


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 03, 2016, 11:23:44 pm

from The New York Times....

The Time I Found Donald Trump's Tax Records in My Mailbox

By SUSANNE CRAIG | Sunday, October 02, 2016

In this article, Susanne Craig, a New York Times Metro reporter who covers
government and politics, reveals one of the lesser-known benefits (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html) of “snail mail”
.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/New%20York%20Times%20pix/nyt_20161002scm_SusanneCraigsMailbox_zps8nptxcld.jpg~original) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/03/insider/03-insider-trumptaxes/03-insider-trumptaxes-superJumbo-v3.jpg)
Susanne Craig's mailbox at The New York Times.

MY COLLEAGUES make fun of my old-fashioned devotion to my mailbox.

It's about 30 feet from my desk — among all the other third-floor employees' mailboxes — and I check it constantly, always hoping a tipster will have sent me some revealing letter or secret document.

In Metro, we get a lot of junk mail and are regularly flooded with correspondence from prisoners in New York's penitentiaries.

But Friday, September 23rd, was different.

I walked to my mailbox and spotted a manila envelope, postmarked New York, NY, with a return address of The Trump Organization. My heart skipped a beat.

I have been on the hunt for Donald J. Trump's tax returns. Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has broken with decades-long tradition and refused to make his returns public. I have written extensively about his finances, but like almost every other reporter, I was eager to see his actual returns.

The envelope looked legitimate. I opened it, anxiously, and was astonished.

Inside were what appeared to be pages from Mr. Trump's 1995 tax records, containing detailed figures that revealed his tax strategies. Almost immediately, I walked over to the desk of David Barstow — a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and my teammate in the quest for Mr. Trump's tax returns.

He was on the phone. I waved the tax documents in front of him. He abruptly ended the call with whomever he was talking to.

We cleared out the investigations team conference room and, with our colleagues Megan Twohey and Russ Buettner, started drawing up a battle plan.

We obsessed over the documents, the envelope, the postmark, the date on the postmark — everything. We even checked every other mailbox on the third floor — and there are hundreds of them — in case the tipster had mailed additional documents to any other reporter.

We then came up with a list of people who could confirm the veracity of the tax records. The list was short.

Next, we set out to develop a portrait of Mr. Trump's finances from the period in question, to see if we could support what the documents showed — that he had taken a huge loss in 1995 that could have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades.

We were skeptical as we examined the tax records, though much of the information looked accurate. They were signed by Mr. Trump's wife at the time, Marla Maples, and by Mr. Trump, whose recognizable handwriting renders his signature in jagged, oversize letters. Other details matched up.

But, of course, we needed a lot more before we could publish an article.

We were initially thrown off by a quirk in the records noticed by Megan: On the line on which Mr. Trump had reported his huge loss — of $915,729,293 — the first two digits did not line up with the next seven. Could the document have been doctored?

We hired tax experts to guide us through the math. We researched the 1995 tax code. We reached out to anyone who might have viewed Mr. Trump's records during that period.

But the breakthrough came when David traveled to Florida and tracked down Jack Mitnick, the semi-retired accountant who had prepared and signed Mr. Trump's tax returns.

Mr. Mitnick was initially reluctant to talk, but he eventually agreed to meet David in a bagel shop.

In a conversation there, Mr. Mitnick not only said the records appeared to be authentic; he also solved the mystery of the digits that did not line up. It turned out that the tax preparation software he had used did not allow him to enter a loss of nine figures. So, he recalled, he had to manually enter the first two digits, using an IBM Selectric typewriter.

We did more reporting that broadened our picture of Mr. Trump's finances at the time, and reached out to additional sources. By Saturday — eight days after I had first opened the envelope — we were ready to go to the Trump campaign with our findings. Mr. Trump, through his spokeswoman, did not challenge or confirm the tax records, but he threatened us with legal action if we were to publish them.

We felt confident that our reporting was correct. On Saturday night, around 9:10, we were all in the newsroom when our article (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html) was posted on nytimes.com (http://nytimes.com/). It instantly drew a flood of readers. People were fascinated not only by the story, but also with how we had gotten it. Why did the tipster send the documents to me, of all the reporters out there? Probably because I wrote an exhaustive examination (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/donald-trump-debt.html) of Mr. Trump's $650 million of debt in August that drew millions of readers.

The whole experience has left me eager to share a bit of advice with my fellow reporters: Check your mailboxes. Especially nowadays, when people are worried that anything sent by email will leave forensic fingerprints, “snail mail” is a great way to communicate with us anonymously.

And a note to tipsters out there: If you want to send me anything, on any subject, my mailbox is open. The address is 620 Eighth Avenue, Third Floor, New York, NY 10018.

You can bet I will be checking it.


• A version of this article appears in print on October 3rd, 2016, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: “The Time I Peeked in My Mailbox and Found Trump's Tax Records”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/insider/the-time-i-found-donald-trumps-tax-records-in-my-mailbox.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/insider/the-time-i-found-donald-trumps-tax-records-in-my-mailbox.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 03, 2016, 11:24:04 pm

from The Washington Post....

Donald Trump's massively epic meltdown
shouldn't really surprise anyone


By CHRIS CILLIZZA | 11:57AM EDT - Sunday, October 02, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161001dtmp_DonaldTrumpManheimPennsylvania_zpscv54duu6.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/10/02/National-Politics/Images/611910454.jpg)
Donald Trump speaks at the Spooky Nook sports center in Manheim, Pennsylvania on Saturday night, October 01, 2016.
 — Photograph: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images.


ONE OF the long-running story lines of the Republican presidential primary season was this: What would Donald Trump do if ever his beloved polls turned against him? If he was no longer winning, how would he act? Whom would he blame?

Lucky for Trump, there was almost never a moment during his run to the Republican nomination in which he trailed, so those questions never really got answered. There was one instance, however, when Ben Carson briefly passed Trump in Iowa over last fall, and we got a glimpse of an embattled Trump who wasn't terribly appealing — as a candidate or a person.

In a rambling 95-minute speech in Fort Dodge, Iowa, in November (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/13/donald-trump-begs-iowans-not-to-believe-ben-carson-dont-be-fools-okay), Trump lashed out at, well, everyone. “How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap,” he asked the crowd in reference to Carson's story about an apparent stabbing incident in his younger years. Trump referred to rival Carly Fiorina as “Carly whatever-the-hell-her-name-is.” He famously/infamously declared, “I know more about ISIS [the Islamic State militant group] than the generals do.” And on and on.

Well, that Trump — angry, petulant, petty — returned on Saturday night in a campaign appearance in Manheim, Pennsylvania.

Like in November in Iowa, Trump found himself backed into a corner — a poor showing in the first presidential debate (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/26/winners-and-losers-from-the-1st-presidential-debate) was made worse by his inexplicable, multi-day attacks on former Miss Universe Alicia Machado (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/27/trump-attacks-former-miss-universe-who-gained-a-massive-amount-of-weight-and-had-attitude) and punctuated by a devastating New York Times story about his taxes (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html).

And, like in November, Trump came unglued.

The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson was there (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/02/as-news-of-trumps-taxes-broke-he-goes-off-script-at-a-rally-in-pennsylvania), and her report on the Trump speech is, frankly, stunning stuff. I could excerpt the whole story, but here's just one example of Trump's tirade:

It took Trump nearly 25 minutes to read the brief statement because he kept going off on one angry tangent after another — ignoring his teleprompters and accusing Clinton of not being “loyal” to her husband, imitating her buckling at a memorial service last month, suggesting that she is “crazy” and saying she should be in prison. He urged his mostly white crowd of supporters to go to polling places in “certain areas” on Election Day to “watch” the voters there. He also repeatedly complained about having a “bum mic” at the first presidential debate and wondered if he should have done another season of “The Apprentice”.

This video (https://twitter.com/LPDonovan/status/782437489701187585), of Trump imitating Clinton's near-collapse at a September 11th memorial service last month, has to be seen to be believed.

The Trump in that video is the exact opposite of presidential. The word that kept coming to my mind when I watched it was “nasty”. He seems mean, angry, vindictive. None of those words tend to be what people use to describe presidents.

Simply put: If you had questions before Saturday night about whether Trump had the proper temperament to hold the job he is seeking, it's hard to imagine that you don't have serious doubts today.

True character tends to be revealed when times are tough. Anyone can be magnanimous, happy and generous after a win. It's a hell of a lot harder to maintain that dignity and charitableness after a defeat.

Trump has shown throughout this campaign that he runs well while ahead. His chiding of his opponents, his dismissiveness of the political press — it all plays great when he is on top of the political world.

But, last night in Manheim, he showed what we got glimpses of almost a year ago in Iowa: When he's down, Trump is like a cornered animal. He lashes out — at everyone. That is when he's at his most dangerous — to his own prospects and those of the party he is leading.


• Chris Cillizza writes The Fix (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix), a politics blog for The Washington Post. He also covers the White House.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related media:

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/photos-of-donald-trump-on-the-campaign-trail/2016/07/30/3e3b9ea0-566d-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_gallery.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/02/donald-trumps-epic-meltdown-in-manheim-shouldnt-surprise-anyone (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/02/donald-trumps-epic-meltdown-in-manheim-shouldnt-surprise-anyone)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on October 04, 2016, 12:03:40 am
i hear all the women bill Clinton has either raped or sexually molested are coming out in droves to accuse bill.
also i hear Wikileaks are about to unload all Clinton's emails she thought she got rid of and she might end up jailed lol

about not paying tax for 2 decades i am sure he has not broken any laws and just doing what anyone in business would do unlike the Clintons

 October 2, 2016
Trump, Taxes and the Times

By Jack Hellner
See also: New York Times violates law to publish partial Trump tax return from 90s and speculate about his taxes


The New York Times put out a hit piece on Donald Trump saying that he took a $900 billion-plus business loss in 1995 that allowed him to pay no income taxes for years. If it was a legitimate loss that is what he is supposed to do. Trump and his businesses pay property taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, motor fuel taxes and all the other taxes and fees the government entities charge. Therefore, it is either pure ignorance or intentional lies for Hillary and others to say he pays no taxes to support schools, the police, the roads and all other government functions. Why doesn't the media fact check that lie instead of repeating it?

Amazon, which is led Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, lost $1.41 Billion in 2000 and that offset their minimal income for years. Would Hillary and the NYT say Bezos paid no taxes and did not support government activities?

Solar City and Tesla, which are owned by one of the heroes of the left Elon Musk, have never made a profit and therefore never paid income taxes and they are also heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. Where are the media stories ripping Musk for not supporting the government?

If anyone wants to look at pure abuse of the income tax system they should look at what President Obama did for GM in 2009. We not only bailed out GM to the tune of $50 Billion, Obama gave GM an exemption from income taxes on their next $45 billion of income for up to twenty years. Why doesn't Hillary bring that one up as she campaigns in states with auto facilities?

The New York Times has had some financially troublesome years. Do they voluntarily pay income taxes when they lose money or do they carry back and carry forward the losses? That is all Trump did and it is pathetic that the Times would do a hit piece on what is and what should be a legal practice.

Can the New York Times find any company or individual that had a loss that didn't use the loss to offset income taxes for years? What about Buffet when he was a major shareholder of US Air?  I bet they can't find any.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/10/trump_taxes_and_the_emtimesem.html

Breaking: Washington Post CEO paid no taxes under the same deal Trump did, media covering it up
14 hours ago  Connor Balough  no Responses  5250 Views


Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Washington Post, has some “splainin to do” according to documents showing that he paid 0 in taxes. Does this make the WaPo a government funded entity?
 
 
The report:
 
Amazon, which is led Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, lost $1.41 Billion in 2000 and that offset their minimal income for years. Would Hillary and the NYT say Bezos paid no taxes and did not support government activities?
American Thinker
 
The sinking Post, which employs Click-Bait headlines to get people reading their anti-Trump screeds, have also been critical of the owners of Prntly, calling us “Pro-Trump clickbait.”
Sadly, they can’t see the forest for the trees.
 
The Post was slammed by a tax blog in December:
For example, it’s well documented that Amazon’s growth as a retail giant was fueled by the company’s ability to avoid collecting sales taxes on its retail sales. Not collecting sales tax gave the company an immediate advantage over its brick-and-mortar competitors. For years, the company fought tooth and nailagainst sensible legislative efforts to put the company on a level playing field with mom and pop retailers. Yet, thanks to hard fought reforms in the states, this will be the first holiday season when Amazon will be collecting sales taxes in a majority of states.
 
Tax Justice Blog

http://prntly.com/2016/10/02/breaking-washington-post-ceo-paid-no-taxes-under-the-same-deal-trump-did-media-covering-it-up/

Larry Kudlow on Trump's Tax Plan: Middle-Income Americans Will Benefit Most

Breaking News at Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/larry-kudlow-donald-trump-tax-plan/2016/08/04/id/742232/#ixzz4M1TpOHEU
Urgent: Do You Back Trump or Hillary? Vote Here Now!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 04, 2016, 06:46:52 am
Larry Kudlow on Trump's Tax Plan: Middle-Income Americans Will Benefit Most



(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/TooFunny.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingPinkPanther.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ROFLMAO_Dog.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/LaughingHard.gif) (http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/ItchyBugga.gif)



Trump's pockets will be what will benefit from Trump's tax plans.

All those stupid suckers who support him would suddenly find out how STUPID and GULLIBLE they had been.

Hilarious, when you think about it!


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on October 04, 2016, 05:39:39 pm
Obama care tax plan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0sGsFP4iDk


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 06, 2016, 01:49:02 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/Cartoons%202016/20161004_BloodyFly_zpsjtfebuly.jpg~original) (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52aca146e4b06d986ca82df3/52c0ec1ce4b0f4346e9358a5/57f1f35fc534a5d6100890e2/1475474304496/FlyW.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on October 06, 2016, 02:20:26 pm
(http://static.infowars.com/politicalsidebarimage/creepy-clown-kaine_large.jpg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 06, 2016, 03:06:50 pm

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Cartoons/20161004_TrumpGenius_zpshgoajsmc.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/wuerker/status/783421904250138624)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on October 07, 2016, 08:05:45 pm
ktj do you pay more tax than the law demands ?

are your donations to the workers party taxdeductible 


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 13, 2016, 11:03:19 pm

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Cartoons/20161011_DonaldTrumpIsPerfect_zpsyzv0q86y.jpg~original)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 18, 2016, 06:21:16 pm

(http://i365.photobucket.com/albums/oo92/RasputinDude/News%20Story%20Pix%202016/20161018_1476770494914sr_zpsdtxbfphd.jpg~original) (http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/thinskinned-wounded-with-an-angry-crowd-of-supporters-what-will-donald-trump-do-on-election-day-20161018-gs4ml6.html)
(click on the picture to read the news story)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 22, 2016, 03:34:57 pm



Donald Trump = LOSER!!





Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 22, 2016, 03:35:31 pm

from The Washington Post....

Donald Trump first swept into the nation's capital 40 years ago.
It didn't go well.


As he was trying to sell D.C. on a new convention center in 1976, Trump's father was briefly
jailed for violations at an apartment complex in neighboring Prince George's County.


By MICHAEL E. MILLER and KICHAEL KRANISH | 9:23AM EDT - Friday, October 21, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161021ta_DonaldTrumpFredTrump_zpsxjoipgkp.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/10/14/Others/Images/2016-10-14/GettyImages-849933701476480970.jpg)
Donald Trump and his father, Fred Trump, a real estate developer who died in 1999. — Photograph: Ron Galella/WireImage.

IN THE fall of 1976, Fred Trump made a rare visit to a housing complex he owned in Seat Pleasant, Maryland. For months, Prince George's County inspectors had complained of broken windows, rotted rain gutters and missing fire extinguishers at the 504-unit Gregory Estates. When the problems weren't fixed, fed-up officials asked Trump to come down and meet in person.

The “meeting” however, was brief. As soon as the multimillionaire arrived, he was arrested and — to his outrage — briefly jailed.

The incident came at an awkward time for the Trump family. Fred was accused of subjecting black tenants to poor conditions just a year after settling a lawsuit with the federal government, which alleged that the Trump Organization refused to rent to African Americans.

And his hard-charging son was in the middle of an audacious and ultimately unsuccessful bid to construct a $125 million convention center in the nation's capital. Barely 30 years old, Donald Trump saw opportunity in downtown Washington's barren lots and riot-scarred buildings near Union Station.

In an interview, Trump told The Washington Post he had no idea his father had been arrested in Prince George's. But he had no trouble recalling his convention center proposal, which included a luxury hotel in the historic Government Publishing Office.

“It would have been great for Washington,” he said in an email.

Forty years later, Trump has finally gotten his foothold in the capital with the opening of his glitzy $212 million Trump International Hotel (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/inside-the-opulent-trump-international-hotel-in-washington/2016/09/10/c63d179c-7509-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html) in the Old Post Office Pavilion. And the Republican presidential nominee is trying to claim an even grander address on Pennsylvania Avenue: the White House.

But the seeds of his Washington ambitions can be traced back to 1976, when his convention center proposal fell victim to his strained relationship with African Americans — something that has re-emerged as he runs for president.

“He doesn't really reach out to black people properly,” said Joseph Searles III, now 74, an African American ex-NFL player who was one of Trump's partners in the convention center project.

“Every time we went to a community meeting,” Searles said, “he'd piss off too many people, just like he does now.”


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161021tb_PleasantHomesApartments_zpsssgwquod.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/10/12/Others/Images/2016-10-12/trumpdc0071476307452.jpg)
The Pleasant Homes Apartments in Seat Pleasant, Maryland. Formerly known as Gregory Estates, the complex was once owned
by Donald Trump's father. Fred Trump was arrested and briefly jailed in 1976 for failing to fix housing-code violations.
 — Photograph: Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post.


‘Get me out of jail’

In the spring of 1961, when Donald Trump was finishing his freshman year at a military high school in New York, his father purchased Gregory Estates from the Federal Housing Administration. Records show he paid $1 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/trump-archive/docs/bruche-original-1961-deed.pdf). “It was bought at a distress sale,” Donald Trump recalled.

The sprawling, three-story apartment complex had been built a decade earlier during the postwar boom. When the developer couldn't keep up with mortgage payments, the FHA took over, then sold the property to Bruche Realty Corporation, one of Fred Trump's many companies.

Fred Trump rented the one- and two-bedroom apartments for about $150 a month. Initially, his tenants were poor whites. After the 1968 riots devastated parts of Washington, however, both the District and the surrounding areas began to change. African Americans, many of them middle class, moved into Prince George's County as whites fled to Montgomery County and other suburbs.

By 1970, when Donald began to help manage Gregory Estates, the tenants were predominantly black. With his blond pompadour and Ivy League education, the young Trump stood out in the low-income apartment project. He would fly down for a week at a time and stay in the model unit that was shown to prospective renters.

In his interview with The Washington Post earlier this year, he remembered collecting rent for his father at Gregory Estates.

“That was a dangerous territory,” Trump recalled. “I'd go there sometimes by myself and I'd say, ‘Pop, this is a rough piece of property here’.”

But Willie Cabbagestalk remembers things differently.

“He didn't collect [expletive],” said Cabbagestalk, 75, who has worked at Gregory Estates, now called Pleasant Homes Apartments, since the mid 1960s. “He gave me orders.”

He agreed with Trump, however, that Gregory Estates rapidly declined in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“It used to be rough here,” Cabbagestalk said. “We had 50 to 60 windows broken per day.”

By the time inspectors visited in January of 1976, Gregory Estates was falling apart.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161021tc_DonaldTrump_zpseezvwszr.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/10/11/Local-Enterprise/Images/img0131468705872.jpg)
On July 7th, 1976, Donald Trump, then 30, stood beside a model of the D.C. convention center he hoped to build.
 — Photograph: Tom Allen/The Washington Post.


When the notoriously frugal Fred Trump failed to pay for repairs by that July, his housing license was revoked, preventing him from signing new leases. The blow to his pocketbook spurred him to action: Trump agreed to fly to Maryland to meet with local officials on September 29th, 1976.

Instead, he was arrested.

Prince George's County was cracking down on dilapidated housing complexes, but arresting an owner was unusual. “We probably haven't issued four arrest warrants in the past five years,” Joseph T. Healey, the county's housing inspector supervisor, told The Washington Post for an article on the arrest (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/trump-archive/docs/ny-owner-of-pg-units-seize-in-code-violations-pg-2.pdf).

Fred Trump was furious. From his cell, the real estate mogul called Seat Pleasant Mayor Henry T. Arrington and demanded he be released.

“Come get me out of jail,” Trump said, according to Arrington.

Arrington, now 84, was well aware of the problems at Gregory Estates  “It was infested with drugs”  but he had never met the landlord.

When the mayor told Trump that he had no jurisdiction over the jail, Trump called New York, arranged payment of his $1,000 bond, and flew home immediately.

Irving Eskenazi, a Trump employee, attributed the problems to “a very serious change in the area. Low-income people started moving in.”

Trump, he told The Washington Post at the time, was a “fine gentleman” who “shouldn't even be going to a project like this.” And county officials should have known better than to “try and louse around with his reputation.”

Donald Trump, who had risen to president of the Trump Organization, vowed to fight (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/trump-archive/docs/bruche-donald-trump.pdf) the allegations in court. But his father pleaded no contest (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/trump-archive/docs/fred-trump-md-court-case.pdf) to five misdemeanor charges and paid a fine of $3,640  the equivalent of about $15,400 today.

Fred Trump didn't waste any time washing his hands of the place. Shortly after his arrest, he hired H.R. Crawford, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to manage the property. Trump, Crawford said, handed him the keys and severed his ties to Bruche Realty and Gregory Estates.

“He didn't want to come back to Prince George's County ever again,” Crawford, 74, recalled.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161021td_DonaldJTrump_zps9wask3ao.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/09/14/Investigative/Images/TRUMP0011437511690.jpg)
Donald J. Trump, already president of the Trump Organization, tried to sell
skeptical D.C. officials on a $125 million convention center.
 — Photograph: Tom Allen/The Washington Post.


‘Trump did not excite anybody’

On July 7th, 1976, Donald Trump stood before D.C. officials and promised to transform the struggling capital with a 1.8 million-square-foot convention center.

“The center will bring in $500 million in new business, and the city will take $45 to $50 million of that in taxes,” the 30-year-old, sharply dressed in a wide-lapeled suit and patterned tie, was quoted by The Washington Post as saying (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/the-posts-original-story-on-trumps-audacious-1976-bid-to-build-a-125-million-convention-center-in-dc/2183).

For the next year, the young Trump would try to sell the city on his plan. But Trump's brash personality and off-the-cuff style angered officials and alienated African American residents.

In the summer of 1976, both Washington and Donald Trump were new to negotiating. Trump had first gained notoriety by defending his family's business against federal allegations of racial bias, ultimately settling the case without admitting fault. Then he bought the old Commodore Hotel in Manhattan and turned it into the Grand Hyatt. He was in the midst of convincing New York City officials to build a convention center on land to which he held a lucrative option when he came to the capital to pitch a similar plan.

Washington had gained home rule on Christmas Eve in 1973. The city's first elected mayor, Walter Washington, felt that a new convention center near Mount Vernon Square would lift the District’s economy and spirit.

Congress still had to approve the plan, however, and a tense standoff ensued. Lawmakers, led by Senator Patrick J. Leahy (Democrat-Vermont), criticized the proposal as too costly.

In stepped The Donald.

Trump offered to arrange $125 million in private financing to build a bigger convention center next to Union Station.

Trump wasn't the only millionaire to offer his services. Abe Pollin, owner of the Washington Bullets and Capitals, initially wanted a convention center alongside a sports arena downtown before settling for an arena in Maryland. Home improvement store magnate John W. Hechinger proposed his lumberyard in Northeast Washington as a site. Architect Arthur Cotton Moore even suggested stringing inflatable “helium cells” over RFK Stadium to create a convention center covered by the “world's first ‘floating roof’.”

City officials were caught off guard by Trump's plan, The Washington Star reported. He and his partners briefed the mayor only a few days before bringing the idea before the D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency board.

Trump's surprise proposal came with two catches. Although he would use private financing to build the center — which would stretch from Massachusetts Avenue to I Street and North Capitol to Second Street — Trump said he was seeking subsidies to meet “a portion of the debt service and carrying charges,” according to The Washington Post. He said the amount would be “$5 to $10 million at the absolute maximum” and would be more than offset by the taxes the city would rake in.

In a move foreshadowing his return to the District 40 years later, Trump also wanted permission to transform the historic red-brick Government Publishing Office building into a luxury hotel.

But Trump ran into serious headwinds. Unlike in New York, he was relatively unknown in the capital.

“The name Trump did not excite anybody back then,” said Sterling Tucker, the D.C. Council chairman at the time.

A bigger hurdle was that the city's first elected officials were against privately financing the convention center. “We were trying to control our destiny,” recalled Tucker, now 92.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161021te_TrumpInternationalHotel_zpsqcyj1ibw.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/10/13/Others/Images/2016-10-13/TrumpSidewalk_02451476381013.jpg)
Chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” union workers picket outside the Trump International Hotel
over a labor dispute at a Trump property in Las Vegas. — Photograph: Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post.


What ultimately killed Trump's $125 million plan, however, was a public school.

After Trump's July 7th presentation, he was told that he would have to wait while the redevelopment board considered the proposal, including concerns raised by community groups.

“This is ridiculous. That's why Washington doesn't have a convention center,” Trump responded, according to The Washington Star.

When the redevelopment board met again two weeks later, about 50 residents showed up to protest the location of Trump's proposed convention center. Much of the land was already promised to other things, including Perry Simmons Elementary, they argued (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/donald-trumps-125-million-dc-convention-center-project-is-rejected-july-22-1976/2184).

When the board rejected Trump's plan, they cheered.

Three years later, the city began construction on the Washington Convention Center near Mount Vernon Square. Smaller than Trump's proposal, it opened in 1983 but was quickly dwarfed by competitors. It was demolished in 2004.

In an email, Trump said he remembered his convention center idea well, although he “didn't pursue it heavily.”

“The project we are opening now is even more exciting,” he added.

Trump's palatial new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue will hold its formal grand opening just days before the election. He cited it (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2016/10/12/trump-make-america-great-again-and-stay-at-my-hotel) during his second debate with Hillary Clinton as an example of his business acumen, touting the work as “under budget, ahead of schedule, saved tremendous money.”

But the project has also drawn protests. Dozens gathered outside on Trump International's first day of operation, chanting: “No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA!” Two weeks ago, a man spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” on its entrance. On Thursday, labor activists picketed (http://thehill.com/regulation/labor/300852-trump-hotel-protest-boils-over-in-dc) over stymied efforts to organize workers at a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.

“Donald Trump,” they shouted, “has got to go.”


Alice Crites and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

• Michael E. Miller is a reporter on the local enterprise team at The Washington Post.

• Michael Kranish is a national political investigative reporter for The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • Trump Revealed’: The reporting behind The Washington Post's best-selling biography (http://)

 • Trump's new Washington monument is a luxury hotel his blue-collar supporters can't afford (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/inside-the-opulent-trump-international-hotel-in-washington/2016/09/10/c63d179c-7509-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html)

 • Confident. Incorrigible. Bully. Donald Trump as a child. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/young-donald-trump-military-school/2016/06/22/f0b3b164-317c-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html)

 • Inside the government's racial bias case against Fred and Donald Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-governments-racial-bias-case-against-donald-trumps-company-and-how-he-fought-it/2016/01/23/fb90163e-bfbe-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html)

 • Fifty years later, disagreements over young Trump's military academy record (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decades-later-disagreement-over-young-trumps-military-academy-post/2016/01/09/907a67b2-b3e0-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/donald-trump-first-swept-into-the-nations-capital-40-years-ago-it-didnt-go-well/2016/10/21/934b07b8-8f08-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/donald-trump-first-swept-into-the-nations-capital-40-years-ago-it-didnt-go-well/2016/10/21/934b07b8-8f08-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on October 22, 2016, 03:36:52 pm

from The Washington Post....

Donald Trump is in a funk: Bitter, hoarse and pondering, ‘If I lose…’

From the final presidential debate to a charity roast where New York City's
glitterati booed and laughed at him as he gave a tone-deaf speech attacking
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is struggling amid worsening poll numbers.


By JENNA JOHNSON | 6:13PM EDT - Friday, October 21, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161021dtjp_DonaldTrumpJohnstownPennsylvania_zpsxawimnar.jpg~original) (https://img.washingtonpost.com/rw/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/10/21/National-Politics/Images/616074154.jpg)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a campaign stop at the Cambria County
War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. — Photograph: Justin Merriman/Getty Images.


FLETCHER, NORTH CAROLINA — As he took the stage here in this mountain town on Friday afternoon, Donald Trump was as subdued as the modest crowd that turned out to see him. He complained about the usual things — the dishonest media, his “corrupt” rival Hillary Clinton — but his voice was hoarse and his heart didn't seem in it.

He also promised to do all that he could to win, but he explained why he might lose.

“What a waste of time if we don't pull this off,” Trump said. “You know, these guys have said: ‘It doesn't matter if you win or lose. There’s never been a movement like this in the history of this country’. I say, it matters to me if we win or lose. So I'll have over $100 million of my own money in this campaign.”

“So, if I lose,” Trump continued as the crowd remained unusually quiet, “if I lose, I will consider this…”

Trump didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't really need to. After weeks of controversy and declining poll numbers, Trump and his campaign have settled into a dark funk. Even as he vows to prevail in the race, the GOP nominee's mood has soured with less than three weeks to go until Election Day.

His final debate performance this week was a bust, with him snarling that Clinton was “such a nasty woman” and gritting his teeth as he angrily ripped pages off a notepad when it was over. He is under fire from all quarters for refusing to say he will honor the election results if he loses, while 10 women have now come forward accusing him of groping or kissing them without consent. The capper to Trump's bad stretch came on Thursday night, when a ballroom full of New York City's glitterati booed him as he gave remarks attacking Clinton at a charity roast.

The gloomy mood has extended to his signature rallies, which Trump used to find fun. During the primaries, he would bound onto rally stages bursting with energy and a sense of excitement that intensified as the crowds chanted his name and cheered his every word. He would regularly schedule news conferences, call into news shows and chat with reporters, eager to spar with them. He would say politically incorrect things and then watch his polling numbers soar. He used to be the winner.

But no more. In recent days, Trump has tried to explain away his slide in the polls as a conspiracy carried out by the media, Democrats and Republicans. If he loses, it will be because he was cheated, Trump has repeatedly told his supporters, urging them to go to polling places in neighborhoods other than their own and “watch.”

Trump's supporters have concocted elaborate explanations for why he might lose, often involving massive voter fraud conducted by Democrats who will bus undocumented immigrants and people posing as people who have died to battleground states to vote illegally. There are also fears that election results in some states will be tampered with, and Trump's backers have cheered his promise to challenge the election results if he doesn't win.

“Since we can't check to see if you voted in three states, you will. If you want to vote in three states, you will,” said Larry Lewis, 67, a former electrician who lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina. He said he doesn't know anyone who has committed voter fraud but has gotten up to speed on the issue thanks to talk radio. “I mean, that is human nature. I have ultimate faith in human nature.”

Campaigning on Friday in Cleveland, Clinton again criticized Trump for refusing to say he will honor the election results and joked about her time onstage debating him. “I have now spent 4½ hours onstage with Donald, proving once again I have the stamina to be president,” she said.

After the debate on Wednesday night, Trump flew to Ohio for a Thursday rally. He abruptly walked out of two local television interviews before taking the stage in front of a smaller-than-usual crowd. After it was over, he was back at the Columbus airport, slowly plodding up the steps to his personal jet. He was alone, holding a black umbrella as a light rain fell.

Hours later, Trump sat with his wife at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner to participate in the long-standing tradition of political candidates roasting each other. The dinner's chairman, Alfred E. Smith IV, set the tone for the evening as he lashed Trump in a series of cutting jokes.

Trump went first, and his opening lines landed with such heavy bitterness that it prompted scattered, uncomfortable laughter.

“A special hello to all of you in this room who have known and loved me for many, many years. It's true,” Trump said as he took command of the lavish dais, wearing a white tie and a black jacket that he kept tugging at.

“The politicians,” he continued. “They've had me to their homes, they've introduced me to their children. I've become their best friends in many instances. They've asked for my endorsement, and they always wanted my money, and even called me really a dear, dear friend, but then suddenly decided when I ran for president as a Republican, that I've always been a no-good, rotten, disgusting scoundrel. And they totally forgot about me.”

Over the next 15 minutes, Trump joked about the size of his hands and the size of his rival's rally crowds, then compared himself to Jesus. He said the debate the night before had been called “the most vicious debate in the history of politics,” prompting him to reflect, “Are we supposed to be proud of that?”

He joked about prosecuting Clinton if he gets elected president, accused the media of working for her and brought up the FBI's investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state.

“Hillary is so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate Commission,” Trump said, citing a false Internet rumor as the crowd turned on him and started to boo, something that simply doesn't happen at lavish charity dinners at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. The face of one the guests sitting on the stage behind him was struck with horror.

“Hillary believes that it's vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private,” Trump said, as the booing intensified. Trump would go on to accuse Clinton of “pretending not to hate Catholics” and mock the Clinton Foundation's work in Haiti.

At one point, he wondered aloud whether the crowd was booing him or Clinton, to which someone in the crowd answered: “You!”

As Clinton took her turn, Trump sat at a table decorated with pale roses and white orchids with his arms tightly folded.

“Donald looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees a four, maybe a five if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair,” Clinton said, as the crowd laughed and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani mouthed, “What?”

Trump, his arms folded, cocked his head to the side and smirked as his wife looked elegantly pained.

A few minutes later, Clinton poked Trump for his praise of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin: “Maybe you saw Donald dismantle his prompter the other day, and I get that. They're hard to keep up with, and I'm sure it’s even harder when you're translating from the original Russian.”

Trump smiled and rocked in his seat, his face turning slightly red.

Clinton recognized former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, saying it was a shame he didn't speak, because “I'm curious to hear what a billionaire has to say,” referring to disputes about Trump's actual net worth.

And she gave a shout-out to Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, saying: “She's working day and night for Donald, and because she's a contractor, he's probably not even going to pay her.” Conway, who has become subtly critical of her boss, quoted Clinton in a tweet and wrote, “A shout out from @HillaryClinton at #AlSmithDinner.”

As Clinton finished speaking, she received a standing ovation from many in the crowd. Trump clapped, then briefly stood, then sat down again, as if unsure what to do. Lip-readers caught him telling her that she did a good job.

As the dinner ended, Trump shook hands with some of the others on the stage, while a line of people wanting to talk with Clinton grew. After a few minutes, Trump and his wife made their way toward the exit.

Before ducking out, Trump flashed the crowd a thumbs up.


Abby Phillip in Cleveland contributed to this repy.

• Jenna Johnson is a political reporter at The Washington Post who is covering the 2016 presidential campaign.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related stories:

 • At charity roast, Trump delivered what might as well be a campaign eulogy (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/21/at-charity-roast-donald-trump-delivered-what-might-as-well-be-a-campaign-eulogy)

 • Trump's rationale for attacking the Clintons: Michelle Obama ‘started it’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/21/trumps-new-justification-for-attacking-the-clintons-michelle-obama-started-it)

 • GOP braces for Trump defeat, rushes to protect down-ballot seats (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-braces-for-trump-loss-roiled-by-refusal-to-accept-election-results/2016/10/20/6e1de6aa-96dc-11e6-9b7c-57290af48a49_story.html)

 • At third debate, Trump won't commit to accepting election results if he loses (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-wont-commit-to-accepting-election-results-if-he-loses/2016/10/19/9c9672e6-9609-11e6-bc79-af1cd3d2984b_story.html)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-is-in-a-funk-bitter-hoarse-and-pondering-if-i-lose/2016/10/21/d944b518-97a3-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-is-in-a-funk-bitter-hoarse-and-pondering-if-i-lose/2016/10/21/d944b518-97a3-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on November 07, 2016, 11:09:20 pm

from The Washington Post....

Trump's staff reportedly keeping him off Twitter
in final days, much to Obama’s amusement


“Now if somebody can't handle a Twitter account, they
can't handle the nuclear codes,” said President Obama.


By BEN GUARINO | 5:09AM EST - Monday, November 07, 2016

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Washington%20Post%20pix/20161107dtv_DonaldTrumpVirginia_zpsngiwysui.jpg~original) (http://)
Donald Trump speaks during an early morning campaign rally in Virginia on November 7th. — Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters.

OF ALL THE LOOSE CANNONS to roll across political Twitter's decks, Donald Trump may have been the most volatile. The GOP nominee blasted his messages into the feeds of 13 million followers and accrued retweets by the thousands. For every hit scored against Jeb Bush (low energy (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/712728075532943361)), Ted Cruz (Lyin'” (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/727634574298255361)) or Hillary Clinton (Crooked (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/30/before-6-a-m-donald-trump-proved-hillary-clintons-point-about-his-temperament)), though, there remained a risk Trump's potshots would be self-destructive rather than tactical.

In the past, Trump's worst tweets included the ludicrous, like his claim that climate change was a Chinese hoax (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/09/27/trump-didnt-delete-his-tweet-calling-global-warming-a-chinese-hoax), as well as the insulting and unsubtle. “While @BetteMidler (https://twitter.com/BetteMidler) is an extremely unattractive woman,” Trump tweeted in 2012 (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/262584296081068033), “I refuse to say that because I always insist on being politically correct.” He remained an impulsive tweeter well into his presidential campaign. On September 30th, he unleashed a series of tweets in the dead of morning, exhorting supporters to “check out sex tape” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/09/30/donald-trumps-3-a-m-moment) of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado.

“Wow,” Trump wrote, “Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an ‘angel’ without checking her past, which is terrible!”

Now, during the final stretch of the presidential race, Trump's campaign staff has taken control of his social media persona, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

“Aides to Mr. Trump have finally wrested away the Twitter account (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump) that he used to colorfully — and often counterproductively — savage his rivals,” The Times wrote (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/us/politics/donald-trump-presidential-race.html). According to the report into the Republican nominee's last few days on the campaign trail:

Taking away Twitter turned out to be an essential move by his press team, which deprived him of a previously unfiltered channel for his aggressions.

On Thursday, as his plane idled on the tarmac in Miami, Mr. Trump spotted Air Force One (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/presidents_and_presidency_us/air_force_one/index.html) outside his window. As he glowered at the larger plane, he told Ms. Hicks, [Hope Hicks] his spokeswoman, to jot down a proposed tweet about President Obama, who was campaigning nearby for Mrs. Clinton.

“Why is he campaigning instead of creating jobs and fixing Obamacare?” Mr. Trump said. “Get back to work.” After some light editing — Ms. Hicks added “for the American people” at the end — she published it (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/794197242471124992).


Trump representative Hicks did not reply to a request for comment from The Washington Post late on Sunday.

An analysis by data scientist David Robinson may shed some light into the nature of Trump's tweets. In August, Robinson quantified the difference in tweets sent from Trump's account, depending on the source — whether they came from Twitter for Android or Twitter for iPhone. Robinson concluded (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/12/two-people-write-trumps-tweets-he-writes-the-angrier-ones) that the Android tweets were “more hyperbolic and aggressive” whereas the iPhone tweets were closer to traditional campaign messages.

(A program like TweetDeck specifies the origin of tweets by operating system.)

Robinson hypothesized that Trump, who had been documented in the past checking Twitter using a Samsung Galaxy phone (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/politics/donald-trump-twitter-use-campaign-2016.html) and expressing a distaste for Apple (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/02/19/donald-trump-called-for-boycotting-apple-but-hes-still-tweeting-from-an-iphone), issued the Android tweets. The iPhone tweets, lacking the emotional charge, were dictated to or written by staffers.

President Obama, campaigning for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Florida, did not pass up the chance to get in a few digs at Trump on Sunday.

Apparently his campaign has taken away his Twitter.

In the last two days, they had so little confidence in his self-control, that they said ‘We're just going to take away your Twitter…’

Now if somebody can't handle a Twitter account, they can't handle the nuclear codes. If somebody starts tweeting at 3 in the morning because SNL made fun of you, then you can't handle the nuclear codes.


On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/794895332941381633), “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” As of publication, this was the last tweet sent from an Android phone.

Since then, an iPhone has been used to run Trump's account. The most recent messages have been classic Trump boilerplate: Expressions of gratitude toward supporters, plus encouragements to vote, to Make America Great Again and to Drain the Swamp (meaning corruption in Washington, D.C., though the myth that the capital city was once a swamp is false (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/29/no-dc-isnt-really-built-on-a-swamp)).

There's another angle to support that Trump no longer has his fingers on the “send” button. Since Thursday, Trump had yet to add a new notch to the more than 280 people and other targets (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html) he'd insulted on Twitter during his presidential campaign.


• Ben Guarino writes for The Washington Post's Morning Mix (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix).

__________________________________________________________________________

Related story:

 • Rosie O'Donnell responds to Trump: Calls him an ‘orange’ body part on Twitter (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/27/rosie-odonnell-responds-to-trump-calls-him-an-orange-body-part-on-twitter)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/07/trumps-staff-reportedly-keeping-him-off-twitter-in-final-days-much-to-obamas-amusement (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/07/trumps-staff-reportedly-keeping-him-off-twitter-in-final-days-much-to-obamas-amusement)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 04, 2016, 09:23:53 am
TRUMP gave the stupid left the HUMP


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on December 05, 2016, 06:16:18 am

Trump has turned America into the laughing stock of the entire world.

He has PROVED that a huge number of Americans are idiots who deserve no longer being great.

No wonder China's star is on the rise while America is imploding into a has-been former superpower.

Donald Trump is merely giving the decline a push.


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on December 05, 2016, 09:43:13 am

trump seems to be doing ok to me that is without all your made hype
you should join hillarys clintons cry feist


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 22, 2018, 05:36:50 pm

Time to revive this thread.



from The New York Times....

After Vowing to Fix Washington, Trump Is Mired in a Familiar Crisis

Immigration policy, the issue that propelled President Trump's political rise,
snarled negotiations to avert a government shutdown.


By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVID and MAGGIE BABERMAN | Saturday, January 20, 2018

(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/21/world/europe/21dc-trump/merlin_132526889_b698acb7-ef65-4382-a3d9-e2f6b8627e8d-superJumbo.jpg) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/21/world/europe/21dc-trump/merlin_132526889_b698acb7-ef65-4382-a3d9-e2f6b8627e8d-superJumbo.jpg)
President Trump opted not to accept a deal that he and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, had hashed at the White House on Friday.
 — Photograph: Al Drago/The New York Times.


WASHINGTON — One year to the day after taking office with vows to bring the dysfunction of Washington to heel, President Trump on Saturday found himself thrust into the most perennial of political crises, bitterly casting blame on Democrats for a government shutdown he said they had orchestrated to mar the anniversary.

Mr. Trump had planned to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, celebrating his first year in office at a soiree with friends and supporters. Instead, he remained out of sight in the White House, where he stewed about an impasse he had been unable to prevent, according to people close to him, and held a feverish round of conversations with Republican leaders in search of a resolution.

“This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present,” he wrote on Twitter (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/954678287820902401) before dawn, appending the hashtag #DemocratShutdown. By afternoon, the president's trip — which was to include a lavish $100,000-per-couple party to celebrate his first year in office — had been shelved as aides contemplated with dread the potential practical and political impacts of shuttering the government.

Inside the White House, Mr. Trump, the neophyte president who has styled himself the ultimate dealmaker, remained remarkably disengaged from the complex process of hammering out a politically palatable deal that could provide a way out of the morass.

Senior advisers counseled him to do less, not more, negotiating, arguing that the shutdown was a political problem that Democrats had created for themselves, and had to find their own way to resolve. But Mr. Trump, a highly reactive personality who detests headlines questioning his leadership — like those that dominated cable TV throughout Saturday, during coverage of the shutdown and women's marches throughout the country denouncing his presidency — felt stymied and wanted somehow to intervene, according to one presidential adviser.

It fell to John F. Kelly, his chief of staff, who is also a newcomer to high-stakes legislative talks, and is still learning to channel Mr. Trump's fluctuating impulses, to haggle over the details with Republican leaders, who have become accustomed to plunging into tricky negotiations without a clear sense of what the president would accept.

Mr. Trump shuttled between the presidential residence and the Oval Office, where he spent some time in the afternoon. Throughout the day, he monitored television coverage that toggled between the government shutdown and the women's marches, one of which ended near the White House.

The president spoke with the Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, and Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, to discuss the impact of the shutdown on border security and the military. He spoke by phone with Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, and the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, to strategize on a path forward.

The immediate cause of the shutdown, which began at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday after Senate Democrats blocked consideration of a House-passed stopgap measure (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/politics/senate-showdown-government-shutdown-trump.html), was a dispute over spending. But it was a stalemate over immigration policy, the topic that propelled Mr. Trump's political rise and has dominated his first 12 months as president, that snarled the negotiations, as the president vacillated over what approach he should take and advisers including Mr. Kelly counseled a harder line.

Eager to strike a deal with Democrats to extend deportation reprieves to a group of undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, Mr. Trump was nonetheless constrained by his own campaign promises to toughen immigration restrictions, and hemmed in by Republican congressional leaders uneasy about lining up behind a mercurial president with a penchant for changing his mind.

As negotiators on Capitol Hill held out hope of a swift agreement that could end the impasse before the weekend was out, the House and the Senate reconvened for a rare Saturday session. The likeliest path to reopening the government is an agreement on a stopgap spending measure that would stretch longer than the few days that Senate Democrats wanted, but shorter than the four weeks that the House approved on Thursday night (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/us/politics/government-shutdown-house-vote.html).

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said on Saturday that the president refused to negotiate on immigration issues until there was a deal to reopen the government.

Referring to Democrats' insistence that a deal to protect the young immigrants be in hand before they agree to a funding measure, Marc Short, the White House legislative director, told reporters at the White House: “There is nothing in this bill Democrats say they object to, yet it's like a 2-year-old temper tantrum to say, ‘I'm going to take my toys and go home because I'm upset about something else’.”

In his morning Twitter burst, Mr. Trump said Democrats were prioritizing “illegal immigrants” over American citizens and military personnel, and argued that the only solution to end the dysfunction was to defeat the party in this year's mid-term congressional elections.

“Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border,” the president said (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/954674157144477696) on Twitter. “They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!”

In fact, it was Mr. Trump who opted not to pursue a potential deal that he and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, had hashed out over lunch at the White House on Friday. The proposal would have kept the government open, funded a border wall and extended legal status to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, while including disaster aid funds and money for a federal children's health insurance program. Mr. Kelly later called Mr. Schumer to say the agreement lacked sufficient immigration restrictions.

While Mr. Schumer said shortly after the government shut down that “in my heart, I thought we might have a deal tonight,” White House officials argued that he had drastically overstated the progress made during the lunch.

On Saturday, though, Mr. Schumer said that even members of the president's party had by now recognized that Mr. Trump was ill equipped to strike a political compromise.

“What's even more frustrating than President Trump's intransigence is the way he seems amenable to these compromises before completely switching positions and backing off,” he said on the Senate floor. “Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O.”

The remark echoed one made by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, at a hearing this past week, in which he said there were “two Trumps,” one who was open to a bipartisan immigration deal and one who was not.

Mr. Trump's shifting desires and demands on immigration have complicated the task of resolving the shutdown conflict. He has repeatedly signaled an inclination to strike a deal with Democrats that would codify Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the Obama-era program that gave work permits and deportation reprieves to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

But each time he has drifted toward such a bargain — first at a dinner last year with Mr. Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, then at a large meeting in the Cabinet Room this month with lawmakers in both parties, next in phone conversations with Mr. Graham and Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and again on Friday with Mr. Schumer — he has snapped back to a hard-line position.

Conservative Republican lawmakers and proponents of immigration restrictions in his inner circle at the White House, led by his senior adviser, Stephen Miller, and Mr. Kelly, have often been the ones to intervene, pushing the president to take a harder line.

One senior administration official, who asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations, described an inexperienced president who genuinely wanted to reach a deal with Mr. Schumer when he called the Democratic leader to the White House on Friday. But Mr. Trump had not determined how it would play out or mapped out a strategy with Republican leaders, the official said, or considered how the politics of a shutdown might unravel.

After Mr. Schumer departed, Mr. Trump met at the White House with Representatives Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Raúl Labrador of Idaho, members of the conservative Freedom Caucus who insist that any DACA measure include steeper immigration restrictions than the president has demanded.

Yet Mr. Trump has complained privately about his own advisers' attempts to stiffen his spine on immigration. In the Cabinet Room meeting this month, the president erupted when an aide distributed a list of conditions that included restrictive interior enforcement measures. “I don't know what this is,” the president said, according to a person briefed on the exchange, which was first reported by The Washington Post, and said he did not appreciate being blindsided by his own staff.

A Trump adviser painted a different picture, saying that Mr. Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat, had expressed anger at the document, and that Mr. Trump, who often plays to the crowd in front of him, was merely joining in the outrage.

On Saturday, the president was left alternately defiant and angry, self-pitying and frustrated. He argued to aides that he did not deserve the blame he was taking, but without a credible deal on the table, there was little for him to do. Irritated to have missed his big event in Florida, Mr. Trump spent much of his day watching old TV clips of him berating President Barack Obama for a lack of leadership during the 2013 government shutdown, a White House aide said, seeming content to sit back and watch the show.


__________________________________________________________________________

• Julie Hirschfeld Davis is a White House correspondent at The New York Times. She has covered politics from Washington for 19 years, writing on Congress, three presidential campaigns and three presidents. She joined The Times in 2014 after stints at Bloomberg News, the Associated Press, The Baltimore Sun and Congressional Quarterly. Julie is the 2009 winner of the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress for her coverage of the federal response to the 2008 financial meltdown. She grew up in New York City and attended Yale University.

• Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The New York Times in February 2015 as a campaign correspondent. Previously, Ms. Haberman worked as a political reporter at Politico from 2010 to 2015 and at other publications including the New York Post and New York Daily News. She was a finalist for the Mirror Awards, with Glenn Thrush, for What is Hillary Clinton Afraid of? (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/hillary-clinton-media-105901) which was published in 2014. Her hobbies include singing, and she is married with three children.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • GRAPHIC: What Will Happen if the Government Remains Shut Down (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/19/us/politics/government-shutdown-employee-effects.html)

 • Government Shuts Down as Bill to Extend Funding Is Blocked; Senate Adjourns for the Night (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/us/politics/government-shutdown.html)

 • Shutdown? It Could Be Forgotten in a Trumpian Flash. (http://Shutdown? It Could Be Forgotten in a Trumpian Flash)


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/us/politics/trump-shutdown.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/us/politics/trump-shutdown.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on January 22, 2018, 06:19:58 pm

from The New York Times....

A President Not Sure of What He Wants Complicates the Shutdown Impasse

Democrats struggle with a president who says he wants to compromise but then is reined in by his own staff,
while Republican leaders are loath to guess at his intentions.


By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVID and MAGGIE BABERMAN | Sunday, January 21, 2018

(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump1/22dc-trump1-superJumbo.jpg) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump1/22dc-trump1-superJumbo.jpg)
President Trump has privately told lawmakers twice recently that he is eager to strike a deal to extend legal status to young undocumented immigrants,
only to have aides pull him back from such a compromise. — Photograph: Al Drago/The New York Times.


WASHINGTON — When President Trump mused last year about protecting immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, calling them “these incredible kids,” aides implored him privately to stop talking about them so sympathetically.

When he batted around the idea of granting them citizenship over a Chinese dinner at the White House last year with Democratic leaders, Mr. Trump's advisers quickly drew up a list of hard-line demands to send to Capitol Hill that they said must be included in any such plan.

And twice over the past two weeks, Mr. Trump has privately told lawmakers he is eager to strike a deal to extend legal status to the so-called Dreamers, only to have his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, make clear afterward that such a compromise was not really in the offing — unless it also included a host of stiffer immigration restrictions.

As the government shutdown continued for its second day (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/us/politics/congress-government-shutdown.html) on Sunday, one thing was clear to both sides of the negotiations to end it: The president was either unwilling or unable to articulate the immigration policy he wanted, much less understand the nuances of what it would involve.

Both sides have reason to be confused. Each time Mr. Trump has edged toward compromise with Democrats, he has appeared to be reined in by his own staff, which shares the hawkish immigration stance that fueled his campaign. And Republican leaders, bruised by past experience with a president who has rarely offered them consistent cover on a politically challenging issue, are loath to guess at his intentions.

The result has been a paralysis not only at the White House but on Capitol Hill, complicating the chances for an ultimate resolution of how to protect hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants, the problem underlying the shutdown. And it has raised questions not only about Mr. Trump's grasp of the issue that animated his campaign and energizes his core supporters, but his leadership.

“There's a real sense that there's a disconnect between the president and his staff on immigration issues, and people on all sides are seeking to exploit that disconnect,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who advised Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, one of Mr. Trump's rivals, in his 2016 bid for the White House. “This is what happens when you have a president who is not clear and consistent on what he will accept: It emboldens all parties to take positions that they won't compromise.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, suggested that Mr. Trump was in the thrall of extremists on his staff pulling him back from more moderate instincts on immigration.

“His heart is right on this issue; I think he's got a good understanding of what will sell, and every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members,” Mr. Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill on Sunday. “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere. He's been an outlier for years.”


(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump2/22dc-trump2-superJumbo.jpg) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump2/22dc-trump2-superJumbo.jpg)
John F. Kelly, center, the White House chief of staff, with Nick Ayers, right, the vice president's chief of staff. Mr. Kelly fielded most of the calls from Senate and
House leaders during the shutdown impasse on Sunday as Mr. Trump was urged to step back from the fray. — Photograph: Credit Al Drago/The New York Times.


Mr. Miller, 32, has been the ideological architect behind much of Mr. Trump's immigration agenda and a tart-tongued and unapologetic true believer in the president’s “America First” approach to the issue. A former aide to Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he was in the Senate, he cut his teeth on Capitol Hill as a lonely gladiator against bipartisan efforts to overhaul the immigration system and provide a pathway to citizenship for roughly 11 million unauthorized immigrants.

The White House had a tart retort for Mr. Graham, a one-time opponent of Mr. Trump who in recent months seemed to be growing close to the president.

“As long as Senator Graham chooses to support legislation that sides with people in this country illegally and unlawfully instead of our own American citizens, we're going nowhere,” said Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman. “He's been an outlier for years.”

The intraparty spat unfolded while Mr. Trump spent the weekend at the White House out of sight and off the airwaves, unusually disengaged, except for some phone calls, for a president who enjoys the limelight.

His only comment on the situation came on Twitter on Sunday morning, when he vented his frustration as the shutdown threatened to bleed into the workweek, complicating his plans for a trip on Wednesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the run-up to his first State of the Union address on January 30th.

“If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.'s!” Mr. Trump said on Twitter (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/955056249925750784), using the abbreviation for a continuing resolution, legislation to temporarily extend government funding.

He was referring to filibuster rules in the Senate, which effectively require a three-fifths vote, or 60 senators, to advance major legislation, rather than a simple majority. Republicans have 51 seats.

And he took a tone far different from the one he used this month in pitching a “bill of love” to address immigration, posting on Twitter that, “The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked.”

Underscoring that hard-line position, his campaign released a TV advertisement featuring an undocumented man who killed two police officers, and saying Democrats who refused to support a government funding measure without progress toward an immigration deal were “complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.”


(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump3/22dc-trump3-superJumbo.jpg) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump3/22dc-trump3-superJumbo.jpg)
Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump's senior policy adviser, has been the unapologetic ideological architect behind much of the president's immigration agenda.
 — Photograph: Doug Mills/The New York Times.


Those who know the president best argue that leaving the legislative haggling to his staff is merely the style of an executive used to delegating the small stuff to his underlings.

“The misconception is that the president does not know what he does not know. In my experience, the reality is that the president knows what he does not know and does not think he needs to know it,” said Sam Nunberg, a former campaign adviser. “He's a C.E.O. The tiny details are for his staff.”

But Mr. Trump is also a showman who is intensely focused on pleasing the audience in front of him at the moment, a habit that some confidants believe has led to misunderstandings about what the president is actually willing to accept in any deal. He often leaves people with the impression that he agrees with them, stressing whatever position is convenient at the time.

Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that presses for less immigration, said Mr. Trump had maintained his tough line on the issue despite occasionally talking about a compromise.

“He seems to make commitments that he is not going to keep,” Mr. Krikorian said. “His inclinations are hawkish on immigration, but he seems to like to be agreeable to people and nod his head when he's at a meeting and people are saying things, and try to make a deal.”

Mr. Krikorian said that he did not subscribe to the “Svengali theory” of the White House that cast Mr. Miller as a puppet master on immigration, but that it often fell to him and Mr. Kelly to explain the nuances of certain terms or proposals to a president unfamiliar with them. The chief of staff alluded to that dynamic in a closed-door meeting with Democratic lawmakers last week and later in an interview with Fox News, enraging Mr. Trump.

Immigration advocates hold a darker view.

“The president should trust his instincts and cut a deal,” said Kevin Appleby, the senior director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies. “He is president and should not be the puppet of a few immigration restrictionist staffers, including his chief of staff. The perception is that they have total control over him, to the detriment of the nation.”

Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star general who headed the United States Southern Command and was Mr. Trump's first homeland security secretary, has emphasized immigration enforcement inside the country rather than policing the borders while Mr. Trump has indicated that is not as high a priority for him.


(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump4/22dc-trump4-superJumbo.jpg) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/22/us/22dc-trump4/22dc-trump4-superJumbo.jpg)
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, leaving a meeting with other senators on Capitol Hill on Sunday. “His heart is right on this issue,” he
said of Mr. Trump. “I think he's got a good understanding of what will sell, and every time we have a proposal, it is only yanked back by staff members.”
 — Photograph: Eric Thayer/The New York Times .


On Sunday, Mr. Kelly fielded most of the calls from Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. The president was urged for a second day to step back from the fray, and for a second day he vented to aides that he wanted to do more to get involved.

Yet when Mr. Trump has become engaged, he has sometimes created problems for himself and his party.

Mr. Trump has demonstrated confusion over time about the details of immigration policy, including during a televised meeting in the Cabinet Room this month with lawmakers of both parties.

When Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she wanted a “clean DACA bill,” Mr. Trump quickly agreed, only to have Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, pipe up to explain that meant accepting a stand-alone bill to legalize a group of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, without any security measures or other conditions the president had cited as priorities.

During a closed portion of that meeting, Mr. Trump snapped at staff members for handing out a sheet of paper he had not seen before that included an elaborate plan for border security.

“The president looked at it and said: ‘Who did this? This is way too much. I didn't approve this’,” Mr. Graham said on Sunday.

At that same session, he added, Mr. Trump had talked about a request of $18 billion for border security, and said he could build a wall for less.

“So what does the White House staff do a couple days later? They pitch a proposal for $33 billion,” Mr. Graham said. “That's just not credible.”


__________________________________________________________________________

Julie Hirschfield Davis reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.

• Julie Hirschfeld Davis is a White House correspondent at The New York Times. She has covered politics from Washington for 19 years, writing on Congress, three presidential campaigns and three presidents. She joined The Times in 2014 after stints at Bloomberg News, the Associated Press, The Baltimore Sun and Congressional Quarterly. Julie is the 2009 winner of the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress for her coverage of the federal response to the 2008 financial meltdown. She grew up in New York City and attended Yale University.

• Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The New York Times in February 2015 as a campaign correspondent. Previously, Ms. Haberman worked as a political reporter at Politico from 2010 to 2015 and at other publications including the New York Post and New York Daily News. She was a finalist for the Mirror Awards, with Glenn Thrush, for What is Hillary Clinton Afraid of? (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/hillary-clinton-media-105901) which was published in 2014. Her hobbies include singing, and she is married with three children.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Shutdown's Crux: Democrats' Deep-Rooted Distrust of G.O.P. on Immigration (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/us/politics/shutdown-immigration.html)

 • How Trump and Schumer Came Close to a Deal Over Cheeseburgers (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/us/politics/trump-john-kelly.html)

 • The Chaos President vs. His Iron-Fisted Chief of Staff (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/us/politics/trump-john-kelly.html)


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/us/politics/trump-government-shutdown.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/21/us/politics/trump-government-shutdown.html)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on January 23, 2018, 02:01:52 am
go back to sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xySOFEMR9n4&t=1631s


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 09, 2018, 02:55:22 pm

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DdQ40HZUQAEoeTS.jpg) (https://twitter.com/artleytoons/status/996483898174529537)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 09, 2018, 03:00:03 pm

(https://static.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Anthem-ONLINE-COLOR-1020x787.jpg) (https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/trumps-spat-with-nfl-players-is-more-about-his-ego-than-the-flag)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 13, 2018, 08:37:52 pm
you have no idea
Here is a man person with an idea

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


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 27, 2018, 05:40:07 pm

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgVj2t3WsAAeWEC.jpg) (https://twitter.com/MorinToon/status/1010323965275983872)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on June 28, 2018, 02:30:41 pm
(http://www.informationliberation.com/files/trumps-army.jpeg)


Title: Re: TRUMP the stupid CHUMP
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on June 28, 2018, 04:29:57 pm

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DguOq20VAAAg2Bf.jpg) (https://twitter.com/rodemmerson/status/1012059424532279296)