Thread: President Donald Trump

the drumpf's blood pressure must be sky high

SPIEGEL: Do you not find it ironic that it is two billionaires from New York who are now deciding America's climate policies?

Bloomberg: I don't know if I would say it that way. Let me phrase this carefully so you get the message: I don't know how wealthy other people are.

SPIEGEL: You mean that Trump may not be a billionaire?

Bloomberg: I didn't say that; you said that.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Bloomberg, thank you for this interview.

^

Classic

the people who don't believe that the drumpf is a cowardly thieving conman controlled by russian interests cannot be convinced by facts

this was a reddit post in this thread - http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/blxq2e/5_takeaways_from_10_years_of_trump_tax_figures/

Trump was over a billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out. This is how he made a come back

► Trump was first compromised by the Russians back in the 80s. In 1984, the Russian Mafia began to use Trump real estate to launder money and it continued for decades. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance. The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump's real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.

► In 1984, David Bogatin — a Russian mobster, convicted gasoline bootlegger, and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss — met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened. Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting. Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob. (NY Times, Apr 30, 1992)

► Felix Sater is a Russian-born former mobster, and former managing director of NY real estate conglomerate Bayrock Group LLC located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. He is a convict who became a govt cooperator for the FBI and other agencies. He grew up with Michael Cohen--Trump's former "fixer" attorney. Cohen's family owned El Caribe, which was a mob hangout for the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn. Cohen had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs through his in-laws and his brother's in-laws. Felix Sater's father had ties to the Russian mob. This goes back more than 30 years.

► Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. No U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in through Bayrock (mentioned above). Bayrock was run by two investors: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Bayrock partnered with Trump in 2005 and poured money into the Trump organization under the legal guise of licensing his name and property management.

► Semion Mogilevich was the brains behind the Russian Mafia. Mogilevich operatives have been using Trump real estate for decades to launder money. That means Russian Mafia operatives have been part of his fortune for years, that many of them have owned condos in Trump Towers and other properties, that they were running operations out of Trump's crown jewel. (Mogilevich's role today is unclear).

► One of the most important things that is often overlooked is that the Russia Mafia is part and parcel of Russian intelligence. Russia is a mafia state. that is not a metaphor. Putin is head of the Mafia. So the fact that they have been operating out of the home of the president of the United States is deeply disturbing.

► From Craig Unger's AMA: "Early on, a source told me that all this was tied to Semion Mogilevich, the powerful Russian mobster. I had never even heard of him, but I immediately went to a database that listed the owners of all properties in NY state and looked up all the Trump properties. Every time I found a Russian sounding name, I would Google, and add Mogilevich. When you do investigative reporting, you anticipate drilling a number of dry holes, but almost everyone I googled turned out to be a Russian mobster. Again and again. If you know New York you don't expect Trump Tower to be a high crime neighborhood, but there were far too many Russian mobsters in Trump properties for it to be a coincidence."

► So many Russians bought Trump apartments at his developments in Florida that the area became known as Little Moscow. The developers of two of his hotels were Russians with significant links to the Russian mob. The late leader of that mob in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, was living at Trump Tower.

► According to a Bloomberg investigation (March 16, 2017) into Trump World Tower, “a third of units sold on floors 76 through 83 by 2004 involved people or limited liability companies connected to Russia and neighboring states.”

► In July 2008, the height of the recession, Donald Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property. Again, this was the height of the recession when all other property had plummeted in value.

► In 2013, Federal agents busted an “ultraexclusive, high-stakes, illegal poker ring” run by Russian gangsters out of Trump Tower. In addition to card games, they operated illegal gambling websites, ran a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million. A condo directly below one owned by Trump reportedly served as HQ for a “sophisticated money-laundering scheme” connected to Semion Mogilevich.

► Rudy Giuliani famously prosecuted the Italian mob while he was a federal prosecutor, yet the Russian mob was allowed to thrive under his tenure in the Southern District and Mayor. And now he's deeply entwined in the business of Trump and Russian oligarchs. Giuiani appointed Semyon Kislin to the NYC Economic Development Council in 1990, and the FBI described Kislin as having ties tot he Russian mob. Of course, it made good political sense for Giuliani to get headlines for smashing the Italian mob.

► A lot of Republicans in Washington are implicated. Boatloads of Russian money went to the GOP--often in legal ways. The NRA got as much as $70M from Russia, then funneled it to the GOP. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee lead by McConnel got millions from Leonard Blavatnik. In the 90s, the Russians began sending money to top GOP leaders, like Speaker of the House Tom Delay. Unger's book alleges that most of the GOP leadership has been compromised by RU money.

► At the Cityscape USA’s Bridging US and the Emerging Real Estate Markets Conference held in Manhattan, on September 9, 10, and 11, 2008, Trump Jr. was frank about the tide of Russian money supporting the family business, saying "...And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets."

► Eric Trump told James Dodson, a golf reporter, in 2014 that the Trump Organization was able to expand during the financial crisis because “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

Outcomes that show Trump is taking orders from Putin:

► At the end of 2018, Putin and his allies started making a strong push for a resolution that would justify their country’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and reverse an 1989 vote backed by Mikhail Gorbachev that condemned it. The Putinists’ goal was to pass the resolution by Feb. There is no one on this side of the Atlantic who thinks the USSR was justified in invading Afghanistan. And out of nowhere, on January 2nd, Trump came out strongly supporting Russia's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

► Trump went against American intelligence on North Korean missiles. He told the FBI he didn't believe their intelligence because Putin told him otherwise. "I don't care, I believe Putin"

► Trump met in secret with Putin the G20 summit in November 2018, without note takers. 19 days later, he announced a withdrawal from Syria. As a note, Trump conducted FIVE completely private meetings and conferences with Putin, and has gone to great lengths to prevent literally anyone, even people in his administration, from learning what was discussed.

► Trump refused to enforce sanctions legally codified into law - and in some cases reversed standing sanctions on Russian companies.

► He has denounced his own intelligence agencies in a press conference with Putin on election meddling - and publicly endorsed Putin's version of events. .

► Trump pulled out of the INF treaty with no explanation, which allows Putin to create long-range hypersonic missiles that threaten Europe with impunity. The US already has all the weaponry that the INF would ban the development of, so this offers us literally nothing, while allowing Russia to develop powerful new weapons to challenge our allies.

► And of course, Trump continues to threaten to pull out of NATO, a move so catastrophically stupid, so inconceivably cosmically myopic, I truly can't express the profundity of the idiocy. Suffice to say, pulling out of NATO would be like the only guy in a prison yard with a shotgun just throwing it over the fence for absolutely no reason, suddenly giving the people with crude homemade shivs complete power.

► In summation: Trump was $4 billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out.

...a succinct summary of the NYT tRump's tax expose: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/u...gtype=Homepage

^ That story makes me wonder if it were The National Enquirer or even Trump himself blackmailing Falwell.

...no need to wonder...

Originally Posted by tomcat

...a succinct summary of the NYT tRump's tax expose: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/u...gtype=Homepage

It's why he said "I'm fucked" when the investigation started.

Originally Posted by misskit

That story makes me wonder if it were The National Enquirer or even Trump himself blackmailing Falwell.

It would not be a surprise would it? I would fancy him a closeted gay for sure.

I hope we don’t have to see nekked pictures of Falwell.

Originally Posted by misskit

I hope we don’t have to see nekked pictures of Falwell.

Originally Posted by misskit

^ That story makes me wonder if it were The National Enquirer or even Trump himself blackmailing Falwell.

this should answer your question...

Originally Posted by tomcat

I actually have one of the photos

Originally Posted by bsnub

Great acting there. He is another snake oil salesman like Trump. Look how many people Falwell goaded into donating to his lavish lifestyle.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Of course I did, and then I read one that provided context, like the fact that a certain amount of money *always* comes back from overseas, and there is still up to 3 TRILLION parked offshore because they don't want to pay tax on it.

And even what comes back doesn't create jobs, it buys shares back.

It's not benefiting anyone but the rich.

And what's wrong with Google is that it lists a pile of links, so open the one you're referring to and post that, you feeble minded old fool.

But it you will have to admit jobs are being created in record numbers,who’s to say the money coming back from over seas is not,in part, responsible for this.

Originally Posted by RPETER65

But it you will have to admit jobs are being created in record numbers,who’s to say the money coming back from over seas is not,in part, responsible for this.

You just read the headlines on Fox and Breitbart, don't you, old man?

January marked the 100th consecutive month of job creation in the United States – a record breaking streak of job creation that has left employers scrambling to find workers and dragged the long-term unemployed back into the market.


Yet even now, 20m jobs later, there are some parts of the US economy that have yet to reflect the positive image projected by the continuous job growth and low unemployment rate.


“That we’ve had the unemployment rate at or below 4% since last February is obviously historically remarkable,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. “But the composition of the workforce or employment obviously paints a much more complicated story.”


What troubles analysts like Hamrick, as well as the central bankers at the Federal Reserve, is the fact that the US economy is now dominated by high skill, high wage jobs and low skill, low wage jobs. Gone are many of the middle skill, middle wage jobs and that, said Hamrick, a trend that has led to “not only the economic divisiveness of our country but to some degree the political divisiveness”. Take manufacturing for example, where about 25% of jobs have disappeared over the last two decades thanks to globalization and automation.


It isn’t just middle wage jobs that are missing from this job market. There is also the mystery of stagnant wages. Even as jobs were added, the one thing that remained mostly the same for large part of those 100 months were the wages. In December, wages were up 3.2% from a year earlier, their largest gain since 2008 but nothing to boast about. In January growth slipped to 3.1%. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning thinktank, wages would have to grow between 3.5% to 4% for average workers to really feel an impact.


The wage growth figures, particularly in the early part of the recovery, should have come with “a sad trombone sound effect” said Hamrick. That low wage growth will be one of the main things people remember about this recovery, he added.


If anyone needed a reminder that many Americans live paycheck to paycheck while working full-time, the past month should have done the job. The 35-day government shutdown led to two missed paycheck for about 800,000 workers and many of them had to rely on food banks for their meals, deferred some of their bills and skipped payments on those they couldn’t cover. A recent survey by Bankrate.com found that just 40% of US households have enough money to cover a $1,000 in emergency expenses.

Hardly a barrel of good news, is it?

https://www.theguardian.com/business...age-stagnation

it is all the fault of the black kenyan - and ironically it is - but do not expect the drumpf supporters to understand

in other news - drumpf misled the taxation authorities on purpose because that is what smart business people do - nothing like being a cowardly fraudulent connman to make america great again

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You just read the headlines on Fox and Breitbart, don't you, old man?



Hardly a barrel of good news, is it?

https://www.theguardian.com/business...age-stagnation

I could probably post many optimistic and many pessimistic articles about jobs growth and wages,being the eternal optimist I choose to go with the optimistic views,and it looks like the last two years has proved that out. Of course there are jobs that have not come back and may never come back but the current trends show jobs are being created and wages are beginning to rise. About the lower skilled middle income wage jobs,truck driving would fit into that category and there are many driver jobs not filled.

Originally Posted by baldrick

it is all the fault of the black kenyan - and ironically it is - but do not expect the drumpf supporters to understand

in other news - drumpf misled the taxation authorities on purpose because that is what smart business people do - nothing like being a cowardly fraudulent connman to make america great again

That’s a bit of a misleading statement, if what he said about his losses is true, it is not misleading but smart tax preparation,it’s done by business people all the time.

Originally Posted by RPETER65

That’s a bit of a misleading statement, if what he said about his losses is true, it is not misleading but smart tax preparation,it’s done by business people all the time.

He either lost money which makes him a bad businessman, or he commited tax fraud which makes him a criminal.
I say both, what says you?

Originally Posted by bsnub

I would fancy him, a closeted gay

Poor choice of words, Snubby

Originally Posted by Maanaam

Poor choice of words

...sometimes the truth just pops out into daylight for all to see...

Trump: I'm a great businessman, the best, and only I can fix the economy... But you can't see my tax returns or anything to prove what I say.
Trumptards: ...OK seems legit
NYT: *Hold my beer*
Trump: Fake news!
Trumptards: ...OK seems legit

Originally Posted by RPETER65

I choose to go with the optimistic views,and it looks like the last two years has proved that out.

Once again you are a cherry picking moron this economy and as the article stated has been growing for the last 100 months it started with Obama not two years ago so you keep swallowing the bullshit you lemming.

Originally Posted by Porchettino

Stop being a bully you drunkard.

...stop pointing out other people's faults, moron...

......

‘Fox & Friends’ Showers Trump With Praise for Losing $1 Billion

By jamie.ross@thedailybeast.com

The hosts over at Fox & Friends have spent their morning gushing with praise for Donald Trump after The New York Timesrevealed records showing that he lost over $1 billionover a ten-year period.

The president’s most loyal newscasters tried very hard to find a way to put a positive spin on the numbers that showed that Trump lost a total of $1.17 billion from 1985 to 1994—so much that he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the 10 years, according to the report.
“If anything, you read this and you’re like ‘Wow, it’s pretty impressive, all the things that he’s done in his life,’ said breathless host Ainsley Earhardt. “It’s beyond what most of us could ever achieve.”

In a way, she’s right that Trump’s efforts were unmatched at the time. In 1990 and 1991, Trump reported losses of more than $250 million—more than double that of any other high-income individual U.S. taxpayer for those years, according to calculations from the Times.
Co-host Brian Kilmeade chipped in: “He lost a lot of money over the course of 10 years, if you consider a billion dollars a lot of money.”
Kilmeade went on to argue that the numbers make sense when you consider that Trump is a “bold businessman,” and that the numbers simply were simply a “chronicle” of an adventurous risk-taker.

“It’s as if you buy something and it doesn’t pay out right away or ever you’re a loser,” he said. “No, you take shots, you have an opportunity to do things, that’s the way you live. The reason why we all knew Donald Trump’s name is because for 30 years that’s what he did... What do people not understand about he’s a little bit different from most people?”

In his own defense of his business record Wednesday morning, Trump insisted that his suffering of more than $1 billion in business losses was actually part of his plan all along. He argued that his losses created a “tax shelter,” which “almost all real estate developers did” at the time.

But, appearing as a pundit on Fox & Friends, Newt Gingrich made the most audacious defense of Trump, saying that the president’s dodgy dealings prove that he was right to bring in huge tax cuts for the wealthy.

“When you lower taxes, there is less reason to have shelters, and when you lower taxes there is less reason to create losses for tax purposes,” said the former House speaker. “So, in a very real way, the Trump tax cuts are vindicated by The New York Times story.”

Imagine what they would have said it Trump had actually been proven to have made a profit.