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Trump Foundation to shut down (‘pattern of illegality’)

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  • Trump Foundation to shut down (‘pattern of illegality’)

    So here is a new story:

    Donald Trump has agreed to shut down his personal charity, the Trump Foundation, in the wake of a succession of scandals and a looming lawsuit which exposed a “shocking pattern of illegality”.
    Well, what can I say?

    Trump had used the charity to pay off legal settlements within his business and even to buy a painting of himself to hang in one of his golf clubs.
    And it goes on:

    In a statement, Underwood said: “Our petition detailed a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation – including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more. This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr Trump’s business and political interests.”
    The foundation was even used in the presidential campaign:

    The attorney general had claimed the charity was used as a “piggy bank” to boost Trump Sr’s 2016 presidential campaign, violating rules that bar not-for-profit groups from engaging in certain types of political activity.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...utdown-lawsuit

    I can't say I am surprised given this man's track record. And I am not going to be surprised when some of the twebbers will do their absolute best to excuse it or change focus.
    Last edited by Charles; 12-18-2018, 02:50 PM.
    "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

  • #2
    What about Hillary's Foundation?


    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      What about Hillary's Foundation?

      Unlike Trump she did not use the foundation to buy a picture of Trump, I assume.
      "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Charles View Post
        Unlike Trump she did not use the foundation to buy a picture of Trump, I assume.
        You were supposed to tell me that was "whataboutism"

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Sparko View Post
          You were supposed to tell me that was "whataboutism"
          I know. But so did you, so there was no reason.
          "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Charles View Post


            The foundation was even used in the presidential campaign:

            The attorney general had claimed the charity was used as a “piggy bank” to boost Trump Sr’s 2016 presidential campaign, violating rules that bar not-for-profit groups from engaging in certain types of political activity.
            I seriously doubt that Trump needed it as a piggy bank to help finance his campaign.

            I'm always still in trouble again

            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
              I seriously doubt that Trump needed it as a piggy bank to help finance his campaign.
              But you don't doubt the rest of it?
              "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

              Comment


              • #8
                Let's say, hypothetically, Bill & Hillary are investigated tomorrow for using the Clinton foundation to buy nukes for Russia in exchange for child sex slaves. They're charged with treason on Thursday, convicted on Friday, sentenced to death on Saturday, and executed on Sunday.

                It's now Monday.

                On this hypothetical Monday, the top news item is "Trump Foundation to shut down (‘pattern of illegality’)" . So.... what's your take?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Bald Ape View Post
                  Let's say, hypothetically, Bill & Hillary are investigated tomorrow for using the Clinton foundation to buy nukes for Russia in exchange for child sex slaves. They're charged with treason on Thursday, convicted on Friday, sentenced to death on Saturday, and executed on Sunday.

                  It's now Monday.

                  On this hypothetical Monday, the top news item is "Trump Foundation to shut down (‘pattern of illegality’)" . So.... what's your take?
                  That Trump better head for the hills? That's some quick justice ya got there.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Americans have a strange fetish for crooked Presidents.
                    “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                    “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                    “not all there” - you know who you are

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Bald Ape View Post
                      On this hypothetical Monday, the top news item is "Trump Foundation to shut down (‘pattern of illegality’)" . So.... what's your take?
                      My take would be that true liberty will exist anyway: "Two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians 3:17, that's the whole ballgame. Where the spirit of the Lord … right? Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/don...sity-1.3409618
                      "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        His charity misuse I find the most amusing is:

                        “At one point, Trump used the charity’s money to make a $25,000 political donation to Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi (R). The charity didn’t tell the IRS about that, as required — and instead listed that donation as a gift to an unrelated charity in Kansas with a similar name. Trump’s team blamed accounting mistakes.”

                        Pam Bondi was the Florida AG who decided not to prosecute Trump University for its fraud after receiving the donation.


                        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                        I seriously doubt that Trump needed it as a piggy bank to help finance his campaign.
                        Eh? The whole point of Trump's campaign was to try and make money. He's been a two-bit con artist and grifter his whole life who's been regularly cash-strapped as his various dumb schemes keep falling apart around him. Even his casinos kept going bankrupt. He lies that he's mega-rich as part of his branding efforts because he wouldn't be able to do licensing deals to sell his name to hotels to use if it wasn't associated with wealth. In the mean time he desperately tries to scam a few thousand at a time by never paying any of his contractors who do work on his properties, and then not paying his lawyers who defended him when those contractors sued him, and then scamming as many people as possible for a few thousand at a time by running a fake university, etc. When his son's charity work with children with cancer brought them to his father's golf courses, Trump charged double to extract as much money from their charity as possible for himself.

                        His latest grift was to run for the Presidency, pocket all the campaign money, and do as many business deals with foreign countries as possible. Then, when he was shocked to find he'd won the Presidency, he organised a scam to pocket most of the money from his inauguration, quadrupled the fees at Mar-a-Lago and gave the paying guests there access to the President and ability to help him appoint cabinet members and meet foreign dignitaries. Then he jacked up the prices in Trump tower and insisted the department of defense and the secret service rent space there and pay him money for it, and insisted the secret service rent golf carts from him at Mar-a-Lago as they followed him around there. Meanwhile his son-in-law was off talking to middle eastern countries trying to use political pressure to help bail him out of his personal financial debts that he has incurred when he stupidly bought 666 Fifth Avenue NY for vastly more than it was worth in his foolish efforts to be a big-shot real-estate mogul.

                        Trump's other 2-bit grifts have included using his family charity as a personal piggy bank and laundering money through the Trump hotel in Panama. And I'm probably forgetting a dozen or so...

                        There are currently 17 open investigations that relate in some way to possible misconduct by Trump. Every aspect of his life and all his family and friends and partners in crime now seems to be under investigation by everyone from the Special Counsel, to the Southern District of NY, to States Attorneys General, to the upcoming Democratic controlled House, and so far they seem to be finding misconduct and crimes everywhere they look.
                        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Bald Ape View Post
                          Let's say, hypothetically, Bill & Hillary are investigated tomorrow for using the Clinton foundation to buy nukes for Russia in exchange for child sex slaves. They're charged with treason on Thursday, convicted on Friday, sentenced to death on Saturday, and executed on Sunday.

                          It's now Monday.

                          On this hypothetical Monday, the top news item is "Trump Foundation to shut down (‘pattern of illegality’)" . So.... what's your take?
                          How would they be convicted of treason when the action is not treason? To commit treason, you must actively aid an enemy of the country, and Russia is, at least by the definition used in the Constitution, not an enemy because we're not at war with them.

                          How does one hold what would possibly be the trial of the century in just one day?

                          What about all of the lengthy and convoluted appeals process that the government is legally required to go through in order to execute someone, which takes years to go through?

                          How, in all of these considerations, would the top news item be about anything other than that?

                          The only conclusion is that the government has completely and blatantly ignored rule of law and has the media censored to such an extent that the "top news story" is something other than the aforementioned flagrant ignoring of the rule of law. So I guess my take is that in this hypothetical situation would be that we've turned into a totalitarian dictatorship in the space of a week, likely with a civil war about to erupt (if it hadn't already).

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by dirtfloor View Post
                            Americans have a strange fetish for crooked Presidents.
                            Don't pretend that this is a uniquely American trait. There are more than enough crooked politicians in the world to go around. I think Douglas Adams explained it best in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

                            The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

                            To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

                            To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

                            (For context, this was referring to a fictional Galactic President and not the President of the United States.)
                            Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                            But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                            Than a fool in the eyes of God


                            From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                              To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

                              To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
                              For this reason I often think that election to political office should be done using the original Athenian version of Democracy: Random selection from among citizens (sortition). We use that method for jury service - random selection plus some vetting to ensure a reasonable panel - no real reason we couldn't do the same for political office to elect politicians from among the people.

                              Or you could have a two-chamber system where the House was elected politicians as normal and the Senate positions were filled by lottery from the populace of each state. (That way, if either group does anything too stupid or extreme the other chamber can put the breaks on and veto the bill)
                              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                              Comment

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