SickSix wrote:
The Lefts only reaction to dissenting opinions is insults and labeling and trying to suppress those opinions.

 Goliath wrote:
He says, in an 8800 comment long political discussion thread.

And this is opposed to what? The right is hardly innocent of that sort of rhetoric either. Or have you not heard of the term "libtard" or "SJW"?

Also, the video got posted earlier in the thread.

 Breotan wrote:
The trump supporters were accused of all this fear, hate and intolerance yet all I see are Hillary supporters being fearful, hateful and intolerant.

 Breotan wrote:
The trump supporters were accused of all this fear, hate and intolerance yet all I see are Hillary supporters being fearful, hateful and intolerant.

 Peregrine wrote:
Ah yes, the classic "if you accuse me of being hateful and intolerant then you're hateful and intolerant" argument. It still doesn't work.

 whembly wrote:
Now ya'll being silly.... I mean really.

But, whateve.

Seaward wrote:
That pretty clearly wasn't the argument.

 Peregrine wrote:
If the subject was Clinton supporters who are committing violent or hateful acts then, given the abundance of Clinton supporters (or at least Trump critics) posting here it wouldn't be "all I see". It would be "it's unfortunate that a tiny minority of Clinton supporters are being hateful and intolerant, like some Trump supporters are right now being hateful and intolerant". By saying "all I see" that includes the people here who are merely criticizing Trump, not just the people out there committing violence against anyone they consider a Trump supporter.

Seaward wrote:
I'm curious; in this argument for a nuanced take on the violent backlash to Trump's election, which seeks to minimize the violent to a tiny minority of Clinton supporters, do you think back on your sweeping generalization of all Republican voters this cycle as racist misogynists at all?

Seaward wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
If the subject was Clinton supporters who are committing violent or hateful acts then, given the abundance of Clinton supporters (or at least Trump critics) posting here it wouldn't be "all I see". It would be "it's unfortunate that a tiny minority of Clinton supporters are being hateful and intolerant, like some Trump supporters are right now being hateful and intolerant". By saying "all I see" that includes the people here who are merely criticizing Trump, not just the people out there committing violence against anyone they consider a Trump supporter.

I'm curious; in this argument for a nuanced take on the violent backlash to Trump's election, which seeks to minimize the violent to a tiny minority of Clinton supporters, do you think back on your sweeping generalization of all Republican voters this cycle as racist misogynists at all?

 Chongara wrote:
When one is a Clinton supporter one is not by definition a supporting assault or vandalism.

 malamis wrote:
I've frequently heard the Trump = Racist assertion, but all i've ever seen is an ultra anti-immigration policy, whilst emphasising disproportionate support for lawful American citizens regardless of ethnic background.

Could someone suitably stoked provide a useful source to the contrary?

Seaward wrote:
If we're allowed to pretend like voting for someone means supporting every aspect of their platform and campaign, we're also allowed to pretend all sorts of other ridiculous nonsense, like simply pronouncing all Clinton supporters to be in favor of violent rioting makes it true.

Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
When one is a Clinton supporter one is not by definition a supporting assault or vandalism.

Yes they are.

And I can say that, because apparently the "post-factual" era we've entered into isn't as limited to Republicans as Democrats would like to think. If we're allowed to pretend like voting for someone means supporting every aspect of their platform and campaign, we're also allowed to pretend all sorts of other ridiculous nonsense, like simply pronouncing all Clinton supporters to be in favor of violent rioting makes it true.

 Chongara wrote:
Yes. Supporting someone means supporting their entire campaign.

Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Yes. Supporting someone means supporting their entire campaign.

I say otherwise. So, it seems, does most of America, as there has not yet been a candidate whose positions completely align with 51% of the electorate.

For instance, I rather doubt that all the progressives voting for Obama in 2008 supported his opinion that gay marriage should remain illegal.

Your assertion is that they did. That's asinine.

Seaward wrote:
For instance, I rather doubt that all the progressives voting for Obama in 2008 supported his opinion that gay marriage should remain illegal.

 Spinner wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Yes. Supporting someone means supporting their entire campaign.

I say otherwise. So, it seems, does most of America, as there has not yet been a candidate whose positions completely align with 51% of the electorate.

For instance, I rather doubt that all the progressives voting for Obama in 2008 supported his opinion that gay marriage should remain illegal.

Your assertion is that they did. That's asinine.

Maybe a better way to put it, as I and several others in this thread already have (look up just a few posts!), is that when you give someone your vote, you are at the very least saying that what they say and stand for is acceptable. Trump voters weighed his inexperience, mercurial nature, fraud and bribery, bullying tendencies, dishonesty, bigotry, misogyny, and racism against what he had to offer and found that acceptable - otherwise, why would they have voted for him?

 malamis wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Yes. Supporting someone means supporting their entire campaign.

I say otherwise. So, it seems, does most of America, as there has not yet been a candidate whose positions completely align with 51% of the electorate.

For instance, I rather doubt that all the progressives voting for Obama in 2008 supported his opinion that gay marriage should remain illegal.

Your assertion is that they did. That's asinine.

Maybe a better way to put it, as I and several others in this thread already have (look up just a few posts!), is that when you give someone your vote, you are at the very least saying that what they say and stand for is acceptable. Trump voters weighed his inexperience, mercurial nature, fraud and bribery, bullying tendencies, dishonesty, bigotry, misogyny, and racism against what he had to offer and found that acceptable - otherwise, why would they have voted for him?

Because the alternative was even less palatable perhaps?

 Spinner wrote:

 malamis wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Yes. Supporting someone means supporting their entire campaign.

I say otherwise. So, it seems, does most of America, as there has not yet been a candidate whose positions completely align with 51% of the electorate.

For instance, I rather doubt that all the progressives voting for Obama in 2008 supported his opinion that gay marriage should remain illegal.

Your assertion is that they did. That's asinine.

Maybe a better way to put it, as I and several others in this thread already have (look up just a few posts!), is that when you give someone your vote, you are at the very least saying that what they say and stand for is acceptable. Trump voters weighed his inexperience, mercurial nature, fraud and bribery, bullying tendencies, dishonesty, bigotry, misogyny, and racism against what he had to offer and found that acceptable - otherwise, why would they have voted for him?

Because the alternative was even less palatable perhaps?

The, uh, the other half of my post - the part you didn't quote - says that the people who voted for him could, indeed, say that they believed that. It would indicate that they believed she was unpalatable enough to elect a man who bribed an Attorney General to stop investigating his fraudulent university, who felt the need to lie about American Muslims cheering in the streets on 9/11, and who believes our military is staffed solely by rapists willing to commit war crimes at his order.

That's a hell of a claim.

 Peregrine wrote:


Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys wearing yarmulkes… Those are the only kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else…Besides that, I tell you something else. I think that’s guy’s lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks.
-Donald Trump

 Peregrine wrote:
Now, you would be correct if you claimed that progressives voting for Obama in 2008 were willing to accept a president who was an unenthusiastic supporter of LGBT rights and didn't express any interest in helping us, as the price of getting the other things we wanted. That's exactly what we did. But it should also be noted that there was no alternative on LGBT issues. The choices were Obama, who personally opposed gay marriage but left his personal opinions out of his voting record, or a republican who would actively work against LGBT rights. So even though Obama was flawed on the issue he was still the lesser of the two evils. Trump, on the other hand, was the greater of the two evils on racism/misogyny/etc.

 malamis wrote:
One of the pro-Trump positions that's filtered its way over here is "He's a disagreeable person, but he is vibrant and effective" emphasising less palatable as a person, whereas Clinton's "low energy, alchoholic, elderly, undisclosed health problems" personna is unpalatable as a ruler. In that light it becomes understanable why he had traction as a candidate at all, again at least to us external observers.

 malamis wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 malamis wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Yes. Supporting someone means supporting their entire campaign.

I say otherwise. So, it seems, does most of America, as there has not yet been a candidate whose positions completely align with 51% of the electorate.

For instance, I rather doubt that all the progressives voting for Obama in 2008 supported his opinion that gay marriage should remain illegal.

Your assertion is that they did. That's asinine.

Maybe a better way to put it, as I and several others in this thread already have (look up just a few posts!), is that when you give someone your vote, you are at the very least saying that what they say and stand for is acceptable. Trump voters weighed his inexperience, mercurial nature, fraud and bribery, bullying tendencies, dishonesty, bigotry, misogyny, and racism against what he had to offer and found that acceptable - otherwise, why would they have voted for him?

Because the alternative was even less palatable perhaps?

The, uh, the other half of my post - the part you didn't quote - says that the people who voted for him could, indeed, say that they believed that. It would indicate that they believed she was unpalatable enough to elect a man who bribed an Attorney General to stop investigating his fraudulent university, who felt the need to lie about American Muslims cheering in the streets on 9/11, and who believes our military is staffed solely by rapists willing to commit war crimes at his order.

That's a hell of a claim.

Sorry - legitimate mistake there regarding the quoting.

One of the pro-Trump positions that's filtered its way over here is "He's a disagreeable person, but he is vibrant and effective" emphasising less palatable as a person, whereas Clinton's "low energy, alchoholic, elderly, undisclosed health problems" personna is unpalatable as a ruler. In that light it becomes understanable why he had traction as a candidate at all, again at least to us external observers.

 Peregrine wrote:
And this is a perfect example of how the pro-Trump side is out of touch with reality. Trump is older than Clinton! And the "undisclosed health problems" thing was nothing more than ridiculous tinfoil hat speculation. The worst you can say about her is that she isn't the most charismatic speaker ever, and tends to get into policy discussions rather than making a big show of things. But you'd think that's a good thing when contrasted with a person who is "vibrant" in being an awful person to cover up his utter lack of viable policy ideas.

 Spinner wrote:


Gotcha, no worries.

For the record, he's less effective than he likes to pretend - he's got multiple bankruptcies in his past. What he's very good at is stepping back and letting the people around him take the fall while he recovers, which is extremely worrying when he just took charge of your country.

He's also older than Clinton and had his own health vouched for by a man who's clearly The Dude's awful cousin, although he's certainly louder than she is. I can see why he's pictured as 'higher energy'.

Trump’s deal with the federal government gave him control of a taxpayer-owned landmark for his Washington, DC hotel — but it also creates a conflict of interest that experts say may be impossible to resolve. For the first time, the General Services Administration acknowledged the potential conflict and said it plans to discuss it with the Trump team.

For the first time, federal officials have acknowledged a potential conflict of interest that faces incoming president Donald Trump over his high-profile hotel deal with the United States government. And the federal agency that’s involved wants to talk to Trump’s transition team about it before he takes the oath of office.
In 2012, the General Services Administration agreed to lease the Old Post Office Building — a landmark building just blocks from the White House — to Trump’s organization so that the mogul could turn it into a luxury hotel. In the complicated 109-page lease, Trump is required to pay the GSA $3 million a year plus a portion of his revenue, and he has to abide by a complex set of restrictions regarding what he can do and how he can build.
But once Trump becomes president, he will have authority over the GSA and will be able to fire its administrator at will, raising profound issues of a conflict.
Questioned about that conflict, a GSA spokesperson sent a statement to BuzzFeed News: “Prior to Mr. Trump taking the oath of office, GSA plans to coordinate with the President-elect’s transition team to allow a plan to be put in place to identify and address any potential conflict of interest relating to the Old Post Office building.”
Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks did not respond to emailed questions about the matter.
It’s been extensively reported that Trump often often does not pay his bills, and this has been a characteristic business practice for decades. If Trump’s company stops paying rent to the US government, shortchanges the taxpayer on revenue sharing, or harms the priceless landmark in any way, it is the GSA that would have to enforce the lease.
“Under the contract the only way the GSA can enforce rights is by litigating against him,” said Professor Steven L. Schooner, who teaches federal contracting law at George Washington University Law School. “Is the GSA going to litigate against the president?” Schooner pointed out that the GSA will be at a massive disadvantage in any dealings with the Trump company.
“Imagine the poor GSA employee that has to negotiate that annual sum with the president’s daughter or son,” he said.
As BuzzFeed News has previously reported, Trump won control of the Old Post Office Building in a highly unusual process. His company made representations to the government about its architect and financial backing to beat out competitors from better known hotel chains, and then reversed itself once it won the right to build the hotel.
He gave his children a share in the property for free. And court records show that he had two sets of revenue projections for the deal.
Peter Smirniotopoulos, an adjunct professor of real estate at George Washington University School of Business, said that the GSA is “clearly not going to take enforcement action against a company founded and set up by the person who is now the president of the United States!”
Kenneth Gross, an ethics attorney at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom said it is a bad situation that creates a potential for conflict, but he points out that the President is specifically exempt from conflict-of-interest laws that apply to other government officials.
Trump and three of his children — Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr. — own the lease and manage the hotel through a web of holding companies. Trump’s children and a lawyer have told news organizations that Trump will put his assets in a blind trust and that the businesses will be managed by his children. Ethics experts contend that such a blind trust would not solve Trump’s conflicts: His properties are well known to him, so the trust would not be truly blind, and his children, who would manage the hotel, have interests directly allied with his.
To truly resolve the conflict, Smirniotopoulos said, they would have to divest. Or, he said, Trump and his children could sell their holdings in the management company that runs the company, and then put their passive ownership interest in a genuinely blind trust managed by an independent trustee.
Schooner, the professor at George Washington University, said the GSA should just breach the contract and break the lease, even if Trump sues the government. But for the president to remain in business with the government in such a glaring way creates a major problem, he argued. “If this is the world we live in now, one where there is no principle or rules, just tell me that,” he said, “But if we are going to be a nation of rules, this is a horrible, horrible situation.”
Trump faces other potential conflicts of interest.
As BuzzFeed has reported, Trump mortgaged the federal lease to Deutsche Bank, a German bank that is a frequent lender to him. The US government is reportedly seeking to recover $14 billion from the bank to settle old mortgage securities cases.
Meanwhile Trump has himself said that his tax returns are being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. The auditors will now face the fact that the man whose taxes they are reviewing is the most powerful in the world, and can easily replace their boss.

Donald Trump campaigned for president as a savvy billionaire who would apply his business acumen to improving the U.S. economy, cutting taxes for Americans and negotiating better trade deals.

But his vast, complicated network of businesses under the Trump Organization, including numerous foreign investments and debts, could create unprecedented conflicts of interest when he takes the oath of office as U.S. president in January, government ethics experts said.

Federal law does not prohibit the president from being involved in private business while in office, even though members of Congress and lower-ranking executive branch officials are subject to strict conflict-of-interest rules. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, quietly managed his broadcasting businesses despite insisting publicly that he had ceased all involvement, according to his biographer, Robert Caro.

"There are no legal restrictions, no legal requirements," said Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of the nonpartisan watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

But most presidents in recent decades have voluntarily placed their personal assets, including property and financial holdings, in blind trusts overseen by independent advisers to avoid any appearance of impropriety, experts said. Under a blind trust, the owner has no say or knowledge in how the assets are managed.

President Barack Obama was one exception, but his investments are mostly in broad-based index funds and U.S. Treasury notes with little chance of conflicts.

Trump's businesses include licensing deals, hotels and golf courses around the world. During the campaign, he filed a 104-page financial disclosure statement, as required by law, that showed he had financial interests in more than 500 entities with names like China Trademark LLC and DT Marks Qatar LLC but had few details.

BLIND TRUST

While plenty of wealthy men have been president, no one has ascended to the White House with such a complex array of assets.

Trump's spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on how he planned to manage his businesses while he was in the White House.

During the campaign, Trump did say he would likely transfer day-to-day operations to his children. But experts in government ethics said that would do little to insulate Trump.

"That presumably frees some time up for him to be the president, but it doesn't do anything to clear the conflicts of interest," said Kenneth Gross, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who has counseled high-ranking political appointees on ethics laws. "His family's interests, his children's interests, are co-existent with his own."

The nature of Trump's businesses, Gross said, makes a blind trust all but meaningless – even if he were inclined to shift control of his empire from his family, an idea he has rejected.

Gross advised Michael Bloomberg, a New York billionaire businessman, when he became mayor of New York City. Bloomberg stepped away from day-to-day operations at his data and media company, Bloomberg LP, and donated all terminals that were used by city agencies to avoid any impression of profiting from public funds.

Some of the potential problems for the Republican president-elect are obvious. One of his latest ventures, a luxury hotel in Washington just blocks from the White House, leases its property from the U.S. government, putting Trump on both sides of any landlord-tenant disputes.

Others are more opaque. Trump has licensing deals and diverse real estate holdings in numerous countries that could benefit from foreign government subsidies or tax breaks. Companies in which he holds an interest owe hundreds of millions of dollars in debt to foreign banks that are subject to U.S. regulations, such as Deutsche Bank and Bank of China, according to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

His properties include hotels in countries like Turkey, Uruguay, the Philippines and South Korea, and golf courses in the United Arab Emirates, Ireland and Britain.

Conflicts of interest could stem, for example, from countries trying to influence policies by doing business with any of his companies or even his children. His daughter Ivanka has a line of fashion products, which along with other Trump-branded items are made in countries like China.

Trump has accused China of currency manipulation and threatened to put tariffs on its imports.

GOVERNMENT REVIEW OF TRUMP INC. DEALS?

Trump's opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, faced criticism during the campaign over the Clinton Foundation, the charity founded by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

That was despite an ethics agreement that Hillary Clinton signed in 2009 in order to become Obama's secretary state that was designed to ensure donors could not sway U.S. foreign policy. Under the deal, the State Department was allowed to review any new contributions from foreign governments.

Unlike Clinton, however, Trump is not answerable to anyone else as president. And he has already shown himself willing to blur the lines between campaigning and marketing, holding events at his own properties and touting his companies during speeches.

Given the high-profile properties that bear his name, a blind trust would do little to help his case, experts said.

"You can't put a golf course in a blind trust; it would be pointless," said Robert Kelner, a Washington lawyer and an expert on government ethics. "The idea behind a blind trust is that it's blind – you don't know what assets are held."

The only unassailable solution, experts said, would be for Trump to sell off his businesses and place the proceeds in a blind trust.

With no legal requirements, Trump's actions as president are only subject to the will of the voters or to built-in checks and balances like Congressional oversight.

The potential for conflicts is exacerbated by the lack of publicly known details about Trump's holdings. Even his net worth is unclear. Trump has boasted of more than $10 billion in wealth, but financial magazines have estimated his fortune at less than half that.

He has refused to release his tax returns, breaking with decades of presidential campaign tradition, and legal experts said he is under no obligation to do so as president.

His dealings with foreign governments are thus largely unknown. He will likely face scrutiny of policy decisions that affect countries where he is known to have business interests, said Bookbinder.

Seaward wrote:
You supported these statements, all said by Obama in 2008:

Because all the "lesser of two evils" stuff sounds suspiciously a lot like the kind of justification Trump supporters have been using to rationalize their vote that you disagreed with.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Wikipedia has this as merely claimed. Might wanna check these things. Anybody can claim anything at the end of the day.

 malamis wrote:
But as I understand it, bankruptcy doesn't disqualify you from business over there the same way it does here, and is instead a robust mechanism to enable covert asset stripping if handled well. While I wouldn't invest in him, I certainly wouldn't want to compete with him in any field, as he's proven he can game the system to his advantage. I'd absolutely want that quality in my own ruler to that degree, assuming i'd benefit from it too!