dagblog - Comments for "Trump Foundation Agrees to Dissolve After ‘Shocking Pattern of Illegality’"

Glenn Thrush puts a splainer

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 21:15:39 +0000

In reply to Trump Foundation Agrees to Dissolve After ‘Shocking Pattern of Illegality’

Glenn Thrush puts a splainer for the audience in comments on Trump tweet:

The ‘new AG’ is Letitia James, the first African-American woman to occupy the post. https://t.co/vXLbhsMaYs
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) December 19, 2018

And as to big international

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 19:02:04 +0000

In reply to various "she deserved it

And as to big international private foundations, they are always going to subject to conspiracy theories. Just goes with the territory. You try to affect things with big money and donations, and/or elite connections, you are going to get attacked as well as investigated by media.

Where Trump Foundation is so egregious is that it was completely cynical, wasn't trying to affect a damn thing except money in Trump pockets. Classic grifting, like Richard's holy water example. Boring in that: not much of a political conspiracy narrative as a hook there. Which is why those investigating it deserve kudos. Russian hotel deals: much more interesting, big hook!

"It's pure genius and

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 18:56:45 +0000

In reply to various "she deserved it

"It's pure genius and admirable when you can overcome that, but that's rare." - ah, I'm glad you finally cotton to my point, that Hillary did show some real genius - but then they broke the law in multiple ways. She still won the popular vote, but they were able to use foreign agents and illegal money in their campaigns to whittle down her once high popularity. Sure, if they'd just gotten the Maureen Dowds of the world to bitch about her, it'd be ugly but fair. But that's not what they did.

Re: "gambling as a carpetbagger" - she worked her ass off on her talking tour, etc. to pull that off - which is why the Bernie thing of "give me what I'm owed" pisses me off - they talk about Hillary feeling entitled, but he and many followers come across much worse in my eyes. But again, that's just US politics - it's the enlisting Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel, with beaucoup foreign bucks behind the effort that's illegal.

various "she deserved it

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 18:49:37 +0000

In reply to Let's again wind back to 2016

various "she deserved it since she ran a bad campaign" circular arguments.

I for one don't feel I make that argument. I make the argument that once you are known by the public for many years and have a sort of a brand, that it is real hard to undo that. And then if you decide to run for political office, the other side can and will use whatever in that brand that they can against you. Including that you are a woman, if that works for them, but all kinds of other stuff too. And it's just the way things are. It's pure genius and admirable when you can overcome that, but that's rare.

Just like "just the way things are" is why John Kerry lost. He was smeared with swift boats and upper class sailing proclivities.

Luckily for Bill Clinton, public judgment about being smeared as a pot smoking draft dodger had changed by the time he ran, he turned out to be running at the right time, a decade earlier it would have killed him.

So chose your candidates carefully, because they will get smeared and whether the smears stick depends all kinds of thing like their personality and their history with the public.

You are really railing about the culture as it is. How people vote. But this in a democracy, as far as voting, you are stuck with the culture as it is. Some call it pandering, others call it smart politics. Once you win is when you are supposed to try to change things. (And, as has been noted, the need to immediately start raising funds for the next campaign has screwed that all up.)

There is no rule that the media has to treat candidates "fairly." Part of the job of the candidate has always been to manipulate that.We have a new kind of media, and that was part of the problem, and Trump lucked out with manipulating it to his benefit.

Where I don't agree with you is that you feel what happened to Hillary is like the ideal representative narrative to point out what is wrong with our culture. I don't feel she is a good example at all. I don't feel angry for her, I feel she had and has a lot of benefits in life beyond the wildest dreams of most people and held powers in her hand over the lives of many. She's wealthy and powerful and she never was a role model for me. She gambled on the presidency and lost the game to dirty tricks which should be expected when you do that, move on. (She gambled on being a carpetbagger in NY and she won. She later became Sec. of State of her opponent even though many of his fans had been taught to hate her. Pretty amazing right there. I'm still amazed by that, actually.)

As Palmer highlights,

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 15:19:37 +0000

In reply to Trump Foundation Agrees to Dissolve After ‘Shocking Pattern of Illegality’

As Palmer highlights, Foundation assets will be dissolved and donated to charity. Had Trump's family not basically bankrupted the foundation, there would be some semi-significant funds there, and I'm a bit surprised they're not holding the family to paying back dodgy expenditures of a few hundred thousand, but still - a sitting president has been forced to give away illegally handled contributions - a great precedent for when they come for Trump Organization where his real assets lie.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/421982-trump-foundation-to-s...

Let's again wind back to 2016

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 12:50:00 +0000

In reply to NYTimes:

Let's again wind back to 2016 where the Clinton Foundation was regularly savaged for supposed improprieties (lots of innuendo based on their work in Haiti especially), while the Trump Foundation was given a free pass.
Let's compare the two - the Clinton Foundation with 4 Stars out of 4, the Trump Foundation but now shown to be an illegal travesty. Here's its Charity Navigator page).

But all of this is a nevermind - what should have been a big plus for Hillary was turned into an anchor weight (isn't such a $400m foundation bigger people-wise & activity-wise than the tiny franchising Trump Organization that Trump pretended was a big employer?) , while Trump got a pass with his shitty crooked foundation.

Nice of WaPo to print Kessler giving Trump 4 Pinocchios comparing the 2 orgs, but when it counted, they put out a salacious front page story lumping together the Clinton Foundation money ($1 billion raised) with the Clintons' total campaign cash raised ($2 billion) over multiple governors, Senate & 4 presidential campaigns) to imply with $3 billion over 35 years of political and charitable activity they just have too much money (pretending "raised" = "have", and of course Obama raised perhaps $1.5 billion for 2 presidential campaigns w/o a charitable org, but that kind of obviousness and equivalence is lost on the media when they're in smarmy Maureen Dowd mode).

A woman just got treated really shittily on multiple fronts, and most of the justification is about like "what was she wearing" (a pants suit, natch) or various "she deserved it since she ran a bad campaign" circular arguments.

Meanwhile, will any of the Trump brats go to jail for overtly using this foundation as a slush fund? Will it even make Trump dip below 42% support where he's been hovering for 1-1 1/2 years now? Him having to pay out for his scam crooked university didn't seem to hurt him much.

I got an even better video

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 04:39:01 +0000

In reply to AA this is all another

I got an even better video example, second time I posted it here @ Dag in a week. There is no way that Trump can even try to get away with saying this now:

apparently, thanks is due to

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 02:20:55 +0000

In reply to Trump Foundation Agrees to Dissolve After ‘Shocking Pattern of Illegality’

apparently, thanks is due to David Farenthold @ WaPo; Jay Rosen just retweeted this, and quite a few replies confirm:

Because of this journalist’s indefatigable reporting https://t.co/zXrHIbKRQ6
— Ann Marie Lipinski (@AMLwhere) December 18, 2018

State of play:

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 02:14:23 +0000

In reply to Trump Foundation Agrees to Dissolve After ‘Shocking Pattern of Illegality’

State of play: @realDonaldTrump is unfit to run a charity in New York State but fit to control nuclear weapons that could destroy the world several times over.
— Jeffrey Toobin (@JeffreyToobin) December 19, 2018

AA this is all another

Richard Day — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 01:51:36 +0000

In reply to Oh thank you. Anyhow reminds

AA this is all another example of the misuse of the 'charitable' meme in order to just make more money without taxation. I watch this prick on cable selling water sealed in some sort of aluminum packet in order to get people to purchase their future?

I purchased this holy water on the net and the next day I received a check?

the end