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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Would that it were so simple.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Trump being compared to Caligula is an insult to Caligula. Emperor Gaius could claim one year of generally good to great governance before getting sick and going apeshit once he got better. Has there been a single day these past two years where any of us felt satisfied with Trump?
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The F.B.I. seized the recording this year during a raid on Mr. Cohen’s office. The Justice Department is investigating Mr. Cohen’s involvement in paying women to tamp down embarrassing news stories about Mr. Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors want to know whether that violated federal campaign finance laws, and any conversation with Mr. Trump about those payments would be of keen interest to them.
The recording’s existence further draws Mr. Trump into questions about tactics he and his associates used to keep aspects of his personal and business life a secret. And it highlights the potential legal and political danger that Mr. Cohen represents to Mr. Trump. Once the keeper of many of Mr. Trump’s secrets, Mr. Cohen is now seen as increasingly willing to consider cooperating with prosecutors.
The former model, Karen Mc Dougal, says she began a nearly yearlong affair with Mr. Trump in 2006, shortly after Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, gave birth to their son Barron. Ms. Mc Dougal sold her story for $150,000 to The National Enquirer, which was supportive of Mr. Trump, during the final months of the presidential campaign, but the tabloid sat on the story, which kept it from becoming public. The practice, known as “catch and kill,” effectively silenced Ms. Mc Dougal for the remainder of the campaign.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed in a telephone conversation on Friday that Mr. Trump had discussed payments to Ms. Mc Dougal with Mr. Cohen on the tape. He said the recording was less than two minutes long and claimed that the president had done nothing wrong.
Mr. Giuliani said there was no indication on the tape that Mr. Trump knew before the conversation about the payment from the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., to Ms. Mc Dougal.
“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Mr. Giuliani said.
The men discussed a payment from Mr. Trump to Ms. Mc Dougal — separate from the Enquirer payment — to buy her story and ensure her silence, Mr. Giuliani said. That payment was never made, Mr. Giuliani said, adding that Mr. Trump had told Mr. Cohen that if he were to make a payment related to the woman, to write a check rather than send cash, so it could be properly documented.
Mr. Cohen’s lawyers discovered the recording as part of their review of the seized materials and shared it with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, according to three people briefed on the matter.
Mr. Cohen rejected repeated requests for comment. “We have nothing to say on this matter,” Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny J. Davis, said when asked about the tape.
David J. Pecker, the chairman of A.M.I., is a friend of Mr. Trump’s, and Ms. Mc Dougal has accused Mr. Cohen of secretly taking part in the deal — an allegation that is now part of the F.B.I. investigation.
When The Wall Street Journal revealed the existence of the A.M.I. payment days before the election, Mr. Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said, “We have no knowledge of any of this.” She said Ms. Mc Dougal’s claim of an affair was “totally untrue.”
It is not clear how explicit Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen were in their recorded conversation. Any evidence showing that Mr. Trump knew about the financial arrangement would undercut the Trump campaign’s statements.
Because the tape showed Mr. Trump learning about the A.M.I. payment, it actually helps Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani argued. “In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” he said.
The recording is potential evidence in the campaign finance investigation, but became tied up in a legal fight over what materials are protected by attorney-client privilege and thus off limits to prosecutors. It is not clear whether a federal judge has ruled on whether prosecutors can listen to the recording.
For a decade, Mr. Cohen served as one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted fixers, aggressively taking on journalists, opposing lawyers and business adversaries. He frequently taped his conversations, unbeknown to the people with whom he was speaking. New York law allows one party to a conversation to tape conversations without the other knowing.
Mr. Cohen used to say he would take a bullet for Mr. Trump, but the relationship soured in the aftermath of the F.B.I. raids in April.
Mr. Cohen has publicly and privately discussed the idea of cooperating with the F.B.I. In an interview with ABC News this month, Mr. Cohen seemed to be openly inviting prosecutors to talk to him.
“My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will,” Mr. Cohen said. “I put family and country first.” The words got Mr. Trump’s attention, and he asked people if they thought Mr. Cohen was trying to send a message, either to him or the Justice Department.
The Cohen investigation began with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating the Trump campaign’s links to Russia. But as the Cohen case became increasingly focused on Mr. Cohen’s personal business dealings and his campaign activities unrelated to Russia, Mr. Mueller referred it to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who are now leading the investigation.
The wide-ranging search warrants served on Mr. Cohen this spring show that prosecutors are investigating Mr. Cohen’s involvement in payments to silence women about their relationships with Mr. Trump. In addition to Ms. Mc Dougal’s arrangement, prosecutors also sought evidence of payments to the adult film star Stephanie Clifford, who is better known as Stormy Daniels.
Mr. Trump has denied knowing about those payments, though people familiar with the arrangement have said he was aware of them. But his denial helped suppress public allegations of an affair during the final months of the campaign.
Such payments, depending on how and why they were made, could represent campaign finance violations — a case that harks back to the failed prosecution of the former Democratic senator John Edwards, who tried to hide a pregnant mistress during his presidential campaign.
Mr. Cohen’s case is unusual because the payment to Ms. Mc Dougal was made by American Media Inc. In August 2016, A.M.I. bought the rights to her story about Mr. Trump for $150,000 and a commitment to use its magazines to promote her career as a fitness specialist.
Federal agents are also scrutinizing Mr. Cohen’s personal financial dealings and whether he committed fraud by lying about his assets on bank forms. In particular, the authorities are scrutinizing taxi medallions that Mr. Cohen owned, and whether he accurately accounted for their value, according to several people close to the case.
Micheal Avenatti and Cohen had a "productive" meeting at a restaurant on Monday.
I voted for someone I didn't believe in because it was better than the alternative. But we need to rise up, to make it clear that the Democrats are not entitled to our votes. That they have to move Left and fight the culture war.
I'm sorry, but....what? For starters, 'that just means the Democrats are the party of segregation and racism?' How exactly does this follow? The Democratic coalition was embracing minority voters since the 1930s-40s Now, to be sure there was the heavy albatross of the Dixiecrats in the South, but cracks appeared there when Hubert Humphrey had Civil Rights added to the Democratic party platform, and by the 1960s, the Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and Fair Housing Act, which prompted a realignment of the south that yes, took a lot of time in some places, but absolutely happened. Moderate Republicans were driven out. And who, might I ask, secured the Republican nomination the 1960s by promising to go easy on civil rights? Who implemented the southern strategy? Richard Nixon. This was the shift that Republicans are still following today, the shift that continued with Reagan.
This whole "The Dems aren't entitled to my vote" is, again, privilege. You don't have to worry about literally dying because Republicans in charge. And 'fight the culture war?' What does this even mean? What haven't they been fighting on?
Keep in mind that the likeliest contenders for 2020 have now endorsed: Medicare for All, a Federal Jobs Guarantee, public Banking, Marijuana Decriminalization, universal voting rights and more.....it seems this "Democrats need to move LEFT" is an ever shifting paradigm where one can look at current efforts and declare "insufficient" based on a set of utterly amorphous and ever changing standards.
Mind you, yes, absolutely she is better than Trump but I did support Sanders.
'Lack of a strong economic vision?' Um, what? Did you not hear her economic policy? She ran on a number of unashamedly progressive principles this election
And Sanders...if we play this game. Remember when Sanders voted for the AUMF? The Omnibus Crime Bill? His NRA puppetry? We can play the purity game with any politician, and Sanders is hardly some leftist radical.
That's literally the most egregious use of privilege ever. It's privilege to believe democracy should represent your views?
And yes, yes I do, because people are dying in Kentucky left and right because of Mitch Mc Connnel and the Republicans can destroy the environment, get us all killed in war, or destroy the economy with no support structure for the poor.
None of which means that you should vote for someone you don't believe in.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:14:47 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I'm someone who absolutely hates spending time outdoors, especially in the wilderness, but I'm willing to admit that those forests are needed, for oxygen and ecosystem maintenance. It would be foolhardy to cut them down without planting a replacement.
Would that it were so simple.
What is it about Democrats or their platform that you don't believe in? See, this is why Democrats lose. The gormless voting base looks for any reason not to vote Blue. Maybe the candidate is a woman or of color and too successful, maybe they're not avant-garde left, or hard-core protectionist, or aren't looking to seize the means of production, or they're from the coasts and not from Middle Murica, or they're not an out-and-out demagogue, or it took Saint Bernie a week too long to anoint him with his holy socialist oil, the list is endless. The left looks for any way they can to lose, and that includes talking nonsense out of their ass about "not believing" in a candidate. We have an entire army of politicians at every level of government waiting to take charge with concrete policy objectives and a willingness to do the hard and thankless work of repairing our ailing republic. What more do you want?
I consistently vote Blue.
And yes, I voted for Sanders.
I also mentioned above why I wasn't going to lengthy explain why (unless you really want me to) because I don't see the point. The situation with Trump means even if I'm underwhelmed and deeply unhappy with Democrats, they are winners by simply the virtue of not being Nazis.
And the GOP has become a fascist party.
I'd vote for just about anyone with the credential of "Not Nazi" in that respect.
I just believe Americans can and should be able to vote for candidates who reflect their values as well as gaols for America.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:20:13 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
People are really still going on with the whole “Clinton had no economic policy” BS?
The Republicans have dominated the narrative on her to an almost unbelievable degree.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:19:05 AM
They should have sent a poet.
I'm going to repeat myself, because you opted to ignore most of my post: 'fight the culture war?' What does this even mean? What haven't they been fighting on?
Keep in mind that the likeliest contenders for 2020 have now endorsed: Medicare for All, a Federal Jobs Guarantee, public Banking, Marijuana Decriminalization, universal voting rights and more.....it seems this "Democrats need to move LEFT" is an ever shifting paradigm where one can look at current efforts and declare "insufficient" based on a set of utterly amorphous and ever changing standards.
Treating a vote like a capitalistic consumer choice is privilege, because no candidate will ever represent 100 percent of your views. Voting should not be viewed as a "what about me" but as a "how can I do best for society and help others with the most feasible choice?"
And once again: And Sanders...if we play this game. Remember when Sanders voted for the AUMF? The Omnibus Crime Bill? His NRA puppetry? We can play the purity game with any politician, and Sanders is hardly some leftist radical.
There is a tendency for far left voters who say this to ignore that their goals are not the goals of the majority of America, and to ignore that not everyone is a secret far lefty just waiting for The One True Economic Argument to join the movement.
Edited by Lightysnake on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:19:54 AM
The Republicans have dominated the narrative on her to an almost unbelievable degree.
No, she did. It was a shitty one and insufficient for America's needs.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:20:16 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Right, and that's based on...?
The same type of people have been making the same type of argument for 3 quarters of a century. The New Deal? It sucked because it wasn't really socialist. Truman? The Fair Deal was awful, he wasn't really what we needed and he betrayed the New Deal. LBJ? Medicaid and Medicare? That's not what we REALLY need. Obama? he could have passed Medicare for All with his one true magic trick but he Didn't. Even. Try.
it's a shifting, amorphous standard that one can never pin down and always comes down to "it didn't agree with my views to the letter."
Edited by Lightysnake on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:22:18 AM
https://www.thebalance.com/hillary-clinton-2016-economic-plan-3305767
It's a middle class economic stimulus package.
I.e. the people who DON'T need help versus the actually destitute.
I could talk shit about the Democrat party and how it's consistently failed to make real headway into dealing with poverty in America (except for Obamacare—which God bless the people who were involved in that) but I'm confused at what people actually hope to accomplish by discussing it.
Again...I'll vote for anyone who isn't a Nazi.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:23:05 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Just...what?
You seem to have fully bought into a narrative pushed by Republicans. Clinton in particular really suffered from this, even Democrats seem to believe Republican-led myths about her.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:22:11 AM
They should have sent a poet.
The idea people can dislike Hillary Clinton but be Blue and be Liberal so they must be Brainwashed and Crazy is seriously annoying.
Can we drop that?
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:26:48 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
Don't vote for the lesser evil. Vote for Better. Every election, vote for the candidate who is Better. And then in the next election, vote for the Better candidate. If a candidate comes along who is Better than the previous Better candidate, vote for that one. Always vote for Better.
In the intervening years, write your congressperson. Be politically active. Go to protests. Go to rallies. Take part in caucuses. Contribute to the public narrative. Do everything in your power to make clear what your definition of Better is and how you would define such a Better candidate.
And then, next election, vote for Better.
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
I actually felt that there were some good ideas in her economic policies...Ie she wanted to push forward with building renewable energy supply in the same areas which are currently living from coal mining, thus creating new job opportunities in the areas. That's what I liked about her program, there was some topics which I felt she avoided to not p.. off donors and some where I would have picked a different path, but what was there was honest. She didn't pretend that coal mining truly has a future and instead put together a plan for it. She also seemed to be very aware of how much jobs will get lost due to automation and was looking into ways to create alternatives.
Edited by Swanpride on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:26:48 AM
Which is really the problem here that kind of makes the discussion pointless.
I wasn't impressed with Hillary versus Sanders and believed she was insufficiently Left.
But that's not an issue anymore. The Right has become fascist (or revealed its true colors) so I would gleefully, gladly be underwhelmed by her than I would be with the current horrorshitshow that is reversing decades of progress every day.
I'm critical of Hillary but God do I wish she'd been elected.
I'm Kentuckian/West Virginian and KNOW Hillary had the right idea about coal. It's a dead and dying industry that needs money to replace it. During the election, every other fucking commercial was her gaffe where she said, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners out of business." Forgetting it was so they could get into sustainable new jobs.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:29:21 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Can we drop that?
We're asking you, again and again to back up points you say here. You're making claims and when asked for evidence, you continuously aren't providing any.
Especially in favor of someone like Bernie Sanders, who's become a joke.
Edited by Lightysnake on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:32:10 AM
I don't understand what you're asking unless it is literally a point by point analysis of what I dislike about the Democratic party in 2016.
But the short version is the fact I am deeply unhappy with the handling of the Democratic party's economic policies in the sense that I think it really needs to re-orientated to socialist aid to the regions of the Rust Belt and Appalachia. A reorganizing of the industries there to sustainable one (which Hillary supported and I mentioned above. The education system needs to be overhauled and the debt eliminated there to the government as I just finished paying off mine awhile back.
An eliminate of for-profit prisons, overturning of mandatory sentencing, pardoning for drug based crimes, and a revitalizing of safety net services.
I'm deeply unhappy with the Obama administration continuation of centralizing Presidential power (which we saw the effects of) and their continued waging of the War on Terror the way it's been with no potential end. I hate the current legality of targeted assassinations as well as the authority of Presidents to move troops on his own without Congressional approval.
None of which is really relevant now other than it's in the hand of the Cheeto.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:37:51 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Dude, you tried to go back to Bill Clinton as a point, and then tried an argument on "Well, if you bring up Richard Nixon then the Democrats are still the party of segregation," a completely historically inconsistent and illogical argument.
You're arguing in generalities, claiming that "they need to go Left and fight the culture war" but you refuse to define what this means with any specifics whatsoever.
The problem isn’t that it’s impossible ikto dislike Clinton and be a liberal. The problem is that you are parroting the Republican line on her policies with seemingly no thought put into it.
The Republicans have dominated the narrative on the clintons. That’s undeniable. We don’t have to buy into their talking point though.
They should have sent a poet.
You yada-yadaed over Southern Democrats. That is crazy.
"Yes, the Democrats were progressive except for the South but they don't count."
The problem isn’t that it’s impossible ikto dislike Clinton and be a liberal. The problem is that you are parroting the Republican line on her policies with seemingly no thought put into it.
The Republicans have dominated the narrative on the clintons. That’s undeniable. We don’t have to buy into their talking point though.
What's their take on her? I don't read their material and judged for myself based on her website during the election.
https://money.cnn.com/2016/08/10/news/economy/hillary-clinton-economy/index.html
I've posted links to her plan in this page.
It's aimed at the middle class of America and not the impoverished.
What is so hard to criticize about that?
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:42:00 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
The thing is, I always hear how terrible Hillary Clinton would have been...but the majority of the people who say that can't tell me what exactly was so terrible about her.
And, speaking of this, I always her how terrible her campaign was, too, but let's not forget that Trump got coverage in the worth of millions of dollars by the press, she was dragged through the mud over literally nothing by the right wing media (including allusions that there was something wrong with her Fondation even though it is strictly audited and get a clean bill, while Trump uses his to funnel money into his own pocket), Comey actively sabotaged her by announcing one week before the election that he would look again into her damned E-Mails (which, for the record, were a giant nothing burger), the Russians had a wide-spread misinformation campaign going AND were actively influencing specific voters using stolen date, and she had the fact that she happens to be a female going against her and she still won the popular vote.
Frankly, it is a surprise that she did as well as she did considering the circumstances. Blame a "bad campaign" isn't really cutting it, you can say that about May's campaign, which was truly terrible, but Hillary did everything you would expect from a candidate and then some, but the deck was just stacked against her from the get go.
The short version of what I dislike about Hillary:
- No chance of repealing Presidential powers expanded under Bush.
- Continuing waging War of Terror policies I disagree with.
- The economic stimulus package of Hillary benefits working middle class Americans and not the destitute.
- No plans on changing the current American drug, law, and crime policies.
- Continued support of corporatization of farming
The short being, I wanted a candidate who wanted to tackle poverty in America.
And I got a President who is killing the poor.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:46:39 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I was about to start a hefty argument but then I realize I have no idea what we're even discussing. Which is my fault. I voted for Hillary despite my dislike of her policies and I'll vote for the Democrats next election.
"The Democrats are insufficiently Left" is a weird position to argue anyway as the Right has become fascist.
It's talking about could ofs, would ofs, and should ofs. Which are pointless now since Trump is in the White House and ruling as The Caligula.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 10:47:57 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.