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3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#241526: May 8th 2018 at 8:32:21 AM

I saw a (probably) not serious tweet that Hillary Clinton would technically be a legal choice for the job. Beyond imagining that Presidential Temper Tantrum, I am aware that she's probably wanting her peace just now.

"You can reply to this Message!"
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#241527: May 8th 2018 at 8:41:43 AM

At this point, the drug lords in [West Virginia] would be better candidates.
Is it too late to get one of them into the primary?
if Blankenship hands the ball to Manchin, that's one more seat on the road to a Democratic Senate
How many people in WV would, or have, actually voted for a Democrat anything? I thought it was one of those firmly-red states, and despite his history of greedy neglect, Blankenship doesn't seem to be Roy Moore levels of repulsive.
Hillary Clinton would technically be a legal choice for the job. Beyond imagining that Presidential Temper Tantrum, I am aware that she's probably wanting her peace just now.
While imagining Trump's reaction to that is hilarious, the optics on that ... honestly it could damn well spark civil unrest we haven't seen since the mid-1800s. At least 30% of the country would instantly and forever believe that all the very real evidence was manufactured by a new Clinton Conspiracy™.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241528: May 8th 2018 at 8:45:07 AM

Worth a read (from Wa Po)

As the ‘King of Debt,’ Trump borrowed to build his empire. Then he began spending hundreds of millions in cash.

In the nine years before he ran for president, Donald Trump’s company spent more than $400 million in cash on new properties — including 14 transactions paid for in full, without borrowing from banks — during a buying binge that defied real estate industry practices and Trump’s own history as the self-described “King of Debt.”

Trump’s vast outlay of cash, tracked through public records and totaled publicly here for the first time, provides a new window into the president’s private company, which discloses few details about its finances.

It shows that Trump had access to far more cash than previously known, despite his string of commercial bankruptcies and the Great Recession’s hammering of the real estate industry.

Why did the “King of Debt,” as he has called himself in interviews, turn away from that strategy, defying the real estate wisdom that it’s unwise to risk so much of one’s own money in a few projects?

And how did Trump — who had money tied up in golf courses and buildings — raise enough liquid assets to go on this cash buying spree?

From the outside, it is difficult to assess how much cash the Trump Organization has on hand.

Eric Trump, a son of the president who helps manage the company, told The Washington Post that none of the cash used to purchase the 14 properties came from outside investors or from selling off major Trump Organization assets.

Instead, Eric Trump said, the firm’s existing businesses — commercial buildings in New York, licensing deals for Trump-branded hotels and clothes — produced so much cash that the Trumps could tap that flow for spending money.

“He had incredible cash flow and built incredible wealth,” Eric Trump said. “He didn’t need to think about borrowing for every transaction. We invested in ourselves.”

He added: “It’s a very nice luxury to have.”

The cash purchases began with a $12.6 million estate in Scotland in 2006. In the next two years, he snapped up two homes in Beverly Hills. Then five golf clubs along the East Coast. And a winery in Virginia.

The biggest cash binge came last, in the year before Trump announced his run for president. In 2014, he paid a combined $79.7 million for large golf courses in Scotland and Ireland. Since then, those clubs have lost money while Trump renovated them, requiring him to pump in $164 million in cash to keep them running.

Trump’s lavish spending came at a time when his business was leaning largely on one major financial institution for its new loans — Deutsche Bank, which provided $295 million in financing for big projects in Miami and Washington.

Eric Trump said his father wasn’t forced to turn to a cash-heavy strategy. Trump could have borrowed more if he wanted, he said. But he had soured on borrowing in general, Eric Trump said, after contending with unpaid debts in the early 1990s.

“Those lessons undoubtedly shaped his business approach and the conservative nature of how we conduct business today,” Eric Trump said.

Real estate investors typically don’t buy big properties with their money alone. They find partners to invest and banks to lend alongside them. That allows the investors to amplify their buying power, and it increases the odds of earning higher returns.

“For privately held real estate firms, basically they like to use as much debt as they can. The only brakes are put on by the lending institutions, who don’t want to lend too much,” said David Geltner, a professor of real estate finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Industry experts said avoiding loans can alleviate risk for real estate companies and allow them to maneuver more quickly.

But they said that approach is typically undertaken by cash-rich investors that aren’t focused on maximizing the money they make off a property or by companies that aren’t trying to minimize their tax bills, because interest payments on mortgages are often tax-deductible. Companies that have trouble obtaining loans would also turn to cash, they noted.

Particularly when pursuing major projects, private real estate firms usually borrow. “I still think at the end of the day, you want some debt,” said Ed Walter, a Georgetown University real estate professor and former chief executive of Host Hotels, which owns more than 100 hotels under various brands.

Trump himself embraced that philosophy — extolling the virtues of borrowing big, even more enthusiastically than other real estate executives. Until, suddenly, he didn’t.

To total up Trump’s cash payments in real estate transactions, The Washington Post examined land records and corporate reports from six U.S. states, Ireland and the United Kingdom. These records show purchase prices for Trump’s properties, details about any mortgages and — in the United Kingdom and Ireland — the amount of cash Trump plowed into his clubs after he bought them. The Post provided the figures it used to the Trump Organization, which did not dispute them.

Documents tell the story — written in tiny type and in the lifeless prose of lawyers — of Trump’s flashy career in real estate.

It was a career built on chutzpah, debt . . . and more debt.

“He always used other people’s money. That’s for sure. Not cash,” said Barbara Res, who was a top executive for Trump throughout the 1980s and continued to work for him for most of the 1990s. “He always got somebody to put up funds for him. To put up the money. And he’d put up the brilliance.”

Debt helped make Trump in the first place, allowing the prince of an outer-borough apartment empire to play a king in Manhattan.

In 1988, when Trump bought New York’s famed Plaza Hotel, he paid $407.5 million. He got a $425 million loan.

“If the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I won’t lose a dollar,” Trump bragged to a reporter in 1988. He said he had offloaded the risk by investing and borrowing against other people’s money.

But then it was debt that nearly sank Trump, when a late-’80s recession undercut his risky investments in hotels, casinos and airplanes. Among the things he lost was the Plaza: The bank took it back and sold it for $325 million in 1995. He never personally went bankrupt, but his real estate holdings dwindled.

Then debt helped him come back.

After several low years in the 1990s, Trump began to rebuild his real estate business with borrowed money. He got mortgages to buy an office building on Wall Street. Golf courses in Florida and New York. A $700,000 home in Palm Beach, Fla.

George Ross, a senior counsel who advised Trump for 25 years, summed up the developer’s attitude toward debt in one sentence.

“Borrow as much as you can for as long as you can,” Ross wrote in his book “Trump Strategies for Real Estate.”

In the book, Ross explained that borrowing allowed Trump to seed his money into multiple projects at once, then fill out the rest with loans and partners’ investments, protecting his bank account and getting significant tax write-offs on the interest he had to pay.

“When Trump invests in a real estate project, he typically puts up less of his own money than you might think,” Ross wrote, explaining how Trump followed this rule. “Typically, his investors in the project will put up 85 percent while Trump puts up 15 percent.”

Then in 2006, the same year Ross’s book was published, Trump changed his approach.

He began buying up land near Aberdeen, on Scotland’s North Sea coast. Trump ultimately paid $12.6 million for the property. He’s spent at least $50 million more to build a golf course there, which was wrapped up in land-use fights and didn’t open until 2012.

“Even his closest senior advisers in NYC were surprised” that Trump paid cash, recounted Neil Hobday, a British developer who worked on the Aberdeen project with Trump.

Why did he do it?

Hobday said it was a personal connection: Trump’s mother was born in Scotland.

“He was, I believe, ‘mystically’ connected and hooked to this project. All my conversations with him were almost on an emotional rather than hard business level,” Hobday wrote in an email to The Post.

But Trump soon began to buy other properties in cash, in places far from his mother’s homeland.

In 2008 and 2009, he paid $17.4 million in cash for two neighboring Beverly Hills homes.

In 2009, Trump spent at least $6.7 million on two golf clubs, one outside New York City and another outside Philadelphia.

In Charlottesville, he paid $16.2 million for a winery, buying up the first plots in 2011. “I own it 100 percent, no mortgage, no debt. You can all check,” Trump said of that winery during the 2016 campaign.

By 2011, Trump had spent at least $46 million on all-cash purchases.

Public records reveal some details about the Trump Organization’s finances during this time period.

The company was taking in tens of millions from the sale of residential properties, including a home in Palm Beach for $95 million in 2008. It made money off licensing deals: In 2015, Trump reported making at least $9.1 million from those deals over 16 months. The firm also collected rent from its commercial buildings, producing what Forbes recently estimated was $175 million annually.

But that wasn’t all free cash. Those businesses came with costs — salaries, renovations, taxes, payments on existing mortgages — that pulled money out of the business. Those costs haven’t been released.

In the same period, some of Trump’s companies also experienced financial problems. His publicly traded casino and hotel company declared bankruptcy in 2009. And in 2008, Trump sued Deutsche Bank to challenge the size of his payments on a loan related to his tower in Chicago. Trump’s logic in that case: The 2008 financial crisis had crushed the real estate business so completely that it should be considered like an act of God.

Eric Trump said that, in this time, the company had accumulated enough cash to have ready spending money, so it could bid on short notice.

When the Trumps felt an emotional connection to a property, Eric Trump said, they didn’t want to wait for banks and outside partners to sign off. So they paid cash.

“We want to be nimble. If we see an unbelievable opportunity or something that interests us, we want to jump on it,” he said.

“With lenders, every time you sneeze, you have to write a four-page report,” he added.

Despite that distaste for bankers’ paperwork, the Trump Organization still obtained loans in this period from Deutsche Bank. Starting in 2012, Trump borrowed $125 million from Deutsche to purchase the Doral golf club in Florida and $170 million from the same bank to renovate the Old Post Office into a hotel in Washington. The Trump Organization declined to comment about why it turned to borrowing in these cases.

Trump spent $65 million of his own on those two deals to cover the costs that Deutsche Bank did not.

Then the spending got bigger.

The year before he launched his campaign for president, Trump made the two most expensive all-cash purchases that The Post found in its review. In 2014, he shelled out $79.7 million for the huge golf resorts in Doonbeg, Ireland, and Turnberry, Scotland — both of which were losing money at the time.

The golf courses were his most recent cash deals and last acquisitions before becoming president.

The Trump Organization pursued pricey renovations of both courses, during which time the properties have continued to suffer losses. Under Trump, the two courses are at least $240 million in the hole so far, according to British and Irish corporate records.

Had Trump financed the property, the risks to the investment would be shared among lenders and other partners.

Geltner said it was unusual to see a company not bring in financial partners in either the purchase or construction of such large development projects.

Eric Trump said that when he, his brother, Donald Trump Jr., and sister, Ivanka Trump, joined their father’s business over a decade ago, they agreed to grow the company around properties that would produce income long-term.

He said that they would never sell any of their properties and that he expected the European clubs to lose money while they were being renovated. The Trumps plan to wait, work and eventually make their money back.

“You’re going to have some operational losses,” he said, “and then you get into the black, and you make great money.”

During the 2016 campaign, Trump continued to brag about how he’d mastered the art of spending other people’s cash.

“I do that all the time in business: It’s called other people’s money. There’s nothing like doing things with other people’s money because it takes the risk,” Trump told a campaign-trail audience in North Carolina in September 2016. “You get a good chunk of it, and it takes the risk.”

Sounds like Trump was running a laundry mat.

[down] oh sorry! Here it is.

edited 8th May '18 9:08:16 AM by megaeliz

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#241529: May 8th 2018 at 8:53:46 AM

Please include a link to the article you're copying. Where it was published and who wrote it are usually useful bits of information to have.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#241530: May 8th 2018 at 9:26:25 AM

How many people in WV would, or have, actually voted for a Democrat anything?

They elected the current Democrat Senator in both 2010 and 2012, they also elected him governor in 2004. Hell in 2005 Blankenship sued Manchin over that election.

The 2011 (special) election, 2012 election and 2016 election for governor were all won by democrats, the only reason West Virginia has a Republican Governor now is because the democrat who won switched to being a Republican.

Hell the other West Virginia Senate seat was held by a democrat until 2014 (and the 2014 win was the first West Virginia Senate seat the republicans had won in 58 years).

West Virginia is weird, it votes solid red at the presidential level but seems to like local democrats.

edited 8th May '18 9:28:30 AM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#241531: May 8th 2018 at 9:36:33 AM

[up]Probably because the Republicans' terrible, terrible policies are much more visible at the local level, while the fact that the Democrats actually give two shits about their constituents' well-being is also more evident at the local level.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241533: May 8th 2018 at 10:14:25 AM

[up] Crap.

Why do the Republicans hate it so much anyway?

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#241534: May 8th 2018 at 10:15:27 AM

Because Obama did it and they're pathologically focused on the Hostage crisis.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#241535: May 8th 2018 at 10:23:00 AM

That and having Iran as The Enemy is always a good target to build 'Foreign Policy Profile'

"You can reply to this Message!"
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241536: May 8th 2018 at 10:25:56 AM

We all knew it was coming, but still...ugh.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#241537: May 8th 2018 at 10:26:08 AM

There's also nothing quite like a good old-fashioned war to funnel tax funds towards weapon manufacturers and military contractors.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241538: May 8th 2018 at 10:28:30 AM

After this, him being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize would be an even more disgusting joke.

Disgusted, but not surprised
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#241540: May 8th 2018 at 10:30:20 AM

[up][up][up]Lets not be hasty, it's not impossible but it's more than plausible that this will just lead to sanctions on Iran and further saber-rattling. War is by no means guaranteed and it's counter-productive to suggest otherwise.

edited 8th May '18 10:30:28 AM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Steven (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#241541: May 8th 2018 at 10:32:05 AM

It's going to take maybe a decade or three for our future presidents to clean up Trump's bullshit.

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#241542: May 8th 2018 at 10:32:15 AM

[up][up][up] Russia and Iran are allies. I imagine Putin might have mixed feelings about this mess.

[up] And that's assuming the GOP doesn't keep making more messes or sabotaging cleanup efforts. Which of course they will.

edited 8th May '18 10:32:55 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#241543: May 8th 2018 at 10:35:58 AM

Nonsense, there's absolutely nothing manufacturers and contractors hate more than a shooting war. It means they have to actually do their job.

They love an arms race and a cold war and a buildup of weapons that will never be used.

Oh really when?
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#241544: May 8th 2018 at 10:37:48 AM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/05/08/day-474/

Day 474: Opposition media.

1/ Trump will announce the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the accord, and impose additional economic penalties. Trump's aides persuaded him twice last year not to withdraw. Trump will formally announce his decision at 2 p.m. today at the White House. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html

2/ Trump is frustrated with Rudy Giuliani's inability to handle the Stormy Daniels situation and is concerned that Giuliani's media appearances are raising more questions than they are answering. Some aides say they expect Trump to fire Giuliani if he is unable to turn things around. Trump recently told a confidant that perhaps Giuliani should "be benched" from TV appearances temporarily if he can't stay on-message. Giuliani, however, said that Trump "is encouraging me to do more of them. I try to keep them under control," adding that Trump is "very comfortable" with the strategy. (Politico / Associated Press / The Hill)

https://www.apnews.com/ee2452ce9b2d4c1e829455d0e8ee2f96/Trump-considers-benching-Giuliani-from-doing-TV-interviews

3/ Robert Mueller rejected Trump's request to answer questions from investigators in writing. Trump's legal team had been pushing for Mueller to allow him to submit written answers, because they're afraid that Trump might lie to or mislead investigators during an in-person interview. Giuliani said he would fight a potential subpoena for Trump to testify in front of a grand jury, but has stopped short of saying that Trump would ignore a subpoena from the special counsel. (CBS News)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mueller-rejects-potus-request-to-answer-questions-in-writing/

4/ Trump's lawyers hope to decide whether he will testify by May 17th – the one-year anniversary of the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump's lawyers contend that testifying would be a distraction to his work as president. However, in an informal, four-hour practice session, Trump was only able to walk through two questions. "Anyone can see he has great difficulty staying on a subject," one person familiar with the legal team's deliberations said. (Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lawyers-aim-to-decide-by-may-17-whether-president-testifies-in-mueller-probe-1525727774

5/ Senior White House staff are urging Trump to fire EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who is currently the subject of 11 federal investigations. Some Republicans are also calling for his resignation. Trump has championed Pruitt up to this point, but support from the president appears to be waning as Pruitt's mounting legal and ethical issues continue to pile up. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/climate/trump-fire-pruitt-epa.html

Internal EPA documents show Pruitt held private, high-level meetings at the Trump International Hotel in Washington with industry lobbyists on at least four occasions. (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/internal-documents-pull-back-curtain-pruitt-s-epa-n872131

poll/ 63% of Americans believe that the US should not withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord, compared to 29% who believe the US should withdraw. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/politics/poll-iran-agreement/index.html

poll/ 60% of voters oppose the Interior Department's plan to expand oil and gas drilling off coastal states. 70% of respondents supported state's rights to request a drilling exemption through a waiver. (The Hill)

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/386695-60-percent-of-voters-oppose-the-trump-administrations-offshore

poll/ Trump's job approval rating hits 40%. 85% of Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing, while 89% of Democrats and 55% of independents disapprove. (CBS News)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trumps-job-approval-ticks-up-cbs-news-poll/

Notables.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned after four women accused him of physically assaulting them. The women claim that he frequently hit them after drinking, often in bed and never with their consent. Two of the women say Schneiderman threatened to kill them if they broke up with him. Schneiderman resigned three hours after the allegations were made public. Schneiderman positioned himself as a public champion of women's rights and an outspoken figure in the #Me Too! movement. (The New Yorker / New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/nyregion/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-abuse.html

Fair-housing advocates sued HUD Secretary Ben Carson for suspending Obama-era fair-housing rules, which required every community receiving HUD funding to assess local segregation patterns, diagnose the barriers to fair housing and develop a plan to correct them. (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/hud-secretary-ben-carson-to-be-sued-for-suspending-obama-era-fair-housing-rule/2018/05/07/ef72db8a-523c-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html

Oliver North was named the National Rifle Association's new president. North worked for Reagan's National Security Council and was convicted as part of a scheme to sell weapons to Iran and use the proceeds to fund the rebel Contras in Nicaragua. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/07/nra-president-oliver-north-572296

Melania Trump's "Be Best" campaign plagiarized a document from the Obama administration. Aside from the introductory page, the entire "Talking With Kids About Being Online" booklet is virtually identical to the "Net Cetera," a booklet published by the FTC under Obama. (The Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/07/melania-trump-plagiarism-row-be-best-campaign

Melania's office blamed "opposition media" for "lob[ing] baseless accusations" that her "Be Best" pamphlet plagiarized the FTC, saying Melania received a "standing ovation" for her "strong speech." (Daily Beast)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/first-ladys-office-only-opposition-media-think-melania-trump-plagiarized


EDIT: Just got this notification as I was posting:

"Trump administration officials tell members of Congress U.S. is withdrawing from Iran nuclear accord -Congressional Aides"... - Get updates at Reuters.com

edited 8th May '18 10:41:28 AM by sgamer82

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#241545: May 8th 2018 at 10:38:51 AM

Rudy is so fired

i'm tired, my friend
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#241546: May 8th 2018 at 10:43:05 AM

The one really pushing for the Iran deal withdrawal seems to be Netanyahu...probably because he wants to use it as distraction from a massive corruption scandal back home.

Maybe even a short, victorious war to stem the tide of prosecution.

edited 8th May '18 10:43:24 AM by 3of4

"You can reply to this Message!"
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#241547: May 8th 2018 at 10:43:39 AM

You know Melania, if you were gonna plagiarize the book, you may as well have plagiarized the title for your campaign as well. Anything's gotta be better than "Be Best" *shudder*.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#241548: May 8th 2018 at 10:44:03 AM

[up] Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes! Don't forget why the good lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes, but plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize!

only be sure to call it, please, "Research"

4/ Trump's lawyers hope to decide whether he will testify by May 17th – the one-year anniversary of the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump's lawyers contend that testifying would be a distraction to his work as president. However, in an informal, four-hour practice session, Trump was only able to walk through two questions. "Anyone can see he has great difficulty staying on a subject," one person familiar with the legal team's deliberations said. (Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-lawyers-aim-to-decide-by-may-17-whether-president-testifies-in-mueller-probe-1525727774

What work? Twitter and Golf?

edited 8th May '18 10:49:14 AM by megaeliz

3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#241549: May 8th 2018 at 10:48:52 AM

5/ Senior White House staff are urging Trump to fire EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who is currently the subject of 11 federal investigations. Some Republicans are also calling for his resignation. Trump has championed Pruitt up to this point, but support from the president appears to be waning as Pruitt's mounting legal and ethical issues continue to pile up. (New York Times)

Pwease Mr Pwesident, not the bwiar patch!

"You can reply to this Message!"
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#241550: May 8th 2018 at 11:27:50 AM

Trump will announce the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the accord, and impose additional economic penalties

What a predictable and pointless flushing of the country’s soft power and credibility in the world. Our nation’s word is no longer worth the paper it’s printed on. The takeaway that every country in the world now has to legitimately consider is that every 4 years we may vote someone into our highest office who has no respect for, and will not honor peace treaties, trade deals, international laws and customs, etc. And no close ties, no historical bonds, no internal checks on executive power will get in the way.

And during all this, nearly half the country will applaud rapturously.

And there’s no hope to even gain anything from it. So the U.S. is going to impose sanctions? So what? We have virtually 0 trade with Iran anyway, and the rest of the countries that used to be part of the sanctions aren’t going to impose them again, so either we’re going to make ourselves look incompetent and impotent, or we’re going to declare war on a country again for no good reason and not even a fig leaf of a rationalization.

There’s no rational reason any country should trust us longer than, at most, a single election cycle again. We’re fucked, and we did it all to ourselves.

As the ‘King of Debt,’ Trump borrowed to build his empire. Then he began spending hundreds of millions in cash.

Megaeliz posted this story on the bottom of the prior page, and I posted it a few pages back, and I really want to encourage EVERYONE to read it.

TLDR version is that Trump’s entire business empire was built on aggressive use of debt and borrowing, even more so than the standard practice in real estate, which makes a lot of use of this. Then suddenly about a decade before the 2016 election, Trump starts buying everything in cash, no borrowing, no outside investors to pool the risk, nothing. Due to how opaque Trump’s finances are, (ditto for his business) nobody knows how he came up with the money or where it came from.

It’s pretty powerful, albeit circumstantial, evidence that he’s either working for Russian money laundering, or is being directly paid and backed by Putin and his allies.

edited 8th May '18 11:28:03 AM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

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