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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Apparently, rumors about Trump's wild cocaine parties during the 80s are something of an open secret in New York, and periodically make rounds in the tabloids.
Edited by megaeliz on Jul 20th 2018 at 4:40:15 AM
Just to shake things up a bit and maybe recap a couple things lost in the latest topic:
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/07/20/day-547/
Day 547: Lordy, I hope there are tapes.
1/ Michael Cohen recorded a conversation with Trump two months before the presidential election discussing payments to Karen Mc Dougal, the former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump. Prosecutors want to know if Cohen's efforts to limit negative stories about Trump during the campaign violated federal campaign finance laws. The FBI seized the recording during the raid on Cohen's office. Rudy Giuliani confirmed that Trump had discussed the payments with Cohen on the tape, but said the payment was ultimately never made. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump-tape.html
WTF Rewind: Four days before the 2016 election. The company that owns the National Enquirer paid Mc Dougal $150,000 for her story about an with Trump affair a decade ago, but then didn't publish the story – effectively silencing Mc Dougal for the remainder of the campaign. At the time, Hope Hicks said, "We have no knowledge of any of this" agreement, adding that Mc Dougal's claim of an affair with Trump was "totally untrue." (Wall Street Journal)
2/ The FBI reopened the Hillary Clinton email investigation 11 days before election because they were focused on investigating the Trump campaign's connections to Russia, according to the FBI's Inspector General report. In late September 2016, FBI agents learned about a new batch of Clinton emails from the laptop of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who was under investigation for sexting a minor and was married at the time to Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The bureau was evidently overwhelmed with the urgency of the Trump-Russia investigation that management lapses and communication breakdowns caused a monthlong delay in looking into the new Clinton email. Nine days after announcing he was reopening the probe, James Comey said the FBI found nothing in the new email to change the original July decision against bringing charges. (The Intercept)
https://theintercept.com/2018/07/19/fbi-russia-clinton-email-inspector-general/
3/ The Justice Department will alert American companies, private organizations, and individuals when they are being targeted by foreign actors attempting to affect elections or the political process. "Exposing schemes to the public is an important way to neutralize them," Rod Rosenstein said. "The American people have a right to know if foreign governments are targeting them with propaganda." (Washington Post / USA Today)
4/ The Trump administration has reunited 364 of the 2,500+ children who were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. The administration has a week left before the court-imposed deadline to reunite the families. Of the 1,607 parents eligible for reunification, 719 have received final orders of deportation, meaning they could be deported as soon as they are reunited with their children. (NBC News)
Notables.
Trump: "I'm ready to go to $500" billion in tariffs on Chinese goods. "I'm not doing this for politics, I'm doing this to do the right thing for our country," Trump claimed. "We have been ripped off by China for a long time." So far, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, to which China has responded with tariffs of their own. (CNBC)
Starting August 1st, Americans can legally download plans for 3-D printable guns. These "ghost guns" don't have serial numbers and are untraceable. (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/19/us/3d-printed-gun-settlement-trnd/index.html
A Russian company cited a decision by Trump's Supreme Court nominee arguing that the charges against the firm should be thrown out. The ruling by Brett Kavanaugh prohibited foreigners from contributing to candidates or political parties, but it did not rule out donations or expenditures on independent advocacy campaigns. Concord Management and Consulting is one of 16 Russian individuals or companies indicted by Robert Mueller. It paid $1.25 million a month to the Internet Research Agency to interferer with the 2016 election. (Washington Post)
Mitch Mc Connell threatened to delay Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation vote until just before the midterms to keep vulnerable red-state Democrats off the campaign trail if Democrats keep pushing for access to related documents. (Politico)
Scott Pruitt's staff tried to protect him from formaldehyde exposure while he was suppressing the release of a report on the health dangers from the same chemical. Staff at the EPA organized for Pruitt's new office desk to be air out in a warehouse so he wouldn't have to breathe in any of the carcinogenic chemical. (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/19/scott-pruitt-formaldehyde-epa-698084
Week in Review:
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein revealed indictments against 12 Russians for the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, and we learned that Russian hackers went after Hillary Clinton's private office for the first time on the very day Trump said, "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." At the NATO summit in Brussels, Trump attacked a close European ally—Germany—and generally questioned the value of the alliance. Next, he visited the United Kingdom and trashed Prime Minister Theresa May. Then, in Helsinki, he met with Vladimir Putin privately for two hours, with no U.S. officials present other than a translator. After this suspicious meeting, he sang the Russian strongman's praises at a news conference at which he said he viewed Putin’s denials on a par with the unanimous and unchallenged conclusions of America’s intelligence agencies. (Politico)
You know when this whole tariff thing kicked off and I was saying that it wouldn't be that bad for the States? I officially rescind my prior judgement in light of recent events.
Nobody has told Trump that Chinese imports are a pretty sweet deal for the USA yet? You get vast quantities of stuff, China gets dollars that you can print and they can't spend on anything important because neither you nor Britain nor anyone else will sell them guns, pharma or tech. So they buy US treasuries en masse because there's nothing else, despite the fact they don't really want them that badly.
Trade wars and retaliatory tariffs are usually harmful regardless.
The only time you'd want something like that, such as imports restrictions and high tariffs, is when you are working on developing your industry or economic sector and needs to shield them from outside competition due to their undeveloped status.
The US is nowhere near needing something like this and those tariffs are eventually hurt the US citizen's pockets, specially the poor.
Inter arma enim silent leges
Correction, That's the only the only time you'd want something like that happening to yourself. But what of other nations. If you're a manipulative leader of another nation that isn't in a trade war, one that is working on establishing itself and its power. Wouldn't pitting one economy against another while forging trade pacts with other nations be beneficial for you, especially when you're not currently at risk of breaking trade with one or both of the warring economies?
Whether or not Vlad the Imperiler planned this, you can bet he's going to take as much advantage of this as possible.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jul 20th 2018 at 3:03:48 AM
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Most of the time tariffs basically serve as a flat tax on consumers, which is about as regressive as you can get. Capital controls are considerably more useful forms of protectionism in my book. They actually work at their intended purpose of stemming speculative bubbles and capital flight, and I have a vague hunch that not many people will give a damn if a few City of London executives lose their bonuses or relocate because of it.
Just to put some things in context as an Australian who has to deal with compulsory voting. Elections are held on Saturdays when more people (in theory) are not working, and while they are fewer in number than regular polling stations there are early polling stations open a week in advance of the election for those who can't make it (used those a couple of times myself) for those who do work on election day, larger, central polling stations have ballots for areas in case you're not in your registered seat on election day and postal voting for those in remote rural areas (and those like fly-in fly-out workers) is easy and actively encouraged.
This was some years ago now but my mother was in hospital giving birth to my sister in one election and they actually had a polling station in the hospital itself specifically for patients and pollsters coming around to assist the bed ridden (though medical exemptions are a valid reason for not voting).
Wow..I am curious, how do you encourage people to actually vote? Is there some kind of fine if you don't?
Germany doesn't have compulsory Votings, but there is really no reason to not do it. There is no voter registration, instead every citizen gets the voting slip send to its address. Voting can be done either by letter or directly at the ballot - and yes, we vote on Sundays too. And considering that even Supermarkets aso are closed on Sunday, there are really only a few people who have to work.
Edited by Swanpride on Jul 20th 2018 at 4:34:12 AM
Trump's participation in scumbag Epstein's child sex ring is an open secret.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/04/jeffrey-epstein-trump-lawsuit-sex-trafficking-237983
It's the insanity of this world that this sort of shit isn't more well known.
Or if it is known, people don't seem to care.
I mean, anyone who knows about Trump knows he was neck deep in cocaine and hookers constantly but his actions go beyond the relative "harmlessness" of this. The fact he abused very young women is not a secret. One time hosting a young girls' beauty pageant and doing his usual survey of their dressing areas.
Fuck that guy so much.
I wish I was Roman so I could go to a temple and curse him.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jul 20th 2018 at 4:54:15 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.You recall how he met some ten-year-old girl who was acclaimed for some scholastic achievement, and then commented: "I'll be dating her in ten years." Ugh, Squick! Brain Bleach!!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Or his comment about how if Ivanka wasn't his daughter, he'd be dating her.
That Trump is a rapist and a pedophile is an open secret.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 20th 2018 at 6:11:46 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
X3 Yeah it’s why I’m a bit unsure about the Ivanka jokes, like it’s be fine if we were talking about two adults just being gross and engaging in concencus incest, but if it is a real thing the odds are pretty good that it started when Ivanka was a child, and mocking her for having a sexual relationship with someone who raped her as a child is pretty out of line.
Ivanka isn’t a victim of much, but if she does/has had a sexual relationship with her father it won’t have been consensual or her part.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranAnd the Republicans try to impeach Bill with perjury over him denying he had sexual relations with a secretary.
Meanwhile the orange sleazebag in the White House is supposed to be the guy of the family values party.
Yeah, no wonder Trump endorsed Roy Moore, they are the same kind of dipshits.
Inter arma enim silent legesTrump said he would never have problems with being accused of inappropriate sexual relations because the only reason men objected to Bill was because they didn't think Monica was attractive enough.
...
God I hate our President.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.@CharlesPhipps: That whole spat a few pages ago reminds me I used to support Sanders back before I had a decent grasp on the reality of politics. The reality is he’s a worthless idealist at best and demonstrably incompetent at his actual job as a senator, possibly compromised by the Russian government, a protectionist like Trump, and would happily toss minorities under the bus to get his economic agenda through. While he’s not too old to realistically run again, he’s forced the party into a position where major contenders are forced to embrace sub-optimal policies in order to make it through the primaries. It’s also given a crowd of problematic voters an overinflated sense of importance, which is somewhat annoying.
The one thing I will give him is that he was better at campaigning than Clinton, who while a competent (though not spectacular) policymaker always struggled to win competitive elections. While misogyny was a large component of that, votes are votes regardless of how legitimate the sentiments behind them are.

It makes more sense if you keep in mind that historically the US has more often then not put markets above democracy.
But yes it's something we dearly need, alongside efforts to remove all the other methods used to suppress democratic activity amongst... well quite a few demographics.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 20th 2018 at 4:30:59 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang