Donald Trump - MAGAtwat news and discussion

[Nylock]

As for electoral college wins, you'd have to go a long way before beating this one:

US 1936 GE Result

 

[Yossarian]

Yeah he lost to Biden that is not being questioned. Your claim it was 'the largest victory in presidential election history' is, rather Trumpia, ncobblers though isn't it.

It was a reasonably large win in terms of the share of vote (for modern elections), likewise it ended up as a decent margin in EC votes. but it was not the largest, I don't think it would even count as a crushing - compared to Reagan in 84.

I definitely wouldn't call it a crushing - as in 2016, the result came down to a a margin of 80,000 votes across a few states

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/elections/vote-margin-of-victory/

 

[two sheds]

Another oops

Trump’s $50 Million Mystery Debt Looks Like ‘Tax Evasion’

Donald Trump has long claimed he personally owed tens of millions to an obscure entity related to his Chicago tower. But court docs claim Trump Org. now says it never existed.

www.thedailybeast.com

Always read the footnotes.

That’s where former federal judge Barbara Jones, the court-appointed special monitor in Donald Trump’s New York business fraud case, just planted a financial bombshell that legal experts say suggests Trump lied knowingly and repeatedly on his federal financial disclosures about a major loan that never existed—and may have evaded taxes on $48 million in income.

“When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump, individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48 million,” Jones wrote, referencing the name of Trump’s LLC that held his debt.

“However, in recent discussions with the Trump Organization, it indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed—and thus that it would be removed from any upcoming forms submitted to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and would also be removed from subsequent versions of [corporate financial statements],” Jones wrote.

...

But it appears even worse in Trump’s case: He apparently never bought the debt to begin with. If so, the experts said, Trump would have essentially pocketed the $48 million that had been canceled, and then simply invented a new loan to cover it up or misdirect financial scrutiny.

but likely to come to nothing apparently ...

 

[moochedit]

As for electoral college wins, you'd have to go a long way before beating this one:

US 1936 GE Result

Didn't Reagon get all states except 1 in 1984?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

He stands to loose 100s of millions of dollars in the NY Fraud case

 

[two sheds]

I'd imagine he might have to pay that lot, rather than in just a civil case that he can presumably avoid.

 

[Ax^]

always felt that this run is less about becoming the president that

 

[pogofish]

He won't have it in liquid cash, but he will have it in assets. He is in a sticky spot though. Even without his lawyer fees and court pay outs, his empire currently costs more than it makes to run. He would have performed better as a 'business man' if he had never done anything with his inheritance.
The art of the deal my arse.

A great many of Trump's assets are already in hock to his various banks/major creditors - Deutsche Bank in particular, they came out of his last bankruptcy, virtually owning his ass. Other than the name on the buildings, all Trump retained control of was a role akin to a managing agent.

His golf courses are about all he has developed since then and we all know there are serious issues of overvaluation with them and some considerable obfuscation about just who his major backers are.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Could all his finances suddenly go to shit in a robert maxwell stlye? Are his various confections of bullshit assets - created to cover the holes in the previous one - about to disintergrate?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

and if he was to file for bankruptcy (like what Rudy Giuliani has done) to get out of paying up, would that automatically disqualify him from the presidency?

i think you can't be an MP in the UK if you're bankrupt, but don't know what the rules are for this.

 

[pogofish]

Could all his finances suddenly go to shit in a robert maxwell stlye? Are his various confections of bullshit assets - created to cover the holes in the previous one - are about to disintergrate?

I think he's been straddling that knife edge for a very long time now - His last bankruptcy was potentially huge and it was only the rescue deal his father came out of retirement to negotiate that saved him from complete financial obliteration.

I doubt he'd be as able to do such a deal by himself and especially not today.

The core of his income, even today isn't the big/flashy Manhattan and elsewhere stuff that the banks took over in exchange for bailing him-out, its the regular unglamorous money Trump Org gets from managing the public housing projects his father built in the arse-end of Brooklyn and other less salubrious parts of New York.

Those contracts must come-up for renewal periodically? Maybe more meaningful damage could be done to Trump by striving to find alternative companies to take them-on instead?

 

[Smangus]

I suspect his finances are a house of cards, once he has to stop juggling repayments due to insufficient liquidity and can't move debt around to cover various liabilities it will all come crumbling down. That's why he has to keep on with the bluster and court cases.

 

[two sheds]

"Bring on that third lawsuit"

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Good words from Monbiot.

To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer | George Monbiot

US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican front runner, writes Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

 

[kabbes]

Good words from Monbiot.

To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer | George Monbiot

US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican front runner, writes Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

It’s appealing to see the world in terms of categories like this, but I’m in the camp that believes this approach to psychology is a dead-end. All it does is describe a pattern, it doesn’t offer you an underlying reason how and why that pattern occurs, or an indication as to when and why the pattern might end. I think what’s going on is a lot deeper than just creating static categories like “extrinsic” or “personality” and sorting people into those categories. At the end of the day, saying that people are of the “extrinsic type” hasn’t really told you anything about what they are, how they became that way or under what circumstances they may exhibit different actions.

You’re better off looking at the cultural tools people use to make sense of the world and working out how those tools imply certain sense-making that manifests as particular patterns. Trump seems to use market pricing and authority ranking to make sense of relationships between many things that the rest of us would make sense of via communal sharing or equality matching modes. Why is this? I suspect in part it is to do with an extreme form of a development process that used money to understand everything about the world, combined with one in which he existed in a kind of hierarchical bubble. He’s what happens when your internalisation of financialised capitalism reaches its ultimate form. All ways of making sense of the relationship between self, other and object have been collapsed into solipsistic need combined with exchange value — that this would happen was actually predicted by Sohn-Rethel back in the 1970s. And, ironically, Monbiot is himself falling into the epistemological trap of using the very positivist tools that are fostered by this solipsism in order to try to make sense of this — it can’t work. But to really understand Trump personally would require more than snap judgement from a distance.

 

[petee]

i see that Haley has supported the jury verdict.
so long vice-presidency.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Excellent article explaining why Trump should be barred from running under the 14th ammendment and why the arguments against doing so are weak:

"There are no magic words or magic processes to prevent right-wing reaction—not passing the Reconstruction Amendments, not passing the Votings Rights Act with large bipartisan majorities, not literally defeating them in a Civil War, and on and on. The only way forward is to fight them using every tool at our disposal, which includes holding them accountable when they break the law."

Enforcing the Law to Disqualify a Violent Insurrectionist Is Good, Actually

The Supreme Court case about Trump's eligibility for the ballot in Colorado should not be hard. Why are pundits trying to make it so?

ballsandstrikes.org

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Legal brief filed before SCOTUS from historians arguing that article 3 of the 14th ammendment was intended to apply to people like Trump:

US historians sign brief to support Colorado’s removal of Trump from ballot

Twenty-five civil war and Reconstruction scholars support invoking 14th amendment to bar Trump from ballot over January 6

www.theguardian.com

Wonder if the so-called 'originalists' on the court will actually pay attention to history for once, rather than just selectively weaponising it to advance their political agenda? (hint, they probably wont).

 

[Wilf]

Good words from Monbiot.

To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer | George Monbiot

US culture is an incubator of ‘extrinsic values’. Nobody embodies them like the Republican front runner, writes Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

It has useful things to say about the values of neoliberalism, but it doesn't take us to the actions of the Democrats, the rest of the American 'establishment' and how they paved the way for Trump. It doesn't get into voter alienation and anger and why voting for a ridiculous clown, rather than Clinton, was the best option for millions of voters. It's a bit thin on politics.

 

[stavros]

Could all his finances suddenly go to shit in a robert maxwell stlye?

I'm willing to chip in to hire a boat.

 

[pogofish]

I'm willing to chip in to hire a boat.

Seems that despite not liking boats, Trump had to have one and then sold it at a bigly loss.

From the archives: Inside Donald Trump’s lavish 86m superyacht Trump Princess

The story of how former US president Donald Trump bought the 86m yacht Trump Princess (now Kingdom 5KR, lying in San Remo) for close to $30million...

www.boatinternational.com

Now sailing under the Saudi flag. Owned by a particularly obscenely wealthy prince who once helped bail Trump out of one of his bankruptcies but now doesn't get along with him. Hmmm...

KINGDOM 5KR

KINGDOM 5KR is a 85.9m superyacht built by Benetti in Italy and delivered in 1980. Explore her photos and specifications here.

www.boatinternational.com

 

[two sheds]

Trump says he's looking for new lawyers amid report he's not "happy"

"Any lawyer who takes a TRUMP CASE is either 'CRAZY,' or a TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT," Trump wrote.

www.salon.com

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Wednesday joked that Trump had “83.3 million reasons” to ditch Habba, calling her “one of the most ill-prepared attorneys for a case of this magnitude, maybe in the history of the planet.”

Wouldn't fancy her chances of getting paid any time soon

 

[chandlerp]

She's already been paid by a PAC. $2.5m I believe so far.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Trump says he's looking for new lawyers amid report he's not "happy"

"Any lawyer who takes a TRUMP CASE is either 'CRAZY,' or a TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT," Trump wrote.

www.salon.com

Wouldn't fancy her chances of getting paid any time soon

This is why anyone with a brain would never be Trump’s lawyer:

(1) they’ll lose their case, in a very humiliating way
(2) Trump likely won’t pay their fees
(3) Trump will publicly blame them for the loss.

This is also why Trump’s lawyers are all brainless

 

[Ax^]

tbf if he get the GOP nomination they'll start paying his bills again it why he wants it

otherwise he is bankrupt shortly

 

[rubbershoes]

tbf if he get the GOP nomination they'll start paying his bills again it why he wants it

otherwise he is bankrupt shortly

Time to issue some more Trump NFTs

 

[chandlerp]

Bit miffed that Judge Engoron didn't live up to delivering his verdict by end of January

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Bit miffed that Judge Engoron didn't live up to delivering his verdict by end of January

Perhaps it's more fun to space out the gut punch damages - like a good tv drama airing on a weekly basis rather than all dropping at the same time of Netflix. You've got to savour the flavour. The E. Jean Carrol damages were a tasty little amuse-bouche for us to chew on while we wait for this main course. Here's hoping for $350m! (doubt it'll be that much but I'll take anything > $100m).

 

[Jeff Robinson]

May 2024 be the year that Trump + Wooton + Brand + Tate get their comeuppance and Musk declares bankrupcy.

 

[two sheds]

Donald Trump’s ‘sex and bribes’ data protection case rejected by UK court

Ex-US president took action over allegations he took part in ‘perverted acts’ and bribed Russian officials

www.theguardian.com

No details, but an interesting approach to defending the Russian sex acts accusations.

Eta: details up there now - he was apparently too late (beyond six years) to bring the case.