Trump should release his tax returns, but only after Hillary releases 1) a list of her foreign donors, 2) a medical report.
I never thought Trump wanted really to become president, so this makes perfect sense to me:
"Donald Trump never actually wanted to be president of the United States. I know this for a fact. Iâm not going to say how I know it. Iâm not saying that Trump and I shared the same agent or lawyer or stylist or, if we did, that that would have anything to do with anything. And Iâm certainly not saying that I ever overheard anything at those agencies or in the hallways of NBC or anywhere else. But there are certain people reading this right now, they know who they are, and they know that every word in the following paragraphs actually happened.
Trump was unhappy with his deal as host and star of his hit NBC show, âThe Apprenticeâ (and âThe Celebrity Apprenticeâ). Simply put, he wanted more money. He had floated the idea before of possibly running for president in the hopes that the attention from that would make his negotiating position stronger. But he knew, as the self-proclaimed king of the dealmakers, that saying youâre going to do something is bupkus â DOING it is what makes the bastards sit up and pay attention.
Trump had begun talking to other networks about moving his show. This was another way to get leverage â the fear of losing him to someone else â and when he âquietlyâ met with the head of one of those networks, and word got around, his hand was strengthened. He knew then that it was time to play his Big Card.
He decided to run for president.
Of course he wouldnât really have to RUN for president â just make the announcement, hold a few mega-rallies that would be packed with tens of thousands of fans, and wait for the first opinion polls to come in showing him â what else! â in first place! And then he would get whatever deal he wanted, worth millions more than what he was currently being paid.
So, on June 16 of last year, he rode down his golden escalator and opened his mouth. With no campaign staff, no 50-state campaign infrastructure â neither of which he needed because, remember, this wasnât going to be a real campaign â and with no prepared script, he went off the rails at his kick-off press conference, calling Mexicans ârapistsâ and âdrug dealersâ and pledging to build a wall to keep them all out. Jaws in the room were agape. His comments were so offensive, NBC, far from offering him a bigger paycheck, immediately fired him with this terse statement: âDue to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump.â NBC said it was also canceling the beauty pageants owned by Trump: Miss USA and Miss Universe. BOOM.
Trump was stunned. So much for the art of the deal. He never expected this, but he stuck to his plan anyway to increase his âvalueâ in the eyes of the other networks by showing them how many millions of Americans wanted Him to be their Leader. He knew, of course (and the people he trusted also told him) that there was no way he was actually going to win many (if any) of the primaries, and he certainly would not become the Republican nominee, and NEVER would he EVER be the President of the United States. Of course not! Nor would he want to be! The job of being President is WORK and BORING and you have to live in the GHETTO of Washington, DC, in a SMALL 200-year old house thatâs damp and dreary and has only TWO floors! A âsecond floorâ is not a penthouse! But none of this was a worry, as âTrump for Presidentâ was only a ruse that was going to last a few months.
And then something happened. And to be honest, if it happened to you, you might have reacted the same way. Trump, to his own surprise, ignited the country, especially among people who were the opposite of billionaires. He went straight to #1 in the polls of Republican voters. Up to 30,000 boisterous supporters started showing up to his rallies. TV ate it up. He became the first American celebrity to be able to book himself on any show he wanted to be on â and then NOT show up to the studio! From âFace the Nationâ to âThe Today Showâ to Anderson Cooper, he was able to simply phone in and theyâd put him on the air live. He couldâve been sitting on his golden toilet in Trump Tower for all we knew â and the media had no problem with any of that. In fact, CBS head Les Moonves famously admitted that Trump was very good for TV ratings and selling ads â music to the ears the NBC-spurned narcissist.
Trump fell in love with himself all over again, and he soon forgot his mission to get a good deal for a TV show. A TV show? Are you kldding â thatâs for losers like Chris Harrison, whoever that is (host of âThe Bacheloretteâ). He was no longer king of the dealmakers â he was King of the World! His tiniest musings would be discussed and dissected everywhere by everybody for days, weeks, months! THAT never happened on âThe Apprenticeâ! Host a TV show? He was the star of EVERY TV SHOW â and, soon, winning nearly every primary!
And then⌠you can see the moment it finally dawned on him⌠that âOh shit!â revelation: âIâm actually going to be the Republican nominee â and my rich beautiful life is f#*@ing over!â It was the night he won the New Jersey primary. The headline on TIME.com was, âDonald Trumpâs Subdued Victory Speech After Winning New Jersey.â Instead of it being one of his loud, brash speeches, it was downright depressing. No energy, no happiness, just the realization that now he was going to have to go through with this stunt that he started. It was no longer going to be performance art. He was going to have to go to work.
Soon, though, his karma caught up with him. Calling Mexicans ârapistsâ should have disqualified him on Day One (or for saying Obama wasnât born here, as he did in 2011). No, it took 13 months of racist, sexist, stupid comments before he finally undid himself with the trifecta of attacking the family of a slain soldier, ridiculing the Purple Heart and suggesting that the pro-gun crowd assassinate Hillary Clinton. By this past weekend, the look on his face said it all â âI hate this! I want my show back!â But it was too late. He was damaged goods, his brand beyond repair, a worldwide laughing stock â and worse, a soon-to-be loser.
But, let me throw out another theory, one that assumes that Trump isnât as dumb or crazy as he looks. Maybe the meltdown of the past three weeks was no accident. Maybe itâs all part of his new strategy to get the hell out of a race he never intended to see through to its end anyway. Because, unless he is just âcrazy,â the only explanation for the unusual ramping up, day after day, of one disgustingly reckless statement after another is that heâs doing it consciously (or subconsciously) so that heâll have to bow out or blame âothersâ for forcing him out. Many now are sensing the end game here because they know Trump seriously doesnât want to do the actual job â and, most importantly, he cannot and WILL NOT suffer through being officially and legally declared a loser â LOSER! â on the night of November 8th.
Trust me, Iâve met the guy. Spent an afternoon with him. He would rather invite the Clintons AND the Obamas to his next wedding than have that scarlet letter (âLâ) branded on his forehead seconds after the last polls have closed on that night, the evening of the final episode of the permanently cancelled Donald Trump Shit-Show."
Iâm not feeling it 
Hillary has already listed all the donations to the Clinton Foundation; if youâre talking about the b.s.right-wing reports how about a deal?
Trump releases his tax reports; all donations he has received; health reports from an independent doctor- and Hillary does the same.
Now we all know Hell will freeze over before Pootieâs Poodle reveals how much he is in hock to the Russian mafia, so thereâs not much for Clinton to reveal here,
Not sure if i posted this here before but the Clinton Foundations dealings are far lass transparent it would seem than you might imagine.
The foundation so it seems was never granted permission to raise money for anything other than a Clinton library. All those other donations it appears are illegal.
The foundation, or any charity should have independent audit every year, it seems the Clinton Foundation has never been audited.
There are so many vulnerable areas to attack Hillary right now it almost seems unfair. But regarding the Foundation, this is a good listen.
Looks like Trump is going to continue being Trump.
What an epic fuckup this whole thing really is for the Republicans. Heâs not even trying.
If anything, heâs trying too hard. Two major policies speaches in two days, the last one an attempt to reach out to African Americans was received well by Republicans. DONALD J. TRUMP REMARKS ON CREATING A NEW AND BETTER FUTURE FOR AMERICAâS INNER CITIES
Trump is doing 2 rallies a day, 6 days a week in front of crowds up to 20k, while Clinton just pops her head out 3 times a week and usually for just one rally in front of a couple of hundred folks. Maybe she doesnât even need to try, everyone else seems to do all her work for her and even if Trump wasnât making any slips, the MSM would just make up some news and shove Mics in everyones faces. Exhaustedâ Hillary Clinton Taking Long Weekends Off
If he was just making policy speeches and not âjust being Trumpâ, he wouldnât be in this pickle. Being elected president is more complicated than appealing to his core group at rallies. There are a wide range of constituencies that will factor into the decision. If he canât rally a wide range of people behind him, he canât win. If he canât avoid making various offensive comments, people wonât get behind him. A lot of people donât want to be led by a buffoon. And they shouldnât. If he canât even avoid causing offense in the rarified air of a domestic election, when thatâs obviously in his best interests, whatâs going to happen when he has to participate in international politics? What does it say about his judgement when critical decisions might be needed? Thatâs my take on it anyway. I donât know, maybe Trump is really some kind of political genius and knows better than all the Republican policy advisors. Weâll see in November.
Trumpâs missteps are news because itâs important. As for Clinton, sheâs a politician. Sheâs going to stay out of the way until she has to. I like that about Trump personally. But he blew the obvious opportunity to play this thing with more finesse, and he did it largely on his own. Maybe heâs just incapable of it, because thatâs who he is. But thereâs actually more at stake than just the presidential election.
I would have no problem with all of that. I doubt either is particularly clean, though I imagine that Clinton is far less clean (and healthy). I wouldnât mind seeing those emails. They would stink to high Heaven.
Regardless of who becomes the next president, I think weâre in for a fun four years as the scales are finally lifted from a lot of peopleâs eyes about the political system over there.
Itâs laughable that you think Trump would be worse for international relations given Hillaryâs time as Secretary of State.
If I had to put money on who was more likely to start a war pretty much anywhere in the world in the next four years, it would be Hillary. She is by far the greater threat to world peace. Iâm not saying that Trump wouldnât start a war, merely that itâs almost a dead certainty that Hillary would. That the neocons are jumping ship to the Democrats speaks volumes. I do have to wonder though how many Nobel Peace Prizes she is going to get â probably at least two to signal how glad the global elite are that âliterally Hitlerâ wasnât elected â before she turns whole regions of the world into rubble.
Further to this, if I had to put money on who would be more likely to bail out Wall Street in the major global financial crisis that is highly likely to occur in the next term, again, Iâd back Hillary. Campaign contributions from Wall Street would seem to back this up. Maybe sheâll get the Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences also. Itâs going to be a lot of fun seeing lefties shill for the neocons and Wall Street over the next four years.
I think that itâs pretty certain that Hillary would make a major move against the First Amendment (the Second goes without saying).
Also, I think youâre getting it wrong with what the Republicans are thinking. Some rank and file (not all) genuinely want Trump to win. The establishment have no interest in him winning. Theyâve always been about feathering their own nests as commentators, lobbyists, etc. Trump probably represents a threat to that, though who really knows.
A Trump loss in November would be fantastic for the GOPe because they could then say âwe told you soâ to the base and dine out for four years of a Hillary presidency. Theyâd all clutch the pearls and claim to be horrified at her running amok, but theyâd be completely revitalised in 2020 to put their hands out again when they put up their latest cardboard cutout. Jeb Bush would have been absolutely destroyed by Hillary, but that didnât matter to them, and it wouldnât matter in 2020 if his equivalent got destroyed (which he surely would, whether against Hillary or any other Democrat). What would matter, however, is that enough people would be horrified enough by four years of Hillary that they would do whatever the GOPe asked of them (including reading their crappy National Review articles and donating to the party). There are going to be a LOT of happy Republicans if Trump loses.
Itâs amazing to me how gullible people are in accepting the official narrative coming out of anyone in either Washington or the MSM. These are all deeply cynical, self-serving people who would throw their grandmothers under a bus for even a whiff of a little more power or money.
How do you know a politician is lying? His lips are moving.
How do you know a journalist is lying? His fingers are typing.
Absolutely. Losers donât start wars.
Congratulations! Looks like youâre going to get your wish!
Though it looks like Trump has augmented his Russian mafia counsellor with an attempt to nail down the vital white supremacist vote
I have no idea where this kind of stuff comes from. Whether itâs Hillary or Trump, I wonât be booking ringside seats for the apocalypse, letâs put it that way. The United States will still be the United States. Whatever problems come up along the way, and there are bound to be some, will have to be dealt with. I have a lot more confidence in a Clinton presidency making favorable decisions and properly representing US interests than a Trump one. Count me âlaughableâ on that score if you like, but I think itâs a well supported statement.
Call me crazy here as well, but the only strategy that makes sense for the Republicans is trying to win every election.
Thatâs actually a pretty dense comment given both I and the person I was responding to were discussing the hypothetical differences between the two possible presidential approaches to foreign policy.
What do you think my wish is? I donât want the neocons and the GOPe to be able to brag. Also, why would Trump get someone from the Russian mafia to get the white supremacist vote? Firstly, Iâm not really sure what Russian mafia would have to do with that. Secondly, Iâm not sure theyâre enough of a voting bloc to do much of anything. Thirdly, I imagine theyâd already be in his camp rather than Hillaryâs, so he would surely already have them nailed down. Pretty strange comment lacking any real insight from you there.
I donât expect there to be an apocalypse either (the black swan of hot nuclear war excepted). I expect the USA to steadily descend into another Brazil or South Africa over a period of decades, probably regardless of whether Hillary or Trump is at the helm for the next four to eight years, though they could certainly accelerate that process.
Trump has said he wants to talk with other potential major adversaries rather than antagonise them. Under Hillaryâs tenure at the State Department and beyond under the same presidency, North Africa and the Middle East have been destabilised beyond what anyone could have expected for an already pretty volatile region, and this has had flow on effects to Europe; tensions with Russia have been inflamed; and East Asia has also become a lot hotter. You had absolutely no idea about any of this? Really? Do you honestly expect anyone to believe that? So youâve just doubled down that Hillary would be better on international relations.
You are assuming that the GOP actually want to win at any cost though. They donât. The Never Trump Movement, various attempts to change the convention rules, various states that didnât have popular primary votes that stacked anyone but Trump delegates donât mean anything? The amount of infighting and sniping compared to previous primaries and general campaigns doesnât mean anything? Normally, the party rallied quite strongly behind the clear favourite and eventual candidate, and did so much sooner.
In some cases this comes from some of the GOPe and their hangers on who are true believers and donât believe Trump is a true conservative (which, ironically, is why many other people support him). Others just want the gravy train to continue.
Another point about the GOPe not being particularly interested in victory is that even when they get it, they donât know what to do with it. Witness the after effects of their victory in 2014. The hollowness of that victory has also driven disgust amongst the base.
I think (hope) that the GOP is dead (at least in the presidential race) after this election. Itâs not even clear who their core demographic is anymore and how they could/would put together enough numbers to win. Many of the GOP base seem to have woken up that the GOP doesnât represent them. Trump looks to be able to flip some Democrats, but Jeb, Cruz or any of the others wouldnât have been able to do so. So who, exactly, is this fabled conservative base?
I suspect that Trump wonât win, but I absolutely know that any of their favourites would have been trounced by Hillary because it would have been like Romney 2.0, only with the demographics a little worse. Yet, if Trump loses, the GOPe will trot out Romney 3.0 in 2020; predictably, that wonât work either. At some point, you have to ask whether theyâre that daft, or whether they donât actually want to win. At that point, you then have to ask whatâs in it for them as the permanent opposition party, and thatâs when you get into the deep dysfunction and corruption of the political process and elite. These people are fiddling whilst Rome burns, but as long as theyâve got theirs itâs all good. In the meantime, itâs in the interests of the Democratic Party that the GOP doesnât completely implode because theyâre 1) a neutered opposition, 2) they lend legitimacy to the entire farce.
So long as we donât get the back (grey?) swan of a nuclear war, itâs at least going to be pretty entertaining watching this all play out over the next few decades. There is probably even going to be a silver lining: if we can all get past the inevitable temper tantrums as the US declines in power, at least weâll be spared its crappy âprogressiveâ political and cultural agenda being forced upon the rest of the world.
No.
No.
Yes.
No.
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What I said the other day, basically
Oh wow, you sure showed me.
Why, it turned out that nice Mr. Trump was just funninâ with all that nasty stuff about building a wall and kicking out illegal immigrants.
No citizenship. Let me go a step furtherâtheyâll pay back-taxes, they have to pay taxes, thereâs no amnesty, as such, thereâs no amnesty, but we work with them. Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out. But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and Iâve had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me, and theyâve said, âMr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person whoâs been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, itâs so tough, Mr. Trump,â I have it all the time. Itâs a very, very hard thing.
Fortunately, heâs not fooling Ann Coulter:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/coulter-goes-to-war-with-trump-and-it-is-glorious
The Nigel Farage speech at a Trump rally was pretty high energy and on point. Contrast it with the Hillary Clinton speech, which was so laughably bad that itâs already spawning tons of internet keks (which is what people predicted). I thought she had this in the bag, but Iâm beginning to wonder. Iâm also wondering how she made it to the end of that speech. She sounded like she was ready to keel over (and it took her literally hours to get on stage). More calls about her health.
Trump⌠a flip-flopper. Of course.
Plus, Hillaryâs health is fine, of course. The Republicans are doing what they do best: lying and making shit up.