[Discussion] Hope to Remember The Trump Administration Thread as being 'transparent and honest'

Let's follow and discuss what our newest presidential administration gets up to, the good, the bad, the lawsuits, and the many many indictments.

That's not bribery. *This* is bribery.

Trump's payments to farmers hit all-time high ahead of election

Reuters wrote:

Farmers initially pleaded to Trump for “trade not aid” in 2018 but have since received repeated bailouts even as COVID-19 stimulus for millions of other Americans stalls in Congress.

The aid money compensated farmers for lower prices caused by trade wars and large global supplies of crops. It also eased the impact of a fresh blow to an already-weak ethanol market when Americans drove less during the coronavirus pandemic.

With the latest $14 billion farm aid package announced in Wisconsin on Sept. 17, federal payments to farmers are expected to reach a record $51.2 billion this year. The government’s share of farmers’ net cash income will also rise to 39.7%, the biggest in 20 years.

Net cash income is a closely watched indicator of farm health that calculates the amount of money a farmer gets to keep after expenses. The Agriculture Department forecast net farm income would rise 4% in 2020 from last year even before the most recent aid announcement.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/pAf3eyx.png)

67% of farmers voted for Trump in 2016...

Here, let me fix that statement.

JC wrote:
Indeed, almost all of them were discussed at length during the first debate where Trump talked over moderator Chris Wallace and candidate Joe Biden.
farley3k wrote:

"I didn't just admit to bribery. It was a perfect rally speech, believe me..."

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/TIRlfee.jpg)

I watched that clip. Trump follows it with some weird rambling about how he could make millions of dollars per phone call but he doesn't, plus a weird ramble about all the money he put into his primary campaign (wtf?) that he never gets credit for. I couldn't sort through the word salad to understand if he was saying that he has done this, or that he could do this but doesn't, or if he was just blowing more smoke about how rich and powerful he is.

I hadn't realized how much of a defense mechanism his word salad is until now. I saw something awhile back about how one of the things that's gone wrong in the last four years is that the media has a bias toward coherence. The role of media is to put things into context and shape news into a narrative that people can understand and follow. This means that they try to wrangle Trump's endlessly shifting positions and meandering babble into some kind of coherent strategy, statement, or philosophy, and in a way they launder his incoherence but also open themselves up to (perhaps accurate) accusations that they've taken something out of context. Nevermind that the context is pretty much lorem ipsum with an ego.

Edit: It's worth adding that Exxon immediately posted on Twitter that no such conversation with the CEO ever happened. I don't believe Exxon for a second on any topic, but Trump lies his ass off all the time, so who knows?

Sweet, can't wait for Pelosi et al to hold him accountable by means other than passive-aggressive tweets.

Surely it's coming, right?

r013nt0 wrote:

Sweet, can't wait for Pelosi et al to hold him accountable by means other than passive-aggressive tweets.

Surely it's coming, right?

How can anyone hold him accountable with the Rs in the Senate backing him up? They already tried to impeach the dude.

karmajay wrote:

How can anyone hold him accountable with the Rs in the Senate backing him up? They already tried to impeach the dude.

Barely. They barely tried to impeach him. They brought forward the weakest possible case, didn't hold anybody accountable for flagrantly refusing to appear, and they never even thought to use their actual power of inherent contempt. It was performative bullsh*t.

So how can anybody hold him accountable? Actually impeach him, this time attempting to prove their case. Actually use the powers they have been given. Actually bring forward the evidence of his actions. There is more of it now. Will it work? Probably not. Can they take one more opportunity to show who and what he is? Definitely. Hell, tying everyone up in another impeachment process might delay ACB's appointment.

Technically, they DID impeach him. Even though it was extremely unpopular, and raised Trump's approval rating, and never had a chance to succeed because the Republicans never were going to vote to remove him no matter what evidence was provided, and Trump's approval rating has a hard floor that you couldn't get through with a jackhammer.

They could at least try. It's the same issue we had with the far too long wait for the first impeachment. Being seen making an effort to stop him is important, even if they already know beforehand that they won't have the votes for it to succeed. If they had more important things they could be doing it'd be different but it's not like McConnell's going to let them pass a Covid relief bill in the meantime.

Stengah wrote:

Being seen making an effort to stop him is important, even if they already know beforehand that they won't have the votes for it to succeed.

Important how? I still don't understand this point. Why is it important? We've already seen that it alienates independents who don't like the idea of impeachment, raises Trump's approval rating, and has zero chance of success. What will it accomplish? I want the narcissistic monster out of office as much as anyone, but why is it important to waste time, political capital, and money on a process that we know cannot and will not succeed?

trichy wrote:

...We've already seen that it alienates independents who don't like the idea of impeachment, raises Trump's approval rating, and has zero chance of success. What will it accomplish? I want the narcissistic monster out of office as much as anyone, but why is it important to waste time, political capital, and money on a process that we know cannot and will not succeed?

I'm not so certain at this point. His reelection doesn't seem quite so guaranteed, and most of these despicable subhumans have, if nothing else, a strong urge for self-preservation. There have already been signs and rumblings of rats leaving the sinking ship. I wonder if there wouldn't perhaps be more support this time around. Especially if an actual, well-researched, and well-evidenced case was put forth this time.

Enough to actually get it pass the Senate though? Nah. But perhaps enough to make it abundantly clear that We The People will not stand for an attempt by an autocrat to dismantle our country and sell it to the highest bidders. That there can be, and are consequences for elites. Both the wealthy and politically connected. That's what's so important.

That said I'm not sure what political capital remains with any of these people at this point.

It's important because it can motivate people who have become disillusioned with politics. I'm more concerned about getting them to vote than I am in trying to sway a few self-proclaimed independents. Actually doing something can do that in two ways: it can motivate people to vote for a politician that's actually willing to hold powerful people accountable, and it can motivate people to vote against a politician that offers a weak and weasely excuse for allowing such blatant corruption. Locally, Collin's vote against impeachment and her statement that she thought Trump learned his lesson has done more for her opponent's campaign than anything Gideon herself has said or done.

The time is free to waste. McConnell won't let anything worthwhile happen anyways so its not like it'd cost progress on anything imporant. No political capital is being spent because none can be spent. None of the Republicans are willing to be swayed.

No, it's been made abundantly clear that many from this forum want to damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead with triumphantly impeaching Trump, confident that it will be totes different this time. But I've yet to see any actual evidence that the last impeachment did anything but irritate independents (who, by the way, are absolutely critical to winning a presidential election).

Biden is doing better so far in this election than any of us thought possible. He's improved his standing with the elderly, is beating Trump in the suburbs, has made it through the bulk of this primary without too many of the gaffes that everyone was predicting would be coming fast and furious, and by all measures, has captured the majority of the independent voters that went for Trump in 2016. I'm really genuinely curious why you believe so feverently that your strategy would be doing better for defeating Trump.

I may be wrong, but wasn't impeachment wildly popular during the investigation phase? Many of us wanted the investigation to be very broad in scope, covering all of Trump's misdeeds. I believe it was the narrow impeachment that wasn't popular and didn't lead to a conviction, obviously.

DSGamer wrote:

I may be wrong, but wasn't impeachment wildly popular during the investigation phase? Many of us wanted the investigation to be very broad in scope, covering all of Trump's misdeeds. I believe it was the narrow impeachment that wasn't popular and didn't lead to a conviction, obviously.

It briefly ticked above 50% after the investigation, but dipped back down.

trichy wrote:

I'm really genuinely curious why you believe so feverently that your strategy would be doing better for defeating Trump.

Can y'all do that in another thread? Re-litigating the impeachment when the general election is two weeks away sounds like an interesting but mostly academic conversation that will drown out the news-related discussion in this thread.

You misunderstand, I don't expect that another impeachment will have a different outcome. What I expect it to do is to motivate even more people to vote against Trump and the Senators that are protecting him. Your strategy would make sense if we were still playing under normal political rules, but were a long way from normal. The blue wave of 2018 wasn't due to swaying independents, it was people who were previously too disillusioned to vote in 2016 that boosted the Dems to victory.

Now this would be an October surprise.

(CNN)

President Donald Trump told White House chief of staff Mark Meadows his tweets about declassifying all Russia documents weren't an order to declassify or release those records, according to a sworn statement filed in court on Tuesday.

"The President indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents," Meadows wrote.

He added that Trump's tweets "related to" authority the President delegated to Attorney General William Barr to decide what records should be declassified.

The potential surprise...

A federal judge plans to hold a court hearing about the potential release of more records from the Mueller investigation and declassification tweets on Wednesday.

Gotta love it when your chief of staff swears a statement saying your tweet was a total and complete lie to the American public because that's the best possible way to unf*ck the situation your ego and flapping jaw got you in.

We also have precedent where the moron tweeted out a classified spy photo and made it declassified. So tweets count. Release the docs.

And I thought it was decided he couldn't block people on Twitter because his account was "official"?

So it is official when he wants it to be and not official when that suits him. Seems par for the course. (speaking in golf terms so he can understand)

farley3k wrote:

And I thought it was decided he couldn't block people on Twitter because his account was "official"?

So it is official when he wants it to be and not official when that suits him. Seems par for the course. (speaking in golf terms so he can understand)

I like how you think he understands golf terms, given that it's documented that he cheats at golf and may not care about the rules.

farley3k wrote:

And I thought it was decided he couldn't block people on Twitter because his account was "official"?

So it is official when he wants it to be and not official when that suits him. Seems par for the course. (speaking in golf terms so he can understand)

It's Schrodinger's Douschebag. Whether he's joking or not depends on if who's asking is offended. Whether it's an official statement depends on if the person asking wants to praise him for it, or hold it against him.

Administration officials alarmed by White House push to fast track lucrative 5G spectrum contract, sources say

CNN wrote:

Senior officials throughout various departments and agencies of the Trump administration tell CNN they are alarmed at White House pressure to grant what would essentially be a no-bid contract to lease the Department of Defense's mid-band spectrum -- premium real estate for the booming and lucrative 5G market -- to Rivada Networks, a company in which prominent Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump have investments.

The pressure campaign to fast track Rivada's "Request for Proposal" (RFP) by using authorities that would preclude a competitive bidding process intensified in September, and has been led by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was acting at Trump's behest, sources with knowledge tell CNN. To push his case, Meadows has sometimes used as his proxy an individual identified by sources in the telecommunications industry as a top financial management official in the US Army.

Sources tell CNN that Trump was encouraged to help Rivada by Fox News commentator and veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove, a lobbyist for, and investor in, Rivada.

Untold billions are at stake. A government auction of 70 megahertz of spectrum in August went for more than $4.5 billion. The Rivada bid would be for 350 megahertz of spectrum -- five times that amount.

Rove denied to CNN that Rivada is seeking an RFP or any non-competitive process. "If we were offered a no-bid contract we would turn it down," he told CNN. "The technology should stand on its own."

Denials notwithstanding, informed sources tell CNN that the White House is unquestionably pressuring the Pentagon to approve what would likely be, in the words of one senior administration official, "the biggest handoff of economic power to a single entity in history," and to do so without full examination of the impact on national security and without a competitive bidding process.

Craig Moffett, a highly regarded Wall Street analyst of the telecommunications sector, concluded in a October 7 research paper: "The whole story smacks of cronyism at best and reeks of 'the swamp' at worst."

Trump walked out of a 60 Minutes interview and refused to come back for a walk-and-talk interview with Pence. As someone on Twitter put it: I didn't care about 60 Minutes at all, but now I really want to watch to see how badly Trump f*cked himself.

This might belong in the election thread, but I'm posting it here because that thread is an irredeemable hole that I don't want in my recents it's yet another example of Trump's endless grift.

How Trump plowed through $1 billion, losing cash advantage

As we all know, Trump started campaigning for the 2020 race literally the day after he was inaugurated. He's been sending out fundraising mailers throughout his presidency, and has classified all his rallies over the years as campaign events in order to make money from them. But in the last few weeks, he's hit a point where he has fallen behind the Biden campaign in spending.

How? Grift.

Other questionable expenditures by Trump and the RNC that are included in campaign finance disclosures:
— Nearly $100,000 spent on copies of Donald Trump Jr.’s book “Triggered,” which helped propel it to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.
— Over $7.4 million spent at Trump-branded properties since 2017.
— At least $35.2 million spent on Trump merchandise.
— $38.7 million in legal and “compliance” fees. In addition to tapping the RNC and his campaign to pay legal costs during his impeachment proceedings, Trump has also relied on his political operation to cover legal costs for some aides.
— At least $14.1 million spent on the Republican National Convention. The event was supposed to have been held in Charlotte, North Carolina, but Trump relocated it to Jacksonville, Florida, after a dispute with North Carolina’s Democratic governor over coronavirus safety measures. The Florida event was ultimately cancelled, as well, with a mostly online convention taking its place.
— $912,000 spent on ads that ran on the personal Facebook pages of Parscale and Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson.
— A $250,000 ad run during Game 7 of the 2019 World Series, which came after Trump was booed by spectators when he attended Game 5.
— At least $218,000 for Trump surrogates to travel aboard private jets provided by campaign donors.
— $1.6 million on TV ads in the Washington, D.C., media market, an overwhelmingly Democratic area where Trump has little chance of winning but where he is a regular TV watcher.

But the most interesting is this one:

[A] web of limited liability companies hid more than $310 million in spending from disclosure, records show.

[...]

Since 2017, more than $39 million has been paid to firms controlled by Parscale, who was ousted as campaign manager over the summer. An additional $273.2 million was paid to American Made Media Consultants, a Delaware limited liability company, whose owners are not publicly disclosed.

Campaigns typically reveal in mandatory disclosures who their primary vendors are. But by routing money to Parscale’s firms, as well as American Made Media Consultants, Trump satisfied the basic disclosure requirements without detailing the ultimate recipients.

So nearly one-third of Trump's billion-dollar "Death Star" went into shell companies and firms either controlled by the campaign manager or under entirely unknown ownership, and what that money was spent on is also unknown. I would dearly love to know who actually owns American Made Media Consultants. I'm going to guess there's at least one owner there with the last name of Trump.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Trump walked out of a 60 Minutes interview and refused to come back for a walk-and-talk interview with Pence. As someone on Twitter put it: I didn't care about 60 Minutes at all, but now I really want to watch to see how badly Trump f*cked himself.

I love that he ragequit an interview with two weeks to go. It's like watching a senile old man have a mental breakdown in real time.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I would dearly love to know who actually owns American Made Media Consultants. I'm going to guess there's at least one owner there with the last name of Trump.

I'm reasonably sure a lot of people with the last name of Trump (or who were f*cking someone with the last name of Trump) somehow also worked for companies that AMMC cut large checks to.

Campaign Legal Center and Margaret Christ vs. Donald Trump for President, Inc. and Trump Make America Great Again Committee wrote:

AMMHC formed as a corporation in the State of Delaware on April 18, 2018. On its annual reports filed with the Delaware Secretary of State, AMMHC reported two individuals as officers and directors: Trump campaign operations director/assistant treasurer Sean Dollman and Trump campaign counsel Alex Cannon. On those reports, AMMHC’s principal place of business, and both Dollman’s and Cannon’s addresses, were listed as 138 Conant St., Beverly, MA 01915,16 which is also the address of the Trump campaign’s compliance firm, Red Curve Solutions. American Made Media Consultants, LLC (“AMMC”) formed as a limited liability corporation in the State of Delaware the next day, April 19, 2018; Delaware records do not identify officers for AMMC, but documents filed with the FCC identify Dollman as AMMC’s “Director/President/Treasurer” and Cannon as AMMC’s “Vice President/Secretary.'

Just in time for that debate on foreign policy with a side of "You paid Uncle Sam fifteen hundred lousy bucks while you gave Chicoms $200K?"

Trump Records Shed New Light on Chinese Business Pursuits

New York Times wrote:

President Trump and his allies have tried to paint the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as soft on China, in part by pointing to his son’s business dealings there.

Senate Republicans produced a report asserting, among other things, that Mr. Biden’s son Hunter “opened a bank account” with a Chinese businessman, part of what it said were his numerous connections to “foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.”

But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company.

And it turns out that China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Mr. Trump maintains a bank account, according to an analysis of the president’s tax records, which were obtained by The New York Times. The foreign accounts do not show up on Mr. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names. The identities of the financial institutions are not clear.

The Chinese account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management L.L.C., which the tax records show paid $188,561 in taxes in China while pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015.

The tax records do not include details on how much money may have passed through the overseas accounts, though the Internal Revenue Service does require filers to report the portion of their income derived from other countries. The British and Irish accounts are held by companies that operate Mr. Trump’s golf courses in Scotland and Ireland, which regularly report millions of dollars in revenue from those countries. Trump International Hotels Management reported just a few thousand dollars from China.

In response to questions from The Times, Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said the company had “opened an account with a Chinese bank having offices in the United States in order to pay the local taxes” associated with efforts to do business there. He said the company had opened the account after establishing an office in China “to explore the potential for hotel deals in Asia.”

“No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialized and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive,” Mr. Garten said. “Though the bank account remains open, it has never been used for any other purpose.”

Mr. Garten would not identify the bank in China where the account is held. Until last year, China’s biggest state-controlled bank rented three floors in Trump Tower, a lucrative lease that drew accusations of a conflict of interest for the president.

EDIT:

Oh, this part is interesting...

NYT wrote:

But Mr. Trump’s plans in China have been largely driven by a different company, Trump International Hotels Management — the one with a Chinese bank account.

The company has direct ownership of THC China Development, but is also involved in management of other Trump-branded properties around the world, and it is not possible to discern from its tax records how much of its financial activity is China-related. It normally reports a few million dollars in annual income and deductible expenses.

In 2017, the company reported an unusually large spike in revenue — some $17.5 million, more than the previous five years’ combined. It was accompanied by a $15.1 million withdrawal by Mr. Trump from the company’s capital account.

On the president’s public financial disclosures for that year, he reported the large revenue figure, and described it only as “management fees and other contract payments.”

EDIT EDIT:

And then that $17 million in revenue magically becomes less than $15K on Trump's federal disclosure forms.

And of course his MAGA merch is all made in China.

Someone took over an abandoned hotel property here and created a dUmp store in the "lobby" area.