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Politics

Started by diglady, March 29, 2016, 03:27:58 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

patricia19

Trump's 500 million in debt with loans coming due in 2021. His type of sitting president would agree to what type of payment terms on those debts if he's still in office?


https://tinyurl.com/y5felko5



patricia19


Why there is no ethical reason not to vote (unless you come down with COVID-19 on Election Day)
September 29, 2020 8.31am EDT

Americans are being implored by politicians of all stripes to do their democratic duty on Nov. 3 and vote.

Current polling suggests that the majority of those eligible to cast a ballot intend to vote. But a chunk of the electorate won't – in 2016, around 100 million potential voters decided against registering their vote.

Many obstacles prevent citizens from voting, such as uncertainty about how to register or inability to get to the polls. But there is a subset of nonvoters who make a conscious choice not to vote for ethical reasons.

As a philosopher who teaches courses in ethics and political philosophy, I have investigated the ethics of not voting.

The three most common reasons I hear are: "I don't have enough information," "I don't like any of the candidates," and "I don't want to give this election legitimacy." It is worth examining why, in my view, each argument is flawed, and if, given the unique circumstances of this year's election, there is at least one ethical reason not to vote.
1. Lack of information

According to a recent study by the 100 Million Project, nonvoters are twice as likely as active voters to say they do not feel they have enough information about candidates and issues to decide how to vote. This group of nonvoters might believe that it is unethical to vote because they are uninformed. In "The Ethics of Voting," political philosopher Jason Brennan argues that uninformed citizens have an ethical obligation not to cast votes, because their uninformed votes can produce results that damage our political system.

The honesty of this group of nonvoters is praiseworthy, especially in comparison with overconfident voters who suffer from what psychologists call the "Dunning-Kruger effect" and wrongly believe that they are better informed than they are.

But an uninformed voter can fix that problem, and remove the ethical dilemma – and with minimal time and effort. Information about each candidate's platform is more accessible than ever. It can be found online, in print and through conversation. The problem today is instead how to find reliable, nonpartisan information. One of the clear benefits of mail-in voting is that it gives voters more time to fill out their ballot carefully without feeling rushed. While completing the ballot at home, they can educate themselves about each of the candidates and issues.
2. Dislike of the candidates

Another common reason for not voting is dislike of the candidates. In fact, a Pew Research study found that 25% of registered nonvoters did not vote in the 2016 election because of a "dislike of the candidates or campaign issues." Based on their dislike of both candidates, they found themselves unable to vote for either one in good conscience.

What this leaves open, however, is the question of where this "dislike" comes from. It is quite possibly the product of negative campaigning, which promotes negative attitudes toward the opposing candidate. If you already dislike one party's candidate, negative ads encourage an equally negative feeling toward the other party's candidate. This suggests that negative campaign advertising carries out a strategy to depress overall voter turnout by making voters dislike both candidates.

But dislike is not a sufficient reason for abstaining. The mistake here, I believe, is that choices are not always between a positive and negative, a good and a bad. Voters often have to choose between two good or two bad options. It's also worth noting that, in addition to the top of the ticket, there are often important state and local contests on the ballot. Finding just one candidate or policy proposal that you truly support can make the effort to vote worthwhile. State and local races are sometimes very close, so each vote really can be meaningful.

3. Contributing to a corrupt system

Two common reasons given for not voting are the attitudes that "their vote does not matter" and that "the political system is corrupt," which together account for about 20% of the nonvoting population, according to the 100 Million Project's survey of nonvoters. Voter turnout is often interpreted as a sign of public support that establishes political legitimacy. By abstaining, some nonvoters might see themselves as opting out from a corrupt system that produces illegitimate results.

This way of thinking might be justified in an authoritarian regime, for example, which occasionally holds fake elections to demonstrate popular support. In such a society, abstaining from voting might make a legitimate point about the absence of open and fair elections. But a 2019 report ranks the U.S. as the 25th most democratic country, classifying it as a "flawed democracy" but a democracy nonetheless. If democratic elections are legitimate and their results are respected, voter abstention in the U.S. has no practical impact that would distinguish it from voter apathy.

All three of the above arguments fail, in my opinion, because they measure the worth of voting primarily in terms of its results. Voting may or may not yield the outcome individuals want, but without it, there is no democratic society.
4. However ...

In the current context of the pandemic, there is one valid ethical reason for not voting, at least not in person. On Election Day, if you are diagnosed with COVID-19 or have similar symptoms or are quarantined, then you should certainly not show up to the polls. The good of your vote will be outweighed by the potential harm of exposing other voters to the virus. Of course, as individuals we cannot know now whether we will find ourselves in that position on Election Day. But as a society we can predict that a significant percentage of the population will find themselves precisely in that situation at that time.

Knowing this will happen, voters need to adopt what ethicists call "the precautionary principle." This principle says people should take steps to avoid or reduce harms to others, such as risking their life or health.

Based on the precautionary principle, an ethicist could argue that individuals ought to request absentee ballots if their state provides this option. And in turn, the precautionary principle requires that each state should make absentee or mail-in ballots available to all registered voters. We should protect ourselves and all other citizens from having to choose between their health and their voting rights.

Scott Davidson   
Professor of Philosophy, West Virginia University


diglady

Thank you Scott Davidson.

I watched the 'debate' last night. It was distressful and disgusting. No new information except the President told the far right extremist to stand back and stand by.

patricia19

Here's what the Europeans saw in the debate via Euronews;

https://tinyurl.com/y7x56njc


patricia19

AP FACT CHECK: False claims swamp first Trump-Biden debate

WASHINGTON (AP) —
President Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of fabrications and fear-mongering in a belligerent debate with Joe Biden, at one point claiming the U.S. death toll would have been 10 times higher under the Democrat because he wanted open borders in the pandemic. Biden preached no such thing.

Trump barreled into the debate Tuesday night as unconstrained by the facts as at his rallies, but this time having his campaign opponent and even the Fox News moderator, Chris Wallace, calling him out in real time, or trying. Biden stumbled on the record at times as the angry words flew from both men on the Cleveland stage

In just one detour from reality, Trump asserted that the U.S. armed forces will be delivering hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses to the public as soon as a vaccine is available. The Pentagon says there is no such plan for national vaccine distribution by military personnel.
A look at how some of the candidates' statements from Cleveland stack up with the facts in the first of three scheduled presidential debates for the Nov. 3 election:
VACCINE DISTRIBUTION
TRUMP: "Well, we're going to deliver it right away. We have the military all set up. Logistically, they're all set up. We have our military that delivers soldiers and they can do 200,000 a day. They're going to be delivering ... it's all set up."

THE FACTS: This is not true.
The Pentagon says in a statement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is responsible for executing the plan to distribute vaccines to the public when the time comes. The Defense Department is helping in the planning but, with perhaps some exceptions in remote areas, is not going to be delivering, as Trump claimed.
"Our best military assessment is that there is sufficient U.S. commercial transportation capacity to fully support vaccine distribution," the department's statement says. "There should be no need for a large commitment of DOD units or personnel to support the nationwide distribution of vaccines. Any DOD required support would be by exception."

VIRUS DEATH TOLL
TRUMP, addressing Biden on U.S. deaths from COVID-19: "If you were here, it wouldn't be 200,000 people, it would be 2 million people. You didn't want me to ban China, which was heavily infected. ... If we would have listened to you, the country would have been left wide open."

THE FACTS: The audacious claim that Biden as president would have seen 2 million deaths rests on a false accusation. Biden never came out against Trump's decision to restrict travel from China. Biden was slow in staking a position on the matter but when he did, he supported the restrictions. Biden never counseled leaving the country "wide open" in the face of the pandemic.


Trump repeatedly, and falsely, claims to have banned travel from China. He restricted it.
The U.S. restrictions that took effect Feb. 2 continued to allow travel to the U.S. from the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao. The Associated Press reported that more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals based in the two locales entered the U.S. in the first three months after the travel restrictions were imposed.
Additionally, more than 27,000 Americans returned from mainland China in the first month after the restrictions took effect. U.S. officials lost track of more than 1,600 of them who were supposed to be monitored for virus exposure.
Dozens of countries took similar steps to control travel from hot spots before or around the same time the U.S. did.
___
PROTESTS
TRUMP: "The (Portland, Oregon) sheriff just came out today and he said I support President Trump."
THE FACTS: That is false. The sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon — where Portland is located — said he does not support Trump.
The sheriff, Mike Reese, tweeted, "As the Multnomah County Sheriff I have never supported Donald Trump and will never support him."
Portland has been a flashpoint in the debate over racial injustice protests in the U.S. Police and federal agents have repeatedly clashed with demonstrators gathered outside the downtown federal courthouse and police buildings. Some protesters have thrown bricks, rocks and other projectiles at officers. Police and federal agents responded by firing tear gas, rubber bullets and other non-lethal ammunition to disperse the crowds.
___
BIDEN: "There was a peaceful protest in front of the White House. What did he do? He came out of his bunker, had the military do tear gas."
THE FACTS: It was law enforcement, not the military, that used chemical irritants to forcefully remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square outside the White House on June 1.
And there is no evidence Trump was inside a bunker in the White House as that happened. Secret Service agents had rushed Trump to a White House bunker days earlier as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the executive mansion, some of them throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades.

HEALTH CARE
TRUMP: "Drug prices will be coming down 80 or 90%."
THE FACTS: That's a promise, not a reality, and it's a big stretch.
Trump has been unable to get legislation to lower drug prices through Congress. Major regulatory actions from his administration are still in the works, and are likely to be challenged in court.
There's no plan on the horizon that would lower drug prices as dramatically as Trump claims.
Prescription drug price inflation has been low and slow during the Trump years, but it hasn't made a U-turn and sped off in the other direction. Prices have seesawed from year to year.
Looking back at the totality of Trump's term, from January 2017, when he was inaugurated, to the latest data from August 2020, drug prices went up 3.6%, according to an analysis by economist Paul Hughes-Cromwick of Altarum, a nonprofit research and consulting organization.
Hughes-Cromwick looked at figures from the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, which measures prices for a set of prescription medicines, including generics and branded drugs.
When comparing prices in 2019 with a year earlier, there indeed was a decline. Prices dropped by 0.2% in 2019, a turnabout not seen since the 1970s. But that's nowhere near close to 80% or 90%.
From August of last year to this August, prices rose by 1.4%.

patricia19

JUDGES
TRUMP, criticizing Barack Obama and Biden for leaving federal judicial vacancies unfilled before they left office in January 2017: "When you leave office you don't leave any judges. You just don't do that. They left 128 openings. And if I were a member of his party ... I'd say if you left us 128 openings, you can't be a good president, you can't be a good vice president.''
THE FACTS: That's misleading. Trump does have a stronger record than Obama in picking federal judges, but it isn't due to complacency from the Obama administration. Instead, unprecedented lack of action by the Republican-controlled Senate on Obama's judicial nominees in his last two years in office left Trump more vacancies to fill.
Of the 71 people whom Obama nominated to the district courts and courts of appeals in 2015 and 2016, only 20 were voted on and confirmed, said Russell Wheeler, an expert on judicial nominees at the Brookings Institution. Trump entered office in January 2017 with more than 100 vacancies on the federal bench, about double the number Obama had in 2009.
Trump has been aided by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has pushed through Trump's nominations of appeals court judges in particular, as well as two Supreme Court justices. McConnell has pledged to have a Senate vote on Trump's third nominee to the high court, Amy Coney Barrett, while Democrats say the seat should be filled by the winner of the election.
___
VIRUS RESPONSE
TRUMP: Dr. Anthony Fauci "said very strongly, 'masks are not good.' Then he changed his mind, he said, 'masks, good.'"
THE FACTS: He is skirting crucial context. Trump is telling the story in a way that leaves out key lessons learned as the coronavirus pandemic unfolded, raising doubts about the credibility of public health advice.
Early on in the outbreak, a number of public health officials urged everyday people not to use masks, fearing a run on already short supplies of personal protective equipment needed by doctors and nurses in hospitals.
But that changed as the highly contagious nature of the coronavirus became clear, as well as the fact that it can be spread by tiny droplets breathed into the air by people who may not display any symptoms.

Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, along with Dr. Robert Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Stephen Hahn of the Food and Drug Administration and Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force, all agree on the importance of wearing masks and practicing social distancing. Redfield has repeatedly said it could be as effective as a vaccine if people took that advice to heart.
___
TRUMP, on coronavirus and his campaign rallies: "So far we have had no problem whatsoever. It's outside, that's a big difference according to the experts. We have tremendous crowds."
THE FACTS: That's not correct.
Trump held an indoor rally in Tulsa in late June, drawing both thousands of participants and large protests.
The Tulsa City-County Health Department director said the rally "likely contributed" to a dramatic surge in new coronavirus cases there. By the first week of July, Tulsa County was confirming more than 200 new daily cases, setting record highs. That's more than twice the number the week before the rally.
___
TRUMP, addressing Biden: "You didn't do very well on the swine flu. H1N1. You were a disaster."
THE FACTS: Trump frequently distorts what happened in the pandemic of 2009, which killed far fewer people in the United States than the coronavirus is killing now. For starters, Biden as vice president wasn't running the federal response. And that response was faster out of the gate than when COVID-19 came to the U.S.
Then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's flu surveillance network sounded the alarm after two children in California became the first people diagnosed with the new flu strain in this country.
About two weeks later, the Obama administration declared a public health emergency against H1N1, also known as the swine flu, and the CDC began releasing anti-flu drugs from the national stockpile to help hospitals get ready. In contrast, Trump declared a state of emergency in early March, seven weeks after the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was announced, and the country's health system struggled for months with shortages of critical supplies and testing.
More than 200,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. The CDC puts the U.S. death toll from the 2009-2010 H1N1 pandemic at about 12,500.
___
ECONOMY
BIDEN: Trump will be the "first (president) in American history" to lose jobs during his presidency.
THE FACTS: No, if Trump loses reelection, he would not be the first president in U.S. history to have lost jobs. That happened under Herbert Hoover, the president who lost the 1932 election to Franklin Roosevelt as the Great Depression caused massive job losses.
Official jobs records only go back to 1939 and, in that period, no president has ended his term with fewer jobs than when he began. Trump appears to be on track to have lost jobs during his first term, which would make him the first to do so since Hoover.
___
VOTING
TRUMP, on the prospect of mass fraud in the vote-by-mail process: "It's a rigged election."
THE FACTS: He is exaggerating threats. Trump's claim is part of a months-long effort to sow doubt about the integrity of the election before it's even arrived and to preemptively call into question the results.
Experts have repeatedly said there are no signs of widespread fraud in mail balloting, as have the five states that relied exclusively on that system for voting even before the coronavirus pandemic. Trump's own FBI director, Chris Wray, said at a congressional hearing just last week that the bureau has not historically seen "any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise."
Wray did acknowledge voter fraud at the local level "from time to time," but even there, Trump appeared to paint an overly dire portrait of the reality and he misstated the facts of one particular case that received substantial attention last week following an unusual Justice Department announcement.
Trump said nine military ballots found discarded in a wastebasket in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, were all marked for him. Though that's consistent with an initial statement the Justice Department made, officials later revised it to say seven of the nine ballots had Trump's name.
___
FOOTBALL
TRUMP: "I'm the one who brought back football. By the way, I brought back Big Ten football. It was me and I'm very happy to do it."
THE FACTS: Better check the tape. While Trump had called for the Big Ten conference to hold its 2020 football season, he wasn't the only one. Fans, students, athletes and college towns had also urged the conference to resume play.
When the Big Ten announced earlier this month that it reversed an earlier decision to cancel the season because of COVID-19, Trump tweeted his thanks: "It is my great honor to have helped!!!"
The conference includes several large universities in states that could prove pivotal in the election, including Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
___
SUPREME COURT
BIDEN, on Supreme Court nominee Barrett: "She thinks that the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional."
THE FACTS: That's not right.
Biden is talking about Trump's pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Barrett has been critical of the Obama-era law and the court decisions that have upheld it, but she has never said it's not constitutional. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Nov. 10, and the Trump administration is asking the high court to rule the law unconstitutional.
___
DELAWARE STATE
TRUMP: "You said you went to Delaware State, but you forgot the name of your college. You didn't go to Delaware State. ... There's nothing smart about you, Joe."
THE FACTS: Trump is quoting Biden out of context. The former vice president, a graduate of the University of Delaware, did not say he attended Delaware State University but was making a broader point about his longstanding ties to the Black community.
Trump is referring to remarks Biden often says on the campaign, typically when speaking to Black audiences, that he "goes way back with HBCUs," or historically Black universities and colleges. Biden has spoken many times over the years at Delaware State, a public HBCU in his home state, and the school says that's where he first announced his bid for the Senate – his political start.
"I got started out of an HBCU, Delaware State — now, I don't want to hear anything negative about Delaware State," Biden told a town hall in Florence, South Carolina, in October 2019. "They're my folks."
Biden often touts his deep political ties to the Black community, occasionally saying he "grew up politically" or "got started politically" in the Black church. In front of some audiences, he's omitted the word "politically," but still with a clear context about his larger point. The statements are all part of a standard section of his stump speech noting that Delaware has "the eighth largest Black population by percentage."
A spokesman for Delaware State University, Carlos Holmes, has said  it took Biden's comments to refer to his political start. Holmes said Biden was referring to the support he received from the school when he announced his bid for the U.S. Senate on the school's campus in 1972.
Biden's broader point is to push back on the idea that he's a Johnny-come-lately with the Black community or that his political connections there are owed only to being Obama's vice president.
___
CRIME
BIDEN: "The fact of the matter is violent crime went down 17%, 15%, in our administration."
THE FACTS: That's overstating it.
Overall, the number of violent crimes fell roughly 10% from 2008, the year before Biden took office as vice president, to 2016, his last full year in the office, according to data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program.
But the number of violent crimes was spiking again during Obama and Biden's final two years in office, increasing by 8% from 2014 to 2016.
More people were slain across the U.S. in 2016, for example, than at any other point under the Obama administration.
___
TRUMP: "If you look at what's going on in Chicago, where 53 people were shot and eight died. If you look at New York where it's going up like nobody's ever seen anything ... the numbers are going up 100, 150, 200%, crime, it's crazy what's going on."
THE FACTS: Not quite. The statistics in Chicago are true, but those numbers are only a small snapshot of crime in the city and the United States, and his strategy is highlighting how data can be easily molded to suit the moment. As for New York, Trump may have been talking about shootings. They are up in New York by about 93% so far this year, but overall crime is down about 1.5%. Murders are up 38%, but there were 327 killings compared with 236, still low compared with years past. For example, compared with a decade ago, crime is down 10%.
An FBI report released Monday for 2019 crime data found that violent crime has decreased over the past three years.
___


Tomereader1

The whole thing, so called "debate" was disgusting.  It was not even properly moderated.  Telling your opponent to "just shut up" was juvenile at best, and calling him a clown was just as bad.  Neither debater should be president of the U.S.   Back during the primaries, I totally enjoyed the debates, regardless of which parties' I was watching.

diglady

After being interrupted 73 times I think he had a right to say 'shut up'!! Trump is America's Hitler and that persona was on full display. There was no "debate" as Trump decided he would control, attack, not stay on topic and lie. Should we have expected any less from him? At least Biden tried to make the talk about the American people not like the me, me, me Trump.

Trump is following the same tack as Hitler. We are about the 1932-33 years of his attack. Take over the newspapers, don't follow the Constitution, take over mail, constant lies, sending troops into towns--Don't believe me read your History.

Vanilla-Jackie

#668
I was absolutely disgusted when Trump brought up Bidens dead son, how can anyone insult a dead person, and to his fathers face, publically, on camera to the world..that was so nasty, disrespectful and hurtful..Not someone i would want to run my country..
" There is no present like the time "

patricia19

Trump has publicly stated that dead soldiers, MIAs, and POWs are losers, and that was his biggest insult to John McClain, a past Vietnam POW, and politician before his death. Yet, Trump has never fought in a war. He had five deferments during the Vietnamese war, one of them for bad feet.

patricia19

Business Insider
NATO insiders believe Trump's tax and debt problems make him vulnerable to blackmail by foreign powers

Recent revelations about President Trump's tax problems have confirmed suspicions among US allies that the president is uniquely vulnerable to influence or blackmail by foreign powers, NATO sources told Insider.
Security operatives in the US's European allies now regard Trump as a risk that makes them reluctant to share information with the US.
Trump's messy finances are exactly the kind of thing that foreign powers look for when trying to recruit assets. "Everything about his finances smells like blood and we are trained to be sharks," one source told Insider.



https://tinyurl.com/y2kzxtap

diglady

Trump tests positive for CV-19. He and first lady are in quarantine with mild symptoms.

He is obese, old and has high cholesterol so is at risk for the severe form!

patricia19

#672
Did you read the way he subtly emphasized the staffer, Hope Hicks, on how she was always "friendly" with the military?


Also, he deducted $70,000 for hairstyling expenses!?!

"This week, we learned that U.S. President Donald Trump paid only US$750 in federal income taxes for 2016 and 2017, and no personal income taxes whatsoever in 10 of the last 15 years. But the revelation that he deducted US$70,000 for the cost of his haircuts and hairstyling for appearing on The Apprentice has some taxpayers scratching their heads wondering whether personal grooming, along with a variety of other personal expenses, can ever be legitimately tax deductible."

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/trump-deducted-dollar70000-for-hairstyling-expenses-but-dont-expect-the-cra-to-let-you-do-the-same/ar-BB19DZpo?ocid=msedgntp


patricia19

#673
Melania Trump Who received citizenship as well as her parents, in less than a few months had this to say about aslum seekers in December 2018, on record
Politics
In Profane Rant, Melania Trump Takes Aim at Migrant Children and Critics

The audio recording puts the first lady's frustrations on full display just weeks before President Trump faces the voters in his bid for a second term.
The first lady, Melania Trump, complained in a recorded conversation in 2018 about having to worry about Christmas decorations.
By Michael D. Shear

    Oct. 1, 2020

WASHINGTON — The first lady, Melania Trump, delivered a profanity-laced rant about Christmas decorations at the White House and mocked the plight of migrant children who were separated from their parents at the border in 2018 during a conversation secretly taped by a former aide and close confidante.

"I'm working like a — my ass off at Christmas stuff," Mrs. Trump laments to the former aide, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who has just published a tell-all book, in a recording that was first broadcast on CNN on Thursday night. Mrs. Trump continued, "You know, who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decoration?"

Later in the conversation, which occurred in July 2018, the first lady complained about the criticism leveled at President Trump and his administration that summer for separating families in a crackdown on illegal immigration.

"I say that I'm working on Christmas planning for the Christmas, and they said, 'Oh, what about the children?' That they were separated." She used another obscenity to express her exasperation, asking Ms. Winston Wolkoff, "Where they were saying anything when Obama did that?"

The audio recording puts the first lady's frustrations on full display only weeks before Mr. Trump faces voters in his bid for a second term.

In a statement, Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's chief of staff, accused Ms. Winston Wolkoff of seeking to profit by releasing the recordings even as she tries to increase sales of her book, "Melania and Me."
   
"Her only intent was to secretly tape the first lady in order to peddle herself and her salacious book," Ms. Grisham said. "There is no way to know if these recordings have been edited, and it's clear the clips were handpicked and presented with no context. The first lady remains focused on her family and serving our country."

As first lady, Mrs. Trump has been somewhat reclusive, holding few formal dinners or parties at the White House and keeping a mostly low profile. Critics have mocked her "Be Best" program, intended to encourage children to model good behavior, saying that the president hardly abides by that credo.

Ms. Winston Wolkoff's book was published this year after a falling-out between the two women. Ms. Winston Wolkoff left the White House in early 2018 after it was revealed that her firm had received $26 million to help plan the president's inauguration.

The recordings appear to present Mrs. Trump as irritated that she does not receive the positive news coverage that she believes she deserves, in part because people say she is not speaking out enough about her husband's actions as president.

"They say I'm complicit. I'm the same like him. I support him. I don't say enough. I don't do enough," she tells Ms. Winston Wolkoff in a conversation that sounds as if she is confiding in a close friend.

The conversation took place only weeks after Mrs. Trump — who was born in Slovenia and became a United States citizen in 2006 — made headlines when she traveled to an immigrant shelter for children in Texas along the Mexican border and wore a jacket that read, in white capital letters, "I really don't care. Do U?"

At the time, the president and the first lady's spokeswoman said that the message on the jacket was aimed at reporters, not at the children she was visiting.

Asked by Ms. Winston Wolkoff why she wore the jacket, Mrs. Trump said she did it to annoy her husband's critics.

"I'm driving liberals crazy, that's for sure," she said. "And that, you know, that's — and they deserve it, you understand. And everybody's like, 'Oh, my God. This is the worst. This is the worst.' After, I mean, come on. They are crazy, OK?"

In the recordings, she complains that the news media was not willing to write a positive article about her visit and her efforts to help reunite children with their parents. She says they do not understand the limits of what she can do because reuniting them "needs to go through the process and through the law."

Of the news media, she says: "They will not do the story. We put it out. They would not do the story. You would not believe it. They would not do the story because they are not — they would not do the story because they are against us because they are liberal media. Yeah, if I go to Fox, they will do the story. I don't want to go to Fox."

The recordings also suggest that the president's view of immigration — and in particular his support for the idea of separating children at the border to deter illegal crossings — influenced the way she saw the issue as well.

In one part of the conversation, according to CNN, Mrs. Trump questioned whether the mothers and children who claimed to have been subject to violence in their home countries were really lying to Border Patrol officials.

"A lot of, like, moms and kids they are teached how to do it," Mrs. Trump said. "They go over and they say like, 'Oh, we will be killed by a gang member, we will be, you know, it's so dangerous.' So they are allowed to stay here."
She said the families, most of whom come from Central America, could have chosen to stay in Mexico.
"They are teached by other people what to say to come over and to, you know, let them go to stay here," she said. "Because they could easily stay in Mexico, but they don't want to stay in Mexico because Mexico doesn't take care of them the same as America does."
    © 2020 The New York Times Company

diglady

The White House continues to lie. Appears Trump condition is worse than we have been told. His 02 sat dropped 2x.

I can not feel sorry for him. He has not felt anything for this country or the 207,000 people he is responsible for killing /dying. He is a bioterrorist and getting his comeuppance IMO.

diglady

This is a long but I think interesting read:

Subject: Donald Trump and Benito Mussolini: Striking Parallels, Twins, Fascists, Uncanny Resemblance


http://www.thehypertexts.com/Donald%20Trump%20Benito%20Mussolini%20Parallels%20Fascists.htm

patricia19

Trump: Mailed ballots are a tremendous problem!
California GOP: *puts out fake collection boxes*

John Bartlet from The Critter Room, Washington State; posted on Facebook, "People are so quick to scream voter fraud when ballots are found dumped but ignore that the more likely excuse is that someone stole them out of mailboxes and dumped them. One such case in my area had regular mail included along with ballots dumped or put in other people's mailboxes. Another story had a guy caught putting feces in a ballot collection box, presumably to invalidate ballots."

diglady

Page 27 this weeks  Time magazine:::

"On Oct 13, the White House confirmed it was embracing a strategy that involves deliberately letting the novel coronavirus rip through the population while attempting to shield the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions."

This is bioterrorism

diglady



patricia19

Diglady, no one cares in that carpetbagging organization, as long as their pockets are overflowing. If Trump is defeated, there will be lots of scurrying and mysterious packages being delivered elsewhere before January...

Vanilla-Jackie

#681
( Praising himself up ) Trump quote: " and America is the envy of the entire world, " really...

Trump quote: " this is embarrassment to our country, " he is the embarrassment...

So he is claiming election " fraud " now,...guess he will know all about " fraud "
" There is no present like the time "

patricia19

#682
US Election 2020 from CNN

"We still don't know who will be the next US president, and the reality is setting in that it could be a bit of a wait. Former Vice President Joe Biden currently has a projected 253 Electoral College votes, and President Trump has 213, so every remaining state is effectively a critical battleground. The races are too close to call in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, and many thousands of ballots remain to be counted in some of these areas.

The USPS says it's taking extraordinary measures to deliver ballots, mailed on time, to be counted by the end of the weekend in more than a dozen states. Meanwhile, Trump and his campaign have made several baseless attacks on the election process after it became clear Biden would take Michigan and Wisconsin, two key Rust Belt pickups that Trump won in 2016. Trump has now threatened or taken legal action in those states, as well as Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia.

However, some Republicans don't approve of his efforts to cast doubt on the voting process, and there's concern these moves could further damage the US' international reputation in a critical political hour."

diglady

His idiot son Donald Jr has called for WAR. This is sedition and FBI needs to remove him from the White House.

Vanilla-Jackie

#684
Diglady...
...that has been on our UK BBC news also...seems like the whole family are " trouble makers, " like father, like son..." will go to any length to hog the limelight"
" There is no present like the time "

diglady

I have to be politically and racially  biased here:  Trump and  family German TRASH --Hitler like IMO

Trump doesn't care that his rallies have killed many people with CV-19.

There is talk of many law suits (rape, theft) when he is out of office so he maybe jailed YEA!!

Vanilla-Jackie

#686
Trump is a control freak...Trump had " warned " his rival NOT to claim the presidency...just who does he think he is...dishing out threats..
Trump thinks because he has money he can get - buy what he wants...I think this has hit his pride, for once he and his money has not gotten him what he wants...
" There is no present like the time "

diglady

He is worried about being out of office as there will be many law suits against him (rape etc!) plus he OWES so much money!

patricia19

He owes millions to foreign banks, primarily to a main German one and several come due in 2021. I think with Trump, that was going to be a concern if he won reelection. Trump has debts to multiple creditors to the tune of 1.1 billion and much of it will be reaching maturity in the next three to four years. And this is well known in Foreign countries.

This is from an editorial by RealMadrid, a Spanish paper, "Donald Trump's debts are believed to be in excess of $1.1 billion – more than double the figure he has admitted to and much of it will be reaching maturity in the next two to three years. Last month, Trump admitted to NBC that he had debts of $421 million: "The numbers that they released were all wrong and just so that you understand, when you have a lot of real estate, I have a lot of real estate – you know a lot of it ok? Right down the road - Doral, big stuff, great stuff – fortunately, I am very under-levered," he said.

 "I have a very, very small percentage of debt compared to... in fact some of it I did as favors to institutions who wanted to loan me money. Four hundred million dollars compared to the assets I have – all of these great properties all over the world. It's a tiny percentage of my net worth. No, I don't owe Russia money. I owe a very small amount of money and it's very straight". 

Trump owes to multiple creditors - banks and assets managers, and like he says, most of his debts are backed by his extensive real estate portfolio which includes office towers, golf resorts, hotels and residential properties. Forbes estimated his net worth is around $2.5 billion and he is believed to have taken out loans with at least six creditors and several of those bank loans have since been repackaged and sold on as securities on the bond market.

Trump's underperforming hotels
Then there is the $170 million mortgage with Deutsche Bank on the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC – the redeveloped Old Post Office which opened in 2016. It is not known how much of the debt is still outstanding. It is due in 2024. Another hotel, the Trump International Hotel at 1 Central Park West, New York has not been performing as well as expected and has since been flagged as a potential risk. It is not known how much of the $6.5 million refinanced mortgage has been paid off to creditors Ladder Capital.

In 2016, Trump borrowed $160 million from Ladder Capital to refinance his 40 Wall Street skyscraper in Manhattan. According to the New York Times, he still owes $138 million with the loan at 3.665% interest and due to mature in July 2025.

Another sizable debt is the mortgage owed to Deutsche Bank for his National Doral golf course in Miami since 2012. Forbes report that the debt has risen to over $125 million while the New York Times claim that the figure is closer to $148 million. The Doral suffered losses totalling $162 million between 2012 and 2018.

Trump also has many other, smaller debts of between $5 million and $25 million on residential properties in New York, Palm Beach, Florida and golf courses in Washington DC and Colts Neck New Jersey. Most are with small banks and do not mature within the next four years.

And this is well known to our friends and our enemies.

https://en.as.com/en/2020/11/06/latest_news/1604703563_436370.html

Trump has had six bankrupties, his latest filing was in 2009.   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/live-updates/general-election/real-time-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-the-first-presidential-debate/fact-check-has-trump-declared-bankruptcy-four-or-six-times/

Vanilla-Jackie

#689
After reading the above and losing the Presidency, I have a strange premonition about Trump of something he has considered and might do, i shan't post what it is but the word starts with the letter " s " and ends with an " e "
" There is no present like the time "