Archive for the ‘Donald Trump’ Category

Letters: The assumption of critics is that Donald Trump is correct and Joe Biden isn’t – The Advocate

In his letter of displeasure with Joe Biden's presidency, Robert Hebert, economist, demonstrates that he remains true to his profession. Like most economists, he begins by making an assumption. In his case, he has assumed former President Donald Trump could do no wrong and President Joe Biden can do no right.

Maybe we would all be better served if the world wasn't viewed through Hebert's lens of absolutism or its antithesis that Trump could do no good and Biden can do no wrong. I can say this because I do not belong to either tribe.

I must confess I do not miss the Trump presidency. A president is elected to serve his country. By his pandemic performances on TV and his erratic tweets, Trump left me with the feeling he was less concerned about serving his country and more concerned with serving himself. I will decide in the 2024 election how I feel about the Biden presidency.

DENNIS C. FOLTZ

retired, food processing

Gretna

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Letters: The assumption of critics is that Donald Trump is correct and Joe Biden isn't - The Advocate

Aubrey O’Day Reignites Feud With ‘Petty’ Ex Donald Trump Jr. After Fleeing The States – OK!

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The Danity Kane member reignited her feud with ex Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter after she called out the former presidents son for poking fun at the horrific events happening with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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"Reliable sources tell me that [Joe] Biden & our woke Generals will DEMAND that the Taliban rename themselves the LGBTaliban+ to be more inclusive & diverse, or else no more American weapons for them!," ex-President Donald Trumps son tweeted on August 24, 2021.

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His ex was quick to put him in place, saying: You r so much more interesting than this petty nonsense, she subtweeted him on the same day. Hurts to see u playing to your weakest self all the time.

ODay and Don Jr. had an affair that lasted a little over a year while the singer was a contestant on the fifth season of The Celebrity Apprentice, OK! reported. The Making the Band alum called the businessman her soulmate during an episode of MTVs Ex on the Beach in 2019.

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The Damaged songstress put her ex and the entire Trump family on blast after he attacked Joe Bidens son, Hunter, in a series of now-deleted tweets. ODay accused Trump Jr. of hating his father, claimed Ivanka, who is married to Jared Kushner, is a lesbian and that Eric had sex with a former Miss Universe contestant while he was dating his now-wife, Lara.

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Her most shocking claim came after she showed a video on Don Jr. in which social media users claimed he was on cocaine. She retweeted one of the clips, saying, we did drugs together, adding: cocaine was never one of them, he never showed any interest. so I cant say that.

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Her most recent shot fired at the Triggered author comes after OK! learned the blonde bombshell up and sold her Los Angeles home and started a new life abroad last month.

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For those of you who are friends, or have spent enough time on my Twitter over the years to get into my mind, you know Ive been wanting to leave out of the country for a while now, so.. I have 🙂 ! I sold my place in America and just boarded my flight to a new life, she wrote via Instagram on Saturday, July 10, as she teased her new single.

I need a more profound purpose at this stage of my life than what Ive learned so far, she added. So.. Im writing this to anyone who may be relating to any of these feelings expressed.. JUST JUMP AND THE NET WILL APPEAR! love you all!

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Aubrey O'Day Reignites Feud With 'Petty' Ex Donald Trump Jr. After Fleeing The States - OK!

Donald Trumps Best Friend and Inauguration Chair, Thomas Barrack, Arrested on Federal Charges – Vanity Fair

Back in 2015, when Donald Trump was merely a candidate for office, he made a bold claim, telling The Washington Post, Im going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people. Its a claim that would have held up if best and most serious people were actually code for a collection of fuck-ups, racists, and criminals,though of course Trump meant best in the actual sense. Instead, in the years since, more than half a dozen of the 45th presidents associates have been arrested or convicted of a crime, and apparently, the number continues to grow!

On Tuesday morning, billionaire Thomas Barrack, one of Trumps closest friends, was arrested in the Los Angeles area and charged with violating foreign-lobbying laws, making false statements, and obstructing justice. According to the Post, the financier was indicted on charges related to his dealings in the United Arab Emirates. He and two other defendants have reportedly been accused of acting and conspiring to act as agents of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018. Officials also claimed that Barrack lied to FBI agents in 2019 while being questioned about his dealings with the UAE.

The 45-page indictment charges Matthew Grimes, an employee of Barracks investment firm, with helping in the lobbying effort. Grimes was also arrested, officials said. A third man charged in the scheme, Rashid Alshahhi, is a citizen of the UAE who lived for a time in California. Attorneys for Barrack and Grimes did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Officials said Alshahhi remains at large; an attorney for him could not immediately be identified.

Officials said that the lobbying effort began as Trump was sewing up the GOP primary nomination in the spring of 2016 and that Barrack took steps to establish himself as the key communications channel for the United Arab Emirates to the Campaign. A real estate titan who became wealthy buying out-of-favor assets, Barrack was one of Trumps closest associates during the campaign and in office, regularly speaking to the former president, visiting him, and channeling him to others, including business officials and leaders in foreign countries.... Federal prosecutors say Barrack capitalized on his access to Trump and other high-ranking government officials, and his relationships with U.S. journalists, to advance the policy goals of a foreign government without disclosing their true alliances. On a number of occasions, the Justice Department alleged, Barrack pushed the interests of the UAE to the Trump administration without disclosing that he was working on the countrys behalf.

On a seemingly unrelated but crucial note, Barrack chaired Trumps 2016 inaugural committee, which is currently under criminal investigation by D.C. attorney general Karl Racine. Racinesuedthe Trump Organization, the Trump International Hotel, and the inaugural committee in January 2020,allegingthe groups funneled large amounts of inauguration cash into the first familys pockets via the hotel. Both Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump have sat for depositions related to the probe, seeming to have misled investigators about their involvement in the planning of the inaugural events. After the lawsuit was filed, the Trump Organizationsaidin a statement that it was a clear P.R. stunt and that the rates charged by the hotel were completely in line with what anyone else would have been charged for an unprecedented event of this enormous magnitude and were reflective of the fact that [the]hotel had just recently opened, possessed superior facilities, and was centrally located on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Barrack joins a long, ignoble list of Trump associates, advisers, and friends whove found themselves on the wrong side of the law. In April, Rudy Giuliani had his home and office raided as part of criminal investigation into his Ukraine dealings. Giuliani is also reportedly the subject of a DOJ investigation into alleged foreign lobbying for Turkey. (Giuliani has denied lobbying on behalf of both Ukraine and Turkey.)

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Donald Trumps Best Friend and Inauguration Chair, Thomas Barrack, Arrested on Federal Charges - Vanity Fair

Im Getting the Word Out: Inside the Feverish Mind of Donald Trump Two Months After Leaving the White House – Vanity Fair

Nobodys ever gone through what I have, Trump added. They got me on all phony stuff.

Trump found fault with most of his fellow Republican leaders, past and present. Still clearly vexed by the ghost of the late Arizona senator John McCain, Trump without prompting brought up the partys 2008 presidential nominee, whom he had attacked for years.

John McCain was a bad guy, he said of the decorated prisoner of war. He was a bully and a nasty guy, bad guy. A lot of people disliked him. Last in his class in Annapolis. All that stuff, but he was a bad guy. I say it to you. I dont care. Does it affect me? I won Arizona, okay? By a lot. Didnt turn out that way in terms of the vote, but I won Arizona. Everyone knows it. He didnt affect me. I won the first time. I won it the second time.

Trump, who in fact lost Arizona to Biden, continued with this fix. You know, I did three rallies in Arizona, he said. I never had an empty seat. Governor Doug Ducey, who withstood Trumps pressure to overturn the result, was not a loyal party member, according to the former president. I think Ducey is a terrible Republican, he said. Ducey did everything he could to block voter integrity, to block people from making sure the vote was accurate.

Trump also complained about former House Speaker Paul Ryan, whom he labeled a super-RINORepublican in name only. And he said Mitch McConnell has no personality nor a killer political instinct. He faulted McConnell for refusing to eliminate the filibuster to ram through Republican legislation and for not persuading Senator Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia, to switch parties.

Hes a stupid person, Trump said of McConnell. I dont think hes smart enough.

I tried to convince Mitch McConnell to get rid of the filibuster, to terminate it, so that we would get everything, and he was a knucklehead and he didnt do it, Trump said.

Trump said he wished he had had partners in Congress like Meade Esposito, who was the head of the Democratic Party machine in Brooklyn from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Esposito, who was close to Trump and his late father, Fred Trump, was known for his patronage and commanded respect.

Nobody would ever talk back to Meade Esposito. Meade Esposito didnt have a RINO like a Mitt Romney, you know, or as I said, Ben Sasse, whos a lightweight, Trump said, invoking two Republican senators who sometimes criticized him. He added, Mitch McConnell compared to Meade Esposito, its like a baby compared to a grownup football player with brains on top of everything else.

Esposito had run a citywide patronage system that doled out important jobs to loyalists and people providing gifts and favors. The party boss gained a fearsome reputation for his intimidation tactics and connections to organized crime. Amid an investigation of his work, Esposito retired in 1983; he was convicted of offering a gratuity and interstate travel charges in 1987.

Other presidents attend to philanthropic interests, write memoirs, and curate presidential libraries after leaving office. But not Trump. Many of his Palm Beach days have followed the tempo and style he set back in Washington, a reflection of his addiction to the twenty-four-hour news cycle and appetite to maintain political relevance. In the morning hours, he spends time alone in his private quarters watching television and making phone calls to allies and friends. Many days he plays a round of golf at one of his nearby clubs. And in the afternoons, he puts on his suit, applies his makeup, and emerges for meetings with whichever politicians or acolytes have made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. By early 2021, Trump had turned his club into a political base camp for his potential comeback.

Trump made no secret of his interest in perhaps running for president in 2024. Would he choose Pence again as his running mate?

Well, I was disappointed in Mike, Trump said. But, you know, Ill be making a decision at some point. I will say this: Based on the polls, those polls are great, the Republican Party loves Trump. Ninety-seven percent!

When we pointed out that Pence is said to be interested in running for president, too, Trump seemed to welcome the competition. Its a free country, right? he said. Its a free country.

But Trump all but ruled out running with Chris Christie, who had been runner-up to Pence in his 2016 veepstakes, and Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, who had criticized Trumps attempts to subvert the vote in repeated interviews with Tim Alberta of Politico.

Chris has been very disloyal, but thats okay, Trump said. I helped Chris Christie a lot. He knows that more than anybody, but I helped him a lot. But hes been disloyal.

As for his former ambassador, Trump said he was rebuffing her outreach. Nikki Haley wants to come here so badly, he said. She did a little nasty couple of statements...She has been killed by the party. When they speak badly about me, the party is not happy about it. Its pretty amazing. Theres not been anything like this.

Over the years, Trump rarely has expressed misgivings. But he regrets his response to protests last summer in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, and other cities. I think if I had it to do again, I would have brought in the military immediately, he said.

Trump had no such second thoughts about his handling of the pandemic. He said he had been very tough in protecting the country by restricting travel, first from China and then from Europe. He said he did so against the wishes of his top medical advisers; in fact, most of them agreed with the restrictions before he made his decision, according to participants in the discussions and their contemporaneous notes. But he correctly said he pushed scientists at the FDA at a level that they have never been pushed before to get vaccines approved in record time.

I think we did a great job on COVID and it hasnt been recognized, Trump said, noting that other countries saw spikes in COVID-19 infections in the months after he left office. The cupboards were bare. We didnt have gowns. We didnt have masks. We didnt have ventilators. We didnt have anything...We brought in plane loads. We did a great job.

When we asked Trump why he encouraged people to believe things that werent true or to distrust science and the media, he delighted in talking about the scientific smarts in his familys genes.

First of all, Im a big person, he said. Do you know this? My uncle, Dr. John Trump, I think he was at [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] longer than any other professor. Totally brilliant man. He had numerous degrees. So thats in the genes. I always go with that stuff. But its a little bit in the genes and Dr. John Trump, he was a great guy. My fathers brother. No, Im a big believer in science. If I wasnt, you wouldnt have a vaccine. It depends. Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.

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Im Getting the Word Out: Inside the Feverish Mind of Donald Trump Two Months After Leaving the White House - Vanity Fair

Report: Prosecutors Have Obtained Damning Information Allegedly Implicating Trump in His Companys Crimes – Vanity Fair

After literal decades of avoiding any and all consequences for a life of corruption that has included everything from incitingan attack on the U.S. Capitol to attempting toextort Ukraine, to allegedlydirecting his lawyer to violatecampaign finance laws,to lying to the public about COVID-19, to allegedlystiffinghundreds of contractors,is Donald Trump actually going to be held accountable for running a company accused of, among other things, conspiracy, grand larceny, and multiple counts of tax fraud and falsifying records? On the one hand, he never has, so why would anyone expect it to happen now? On the other, thanks to the work of Manhattan prosecutors and helpful witnesses, he appears to be closer than ever to a situation in which he spends numerous years in prison!

Weeks after the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, were hit with a slew of criminal charges, for which the latter faces more than a decade in prison and to which they both pleaded not guilty, the Daily Beast reports that Weisselbergs ex-daughter-in-law, whos been extremely helpful to Cyrus Vance Jr.s office thus far, provided the Manhattan D.A.s office with explosive information concerning Donald Trumps involvement in the crimes his company and longtime employee have been accused of committing.

According to reporter Jose Pagliery, during a Zoom call with investigators on June 25, Jennifer Weisselberg, who was previously married to Allens son Barry Weisselberg, told investigators that she was in Trumps office at Trump Tower during a January 2012 meeting in which the real estate developer discussed compensation with Allen and Barry, explaining that while the latter would not be getting a raise, his childrens private school tuition, which clocked in at more than $50,000 a year per child, would be paid for. According to Jennifer Weisselberg, Trump turned to her and allegedly said, Dont worry, Ive got it covered. While that might sound like an instance of the ex-president being an uncharacteristically generous guy, prosecutors have claimed that Allen Weisselberg was awarded numerous fringe benefits over the yearslike a free apartment, cars, and, yes, private school tuitionfor the express purpose of avoiding paying taxes. Which, according to the indictment against him, he did, to the tune of $900,000.

According to two sources, among the prosecutors on the call were Carey Dunne, the Manhattan DAs general counsel; Mark F. Pomerantz, a white collar crime specialist brought on for this investigation; and Gary Fishman, an assistant attorney general deputized to work on this joint investigation. If true, Jennifer Weisselbergs claims would directly tie Trump to what a New York criminal indictment described as a corporate scheme to pay executives in a matter that was off the books.

The scheme allowed the Trump Organization to evade the payment of payroll taxes that [it] was required to pay, an indictment for the Trump Organization claims. On the flip side, it also alleges that executives avoided having to pay income taxes on a huge chunk of their pay. The indictment, filed the very next week on June 30, does not criminally charge Trump as an individual, but it does describe how he signed checks that paid for the Weisselberg children to attend an expensive private school in Manhattans Upper West Side. While longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg could be crucial to a criminal case against Trump, its Jennifer Weisselberghis former daughter-in-lawwhos thus far been more helpful. Prosecutors have already useddocuments in Jennifer Weisselbergs divorce caseto explore how Trump paid more than $50,000 a year, starting in 2012, for the kids to attend the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School.

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Report: Prosecutors Have Obtained Damning Information Allegedly Implicating Trump in His Companys Crimes - Vanity Fair