Octopus Overlords

tgb wrote:I can't wait to hear how his supporters can justify their loyalty, especially in light of Trump U, now that we know that not only was he personally involved (I had assumed it was a licensing deal, like just about everything else) and that he personally pocketed $5 mil from the filthy lucre.

Filthy Lucre is an awesome name for a band, btw.

TheMix wrote:

tgb wrote:I can't wait to hear how his supporters can justify their loyalty, especially in light of Drumpf U, now that we know that not only was he personally involved (I had assumed it was a licensing deal, like just about everything else) and that he personally pocketed $5 mil from the filthy lucre.

Filthy Lucre is an awesome name for a band, btw.

Have you ever watched a Drumpf apologist? It's mesmerizing. gilraen was watching Bill Maher's show the other night and there was a Drumpf supporter on. He easily managed to sidestep, ignore, redirect, etc. everything negative that was put in front of him. Even facts and contradictions. It's the first time that I've ever seen Bill lose his cool. He actually had to stop the discussion and move to other things because he was about to lose it.

So don't get your hopes up. They won't have any problems justifying. You, however, might have some trouble following the complete lack of logic and reasoning.

tjg_marantz wrote:Trumpaloos gonna Trumpaloo.

tgb wrote:Filthy Lucre is an awesome name for a band, btw.

Max Peck wrote:

tgb wrote:Filthy Lucre is an awesome name for a band, btw.

Yup.

TheMix wrote:

tjg_marantz wrote:Trumpaloos gonna Trumpaloo.

I like! Can I use this?

malchior wrote:Is there a hint that Paul Ryan is going to be playing some obvious double game (aka ass covering) with Drumpf? He endorses him yesterday and then goes on to blast him around his comments about Curiel today. Guess the Silkwood shower metaphors are close to home.

Brian wrote:

TheMix wrote:

tjg_marantz wrote:Trumpaloos gonna Trumpaloo.

I like! Can I use this?

I like Trumpaloo but I think Trumpalo is better since Trump supporters seem like the political equivalent of Juggalos.

Zaxxon wrote:Look at my African-American over here!

Zaxxon wrote:Look at my African-American over here!

Six months before he entered the presidential race, Donald Trump announced a new real estate project in Baku, Azerbaijan. His partner was the son of a government minister suspected by U.S. diplomats of laundering money for Iran's military and described as "notoriously corrupt." Eighteen months later, and only weeks after daughter Ivanka Trump released a publicity video of the nearly finished project, references to the Baku project have disappeared from Trump's website. Trump's general counsel, Alan Garten, told The Associated Press that it was on hold for economic reasons. Trump often talks of hiring the best people and surrounding himself with people he can trust.

Any American contemplating a business venture in Azerbaijan faces a risk: "endemic public corruption," as the State Department puts it. Much of that money flows from the oil and gas industries, but the State Department also considers the country to be a waypoint for terrorist financiers, Iranian sanctions-busters and Afghan drug lords. The environment is a risky one for any business venture seeking to avoid violating U.S. penalties imposed against Iran or anti-bribery laws under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Trump's choice of partners in Baku was Anar Mammadov, the son of the country's transportation minister. Anar Mammadov did not respond to AP's emails or messages sent to his social media accounts or messages left with his company. Garten said the Trump Organization had performed background screening on all those involved in the deal and was confident Mammadov's father played no role in the project. Experts on Azerbaijan were mystified that Trump or anyone else could reach that conclusion.

Anar Mammadov is widely viewed by diplomats and nongovernmental organizations as a transparent stand-in for the business interests of his father. Anar's business has boomed with regular help from his father's ministry, receiving exclusive government contracts, a near monopoly on Baku's taxi business and even a free fleet of autobuses. "These are not business people acting on their own - you're dealing with daddy," said Richard Kauzlarich, a U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s who went on to work under the Director of National Intelligence during the George W. Bush administration. "Whatever the Trump people thought they were doing, that wasn't reality," Kauzlarich said.

Anar Mammadov, who is believed to be 35, has said in a series of interviews that he founded Garant Holdings' predecessor - which has arms in transportation, construction, banking, telecommunications and manufacturing - in 2000, when he would have been 19. Anar received his bachelor's degree in 2003 and a master's in business administration in 2005 - both from a university in London. Mammadov's statement that he founded the business in 2000 appeared in a magazine produced by a research firm in partnership with the Azerbaijani government. In other forums, he has said he started the business in 2005, though several of its key subsidiaries predate that period.

In addition to possible oversights related to his real estate partners' background, Trump has sometimes brought people with shaky pasts into Trump-branded business ventures. In 2006, Trump helped launch Trump Mortgage, an ill-fated attempt to sell subprime loans. Trump appeared on stage alongside E.J. Ridings, billed by Trump Mortgage as formerly "a top executive at one of Wall Street's most prestigious investment banks." Ridings' actual resume was more modest. He had been an entry-level broker at Morgan Stanley, for a total of six days, as Money Magazine first reported. Ridings resigned. He did not return a message from AP that was left on his cellphone or respond to contacts on active social media accounts.

Similar problems affected hires for Trump University, a defunct real estate investing seminar company. Though the instructors were supposedly "hand-picked" by Trump, he left the selection to others, who didn't successfully vet all of them, either. Some of the instructors had filed for bankruptcy protection. Others were unqualified. "He defrauded us, OK?" Trump said of one former instructor's declaration that he knew little about real estate. Garten said Trump's organization performed background checks on every instructor, mentor and employee it hired for Trump University, and said some instructors were affiliated with a third-party licensee. In the deposition, Trump was sanguine about his hiring process. "In every business, people slip through the cracks," he said. "No matter how well-run a business, people come in and they're not good, and you wonder, you know, how did they get there, et cetera."

Alberto Gonzales, who led the Justice Department under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Saturday that Curiel's Mexican heritage shouldn't be enough to disqualify him from overseeing the case.

But, Gonzales said, Trump is entitled to a fair trial, and the appearance of impropriety could be enough for him to reasonably request that Curiel recuse himself. He cited Curiel's membership in the La Raza Lawyers Association's San Diego chapter -- although the lawyers group is unaffiliated with the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy group that has opposed Trump, the billionaire "may be concerned that the lawyers' association or its members represent or support the other advocacy organization."

"These circumstances, while not necessarily conclusive, at least raise a legitimate question to be considered," Gonzales wrote. "Regardless of the way Trump has gone about raising his concerns over whether he's getting a fair trial, none of us should dismiss those concerns out of hand without carefully examining how a defendant in his position might perceive them — and we certainly should not dismiss them for partisan political reasons."

Defiant wrote:Donald Trump Suggests Muslim Judge Might Also Be Unfair

I think i see method to Trump's madness: Insult everyone, so that he can then call on any judge to recuse themselves. How can a case against him proceed if every judge has to recuse themselves?

Skinypupy wrote:

Defiant wrote:Donald Trump Suggests Muslim Judge Might Also Be Unfair

I think i see method to Trump's madness: Insult everyone, so that he can then call on any judge to recuse themselves. How can a case against him proceed if every judge has to recuse themselves?

By Trump's logic, the only person who could give him a fair trial is a straight, white, Christian, conservative male who agrees with him

Rip wrote:

Skinypupy wrote:

Defiant wrote:Donald Trump Suggests Muslim Judge Might Also Be Unfair

I think i see method to Trump's madness: Insult everyone, so that he can then call on any judge to recuse themselves. How can a case against him proceed if every judge has to recuse themselves?

By Trump's logic, the only person who could give him a fair trial is a straight, white, Christian, conservative male who agrees with him

I'll grab my robe.

Skinypupy wrote:

Defiant wrote:Donald Trump Suggests Muslim Judge Might Also Be Unfair

I think i see method to Trump's madness: Insult everyone, so that he can then call on any judge to recuse themselves. How can a case against him proceed if every judge has to recuse themselves?

By Trump's logic, the only person who could give him a fair trial is a racist, reactionary, jingoistic, misogynist blowhard who mistakes ignorance for conviction and bullying for leadership.

Skinypupy wrote:

Defiant wrote:Donald Trump Suggests Muslim Judge Might Also Be Unfair

I think i see method to Trump's madness: Insult everyone, so that he can then call on any judge to recuse themselves. How can a case against him proceed if every judge has to recuse themselves?

By Trump's logic, the only person who could give him a fair trial is a straight, white, Christian, conservative male who agrees with him

Defiant wrote:Donald Trump Suggests Muslim Judge Might Also Be Unfair

I think i see method to Trump's madness: Insult everyone, so that he can then call on any judge to recuse themselves. How can a case against him proceed if every judge has to recuse themselves?

Captain Caveman wrote:It would be amazing if, just weeks before the election-- especially if it looks like he's not going to win-- he just says fuck it and drops out, blaming all those he believes have treated him unfairly... the media, the party, the judiciary.

The fact that I can't entirely rule this out is kind of amazing.

Captain Caveman wrote:It would be amazing if, just weeks before the election-- especially if it looks like he's not going to win-- he just says fuck it and drops out, blaming all those he believes have treated him unfairly... the media, the party, the judiciary.

El Guapo wrote:Trump should call for the impeachment of all judges who aren't biased against him. He could then immediately ask all judges to recuse themselves from hearing cases against him, as they would have to admit that either they are biased against him, or that they are not biased against him, in which case they are now biased against him by virtue of his calling for their impeachment.

hepcat wrote:If you are white and you on trial for a crime against someone who is black, can you request a white judge? I would think not.

Bloomberg wrote: An embattled Donald Trump urgently rallied his most visible supporters to defend his attacks on a federal judge's Mexican ancestry during a conference call on Monday in which he ordered them to question the judge's credibility and impugn reporters as racists. "We will overcome," Trump said, according to two supporters who were on the call and requested anonymity to share their notes with Bloomberg Politics. "And I’ve always won and I’m going to continue to win. And that’s the way it is. There was no mention of apologizing or backing away from his widely criticized remarks about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing cases against the Trump University real-estate program. When former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer interrupted the discussion to inform Trump that his own campaign had asked surrogates to stop talking about the lawsuit in an e-mail on Sunday, Trump repeatedly demanded to know who sent the memo, and immediately overruled his staff. "Take that order and throw it the hell out," Trump said. Told the memo was sent by Erica Freeman, a staffer who circulates information to surrogates, Trump said he didn't know her. He openly questioned how the campaign could defend itself if supporters weren't allowed to talk. "Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks?" Trump said. "That's one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren't so smart."

PLW wrote:I still can't believe this guy ran a successful primary campaign.

Bloomberg wrote: An embattled Donald Trump urgently rallied his most visible supporters to defend his attacks on a federal judge's Mexican ancestry during a conference call on Monday in which he ordered them to question the judge's credibility and impugn reporters as racists. "We will overcome," Trump said, according to two supporters who were on the call and requested anonymity to share their notes with Bloomberg Politics. "And I’ve always won and I’m going to continue to win. And that’s the way it is. There was no mention of apologizing or backing away from his widely criticized remarks about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing cases against the Trump University real-estate program. When former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer interrupted the discussion to inform Trump that his own campaign had asked surrogates to stop talking about the lawsuit in an e-mail on Sunday, Trump repeatedly demanded to know who sent the memo, and immediately overruled his staff. "Take that order and throw it the hell out," Trump said. Told the memo was sent by Erica Freeman, a staffer who circulates information to surrogates, Trump said he didn't know her. He openly questioned how the campaign could defend itself if supporters weren't allowed to talk. "Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks?" Trump said. "That's one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren't so smart."

PLW wrote:Popehat back again, with recusal rules.

Apollo wrote:Is it now fair to say that the majority of Republican voters are racists who have no principles whatsoever, or is that a bit too extreme?