Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 63 (9161 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,585 Year: 2,842/9,624 Month: 687/1,588 Week: 93/229 Day: 4/61 Hour: 0/0


EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House The Trump Presidency

Summations Only

Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   The Trump Presidency
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 106 of 4573 (797156)
01-13-2017 8:19 AM
Reply to: Message 105 by RAZD
01-11-2017 10:20 PM


Russian Mob Bailout for Trump Bankruptcies
The other thing making the rounds (here by DailyKos) is the claim that the Russian Mob bailed him out from his last bankruptcy ...
quote:
Donald Trump was bailed out of bankruptcy by Russia crime bosses
In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. attended a real estate conference, where he stated that
Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.
As it turns out, that may have been an understatement. Human rights lawyer Scott Horton, whose work in the region goes back to defending Andrei Sakharov and other Soviet dissidents, has gone through a series of studies by the Financial Times to show how funds from Russian crime lords bailed Trump out after yet anther bankruptcy. The conclusions are stark.
Among the powerful facts that DNI missed were a series of very deep studies published in the [Financial Times] that examined the structure and history of several major Trump real estate projects from the last decadethe period after his seventh bankruptcy and the cancellation of all his bank lines of credit. ...
The money to build these projects flowed almost entirely from Russian sources. In other words, after his business crashed, Trump was floated and made to appear to operate a successful business enterprise through the infusion of hundreds in millions of cash from dark Russian sources.
He was their man.
Horton’s analysis comes from piecing together information in three Financial Times deep reports. One of these focused on Sergei Millian, the head of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the US at the time of Trump Jr.’s money pouring in from Russia claim.
The second Financial Times article puts Trump at the middle of a money laundering scheme, in which his real estate deals were used to hide not just an infusion of capital from Russia and former Soviet states, but to launder hundreds of millions looted by oligarchs. All Trump had to do was close his eyes to the source of the money, and suddenly empty apartments were going for top dollar.
The Trump Organization was a hollow shell and Trump was bankrupt, but Donald Trump the public figure was a successful businessman, a screen behind which criminal activity could be carried out on a massive scale. Throwing his name at every scheme in existence wasn’t a strategy, it was a fire sale on Trump’s respectability. Steaks? Water? Vodka? Fake real estate school? You pony up the cash, and Trump will slap his name on it. Because by the early 2000s, Trump wasn’t just broke, he had nothing left to pawn. He wasn’t a successful businessman, but he still played one on TV. His image had more value than his real estate portfolio.
But the apartments and buildings where Trump held some degree of ownership could be turned into value again. All it took was partnering with foreign crime bosses looking for a place to stash their cash. To inflate the value of his portfolio, Trump had to do nothing other than look away as the dirty money poured in from one LLC to the next. Citizens in Russia, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet states lost hundreds of millions, but Trump got a cut as looted funds flowed through offices and apartments in buildings that carried those critical gold letters.
Horton’s evaluation of this material in coordination with the declassified DNI report is that Trump actively worked with and for Russian interests.
Snopes has this to say
quote:
Putin on the Ritz
ABC reported in September 2016 that Trump has business interests in Russia, not that the Russian government paid him money.
He later told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Will I sell condos to Russians on occasion? Probably. I mean I do that. I have a lot of condos. I do that. But I have no relationship to Russia whatsoever."
But an ABC News investigation found he has numerous connections to Russian interests both in the U.S. and abroad.
The level of business amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars -- what he received as a result of interaction with Russian businessmen, said Sergei Millian, who heads a U.S.-Russia business group and who says he once helped market Trump’s U.S. condos in Russia and the former Soviet states. They were happy to invest with him, and they were happy to work with Donald Trump. And they were happy to associate[and] be associated with Donald Trump.
But [Florida broker Daniel] Pansky and [New York real estate agent Victoria] Shtainer told ABC News that purchases from Russian buyers in New York and Miami began to drop precipitously in 2014, when the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Russia in response to the Russian military incursion into Crimea.
To Russian buyers looking to move money out of their home country, Shtainer explained, the sanctions basically cut off their oxygen.
While Trump has expressed an affinity for Putin, no evidence of a direct monetary link between Trump and the Kremlin has been presented. The question raised by the ABC report was the possibility that Trump might use the office of president to benefit his own finances, while the blog posts asserted that Trump's relationship with Russia had less to do with business than with cozying up to the Kremlin a claim that was not made by the original source of the story.
So the Snopes information does not say that the connection to the Russian mob is false, just that he did not get it directly from the Russian government.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by RAZD, posted 01-11-2017 10:20 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by Percy, posted 01-13-2017 9:23 AM RAZD has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 107 of 4573 (797157)
01-13-2017 9:23 AM
Reply to: Message 106 by RAZD
01-13-2017 8:19 AM


Re: Russian Mob Bailout for Trump Bankruptcies
I'd like to keep this thread focused on established facts about the Trump presidency rather than on insinuation and innuendo. When news reaches the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Chicago Tribune or the Los Angeles Times or CNN or an outlet of similar quality, then it's appropriate for discussion in this thread. In other words, l'd like discussion to be about what we know is true rather than about what may or may not be true. I'd like to avoid this becoming a thread about digging for dirt on Trump.
Trump held a press conference a couple days ago, there's a lot of material there for discussion. Trump called CNN "fake news," he made the news media the story over his possible peccadillos, he said the American people don't care about his tax returns, and he was just generally very combative. The news media is in an uproar about how to cover this unprecedented style of presidency. The Washington Post has begun a weekly What Trump Got Wrong on Twitter This Week column. The New York Times yesterday put together a video of fact checks on the Trump press conference. And last night Trump lashed out at Hillary Clinton again on Twitter, calling her "Guilty as hell."
Whatever side of the political divide one is on, there can be no argument that Trump will be, indeed already is in these days before the inauguration, a president wholly unlike any we've had before.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by RAZD, posted 01-13-2017 8:19 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by RAZD, posted 01-13-2017 9:45 AM Percy has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 108 of 4573 (797159)
01-13-2017 9:45 AM
Reply to: Message 107 by Percy
01-13-2017 9:23 AM


Re: Russian Mob Bailout for Trump Bankruptcies
The information on Trumps financial ties to russians was put out by ABC.
The other main source is the Financial Times
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : .

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by Percy, posted 01-13-2017 9:23 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by Percy, posted 01-13-2017 9:54 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 109 of 4573 (797160)
01-13-2017 9:54 AM
Reply to: Message 108 by RAZD
01-13-2017 9:45 AM


Re: Russian Mob Bailout for Trump Bankruptcies
RAZD writes:
The information on Trumps financial ties to russians was put out by ABC.
The other main source is the Financial Times
Those sources are fine, but the sources you cited and quoted from in your Message 106 were Daily Kos and Snopes.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by RAZD, posted 01-13-2017 9:45 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 110 by NoNukes, posted 01-13-2017 5:41 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 110 of 4573 (797184)
01-13-2017 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 109 by Percy
01-13-2017 9:54 AM


Re: Russian Mob Bailout for Trump Bankruptcies
Those sources are fine, but the sources you cited and quoted from in your Message 106 were Daily Kos and Snopes.
To be fair, RAZD's message included Snopes heavily quoting and analyzing an ABC news article. Are you really questioning the reliability of Snopes to do such a thing? Should RAZD have gone to the trouble of finding the actual ABC News article?
Not trying to be combative. Just getting your take.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Seems to me if its clear that certain things that require ancient dates couldn't possibly be true, we are on our way to throwing out all those ancient dates on the basis of the actual evidence. -- Faith
Some of us are worried about just how much damage he will do in his last couple of weeks as president, to make it easier for the NY Times and Washington post to try to destroy Trump's presidency. -- marc9000

This message is a reply to:
 Message 109 by Percy, posted 01-13-2017 9:54 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 111 of 4573 (797185)
01-13-2017 5:47 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
01-04-2017 8:20 AM


Is discussion about Trump's immediate advisors and cabinet nominees on topic or off for this thread?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Seems to me if its clear that certain things that require ancient dates couldn't possibly be true, we are on our way to throwing out all those ancient dates on the basis of the actual evidence. -- Faith
Some of us are worried about just how much damage he will do in his last couple of weeks as president, to make it easier for the NY Times and Washington post to try to destroy Trump's presidency. -- marc9000

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Percy, posted 01-04-2017 8:20 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 112 by Percy, posted 01-13-2017 6:03 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 112 of 4573 (797187)
01-13-2017 6:03 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by NoNukes
01-13-2017 5:47 PM


Responding to your last two messages, I want to avoid speculative material. The topic is otherwise fairly inclusive but focused on what is known. That would include anything having to do with the Trump presidency, meaning the entire executive branch, Trump's dealings with Congress, with international affairs, with the military, etc.
Since I didn't see the logic myself and since his message contained no explanation, RAZD would have to describe, hopefully in some other thread, how Snopes quoting ABC ties into his message's suggestion that Trump may have been bailed out by the Russian mob.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by NoNukes, posted 01-13-2017 5:47 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 113 of 4573 (797194)
01-14-2017 6:14 AM
Reply to: Message 102 by PaulK
01-11-2017 2:05 PM


Re: Fake news
"Pizzagate" is certainly more obviously false than these rumours about Trump. Those, at least, fit in with the way that the Russians are known to have operated, and are not so far out of character for Trump. Surely the "secret tunnels" were a giveaway (at least to anyone who remembers the ridiculous extremes of the Satanic Ritual abuse panic of the 1980s)
The problem is that we do have a huge problem with fake news... the even bigger problem is that a large portion of all media is to some extent fake news. Not just smaller outlets that cater to the left or right, but even mainstream media outlets. Pizzagate has no real credibility. But then neither does this Russian hacking narrative; not that it would matter either way. Even supposing Russian hackers did hack Hillary Clinton's email does not deflect that it was still Clinton harboring that material on unsecure servers. What a sleight of hand! By this logic Wikileaks is guilty of treason, not the people who actually pass the information. Have you ever seen a more obvious diversionary tactic to shift the blame?

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by PaulK, posted 01-11-2017 2:05 PM PaulK has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-14-2017 10:51 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 275 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(4)
Message 114 of 4573 (797203)
01-14-2017 10:51 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Hyroglyphx
01-14-2017 6:14 AM


Re: Fake news
Even supposing Russian hackers did hack Hillary Clinton's email does not deflect that it was still Clinton harboring that material on unsecure servers.
Have you been asleep for the past few months? Russians did not hack Clinton's email. No-one hacked Clinton's email.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Hyroglyphx, posted 01-14-2017 6:14 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 115 of 4573 (797247)
01-16-2017 6:15 AM


Trump Promises Health Care for All
In a Saturday evening interveiw with The Washington Post Trump promised to replace Obamacare with "insurance for everybody' (The New York Times). It would be "in a much simplified form - much less expensive and much better." Details won't be made available until confirmation of Tom Price to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
Sans details this sounds wonderful, much better than Obamacare, but we await the details. Universal health care seems a most un-Republican position. I would have thought the Republican position to be, "You get the insurance you can afford to pay for - it isn't the government's responsibility to pay for your healthcare." I thought the main Republican objection to Obamacare was that it forced people to either purchase insurance or pay a penalty through their income tax, and that the secondary objection was to the government provided subsidies to those who couldn't afford to pay full price. How does Trump think he will get universal health care past a Republican congress?
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 116 by RAZD, posted 01-16-2017 9:07 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 119 by ramoss, posted 01-17-2017 3:13 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 121 by NoNukes, posted 01-17-2017 6:48 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 122 by Coragyps, posted 01-17-2017 7:58 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 116 of 4573 (797253)
01-16-2017 9:07 AM
Reply to: Message 115 by Percy
01-16-2017 6:15 AM


Re: Trump Promises Health Care for All
In a Saturday evening interveiw with The Washington Post Trump promised ...
Worthless baiting.
... Details won't be made available until confirmation of Tom Price to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
Approve him and then see what you get.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Percy, posted 01-16-2017 6:15 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 117 by 1.61803, posted 01-16-2017 9:53 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied
 Message 118 by Tanypteryx, posted 01-16-2017 9:58 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1494 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


(1)
Message 117 of 4573 (797258)
01-16-2017 9:53 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by RAZD
01-16-2017 9:07 AM


Re: Trump Promises Health Care for All
And behold, it shall come to pass that free Trump health care shall fall from
heaven like mana.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by RAZD, posted 01-16-2017 9:07 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4320
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.4


(2)
Message 118 of 4573 (797259)
01-16-2017 9:58 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by RAZD
01-16-2017 9:07 AM


Re: Trump Promises Health Care for All
In a Saturday evening interveiw with The Washington Post Trump promised ...
Worthless baiting.
... Details won't be made available until confirmation of Tom Price to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
Approve him and then see what you get.
Ooooh, ooooh, I know this one......a tax cut for the wealthy, well, the ones who pay taxes.

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by RAZD, posted 01-16-2017 9:07 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
ramoss
Member (Idle past 602 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 08-11-2004


Message 119 of 4573 (797339)
01-17-2017 3:13 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by Percy
01-16-2017 6:15 AM


Re: Trump Promises Health Care for All
It's vapor ware, for now. Trump I suspect will talk a great deal, won't deliver, and hopefully won't ruin things too much.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by Percy, posted 01-16-2017 6:15 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 120 by Modulous, posted 01-17-2017 3:22 PM ramoss has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7799
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 120 of 4573 (797340)
01-17-2017 3:22 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by ramoss
01-17-2017 3:13 PM


Re: Trump Promises Health Care for All
It's vapor ware, for now. Trump I suspect will talk a great deal, won't deliver, and hopefully won't ruin things too much.
He's not the legislature, so he doesn't need to deliver anything but a signature. He could opt to opine to, strong arm or otherwise persuade the legislature to deliver something.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by ramoss, posted 01-17-2017 3:13 PM ramoss has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024