US Politics: Follow the Money!

[Martell Spy]

In new financial disclosure, Trump reports apparent payment through his personal attorney to adult-film star

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-new-financial-disclosure-trump-reports-apparent-payment-through-his-personal-attorney-to-adult-film-star/2018/05/16/cf6171f2-592c-11e8-b656-a5f8c2a9295d_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f11c1d05a52d

Quote

 

In new financial-disclosure documents, President Trump reported reimbursing his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, more than $100,000 last year — an apparent reference to the $130,000 that Cohen paid just before the 2016 election, to ensure the silence of an adult-film actress who claimed she’d had an affair with Trump.

The information was included as a footnote in the 92-page form filed with the Office of Government Ethics, which said in an accompanying letter that Trump should have listed the payment as a liability in his previous financial statement and referred the documents to the Justice Department.

But Trump’s attorneys said the president was disclosing the payment voluntarily, not because it was required but “in the interest of transparency.”

 

 

[Yukle]

9 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

Trump did have a few slightly more consistent messages, though I think they were in opposition to what it sounds like McBigski was looking for.   He ran on a populist platform-- health insurance for everyone (especially white people), jobs, tax reform (specifically such that people like him would be paying even more), opioid crisis relief, returning "real" industries like mining, clearing out government corruption, and so forth.  A lot of the "big picture" economic messages he was selling were cribbed from democrat positions -- which is probably more damning because it's precisely the kind of economic policy that seems anathema to mcbigski. 

Not really, he was contradictory in the campaign trail. For instance, he was both for and against abortion, for and against compulsory vaccines and so on. He had consistent thematic aspects to his campaign, absolutely, but not really consistent policies.

And sure, he did mention other campaign issues consistently, such as the opioids or mining, but he's also done precisely nothing about those matters. Which, I can't help but notice, his sheep don't seem to care about. He also doubled-down on Afghanistan and Syria despite promises to the contrary.

If you ever listen to his speeches or read a transcript of what he says verbatim, he doesn't really say anything coherently at all.

There absolutely wasn't anything he said that says mcbigski can claim credit for voting for him based on what they've written, as they've just decided that the things they like are, retrospectively, what he must have meant all along.

Even on the Iran deal, Trump didn't say he was necessarily going to withdraw, sometimes he said he would renegotiate and get a better deal. Of course, he never gave any specifics of what that deal was.

And I strongly suspect that his voters don't care. It's hard to shake the feeling that they voted for him because of one of three reasons: 1) they'd never vote for a Democrat even if it was Jesus Reagan Lincoln, 2) Fox News effectively programmed their brains into thinking Hillary was worse than the sexually-harassing snake oil merchant crime lord or 3) they're bigots.

[Martell Spy]

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen 'asked Qatari investor for millions of dollars' which he said he would 'pass to Trump family members' at Trump Tower meeting - and Qatar's foreign minister was there too

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5732429/Michael-Cohen-asked-millions-dollars-pass-Trump-family-members.html

Quote

 

Donald Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, is facing claims he asked a Middle Eastern official for millions of dollars to give to 'Trump family members' in a meeting at Trump Tower weeks after the president's election victory, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Cohen is alleged to have asked Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, a former diplomat in charge of a $100bn Qatari investment fund, to send 'millions' through him to Trump family members. A source told DailyMail.com that the Qatari said he refused.

 

 

[Yukle]

1 minute ago, Martell Spy said:

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen 'asked Qatari investor for millions of dollars' which he said he would 'pass to Trump family members' at Trump Tower meeting - and Qatar's foreign minister was there too

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5732429/Michael-Cohen-asked-millions-dollars-pass-Trump-family-members.html

 

Imagine what would have happened if Hillary had won. There'd be so much corruption, like you wouldn't believe.

[Fragile Bird]

I was beginning to wonder if Follow the Money was the wrong thread title....

[Martell Spy]

2 minutes ago, Yukle said:

Imagine what would have happened if Hillary had won. There'd be so much corruption, like you wouldn't believe.

Yeah, unlike Cohen, the Clinton fixers NEVER get caught. They have magical powers.

 

It Sure Looks Like John Bolton Is Trying to Sabotage the North Korea Talks

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/it-sure-looks-like-john-bolton-is-trying-to-sabotage-the-north-korea-talks.html

Quote

 

Of course, that may be exactly why Bolton cited it. Bolton has advocated pre-emptive military action against North Korea and has sounded highly skeptical about the recent diplomatic opening. In an interview with Radio Free Asia just before Trump hired him, Bolton said he suspected the North Koreans were merely “buying time to perfect the last stages of the nuclear weapons program and their ballistic missile program” and was “skeptical that they’re serious.” Unless Kim were willing to commit to complete denuclearization, it could be a “very short meeting” with Trump, Bolton said. Bolton is smart enough to know that, in spite of his recent overtures, Kim does not actually intend to just hand over his nuclear weapons, at least now right away, and this week’s statements make that abundantly clear.

Bolton upped the ante again over the weekend, telling CNN that in addition to denuclearization, the talks would encompass North Korea’s ballistic missile program, its chemical and biological weapons, and other issues including the abductions of South Korean and Japanese citizens. He suggested the talks could result in North Korea becoming “a normal nation, to behave and interact with the rest of the world the way that South Korea does,” which could be read in Pyongyang, given Bolton’s record, as a suggestion of regime change. It was also, as Fred Kaplan points out, at odds with comments made the same day by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting that North Korea might be allowed to keep its nuclear weapons if it gets rid of the long-range missiles that could strike the United States.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

@Yukle,

You should give this a listen when you have some time to kill. It's an interesting look at Trump voters, and specifically people who voted for Obama and Trump. They paint a very different picture from what you wrote about Trump supporters. That doesn't mean they're right, but they did some solid on the ground research. 

[Fragile Bird]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

@Yukle,

You should give this a listen when you have some time to kill. It's an interesting look at Trump voters, and specifically people who voted for Obama and Trump. They paint a very different picture from what you wrote about Trump supporters. That does mean they're right, but they did some solid on the ground research. 

Did you mean to say that doesn't mean they're right?

[Bonnot OG]

23 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen 'asked Qatari investor for millions of dollars' which he said he would 'pass to Trump family members' at Trump Tower meeting - and Qatar's foreign minister was there too

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5732429/Michael-Cohen-asked-millions-dollars-pass-Trump-family-members.html

 

speaking of Qatar................
 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Did you mean to say that doesn't mean they're right?

I guess being a Grammar Nazi is not unique to the human race, Birdie. 

Go get your whip.

 

[Bonnot OG]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

@Yukle,

You should give this a listen when you have some time to kill. It's an interesting look at Trump voters, and specifically people who voted for Obama and Trump. They paint a very different picture from what you wrote about Trump supporters. That does mean they're right, but they did some solid on the ground research. 

They're still trash.
 

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I guess being a Grammar Nazi is not unique to the human race, Birdie. 

Go get your whip.

 

No, no, no, that was a simple error! The grammar Nazi comes out for 'their' or 'there'!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Tillerson's throwing some major shade:

Quote

Rex Tillerson may be gone, but he hasn't forgotten.

Speaking to soon-to-be graduates of the Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday, Tillerson dropped this truth bomb:

"If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom."

 

.............................................................................................................................................................................................

 

Tillerson is no dummy. He knew what he was doing. The use of the phrase "alternative realities" is no accident. Neither are these lines from the Tillerson speech:

"A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not, what a fact is and is not and begin by holding ourselves accountable to truthfulness and demand our pursuit of America's future be fact-based -- not based on wishful thinking, not hoped-for outcomes made in shallow promises, but with a clear-eyed view of the facts as they are, and guided by the truth that will set us free to seek solutions to our most daunting challenges."

It is impossible to read that paragraph and not have the image of Donald Trump conjured up in your mind. Im-possible.

That's just want Tillerson wanted -- and yet more proof that revenge is a dish best served cold.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/16/politics/tillerson-trump-truth/index.html

[Mexal]

I can't see how Michael Cohen is going to get out of all of this. It looks so bad.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

No, no, no, that was a simple error! The grammar Nazi comes out for 'their' or 'there'!

Their has too be rules!  I kneed two no!

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Their has too be rules!  I kneed two no!

           

[Fragile Bird]

8 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I can't see how Michael Cohen is going to get out of all of this. It looks so bad.

 

Lol, how many more CEOs are going to resign?

The CEO of Ford must be saying "there but for the grace of God", over and over!

[Zorral]

19 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Lol, how many more CEOs are going to resign?

The CEO of Ford must be saying "there but for the grace of God", over and over!

And in the midnight hour she cried, "more, more, more!"

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/michael-cohen-bribery-scandal-is-now-a-trump-bribery-scandal.html

Quote

Last night, the Daily Mail reported a development in the Michael Cohen saga of seismic scale. In a December 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, the British tabloid reports, Cohen asked Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, who runs a $100 billion Qatari investment fund, to send him “millions” which, the story claims, would go “through him to Trump family members.”

It being in the Daily Mail though, meant this story didn't create seismic scale reactions in the US media, likely for understandable reasons.  However, there sure is a whole frackin' lot of smoke here, and a lot of that smoke has been puffin' from other sources too.

Oooops, I apologize.  Martell Spy already put this up, but I missed it, having just come in.

 

 

 

[Mexal]

23 minutes ago, Zorral said:

And in the midnight hour she cried, "more, more, more!"

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/michael-cohen-bribery-scandal-is-now-a-trump-bribery-scandal.html

It being in the Daily Mail though, meant this story didn't create seismic scale reactions in the US media, likely for understandable reasons.  However, there sure is a whole frackin' lot of smoke here, and a lot of that smoke has been puffin' from other sources too.

Oooops, I apologize.  Martell Spy already put this up, but I missed it, having just come in.

I saw the Daily Mail story but given it was the Daily Mail, found it hard to trust.

[Martell Spy]

Looks like Navarro is being sidelined, a good sign that there will not be a trade war.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/16/trump-trade-china-591201

Tensions erupt among Trump trade officials ahead of China talks

Sources say Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and trade adviser Peter Navarro had a public shouting match in Beijing.

Quote

Peter Navarro, a Beijing critic and the standard-bearer of the president’s harsh campaign rhetoric on China, had a screaming match with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a moderate, during an initial round of talks in Beijing two weeks ago. On Wednesday, he wasn’t named on a Treasury Department list of U.S. officials who will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and the rest of the Beijing delegation at Treasury on Thursday and Friday.