“Vote for the coherent sane crook. It’s important!”
I’m sorry - are you suggesting that we shouldn’t investigate Donald’s shady charity because Donald’s idiot fans will go on being idiots? Because that’s what it sounds like you’re suggesting.
As for whose mind I’m hoping to change - that would be the minds at the IRS and the NY attorney’s office. I’d like to see them open investigations for fraud on the part of Donald’s Foundation and his efforts to raise money for charity. Or, you know, “charity”.
Or - wait, is that your objection? You don’t want anyone looking too closely at anyone’s eponymous charity?
[QUOTE=Donald Trump]
“I go to Ohio, we were there two days ago, and Pennsylvania and near Pittsburgh and we — I was in West Virginia, the crowds are massive. And you know, I walked out of one, and I said, ‘I don’t see how I’m not leading,'” Trump said, invoking the size of his crowds.
"We have thousands of people standing outside trying to get in, and they’re great people and they have such spirit for the country and love for the country, and I’m saying, you know, ‘Why am I not doing better in the polls?
…
"But you know, you have to understand, your show, no, but many shows it’s just a constant hit from mainstream media, no matter what you do, it’s always a negative.”
[/QUOTE]
It’s like he built a Potemkin village for himself and now believes it to be true. There’s no realization at all of the gap between thousands of dedicated fans showing up for a rally and the tens of millions of supporters you need to win an actual election.
@Merneith:
Since we are in the elections forum and a thread on Trump’s election campaign, I think DSeid can be forgiven for focusing on how all that charity fraud affects the election rather than future IRS audits.
He loves it! He loves the roaring crowds, he feeds on the energy like a tick feeds on blood! There is no drug on Earth comes even close, especially for an ego-bloated narcissist. Bumping uglies with a supermodel wife, sure, pretty good. Not bad. But being the focus of insane love from ten thousand nutbars? Nothing to compare.
He doesn’t want to hear about toning down his rhetoric, doesn’t want to hear that rallies are not as effective as having campaign workers and offices, he believes in magic, he feels magic, he knows it is real and it works!
And if it doesn’t? Then he was robbed, the people are totally with him, he just saw the people the other day, and they love him!
Merneith,
No, I am merely saying that it is not so much “a gift” other than within our already detesting him circles. It has and will have no impact on the assessments held by most voters. Sure prosecute away because crooks should be punished*, but in terms of impacting the election?
CarnalK’s response is the most meaningful one. Depending on the poll something like one in five registered voters are undecided or preferring a third party. If they are not voting against him based on all of his other negatives, will his being a long time relatively petty crook and tax cheat have much impact as they decide?
“Joe Schlobotnik … he’s a drug-dealer, a rapist and a murderer who says what I want to say but can’t … maybe I’ll vote for him … oh he claimed a charitable donation he wasn’t entitled to? Well in that case …”
*And after all even Al Capone was taken down on tax evasion.
Well, if Trump ends up being the presidential candidate getting indicted before the election, in an ironic turn of events that puts Donald’s face in the dictionary next to the word “irony,” that might have some affect on the election. Maybe.
Or maybe all the blowhards calling for Hillary to be in jail would just ignore the situation completely. Like so many of The Donald’s other wilder statements/policies/tweets that would have sunk a “lesser” candidate months and months ago.
(Not that I think this charity fraud rises to the level of indictment, but if it did - man, would that be funny!)
I think what DSeid may be suggesting is that there is a rock-bottom minimum amount of support that a major candidate for POTUS can assume…and Donald is right there. If you’re a Republican and you’re caught in an act of necro-homo-bestiality in the middle of Times Square with ISIS funding stuffed in your pockets, you’re still going to get 20 million votes.
And there is a rock bottom that he seems to be getting now and it is such that moving up just 4 points would make an electoral college victory a coin flip even with a popular vote loss. If what is already clear about his despicableness is not enough to make the undecideds vote against him a little tax evasion through a foundation and relatively petty theft sure aint.
I would have thought that it was self-evident that exposing a major Presidential candidate’s shady charity activities was relevant to that candidate’s campaign efforts. It is, I believe, both a symptom and a disease that anyone would just shrug it off.
No, I don’t expect Trump’s supporters to care - but I don’t think that the rest of us should be complacent about it. I think we should, in fact, be outraged at Donald Trump’s blatant attempt to subvert our democratic process in order to increase his personal fame and fortune. I think Trump’s candidacy, along with Republican games with congress and the supreme court, is an actual threat to our democratic institutes and, as such, a threat to the entire American government which is the backbone of the whole American experiment.
Turning a blind eye to Donald’s shady behavior is how he came to win the Republican nomination in the first. The Washington Post and every other organization which wants to be considered a serious news operations should have run this expose a year ago. He should have been facing unpleasant questions about his finances from the beginning. Instead he played footsie with tv personalities who gave him weeks of favorable free air time - provided they didn’t make him angry. Well, it’s time to stop carrying water for him in the name of “fair” and “balanced” “access”.
Donald Trump’s shady charity problems should be center stage on the nightly news. Instead, everyone’s grabbing their pearls because Bill Clinton talked to Lorretta Lynch at an airport. Instead, we’re hearing, “Oh, well, his supporters won’t care so why bother talking about it.”
The rest of us are entitled to be furious about Donald Trump’s blatant attempt to use our Democratic institutions for his own enrichment. If Donald’s media whoring is now turning up unpleasant facts about him, we’re entitled to enjoy that.
Donald’s shady financial schemes ought to affect the election. If they don’t, the rest of us are entitled to take umbrage about it.
Well take all the umbrage you want. By the way, I wouldn’t worry about the Bill-Lynch meeting much. Hillary’s supporters won’t care so why bother talking about it.
Buying Tim Tebow’s helmet isn’t a bombshell that would change anyone’s mind. But I would think that it’s another small bit that adds up with all the other instances of him lying or cheating or otherwise being untrustworthy that will make some people have second thoughts about voting for him.
Also, if money at his charity was misused for that, I would guess that it was also misused in other ways. I’d be surprised if other than for this purchase, everything is 100% legitimate and the charity is otherwise a great one that does lots of great work. I’d think a lot of people would be okay with whatever strange accounting and bankruptcy stuff he’s done with his businesses, because that could be seen as smart business and a way to keep his money and not give money to the government or other losers. But doing fishy things with charity money is a step beyond that and harder to defend.
Also, out of all the things to misuse charity money on, to have spent $12,000 on a Tim Tebow helmet? I’d think that even some evangelicals would think he overpaid.
The thing is, this isn’t that juicy. Yes, he may have violated some charity rules but he bought it at a charity auction so the $12k went to a charity. Not excusing it, just don’t think this will outrage the masses.
I’m confused why the FEC isn’t investigating, unless it’s just so clear that the Trump campaign is so inept that they didn’t mean to ask for foreign donations and just sent out the email to whatever list of emails they had.
I figure as long as they say it was an honest mistake and don’t actually accept foreign money, he’s off the hook. Snopes has an article up on it where they quote former FEC Chairman Michael Toner:
He didn’t buy it, his foundation did.
If he has it in his home and is making use of it, then the rules broken would be the foundation using donated money to provide Trump with material goods rather than it coming out of his pocket.
From Merneith’s link.
Of course, when Trump-affiliated PACs also start spamming the same foreign MPs, things get dicier;
Yeah, I read the article - I know all that and clearly stipulated that he could have broken some rules. My point was that the Trump foundation money went to a breast cancer non-profit so it’s less of a juicy story.
Yeah, I’m betting no way in hell is the Trump campaign coordinating with Crippled America PAC:
http://juanitajean.com/bad-nickels-and-pacs-they-just-keep-turning-up/
Looks like some kid who took Colbert’s idea and ran with it.
Huh.
Well, as they say in Texas; “Fool me, we won’t get fooled again”.
Meanwhile, Trump wants everyone to know that he won’t be speaking every night at the convention; he insists that “everybody” asked him to and he turned them down.
You know, because of how humble he is.