…this isn’t how it happened. You have literally rewritten the history books. A year to get landmark healthcare legislation passed isn’t very long at all. The democrats didn’t “hope” the GOP would contribute, the GOP did contribute and they didn’t just “obstruct.”
In another thread I posted what I considered to be the qualities needed by someone who will contest the next presidential race:
Avenatti passes the streetfighter test. He doesn’t strike me as having a lot of moxy: he’s street smart not book smart and doesn’t strike me as particularly quick witted. He’s unproven as a leader. We don’t know how decisive he can be. And I think he will fail the integrity test. There are skeletons in his closet.
He isn’t particularly charismatic. I could see him getting “out-flanked” regularly by the Republicans: he just doesn’t have the experience. If you think Obama “was a pussy” and was regularly “outsmarted” (reality check: he wasn’t) then wait to see what happens when you throw a political neophyte into the dragons den. He will try and win unwinnable battles. Focus on the wrong issues. They will eat him alive. And the country will suffer for it.
So no: Avenatti isn’t a good candidate. If he got the nomination then I hope that everybody would vote for him. But he certainly isn’t the best for the job, I wouldn’t rank him in the top 50. I’d vote for Jon Stewart ahead of Avenatti. Oprah over Avenatti.
According to this article dated May 27, 2018, Avenatti filed for bankruptcy and was hit with a $10M judgement against him for not meeting the terms of the bankruptcy. He also has a string of tax issues that he says have been resolved but were still in public records last year.
When this hit broadcast news, he went very silent for a while. He has blamed the payroll firm for the tax issues. There was also a controversy about how the firm got pushed into bankruptcy, which deals with a relatively small debt contested by a guy who had a judgment that he didn’t want to discuss on camera.
Since then, he’s settled with the IRS for $800K in a court case where the media was not allowed. His future earnings are frozen until his debt to Frank is paid. Stormy Daniels’ crowdfunded attorney’s fees might also be held.
I dunno. The Clintons’ whitewater deal seems a lot more complex and shady than this.
It sounds like the kind of simple accounting error and one-time bad luck that will eventually befall anyone responsible for a multi-million dollar business. Vetting, should it ever be required, should be straightforward. (Contrast with Trump’s byzantine network of offshore shell companies).
So it’s definitely cause for further examination, but I wouldn’t see it as an automatic disqualifier.
The presidency is not an entry-level position. One needs some experience in the legislative or gubernatorial arenas before one has the chops to consider a run at the White House. We’ve seen what a disaster the Orange Buffoon has been, I’m not exactly champing at the bit and saying “God yes! We should do the same!”
Depends on the business. One that’s good at the details of delivering a service to individuals would be useful preparation for being in charge of an agency that’s primarily about that: but not necessarily much help in assessing and developing strategic objectives in, say, foreign policy or environmental protection.
One that’s run through complicated financial engineering and asset-sweating wouldn’t be much help for either, and would just enable the building up of problems for a successor leadership.
God no! The solution to Trump is not “Left Wing Trump”. Being an asshole who hates the same people I do is not enough.
What does this guy know about foreign policy? What are his economic plans? Can he get anyone in Washington to work with him, or are all of his lofty goals going to begin and end on twitter.
It would definitely be fun to see Avenatti take on Trump in a debate and probably out-taunt him. And I so wish for a Democratic badass but Avenatti probably isn’t the guy. I see a lot of people dismissing the potential of outsider candidates citing Trump’s performance but I hope you all keep an open mind. Trump’s problem with experience was infinitely compounded buy his inability and unwillingness to see and correct his staggering ignorance.
The D’s needed 60 votes for ACA to pass the Senate, because every single R always voted against it. It didn’t take them one year, nor one month to pass ACA; I think they passed it the very first day that 60 D’s could appear on the Senate floor and be allowed to vote. This was just a few years ago — have you forgotten already? (IIRC there would have been a 60-vote opportunity in Spring 2009 but Al Franken was denied his vote by GOP chicanery.)
This is a rather one-sided view of America’s Presidents. Your cite for “shady attorney”? A giant political witchhunt that found Zero? With a Z? Bahhh! (Toeing the FauxNews garbage like this, don’t expect others to bother with your posts in future.) I’m surprised you didn’t mention that Washington and Jefferson were among the U.S.’ largest slaveowners, and Lincoln was perhaps the biggest American mass murderer ever. Harry Truman was widely regarded as a corrupt political stooge.
You include “a bit of whatever community organizing is” on Obama’s resume but neglect to mention that he was an (untenured) constitutional law professor for 12 years. I’m curious what “value” you think you added compared with leaving that part of your post compeletely blank.
Perhaps we deserve a more balanced look at the qualifications of those who have served as POTUS.
Of 44 men who have served as U.S. President
14 had served as State Governor,
10 had served long terms as U.S. Secretary State or Vice President,
6 had significant heroized careers as General,
2 (Taft and Hoover) were experienced and admired cabinet members and more.
You wouldn’t be blamed for wanting to look at these resumes in more detail, but almost 3/4 of Presidents had one of these key “bullets.” To keep the counts consistent, only one “bullet” is credited above to each President, e.g James Monroe served as both Secretary of State and Governor of Virginia, but is only listed once.
Only nine other men were elected President: Seven out of these nine – all except Trump and Lincoln – had been elected Senator. (Some of these were also Generals, but excluded from the first list which includes only Generals who were nationally admired as Generals.) After the Seven Senator-Presidents, I show Lincoln and the three unelected Presidents, followed by one outlier and one proposed outlier.
Pierce - Brig. General, Senator, anti-abolitionist
B. Harrison - Brevet Brig. Gen, Senator
Harding - newspaperman, Lieut. Governor, Senator
Obama - Law Professor, Senator
Kennedy - Senator
Truman - Senator
Garfield - General, Congressman, elected Senator
Lincoln - political leader, Congressman
Arthur (elected VP) - anti-slavery lawyer, acclaimed Quartermaster-General
Fillmore (elected VP) - briefly State Comptroller, briefly Chairman of Ways & Means
Ford (unelected) - Congressman, political leader
Trump - corrupt businessman, TV reality show host
Avenatti - plaintiff’s attorney, race-car driver
Yes, it’s not hard to argue that Avenatti might be a better President than Trump. Among the sober that might be called a “tautology.” And I guess I’d like a case of hemorrhoids if the alternative were dengue fever.
The US is facing serious threats. We need people on our side willing to play hardball to face those threats.
I wish we had people like Mitch McConnell on our side. People like Obama and Schumer are playing a game of politics that went out the window 30 years ago.
Obama was the best fucking President with the most integrity your country has ever had and probably ever will. The problem isn’t at the top. Its at the grass roots. With people like you. Your country *is *under threat. Its under threat from dishonest, corrupt, disingenuous people like McConnell. If you want people like him on your side then you aren’t on “my side”. I want nothing to do with people like McConnell.
I actually brought this up in another earlier thread (after seeing someone float the idea on FB.) I’m just gonna copy and paste my response there, into here, because it still applies:
I definitely like the idea of an Italian-American President as we have obviously never had one before. He has also competed professionally in auto racing; he actually placed 7th in the 2015 Le Mans 24-hour endurance race, believe it or not. For him to be taken seriously as a candidate he needs to spend the next two years working very publically on various projects that will get his name out there to be associated with someone other than “Stormy Daniels’ lawyer.”
If he ran against Trump, Trump would (obviously) fight really, really dirty to try to tarnish his image and just generally throw him off his game. He apparently had a very nasty divorce last year, and if he’s a high-flying lawyer/race car driver, he probably has a closet full of women - obviously, Trump does too, and in worse ways, but that’s something that could potentially be thrown at him. The concept of pot calling the kettle black does NOT EXIST in the mind of Donald Trump, so if he dug up any dirt on Avenatti regarding his marriage, or accusations of ANY kind of sexual licentiousness or big-ego behavior that might skirt the law in some way, they will be thrown at him hard. What he needs to do is NOT APOLOGIZE FOR ANYTHING and just dig in and not even comment, if possible.
Apparently he had a custody battle over their kids - this is absolutely something that Trump would use against him. There is nothing the guy won’t do to win. I could easily see him taunting Avenatti about his divorce, the fact that his wife changed the locks on her house and tried to have him arrested, etc. That’s the kind of thing that can rattle someone to the core, and anyone going up against Trump cannot ever appear to be rattled.