BTW, I don’t have any magic set of bookmarks. If asked to describe the Trump U. fraud I’d just start by Googling “Trump University fraud.” Then I might click on the link from IHateTrump.Org. Hurricane might start the same way, but clicking on the link from ILoveTrump.xxx. That’s why I asked Hurricane to educate himself.
Is there a controversy? Are there sentient beings who disagree that that “University” was a major fraud? AFAICT, no; but it might be an interesting separate topic for GD or IMHO. Was Trump University as fraudulent as many claim? The thread would have no purpose, however, if nobody’s opinion changed. @ Hurricane — if you learned that Trump belongs in prison would it change your opinion one iota?
I mean, on the “pressing or important issue” meter, that subject obviously takes precedence over the issue of whether a sitting POTUS actually swindled thousands of people out of millions of dollars by fraudulent claims. Priorities, people!
Statements like this make me doubt your sincerity. I said I wasn’t interested in investing the time to dive into the details of the Trump U case. You turned that into a sweeping generalization, that I never said and I don’t agree with.
I’ll extend the same offer to you that I made Kimstu: if you want to write up a brief and unbiased-to-the-extent-that-you’re-capable summary of the salient points and why you think they’re important, I’ll read it. If your argument is some form of “you really need to go Google this topic”, my answer is “no, I really don’t need to”. I don’t even like being told what I need to do by people like my boss or my wife. My tolerance for it from strangers on the internet is vanishingly small.
You weigh HRC’s lies as “minor misspeakings” but Trump as a “major fraudster” because of the University. Is there some rational basis for that, or is it just partisanship? Are you judging Trump U’s fraud as “major” because of the amount of money it cost people, the number of people affected, the level of depravity involved, or something like that?
Students paid up to $35,000 for Trump to teach them to become real estate moguls. Like many of his businesses, an initial proposal was for him to just put his name on it; but he decided he wanted to own and operate this “University” himself. The school’s textbooks were simply photocopies of free on-line stuff. Trump promised students teachers that Trump had hand-picked. Many of these teachers were themselves known fraudsters and in litigation Trump denied knowing them. Trump claimed high approval from students; in fact awarding of the (worthless) degrees was contingent on the student’s satisfaction.
No, I won’t claim this is an “unbiased” assessment. I’m not sure HOW to find a favorable review of Trump U. Should we ask Sarah Huckabee Sanders?
Now, about prison: Is that what you think he “belongs in prison” for? If so, how do you explain that the relevant authorities don’t appear to have shared your assessment?
Change the subject much? Your mission is to assess Trump’s character based on what you now have learned about Trump University, not to rate my legal skills.
IANAL, but I do understand that fraud, however egregious, is not always a “criminal” offense. Assuming your need to imprison Trump is sincere, you might start with the credible allegations of child rape, withdrawn when victims and witnesses received death threats.
You and I have apparently have differing definitions of “credible”. And I don’t have a “need” to imprison him, but I wanted to hear your explanation for “belongs in prison”. Sounds like it was intended as hyperbole, which is what I suspected.
I’ve already repeatedly expressed about how I feel when given “missions” or assignments or homework from random strangers: No thanks.
But, to get at (what I think is) the heart of the matter, I didn’t think much of Trump’s character before I learned that the “textbooks” at Trump U were photocopies or the teaching staff was of low quality. He’s on his third marriage, is dishonest and mean-spirited, etc. Not someone I’d want to hang out with, not someone I’d trust to be alone around my wife / daughter, and not someone I’d pay huge sums of money to learn their real estate tricks and tips. I don’t even want to spend the money to buy his book or the time to read it. Whatever the details of Trump U are seem unlikely to substantially alter that assessment. Does that make sense why it does not seem very interesting or important to me?
IOW, your opinion of the fraudster’s character and life story is about the same as your opinion about Hillary Clinton. Got it.
If you already knew he was a massive fraudster (or planned on pretending to have already known) you could have saved us much time.
No sense my Googling for the credible evidence that Trump is a child rapist. Hillary allegedly ran child sex slaves out of a pizza parlor and the patriot who showed up to rescue them wasn’t even allowed in the basement. Neither Trump nor Clinton was convicted, so, again, Same-same. Got it.
Yeah, they both had shitty character. Way to go major political parties, giving us a choice between two total shitbirds.
Like I said, our definitions of “credible” appear to diverge. If you were just going to turn to Google for this, I’m even more confident in that statement.
Hurricane — I think our hijack of this thread has gone far enough. I’ll admit I was disappointed when you seemed to have some genuine curiosity about Trump’s character, but then ended up dismissing the Trump U. fraud. (“Nothing new here”?) I’ve posted my final comments on this topic in another thread.
Originally Posted by septimus View Post
… No sense my Googling for the credible evidence that Trump is a child rapist. Hillary allegedly ran child sex slaves out of a pizza parlor and the patriot who showed up to rescue them wasn’t even allowed in the basement. Neither Trump nor Clinton was convicted, so, again, Same-same. Got it.
Believe whatever you want to believe. But know this, your belief won’t put a basement under a building that doesn’t have one.
If you are promised a world-class education, and you paid money to get a completely worthless education, it seems staggeringly obvious that fraud is likely in play. How is this not self-evident to you?
They made promises as to the nature of the curriculum, the staff, and the results you should expect from completing the courses.
Results are never guaranteed, so that’s a hard one to legally call fraud, but if the vast majority of people who take your classes do not go on to do well in the subjects you taught them, then it’s more on the institution than on the student.
As far as the staff, that was misleading, as he claimed that they were handpicked experts in finance and real estate and such, and they were really just people without any sort of backgrounds in anything relevant.
Trump U was a scam that served no one but trump’s interests, and left many people financially damaged.
He was prosecuted by a state AG for his role in defrauding thousands of people (a crime of moral turpitude!). I have it on good authority that if the AG prosecutes you, it’s basically a criminal charge (the authority is you, in case you want to look it up).
Hurricane might start the same way, but clicking on the link from ILoveTrump.xxx. That’s why I asked Hurricane to educate himself.
