2024

[Seacoaster(1)]

Promises, promises:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ndraising/

"When Donald Trump met some of the country’s top donors at a luxurious New York hotel earlier this month, he told the group that a businessman had recently offered $1 million to his presidential effort and wanted to have lunch.

“I’m not having lunch,” Trump said he responded, according to donors who attended. “You’ve got to make it $25 million.”

Another businessman, he said, had traditionally given $2 million to $3 million to Republicans. Instead, he said he told the donor that he wanted a $25 million or $50 million contribution or he would not be “very happy.”

As he closed his pitch at the Pierre Hotel, Trump explained to the group why it was in their interest to cut large checks. If he was not put back in office, taxes would go up for them under President Biden, who vows to let Trump-era tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations expire at the end of 2025.

“The tax cuts all expire for wealthy and poor and middle-income and everything else, but they expire in another seven months and he’s not going to renew them, which means taxes are going to go up by four times,” Trump said, exaggerating the size of the cuts. “You’re going to have the biggest tax increase in history.”

Seconds after promising the tax cuts, Trump made his pitch explicit. “So whatever you guys can do, I appreciate it,” he said.

The remarks are just one example of a series of audacious requests by Trump for big-money contributions in recent months, according to 11 donors, advisers and others close to the former president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his fundraising. The pleas for millions in donations come as the presumptive Republican nominee seeks to close a cash gap with Biden and to pay for costly legal bills in his four criminal indictments.

Trump sometimes makes requests higher than his team expects to receive, sometimes surprising his own advisers because he is asking for so much money. By frequently tying the fundraising requests within seconds of promises of tax cuts, oil project infrastructure approvals and other favorable policies and asking for sums more than his campaign and the GOP can legally accept from an individual, Trump is also testing the boundaries of federal campaign finance laws, according to legal experts.

In one recent meeting staged by his Save America super PAC, Trump asked oil industry executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign and said raising such a sum would be a “deal” given how much money they would save if he were reelected as president.

In recent meetings with donors, he has repeatedly suggested they should give millions of dollars without saying where it should go.

Larry Noble, a longtime campaign finance lawyer, said Trump was technically allowed to ask only for contributions of $3,300 or less for his campaign, according to federal laws. But he can appear at events for his super PAC where the price of admission is far higher — as long as he doesn’t ask for the money directly.

“He can’t say, ‘I want you to give me $1 million,’” Noble said.

And after a 2016 Supreme Court decision overturning a public-corruption conviction of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, it would require an explicit quid pro quo for a specific government action in direct exchange for a contribution to be viewed as illegal, Noble said.

Also, even if presented with evidence Trump might have gone over the line, multiple prominent campaign finance lawyers said, the Federal Election Commission, which is gridlocked with three Republicans and three Democrats, is unlikely to investigate any of Trump’s fundraising in an election year.

Trump is certainly not the first candidate to seek large checks from moneyed interests. Advisers say that Trump regularly makes the same policy promises on the campaign trail that he does behind closed doors with wealthy donors, and evidence has not emerged that Trump has directly linked a specific policy outcome to a specific donation.

Oftentimes, his comments at the events are about foreign policy and topics he discusses at rallies, such as inflation and immigration.

For example, at one event, he suggested that he would have bombed Moscow and Beijing if Russia invaded Ukraine or China invaded Taiwan, surprising some of the donors.

The Trump campaign did not respond to detailed questions about his fundraising requests but issued a statement in support of his efforts.

“As Joe Biden’s backers in Hollywood and Silicon Valley are withholding their support for Biden’s failing campaign, donors across the country are maximizing their efforts to reelect President Trump because they realize we cannot afford another four years of Joe Biden’s terrible policies,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The former president was once reluctant to call donors and decried the role of big money in politics. He also often railed about having to take pictures — berating advisers for scheduling too many “clicks” — and sought to cast himself as an outsider who was not beholden to the traditional moneyed interests that shape Washington.

“He didn’t want to make fundraising calls,” said Sam Nunberg, a former aide on Trump’s 2016 campaign. On the 2020 campaign, he would reluctantly participate in fundraisers, advisers said, seeing them as an unpleasant necessity.

Part of his opposition to making calls was that he liked the perception that he was an outsider who was going to “drain the swamp.”

Former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Waukesha, Wis., on May 1. (Sara Stathas for The Washington Post)
“I will say this — [the] people [who] control special interests, lobbyists, donors, they make large contributions to politicians and they have total control over those politicians,” Trump said during a 2016 debate. “And frankly, I know the system better than anybody else, and I’m the only one up here that’s going to be able to fix that system, because that system is wrong.”

This time, campaign advisers say, Trump needs the money and he is taking an active role in raising it. The Trump campaign and RNC reported that they jointly raised $76 million in April, about $25 million more than the Biden campaign said it raised across all its committees in the same month. But the Biden operation still had about $60 million more cash on hand than the Trump campaign.

Trump has met with an assortment of real estate, legal, finance, oil and other business executives in recent months, according to people familiar with invitation lists. He has often promised agenda items they would like passed as part of his broader fundraising pitch, and sometimes has asked allies to bundle millions or more, according to people close to the former president. Some of the meetings have included tours of his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., and his New York apartment.

Trump, four people close to him say, is closely tracking who gives what amount to his campaign and associated efforts — and which allies are bundling large checks for him. He has often told allies how much money he expects them to raise.

In the days following the recent meeting with oil industry donors, executives discussed whether it would even be possible to meet Trump’s $1 billion request, according to four people in the oil industry familiar with the discussions.

But they are trying. Trump has repeatedly pressured oil magnate Harold Hamm to raise significant money for him, telling Hamm that he is “behind” and “needs the money,” according to a person familiar with the outreach. Hamm had an event for Trump in Texas on Wednesday, where the price of admission was about $250,000 for oil executives, according to people familiar with the matter.

The meeting stretched for many hours, attendees said, and included photos with the top donors. At the fundraiser, he promised to cut taxes on corporations and give oil executives an array of policies they wanted and said he was being outraised by the Democrats and the unions, asking the crowd to “be generous, please.”

“So give me some of your money,” he said, drawing laughs. “True. I’m begging for your money.”

At another event, Trump told the group that if they wanted a picture with him and did not have one, then they needed to give more.

He also held a fundraiser at the home of Kentucky oil baron Joe Craft earlier in May, according to a person with knowledge of the event.

Trump has regularly joked with donors and advisers that he doesn’t spend more than 10 minutes with someone if the person doesn’t give $10 million, according to people who have heard the comments. He also has complained about some of his billionaire friends not giving enough.

In Florida earlier this month, the crowd seemed stunned after Trump offered the stage to anyone who would cut a $1 million check, according to people present. He kept asking people to come forward, according to audio of the event. Then two people took him up on the offer. The limit to contributing to the RNC and the campaign — the entities hosting the event — was less than $1 million.

At a meeting with financial titans in Palm Beach earlier this year, he asked the group what regulations they viewed as the most onerous, according to a person who attended. He then remarked at a larger fundraiser that donors were telling him they cared more about regulations than taxes, according to a donor who attended.

At the New York fundraiser, Trump told the crowd that he wanted to hear what was on their minds and heard their thoughts about former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley — whose prospects as a potential vice-presidential pick he dismissed — and a range of issues related to Israel.

To end the roundtable, he told the room that it was time to go to another fundraiser, prompting laughter when he joked that the next crowd would be less wealthy than the current one."

[njbill]

If you read the fine print, you will see that these donations go to the Trump legal defense fund.

[Seacoaster(1)]

If you read the fine print, you will see that these donations go to the Trump legal defense fund.

That would be a happy result. Weird, no outcry about "pay to play," etc.

[Seacoaster(1)]

The focus on Trump’s policies seems like we might be missing the point, and ignoring the actual risk:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/02/us/p ... ticleShare

“The revolutionary hero Patrick Henry knew this day would come. He might not have anticipated all the particulars, such as the porn actress in the hotel room and the illicit payoff to keep her quiet. But he feared that eventually a criminal might occupy the presidency and use his powers to thwart anyone who sought to hold him accountable. “Away with your president,” he declared, “we shall have a king.”

That was exactly what the founders sought to avoid, having thrown off the yoke of an all-powerful monarch. But as hard as they worked to establish checks and balances, the system they constructed to hold wayward presidents accountable ultimately has proved to be unsteady.

Whatever rules Americans thought were in place are now being rewritten by Donald J. Trump, the once and perhaps future president who has already shattered many barriers and precedents. The notion that 34 felonies is not automatically disqualifying and a convicted criminal can be a viable candidate for commander in chief upends two and a half centuries of assumptions about American democracy.

And it raises fundamental questions about the limits of power in a second term, should Mr. Trump be returned to office. If he wins, it means he will have survived two impeachments, four criminal indictments, civil judgments for sexual abuse and business fraud, and a felony conviction. Given that, it would be hard to imagine what institutional deterrents could discourage abuses or excesses.

Moreover, the judiciary may not be the check on the executive branch that it has been in the past. If no other cases go to trial before the election, it could be another four years before the courts could even consider whether the newly elected president jeopardized national security or illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election, as he has been charged with doing. As it is, even before the election, the Supreme Court may grant Mr. Trump at least some measure of immunity.

Mr. Trump would still have to operate within the constitutional system, analysts point out, but he has already shown a willingness to push its boundaries. When he was president, he claimed that the Constitution gave him “the right to do whatever I want.” After leaving office, he advocated “termination” of the Constitution to allow him to return to power right away without another election and vowed to dedicate a second term to “retribution.”

His advisers are already mapping out an extensive plan to increase his power in a second term by clearing out the civil service to install more political appointees. Mr. Trump has threatened to prosecute not only President Biden but others that he considers to be his enemies. In seeking immunity from the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump’s lawyers even embraced the argument that there are circumstances when a president could order the assassination of a political rival without criminal jeopardy.

“There is no useful historical precedent whatsoever,” said Jeffrey A. Engel, the director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. “The interesting matter is not that a former president has been tried and convicted, as the founders might well have anticipated, but that he remains a viable candidate for office, which they would have found astounding and ultimately disheartening.”

The question of how to create an empowered executive without making him an unaccountable monarch absorbed the framers when they designed the Constitution. They divided power among three branches of government and envisioned impeachment as a check on a rogue president. They even explicitly made clear that an impeached president could still be prosecuted for crimes after being removed from office.

But even then, there were voices worried that the limits were not enough. Among them was Henry, the patriot famed for his “give me liberty or give me death” speech. At the Virginia convention on ratifying the Constitution in 1788, he warned of the possibility of “absolute despotism.”

“His point is that if such a criminal president comes to power, that president will realize there are few mechanisms to stop him,” said Corey L. Brettschneider, a Brown University professor who writes about Henry in his forthcoming book, “The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It.” “He goes so far as to claim that such a president will claim the throne of a monarch.”

“My argument,” Mr. Brettschneider added, “is that this warning is even more true now given the possible immunity of a sitting president from indictment and the powerlessness that we have seen after two attempted impeachments.”

Robert Kagan, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, warned in his new book, “Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart — Again,” that a second Trump term could result in unfettered abuses of authority.

“With all the immense power of the American presidency, with his ability to control and direct the Justice Department, the F.B.I., the I.R.S., the intelligence services and the military, what will prevent him from using the power of the state to go after his political enemies?” Mr. Kagan wrote.

To Mr. Trump’s supporters and even some of his critics, such concerns go too far. His allies maintain that when Mr. Trump makes provocative comments like being a “dictator” for a day, he is either joking or pushing buttons to get a rise out of his critics. The real crisis is not a lack of accountability for presidents, they argue, but the politicization of the justice system against Mr. Trump.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who was in the Manhattan courtroom on Thursday when the jury returned its guilty verdict, called the case against Mr. Trump “a raw political use of the criminal justice system” and a “thrill kill” by his opponents. “What happened in that room comes at a cost,” he said on Fox News. “It comes at a cost to the rule of law.”

Even some who do not support Mr. Trump argue that warnings of an unchecked executive are overwrought. Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who wrote his own book calling Mr. Trump a demagogue who tests American democracy, said the former president was too “weak” and incompetent to execute a true dictatorship.

“Trump was and is many things, most of them bad,” Mr. Posner wrote last winter in response to a Washington Post column by Mr. Kagan. “But he wasn’t a fascist when he was president, and he won’t be a dictator if he is elected a second time.” While Mr. Trump riled up a mob and spread lies to try to stay in power, Mr. Posner added, “he failed completely.”

American lawmakers have struggled to devise an independent mechanism to enforce presidential accountability without seeming so tainted by politics that it loses credibility with the public. The issue has come up repeatedly over the last half century without a consensus resolution.

Nine out of the last 10 presidents have had a special counsel or independent counsel investigate themselves or someone in their administration — the lone exception being Barack Obama. (Gerald R. Ford’s campaign finances came under scrutiny while he was vice president and resulted in no charges.)

Neither of the two who faced serious risk of criminal charges before Mr. Trump let it get that far. Richard M. Nixon escaped prosecution for the Watergate coverup by resigning and then accepting a pardon from Mr. Ford, his successor. Bill Clinton avoided possible perjury and obstruction of justice charges stemming from his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky by making a deal with prosecutors on his last day in office in which he admitted to providing false testimony under oath and gave up his law license.

Mindful that Nixon fired the first special prosecutor investigating Watergate, Congress passed the independent counsel law creating a prosecutor theoretically insulated from politics. But Republicans grew disenchanted with that model after Lawrence Walsh’s Iran-contra investigation, as did Democrats after Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation, so Congress let the law lapse.

The special counsels who have investigated subsequent presidents, including both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, were appointed by the attorney general at the time. While they have considerable autonomy, they are not completely independent and therefore their investigations and conclusions have often been assailed as political, even without evidence of interference.

Having endured the Russia investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and the current election interference and classified documents investigations by the special counsel Jack Smith, Mr. Trump is hardly likely to appoint an attorney general who would allow Mr. Smith to continue his work, much less name any new special counsel to look into him.

Instead, Mr. Trump has proved that pushing ahead relentlessly regardless of scandal, investigation and trial can work for him politically — at least so far. He is on track to win the Republican presidential nomination for a third time and has at least an even chance of beating Mr. Biden to return to the White House. If he does, he will set a new standard for what is considered acceptable in a president.

“I think my biggest takeaway is how lucky we’ve been as a nation to have presidents who have mostly comported themselves with dignity, or at least respected the dignity of the office,” said Lindsay M. Chervinsky, the incoming executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library and the author of “Making the Presidency,” a book about John Adams to be published in September. “This conviction brings into stark relief how violently Trump has rejected that tradition.”

[youthathletics]

For consideration:

Counter point to the NYT article below.....
Does Trump not represent that which the current DA's and Judicial/Social movements are thus pushing. Ignoring crime(s) that have been historically classified penalizing, minimizing felonies to misdemeanors, giving more and more leniency to what is tolerated. I am all for getting Trump as far away from politics as possible...but to claim he is the first to be prosecuted and impeached 2x falls far short or what is visible to the majority of Americans; which is being a Politian allows one to become far more wealthier, while making a known salary that does not support their lifestyle and belongings. The only way to square that dichotomy, is that events take place that are overlooked for me and not thee, we the people.

What Trump has done, is show everyone that he too is just like the so many in politics.....and they can not stand that he has revealed that. Flipside, one can also argue he is playing the part of the martyr, in a long game to reduce the strength of the US for a more unified Global Governing Body.

[Seacoaster(1)]

For consideration:

Counter point to the NYT article below.....
Does Trump not represent that which the current DA's and Judicial/Social movements are thus pushing. Ignoring crime(s) that have been historically classified penalizing, minimizing felonies to misdemeanors, giving more and more leniency to what is tolerated. I am all for getting Trump as far away from politics as possible...but to claim he is the first to be prosecuted and impeached 2x falls far short or what is visible to the majority of Americans; which is being a Politian allows one to become far more wealthier, while making a known salary that does not support their lifestyle and belongings. The only way to square that dichotomy, is that events take place that are overlooked for me and not thee, we the people.

What Trump has done, is show everyone that he too is just like the so many in politics.....and they can not stand that he has revealed that. Flipside, one can also argue he is playing the part of the martyr, in a long game to reduce the strength of the US for a more unified Global Governing Body.

Sorry, I really don't understand how this is a counterpoint to the NYT article I posted, which essentially asked the question of what legal or practical guardrails would possibly stop a convicted felon Trump while in the White House, with a co-opted DOJ/FBI, intelligence communities, and IRS at his command, and a cruise ship full of GOP toadies running interference for him.

[Kismet]

I don't agree with Colin Cowherd on much of anything - but he does nail the plain truth of Orange Fatso - read it and weep YA

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-BB1ns9Us

[Farfromgeneva]

If you read the fine print, you will see that these donations go to the Trump legal defense fund.

That would be a happy result. Weird, no outcry about "pay to play," etc.

That’s where the grabbing happens- pay to play

[Seacoaster(1)]

I don't agree with Colin Cowherd on much of anything - but he does nail the plain truth of Orange Fatso - read it and weep YA

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-BB1ns9Us

But gas is over $3.50 a gallon, so I'm going for proto-fascism. And lip service to Jesus.

[PizzaSnake]

I don't agree with Colin Cowherd on much of anything - but he does nail the plain truth of Orange Fatso - read it and weep YA

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-BB1ns9Us

But gas is over $3.50 a gallon, so I'm going for proto-fascism. And lip service to Jesus.

Now, who does OPEC+ support? Hmm...

"The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies — a group of leading oil producers known as OPEC+ — agreed Sunday to extend a voluntary production cut of 2.2 million barrels of crude oil a day into 2025."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/02/business ... index.html

[Farfromgeneva]

I don't agree with Colin Cowherd on much of anything - but he does nail the plain truth of Orange Fatso - read it and weep YA

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-BB1ns9Us

But gas is over $3.50 a gallon, so I'm going for proto-fascism. And lip service to Jesus.

Now, who does OPEC+ support? Hmm...

"The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies — a group of leading oil producers known as OPEC+ — agreed Sunday to extend a voluntary production cut of 2.2 million barrels of crude oil a day into 2025."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/02/business ... index.html

They’ll lie and cheat their way over the caps, especially anything Russia
Can push through black markets. SA is usually the only country that sometime shares constraint .

[Seacoaster(1)]

The view from the Atlantic Alliance:

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... es/678533/

Too long to copy here. Snippet:

“We’re in a very precarious place,” one senior NATO official told me. He wasn’t supposed to talk about such things on the record, but it was hardly a secret. The largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II was grinding into its third year. The Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, and Russia was gaining momentum. Sixty billion dollars in desperately needed military aid for Ukraine had been stalled for months in the dysfunctional U.S. Congress. And, perhaps most ominous, America—the country with by far the biggest military in NATO—appeared on the verge of reelecting a president who has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance.

Fear of losing Europe’s most powerful ally has translated into a pathologically intense fixation on the U.S. presidential race. European officials can explain the Electoral College in granular detail and cite polling data from battleground states. Thomas Bagger, the state secretary in the German foreign ministry, told me that in a year when billions of people in dozens of countries around the world will get the chance to vote, “the only election all Europeans are interested in is the American election.” Almost every official I spoke with believed that Trump is going to win.

The irony of Europe’s obsession with the upcoming election is that the people who will decide its outcome aren’t thinking about Europe much at all. In part, that’s because many Americans haven’t seen the need for NATO in their lifetime (despite the fact that the September 11 terrorist attacks were the only time Article 5 has been invoked). As one journalist in Brussels put it to me, the alliance has for decades been a “solution in search of a problem.” Now, with Russia waging war dangerously close to NATO territory, there’s a large problem. Throughout my conversations, one word came up again and again when I asked European officials about the stakes of the American election: existential.

“The anxiety is massive,” Victoria Nuland, who served until recently as undersecretary for political affairs at the State Department, told me. Like other diplomats in the Biden administration, she has spent the three-plus years since Trump unwillingly left office working to restabilize America’s relationship with its allies.

“Foreign counterparts would say it to me straight up,” Nuland recalled. “‘The first Trump election—maybe people didn’t understand who he was, or it was an accident. A second election of Trump? We’ll never trust you again.’”

[old salt]

OMG! The EUroburghers might have to prepare to defend themselves. How much of their GDP will that cost them ?

Nuland can tell the EUros to go F themselves (again). She got the Ukrainian War for independence that she wanted.

No forecasts that " Little Trump" Grenell will be Trump's Secy of State ?

Coppins should have explained to his nervous friends that the delay in aid for Ukraine was tied to the failure to do (or propose) anything meaningful to stem the tide of illegal migrants across our open border.

Maybe Estonia should offer citizenship to their Russian speaking residents & offer Estonian as a second language, or become a bi-lingual nation.

Good article -- balanced reporting (near the end).

[a fan]

OMG! The EUroburghers might have to prepare to defend themselves. How much of their GDP will that cost them ?

I'm 100% on the same page here. 100%.

[a fan]

For consideration:

Counter point to the NYT article below.....
Does Trump not represent that which the current DA's and Judicial/Social movements are thus pushing. Ignoring crime(s) that have been historically classified penalizing, minimizing felonies to misdemeanors, giving more and more leniency to what is tolerated. I am all for getting Trump as far away from politics as possible...but to claim he is the first to be prosecuted and impeached 2x falls far short or what is visible to the majority of Americans; which is being a Politian allows one to become far more wealthier, while making a known salary that does not support their lifestyle and belongings. The only way to square that dichotomy, is that events take place that are overlooked for me and not thee, we the people.

What Trump has done, is show everyone that he too is just like the so many in politics.....and they can not stand that he has revealed that.

He has done no such thing.

If you believe that Trump has shown the inherent corruption in Wash DC: why is the reaction of you and your fellow Republicans been to let him break as many laws as he pleases, and don't you dare hold him accountable? In other words, you're telling politicians that you don't they have to follow any laws. And not just Federal laws, you guys are complaining about politicians being held accountable for State laws, too.

Got a response for that?

[youthathletics]

For consideration:

Counter point to the NYT article below.....
Does Trump not represent that which the current DA's and Judicial/Social movements are thus pushing. Ignoring crime(s) that have been historically classified penalizing, minimizing felonies to misdemeanors, giving more and more leniency to what is tolerated. I am all for getting Trump as far away from politics as possible...but to claim he is the first to be prosecuted and impeached 2x falls far short or what is visible to the majority of Americans; which is being a Politian allows one to become far more wealthier, while making a known salary that does not support their lifestyle and belongings. The only way to square that dichotomy, is that events take place that are overlooked for me and not thee, we the people.

What Trump has done, is show everyone that he too is just like the so many in politics.....and they can not stand that he has revealed that.

He has done no such thing.

If you believe that Trump has shown the inherent corruption in Wash DC: why is the reaction of you and your fellow Republicans been to let him break as many laws as he pleases, and don't you dare hold him accountable? In other words, you're telling politicians that you don't they have to follow any laws. And not just Federal laws, you guys are complaining about politicians being held accountable for State laws, too.

Got a response for that?

You just made my point for me, thank you. The fact that HE IS the only one that has been run through the ringer, when most everyone knows this (white collar shenanigans) crap goes on all the time, and yet....they most always fly under the radar, cover for one another, or pay someone off. That is my point and how so many view what is going on.

[a fan]

You just made my point for me, thank you. The fact that HE IS the only one that has been run through the ringer, when most everyone knows this (white collar shenanigans) crap goes on all the time, and yet....they most always fly under the radar, cover for one another, or pay someone off. That is my point and how so many view what is going on.

Bzzzt. Nope. Hunter is on trial for white collar crime. Right now.

So in Menendez.

You don't care. Republicans don't care.

No mention of Deep State. No mention of corruption. No clutching pearls, and demands from you cats that Hunter and Menendez be set free.

You can't run. You can't hide. And if you want? I'll list alllllllll the Federal politicians who have been investigated and indicted by the FBI. Both parties. And the list goes back decades.

Your crew is acting like this has never happened before. Scooter Libbey ring a bell?


You want Trump and your party to be left to do what they want. Please, try and tell me otherwise. Because you "forgot" to tell the FBI and DoJ to let Menendez break white collar laws, my man.

If this was the first time this happened, YA? There wouldn't be this lengthy Wikipedia entry called "List of American Federal Politicians Convicted of Crimes": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... _of_crimes. Notice how many are convictions for lying on Federal forms.

Your response? Make it a good one! No walking away, my man!

[Typical Lax Dad]

[youthathletics]

You just made my point for me, thank you. The fact that HE IS the only one that has been run through the ringer, when most everyone knows this (white collar shenanigans) crap goes on all the time, and yet....they most always fly under the radar, cover for one another, or pay someone off. That is my point and how so many view what is going on.

Bzzzt. Nope. Hunter is on trial for white collar crime. Right now.

So in Menendez.

You don't care. Republicans don't care.

No mention of Deep State. No mention of corruption. No clutching pearls, and demands from you cats that Hunter and Menendez be set free.

You can't run. You can't hide. And if you want? I'll list alllllllll the Federal politicians who have been investigated and indicted by the FBI. Both parties. And the list goes back decades.

Your crew is acting like this has never happened before. Scooter Libbey ring a bell?


You want Trump and your party to be left to do what they want. Please, try and tell me otherwise. Because you "forgot" to tell the FBI and DoJ to let Menendez break white collar laws, my man.

If this was the first time this happened, YA? There wouldn't be this lengthy Wikipedia entry called "List of American Federal Politicians Convicted of Crimes": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... _of_crimes. Notice how many are convictions for lying on Federal forms.

Your response? Make it a good one! No walking away, my man!

Nice WIKI list that does not include a current, or sitting president, appreciate the support.

[a fan]

You just made my point for me, thank you. The fact that HE IS the only one that has been run through the ringer, when most everyone knows this (white collar shenanigans) crap goes on all the time, and yet....they most always fly under the radar, cover for one another, or pay someone off. That is my point and how so many view what is going on.

Bzzzt. Nope. Hunter is on trial for white collar crime. Right now.

So in Menendez.

You don't care. Republicans don't care.

No mention of Deep State. No mention of corruption. No clutching pearls, and demands from you cats that Hunter and Menendez be set free.

You can't run. You can't hide. And if you want? I'll list alllllllll the Federal politicians who have been investigated and indicted by the FBI. Both parties. And the list goes back decades.

Your crew is acting like this has never happened before. Scooter Libbey ring a bell?


You want Trump and your party to be left to do what they want. Please, try and tell me otherwise. Because you "forgot" to tell the FBI and DoJ to let Menendez break white collar laws, my man.

If this was the first time this happened, YA? There wouldn't be this lengthy Wikipedia entry called "List of American Federal Politicians Convicted of Crimes": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A ... _of_crimes. Notice how many are convictions for lying on Federal forms.

Your response? Make it a good one! No walking away, my man!

Nice WIKI list that does not include a current, or sitting president, appreciate the support.

You mean setting aside the the FBI and DoJ went after two sitting Presidents in Nixon and B Clinton?

And even if that never happened, are you forgetting that I have a memory (and the Forum has a search function)???

Did you and your fellow Republicans demand that the DoJ and FBI look into sitting President Biden to search for any corruption between Joe, Hunter, and Ukraine? That's right. You did,

You didn't exempt a sitting POTUS from the US Justice system when we were dealing with a Dem.

You have nowhere to run. Take a knee. You want your team to do whatever they want, with zero consequences. While at the same time, you want the full force of the US Government to chase down any D who so much as jaywalks.

Want me to pull up your posts to refresh your memory? You lost your mind over Hunter, YA. You really don't remember this?