The Donald Trump Score Card

Socialism is a red herring. We have a mixed economy with a fraying safety net for those on the edge of survival. The greedy folks are the gazillionaires pushing for more tax cuts. Unfortunately, Gates and Buffet are the exceptions. I don't think socialism has a future in this country, but neither does a system that gives the 1% of the 1% as much of the country's total income as the bottom 90%. The secret of the United States maintaining a stable democracy during the Great Depression and avoiding a revolution was the New Deal. Smart move! Preempted real socialism.

 

Socialism does work. No matter what Fox news tells you. No matter what your poor understanding of the world is. "Socialist" polices work all over the world.

America is not that great of a place. It's not a third world country but there is so much about us that is strange to the world. One of those things is some people's fear of a socialist. It's a trick played on you the 1%. They want you to think it's all Soviets and lazy hippies but it's so much more. Be their slave if you want. As long as you have your gun you are free right?

 

The best president money can buy...

 

Yup and he is a true Muslim hater

 

The best president money can buy! Now the Chinese have put $500 million into Trump's Indonesian golfing resort. And their investment paid off in just three days!

 

Why hasnt anyone responded to this yet?
Happy Birthday Israel! Celebrating in style unfortunately.

 

Now that Ronny Jackson is gone from the Trump administration as White House doctor and won't be the head of the VA, there's a chance he might admit that the health figures he gave about Trump were inaccurate.

Trump's personal doctor, Bornstein, has admitted that Trump dictated to him the exaggerated report of his health.


James Gunn Will Donate $100,000 to Charity if Donald Trump Reveals His Accurate Weight
James Gunn does not believe the President of the United States weighs 239 pounds.
Zack Sharf
Jan 17, 2018 2:11 pm

James Gunn Will Donate $100,000 to Charity if Donald Trump Reveals His Accurate Weight

excerpt:

"In an attempt to expose Donald Trump’s continuous pattern of fabricating the truth, “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn is offering to donate $10,000 to Trump’s favorite charity if and when the President steps on a scale and reveals his accurate weight. The filmmaker made the offer on Twitter.

Gunn notes that Trump’s medical advisor has said his weight is 239 pounds and height is six feet and three inches, which would make our President the exact same weight and height as professional baseball player Albert Pujols. The director put photos of Trump and Pujols side by side to show this can’t be the case."

 

Trump wants to reduce the U.S. trade defict with China by $200 billion by 2020. Ross and Lighthizer are behind this initiative.

The U.S. trade deficit will likely rise in the next year or two because of the economy doing well, all else being the same. The consumer-based economy of the U.S. usually means people purchase more merchandise when they have extra money, much of it from overseas. Data from the past few decades show an increase in trade deficit during prosperity and a slight decrease during recessions in the U.S.

Trump has publicly stated that he thinks reducing the trade deficit will reduce the national debt but he has given no rational explanation to support such a claim.


Trump wants China to cut trade deficit by $200 billion by 2020
CBS/AP
May 4, 2018, 7:57 AM

Trump wants China to cut trade deficit by $200 billion by 2020

excerpt:

"Striking an assertive position, the Trump administration has asked China to reduce its trade deficit with the U.S. by $200 billion by the end of 2020.

A U.S. official confirmed the authenticity of a document making that and other requests that were presented to China ahead of two days of trade talks that ended Friday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the talks.

Earlier, President Donald Trump had said he wanted Beijing to cut the chronic U.S. trade deficit, which Washington says stood at a record $375.2 billion last year, by $100 billion.

The four-page list from the U.S. side also included demands that China immediately stop providing subsidies to industries listed in a key industrial plan. The list also includes a demand that China end some of its policies related to technology transfers, a key source of tension underlying the dispute.

A U.S. delegation of top Trump administration officials arrived in Beijing on Thursday for talks with Chinese officials on defusing tensions that are propelling the world's two largest economies toward a trade war. The delegation included Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer."

 

Manafort has been trying various legal maneuvers to try to give himself an advantage, including a civil suit. None have worked.

Judge Ellis has yet to make a decision.


A judge just ruled that Mueller had the authority to indict Manafort
Judge Amy Berman Jackson found it was “logical and appropriate” for Mueller to investigate Manafort.
By Andrew Prokopandrew
May 15, 2018, 6:10pm EDT

A judge just ruled that Mueller had the authority to indict Manafort

excerpt:

"A federal judge ruled against Paul Manafort’s attempt to dismiss charges brought against him in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, writing that the charges fell “squarely” within special counsel Robert Mueller’s authority — which means Manafort is headed for trial this year.

“The indictment will not be dismissed, and the matter will proceed to trial,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote. You can read her full ruling here.

Mueller’s team has indicted Manafort on five charges in DC related to money laundering and not registering as a foreign agent. They’ve also indicted him, separately, on 18 more tax and financial charges in Virginia, which have been brought before a different judge.

Yet none of the charges were directly about Mueller’s central pursuit: Russian interference during the 2016 campaign. Instead, they’re about Manafort’s work for the former government of Ukraine, and most of them are about conduct that preceded the presidential campaign.

Manafort filed motions to dismiss the charges against him in both DC and Virginia court, arguing that Mueller overreached his mandate. His team argued their position before Judge T.S. Ellis III in Virginia earlier this month, and Ellis sounded at least potentially sympathetic."

 

The U.S. culture has devolved to the point where it is willingly and happily giving away its freedom to a handful of billionaire oligarchs for the sake of trying to mitigate political correctness and to garner a perceived 'protection' from what are essentially highly magnified versions of mafia bosses.

It dwarfs the adage that people who give away their freedom for security deserve neither.

 

Trump Orders Help For Chinese Phone-Maker After China Approves Money For Trump Project S.V. Date, HuffPost
Mon, May 14 5:58 PM EDT

Trump Orders Help For Chinese Phone-Maker After China Approves Money For Trump Project

excerpt:

"WASHINGTON – A mere 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put a half-billion dollars into an Indonesian project that will personally enrich Donald Trump, the president ordered a bailout for a Chinese-government-owned cellphone maker.

“President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” Trump announced on Twitter Sunday morning. “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

Trump did not mention in that tweet or its follow-ups that on Thursday, the developer of a theme park resort outside of Jakarta had signed a deal to receive as much as $500 million in Chinese government loans, as well as another $500 million from Chinese banks, according to Agence France-Presse. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, has a deal to license the Trump name to the resort, which includes a golf course and hotels."

 

I am disgusted by all the violence in Israel/Palestine. This thread is actually about Trump and we should stick with the topic.

 

That IS on topic though, the violence that occurred yesterday was a direct result of the opening of the American embassy

 

Is China Straight-Up Bribing Donald Trump?
The president suddenly softens on a Chinese business after Beijing bankrolls a Trump Organization project.
by Bess Levin
May 15, 2018 12:00 pm

Is China Straight-Up Bribing Donald Trump?

excerpt:

"The White House, naturally, isn’t commenting on any of this. “You’re asking about a private organization’s dealings that may have to do with a foreign government. It’s not something I can speak to,” Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said Monday when he was asked about the Lido City deal. Luckily for Trump, the Trump Organization can’t speak to questions involving the president, either. And so any ethics issues involving either Trump or the businesses putting money in his pocket necessarily disappear into a metaphysical black hole.

Robert Weissman, president of the advocacy group Public Citizen, called the turn of events “stunning.” “They perpetually find new things to surprise me,” he said. “The idea of the president intervening in a law-enforcement matter to satisfy a foreign government is extraordinary. And it’s extraordinary because it doesn’t happen. Opening that door threatens the integrity of all corporate law enforcement. The Chinese government seems to have figured out a way to manipulate President Trump,” Weissman added. “It’s exactly why this anti-bribery clause of the Constitution is common sense.”"

 

Trump threatens sanctions on Europe for not placing sanctions on Iran as he saves jobs of China's ZTE that illegally sold products to Iran.

Europe might want to consider opening Trump golf resorts.


US threatens European companies with sanctions after Iran deal pullout
Jon Swaine
Sun 13 May 2018 16.19 EDT

US threatens European companies with sanctions after Iran deal pullout

excerpt:

"Donald Trump is prepared to impose sanctions on European companies that do business in Iran following his withdrawal of the US from the international nuclear deal, his administration reiterated on Sunday.

Trump’s most senior foreign policy aides signalled that the US would continue pressuring allies to follow Washington in backing out of the pact, which gave Tehran relief from sanctions in exchange for halting its nuclear programme."

 

KIM JUNG UN 1 TRUMP 0

So Kim Jung Un has backed out of the summit meeting with Trump and unification is now a distant memory

 

Sure

Whatever you say


The Soviet Union wasn’t socialism because it wasn’t YOUR socialism.

Marx had a hypothesis. It failed.

“C’mon you guys, let’s try socialism one more time. It’ll work this time!”

 

do you blame him for not trusting trump?

 

Not at all Trump is a pathological liar and everyone knows it..

 

One more time: there is a marked difference between socialism and communism, especially when it comes to putting ideology into practice. (Execution so to speak, pun intended)
I dont think any socialist gulag has ever existed for instance. The marked use of slave economy is rather communist as far as I can tell. By contrast, for example most kibbutzes operate on a socialist ideology. A lot of communes probably as well.
Somehow this difference seems to not be known over at your side of the pond, which is fascinating from my viewpoint actually.
What does taint socialism is that a lot of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have adopted the epithet (ba'ath means socialist or workers' party). Other than being atheist in origin they dont have much to do with socialism ideologically.
Socialism at its core is about equality and workers rights, it is far less extreme than communism.