The Donald Trump Score Card

Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt of court after defying an order to stop racial profiling people.

Trump pardoned him about two months later instead of waiting for a possible appeals process to unfold.


Pardon of Joe Arpaio - Wikipedia

excerpt:

"Adam Liptak, attorney and Supreme Court correspondent, questioned the wisdom of the pardon but not its legitimacy: "It was the first act of outright defiance against the judiciary by a president who has not been shy about criticizing federal judges who ruled against his businesses and policies. But while the move may have been unusual, there is nothing in the text of the Constitution's pardons clause to suggest that he exceeded his authority. The president, the clause says, 'shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.' The pardon power extends only to federal crimes. Otherwise, presidents are free to use it as they see fit. As the Supreme Court put it in an 1866 decision involving a former Confederate senator, Ex parte Garland, the power 'is unlimited.'"[8]

"Subsequently, an appeal was made to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to force the conviction to be vacated.[34] With the Trump Justice Department declining to defend the verdict, the Ninth Circuit moved to appoint a disinterested special prosecutor. A motion for a full en banc review was denied, and a special prosecutor, Christopher Caldwell, was appointed on October 15, 2018. The case was heard on October 23, 2019.[35][36] On February 27, 2020, the Court ruled in denial of the appeal, affirming Bolton's refusal to vacate the conviction.[37]""

 

Trump would kiss Arpaio on both cheeks, upper and lower.

 

Trump pardoned Arpaio in August 2017, the first year of his term. Years were available for Arpaio to go through an appeal process while Trump was still president. Trump could have waited to observe the results of an appeal but didn't.

 

The Inevitability of Big Tech Backing Trump

excerpt:

"It is true just about everywhere, but especially in America: Real power is having control over the flow of resources. Property. Money. Information. If you command the levers of production—who gets what, when, and how—you dictate what the future holds and who gets a say in it. Or in this case, you get to decide the future of the United States. On the verge of another presidential election, no one knows that better than Silicon Valley CEOs and investors, some of whom publicly announced their support for Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, this week."

 

Trump has been blessed repeatedly by wealthy people bailing him out when he's in trouble, whether it's a major shareholder of Axios Bank giving him bail money for the criminal case in NY that he lost or Musk and other Big Tech billionaires bailing him out in the 2024 campaign when his fundraising was far behind that of Biden.


Why tech bros are backing Trump

excerpt:

"The shift in the political winds has long been evident on social media, where Mr Musk and investor David Sacks are among those to regularly scorn President Joe Biden.

But their decision to open their wallets to the Trump campaign is poised to significantly expand their influence beyond their traditional circle - with major consequences for the election.

The support from tech leaders has helped Trump close the fundraising gap that he faced against Mr Biden a few months ago.

"He was pretty far behind and struggling at the end of April," said Sarah Bryner, research director at OpenSecrets. "In the last eight weeks, it's a completely different campaign.""

 

Trump even got bailed out of an assassination by a chart that he uses at rallies to berate migrants.

 

Well, he did have them in a way. Hitler had a rather strained relationship with the top military, much like Trump did.

Generals were mostly from the old aristocracy that Hitler both mistrusted and envied, while they did not respect him all that much. The assassination attempt itself was from the military, and those outwardly fully loyal to him were usually bribed with a lot of additional financial assets besides their regular military income to stay put while he took more and more direct strategic and tactical control (and the army started, of course, losing more and more). Of the top active brass I think only Romel is not known to have taken extreme levels of bribes.

Stalin also had problems with the top military, as did Putin more recently, every dictator has them - because dictators can't deal with dissenting opinions in decision-making, and that is what you get if you want competent staff around you.

He does not really want Hitler's generals, but I would never expect him to have a clue about anything he is talking about anyway.

 

Amazing the US rewards such behavior.

 

New study indicates Trump speaks at fifth-grade level.


Trump speaks 'at 5th grade level' in his speeches, new study suggests

 

Article from 2018.


Trump Speaks At Fourth-Grade Level, Lowest Of Last 15 U.S. Presidents, New Analysis Finds
By Nina Burleigh
Published Jan 08, 2018 at 12:41 PM EST
Updated Feb 26, 2019 at 8:34 AM EST

Trump Genius? He Ranks Lowest Among Last 15 Presidents

 

What happens if a convicted felon – like Trump – wins the presidency?

excerpt:

"As it stands, there are four scenarios that could play out:

1. Trump could win the election and then be sentenced to prison by Judge Merchan on November 26.

2. He could win the election but be spared jail at his sentencing.

3. He could lose the election and be jailed.

4. He could lose the election but be given a lesser sentence."

 

You and I know he is just going to skate. He will never pay his judgements either.

 

Trump could become the first president who would be in a position of trying to carry out his office from a jail cell.


What happens if a convicted felon – like Trump – wins the presidency?

excerpt:

"If, after exhausting all legal avenues, Trump still finds himself unable to avoid jail, it could pave the way for calls for his third impeachment or for attempts to remove him from office via the 25th Amendment.

Should that fail and he really does find himself serving as president of the US from a jail cell, Trump would quickly find that there are many duties and trappings of the role he would simply not be able to fulfill while incarcerated."

 

Opinion | Donald Trump is running his campaign into the ground

excerpt:

-Trump agreed to appear on CBS’s “60 Minutes” before canceling.

-He agreed to appear on CNBC before canceling.

-He reportedly planned to sit down for an interview with the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia before canceling.

-He was reportedly in conversations for weeks with The Shade Room about a sit-down interview before withdrawing.

-His campaign said he’d debate Kamala Harris more than once, but he soon after scrapped those plans, too.

 

I think he feels he is so far ahead that he doesn't need to...or more like he is being advised to keep his mouth shut since he might come up with eating the cats again.

 

Trump's campaign said all the cancellations were due to scheduling conflicts.

He effectively cancelled a town hall event in Philadelphia after responding to only four question and spent the rest of the event swaying on stage to pop tunes for 39 minutes.

After all the cancellations, he did a McDonald's staged photo-op.

Like he said about Trump's McDonald's stunt, Newt Gingrich will say all the cancellations are part of Trump's genius of knowing how to appeal to his audience that he supposedly garnered when he was doing the TV show 'The Apprentic'.

 

After using the debate slogan 'Anywhere, Anytime, Anyplace', he scrapped additional debate plans after Harris out-maneuvered him and got under his skin like itching powder during the first (and last) Trump-Harris presidential debate.

 

The numerous events that Trump canceled have the commonality that he needs to think critically during an interview and that he may have his answers fact-checked.

Trump has been avoiding those situations, including effectively cancelling a town hall event in Philadelphia after responding to only four questions from the audience and swaying on stage to music for 39 minutes.

His approach is to evade answering questions by digressing to his various rants, such as blaming everything on immigrants.

He prefers spending time on staged events, such as serving fries at McDonald's.

 

Trump recently said Medicare and Social Security would fail because of migrants.

Migrants will supposedly break into houses and kill the beautiful women inside. Trump said this at a rally after pointing out what he said was a beautiful woman in his rally crowd.

 

Trump has said he is against Big Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Social Media, crytocurrency, and TikTok.

He changed his stance about Wall Street as soon as he entered the White House, appointing a slew of Wall Street moguls to positions in his administration.

He changed his mind about Big Tech and Big Social Media. He's now embracing Musk and his endorsement of him and outsourcing his campaign funding to billionaires who finance him indirectly through PACs.

Trump now embraces cryptocurrency after disparaging it.

Trump is now supportive of TikTok and a member after pledging to ban it.


Wall Street's White House Takeover Continues With Appointment Of Anthony Scaramucci

Opinion | Donald Trump is running his campaign into the ground

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/02/nx-s1-4989327/trump-tiktok-ban

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/27/politics/donald-trump-bitcoin-cryptocurrency/index.html