Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

West Coast #CloseTheCamps Protests vs. Trump's camps - Tue., July 2

Protest Trump's camps! - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 afternoon update - From Closethecampsnow.org:

All times Pacific Savings Time

We've seen the images and heard the stories coming out of child detention centers. Horrifically, these conditions aren't an accident. They are the byproduct of an intentional strategy by the Trump administration to terrorize immigrant communities and criminalize immigration—from imprisoning children in inhumane conditions to threatening widespread raids to break up families to covering up reports of immigrants dying in U.S. custody and abuses by ICE and CBP agents.

It’s going to take all of us to close the camps.

This Tuesday, July 2, while members of Congress are home for the Fourth of July holiday,
we will gather at their local offices in protest. Our demands:
  1. Close the Camps
  2. Not One Dollar for Family Detention
 and Deportation
  3. Bear Witness and Reunite Families

California:
5:30 pm:
Corner of Ygnacio Valley Road and N. Civic Dr. | Walnut Creek
Ygnacio Valley Rd. & N. Civic Drive
Walnut Creek, CA 94597

5:30 pm:
580 freeway overpass at Ardley Ave
overpass near: 1615 MacArthur Blvd
Oakland, CA 94602
4:30 pm:
Corner of Vermont and Wilshire Ave.
3200 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90010
 
In Oregon:
6:00 pm:
Lincoln City City Hall
801 SW Hwy 101
Lincoln City, OR 97367

6:30 pm - SW Portland suburbs:
Snyder Park - (Sunset Blvd entrance) - Sherwood
15198 SW Sunset Blvd
Sherwood, OR 97140

 

SE USA protests July 2 evening against Trump's detention camps!

Protest Trump's camps! - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 afternoon update - From Closethecampsnow.org:

Click this link to find protests near you.

We've seen the images and heard the stories coming out of child detention centers. Horrifically, these conditions aren't an accident. They are the byproduct of an intentional strategy by the Trump administration to terrorize immigrant communities and criminalize immigration—from imprisoning children in inhumane conditions to threatening widespread raids to break up families to covering up reports of immigrants dying in U.S. custody and abuses by ICE and CBP agents.

It’s going to take all of us to close the camps.

This Tuesday, July 2, while members of Congress are home for the Fourth of July holiday,
we will gather at their local offices in protest. Our demands:
  1. Close the Camps
  2. Not One Dollar for Family Detention
 and Deportation
  3. Bear Witness and Reunite Families
In North Carolina:
6:30 pm:
2000 W 1st St, Winston Salem, NC 27104

In Florida, near Daytona Beach:
5:30 pm:
22 S Beach St, Ormond Beach, FL 32174

In north Texas:
5:30 pm:
100 W Houston St
Sherman, TX 75090

Updated: Protest Against Trump's Camps -Jul. 2! - link to protests across US -NYC area sites listed

Protest Trump's camps! - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 afternoon update

Click this link to find protests near you.

We've seen the images and heard the stories coming out of child detention centers. Horrifically, these conditions aren't an accident. They are the byproduct of an intentional strategy by the Trump administration to terrorize immigrant communities and criminalize immigration—from imprisoning children in inhumane conditions to threatening widespread raids to break up families to covering up reports of immigrants dying in U.S. custody and abuses by ICE and CBP agents.

It’s going to take all of us to close the camps.

This Tuesday, July 2, while members of Congress are home for the Fourth of July holiday,
we will gather at their local offices in protest. Our demands:
  1. Close the Camps
  2. Not One Dollar for Family Detention
 and Deportation
  3. Bear Witness and Reunite Families
 
Click this link to find protests near you.

In the New York City area -all events, Tuesday, July 2, 2019:

Brooklyn:
4:00 pm
Reo. Max Rose's Brooklyn office
8203 3rd Avenue (Bay Ridge)

Westchester County:
6:00 pm
Patriot's Park
Broadway at College, Tarrytown

Suffolk County:
5:00 pm
Resistance Corner of Route 112 & Route 347
Port Jefferson Station

Click this link to find protests near you.

In New Jersey: Elizabeth Detention Center7:00 pm
625 Evans Street, Elizabeth 07201
4 blocks southeast of North Avenue and Dowd Avenue, directly south of the Newark Liberty Airport.
From downtown Elizabeth take Trumbull Street east, under I-95, then left on Dowd Avenue.

In New England: Central Falls, RI Detention Center
6:00 pm
Wyatt Detention Center
950 High Street
Central Falls, RI 02863 - off Exit 30 of I-95.

Maryland:
5:30 pm:
Congressman Andy Harris' office
15 E Churchville Rd Ste 102B, Bel Air, MD

5:30 pm:
CASA of Maryland Press Conference at Southeast Anchor Libary
3601 Eastern Ave, Baltimore, MD 21224

Washington DC:
7:00 pm
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500

Thursday, January 4, 2018

The Real Reason Why Trump's in Full Meltdown Over Bannon's Comments

President Donald Trump is in full meltdown mode over former aide and strategist Steve Bannon's comments:

Bannon's exposed how Donald Trump called his daughter Ivanka "as dumb as a brick"!


Ivanka Trump is 'as dumb as a brick' according to Steve Bannon, new book claims

The comments were detailed in a new book, 'Fire and Fury: Inside theTrump White House', by Michael Wolff



Meanwhile, Trump is playing a risky game of getting his personal lawyers to issue cease and desist orders to Bannon, demanding a retraction and full appology, as reported by CNBC.

Ironically, the book was written with the cooperation of the Trump 
White House. 

Of course, Sarah Huckabee Sanders went at lengths today in her press briefing to rationalize Trump's positions on the book. And Trump gave a curious appearance by video in the conference. 

Incidentally, the book officially goes to commercial release tomorrow --according to cable news reports, in text, e-book and audiobook formats. According to the Los Angeles Times, Wolff's 'Fire and Fury' gets its formal release next Tuesday, January 9.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

WATCH: Very Explosive Documentary Exposes Trump's Russian Connections

The Dutch Zembla TV outfit has published a powerful, credible case that Donald Trump has ties with Russian figures practicing racketeering.
Trump, 2013, on the eve of his Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow

ZEMBLA - The dubious friends of Donald Trump: the Russians

After Trump's colossul 1990s bankruptcies, Trump turned to lenders of last resort: Russian mob figures. The key figures from Kazakhstan are named. The main hinge with the Trump Organization is the Bayrock Group. 

We see the essential details: that Trump's business doings of the last 20 years are intertwined with organized crime figures with Bayrock. We see his deposition with a dubious disavowal of familiarity with Bayrock managing director Felix Sater, followed by the revelation that Trump soon after bestowed Trump Organization legitimacy on Sater, with a Trump Organization business card and email address.

The video has strong credibility with powerful quotes by author and former CIA agent Malcolm Nance, attorney Frederick Oberlander and unofficial Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio.

After you watch the video you will come to the same conclusion that Oberlander, that charges can be brought against Trump, and after that it will be "all over."

US publications in the last week addressing the explosive revelations:
Fortune:
Here’s A Closer Look At Donald Trump’s Disturbingly Deep Ties To Russia
The Oregonian: 
Donald Trump closely tied to Russian mob, could face racketeering charges, Dutch TV doc claims

And earlier: The Financial Times of London: 
Trump’s Russian connections: Donald Trump’s ties to Russia are back under the spotlight after the CIA concluded that Moscow had interfered in November’s presidential election to help the Republican candidate
And a Forbes writer appearing at the DC Report blog: 
The Kazakhstan Connection: Trump, Bayrock And Plenty Of
Raw Story: 
Here’s why Comey may have stayed silent on the Russia probe before we voted — and it should terrify Trump

Friday, December 30, 2016

2016, the Horror Movie That We're Living Through

Prince, David Bowie, Merle Haggard, Muhammad Ali, Leonard Cohen, Gwen Ifill, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds dying.

And the Trump election.

An excellent video on 2016 as a horror film.

2016: The Movie (Trailer) -- the horror movie we're living through

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Pictures That Trump Would Rather Keep Secret

Donald Trump was embarrassed by these photos and unsuccessfully tried to suppress them.

Pictures That Trump Would Rather Keep Secret

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Case of Trump Rape of Child Progressing Forward --'The Independent' of UK

The Independent of the UK reported in "Donald Trump underage rape accusation: Judge sets date for hearing of lawsuit" that the child rape case is moving forward. Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump has been accused of raping a 13 year old girl at a party hosted by billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.

The International Business Times reported this morning,

Donald Trump Accused Of Raping 13-Year-Old Girl: Lawsuit From Casey Anthony Attorney Allowed In Federal Court


A federal judge in New York has set an initial date on which the two sides must appear in court, December, a month after Trump faces the presidential election.

Federal Judge Ronnie Abrams has ordered that the status conference hearing for 16 December in a New York court.
The British newspaper also reported,
A federal judge has ordered a status conference hearing after a woman filed a lawsuit claiming Donald Trump raped her when she was 13-years-old in 1994.
In the lawsuit a witness, identified by the pseudonym Tiffany Doe, alleges she saw Mr Trump and billionaire-paedophile Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly rape the plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe.
The complaint claims Epstein hired an unidentified woman to pick up teenage girls to bring to his parties.
The court order for December 16, 2016
The IBT reported more on the story this morning, "Donald Trump Accused Of Raping 13-Year-Old Girl: Lawsuit From Casey Anthony Attorney Allowed In Federal Court." 

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of New York, alleges that Trump and financier Jeffrey Epstein raped two underage girls at several parties at Epstein’s apartment in Manhattan. The girls, identified in court documents as “Tiffany Doe” and “Jane Doe,” were allegedly promised money and modeling careers if they attended the parties.

The details described in the document are graphic. At one party, Trump is accused of tying one of the young girls to the bed before raping her while the victim repeatedly plead with him to stop.
Here is the full link for the lawsuit case brief submitted to the federal court, refiled last week in New York.

The Huffington Post also published this summer on the case of Trump's alleged rape:

Why The New Child Rape Case Filed Against Donald Trump Should Not Be Ignored

Gloria Allred Says More Women Are Contacting Her About Trump Misconduct

The Gothamist reports:

Gloria Allred Says More Women Are Contacting Her About Trump Misconduct

The lawyer, who has represented victims in high profile sex offender cases, that she is seeking more women who have been victimized by Republican Party nominee Donald Trump.

Gloria Allred, the civil rights lawyer who takes on high-profile targets, like Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski and, yes, Trump, confirmed to us that since the Access Hollywood tape's release, she has been "contacted by women who allege inappropriate contact by Mr. Trump."
From the Gothamist, yesterday, October 10, 2016:
More to the point, Allred discussed how Trump's words suggest criminal behavior. "If there is an unwanted or unconsented to touching of a person’s intimate parts such as the genital areas or a woman’s breasts, that could constitute a sexual assault or a sexual battery," she explained yesterday. She added that "when Rudy Giuliani was asked" on Sunday's political programs "if Donald Trump was describing a sexual assault on the recently released 2005 video, he responded, 'That’s what he was talking about.'" Allred said, "I am disgusted by what Donald Trump said and admitted that he had done on that video. An apology is not enough."
The Access Hollywood tape was discovered after the AP's report featuring former crew members on Trump's reality show, The Apprentice, describing his demeaning behavior towards women; in one example, he allegedly judges female contestants' breast sizes and discusses which women he'd want to have sex with. Allred released a statement last week, citing the numerous sexual harassment lawsuits and his lecherous behavior: "If Mr. Trump were to be elected president he would be the employer of the largest workforce in the country, federal government employees. Mr. Trump in that role would be sending a message through his past words and actions that sexual harassment of women in the workplace is acceptable and this could lead to other employers believing that they can follow Mr. Trump’s lead and openly sexually harass their female employees, thereby creating and condoning a hostile workplace for working women."
We need a President who respects the rights of women in the workplace not someone who creates a hostile and sexist environment for women who work and not someone like Mr. Trump who believes pregnancy is an inconvenience for employers; and who enables sexism. I call on Donald Trump to release all of his employees and former employees from their non-disclosure clauses so that they can tell the public what they suffered when they had the unfortunate experience of working for Donald Trump, and I urge him to promise not to retaliate against them if they tell the truth.
Donald Trump once made a remark to TMZ about me. He said "Gloria would be very very impressed" which TMZ suggested in the context of the interview with him meant that I would be impressed with his penis.
No Donald, I wouldn’t. What would impress me would be having Hillary Rodham Clinton in the White House, not a man who blatantly denigrates women in the workplace.
Allred, a Clinton supporter, was a delegate at the Democratic National Convention.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

In 1998 Trump said that Bill Clinton was the Victim of the Women that Charged him with Sexual Assault

Disgraced Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump on Sunday paraded out the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault in the 1990s.
First, he did this at his press conference and then he did this at the town hall debate in St. Louis, attempting to seat them in the front row. As we see below, about 20 years ago, he cast Clinton as the victim of the women.

Now, it is horrendous if Bill Clinton committed sexual assault against the women. However, it seems just gratuitous and self-serving if Trump only brings up the issue in the eleventh hour of his campaign when his numbers are sliding.

Read what Trump said in 1998 about his accusers. He only seems to be concerned for the women's rights and dignity now that he is opposing Bill Clinton's wife in an election. As reported at WSGW, FM Talk 100.5 of Carrollton, Michigan, "Flashback: Donald Trump Called Bill Clinton’s Accusers ‘Terrible’ and ‘Unattractive’ and Former President ‘Terrific’":

But if you rewind to 1998, the Republican presidential nominee had a very different view of the 42nd president, defending him as the real “victim” in the wake of the fallout of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and blasting the accusers as “terrible” and “unattractive.”
He also suggested that Clinton should have kept the scandal — which he said “should have been nothing — to himself.”
Days after President Clinton admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Trump said Clinton was a “victim” and critiqued the physical appearances of various women with whom Clinton had been accused of having extramarital relations at different times.
“It’s like it’s from hell, it’s a terrible group of people,” Trump said in an interview with FOX News’ Neil Cavuto on Aug. 19, 1998.
Asked by Cavuto if Clinton’s image as a “quasi-sex symbol” stood to somehow benefit from the alleged extramarital relations, Trump took issue with the characterization.
“I don’t necessarily agree with his victims, his victims are terrible,” Trump said. “He is really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position.”
“The whole group, Paula Jones, Lewinsky, it’s just a really unattractive group. I’m not just talking about physical,” he said.
“Would it be any different if it were a supermodel crowd?” Cavuto then asked.
“I think at least it would be more pleasant to watch,” Trump replied.

Then, we have Donald Trump's newest charge, his claim that Hillary Clinton as a lawyer laughed at a rape victim. This is a false charge. What she laughed at were procedural errors, and this laugh was not in the presence of the purported victim.
This only goes to show the depths of the Trump campaign desperation.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Woman Who Charged Trump with Attempted Rape; Plus Trump's Multiple Appearances on Howard Stern Objectifying Women; It's Time We Give Serious Attention to the Child Rape Allegations

More damning links on Trump's offensive sexual objectification: Jill Harth -who reports being raped by Trump / 'The Apprentice producer warns that worse material is coming / Trump's years of vulgar statements on the Howard Stern show / Trump barging in on Miss Universe dressing rooms / Creepy Trump statements about daughter Ivanka


The woman who Republican Party nominee Donald Trump said tried to rape her was speaking out yesterday, October 8. For details of the assault, read this Slate article from Friday, "The 1997 Lawsuit Alleging Trump Groped a Woman Just as He Bragged About on Video." (Of course, for legal reasons we should say "alleged," but can we doubt the claim, especially after all that we have heard this year about Trump's groping and sexually verbal abuse of women?)





In 1997, a makeup artist and former business associate named Jill Harth alleged that Trump had groped her on multiple occasions. In her suit, which you can read here, Harth described one of these advances as “attempted rape.” As the Guardian reported in July, that suit was dropped after Trump settled a separate business lawsuit with Harth’s partner George Houraney.
Harth, Houraney, and Trump were working on a pin-up competition together when Trump allegedly began making sexual advances. The project began in December 1992. According to Harth, in January 1993, Trump's behavior escalated. In her 1997 deposition, written about recently in the New York Times, Harth testified that at a business dinner Trump “name-dropped throughout that [meal], when he wasn’t groping me under the table.” Here’s how the lawsuit described the incident:


Then, the lawsuit alleges, Trump tried to get Harth into his daughter’s bedroom alone. When he was with Harth in Ivanka Trump’s bedroom, Trump allegedly groped her again.

       *      *     *

Given all the sickening things that we have heard that Trump has said and done, is it not time that we give serious attention and weight to the allegations that Trump raped a 13 year old child?

Here is the Huffington Post report just a few months ago on the allegations:

Why The New Child Rape Case Filed Against Donald Trump Should Not Be Ignored

Just consider these points about the witness in the case. It is rare that there are witnesses in such cases willing to come forward. The earlier dismissals of the case demonstrate the power Trump has to get such suits dismissed. Notice how she is afraid of consequences from Trump. This fear would be well founded when you see how glibly Trump threatened to have one of his "friends" deal with Rosie O'Donnell's girlfriend. (See yesterday's post at this page.) Trump is alleged to have raped 13 year old girl in 1994, while Trump was at a party held by Jeffrey Epstein, a now convicted sex offender of underage girls.

Tiffany Doe says that she recruited Jane Doe at the Port Authority in New York, persuaded her to attend Mr. Epstein’s parties, and actually witnessed the sexual assaults on Jane Doe:
I personally witnessed the Plaintiff being forced to perform various sexual acts with Donald J. Trump and Mr. Epstein. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were advised that she was 13 years old.
It is exceedingly rare for a sexual assault victim to have a witness. But Tiffany Doe says:
I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the Plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop.
Tiffany Doe corroborates, based on her own personal observations, just about everything in Jane Doe’s complaint: that twelve year old Maria was involved in a sex act with Mr. Trump, that Mr. Trump threatened the life of Jane Doe if she ever revealed what happened, and that she would “disappear” like Maria if she did.
Tiffany Doe herself says that she is in mortal fear of Mr. Trump to this day:
I am coming forward to swear to the truthfulness of the physical and sexual abuse that I personally witnessed of minor females at the hands of Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein . . . I swear to these facts under the penalty for perjury even though I fully understand that the life of myself and my family is now in grave danger.

Given all this, and based on the record thus far, Jane Doe’s claims appear credible. Mr. Epstein’s own sexual crimes and parties with underage girls are well documented, as is Mr. Trump’s relationship with him two decades ago in New York City. Mr. Trump told a reporter a few years ago: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it, Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Powerfully, Jane Doe appears to have an eyewitness to all aspects of her claim, a witness who appears to have put herself in substantial danger by coming forward, because at a minimum Mr. Epstein knows her true identity.

The New York Daily News reported in "Pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein told to be 'out of the country' ahead of book release" a few days ago that a book is due out tomorrow on the sordid life of Epstein. Unsurprisingly, Trump appears in the book, in an unflattering manner. Naturally, this will be a giant public relations disaster for the campaign and the Republican Party. Defiantly, Trump will not leave the race, so elected officials with the party have no choice other than to abandon him.

The blockbuster book is also expected to further embarrass celebs who once partied with Epstein. Among the allegations that popped up when the suits first started piling up against Epstein is a claim by an aspiring model that Trump raped her in 1994, when she was 13. The bloviating billionaire has vehemently denied the charge, which was voluntarily dismissed in September, but filed again earlier this week. A previous lawsuit by the same plaintiff was dismissed by a California federal court judge earlier this year.
Jeffrey Epstein served 13 months in prison for soliciting an underage prostitute.
Republican nominee Donald Trump's friend, Jeffrey Epstein


Jeffrey Epstein served 13 months in prison for soliciting an underage prostitute.

(AP)
“It’s no coincidence that this book is coming out just before the election,” says our source.


      *      *      *

Saturday, Bill Pruitt, the producer for the first two seasons of 'The Apprentice,' said that what has come out is just the tip of the iceberg, and that more is coming this month.  'The Independent Journal Review' ran this story, "'The Apprentice' Producer Just Left an Ominous Warning About 'October Surprise' Coming Next for Trump."

Pruitt posted this on Twitter Saturday night, "As a producer on seasons 1 & 2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to the #trumptapes there are far worse. #justthebegininng"

While some have speculated that Pruitt has a non-disclosure agreement, it is unclear whether or not this would apply to Pruitt or if a violation could be legally defended in the interest of the "public good."
Buzzfeed, among others, has swooped in to get the goods from Pruitt, if such goods actually exist. And judging by the footage with Access Hollywood's Billy Bush, it's no stretch of the imagination that another smoking gun video exists.

And before Friday's bombshell hot mike recordings of Trump's and Billy Bush's extremely lewd conversation and the widely disclosed vulgar actions towards women on 'Apprentice,' there were revelations of Trump's crude remarks earlier this year. For example, see this clip from Inside Edition, uploaded by the show on February 25, 2016, regarding Trump's late 1990s appearances:

7 Crude Comments Donald Trump Made About Women on Howard Stern

Donald Trump's crass musings on women are now being unearthed. Buzzfeed has published a rundown of the billionaire's comments from his appearances on Howard Stern beginning in the late 1990s. "A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10," Trump told Stern. He also said he found Angelina Jolie unattractive because of her lips. He spoke often of Princess Diana, saying he could have bedded her. Trump also said he wanted children with Melania, but he wouldn't spend time with them.

And see also this clip by Huffington Post, uploaded to YouTube, on May 23, 2016. He has said very terrible things. --Including from appearances on the show this year.

Just to remind you, several times, it has been reported that several times Trump has made statements that he views his daughter in sexual terms.  Including making these statements with her on the TV stage sitting right next to him. See this clip, "Donald Trump Obsessed with Daughter's Body, Would Have Sex With Her," last September on the David Pakman Show.

 TRUMP'S INNUMERABLE & GROSS APPEARANCES ON HOWARD STERN'S SHOW:

Trump told Howard Stern it's OK to call Ivanka a 'piece of a--'


Washington Post, reporting Saturday, October 8, on how he spoke of how voluptuous his daughter Ivanka was, how 35 year old women were over the hill, how he was OK with having sex with 24 year old women.

And the paper linked this with its article, "More Trump tapes surface with crude sex remarks":


ADDITION:
New CNN article on Nancy O'Dell, the woman who fought off the sexual advance in Ivanka's bedroom, which Trump referred to in the Access Hollywood video.
Also from CNN: "Donald Trump to Howard Stern: It's okay to call my daughter a 'piece of ass.'"
Washington Post: Trump says women need to check-out at age 35; Trump owes up to barging in on dressing rooms of Miss Universe contestants.  Including sexual banter on daughter Ivanka's attractiveness.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Rosie O'Donnell's Awesome 2006 Donald Trump Imitation & Her Revelation of His Bankrutpcies -- He Responded By Threatening Her Girlfriend

Yeah! to Rosie O'Donnell. Click on links for the great Rosies video on Donald Trump.

Just to spare you the research trouble, this all dates back to Rosie's 2006 appearance on ABC TV's 'The View.' But first a recent gem.

Rosie earlier this year on 'Entertainment Tonight:'

ET Interviewer, referring to Donald Trump, Republican nominee: "What will you do if he becomes president? Is it time to leave the country?"

Rosie, looking directly at the camera,
"He   will   never   be    president!"

Maybe the real reason that Donald Trump doesn't like Rosie O'Donnell is that she did the best imitation of Trump during her on 'The View' - click here for the link to the 2006 video, and that was 10 years before Alec Baldwin did his on Saturday Night Live last week. She also criticized Trump for forgiving the party crazed coking (as in cocaine, not the soft drink) episode of beauty pageant crown winner, Tara Conner, Miss USA.


You can skip past the self-centered candidate's pronouncements, and get to Rosie gems, beginning at 1:30.

She lists out Trump's marital infidelities and then says mockingly, "And he's the moral compass for 20 year olds! Sit and spin, my friend."

Listen to how forward seeing she was, that she points out that he got off, scot-free for his multiple bankruptcies.  And this was years before the rest of us and the media had caught wind of the fact that he's an incompetent in financial matters.

Further driving the dagger is that she pointed out that the inheritance from Daddy Fred (who died in 1999) is a main resource that got him on good financial footing after his 1990s business failures. "You know what saved him the second [bankruptcy] time, after his father died he paid off all his bankruptcy. This is not a self-made man."
"This guy is like one of those snake oil salesmen on 'Little House on the Prairie.'"

(This is what was known about Trump's immunity through his multiple bankruptcies in the spring of the previous year, 2005, from Legal Zoom.)


The videos linked here include a clip where Donald Trump clearly threatened Rosie O'Donnell's girlfriend at the time.

Watch the video at 4:50 in which Trump responds by clearly threatening her girlfriend, "She ought to be careful. 'Cause I'll have one of my friends to pick up her girlfriend. And I think that it will be easy to do."

But Rosie was tough. See the clip of her at 6:06, the next day on 'The View.'

Trump, just like he's doing in 2016 to Alicia Machado, he kept up the attack, and went on 'Anderson360' to attack. He lied when Anderson Cooper asked for him to address his multiple bankruptcies.

See this other video, on 'Anderson Live,' with a guest host filling in for Cooper. In this 2012, O'Donnell reported that the Trump Steakhouse in Las Vegas got a C health rating.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Why rude Trump is actually right on China, tariffs and trade

Sure, billionaire real estate tycoon Donald Trump is an obnoxious silly birther.

But we should take Trump's suggestion of a 25 percent tariff on Chinese imports as a welcome opportunity to side-step the hysterical Smoot-Hawley invoking and trade war invoking reactions. We should welcome an open public discussion and debate that questions our nation's unusual hewing to free trade orthodoxy in a market that East Asian and European successes do not follow free trade.

First off, America's dynamic time of growth, 1890 to 1920 was in a period of high tariffs.

Calling attention to the Smoot-Haley trade act is deceptive. As one blogger at Market Oracle notes in "Why Donald Turmp is right on trade," reputable economists, even free traders, from liberal Paul Krugman to conservative Milton Friedman, dispute Smoot-Hawley's role in the Great Depression.
Read further, this important blog post. (Of course, I am not endorsing Trump or all opinions in the politics of the referenced site.), Ian Fletcher, "Why Donald Trump is Right on Trade" at marketoracle.co.uk.
The usual suspects are racing to debunk Donald Trump’s foray into the most serious protectionism—a 25% tariff on China—proposed by a major presidential candidate since Patrick Buchanan ran in 1992.

They know this is big. Our long-delayed national trade debate has begun.
I have expressed reservations about getting obsessed with just China before. But broadly speaking, Trump is right on the money here. Nothing less than an actual tariff or the equivalent is ever going to get Beijing to stop gaming the international trading system to America’s disadvantage.

This matters, big-time. Because until we sort out America’s trade mess—which must start by zeroing out, or close to it, our $600 billion-a-year trade deficit—our economy will never truly be healthy again.

Jobs are the aspect of this everyone understands. But what a lot of people miss is that the current budget fight, and the angst over our mounting national debt, are also intimately connected to trade.

So Trump is onto something even bigger than people realize.

The budget fight ultimately comes down to the fact that we don’t have an economy large enough to generate tax revenue commensurate with the spending we have voted for. But why isn’t our economy big enough? Start with the fact that, as economist William Bahr has estimated, America’s accumulated trade deficits since 1991 alone have caused our economy to be 13 percent smaller than it otherwise would be. The trade deficit costs us about one percent in GDP growth every year, and that compounds over time.

As for our national debt, or, more properly, our bloating public and private indebtedness? As I explained at length in another article, borrowing money (and selling off existing wealth, which has the same net effect) is a mathematically inevitable result of running trade deficits. The only way this can not happen is if a) the aforementioned $600 billion isn’t real money, or b) America is trading with Santa’s elves.

So, Mr. Trump… How do we rebalance America’s trade, starting with China?

Forget about doing it by playing nice. China will only give up one-way free trade (free for America, protectionist for them) when they are coerced into doing so. They are making far too much money to ever give up this sweet racket voluntarily.

We are constantly warned that imposing a tariff on China would trigger a trade war. But the curious thing about the concept of trade war is that, unlike actual shooting war, it has no actual historical precedent. In fact, the reality is that there has never been a significant trade war.

Anyone who knows otherwise, please name one.

The usual example free traders give is America's Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which supposedly either caused the Great Depression or caused it to spread around the world. But this canard does not survive serious examination, and has actually been denied by almost every economist who has actually researched the question in depth—including many free traders and ranging from Paul Krugman on the left to Milton Friedman on the right. (I debunked this myth at length in this article.)

There is, in fact, a basic unresolved paradox at the bottom of the very concept of trade war. If, as free traders insist, free trade is beneficial whether or not one's trading partners reciprocate, then why would any rational nation start one, no matter how provoked? Wouldn’t they just keep lapping up the benefits of one-way free trade, if it’s so good for them?

Furthermore, if the moneymen in Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin, and the other nations currently running trade surpluses against the U.S. start to ponder exaggerated retaliation against the U.S., they will soon discover the advantage is with us, not them. Because they are the ones with the trade surpluses to lose, not us. What exactly does the U.S. have to lose in a trade war? The only way a deficit nation can “lose” a trade war is by having its trade balance get even worse. Given that the U.S. trade balance is already outlandish, it is hard to see how this could happen.

Supposedly, China could suddenly stop buying our Treasury Debt.

Indeed they could, but this would immediately reduce the value of the $1.15 trillion or so they already hold. Furthermore, this would depress the value of the dollar—exactly the opposite of their currency manipulation strategy.

Then there is the awkward problem of what China would do with all the money it would get by selling off its dollars. There just aren't that many good alternatives for parking that much money. Japan doesn't want its currency used as an international reserve currency, and the Euro has huge problems. Assets like gold and minor currencies are volatile or in limited supply. Others, like real estate or corporate stocks, are still denominated in those pesky dollars and euros.

We are still a nuclear power, so at the end of the day, China cannot force us to do anything that we don't want to. We could—a grossly irresponsible but not impossible hypothetical—repudiate our debt to them (or stop paying the interest) as the ultimate countermove.

More plausibly, we might simply restore the tax on the interest on foreign-held bonds that was repealed in 1984 thanks to Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. We have lots of little cards like that up our sleeve.

So an understanding will, most likely, be reached. A deal (one of Mr. Trump’s favorite words!) will be struck. I think Mr. Trump understands this better than anyone else. That’s one of the things I like about him.

The reality is that the United States is already in a trade war with China. Kowtowing to China today is economic appeasement, with the same result as political appeasement in the 1930s: a few more years of relative quiet with a bigger explosion at the end.

At some point, America's ability to run gigantic deficits must end, due to a prolonged slide or sudden crash in the value of the dollar. The longer we wait, the greater the likelihood that it will come as a sudden and destabilizing shock, rather than a managed, more gradual adjustment.

This issue is bigger than China alone. How America deals with China will set the precedent, and establish or destroy America's credibility, for dealing with a long list of other nations.

Believe me, they’re watching Trump now in Tokyo, Berlin, and Brussels.
Ian Fletcher is the author of the new book Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why (USBIC, $24.95) He is an Adjunct Fellow at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank founded in 1933. He was previously an economist in private practice, mostly serving hedge funds and private equity firms. He may be contacted at ian.fletcher@usbic.net.