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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Having to file bankruptcy when you have done the best you could to be responsible and unforeseen conditions put you under the gun, you have done your best to pay down the credit granted to you but cannot get out from under it despite paring down your expenses, and all else has failed, is one thing. To use it as a business strategy is another.
The same people who decried home owners who bought into subprime mortgages as selfish and piggish people unworthy of empathy, who should have "known" they couldn't afford to carry the debt, are now saying Trump was just "being a businessperson."
Trump has legions of people who can run numbers and advise him. The homeowner was usually dependent of consultants who were NOT looking out for their best interests.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Today at work it's Burrito Wednesday in excitement for TRUMPS wall!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I knew you Calvinists would bring up all that irrelevant stuff.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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Happie, buying too much house isn't the main reason for personal bankruptcy; a study at Harvard showed that 62% of bankruptcies were due to medical expenses. Also, 97% of all bankruptcy filings are by individuals, not businesses.
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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Happie, buying too much house isn't the main reason for personal bankruptcy; a study at Harvard showed that 62% of bankruptcies were due to medical expenses. Also, 97% of all bankruptcy filings are by individuals, not businesses.
Facts like this have no place in Happy's spin.
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Norton
Social climber
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regardless of how much more really bad personal character stuff comes out..
You WILL vote for Donald in November, won't you? of course you will....
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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WHY would you buy a steak off of the Sharper Image......
Marketing genius or just a hail mary?
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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I'm still holding out hope that Cruz can catch fire and win this thing by delegate count. If it has to go to ballot I expect him to use all of his legal talent. But, if as looks likely, Trump prevails most of the electorate will mark Trump over Hillary. Some enthusiastically others reluctantly. Like it or not the establishment, be it R or D, has the broadest low level of public trust and respect in our lifetimes.
On another note Trump and Sanders stated policies are remarkably similar though achieved by different practices.
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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Cruz catch fire? Doubt it.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Our country makes the worst deals! We need to be respected around the globe and make deals from a place of strength. Stupid politicians leave us and our great friends in Israel less safe.
Donald Trump
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
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We are huge bullies, actually. We club other countries into the ground with our economic clout. Why are you believing this crap?
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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We are huge bullies, actually. We club other countries into the ground with our economic clout. Why are you believing this crap?
HDDJ you must be some evil Muslim
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Things that make you go "see"
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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If, for example, Roboto were to drop out of the race, who would get his 151 delegates? Would they still vote for him on the first ballot, or can they switch their votes?
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Norton
Social climber
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I see your point, Pyro
when you can dig a tunnel under a wall who needs Donald Trump's wall
are you going to switch your vote back to Marco Rubio now?
He likes digging holes, look at the one he has himself in right now!
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Wow!!!!! I sure ain't votin' for Hillary Obama after this:
"In a bombshell world exclusive, The National ENQUIRER has learned that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death was a highly planned “political assassination” orchestrated by the CIA and carried out by a $2,000-a-night hooker!
Winemaker, that reminds of a headline in The Onion's Our Stupid Century:
"JFK Killed by FBI, CIA, Castro, LBJ, Mafia" or words to that effect.
And Norton, it turns out my wife and I are not alone, at least according to Bret Baier. They claim "some Republicans" would vote for Hillary to prevent Trump from taking over the party.
http://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-bret-baier-some-republicans-could-back-hillary-clinton-over-donald-trump/
Maybe if he and his supporters take over the Republican party, Trump could really resemble Hitler, who took over the German government without ever winning a majority.
John
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couchmaster
climber
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Saw a pretty good rebuttal to John Olivers super funny video which was posted earlier. Here it is in full (link at the end):
"INTRO
There is an epidemic that long ago infected politics. It is lying. Politicians lie, political reporters lie, and foreign-born-comedians-turned-commentators-on-American-politics lie.
Long ago, John Stuart Mill advocated for the “marketplace of ideas” to help us get closer to the truth. That theory suffers when all of the contributions to the “marketplace of political ideas” are terribly one-sided.
John Oliver once remarked, “The problem is that the loudest Journalism in America is generally saying the least.”
I now introduce to you the latest entry into the problem with American Journalism: John Oliver’s “piece” about Donald Trump, which is very loud and offers little of value.
Most of the blame for Oliver’s trafficking in lies falls with him. It’s also important for private citizens to do their own research; but honestly, who has the time to research 21 minutes of claims? Oliver, on the other hand, earns millions by feeding this stuff to the world.
I didn’t earn a dime from my research efforts here. In the spirit of making a contribution to the “marketplace of ideas,” here is the most thorough inspection of every claim that Oliver made.
Oliver is hardly the only culprit. But he’s deserving of this breakdown because his Trump video has gone viral and because he has an image of being an honest source of information. This doesn’t mean his other works are dishonest. But this Trump piece was mostly trash, and I suspect any truth-seeker would like to have all the facts. So, here they are.
Oliver sets up his piece as follows. Oliver first identifies that Trump supporters like him for his honesty, strength, and successful. Naturally, then, he spends the majority of his show trying to show that Trump is a liar, weak, and unsuccessful. We’ll take these 3 themes one at a time, exploring every reason Oliver gives in support of them.
***
Theme 1: Trump is a Liar
John Oliver Reason #1: Politifact checked 77 of Trump’s statements and rated 76% of them as varying degrees of false.
Oliver refers to Politifact for political facts. An amateur move. Despite the name, Politifact is widely regarded as less than factual. This is one of the few things that major liberal and conservative media agree upon. There’s even a website called PolitifactBias.com exists for the sole purpose of “Exposing bias and mistakes at the Politifact website.”
Here’s an example of one of Trump’s statement that they rated as a lie.
“If it weren’t for me … (illegal immigration) wouldn’t even be a big subject.”
Politifact rating this as a lie flies in the face of common sense for a lot of people. Trump actually did seem to make illegal immigration a big subject. So, they better have some damn good evidence to support their claim.
Their evidence? They ran a Lexis Nexis search of how frequently “illegal immigrant” and “undocumented” appeared within 10 words of “president” in major newspaper stories before and after Trump’s campaign announcement speech. They found no significant difference. Obviously, this is a weak metric, and a stupid way of implementing it.
But let’s see what this metric would turn up if we actually ran a search that could shed some insight into whether Trump brought immigration to the fore. Trump’s announcement speech talked a lot about illegal immigration coming from Mexico. So, if he made illegal immigration a big subject, and he tied it conceptually to Mexico, then we should see a large increase in discussions of illegal immigration and Mexico after Trump’s announcement.
I ran my own Lexis Nexis search for the words “illegal immigrant” and “Mexico” appearing within the same paragraph during the same time period before and after Trump’s campaign announcement speech. Guess what? A 660% increase in the period following Trump’s announcement.
Politifact isn’t all bad. But the fact that they’ve rated 76% of 77 Trump statements as false doesn’t carry much weight. They actually fact-checked Trump saying basically the same thing about making illegal immigration a big subject twice, using the same stupid Lexis Nexis metric both times, and included both in Trump’s 77 statements. Here are a few other “fact checks” that were obviously wrong.
-Trump on the unemployment rate.
-Trump on a CNN poll showing that he was hypothetically tied with President Obama.
-Trump on Kuwait never reimbursing the U.S.
-Trump on the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S.
And a quick footnote—Politifact has rated 9 of Oliver’s statements. Would it surprise you to find out that they rated zero of them false?
John Oliver Reason #2: Trump once attacked Jon Stewart by tweeting “If Jon Stewart is so above it all and legit, why did he change his name from Jonathan Leibowitz? He should be proud of his heritage!” And then two years later, Trump wrote “I never attacked dopey Jon Stewart for his phony last name. Would never do that!”
The Daily show first aired a segment that said that Trump’s birth name is F*#kface von Clownstick. Trump responded by attacking the fact that Stewart doesn’t even use his birth name.
Stewart tweeted in reply: “Can’t an overrated Jew have a complicated relationship with his dad without being accused of hiding his heritage? #F*#kFaceVonClownstick.”
The Huffington Post, taking the bait that Stewart set for them by implying Trump had said something negative about Stewart being Jewish when he hadn’t, then published an article titled “Donald Trump’s Jon Stewart Tweet: An Anti-Semitic Insult?”
In light of accusations of anti-Semitism, Trump’s tweet, “I never attacked dopey Jon Stewart for his phony last name” takes on a different meaning. This tweet is a rebuttal to allegations that Trump is anti-Semitic.
Remember, Oliver is trying to use these two tweets to prove Trump lied. It seems more likely that Trump is simply saying that he didn’t attack Stewart for his phony last name. Indeed, he attacked him for not using his birth name. There is a big difference, and, had Oliver provided the proper context, this would not have counted very strongly as evidence of Trump as a liar.
John Oliver Reason #3: He claimed falsely to have turned down an appearance on John Oliver’s “very boring” “Last Week Tonight.” But when we pointed out that he had never been invited, this is how he responded: “I checked with my people, and he asked me to be on the show 4 or 5 times.” Oliver: “I even checked to make sure that no one had accidentally invited him, and of course they hadn’t.”
On the surface, this is one person’s word against another’s. Bear in mind, Trump has been on many major late night shows this campaign season, including Colbert, Kimmel, and Fallon. Do you really think that Oliver would turn down having Trump on his show? Of course he wouldn’t. Oliver would love to have Trump on his show. It’d be yuge!
But would he reach out to Trump to invite him? I doubt it. Oliver is a smart guy. He’s never had a politician on his show before, let alone the front runner and presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party. In other words, Trump would never go on his show, and Oliver knows it. So I doubt he invited Trump.
In Trump’s defense, it’s plausible that Trump confused “John Oliver” with someone else. Can you imagine the number of interview requests he gets daily? This is hardly evidence that Trump is a liar. It is overwhelmingly likely that Trump misspoke. And Oliver is being a bit disingenuous here himself, since he obviously would invite Trump on his show if he thought he had a chance of booking him.
John Oliver Reason #4: “The implication that he has personally spent $20-$25 million is a bit of stretch, because he has actually loaned his campaign $17.5 million dollars, and has personally given just $250k. And that’s important because up until the convention he can pay himself back for the loan with campaign funds.”
The law “prohibits contributions from corporations.”
In 2015, Trump’s campaign spent $12.4 million. Over $2 million of that went to flights on his company’s planes and helicopters and $250,000 to office space owned by his company. Trump legally can’t give his planes or office space to his campaign, since those things belong to his company. His company must loan them to his campaign. It’s the law.
The difference between loaning at zero interest and giving to his campaign is indeed that Trump can use campaign contributions to pay down those loans. Of course, Trump has explicitly told people not to send him money along the way, and his campaign donations make up a very small percentage of his campaign expenditures. Trump has spent $23.7 million so far. On the whole, he has taken in $7.5 million from individual donors. Individual donations have accounted for 33% of Trump’s campaign expenditures. The rest, 67%, or roughly $16.2 million, Trump and the Trump Organization have paid for.
The thing that gets some people confused about loans is that they don’t understand that whether The Trump Organization loaned the money to the campaign, or Trump spent the money out of his own pocket, either way the money has already been spent on campaign related things. Trump’s on the hook for that $16.2 million, whether his company or he himself paid it.
Compare that against Bernie Sanders, who has taken in $93.9 million from individual donors, has spent $80.7 million, and isn’t on the hook for a dime. In fact, Bernie’s campaign has $14.6 million socked away in the bank.
Why does Trump have $7.5 million from individual donors while Bernie has 1,250% of that, with $93.9 million from individual donors? The difference is that Bernie is constantly soliciting individual donations, while Trump is the only candidate in the race, and in modern history, who specifically tells his supporters not to send him money.
It’s ridiculous to say that Trump isn’t self-funding merely because 33% of his campaign funds have come from individual donations, and in a John Oliver fairytale world, individual donors will magically appear and cover the remaining 67% before the convention.
Trump is the only one who is spending his own money. And he’s currently responsible for paying for 67% of his campaign’s expenditures.
John Oliver Reason #5: “Even he admits that his campaign is by no means self-funded. He makes it sound like women are stuffing grimy dollar bills in envelopes writing Donald Trump on the front, and he’s too kind to send them back. But he’s taken in $7.5 million dollars in individual contributions. And if he didn’t want it, maybe he shouldn’t have two donate buttons on his website. Because money isn’t unsolicited when you have to ask for someone’s credit card expiration date to receive it.”
Oliver’s explanation for why Trump’s website has donate buttons is a stretch. He implies that, despite Trump telling people not to donate to him at every turn, Trump is up to something devious. Trump is using his psychological powers to manipulate people into donating to him by…telling them not to donate to him. Is this really the best explanation available? No.
The more plausible explanation is that Trump’s website has buttons to accept donations because he knows that people want to invest in candidates, even if it’s only a small amount, even if the candidate doesn’t want it. You become more connected to a campaign if you send a few bucks to it. It’s a tradition in American politics and it makes a statement about who you are. Other people know this, too. And if Trump didn’t have a central hub for accepting these donations, hucksters and scam-artists would surface and try to accept donations from people instead. They are already out there anyway, trying to take super PAC money on behalf of Trump (even though Trump has explicitly told all super PACs supporting him to shut down) and selling rip-off Trump merchandise.
Now, if Trump wanted donations, we’d see him doing fundraisers, right? Hillary Clinton has done over 300. Jeb Bush did over 150. Trump has done 0 fundraisers.
Folks, Trump is telling his supporters at every turn NOT to send him money. He hasn’t made even the slightest gesture towards trying to raise money. He has a button on his website so that those folks who simply insist on investing in Trump’s campaign have a safe outlet to do so.
Those are the 5 reasons Oliver gives for why Trump is a liar. Each claim has been thoroughly debunked! Let’s move on to Theme 2: “Trump Isn’t Tough.”
***
Theme 2: Trump isn’t Tough
John Oliver Reason #1: “For a tough guy, he has incredibly thin skin. [Short fingers/Vanity thing]”
In the late 80s and early 90s, Spy magazine carried out a “lonely war” against Trump. The founder of Spy, Graydon Carter, who has been Vanity Fair’s editor since 1992, has been writing and publishing gossip columns about Trump for nearly three decades. He covers Trump to sell magazines. As a token of gratitude to Trump, Carter tries to “drive him a little bit crazy.” Trump responds in kind by trying to drive Carter a little bit crazy, mocking the banality of criticizing him for his fingers by sending him pictures of his fingers. This isn’t thin-skinned. Thin-skinned would be walking up to Carter and punching him in the face. This is a harmless way of having fun at Carter’s expense, for a change. Think about it: How would you feel about someone who had been running negative gossip columns about you for 30 years and earning their living by doing so? In that light, Trump’s response has been measured and kind-hearted.
Have a dose of what Trump experiences on a daily basis from these types of people. Here’s a 2011 Vanity Fair article titled “Donald Trump Still Really into the Donald Trump-is-Running-for-President Story.” Have a sample of this brilliant piece of analysis: “Trump said things about his finances that are highly unbecoming of someone who is pretending to be interested in appealing to a diverse electorate.” Guess they missed the mark on that one.
Trump took to copyediting the story for them, pointing out various factual inaccuracies. Perhaps the most humorous one is: “Trump reportedly owns parts of real estate projects.” Really? He reportedly owns parts of real estate projects? Given all of the sage advice and thoroughly vetted facts that they drop throughout this article without the caveat of “reportedly,” I’m pretty sure that they can also just say that he owns parts of real estate projects. Trump took the liberty of pointing out that he owns “plenty of wholes” of real estate projects, too. How thin-skinned of him.
John Oliver Reason #2: “He loves to threaten to sue people, like he does with Rosie O’Donnell. But he never sued her. In fact he’s repeatedly threatened people with lawsuits and not followed through. Including Mac Miller, Lawrence O’Donnell, Vanity Fair, and an activist who launched a petition for Macy’s to drop Trump’s products. He doesn’t actually ever sue anyone, but he says it all the time.”
Over the course of his career, Trump has initiated or been the target of “hundreds” of civil lawsuits. The Daily Beast, no fan of Trump, has published that Trump “has sued people, businesses and entire cities and countries…Trump sues when he is made to feel small, insufficiently wealthy, threatened or mocked. He sues for sport, he sues to regain a sense of control, and he sues to make a point….But he sues, most of all, to make headlines and to reinforce the notion that he is powerful.”
Though this analysis is thoroughly infected with hyperbole, and presumes access to Trump’s psyche that it can’t possible have, it’s correct on the basic count that Trump sues a lot. At the same time, we are the most litigious nation in the world. This seems to be a byproduct of our legal institutions. For example, unlike the rest of the world, in the U.S. the losing party is not responsible for the legal costs of the winning party. That encourages lawyers to bring risky cases.
So, how do you co-exist in a litigious society? Trump has targeted many people with lawsuits, but he’s also been the target of many lawsuits. Trump’s lawyer Alan Garten said in 2015 that being involved in civil law suits was “a natural part of doing business in this country.”
Has Trump initiated weak lawsuits? Arguably, yes. His lawsuit against Bill Maher is an example. We can only assume that Trump knew that it was probably weak, but that he wanted to express his discontent with being called the son of an Orangutan.
By the way, Maher, two years after Trump levied the lawsuit against him, said that Trump is “the king of brushing things off his shoulder.” Even one of the most high profile targets of a weak Trump lawsuit believes that Trump is not thin-skinned.
But some of Trump’s other lawsuits make allegations that, if true, are legitimate and important. For example, Trump initiated a $100 million lawsuit against Palm Beach County claiming that officials, in a “deliberate and malicious” act, pressured the FAA to direct air traffic to the Palm Beach International Airport over his Mar-a-Lago estate. If that’s true, it’s a big problem, and Trump deserves the chance to make his case in court
There was also that time that Trump sued Palm Beach after they cited him for flying a large American flag on an 80-foot pole, which violated a regulation requiring flags be flown on flag poles no higher than 42 feet. Trump explained that “A smaller flag and pole on Mar-a-Lago’s property would be lost given its massive size…and most importantly would fail to appropriately express the magnitude of Donald J. Trump’s and the Club’s members’ patriotism.” The two sides eventually came to a resolution, allowing Trump to fly the giant flag on a 70-foot flag pole.
Oliver gives just two reasons for why Trump isn’t tough. Both are far weaker than Trump’s lawsuit against Bill Maher. Let’s go on to Theme 3: “Trump Isn’t Successful.”
***
Theme 3: Trump isn’t Successful
John Oliver Reason #1: “Perhaps his biggest selling point as a candidate is his success. But it’s worth noting that while, yes, he has made more money than most of us will make in our lifetimes, not only did he get a multi-million dollar inheritance from his father…”
The Trump isn’t successful line of attack is surely the weakest of the three.
Trump’s story is fairly simple. His father, Fred Trump, built his first one-family home in Queens in 1923. By 1973, Fred had become one of the wealthiest people in the U.S. He owned apartment complexes worth $200 million. Around that time, Fred handed off management of the Trump Organization to Donald, who was in his mid-20s, and was, according to Fred, the smartest person he knew. Donald famously endeavored to build in Manhattan, receiving financial and political help from his father. By the end of the 70s Donald had firmly planted himself in Manhattan, transforming the Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt New York.
When Donald graduated college in 1968, he was worth $200,000. By 1982, after significantly expanding the Trump Organization, and without having received any inheritances, but having received loans and political help from his father, Donald’s net worth had skyrocketed to $200 million. In 1999, when Fred passed away and the Trump children split the roughly $200 million inheritance he left them, Trump was worth $1.6 billion according to Forbes. In 2015, Forbes determined that Trump’s net worth was $4.5 billion.
Indeed, Donald’s success is predicated upon his father’s. Not unlike how Oliver’s success is predicated upon John Stewart plucking Oliver from obscurity and eventually letting him showcase his talents as the host of The Daily Show for several months, which paved the way for Oliver to have his own show on HBO. And how did Stewart find Oliver? Fellow Englishman Ricky Gervais apparently recommended Oliver to Stewart, although Oliver did not know Gervais. This isn’t to discount Oliver’s accomplishments. It’s only to point out that when a person becomes successful, it’s almost always due in part to the help of others. There is something obnoxiously hypocritical about Oliver insinuating that because Trump received a ton of help from his father that Trump himself somehow isn’t successful, or doesn’t deserve credit for his own success. History is littered with children who failed to live up to, let alone exceed, the success of their parents. Trump was born into success but became much more successful by several orders of magnitude.
John Oliver Reason #2: “…but he’s also lost a huge amount. I will just let his own daughter describe the state of his finances at one point in his life. [Ivanka clip]”
I suspect Oliver thought he had a “gotcha” moment with this obscure Ivanka clip. But Trump loves this story. He wrote a similar version of it in his book The Art of the Comeback.
Trump says that his lowest point came in the 1990s. He “owed billions of dollars and many people thought [he] was finished.” As “the economy fell out from under him” Trump lost “the Plaza, the yacht, and the airline, and the casinos filed for bankruptcy—but he himself didn’t.” Trump writes, “I figured I’d sell off a few assets and suffer a small hit to my ego in order to keep my 18,000 employees and kept afloat the thousands of family firms and suppliers that were dependent on the Trump Organization for work. After all, these people would have found it much tougher to recover. I wouldn’t have been able to look in the mirror if I’d let them down.”
“What saved him is that those bankers believed he was worth more to them above water than under it. He fought to buy time until the real estate market could rebound. By 1995, with some but not all of his debt wiped out and a pair of big projects that would use his name under way, limousine mogul Bill Fugazy handed him a boomerang encased in glass at a lunch marking his comeback.”
Now, he’s listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the biggest financial turnaround in history.
The fact that he was billions in debt, and 25 years later he has a net worth of at least $4.5 billion, is perhaps the single biggest symbol of his success. It also understandably speaks volumes to people looking for a leader capable of alleviating the U.S.’s $19 trillion debt.
John Oliver Reason #3: “His campaign claims his current with is in excess of $10 billion. But others have disputed that claim. In fact a book once suggested that Trump might be worth between $150 million to $250 million. Which Trump protested by suing the writer for $5 billion. And you should note for the record Trump lost that lawsuit twice.”
A New Jersey judge ruled that Trump’s $5 billion lawsuit could proceed because, according to Trump’s lawyer, there were “enough facts to establish reckless disregard for the truth in the statements about Donald Trump’s worth.” That’s partially because Forbes estimated Trump’s net worth in 2005, when the book was published, to be $2.7 billion.
Of course, Trump ultimately lost the case. “The judge did not address how much Trump is actually worth when she gave her ruling from the bench.” Only that “O’Brien…was not acting maliciously.” Because Trump is a public figure, he must prove that someone made defamatory statements about him while knowing that they were false. That requires proving what O’Brien’s state of mind was, which would be very difficult to do. Only a handful of cases over the last decades have found actual malice.
Trump said that he brought the case in part because he wanted to strongly and publicly assert the falsity of O’Brien’s claim. After all, O’Brien was off by more than 1000%, per Forbes. That Trump’s case faltered didn’t verify O’Brien’s claims. On the contrary, it made a public spectacle of their sharp contrast with what most others thought Trump was worth. It faltered because of the nearly insurmountable legal threshold of proving actual malice.
John Oliver Reason #4: During the deposition for the lawsuit, his estimation of his net worth was based his own feelings. Trump quote: ‘feelings, even my own feelings…and that can change rapidly from day to day.’ Think about that: he claims that his net worth changes depending upon his mood. Which makes absolutely no sense. Interestingly, a significant portion of his self-valuation is intangible. He values his own name at $3 billion. And I’m not saying a name can’t have value. $3 billion seems a bit high.”
Actually, it makes sense. In that deposition, he said “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.”
Trump was being asked about how he values his brand, which has an influence on how much his properties are worth, which in turn has an influence on his net worth. His answer rightly pointed out the three factors that determine the value of his brand, two of which are directly affected by mood and feelings: his own valuation, others’ valuation, and the price that the market ultimately reaches when a deal is made.
If this doesn’t strike you as self-evidently true, consider that Trump’s answer is consistent with 2013 Nobel Prize Winner Robert Shiller’s assessment on valuation. Shiller writes that animal spirits—emotional drives—are an important part of economic decision making.
John Oliver Reason #5: “While Trump has said if I put my name on something, you know it’s gonna be good. Over the years, his name has been on some things that have arguably been very ungood. Including Trump shuttle (which no longer exists), Trump vodka (which was discontinued), Trump magazine (which folded), Trump world magazine (which also folded), Trump University (over which he’s being sued), and of course the travel booking site GoTrump.com. [And Trump Steaks.] And sure, every business executive is bound to have a few missteps, but Trump’s lack of sound financial instincts is perhaps best exemplified by the business that he put his name on back in 2006, just before the entire housing market collapsed. Trump: ‘I think it’s a great time to start a mortgage company, it’s Trump Mortgage.’ Starting a mortgage company in 2006 was one of the worst decisions you could make.”
According to his Financial Disclosure Report, Trump currently holds a position in over 515 organizations. He is President of 439. And he also is the Director, Chairman, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, and/or Member of many others. Given that 80% of businesses fail within the first 18 months, the fact that Trump has had a dozen or so business ventures fail illustrates that he’s had an incredibly successful track record.
Though Oliver wisely avoided claiming that “If Trump had invested his net worth into the stock market, he’d be richer today,” others, like Marco Rubio have asserted this. Let’s very quickly dismantle that claim, too.
This argument starts with the observation that Trump inherited $40 million in 1974. Of course, he didn’t. He took over his father’s company, which was valued at about $200 million. A reporter then estimated that his share of the empire would’ve been $40 million.
The argument goes that if he had cashed in that $40 million and invested it in the S&P 500, reinvesting all dividends and spending no money along the way, he’d have $2.3 billion. Given that Forbes values his net worth at $4.5 billion, and Bloomberg values his net worth at $2.9 billion, in both cases he outperformed the stock market. That is no small feat! Marketwatch points out that “year after year, decade after decade, neither individual nor professional investors can outperform broad market indexes consistently over long periods of time.”
But even if he had only tied or even underperformed the stock market—which he didn’t—what about the value of actually living your life, taking risks, developing projects, and creating things? All things equal, wouldn’t you rather have $3 billion and have spent your life investing in your dreams?
The fact that Trump invested his wealth into business ventures is important. Matt Levine writes, “Dopes like me can grow our wealth by investing indiscriminately in all the companies in the index, but we can only do that because other people—many of them with Wharton degrees and inherited wealth—made the positive, risky decisions to build those companies. If everybody indexed, nothing would get built. And that’s worth something too.”
John Oliver Reason #6: “You might say never mind side businesses, he really is a builder. But a building with TRUMP written on it is not necessarily a building owned by him. He may have just licensed his name to them, something he claims is actually better than ownership. Trump: ‘…better than ownership…You don’t put up money. You don’t put up anything.’ Spoken like a true builder.”
Spoken like a true builder, indeed. Steve Cuozzo writes in the New York Post, “Long before Trump stamped his name in gold on buildings around the world and joined the race for the White House, he was New York’s most important and bravest real estate developer.”
Here are a few of the projects Trump has, himself, built. The first seven towers of Riverside South in Manhattan, New York. Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza, New York. Trump Tower at 56th street, New York. The Grand Hyatt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York. Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago. Trump Hotel at Fashion Show Drive in Las Vegas.
Indeed, Trump has also licensed his name to a variety of projects, including Trump Towers in Istanbul, Trump Ocean Club in Panama, and Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto.
Not to mention the various properties Trump has purchased and restored, including Mar-a-lago in Florida and Trump Turnberry in Scotland.
John Oliver Reason #7: “He was never the builder for [Trump Ocean Resort, Baja Mexico] which was later abandoned, leaving would-be condo buyers like William Flint, who lost $168k, feeling understandably betrayed. Flint: ‘Donald Trump was an expert in these types of projects, so we thought.’ Not only did investors in that property sue Donald Trump, they also did in Donald Trump Tampa, another project that never got off the ground. In both cases, Trump characteristically deflected blame onto the developers. And you would think, those investors would be facing an impossible legal battle, given Trump’s tough talk. [Trump: ‘You know what happens, if you settle suits, you get sued more…I don’t settle anything, I don’t settle.’] Guess what? He settled both those cases.”
The Trump Ocean Resort in Baja Mexico was a 2006 collaboration between Trump and its developer, Irongate. Trump had successfully collaborated with Irongate previously on the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Honolulu. Trump licensed his name to the Baja Mexico project, endorsed it, and heavily promoted it. The U.S. housing market collapsed in 2007 and the area was hammered by Mexico’s drug-fueled violence. Irongate ran out of money and the project terminated. Other projects in the area suffered similar fates.
Investors said that they put down payments on the property because they were given the impression that Trump was “more involved in the project” than he actually was.
Irongate settled, paying $7.25 million. Trump settled, too, but didn’t say for how much.
The Trump Tampa case went similarly. It started in 2005, with Trump licensing his name to the project developer Simdag. The project would eventually “become a victim of massive hype, inadequate funding and a nasty recession.” Trump settled.
There is one other similar case concerning the licensing of Trump’s name for a development in Ft Lauderdale. It, too, collapsed in the midst of the financial crisis, and Trump was sued for misleading investors into believing that he was responsible for the development. Except this time, rather than settle, Trump took the case to trial. “He argued that he was never the developer of the project, which in the end was done in by the financial crisis.” And the jury decided in his favor.
The final word on all 3 cases is that everyone came out looking bad. There is reason to believe that Trump was less than explicit in revealing that he was only licensing his brand, not overseeing the development. The fact that Trump was only a licensor was buried in the contracts. Some of the investors were candid about this, admitting that they were anxious to invest, and didn’t read the sales agreement closely. Others were upset, observing that realistically Trump knew that people had invested in the Trump name, and that he should make sure that the investors got their money back by dipping into his own pockets. Trump pins the failure of the development on the developers and the collapse of the market. These things are undeniably true. What is less obvious is whether Trump had a legal and moral duty to be more explicit about his role as only a licensor, and not the developer.
Given all the evidence, to try and claim Trump is unsuccessful, or even that he isn’t deserving of credit for his success, is simply disingenuous.
Given everything Oliver has laid out, there is very little reason to think that Trump isn’t basically honest, strong, and successful.
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Theme 4: Trump’s Policies
John Oliver Critique #1: “A candidate for president needs a coherent set of policies. No matter what you think of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, at least you basically know where they stand. But Trump’s opinions have been wildly inconsistent. He’s been pro-choice and pro-life. For and against assault weapon bans. In favor of both bringing in Syrian refugees and deporting them out of the country.”
To start, I think the word Oliver meant to use here was “consistent” rather than “coherent,” since his critique is that Trump’s positions have changed, not that they are contradictory when held as a unified whole. That is a separate critique that some have leveled at Trump, also, but Oliver’s analysis is based on analyzing Trump’s consistency.
The idea that Trump’s policies aren’t coherent comes from the criticism that Trump has no “coherent political philosophy.” The word “coherent” is used to mean “ideologically consistent,” so the critique that Oliver thought he was tapping into is actually saying that Trump has a platform of views that are not ideologically conservative nor liberal. Oliver never comments on whether Trump’s views are uniformly liberal or conservative. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing if someone holds a mix of liberal and conservative views. But that nuance was missing from Oliver’s segment.
Assuming Oliver meant “consistent” rather than “coherent,” it’s truly remarkable that he holds up Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as paragons of “consistency.” They certainly are not.
There is no doubt that Trump has revised his views on abortion, gun control, and Syrian refugees. Also on Hillary Clinton, his party affiliation, and the legalization of drugs.
But some say that Cruz has revised many of his views, too. LibertyConservatives.com has provided a list of Cruz’s 10 biggest flip flops. These are just on libertarian issues. The biggest flip flop haunting Cruz’s campaign is whether or not he intended to support or defeat the Gang of Eight Bill.
Rubio is also accused of flip flopping on national security spending, entering the Iraq war, and most famously, signing on to the Gang of Eight Bill, which provided for a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, after he promised not to do exactly that when he was campaigning for the senate.
And, of course, Hillary Clinton—who has received $591,529 in campaign contributions from Time Warner, the owner of HBO, which broadcast John Oliver’s segment on Trump—has changed her positions on same sex-marriage, the Second Amendment, her Iraq War vote, and illegal immigration reform.
All politicians revise their views. So do voters. But the most disturbing part of Oliver’s claim here is the flat out lie that we just don’t know where Trump stands. Yes, we do. And Oliver would, too, if, when he was browsing Trump’s website, snapping screen shots of his “Donate” buttons, he took half a second to drag his mouse over the “Positions” tab. Moreover, there is an abundance of reports that have chronicled his positions. But to know Trump’s hallmark positions, all you really need to do is have a pulse and even a passing interest in U.S. politics. Trump’s positions on making Mexico “pay for the wall,” putting a temporary halt to Muslim Immigration, and his desires to take jobs back from China and other countries by the use of tariffs on foreign goods, are plain as day if you’ve ever even casually listened to him give an interview. And he’s got plenty more positions, clearly laid out on his website and in his speeches.
John Oliver Critique #2: “And that inconsistency can be troubling. Just this morning, for instance, he was asked about the fact that David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK, had told supporters to vote for him, and this was his answer. Trump: ‘Well just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. Honestly, I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.’ Really? That’s your best answer there? Because you definitely know who he is. Party because you called him a bigot and a racist in the past. But that’s not even the f*#king point. The point is, with an answer like that, you are either racist or you are pretending to be, and at some point, there is no difference there. And sure, he disavowed David Duke later on in the day, but the scary thing is, we have no way of knowing which of his inconsistent views he will hold in office.”
It’s true that Trump disavowed Duke in 2000. Here’s a list of the dates on which he has disavowed or otherwise condemned Duke: November 19, 1991, February 14, 2000, August 26, 2015, February 26, 2016, February 28, 2016, February 29, 2016, and March 1, 2016.
Trump was obviously ambiguous in his answer to Jake Tapper, notwithstanding his other various disavowals of Duke. Some have speculated that Trump was trying to pander to white supremacist voters. Shortly following the interview with Tapper, Trump took to Twitter to clarify his condemnation. Trump says he had a bad earpiece, and feared being baited into condemning groups that he knew nothing about. That’s reasonable. But he also said he “doesn’t know anything about David Duke” which is untrue.
The charitable interpretation of this statement is that Trump misspoke. The less charitable interpretation is that he was pandering to white supremacists. The whole of the evidence falls on the side of Trump having a 25 year record of disavowing David Duke, and many recent statements disavowing David Duke, except for this interview, in which he declined to comment on Duke one way or the other.
John Oliver Critique #3: “Will he stand by his claim that vaccines are linked to autism? Or his claim that Mexico is sending us rapists? Oh and what about that plan he had to defeat Isis? [Trump on FNC: ‘We’re fighting a very politically correct war against Isis…With the terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. But when they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.’] That is the front runner for the Republican nomination advocating a war crime.”
Trump has espoused these three positions, but not exactly as Oliver describes them.
(1) Trump said he is “totally in favor of vaccines” but “wants smaller doses over longer periods of time.” He gave an anecdote in which he inferred that a vaccine the child received caused the child to become very sick, which in turn caused the child to become autistic.
There were two doctors on stage with Trump when he made those comments. Ben Carson and Rand Paul. Carson said there is “extremely well-documented proof that there is no autism associated with vaccinations, but it is true that we are probably giving way too many in too short a period of time.” Paul said “I’m all for vaccines…I’m also a little concerned about how they’re bunched up.”
(2) Trump said in 2011 that he theorizes that the Mexican government is sending its criminal citizens to the U.S. The word “sending” might be a tad strong, since there is no evidence available that the Mexican government is patting Mexican criminals on the back and shoving them across the border. But there is the possibility that something more indirect is happening that leads to Mexican criminals being incentivized to come to the US. That theory is this. The combination of (A) the U.S.’s generosity towards illegal immigrants, by providing a litany of public benefits and refusing to prosecute illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities, and (B) the Mexican government’s harsher criminal justice system and Mexico’s lower quality of life, amounts to (C) an incentive for Mexicans, including Mexican criminals, to come to the U.S. rather than stay in Mexico.
Trump said in his campaign announcement speech that “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” And indeed, some of the illegal immigrants coming from Mexico are rapists. The federal government does not publicize how many crimes illegal immigrants commit. But Immigration Customs Enforcement said that in 2013 and 2014 alone, ICE released more than 66,000 illegal immigrants who had over 166,000 convictions, including 11,000 rapes.
(3) Trump said that the U.S. should take out the family members of Isis terrorists because the family members “know what’s going on.” That caveat—that Isis terrorists’ family members are accessories after the fact—means that they are war criminals. Trump’s claim is a matter for ethical debate: Is it acceptable to kill accessories to terrorism in order to combat terrorism and potentially save American lives?
We should encourage Oliver and anyone else to challenge these policy positions. Intellectual integrity requires us to fully flesh them out and understand the reasoning behind them, evaluate them, and then compare them against the strongest competing positions. So long as this minimal threshold of rational analysis is enacted, democracy has been dutifully served.
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CONCLUSION
Most of Oliver’s facts don’t check out, or paint a very incomplete, one-sided picture. There is no way, given everything Oliver presented, that his reasons support the conclusion that Trump is dishonest, weak, or unsuccessful. This isn’t to say that Trump is an angel. It’s to say that Oliver pieced together a sloppy and disingenuous hit piece on Trump that is a disservice to the goals of Oliver’s show.
In Oliver’s defense, the media, which he unavoidably had to cite to make his case, is also disingenuous. Oliver’s critique is the fruit of a poisonous tree. But he should have known that at the start, and he should have sought a more balanced array of sources. The media isn’t all bad. It’s just that most of it is bad. At the same time, it wasn’t hard for me to dig up competing sources, using Google and the Donald Trump subreddit, and carefully rebut virtually every claim Oliver made with facts.
But let’s be completely honest with ourselves. It never mattered whether the conclusion that Oliver built up to—that Donald Trump, the honest, strong, successful person is a myth, and that Donald Drumpf, the dishonest, weak, unsuccessful person is the truth—was based in fact or not. All that mattered was that the liars in the media provided enough “source material” to construct a character assassination. Donald Trump terrifies John Oliver and many of the people that like his show. Oliver both seized the opportunity to try and damage Trump’s image and exploited his audience’s fear of a Trump presidency.
And that is pretty understandable, at least from the perspective of moral consequentialism. Oliver doesn’t want Trump to become president. If he thinks he can play a role in preventing Trump from becoming president by putting together a hit-piece like this, why wouldn’t he?
This same logic applies to politics in general. The goal is to get elected. Telling the truth only figures into the equation if voters care about the truth. I think a lot of people do care about the truth. I think, deep down, John Oliver cares about it, too. We all need reminders every once in a while.
In light of everything we’ve gone over, take a listen to Oliver’s conclusion. Set aside the rhetoric and just concentrate on the argument he’s making. Then, I’ll leave you to make up your own mind.
John Oliver Conclusion: “If you are thinking of voting for Donald Trump, the charismatic guy promising to Make America Great Again, stop to take a moment and imagine how you would feel if you just met a guy named Donald Drumpf. A litigious serial liar with a string of broken business ventures and the support of a former Klan leader who he can’t decide whether or not to condemn. Would you think that he would make a good president, or is the spell now somewhat broken?”
http://causesandfx.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/the-definitive-rebuttal-to-john-olivers-hit-piece-on-trump/
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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It appears some of the partisans here have their rote objections and rhetoric tuned in to refuting the Republican Party line but when someone espouses a call for something other than the continued march of big government and reduced individual liberty, you get all flustered. Then claim troll which seems to be the standard ST replacement for "I don't have an answer, so I'll just call you a troll and feel better about myself"
That because big government and reduced individual liberty is a paranoid fantasy straw man.
Only the 5% or less that compromise the true far left and Very few on supertopo wants bigger govt or less actual Liberty. Most in the center and left are probably for what a lot of people would consider common sense regulations like universal background checks on guns but it's mostly the far left that wants to take all guns away.
So when you argue against strawmen you will get called out as a troll. Even if you aren't aware that you are doing it. That's not people without an answer to a reasonable argument that's the expected reaction to a weak argument not worth responding to because the other person isn't interested in listening and learning they just want to confirm their biased ideas.
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