Op-ed: The U.S. could be in a quagmire that makes Brexit look like a puddle if Donald Trump is elected.
What would it do to Wall Street, Congress and the people in general if Trump was wearing orange. It has happened before. Though so far only a president, the late Richard Nixon, was ousted, his vice President Spiro T. Agnew was also ousted. And Agnew made it through their first four years, but not their second term. He had committed extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy while serving as governor of Maryland and in other government jobs in the state. It was only a measly $100,000, peanuts by today’s standards. Nixon didn’t pardon him, being under investigation himself for the much more serious Watergate. Some scholars believe Trump could pardon himself if convicted in the Florida Gate or other scandals, and name Mike Pence President. Congress would select a new vice president. Imagine the fiasco, because in Agnew’s case nothing was known of his crimes when he was elected and served five years. Trump is already under investigation, and set to go on trial for the fraud at Trump University. And news sites have listed dozens of other potential scandals he could be held responsible for. In Floridagate he is accused of bribing Florida Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi $25,000 to drop the Trump University case. It will go to trialin other states around Election Day. Mere statements of fact cannot even come close to all Trump got away with. A quotation from H.L. Mencken, about someone else, put it this way: "No man ever came to market with less seductive goods, and no man ever got a better price for what he had to offer." The true American Hustle – turn all attention former First Lady’s problems with emails. Can Americans really not care? Even after reading this list of ripoffs. The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet The Republican nominee’s charitable foundation made a large gift to a Florida politician right before she dropped a damaging investigation. But what else has the foundation done? “As the old saying goes, those who give to glass foundations shouldn’t throw stones. Or something like that. In any case, after hitting Hillary Clinton hard over the Clinton Foundation, Donald Trump is under fresh scrutiny for his own foundation. Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold has been reporting for months on the dearth of actual giving that Trump has done, despite repeated vows to donate to charity over the decades, but the story that’s broken through concerns a donation that Trump made to “Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican, in 2013. At the time, Bondi’s office was deciding whether or not to pursue a fraud case against Trump University and the Trump Institute. According to an aide, Bondi personally spoke with Trump, soliciting a donation to And Justice for All, a group backing her reelection. The Trump Foundation cut And Justice for All a $25,000 check, and four days later Bondi dropped the investigation. “There are two questions at play here. One is the appearance of a quid-pro-quo. While Trump and Bondi say there was none, this is also precisely the mode Trump has described in the past. “As a businessman and a very substantial donor to very important people, when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in July 2015. “As a businessman, I need that.” He reprised those boasts early in the GOP primary, positioning himself as the only candidate honest enough to say how the game was played—and the only one rich enough to be exempt from it. Now, however, he’s singing a different tune. “Improper influence or not, the donation was illegal. The Trump Foundation, as a nonprofit, cannot give to political causes. Making things more complicated, the Trump Foundation recorded the incorrect recipient as the gift. “Eventually, it had to pay a $2,500 penalty to the IRS. Even then, it has not recouped the money, as is required. “That’s not the end of the story. The liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a complaint with the IRS, accusing the Trump Foundation of violating another rule by using charity to benefit a group’s leader. Meanwhile, The Huffington Post reports that Trump’s help for Bondi didn’t stop with that $25,000 donation. His family gave more to her, and he also hosted a fundraiser at his tony Mar-A-Lago in Florida—charging less than market rate, and less than he charged his own campaign to host events there. … “The breadth of Trump’s controversies is truly huge, ranging from allegations of mafia ties to unscrupulous business dealings, and from racial discrimination to alleged marital rape. The stretch over more than four decades, from the mid-1970s to the present day. To catalogue the full sweep of allegations would require thousands of words and lump together the trivial with the truly scandalous. Including business deals that have simply failed, without any hint of impropriety, would require thousands more. This is a snapshot of some of the most interesting and largest of those scandals. The Beauty Pageant Scandals “Where and when: Various, 1992-present The dirt: The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser reports on the mess of the American Dream pageant in 1992. After years of attending beauty pageants—Trump seems to have always enjoyed the company of beautiful, scantily clad women—he decided he wanted to get in on the business himself, meeting with George Houraney and Jill Harth, a couple that ran the American Dream pageant. It was an ill-fated effort. Harth and Houraney alleged that Trump started making passes at her almost immediately. On one occasion, Trump allegedly asked them to bring some models to a party. Harth alleges Trump groped her at the party. In a limo afterwards, another model said she heard him say that “all women are bimbos” and most “gold diggers.” Trump reportedly joined another model in bed, uninvited, late at night. On other occasions, he forced Harth into bedrooms and made passes at her, she said. But after the contest, Trump broke off dealings. Harth sued Trump, alleging sexual misbehavior, while the couple together sued him for breach of contract. In the suit, they also alleged that Trump had kept black women out of the pageant. “The upshot: The couple settled with Trump for an unannounced sum, and Harth dropped her suit. Trump has denied all the allegations. “But it wasn’t Trump’s last turn in the pageant business. A few years later, he bought the Miss Universe pageant, which also includes Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. “Honestly, when I bought [Miss Universe], the bathing suits got smaller and the heels got higher and the ratings went up,” he boasted to Vanity Fair later. In 2012, he won a $5 million suit against a former contestant who claimed the contest was rigged. By 2015, he operated Miss Universe as a joint venture with NBC, but after he slurred Mexican immigrants at his campaign launch, Univision and NBC both announced they would not air the pageant. Trump bought out NBC’s share, then promptly sold the company. He sued Univision but settled in February. The terms were undisclosed. Racial Housing Discrimination “Where and when: New York City, 1973-1975 The dirt: The Department of Justice sued Trump and his father Fred in 1973 for housing discrimination at 39 sites around New York. “The government contended that Trump Management had refused to rent or negotiate rentals ‘because of race and color,’” The New York Times reported. “It also charged that the company had required different rental terms and conditions because of race and that it had misrepresented to blacks that apartments were not available.” Trump called the accusations “absolutely ridiculous.” “The upshot: The Trumps hired attorney Roy Cohn, who had worked for Joe McCarthy and whom Michael Kinsley once indelibly labeled “innocent of a variety of federal crimes.” They sued the Justice Department for $100 million. In the end, however, the Trumps settled with the government, promising not to discriminate and submitting to regular review by the New York Urban League—though crucially not admitting guilt. The Times has much more on the long history of allegations at Trump-owned properties. Mafia Ties Where and when: New York and Atlantic City, 1970s- ? “The dirt: Trump has been linked to the mafia many times over the years, with varying degrees of closeness. Many of the connections seem to be the sorts of interactions with mobsters that were inevitable for a guy in the construction and casino businesses at the time. For example, organized crime controlled the 1980s New York City concrete business, so that anyone building in the city likely brushed up against it. While Trump has portrayed himself as an unwitting participant, not everyone agrees. There have been a string of other allegations, too, many reported by investigative journalist Wayne Barrett. Cohn, Trump’s lawyer, also represented the Genovese crime family boss Tony Salerno. Barrett also reported a series of transactions involving organized crime, and alleged that Trump paid twice market rate to a mob figure for the land under Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. Michael Isikoff has also reported that Trump was close to Robert LiButti, an associate of John Gotti, inviting him on his yacht and helicopter. In one case, Trump’s company bought LiButti nine luxury cars. “The upshot: Though Trump has been questioned in court or under oath about the ties, he’s never been convicted of anything. A New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement report after Barrett’s 1992 book on Trump generally found no mafia-related wrong-doing on Trump’s part. Trump Plaza was fined $200,000 for keeping black employees away from LiButti’s table, at his behest, and for the gift of the cars, though Trump personally was not penalized. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/donald-trump-scandals/474726/
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Op-ed: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump ignited violent opposition that could be compared to numerous uprisings in the past, including the Prague and April springs. But Trump doesn’t have a strong army to send in to shut down opposition. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the country and millions suffering from mental illness, both partly a result of the Republican Party’s support for the NRA. Also, the social media now available for organizing disruptions are vastly superior to what brought down several Arab governments. Of course people who try to break up Trump rallies are organizing, and it is very easy to do it these days. They can study other uprisings and learn techniques. Attack one rally at the start; attack the next one near the end. Stay away from one. Or just shout outside. Don’t give away your plans. Mislead. Fly false flags. Trump himself is at threat of an attack. There has already been on case when a man nearly got next to him. He was easily within distance of shooting Trump except he did not have a gun, and it is not clear he wanted to hurt the candidate. There also are millions of soldiers trained as marksmen. Dare Trump go to a theater? Is Bernie Sanders inciting his people? It doesn’t matter. They do not need to be pushed. They have been dumping on Hillary Clinton since the campaign began. Just as Trump can say he cannot stop his supporters from attacking his opponents, Sanders can say he can’t stop people from venting their frustration. This election is becoming increasingly like the 1968 race. The assassination of Robert Kennedy led to the election of Richard Nixon and the quagmire of the Vietnam War. People dissatisfied with Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey stayed home. They did not want the lesser of two evils. Some say Trump is hoping for a repeat of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. |
Robert Weller
2016 US election news and other news from the USA
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Worked in journalism, including on the Internet, for more than 40 years. Started as a news editor at the Colorado Daily at the University of Colorado, joined a small Montana newspaper, the Helena Independent-Record, and then United Press International. Archives
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