The Swamp is Overflowing

[Berzerker]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-donald-trump-lawyer-michael-cohen/594358002/

Trump didn't need to pay off Stormy, his lawyer has been raking in the dough... But it does appear Trump's been paying him, so was Trump's lawyer selling access without the Donald knowing about his side business? Was Trump paying Cohen to cover his 'bimbo alert' in addition to whatever the lawyer could get from special interests? If I was Trump I'd be mad as hell. Why pay Cohen when the guy's making millions from people wanting "access"?

The question now is: did Trump get money thru his lawyer?

Bribery aint nothing new in Washington... The 2 parties threaten to regulate someone and the tap opens up. That much is bipartisan.

edit: I guess Trump paid his lawyer during the campaign to cover his 'indiscretions' and the selling of access came later once Trump won election.

 

[FriendlyFire]

a senior official at Novartis has since anonymously told NBC News that Cohen reached out to them “promising access” to the Trump administration in return for his hiring, which sounds more plausible. And Stat’s Ed Silverman quotes another anonymous Novartis employee as saying Cohen “promised access to not just Trump, but also the circle around him. It was almost as if we were hiring him as a lobbyist.”

Novartis 1.2 Mil payment stands out, that is one massive payment for "healthcare consulting"
Iam wondering if this was what had promoted the FBI raid and seizure of evidence from Cohen.

 

[Berzerker]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-china-zte_us_5af9f701e4b0200bcab7fa66

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

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

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

Trump, despite his promises to do so during the campaign, has not divested himself of his businesses, and continues to profit from them.

scumbag

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Make China Great Again...as long as they pay the bribes.

This is making for mass hilarity in the Breitbarf Bubble of Disinformation. Trump tweeted about saving ZTE, so Breitbarf dutifully reported what a great thing Trump was doing, but of course they are not mentioning the widely circulated obvious reason he did it. In the absence of that the clowns in the comments section are casting a wide net for speculations on "what is the great deal Trump is making for America here?"

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Wait so ZTE wantonly flouted IP protections and an arms embargo, got caught, did it again and now he's saving them?

I thought the rationale for the trade war with China was IP protections?

Well I guess that goes to show his base will never leave him.

 

[Narz]

He's going to keep doing whatever he wants as long as he's getting away with it. It's the rich brat way.

 

[Berzerker]

https://www.caller.com/story/news/2...hold-finds-safe-harbor-port-lavaca/600039002/

Just when I thought a little bit of sleaze was getting drained out of Washington, this piece of snot hangs onto the GOP nostril

"Blake has always been a strong supporter of the Calhoun Port Authority and is familiar with the issues facing the Port," the statement reads. "The Board looks forward to the services Blake can provide in assisting the Port with matters in Washington, D.C."

How can we make the Calhoun Port Authority pay for that? I'd like to know who hired him.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Wait so ZTE wantonly flouted IP protections and an arms embargo, got caught, did it again and now he's saving them?
I thought the rationale for the trade war with China was IP protections?
Well I guess that goes to show his base will never leave him.

The US has been stealing too many Gyna Jobs, for years the US have cheated and been so unfair to Gyna, US has so many unfair trade tarriffs on steel and alumium all by that crazy US President
Were going to make Gyan Great again.

All it took was 500 Mil investment / bribe
I guess trade wars are good and easy after all

 

[Oerdin]

Trump is the swamp. He flip flops a 180 on ZTE (who was caught red handed selling US goodies to both North Korea and Iran) with in 24 hours of the Chinese government paying a half billion dollar bribe to Trump Tower Indonesia. This is after every single last western intelligence agency said Chinese state owned ZTE is a major part of Chinese communist party espionage.

Moderator Action: <snip> removed calls for killing Trump supporters and issued a temporara ban - ori
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Berzerker]

Sen Grassley from the state of Ethanol - I mean Iowa - is mad at EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. Apparently Pruitt has been issuing waivers to refineries who dont like adding ethanol (corn) to gasoline.

 

[warpus]

Trump, despite his promises to do so during the campaign, has not divested himself of his businesses, and continues to profit from them.

I mean.. This is why this guy wanted to be president. Why is this news to some people?

 

[Berzerker]

In our next episode of "The Grifters"

Qatar is our friend again...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/nyregion/kushner-deal-qatar-666-5th.html

The Kushner family thanks you

 

[gozpel]

Donald Trump is a great man, comparable to the old fathers of your country!

In his own mind.

 

[Bootstoots]

Before Trump, I never realized just how above the law the president is, at least while he is in office. He can blatantly accept bribes from foreign powers and then do things to undermine national security in favor of the country that bribed him. All anyone can do is impeach him and try to remove him from office, but as long as the other party holds at least 1/3 of the Senate seats and hasn't abandoned him yet, that won't do anything. We're in banana republic territory now.

Baby boomers often talk about how Watergate shattered their trust in government and made them cynical. To me, it just looks like they were incredibly naive. They basically grew up in the Garden of Eden, or the Matrix, because the government was unusually non-corrupt and run by civic-minded presidents from 1933-1968 (arguably to 1972). Also, of course, the news was very centralized in the early TV era, with three major networks all saying the same thing, and everyone trusting a few soothing men to tell them the truth. So things like how we overthrew various Central American leaders and replaced them with repressive right-wing regimes at the behest of the United Fruit Company, more so than out of any fear of Communism, weren't widely known. And Johnson was kind of a dick, and J. Edgar Hoover was worse. But still, there was an unusually good string of presidents from FDR to Nixon's first term.

The Watergate era has nothing on what we're going through now. Anyone who isn't a cynic is an idiot, and now the main goal is to find out which kind of cynicism is most appropriate.

 

[Farm Boy]

Faith does not make one an idiot.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Faith does not make one an idiot.

Having faith that America can recover from Trump might make one an idiot, based on the observation that a significant segment of the population shows no inclination to even try.

 

[gozpel]

My concern is, how can a man with a knowledge of how to make money in his field, where he is pretty good where he silence people with bribes and continue to be even voted for?

There are some really weird things going on the the US elections, A rich dude with an abysmal TV show, where you could see him already, at his worst?

At least Ronald Reagan was a star in B-movies, and he turned out to be alright, at least a good diplomat.

If anyone have the money, they can buy into being a President of America! There should be some by-laws against that. Not just being a movie-star or a rich guy.

Sad!

 

[innonimatu]

The Watergate era has nothing on what we're going through now. Anyone who isn't a cynic is an idiot, and now the main goal is to find out which kind of cynicism is most appropriate.

There was something of a reaction to curtail the powers of the imperial presidency and of some agencies. Carter did not had an easy time with congress, did he? And there was the Church commission, etc. Any chance of that happening again?

 

[Broken_Erika]

This seems like as good a place as any.
One of the swamp monsters had a mild heart attack.(The one who said that Trudeau stabbed Trump in the back) I was not aware that he possessed one.

US President Donald Trump's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has suffered what doctors say was a "very mild" heart attack.

Unfortunately; He is expected to make a full recovery.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44447715

 

[Berzerker]

Kudlow's one of the few people I like... somewhat

now that I said that I'm trying to think of anyone else I like...somewhat

Nobody's coming to mind