For the first time a former American president has been convicted of a felony—34 felonies, in fact. This historic disgrace should both shock the nation and reassure it about its capacity to achieve justice. That the conviction of Donald Trump will probably accomplish neither result testifies partly to the corrosive power of Mr Trump’s shamelessness and partly to the complex, contestable nature of the charges brought against him.

• Read our report from the courtroom as the verdict was delivered
• Learn about Donald Trump’s other criminal trials in our primer
• The Economist is tracking the presidential contest. Find the latest polls here

A jury of Mr Trump’s peers weighed the evidence and unanimously convicted him of breaking election law by covering up payments of hush money to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with him. In itself the outcome would seem to vindicate a fundamental American principle, that no citizen is beyond the reach of justice. Yet over the long run this prosecution will probably do more to weaken than affirm the rule of law.

Legal experts have cited numerous avenues for credible appeal, and any appeal will not be resolved until long after the November election. That will make it all the easier for Mr Trump’s supporters to embrace his arguments that he is the victim of a biased judge and jury. This verdict is particularly vulnerable to appeal because of the lack of clear precedent for the charges the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, chose to bring.

Falsifying business expenses is a misdemeanour under New York law, but by arguing that that crime was committed in order to commit or conceal another one, Mr Bragg was able to charge Mr Trump with felonies. Prosecutors argued, and Judge Juan Merchan agreed, that jurors did not even have to agree on precisely what other law Mr Trump violated, resulting in a vagueness that is sure to be one of the grounds for appeal. Mr Bragg, a Democrat, was elected to his post after boasting that he was most qualified to prosecute Mr Trump, giving the former president further grist to say he is the victim of political persecution by allies of his opponent, President Joe Biden.

That this verdict is particularly vulnerable to Mr Trump’s claims that the system of justice is being “weaponised” against him may seem a perverse reason to criticise it. No political figure should be able to hold the law hostage, extorting immunity from prosecution in exchange for not degrading the system of justice in the eyes of followers. But prosecutors exercise wide discretion in choosing what cases to bring, for good reason. They are supposed to consider not only the likelihood of conviction but also the seriousness of the crime and the public interest at stake. Mr Bragg’s predecessor, as well as Mr Biden’s Justice Department, considered bringing versions of these charges and elected not to. Compared with the other cases pending against Mr Trump, this one always seemed too much of a stretch to command widespread public legitimacy, and polling in advance of the conviction suggested that even that will not enhance faith that justice is being done.

Further, this prosecution has done more to help than hurt Mr Trump’s chances of winning back the White House, and, as the insurrection of January 6th 2021 ought to have made clear, that is a greater hazard to the rule of law than any fraudulent book-keeping. He was waning as a political force before Mr Bragg charged him in April 2023. The indictment put Mr Trump back in the spotlight, and even his Republican critics, including his opponents for the nomination, fell into line, supporting his claims of victimisation. Mr Trump rebounded among Republicans in the polls and began his march to the nomination. His proud defiance of the prosecution, including his recent rally before thousands of supporters in the South Bronx, has contributed to his image of strength. Mr Biden’s lacklustre campaign has struggled to take advantage of Mr Trump’s legal woes without implicitly lending credence to suspicions that they are political.

When Mr Bragg brought his case, he said he wanted to establish the importance of “true and accurate record-keeping”. At trial, prosecutors argued that the stakes were far higher, saying Mr Trump’s fraudulent record-keeping may have enabled him to “hoodwink voters” and win in 2016. Maybe this conviction, as some polling suggests, will cause independent-minded voters to abandon Mr Trump. If not, then paying hush money to Ms Daniels may now help elect Mr Trump a second time. ?

The Russian hoax was wrong headed, the impeachments were wrong headed, the deliberate misinterpretation of the COVID briefings were a media disgrace,

And if Trump’s womanizing was disqualifying neither Kennedy nor Clinton would have been in office. But there is no evidence of Trump pursuing this course while in office….not true of Kennedy and Clinton who used their office as an enabler. Big difference.

Trump disqualified himself by his post election behavior and encouraging protests about the election results. That was rabble rousing that shouldn’t ever happen in a Democracy.

But similarly, the Biden’s profiting from his office via Hunter Biden’s ‘business dealings’ was also totally inappropriate.

These two old men should clear the decks for younger, less compromised candidates. An election between Trump and Biden is a disaster for the country and the world. If the more competent man, Trump, wins….the government will be grid locked again. If Biden wins the country will be run by those who prop him up.

If the more competent man, Trump,

se gat.

Man you lefties are hopeless, with you it’s all personal dislike and  racial triggers. Trump has run his own global business, he was dead right on the Fed, right in pursuing the vaccine, right in confronting China. He is no fool.

Biden is a political hack steeped in Union views. He is the thought leader of nothing. The man is obviously impaired, propped up by supporters and incapable of interacting forcefully with other international leaders

Only an idiot would think  Biden is then more competent man. He may be aligned with your views, that’s not competence.

Se gat.

Well said Moz...and the difference on how the world looks now opposed to 4 years ago? Massive ...my general quality of life will improve drastically within months of Trump winning back the presidency...it will take a bit longer for the price of cheese to drop below R100/kg again, but that would probably happen too.

Ja, Ukraine se moer ................. cheese will be cheap.

Mozart

The stuation is that the present scenario makes for Governing parties losing elections - it ahppened in a list of Eu countries and now happened in  SA as well.     The Conservative Party will lose th e enx lection badly.    The next two  Governments in danger is Germany and  France.   

I think it si ebcause of weak leaders in democratic countries  an of leftist policies they espoused - even in teh UK the coun try at presnt is leaderless and the present Governments is poor when it comes to economic leadership.      

I saw the Republcian Party got millions in funds from donors after the guilty verdict.   That is definiely not going to help the Democrats in the House and Senate elections as well.   Many centrists see the court cases against Trump another weight taking the Demcorats down - a bad strategy from an election prespective.   

There are sisues that influence voters such as the inflation issue on the rise again - the collapse of law and irder in cities - the open border polciy of Biden -  and the expenditure polcicies of the Biden Regime.    Those are the issues reflecting whatw ill influence voters - and he Democrats has no defense they could use to stop those factors and are in fact worsening the situation by their present conduct. 

Biden for instance said he is going  to increase taxation on the rich - but that cannt ahppen without causing further inflation in consumer goods and services.   The fact is that the Democrats cannot defend themselves on the above issues - everything Biden touched tuurned into shit - and the Democrat House and Senate memebers are supporting thode Biden policies as well.   So their only way out was a personal battle against Trump.   

Will it favor the Democrats in the election - it is unlikely to work out for the Democrats at all.   The ultra leftist regimes will not help anybody.    It will jsut cause fuirther problems for the Democrats.

               .        .       

"Ja, Ukraine se moer ................. cheese will be cheap."

I just donated $300k to Trump

Shaun Maguire

@shaunmmaguire

·

May 30

I just donated $300k to Trump. I’m prepared to lose friends. Here’s why.

Back in 2016 I had drunk the media Kool-Aid and was scared out of my mind about Trump. As such I donated to Hilary Clinton’s campaign and voted for her.

By 2020 I was disillusioned and didn’t vote – I didn’t like either option.

Now, in 2024, I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump.

I know that I’ll lose friends for this. Some will refuse to do business with me. The media will probably demonize me, as they have so many others before me. But despite this, I still believe it’s the right thing to do. 

I refuse to live in a society where people are afraid to speak.

The 2016 Election

I’m going to start off with something provocative, but I think it leads to a different take on the most controversial Trump issue, which is obviously January 6th. So here goes nothing.

I believe the 2016 election was manipulated to hurt Hilary Clinton and to help Donald Trump.

Hilary Clinton herself believes this, she has denied the 2016 election result dozens of times, and still does to this day. Plot twist: I agree with her! Look into Guccifer 2.0 which was the “hacker group” that strategically leaked her emails (through Wikileaks) in a drip campaign at just the right moments. Turns out it was the Russian GRU. And remember all those fake news and bot farms? These incidents are the tip of the spear -- some of the publicly known incidents. There was extreme manipulation happening during the 2016 election. 

Before proceeding, please watch at least 30 seconds of this video. It’s “24 straight minutes of Democrats denying election results.”

Russia (and others) interfering in the 2016 election was nothing new, this happens in every election, everywhere in the world. Obviously.

But for me, as someone that used to work in National Security, Russia’s implicit support for Trump made me deathly afraid of him getting elected as President.

I was wrong, and Russia miscalculated. President Trump turned out to be a master of foreign policy and particularly strong towards Russia. If you’ve never seen it before, please watch this two minute clip from Trump at a NATO breakfast 5 years ago. 

If you're too lazy, Trump told Germany that they're a) owned by Russia via their energy dependence b) financing Russia's war machine by buying their energy c) not investing enough in defense, investing only 1% of GDP, which was below the 2% NATO commitment, meanwhile the US was investing 4.2% of GDP. And yet the world said he's owned by Russia?

For other Trump foreign policy wins, he: a) signed the Abraham Accords b) successfully put Iran in the penalty box, which the Biden administration immediately unwound and c) he helped India see the dangers of having their comms networks controlled by China resulting in Huawei and TikTok bans there. 

My “radicalization” towards the center

August 16th, 2021 was the day I knew I could never support Joe Biden or any of the senior officials in his administration. This was the day that Afghans fell to their deaths from US C-17 airplanes at the Kabul International Airport, or KAIA as ISAF forces referred to it. 

Back in 2012 I deployed to Afghanistan working for DARPA. I used to fly out of KAIA at least weekly, usually taking a Blackhawk to Bagram Airfield (BAF), but sometimes jumping on a C-130 down to Kandahar (KAF).

I'm not going to go into all of the details here, but this was personal for me -- as it was for anyone that served in Afghanistan. Most have the wrong impression of what happened there. Afghanistan wasn't Iraq. And real progress had been made. It took roughly 15 years to stabilize most of Afghanistan, but the ISAF coalition had gotten it to the place that little girls were going to school in Kabul, sometimes walked there by their mothers who weren't even wearing Burkas anymore. All of this was unimaginable a decade prior.

And then there's the strategic aspect. The US's most strategic base in Afghanistan was Bagram Airfield. Unless you've been there it's impossible to imagine how strategic this base is, and how easy it is to defend. Nestled in a remote valley at the foothills of the Himalayas. Within a couple hour flight of China and Iran, and a few minute flight to Pakistan. I believe this airfield could have been held for 50+ years with 50,000 men. A similar scale to the US permanent forces stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany or the US bases in Okinawa, Japan.  

We gave up one of the most strategic air bases in the world, and arguably stability in Kabul, for political gain -- to be able to say that President Biden ended the War in Afghanistan. And we did it in the most incompetent manner possible, literally with people falling from our airplanes. Everyone I have spoken with that served in Afghanistan knows this.

Global instability

It wasn't just Afghanistan, I believe that the Biden administration has had some of the worst foreign policy in decades. And this has manifested in two major Wars breaking out during their administration, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Iran's proxy attack against Israel.

Was the timing just bad luck? I don't believe so. I believe that a weak America leads to a chaotic world.

The failed Afghanistan pull-out showed the weakness of the Biden administration. They failed to adapt to changing facts on the ground, chiefly the Afghan army putting up no resistance as the Taliban drove towards Kabul. If the US can't adapt quickly in a theater where we're already active, how can it react quickly to a blitz in a new theater, Ukraine? Granted the Russian's botched their blitz, miscalculating the weather, almost certainly to keep China happy as they hosted the Olympics in Feb 2022. 

The most damaging foreign policy has been the Biden administration's approach to Iran. Biden resuscitated Obama's braindead Iran doctrine. Somehow believing that the theocratic Islamic Regime could be turned towards the West.

But it's much worse than this. After Hamas' attack against Israel on October 7th, Iran took credit for planning the attack publicly. Moreover, Iran was so bold that their proxies carried out over 300 attacks against US bases and Naval ships. Many of the attacks haven't been disclosed or publicized. At least 4 US soldiers have been killed in these attacks. And yet somehow despite this, the Biden administration has been rewarding Iran by unfreezing their funds,  mourning the death of President Raisi and hamstringing Israel in its proxy battle.

This level of weakness is unprecedented in my opinion. The US has been kissing the ring of its attacker, literally while attacks against our Armed Forces are carried out. If you start looking, it's hard to see anything other than Iranian foreign influence in the Biden administration, such as what Semafor reported on, and which was effectively buried by our mainstream media.

The Biden administration has been a dream come true for foreign adversaries, and a nightmare for US allies. Trusting of enemies, and fickle with friends.

Israel

To anyone that follows me on X you know that I'm a staunch Israel supporter and also Zionist. I believe that Israel is one of America's most important allies in the world. Unfortunately, in a post-Snowden world, Israel is now arguably the world's top cyber power. And it's a critical intelligence ally for any US operations in the Middle East. It's also becoming an advanced weapons partner, co-developing the hypersonic missile defense system Arrow 3 and also Iron Dome + Iron Beam.

The Islamic Regime in Iran terrorizes its own people and their proxies terrorize the entire region. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been modernizing at an exceptional pace. Somehow the Biden administration has chosen to cuddle up to Iran while driving Saudi Arabia and Israel away. This is unforgivably disastrous policy in my opinion.

Double standards

The next topic that has boiled my blood are the double standards and lawfare that Trump has faced. Here are some examples:

Classified documents: Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence and Donald Trump were all caught with classified documents. Only Trump was indicted. Either it's a crime for all of them or none of them. All of the arguments about quantity of documents or obstruction are distractions to justify a double standard.

The Border Wall: remember how Trump was villainized for promoting a border wall? Biden resumed building sections of it after pausing them, which the legacy media has been very quiet about.

Election denialism: yes, Trump denied the 2020 election results. But as we linked to above, so did Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden regarding the 2016 results. As have hundreds of other politicians since 2000. Either they're all election deniers, or none of them.

Corruption charges: every inch has been searched for Trump corruption while Joe Biden's involvement with foreign countries (through Hunter) have been swept under the rug. Here are some examples. 

Three strikes for thee but not for me: Joe Biden was the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill, which most attribute as the source of the mass incarceration we saw over the next two decades (especially amongst black communities). Crack cocaine in particular was treated harshly when combined with the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Watch this video. Hunter Biden would be locked up for life if the same rules were applied to him that Joe Biden imposed on thousands of others.

This is just the tip of the double standard iceberg.

Lawfare

This is too broad of a topic to go into detail here, but suffice to say I've spent hundreds of hours following the trials and researching the charges against Trump. This has been another radicalizing experience. I understand that normally when there's smoke there's fire, but in this case I think when there's smoke there's lawfare. 

To anyone with a curious mind, I implore you to go deep on any of the charges against Trump, whether civil or criminal. Here's a very quick summary of some of the fishy aspects:

Election Interference Case: Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to prosecute Trump. Jack Smith previously got the Governor of Virginia convicted of corruption charges... WHICH WERE THEN UNANIMOUSLY OVERTURNED BY THE SUPREME COURT. Basically Jack Smith misled the Jury. Why would you choose Jack Smith to be the Special Counsel for this case? Maybe if all you're trying to do is to get charges to stick before an election, even if you know they'll be overturned subsequently by the Supreme Court?

The Classified Documents Case: once again Jack Smith is the Special Counsel.

Georgia Election Interference: The Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, has a history of corruption. It turns out that the outside lawyer she selected to prosecute Trump ... is someone she was having a romantic relationship with, Nathan Wade. Wade's Law firm made about $700k after Willis appointed him. This was concealed. Wade has since resigned from the case but Willis is still involved.

The Hush Money Case: The key witness, Michael Cohen, is a proven liar. His testimony has been filled with contradiction after contradiction.

Bank Fraud: Trump was ordered by Judge Engoron to pay over $350M in civil judgment that he committed bank fraud. This whole case reeked of corruption. This was an incident where no harm had been done: the banks had already been fully repaid with interest. The most important point in the case was Judge Engoron arguing that Mar-a-Lago was worth only between $18M and $27.6M when Trump had said it's worth between $426.5M and $612M. Judge Engoron tried to compare apples to oranges, with an appraised value vs market value for a property that is very clearly worth something close to Trump's range.

Sexual Assault / E Jean Carroll: the background to this case was almost unbelievable. In simple terms, a woman in 2019, E Jean Carroll, came out and said that 20+ years prior, in the late 1990s, Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her. The statute of limitations on this case had expired more than a decade prior to her claims. But the state of New York did something unprecedented and opened a one year window where people could file claims for sexual abuse going back to exactly the window when E Jean Carroll accused him. So that's point #1, there was lawfare around the statute of limitations. Point #2 is that the case was highly irregular and ultimately the Jury determined that Trump did not rape E Jean Carroll, despite her claims. But they did determine that he sexually assaulted her (a lesser charge than rape.)

All of these cases are too complicated for most to follow, almost by design. As someone that has been following the cases closely, I've had the opposite reaction of what was intended: a) every single case seems to have had impropriety and b) after going through Trump's entire life, if these are the worst things they can find, then he did less wrong then I otherwise would have assumed.

Fairness is one of my guiding principles in life and simply, these cases haven't been fair for Trump.

Where do I disagree with Republicans?

The number one area is abortion. This is obviously a lightning rod issue. As someone with libertarian leaning views, I believe the Republicans have the wrong stance around imposing their views on others. That said, I think Democrats misunderstand the constitutional argument that this should be a states issue.

Domestic policies

Other than abortion, I believe that President Trump and the Republicans have been better on most domestic issues. Look at the quality of life in Red States such as Florida and Texas vs that in Blue States like California, Oregon and New York. I used to live in San Francisco and now live in Los Angeles. The crime and homelessness is out of control. 

Trump was villainized for his stance on building a border wall, but we've had about 10M illegal immigrants cross into the US already during President Biden's tenure. 

The Democrats have been trying to regulate technology -- especially open source AI and crypto in ways that incentivize the best builders to build outside of America.

25 years ago I believe the Far Right was vastly more dangerous than the Far Left. But today I believe the Far Left, and especially Antifa, is more dangerous. Our attention and maintenance was on the Far Right while we ignored the Far Left.

The 2020 election and January 6th

Now onto the elephant in the room, the 2020 election. The topic so taboo that if you talk about it you're immediately cancelled. I'm willing to wade into this fire -- some of us need to be willing to.

I believe America has conflated two issues: the 2020 election itself and January 6th.

Just as Hilary Clinton and dozens of other democrats claimed the 2016 election was stolen (which I agree with). I believe there was a similar scale, or even more interference in the 2020 election. We need to be able to talk about this, so that we can fix the problems. Democracy doesn't work without secure elections. But it also doesn't work without peaceful transitions of power. Both are essential.

I believe there was extreme election interference but I don't believe January 6th was the right response. Bear with me.

So what was going on during the 2020 election? 

I held a Top Secret (TS/SCI) clearance for about 7 years and used to work in information warfare, and also cybersecurity. I've seen nation-state tactics that most can't imagine. It is from this lens, and through access to lots of non-public information, through which I viewed the election.

If you go back to the 2020 election, arguably the most sophisticated cyberattack in history was taking place. This was the SolarWinds supply chain attack. This attack was so sophisticated that it's impossible to know exactly what it was used for. And much of what we do know has never been reported. 

Washington has an interesting phenomenon where when something incredibly damaging is learned, people oftentimes clam up and refuse to deal with it. I've seen this first hand multiple times now. 

But we also have things like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which the FBI was in possession of for roughly a year before the election, and despite it being easy to verify its authenticity, the FBI was actively telling Facebook and Twitter that it is fake news and they recommended banning sharing of the NY Post article about it. 

But there were so many other issues. Not least of which was a global pandemic that almost certainly leaked from a Chinese lab, but we weren't allowed to talk about that. Nor the mail-in ballot issues.

Many point to the 2020 election and say "there's no smoking gun evidence so therefore there was no interference!" My retort is that there's not public evidence and in general the DoD/IC is afraid to push too far on the issue, knowing how damaging it would be to find interference. There's things I can't say. 

The end result is a 2020 election where Biden and Trump combined received 155.5M votes vs the 128.8M combined for Hilary and Trump in 2016. That's 26.7M more votes in 2020 compared to 2016. That's a 20% increase in voter turnout in a period where the population only grew by a few percent. In an election where people weren't inspired by either candidate. And where there was more voting friction than ever before due to COVID-19. 

Personally I don't think it's fair for Hilary Clinton to be able to claim the 2016 election was stolen, but Donald Trump to be indicted for the same thing.

Regarding the January 6th protests. I don't agree with them. Even if an election is stolen I think the correct democratic response is to accept it, have peaceful transition of power, and then to fight like hell on the backend to make sure it never happens again. 

Regarding Trump's involvement in January 6th. The clearest thing he did was deny the election results, but again, so did Hilary Clinton. So if this isn't a crime in and of itself, then what else did he do?

The rest is fuzzy. There is conflicting testimony, especially around when the National Guard was requested. On the one hand you had the testimonies of General Charles Flynn and Lt. General Walter Piatt. But on the other side you have the testimonies of Colonel Earl Mathews, Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and The Head of the Capitol Police at the time, Steven Sund. The media reports on Trump's January 6th involvement in absolute terms but again, if you go deep, it's unclear. For me, if Trump actually asked for the National Guard to be ready to go during January 6th it's a major counterpoint against the allegations that he was inciting an insurrection.

Summary

In 2016 there were two primary reasons I voted for Hilary (and was deathly afraid of Trump)

#1) Russia helped him in the election by hurting Hilary. This made me susceptible to the media narrative that he's owned by Russia and will be a foreign policy disaster. 

#2) Candidly the clip where he said "I grab them by their pussy" deeply bothered me. 

These two things built a pattern in my mind that Trump was out of control.

But now with the benefit of hindsight, revisiting these two points:

#1) To my shock, I believe Trump was one of the best foreign policy Presidents in decades, and during the most complex period in almost a century, as the East rises, which leads to a changing set of rules.

#2) That clip still sits in the back of my mind, but I personally consider the double standards and lawfare against Trump to be 10x worse, and 10x more dangerous for our Democracy. 

What's next?

Do I agree with Trump on everything? Of course not. The area where I disagree with Republicans the most is on Women's rights. And I'm sure I'll disagree with some of Trump's policies in the future.

But in general I think he was surprisingly prescient, such as with the border wall, and he was also a masterful negotiator, such as with the Abraham accords.

There's a real chance President Trump is convicted of felony charges and sentenced to prison. Bluntly, that's part of why I'm supporting him. I believe our justice system is being weaponized against him.

If abortion is your most important issue, then I get it, vote for Biden. If any other topic is your most important issue, then do your homework and investigate the manipulation I outlined above.

Given the two choices, I believe President Trump is overwhelmingly the stronger candidate. Again, this is something I couldn't have imagined saying in 2016.

Conclusion

Speak up. Don't be silenced. Freedom of speech is worth nothing if you're afraid to use it. We can't let cancel culture win. 

There's no greater country in the world than America. But America has had a bad decade. America is blessed with a robust constitution, abundant natural resources and diverse people. The way out from here is by focusing on our strengths, which are liberalism and hard work. We need to start building again.

Best of luck to President Trump. 

-----

*Note that everything i n this post reflects my personal views and not the views of my employer. I work in Silicon Valley which traditionally leans very far left. I'm lucky to work at a place that tolerates spirited debate and independent thinking. If the truth is in the middle, it's impossible to find it without sharing our ideas and debating each other.

BB

The Ukraine War could have been avoided by ngoitiations - but Biden could not negotiate because he cannot negotiate anything with anybody.   He is a blundering  idiot in that regard.   There is very little support in the USA for spending billions on an unwinnable end endless war amongst the USA voters.   They are supporting Ukraine - but not the war.

The Hamas riots at present in the USA is  going to cost the Democrats thosuands of votes inc critical states.             

Ja ouMaaik, never ever never, not even one solitary word of criticism of the fascist Putin, the baddest ma-fckr since AH. Sies, shame on you.

For the umpteenth time ............. Putin spoke only of demilitarization & denazification when he launched his genocidal 'SMO' .

The Russian hoax was wrong headed, the impeachments were wrong headed, the deliberate misinterpretation of the COVID briefings were a media disgrace.

You forgot the orange man bad defence.

And if Trump’s womanizing was disqualifying neither Kennedy nor Clinton would have been in office. But there is no evidence of Trump pursuing this course while in office….not true of Kennedy and Clinton who used their office as an enabler. Big difference.

I never heard anyone say Trump should not be President because of him womanizing or accuse him of it during his term in office.

Trump disqualified himself by his post election behaviour and encouraging protests about the election results. That was rabble rousing that shouldn’t ever happen in a Democracy.

Exactly. I was sure after January 6th that was it for Trump's political career. No way could he come back from that, not in any normal functioning democracy. But America is so politically polarized nothing seems to matter, you back your team and your guy no matter what. Compare to that say the UK right now where the public is more than capable of political switching sides on mass, there is no cult like devotion to a party or its leader.

But similarly, the Biden’s profiting from his office via Hunter Biden’s ‘business dealings’ was also totally inappropriate.

The double standard here. You constantly go on about how the media presented the Russian Hoax narrative as if Trump was guilty of collusion but what evidence do you have that anyone other than Hunter Biden profited from his business dealings. As far as I'm aware its long been acknowledged that Hunter Biden used his name and the fact that his father was VP to open doors in the business world but there is no concrete evidence that anyone else in his family profited from this and yes before someone brings up Hunter e-mails on that laptop, no they don't prove that Joe profited or stood to profit from Hunter's business dealings.

These two old men should clear the decks for younger, less compromised candidates. An election between Trump and Biden is a disaster for the country and the world.

I would also much prefer to see to different candidates. I don't think Biden is compromised, he's just not particular good at being President. Massive world events have occurred during his term the cause of which was beyond his control but how he's handled them has been poor to okay-ish. But I'm grateful Trump is no where near Ukraine or the the middle east policy right now.

If the more competent man, Trump, wins

LOL

If Biden wins the country will be run by those who prop him up.

Again, another right wing conservative talking point that people can throw out without ever needing to back it up evidence.

Man you lefties are hopeless, with you it’s all personal dislike and  racial triggers. Trump has run his own global business, he was dead right on the Fed, right in pursuing the vaccine, right in confronting China. He is no fool.

Its far more than personal dislike, its also the he's extremely dangerous. Trump inherited a family business which he's ran with mixed success, but his family name and background meant he could never completely fail, with that sort of background you can fail upwards. What was he right about on the Fed about?, (genuine question), yes he was right to pursue the vaccine along with pretty much everyone else on the planet, having a trace of common sense doesn't make him Nostradamus. As for confronting China, he was all set to do a trade deal with them until Covid broke out and he became fixated on blaming them for it instead of actually managing the pandemic, then started a trade war with China which has hurt both countries economically. Now that's not to say their may be some considerable non economic benefits to becoming less reliant on China in the future particularly when it comes to security but that's not clear yet. What we can see is the Biden administrator has taken a similarly tough line on China, keeping all Trump's tariffs in place and are looking set to introduce new even tougher tariffs in the near term.

Trump to his credit has keen political instincts which he's very effectively exploited and both in the business and political worlds he had done a very good job of insulating himself from the repercussions of his envelope pushing words and actions. The moniker Teflon Don was well earned. But other than that the man is astoundingly stupid and ignorant man, no Donald, Finland is not part of Russia.

Biden is a political hack steeped in Union views. He is the thought leader of nothing. The man is obviously impaired, propped up by supporters and incapable of interacting forcefully with other international leaders

Thought leader of nothing, funny I would say the same about Trump accept the one and only constant thought Trump has is "how does this benefit me?". Biden is not an inspiring leader and he's looked weak on several issues but he at least respects and believes in the values of the American political system and in law and order. There is some decency too him. The same can't be said for Trump, the ultimate grifter.

As for Biden not being forceful with other leaders on the international stage, interesting you say that at a time when's trying to force Netanyahu to the peace table at the moment. Now its by no mean's certain that Netanyahu will listen to Biden but if he does he will have proved you wrong on that last point. Guess we will know in the next few days.

Only an idiot would think  Biden is then more competent man. He may be aligned with your views, that’s not competence.

Only an idiot would think Trump is the more competent man. He may be aligned with your views, that’s not competence.

Ja, Ukraine se moer ................. cheese will be cheap.

I know right. Madness

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-war-russia-why-west-is-losing/

U.S. Republicans blocking aid. European right-wingers pushing to abandon Kyiv. Ultra-cautious leaders. What is the West’s real strategy?

^{Illustrations by Edmon de Haro for POLITICO}

February 21, 2024 10:45 pm CET

By Nicholas Vinocur

Stav

I can pu8ll msot of your comments above apart, so I will concentrate at 2 of them.

Foreign Issues

*   Trump tried through  negotiation to top wars and he even engptiated with Nrth Korea - while the engotiations were ongoing  there were no missile and nuclear testing  taking  place.  He engotiate a deal with regard to Afghanistan.  He negotiated the Arab accord betwen Irael and the ME countries,   He actualy punished Iran for their trasnsgressions through their proxy wars.   Youa re lying  about th e China trae issues.

*     What is true is that Obama said there never was any foreign issue that Biden was on the wrong side and that si where he fucked up badly tearing up the deals made by Trump.   He si a total wreck when it comes to foreign policies and he is more interested in what he can get out fo it.   In terms of US Laws any dollars earned by Iran for oil sales are frozen and cannot eb apid to Iran until such times as the proxy wars ended,   Biden broke the laws by unfreezing the dollars used by Iran to improve amament supply to their proxies.

Corruption

 The believe that there si no proof of corruption benefitting  Biden himself.   He operated 25 companies through which money was laundred to him and oter family members.   The banks handling the companies got worried so they reported to the FBI  the transactions involved - but th ey refused o invesigate it because the Bidens were involved.

Bidene vens ent e-mails to Hunter under code names on what5 he shou8ld do iro "deals" with foreign companies - he entertained Hunter's bussiness artners and met with them himself.   H engineered the appointment of Hunter Biden on the Board of Burisma and when that company was raided by the police on the isntruction of he Main Prosecutor dealing with corruption in Ukraine.   In 2018 Biden on video bragged how he forced the Ukraine Government to fire the relevant Prosecutor through threatening  the Ukraine by withholding grant ais to Ukraine.   

Hunter was on he plane taking Biden to various foreign trips on planes by Bi9den and the crooked deals were signed during thoe visits Biden claimed eh knows nothing about - yet thedir was a phott where eh ahd coffee with Hunter and Biden and a Chinese comapny invovled in teh deals,   Hunter was using hsi fathers position to get deals after which Biden aced on the sisue of company applicatiosn to get approval from the Government fr issues the comapnies benefitted from.   

The abice were expsoed during a House investigation and als revealed in Hunter's lap top where he revealed and moaned about  10% of profits going to the BIG MAN - identified as Joe Biden  by ex-business partners of Hunter as being.    Huter si a drug-addicted BSter who si in fact the bag man of Biden.   He has no business experties  and was in fact only acte as a front for Biden.   

The elftist media claimed that all Joe Biden in his up t four hours metings with Huner's Biden was weather conditions and nothing about bsusiness issues invovling Hunter - which in itself si a joke.   The newspapers know about what Biden was up to - but tried to cover it up by not  reporting what evidence was really precented under oath in the House as to Biden's invovlement in deals with rivate companies,   Anybody swalllowing that one must be naive about reality in that case.   Hunter was invovled only froting for  his father in deals - but the man really involved was Joe Biden.   

There can be no doubt indeed  that Joe was the ehad of the Biden Crime family.

Trade deal with China                     

The real truth si he exact opposite to what you said happened.   Obaqma and Biden signed a trade deal with China that was totally betraying tte interests f the USA and favor the Billionaires with interests in China.     The  fact is that Trump tore up the deal an after discussions with President Xi a new deal was compiled after negotiations an ws ready for signature in January 2020.

The deal ws about to be signed when the Covid pandemic came t the fore.   Trump discussed he issue over the telephone and wasassured by Xi that the situation was uder control for about two weeks and then found out that Xi lied to him and he  started acting tos top the spread of Covid in the USA.   When he banned the entering  of non-US citizens from China - he was accused f racism by the Demcorats,   

When Trump ordered the investigation as to orign of the pandemic with particular reference to gain-of-function research  being funded by the US Government it became clear the virus originated  from the Wuhan lab.   Biden immediately shut down the ivnestigation.

There was no trade war between the USA and China - -since thre was no trade agreement between teh two coun tries the USA rised import duty on Chines im ports and so dd the Chinese - how does that represent a trade war only you woud come up wih.    

Donald Trump joined the organization in 1968, began leading it in 1971, renamed it around 1973, and handed off its leadership to his children in 2017 after he won the 2016 United States presidential election.

….

 He led a major real estate business for 46 years, vastly expanded it, took it through several major real estate recessions during which others failed and is now a marquee name in hotels.

And you characterize that by:

‘Trump inherited a family business which he's ran with mixed success, but his family name and background meant he could never completely fail, with that sort of background you can fail upwards.’

……

Many real estate companies fail…..your name doesn’t save you if you can’t get access to funds. Here are some:

1. **Lehman Brothers** - Although not solely a real estate developer, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008, marking one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history, largely attributed to its exposure to subprime mortgages and the real estate market crash.

2. **General Growth Properties** - One of the largest mall operators in the United States, filed for bankruptcy in 2009 due to heavy debts and declining property values during the financial crisis.

3. **Tishman Speyer Properties** - Known for developing iconic projects like the MetLife Building in New York City, struggled after overpaying for some high-profile properties, leading to financial difficulties during the 2008 financial crisis.

4. **The St. Joe Company** - Based in Florida, filed for bankruptcy in 2011 after the real estate downturn hit the state particularly hard.

5. **The Related Companies** - A major real estate developer in New York City, faced financial troubles with some of its projects during the 2008 financial crisis.

These are just a few examples, and there are other real estate developers that have faced financial challenges or bankruptcy in the past two decades due to various factors such as economic downturns, over-leveraging, or poor investment decisions.

…..

Being as active as. Trump has been and surviving as an independent company is not an accident…not the lucky spermer event you are trying to make it. Cashing checks from their  Trust fund is what the incompetents do.

Trump may be a lot of things that aren’t acceptable…incompetent is not one of them. Biden couldn’t run the local McDonalds.

No one in history has been involved with so many failed businesses. When these companies go bust, they are usually hundreds of millions in debt- money that has paid for Donadls own personal bills and lavish lifestyle.

Based on the search results, here is a list of Donald Trump's failed companies and business ventures:

1. Trump Steaks 
2. GoTrump (travel site) 
3. Trump Airlines (formerly Trump Shuttle) 
4. Trump Vodka 
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