Showing posts with label Trump Foundation scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump Foundation scandal. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Trump Travesties Round-Up


The onslaught of travesties in his ongoing sh*tshow are almost more than one can absorb in any 24- hour span, but here are just some of the recent ones associated with neo- fascist Paladin for Everyman Donald "Rump" Trump.  As always, there's much more to read at the links!

-- The New York Times on the working- class hero:
Incredibly, the Trump campaign argues that because he knows how to game the tax system he should be trusted to reform it. There is no evidence that he would improve tax policy, and plenty of evidence that he would confer even more tax advantages on himself. [snip] 
Every new revelation about Mr. Trump’s business career shows that he’s built his millionaire’s lifestyle on debt, tax avoidance and other people’s money. From bankrupt casinos to a so-called university, he milked them for all he could and left workers, students and taxpayers holding the bag.  (our emphasis)
--  The invaluable Kurt Eichenwald has more on the working- class hero's business dealings:
Plenty of blue-collar workers believe that, as president, Donald Trump would be ready to fight off U.S. trade adversaries and reinvigorate the country’s manufacturing industries through his commitment to the Rust Belt. What they likely don’t know is that Trump has been stiffing American steel workers on his own construction projects for years, choosing to deprive untold millions of dollars from four key electoral swing states and instead directing it to China—the country whose trade practices have helped decimate the once-powerful industrial center of the United States. (our emphasis)
-- The Trump Foundation is ordered to shut down:
The New York attorney general’s office has ordered the Trump Foundation to immediately stop fundraising in the state, saying it isn’t registered to do so. 
James Sheehan, head of the attorney general’s Charities Bureau, wrote in a letter dated Friday that the failure to stop immediately and answer demands for all delinquent financial reports within 15 days “shall be deemed a continuing fraud upon the people of the state of New York.”
Democratic Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been investigating Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s foundation following Washington Post reports that foundation spending personally benefited the candidate. The newspaper, citing tax records, also reported that the charity has been funded entirely from outside donations since 2008, when Trump made his last contribution to it. (our emphasis)
-- Finally, you have the kind of knuckle- draggers Rump's racist campaign has encouraged and emboldened to come out from the sewers and from under the rocks into the light (hmmm, let's call them the "Deplorables").  Two examples:
The small town of Aurora, Indiana is in an uproar after a local man entered a float in the annual Farmers Fair Parade depicting Hillary Clinton sitting in an electric chair with rival Donald Trump about to pull the switch. 
According the creator of the float, which also featured a grim reaper and an Easter Island moai head in blackface labeled “Obama,” he entered it in an effort to get laughs, reports WCPO. 
And,
Jane Wood Allen, a Chestatee Elementary School educator in Gainesville, Georgia, was fired on Monday after a racist post she made about Michelle Obama went viral. [snip] 
Allen’s caption read, “This poor Gorilla. How is she going to function in the real world, by not having all of her luxurious vacations paid for anymore? She needs to focus on getting a total make-over (especially the hair), instead of planning vacations! She is a disgrace to America!”
Thirty- four days until the election.  Let's all do our part to see this awful excuse for a human being, whose presence encourages such hatefulness, never sets foot in the Oval Office.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Trump Scandal Overload Edition


Hoo-boy, that neo- fascist con artist Donald "Rump" Trump is burning us out with the steady onslaught of revelations about his shady, illegal doings!  Your morning roundup follows (as always, these are excerpts - the entire articles are worth the read).

The Trump Foundation
Donald Trump’s charitable foundation — which has been sustained for years by donors outside the Trump family — has never obtained the certification that New York requires before charities can solicit money from the public, according to the state attorney general’s office. 
Under the laws in New York, where the Donald J. Trump Foundation is based, any charity that solicits more than $25,000 a year from the public must obtain a special kind of registration beforehand. Charities as large as Trump’s must also submit to a rigorous annual audit that asks — among other things — whether the charity spent any money for the personal benefit of its officers. 
If New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) finds that Trump’s foundation raised money in violation of the law, he could order the charity to stop raising money immediately. With a court’s permission, Schneiderman could also force Trump to return money that his foundation has already raised.
Rump, the Cuban embargo runner
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump came under intense scrutiny Thursday for allegations that he knowingly violated the U.S. embargo on Cuba in the 1990s, a report that could hurt him among Cuban Americans in the crucial state of Florida. 
A story published in Newsweek said Trump’s firm spent as much as $68,000 on a “foray” exploring business possibilities in Cuba in 1998, which would be a clear violation of the strict embargo in place at the time. 
Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway suggested in a television interview Wednesday that Trump had indeed spent money exploring business ventures in Cuba. But Conway later told The Washington Post that she “did not say he broke the law or violated the embargo.”
Adios, Florida!

Continuing to smear Alicia Machado (in the wee hours!)
That "sex tape"?  Another bald- faced Rump lie.

What an evil, evil man.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

On The Trump Scandal Beat


Add these to the already steaming pile of evidence that neo- fascist con artist Donald "Rump" Trump is a prodigious cheat and fraud.

(The future Pulitzer Prize winning) David Fahrenthold:
Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents. 
Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.  (our emphasis)
 Christina Wilkie:
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gave at least $45,000 to the campaign of Alan Hevesi, a New York state comptroller who later went to prison for his role in a pay-to-play bribery scandal, according to a Huffington Post review of campaign finance records. 
Trump’s donations coincided with a $500 million lawsuit he filed against the city of New York in the hopes of reducing his property taxes. As the city comptroller and later the state comptroller, Hevesi, a Democrat, played a role in evaluating and settling legal claims against the city of New York and its officials. 
The bulk of Trump’s donations went to Hevesi’s campaign for state comptroller, a race Hevesi won in the fall of 2002. In the fall of 2003, by which point Trump had given Hevesi $35,000, the city settled Trump’s lawsuit, a decision that would have involved both the state comptroller ― i.e., Hevesi ― and the new city comptroller.  (our emphasis)
While we're happy to see some in the profession Doing. Their. Job., we're fairly certain that these solid examples of investigative journalism will be duly ignored by other media outlets because (a) to them, ho- hum any story on Trump's world class dishonesty has long since passed into the dog- bites- man realm, (b) they're too busy parsing whether Hillary Clinton's press conferences have been "press conferences" and whether to keep the all- important Press Conference Countdown Clock oiled and running, and (c) professional jealousy (the latter a main reason why folks think the New York effing Times won't cover Fahrenthold's outstanding work on Trump's various scams).  Jaded, navel- gazing, envious guardians of democracy.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Another Day, Another Sleazy Trump Scandal


The Trump Foundation, Trump "University," and Citizens United's David Bossie, all in one sleazy pile- on:
Donald Trump’s charitable foundation gave $100,000 in 2014 to a conservative activist group that was used to help finance a federal lawsuit against New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — the same public official who was suing the real estate mogul for fraud over the operations of Trump University. 
The size and timing of the donation to the Citizens United Foundation, an arm of the sprawling conservative network run by David Bossie, who is now Trump’s deputy campaign manager, could raise fresh questions about whether Trump has used his tax-exempt charity to further political and personal causes.
A tax- exempt "charity" that helped finance a lawsuit against an AG suing Trump "University" for fraud?  Hmmm.  Is that how "charity" is defined for tax- exempt purposes?

A spokesperson for the New York AG's office responded to the revelation:
 “If Donald Trump has proven anything over the past three years, it’s that he’ll do anything to pursue his bizarre but predictable vendetta against this office. … Funding a meritless lawsuit against this office would be nothing new for someone like Donald Trump, who has filed baseless ethics complaints, planted bogus stories, and tweeted a steady stream of incoherent insults just to make himself feel better for being exposed as the fraud he clearly is.”  (our emphasis)
Beyond the sleaze typically found with anything neo- fascist con artist Donald "Rump" Trump is associated with, just imagine what a President Rump would do to undermine or destroy his political enemies with all the power of the Executive Branch.  Yet another reason why this is an existential election and why Rump's defeat is imperative.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Today's Cartoon Threefer Plus One - Payoffs And Patsies


(click on images to enlarge)


(Jim Morin, Miami Herald)


(Clay Jones, www.claytoonz.com, via gocomics.com)


(Tim Eagan, via gocomics.com)

And last (click on image to enlarge),


(Ruben Bolling, via Daily Kos)