Miscellaneous Trump (4 Viewers)

IT.WAS.STRAIGHT.UP EXTORTION.
There isn't any other way to describe what has happened here.

RobF said:

Oh no, not again.

Reminder that @Sendai keeps pushing this line, and in pursuing this particularly bad argument, has previously found themself dumping an entire copy and paste of a website about offices of profit in India - where the Presidency is an office of profit - supposedly solely for the line "The office of profit concept has been adopted from the British Parliamentary model. This concept is based on similar lines with the English Act of Settlement 1701."

This is because they think, apparently, that when the founders said "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State" they didn't mean the President, even though founding father Edmund Randolph explicitly said, ""There is another provision against the danger of the President receiving emoluments... By the ninth section of the first article "No person holding an office of profit or trust, shall accept of any present or emolument whatsoever, from any foreign power, without the consent of the representatives of the people.""

Which shouldn't even need to be said because it's forking obvious that the founders would not have been down with foreign Kings bribing the President.

When we got down to it, @Sendai's argument came down to: The Founders intended the President to be able to accept bribes from Kings, because in 18th Century England they passed a law to stop the King bribing members of Parliament by giving them offices or places of profit. Which is obviously a terrible argument when stated - accurately - like that.

And now they're going for, "there's a line that refers to senators and representatives specifically in addition to persons holding an office of trust or profit, therefore offices of trust and profit can't be elected." That's not how any of that works! It wouldn't even exclude senators and representatives from holding offices of profit or trust! It's not inherently exclusive! "Ohhh, but if Senators and Representatives are also people holding an office of trust or profit, then those parts would be superfluous," yes! It can be superfluous! There's literally no requirement for it not to be! Why would you think there is? And it doesn't define other offices of trust or profit at all, so it can't possibly be defining them as "not elected"!

All we can conclude from this is that @Sendai is both really bad at this, and, at this point, it's safe to conclude that @Sendai is also really bad at being aware of how bad they are at this.

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Senators and Representatives are not permitted to hold an appointed office

“No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”

Article 1 Section 6

Also the only elected offices are the senate the house the president the vice president. The fact that the constitution distinguishes those elected as senators and representatives specifically from offices of profit or trust means the offices of profit or trust aren’t elected.

And I’ll ad this

Report on the Salaries, Fees, and Emoluments of Persons Holding Civil Office Under the United States, [26 February 1793]​

Report on the Salaries, Fees, and Emoluments​

of Persons Holding Civil Office​

Under the United States​

[Philadelphia, February 26, 1793
Communicated on February 27, 1793]1
[To the President of the Senate]
The Secretary of the Treasury, in obedience to the order of the Senate of the 7th of May last,2 respectfully transmits herewith sundry statements of the Salaries fees and Emoluments for one Year ending the first of October 1792, of the Persons holding civil offices or employments under the united States (except the Judges) as far as Returns have been rendered—together with the disbursements and Expences in the discharge of their respective offices and employments for the same Period.3
The Statements numbered from I to IX inclusively, and the letters relating to the object, are transmitted in their original state, as rendered by the several officers.
No. X to XVIII inclusively are stated under each particular head, from the accounts which have been received from the offices to which they respectively relate.
No 19 is a List, specifying the Persons of whom no information has yet been received on the subject.
All which is humbly submitted
Alexander Hamilton
Secy of the Treasury
Treasury Department
February 26 1793
DS, RG 46, Second Congress, 1791–1793, Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, National Archives.
1. The communicating letter, dated February 27, 1793, may be found in RG 46, Second Congress, 1791–1793, Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, National Archives.
2. For the Senate order of May 7, 1792, see Tench Coxe to H, February 14, 1793, note 2.
3. This enclosure, consisting of ninety manuscript pages, has not been printed. For an abbreviated version of it, see ASP, Miscellaneous, I, 57–68.


Note the exclusion of those elected.

Furthering the distinction that senators and representatives are not offices of profit or trust

From Justice Story

§ 1467. The remaining part of the clause, which precludes any senator, representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, from being an elector, has been already alluded to, and requires little comment. The object is, to prevent persons holding public stations under the government of the United States, from any direct influence in the choice of a president. In respect to persons holding office, it is reasonable to suppose, that their partialities would all be in favour of the reelection of the actual incumbent, and they might have strong inducements to exert their official influence in the electoral college. In respect to senators and representatives, there is this additional reason for excluding them, that they would be already committed by their vote in the electoral college; and thus, if there should be no election by the people, they could not bring to the final vote either the impartiality, or the independence, which the theory of the constitution contemplates.



https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_1_2-3s11.html

If senators and representatives were offices of profit or trust there would be no need to distinguish them in the electors clause

Sendai said:

Also the only elected offices are the senate the house the president the vice president. The fact that the constitution distinguishes those elected as senators and representatives specifically from offices of profit or trust means the offices of profit or trust aren’t elected.

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Let me put this very simply in words that might, just might, penetrate your skull:

No. It. Literally. Doesn't. Mean. That.

If you didn't understand that, try reading it again.

Seriously, this is like someone taking a sentence saying, "but no duck, or goose, or bird shall be allowed to wear a hat,” and then insisting that chickens can't be birds and so can wear hats because the first two are waterfowl. Get a grip.

Conversely, a founding father literally, explicitly, saying, "There is another provision against the danger of the President receiving emoluments... By the ninth section of the first article "No person holding an office of profit or trust, shall accept of any present or emolument whatsoever, from any foreign power, without the consent of the representatives of the people.""" does mean the Presidency is considered to fall under the ninth section of the first article. Like, literally. That's what it means.

That's how things meaning things works.

I know you don't like that because you've repeatedly just ignored it every time this subject has come up, but again, that isn't how it works. You ignoring it doesn't make everyone else fail to read and understand it.

And no, obviously a 1793 Treasury Report about people holding civil offices or employments not including the President does not mean the Presidency isn't an Office, especially since we know it is an Office. It means Hamilton didn't include it in that report in that specific context. As there are many reasons why Hamilton might not have included it - not considering the Presidency to be an ordinary civil office in the scope of the request given that it also has military characteristics, for just one example - you can't take that and say, "Actually, he was definitively defining the meaning of offices of profit and trust in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8!" Like, you do know a 1793 treasury report that isn't trying to define terms isn't actually part of the Constitution, right?

And we do know Hamilton didn't think elected officials should be able to take bribes from foreign kings because, apart from it being forking obvious, he said so:

Like, you're literally trying to argue that Hamilton, who explicitly wrote about the risks of elected officials being bribed, actually wanted the President to be able to take bribes because... he didn't include the Presidency in a treasury report. That's your argument. How are you not embarrassed.

And oh, hey, you love AI. Ask it "Can the President be an Elector?" Have fun!

RobF said:

Let me put this very simply in words that might, just might, penetrate your skull:

No. It. Literally. Doesn't. Mean. That.

If you didn't understand that, try reading it again.

Seriously, this is like someone taking a sentence saying, "but no duck, or goose, or bird shall be allowed to wear a hat,” and then insisting that chickens can't be birds and so can wear hats because the first two are waterfowl. Get a grip.

Conversely, a founding father literally, explicitly, saying, "There is another provision against the danger of the President receiving emoluments... By the ninth section of the first article "No person holding an office of profit or trust, shall accept of any present or emolument whatsoever, from any foreign power, without the consent of the representatives of the people.""" does mean the Presidency is considered to fall under the ninth section of the first article. Like, literally. That's what it means.

That's how things meaning things works.

I know you don't like that because you've repeatedly just ignored it every time this subject has come up, but again, that isn't how it works. You ignoring it doesn't make everyone else fail to read and understand it.

And no, obviously a 1793 Treasury Report about people holding civil offices or employments not including the President does not mean the Presidency isn't an Office, especially since we know it is an Office. It means Hamilton didn't include it in that report in that specific context. As there are many reasons why Hamilton might not have included it - not considering the Presidency to be an ordinary civil office in the scope of the request given that it also has military characteristics, for just one example - you can't take that and say, "Actually, he was definitively defining the meaning of offices of profit and trust in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8!" Like, you do know a 1793 treasury report that isn't trying to define terms isn't actually part of the Constitution, right?

And we do know Hamilton didn't think elected officials should be able to take bribes from foreign kings because, apart from it being forking obvious, he said so:

​

In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. Hence it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments. ​

Like, you're literally trying to argue that Hamilton, who explicitly wrote about the risks of elected officials being bribed, actually wanted the President to be able to take bribes because... he didn't include the Presidency in a treasury report. That's your argument. How are you not embarrassed.

And oh, hey, you love AI. Ask it "Can the President be an Elector?" Have fun!

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great post and you made me curious. This is what AI says about the President being an elector.

No, the President of the United States cannot be an Elector.
Why?

• The U.S. Constitution, in Article II, section 1, clause 2, states that no person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States (which includes the President) shall be appointed an elector.
• This prohibition extends to Senators, Representatives, and other federal office holders.

DJ1BigTymer said:

IT.WAS.STRAIGHT.UP EXTORTION.
There isn't any other way to describe what has happened here.

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I saw this and I'm tracking it down, so far I found that there's a link in that Bigsky tweet to a news outfit I'm not familiar with called the verge.

The first paragraph says:

"Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against its subsidiary CBS, clearing a path for the administration to approve the media giant’s multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance Media."

I know about that lawsuit, it's against CBS for their 60 minutes interview with Harris just before the election. Trump was demanding 10 billion, then 20 billion, Paramount owns CBS and 60 minutes, they settled for 16 million.

That's the part I could track, how Widen turns that into being a bribe appears to be speculation as to motive by Wyden and or others. I think if they had better that that it would have been at the top of that article, it was not.

My guess is this one is going nowhere, I don't see the evidence needed to make it go somewhere. I know, it stinks to high heaven, that doesn't change the fact that speculation is not evidence which is admissible in court.

Sendai said:

I don’t see the word elected in that quote.

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You just keep digging in deeper on dishonesty. The only person you referenced in a lame attempt to justify your statement was Washington. Washington held the elected office of president. This conversation started around Trump's corrupt profiteering from his elected office of president.

You can't be non-smart enough not to understand that, so that only leaves deception or a desperate attempt to avoid acknowledging that you were factually wrong. Both of them lead to intentionally and knowingly making factually inaccurate statements.

It seems that you think we all have the memory span of goldfish.

RobF said:

Oh no, not again.

Reminder that @Sendai keeps pushing this line, and in pursuing this particularly bad argument, has previously found themself dumping an entire copy and paste of a website about offices of profit in India - where the Presidency is an office of profit - supposedly solely for the line "The office of profit concept has been adopted from the British Parliamentary model. This concept is based on similar lines with the English Act of Settlement 1701."

This is because they think, apparently, that when the founders said "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State" they didn't mean the President, even though founding father Edmund Randolph explicitly said, ""There is another provision against the danger of the President receiving emoluments... By the ninth section of the first article "No person holding an office of profit or trust, shall accept of any present or emolument whatsoever, from any foreign power, without the consent of the representatives of the people.""

Which shouldn't even need to be said because it's forking obvious that the founders would not have been down with foreign Kings bribing the President.

When we got down to it, @Sendai's argument came down to: The Founders intended the President to be able to accept bribes from Kings, because in 18th Century England they passed a law to stop the King bribing members of Parliament by giving them offices or places of profit. Which is obviously a terrible argument when stated - accurately - like that.

And now they're going for, "there's a line that refers to senators and representatives specifically in addition to persons holding an office of trust or profit, therefore offices of trust and profit can't be elected." That's not how any of that works! It wouldn't even exclude senators and representatives from holding offices of profit or trust! It's not inherently exclusive! "Ohhh, but if Senators and Representatives are also people holding an office of trust or profit, then those parts would be superfluous," yes! It can be superfluous! There's literally no requirement for it not to be! Why would you think there is? And it doesn't define other offices of trust or profit at all, so it can't possibly be defining them as "not elected"!

All we can conclude from this is that @Sendai is both really bad at this, and, at this point, it's safe to conclude that @Sendai is also really bad at being aware of how bad they are at this.

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There's a very long and consistent history of @Sendai of grossly misinterpreting cherry picked quotes. It's too long and consistent of a pattern for it to be unintentional. It may be an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I think there's more to it than just that.

SamAndreas said:

I saw this and I'm tracking it down, so far I found that there's a link in that Bigsky tweet to a news outfit I'm not familiar with called the verge.

The first paragraph says:

"Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against its subsidiary CBS, clearing a path for the administration to approve the media giant’s multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance Media."

I know about that lawsuit, it's against CBS for their 60 minutes interview with Harris just before the election. Trump was demanding 10 billion, then 20 billion, Paramount owns CBS and 60 minutes, they settled for 16 million.

That's the part I could track, how Widen turns that into being a bribe appears to be speculation as to motive by Wyden and or others. I think if they had better that that it would have been at the top of that article, it was not.

My guess is this one is going nowhere, I don't see the evidence needed to make it go somewhere. I know, it stinks to high heaven, that doesn't change the fact that speculation is not evidence which is admissible in court.

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How have you not known anything about this??? It has been going on since he was President-elect!

SamAndreas said:

I saw this and I'm tracking it down, so far I found that there's a link in that Bigsky tweet to a news outfit I'm not familiar with called the verge.

The first paragraph says:

"Paramount has agreed to pay $16 million to resolve President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against its subsidiary CBS, clearing a path for the administration to approve the media giant’s multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance Media."

I know about that lawsuit, it's against CBS for their 60 minutes interview with Harris just before the election. Trump was demanding 10 billion, then 20 billion, Paramount owns CBS and 60 minutes, they settled for 16 million.

That's the part I could track, how Widen turns that into being a bribe appears to be speculation as to motive by Wyden and or others. I think if they had better that that it would have been at the top of that article, it was not.

My guess is this one is going nowhere, I don't see the evidence needed to make it go somewhere. I know, it stinks to high heaven, that doesn't change the fact that speculation is not evidence which is admissible in court.

Click to expand...

The dots are obvious. Trump has been threatening the Paramount and Skydance merger to put pressure onf Paramount since November of 2024. It's public knowledge.


We all know that Trump sued Paramount with a frivolous lawsuit that Trump could not win in court. We all know that Paramount agreed to pay to settle a lawsuit that they would have won in court. The last dot will be when the Trump administration announces it's allowing the Paramount Skydance merger.

I think you're overcompensating in your attempt to be speculation free. There's a difference between having enough evidence to comment on what is very likely going on and having evidence that is admissible in court. You are conflating two very different standards and uses of evidence.

LA 2 L.A. said:

The dots are obvious. Trump has been threatening the Paramount and Skydance merger to put pressure onf Paramount since November of 2024. It's public knowledge.

Trump’s FCC Pick Threatens to Kill Skydance-Paramount Deal Over CBS

FCC commissioner Brendan Carr said Trump’s pending complaint with the agency would factor into the group’s review of the deal.

www.thedailybeast.com

We all know that Trump sued Paramount with a frivolous lawsuit that Trump could not win in court. We all know that Paramount agreed to pay to settle a lawsuit that they would have won in court. The last dot will be when the Trump administration announces it's allowing the Paramount Skydance merger.

I think you're overcompensating in your attempt to be speculation free. There's a difference between having enough evidence to comment on what is very likely going on and having evidence that is admissible in court. You are conflating two very different standards and uses of evidence.

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A lot of folks are taking your line on this, and my personal feelings line about it aren't that different than yours. Of course I see the dots, lots of dots leading right to where you and many other people have it pegged as going.

But my personal feelings are not a part of the context of my post. The context of my post is, is it going to go anywhere???

My feelings about that is NO, this not going anywhere. Barring a surprise, this one, as so many one's involving TRump before this will get a pass insofar as charges leading to a conviction is concerned.

Insofar as there being a difference between having enough evidence to comment on, vs the evidence needed in court to convict is made of moot to me. I don't think that kind of speculation is useful.


I'm not telling you to not speculate, hell if Ron Wyden can speculate, you certainly may speculate.

What I do is what I do. You do what you do.

DJ1BigTymer said:

How have you not known anything about this??? It has been going on since he was President-elect!

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Where did you get that idea that I didn't know about it?

In my post I said I knew about the lawsuit, and then continued on in the same paragraph to list what I knew about it, I said.

"I know about that lawsuit, it's against CBS for their 60 minutes interview with Harris just before the election. Trump was demanding 10 billion, then 20 billion, Paramount owns CBS and 60 minutes, they settled for 16 million."

Only the part about the 16 million setmentment was news to me today, the complaint Trump filed I knew about since last winter, with additional pieces added as they were added, the 16 appears to have been added today, or perhaps not, I only found out about that part today.

SamAndreas said:

A lot of folks are taking your line on this, and my personal feelings line about it aren't that different than yours. Of course I see the dots, lots of dots leading right to where you and many other people have it pegged as going.

But my personal feelings are not a part of the context of my post. The context of my post is, is it going to go anywhere???

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It sounded more to me like you were saying there was nothing to the story, because there's a lot that supports the story. I misunderstood you it seems. I agree that it won't go anywhere while Congress and the DOJ is controlled by Trump's Republicans, but it might go somewhere when they no longer control Congress or the DOJ.

SamAndreas said:

Insofar as there being a difference between having enough evidence to comment on, vs the evidence needed in court to convict is made of moot to me.

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You're the one who brought that comparison into the conversation. It's odd that you did seeing as you're now saying it's a moot comparison.

SamAndreas said:

I'm not telling you to not speculate...

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No one is telling you to speculate, including me.

Recently, you have been telling people that them speculating is bad and not useful. I think you have been over zealous about it, but I'm not telling you not to do it.

I have a reading recommendations for you LA 2 LA so that you can put a fine polish on your debate skills. Four books comes as a set.

It's the real deal.

In the months leading up to the 2024 election, Donald Trump and his business empire faced a financial reckoning that threatened to hit the twice-impeached former president hard as he stared down several criminal indictments.

A devastating judgment in a sprawling civil fraud case pierced the heart of a decades-old narrative Trump has used to both boost his national profile and attract investments into his up-and-down real estate and branding enterprise.

Trump still owes more than half a billion dollars, with growing interest, in the wake of that ruling.

Dual verdicts from defamation lawsuits brought by E Jean Carroll had put the president on the hook for another $91 million.

Meanwhile, his reality television and licensing profits were declining as the Trump Organization had largely turned off a spigot of foreign branding deals during his first administration.

But the president and his two eldest sons refocused the family business to attract lucrative partnerships once again — this time by betting big on cryptocurrency and the Trump branding itself while hoovering up investors who saw in his election their own financial victory, all the while personally enriching Trump himself.

The New York Times reviewed more than 2,000 documents revealing the state of the president’s finances throughout his fraud case and into the 2024 election.

After his victory, the new family business — no longer a real-estate titan — “kicked into overdrive,” according to the outlet, with international deals opening up multiple channels to funnel cash to the president, largely invisible from current financial disclosure requirements, the Times reported

Trump was able to put up enough cash — to the tune of nearly $300 million — to appeal those cases. He has not paid down any of the judgments against him.

Rather than sell off properties to pay off his judgments, the family business doubled down into new ventures to generate millions.

Internal documents suggest the moves were necessary to keep his business empire intact, according to The Times.…….

SamAndreas said:

I have a reading recommendations for you LA 2 LA so that you can put a fine polish on your debate skills. Four books comes as a set.

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Unnecessary and disappointing.

LA 2 L.A. said:

Unnecessary and disappointing.

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I have good condition first editions of of the first two of those four books. Gamesmanship and Lifesmanship, the original two of that set by Potter. They are a British 1950's thing. In those days and before, local townships held regular scheduled debates. It was a popular form of public entertainment before TV.

The purpose of these books was to improve the quality of the trolling at those local debates so that they would become far more entertaining for the spectators of those local debates.

Long since then these books have become collectors items with some value, but not that much value. An absolutely immaculate set of first editions is worth 250 bucks. The set you see where one is first edition and the other isn't and tattered covers like you see here, they are worth 20 bucks. Mine are worth less because while the books are in better condition, the original slip covers are missing

Here they are on Ebay, The lifermansship shown here is first edition, the Gamesmanship isn't. Gamesmanship is the first of the set, Lifemanship is the second.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/315637886765 These two you see are only $19.99 on E-bay.

SamAndreas said:

...to improve the quality of the trolling...

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I have no interest in trolling, so I have no interest in or need for the books you recommend. I know that when I'm really passionate about something I can get blunt and gruff (especially when people are being hurt and killed), but everything I say here is sincere, honest, forthright and genuine. That's how I choose to live my life and posting my thoughts here is a part of my life.

LA 2 L.A. said:

I have no interest in trolling, so I have no interest in or need for the books you recommend. I know that when I'm really passionate about something I can get blunt and gruff (especially when people are being hurt and killed), but everything I say here is sincere, honest, forthright and genuine. That's how I choose to live my life and posting my thoughts here is a part of my life.

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I'd like to think that I'm about the same when it comes to emotions and details like that.

I've been having a hard time forgiving the oh so many poor people who voted for their own despair during that last election. It's those feeling of disappointment and discouragement.