Ed Is Humayun Khan Trump's Turning Point?

[ponderingturtle]

Apparently not paying your suppliers, having them take you to court and having to obtain a lien in order to get paid is standard practice in the U.S.

That is the art of the deal.

 

[Minoosh]

You missed my point which is that Democrats and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) tend to speak of past Republican candidates (particularly dead ones) in glowing terms, while vilifying the current one. In 2008, McCain was a warmonger, racist, philanderer, who had neither the intelligence nor the temperament to be President. Years later, he wasn't such a bad guy after all.

I'd like to see quotes verifying that the media spoke of McCain this way. I was in the media at the time (and a registered Republican) and this claim does not ring true. Your paraphrasing may be what you think was said, but can you support its accuracy with cites? (Edited to add: IIRC there was negative talk from the far right, who called him a RINO.)

But if he loses, then I predict in 2020, Democrats will be comparing him favorably to the then current Republican nominee. Trump will probably be remembered as an entertaining and kind-hearted buffoon, sort of like Joe Biden is now, who actually did speak up for the downtrodden and tried to refocus the country's energy inward.

Kind-hearted, spoke up for the downtrodden? Before this presidential run he did say some sane things (as seen in the video of him repeatedly contracting himself) but for the presidential run, no. "If' he loses IMO he will accurately be remembered as a nasty piece of work (ETA2: who *used to* speak well of Hillary Clinton, single-payer health care etc.)

Trump isn't really much different except that he's nowhere near as polished.

Wishful thinking in the extreme. His lack of "polish" is a conscious strategy for stirring up the rabble. Fortunately it also lets people see just where he is coming from, since there's little to no veneer of civility soften the impact of his words and policies (such as they are).

ETA3: The video of him reversing himself reinforces to me that there is some sort of neurological problem. His personality seems different. Hence I have removed "consciously" from the last paragraph; I'm not sure how much control he has over what he says.

 

[Minoosh]

He's too cheap to donate to anyone, even NAMBLA of which he speaks so highly.

How much would tax returns tell us about actual net worth? At this point I'd be surprised if it's even over $1B.

 

[The Don]

He's too cheap to donate to anyone, even NAMBLA of which he speaks so highly.

I've been hearing a lot about suspected ties to NAMBLA recently. IMO unlikely but I guess there's no smoke without fire

How much would tax returns tell us about actual net worth? At this point I'd be surprised if it's even over $1B.

Something, but not necessarily a great deal. If the vast majority of Trump's "wealth" is tied up in the value of his "brand" then this can change rapidly, possibly arbitrarily, without generating any cash.

If the vast majority of Trump's wealth comes from the valuation of his privately owned companies then again there may not necessarily be much income (especially if they are, as is suspected, asset (comparatively) rich and cash poor).

OTOH they could reveal whether he engages in dodgy tax avoidance or evasion schemes, they will show how much he draws from his (web of) companies and how much (or little) he gives to charity.

 

[varwoche]

Trump hasn't denied the NAMBLA allegations!

Sad!

 

[The Don]

Trump hasn't denied the NAMBLA allegations!

Sad!

He hasn't even had the courtesy to address them - disgusting !

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Trump hasn't denied the NAMBLA allegations!

Sad!

He hasn't even had the courtesy to address them - disgusting !

No, that's Glenn Beck's shtick, whom as far as I'm aware has yet to deny raping and murdering that nine year old girl.

 

[sunmaster14]

I'd like to see quotes verifying that the media spoke of McCain this way. I was in the media at the time (and a registered Republican) and this claim does not ring true. Your paraphrasing may be what you think was said, but can you support its accuracy with cites? (Edited to add: IIRC there was negative talk from the far right, who called him a RINO.)

Yes I can support my claims with many citations. But I don't feel like doing your work for you. I am flabbergasted that you were in the media at the time and yet don't recall how vilified McCain was. Perhaps you just have a terrible memory. Google up pieces by Joe Klein to start with. He was a relentless and hyperbolic critic. Every time McCain made mention of some of Obama's seedier associates, e.g. Tony Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, or Bill Ayers, he was attacked for appealing to bigotry and racism and making Obama out to the "the other." And McCain refused, probably because he knew the press would attack him for it, to attack Obama over Reverend Wright, although it would have been entirely appropriate and fair. Here's an illustrative summary of how McCain apparently turned into an ogre during the 2008 campaign.

By the way, I suppose you don't remember the hit piece by the New York Times that alleged McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist, even though its authors claimed that they were not insinuating that McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist (since they actually had zero evidence of such an affair)? It makes the childish innuendo here with respect to Trump donating to NAMBLA look reasonable by comparison.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Yes I can support my claims with many citations.

Here's an illustrative summary of how McCain apparently turned into an ogre during the 2008 campaign.

Do you really think that article supports your position claim that in 2008 the press falsely painted McCain as "a warmonger, racist, philanderer, who had neither the intelligence nor the temperament to be President"?

Because, I found the article was rather well sourced to support the opposite contention, that McCain had to change who he was to get through the GOP primaries. It supports the contention that good people don't have a chance in the GOP primaries, hence good people from the GOP are recently absent from the GE.

You say "apparently" as if there is no evidence of the change he underwent. I remember the change and was saddened by it. I really had high hopes that the McCain of 2000 could find success in the GOP.

 

[sunmaster14]

Do you really think that article supports your position claim that in 2008 the press falsely painted McCain as "a warmonger, racist, philanderer, who had neither the intelligence nor the temperament to be President"?

Because, I found the article was rather well sourced to support the opposite contention, that McCain had to change who he was to get through the GOP primaries. It supports the contention that good people don't have a chance in the GOP primaries, hence good people from the GOP are recently absent from the GE.

You say "apparently" as if there is no evidence of the change he underwent. I remember the change and was saddened by it. I really had high hopes that the McCain of 2000 could find success in the GOP.

Well, I think this is a key passage, which sums up my view of the situation as well:

Those inside McCain’s campaign note, with some justification, that the twenty-four-hour news cycle and the media’s obsession with gaffes have made impromptu press conferences and unfettered access unrealistic. In a recent conversation, Salter told me that at one moment the press was criticizing McCain for lacking a central message and the next was castigating him for not being spontaneous. Salter was apoplectic over the “meta-narrative” suggesting that McCain had fundamentally changed. “There was no decision by McCain to say, ‘Let’s go to the dark side,’ “ he said. “That’s just ********.” He added, “Reporters loved the idea that he was challenging the Republican Party and the establishment, and they didn’t particularly care what he was talking about” in terms of policy. “He’s always been a Republican.” Salter expressed a genuine sense of betrayal—a feeling clearly shared by McCain—toward journalists who had turned on McCain. “I’ve spent many hours trying to figure out why the press has erected a double standard that clearly favors one candidate over another,” Salter said. “Maybe it started with his position on the war.” He shook his head. “I’m not a shrink. It just is what it is.” In the spring of 2008, he noted, McCain had embarked on a poverty tour of places like New Orleans and Selma, but virtually no one in the press paid attention. He had invited Obama to hold town-hall meetings across the country; his opponent rejected the idea. And, despite the urging of strategists, Salter said, McCain had refused to let the campaign release advertisements featuring Obama’s controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. “John is the same person,” Salter said. “He doesn’t know how to be any different.” He went on, “Everyone kept saying, ‘Where’s the old happy warrior?’ It was *********** crazy. The only way we could have gotten McCain to hold on to his brand, in the eyes of the media, was if McCain had bowed to the choice of the élite, which was Obama. McCain would have been crushed by twenty points, but everyone would have said what a great man he was and what a gracious loser. Anything short of that, he was going to be branded a ‘new’ John McCain.”

I also remember that the NY Times backed McCain all through the primaries. And virtually the week that he became the presumptive nominee, they ran several hit pieces on him, including the innuendo about the "concern" that some people were having that other people might think that it looked like McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist.

It's the same old story really. Almost as old as the multi-page story the Washington Post ran in 2012 about Mitt Romney bullying somebody when he was in high school in 1963.

 

[Minoosh]

Yes I can support my claims with many citations. But I don't feel like doing your work for you.

You won't provide support for your claim ... OK, that tells me what I need to know. What I personally handled was fair. I do know there were people disappointed in him and I'm sure they were tough on him but it's orders of magnitude away from the negative attention Trump is receiving.

If you're going to provide links, why start out proclaiming you won't supply them ? Just to get in the put-downs?

By the way, I suppose you don't remember the hit piece by the New York Times that alleged McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist, even though its authors claimed that they were not insinuating that McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist (since they actually had zero evidence of such an affair)? It makes the childish innuendo here with respect to Trump donating to NAMBLA look reasonable by comparison.

I do remember that piece and was puzzled by it. They were reaching and they knew it. But it's not on the order of Trump. If you perceive that it is, I question your perception.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I've been hearing a lot about suspected ties to NAMBLA recently. IMO unlikely but I guess there's no smoke without fire



Something, but not necessarily a great deal. If the vast majority of Trump's "wealth" is tied up in the value of his "brand" then this can change rapidly, possibly arbitrarily, without generating any cash.

If the vast majority of Trump's wealth comes from the valuation of his privately owned companies then again there may not necessarily be much income (especially if they are, as is suspected, asset (comparatively) rich and cash poor).

OTOH they could reveal whether he engages in dodgy tax avoidance or evasion schemes, they will show how much he draws from his (web of) companies and how much (or little) he gives to charity.

He does owe over 100 million dollars to the criminal Deutsche Bank.(2 50+ million loans. Loans over 50 million do not need to report their amounts on the papers he has released)

 

[Foolmewunz]

Well, I think this is a key passage, which sums up my view of the situation as well:



I also remember that the NY Times backed McCain all through the primaries. And virtually the week that he became the presumptive nominee, they ran several hit pieces on him, including the innuendo about the "concern" that some people were having that other people might think that it looked like McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist.

It's the same old story really. Almost as old as the multi-page story the Washington Post ran in 2012 about Mitt Romney bullying somebody when he was in high school in 1963.

Just so we can be clear.... what is it you're trying to draw parallels to. All of these are rather typical dirty politics and there are as many in the GOP's past as there are in the Democrats'. The Willie Horton campaign? Swift Boating? The Canuck Letter? And, of course, Watergate.

I would offer that these are on an equal footing to anything you've cited and far exceed them in several cases. And avid readers, even large canines, will recognize that you haven't mentioned the most scurrilous attack on McCain. Why's that? Because it was perpetrated by Charming Karl Rove? For those of you not familiar with "GOP Honor", look up South Carolina Primary McCain Illegitimate Child. Classic push polling. Quite disgusting.

I fail to see why it's the ignoble Dems you're targeting as having to raise the caliber of the debate. Have you actually seen that thing running on the GOP ticket? Have you read his slanderous comments, his innuendos, his downright meanness? Trump lies. We call him a liar. You don't offer up any proof that he's not a liar; just "oh, you shouldn't say bad stuff".

 

[ponderingturtle]

Just so we can be clear.... what is it you're trying to draw parallels to. All of these are rather typical dirty politics and there are as many in the GOP's past as there are in the Democrats'. The Willie Horton campaign? Swift Boating? The Canuck Letter? And, of course, Watergate.

I would offer that these are on an equal footing to anything you've cited and far exceed them in several cases. And avid readers, even large canines, will recognize that you haven't mentioned the most scurrilous attack on McCain. Why's that? Because it was perpetrated by Charming Karl Rove? For those of you not familiar with "GOP Honor", look up South Carolina Primary McCain Illegitimate Child. Classic push polling. Quite disgusting.

I fail to see why it's the ignoble Dems you're targeting as having to raise the caliber of the debate. Have you actually seen that thing running on the GOP ticket? Have you read his slanderous comments, his innuendos, his downright meanness? Trump lies. We call him a liar. You don't offer up any proof that he's not a liar; just "oh, you shouldn't say bad stuff".

As he changes what he says in the course of a speech, maybe he isn't lying but is a confused senile old man?

 

[Dr. Keith]

Well, I think this is a key passage, which sums up my view of the situation as well:



<snip to be clear as to what I am referring to>

It's the same old story really. Almost as old as the multi-page story the Washington Post ran in 2012 about Mitt Romney bullying somebody when he was in high school in 1963.

You and one McCain staffer remember something completely different from what everyone else remembers and what is supported by the detailed article that you linked to.

I don't find that persuasive to change my position.

 

[varwoche]

The thing with this inane blame-the-media business is the overlooking of the intense condemnation from Trump's own team, amidst the ongoing civil war within the GOP.

They've all been duped by the media, if we are to give credence to sunmaster. Ya sure.

 

[dudalb]

For all the NAMBLA rumors,I still think new information on some of Donald's "BUsiness Assocaties" in his Casino business in New Jersey will be the one that does some damage.
You know, the ones who are members of a certain Italian American Fraternal Organization.

 

[Tony Stark]

The thing with this inane blame-the-media business is the overlooking of the intense condemnation from Trump's own team, amidst the ongoing civil war within the GOP.

They've all been duped by the media, if we are to give credence to sunmaster. Ya sure.

Even they know he is totally unfit for office. The only reason they want him to win is because they believe he will sign their regressive bills and put regressive judges in the courts.

 

[NoahFence]

It's the same old story really. Almost as old as the multi-page story the Washington Post ran in 2012 about Mitt Romney bullying somebody when he was in high school in 1963.

Nothing about this election is "the same old story".

Hell, this stopped being about Republican vs. Democrat quite some time ago. It's about sanity vs. insanity.

Donald Trump represents insanity. Instability, and a sickness the likes of which we haven't seen since McCarthy, and I'm beginning to believe even HE is rolling over in his grave looking at this crap your great pumpkin is doing to this country.

We can only hope that after his ass kicking he's going to get that his pathetically unhinged supporters will remain calm.

 

[sunmaster14]

Just so we can be clear.... what is it you're trying to draw parallels to. All of these are rather typical dirty politics and there are as many in the GOP's past as there are in the Democrats'. The Willie Horton campaign? Swift Boating? The Canuck Letter? And, of course, Watergate.

I would offer that these are on an equal footing to anything you've cited and far exceed them in several cases. And avid readers, even large canines, will recognize that you haven't mentioned the most scurrilous attack on McCain. Why's that? Because it was perpetrated by Charming Karl Rove? For those of you not familiar with "GOP Honor", look up South Carolina Primary McCain Illegitimate Child. Classic push polling. Quite disgusting.

I fail to see why it's the ignoble Dems you're targeting as having to raise the caliber of the debate. Have you actually seen that thing running on the GOP ticket? Have you read his slanderous comments, his innuendos, his downright meanness? Trump lies. We call him a liar. You don't offer up any proof that he's not a liar; just "oh, you shouldn't say bad stuff".

Wow, talk about missing the point. You weren't even in the same galaxy. It's not about dirty tricks and political attacks by Democrats and their allies in the press. I think these are heartfelt critiques. People like Joe Klein really did feel that McCain was running a racist campaign because Klein is so biased that, in the heat of a campaign, he can't view opposition talking points as anything else. The same dynamic happened with Mitt Romney, who, everybody agrees now, is a decent human being and not somebody who fires employees unnecessarily and gives their spouses cancer to boot.

It's a lack of perspective, which I think predominantly afflicts liberals who see politics as a battle between good and evil. Some of the responses to Trump are cases in point, which, some day I hope, liberals will admit were over the top.

For example, the 2nd amendment "threat" kerfuffle is so stupid that it's become a source of amusement for me. My wife went out walking with five friends (all middle aged women) yesterday and the chatter was all about how Trump was inciting his followers to assassinate Hillary.

Trump doesn't have particularly deep thoughts, but he does glom onto conservative scuttlebutt now and then, and he almost certainly was referring to the idea that the 2nd Amendment is largely self-protecting. His comment had nothing to do with assassination and everything to do with gun owners resisting a tyrannical government's attempt to take their guns away.