2016 POTUS Election Thread

Cowboysrock55 said:

I am not but again I'll hold off bitching about him until he does something extremely stupid like attack Marijuana.

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During a Senate hearing earlier this year, Sessions spoke out against marijuana and urged the federal government to send the message to the public that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.” He went on to say that “we need grown-ups in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized” and blasted Obama’s stance on the issue. He called the legalization of marijuana “a mistake” last year.

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So either you think he is turning over a new leaf or just ignoring evrything he has said on the issue.

Cowboysrock55 said:

Um she gave gorvernment favors in exchange for donations. And no its not hypocritcal.

I'm saying wait until Trump uses his government position specifically to benefit his business ventures before you scream out in rage.

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She gave no favors.

The worst thing she did was give an audience to donors.

Let's stick to the facts.

townsend said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/2016/11/18/9da9c572-ad18-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html

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https://www.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/Financial Conflicts of Interest

This website will tell you all you want to know about ethics and disclosures.

L.T. Fan said:

That a lot of allegations none of which may be under the conflicts of interest rules. These individuals of their own volition chose this course. It was not a unilateral arrangement.

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All there was for Hillary was a "lot of allegations" and everyone who donated to her foundation did so "of their own volition"

The difference is Hillary had no control of the Clinton foundation and wasn't actively profiting from the donations.

Trump could choose to eliminate that conflict of interest, created by people "acting of their own volition", by divesting. Like Romney and Ross Perot had no problem doing.

L.T. Fan said:

The foundation was receiving monetary payment from foreign governments and foreign individuals which is a conflict of interest with Hillary Clintons with her role as Secretary of State. Totally different than the Trumph situation. If and when the trumph businesses begin to receive money or contracts from the government then there will be a conflict of interest. For now however there is no conflict for him owning business or having input in them. As long as he discloses his ownership it all above board as long as he or his business interest do not profit or have an unfair atvantage in governmental matters.

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How is that going to happen when he will not give his tax returns or open his books?

And his hotel in Washingtom is being leased from the government.

And by the way he is seeking tax relief.

Nov. 15 — President-elect Donald Trump refiled his lawsuit seeking a refund of taxes paid for his new luxury hotel project in Washington, D.C. ( Trump Old Post Office LLC v. District of Columbia , D.C. Super. Ct., No. 2016-CVT-000010, second amended petition filed 11/14/16 ).

Trump, through a company he owns called Trump Old Post Office LLC, first filed suit against the city in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in June, contesting the assessment against several downtown lots along Pennsylvania Avenue. That lawsuit was dismissed Oct. 27, but the court allowed Trump to refile separate petitions for each of the lots involved in the Trump International Hotel.

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Yeah no conflict of interest with that.

Jiggyfly said:

She gave no favors.

The worst thing she did was give an audience to donors.

Let's stick to the facts.

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She gave someone totally unqualified a job. So um yeah.

Jiggyfly said:

So either you think he is turning over a new leaf or just ignoring evrything he has said on the issue.

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Yeah, I'm well aware of that quote. But as we all know, people often times say one thing and do another. I'd praise him for saying one thing and doing another in this particular situation. And frankly the legalization of weed isn't even a personal issue to me. I have no desire to do it myself but I'm all about freedom of choice.

Jiggyfly said:

How is that going to happen when he will not give his tax returns or open his books?

And his hotel in Washingtom is being leased from the government.

And by the way he is seeking tax relief.



Yeah no conflict of interest with that.

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Don't make up lies. Trump is under audit. He has given his returns to IRS. Just because he didn't make them public isn't not turning his returns into the appropriate places. Rest assured everyone that needs to see them regarding compliance has a copy. And state the violations please. You have said nothing.

Cowboysrock55 said:

She gave someone totally unqualified a job. So um yeah.

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I see where this going and I guess I will just lump you in with the rest of hypocrites.

L.T. Fan said:

Don't make up lies. Trump is under audit. He has given his returns to IRS. Just because he didn't make them public isn't not turning his returns into the appropriate places. Rest assured everyone that needs to see them regarding compliance has a copy. And state the violations please. You have said nothing.

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Deflection once again.

So in one post you say he has to come clean and now everybody who needs to know has seen a copy.

Who are these people.

And I notice you totally ignored the issue with his hotel.

Jiggyfly said:

Deflection once again.

So in one post you say he has to come clean and now everybody who needs to know has seen a copy.

Who are these people.

And I notice you totally ignored the issue with his hotel.

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You need some business studiies and you would have learned that one who leases actually pays. In the instant case he pays the government to lease the building. Scratch a conflict especially since the transaction happened before he became the presidental candidate. Don't use that old deflect message to camaflauge your lack of knowledge. And I am done because you will just continue to shoot in the dark. The copies are seen by the IRS the government ethics committee.

Trump's conflicts will be crippling

By TIMOTHY P. CARNEY (@TPCARNEY) • 11/22/16 9:26 PM

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is the largest bank in the world. Its majority owner is the Communist government of China. ICBC's New York address is 725 5th Avenue — also known as Trump Tower.

In two months, that means, the president of the United States will be pocketing rent checks from a state-run megabank owned by the United States' largest military and economic rival.

This is a plain conflict of interest. Trump's personal finances may not depend on it, but they will hinged to continued good relations with, and the economic success of, ICBC. You don't need to posit the most corrupt circumstance — such as the Chinese regime currying favor or extorting policies from Trump through payment or withholding of payment — to imagine circumstances where his personal financial interests will clash with the national interest.

For instance, the U.S. is currently pushing Asian nations to dismantle and shrink their state-owned enterprises. If Trump pushes China too hard to close its largest state-owned bank, he will actually be antagonizing a tenant.

ICBC has also been the foreign counterparty in U.S. subsidy deals. For instance, the bank's aircraft leasing arm buys American-made jets with the help of U.S.-taxpayer financing via the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. These subsidy deals are supposed to serve the interests of American businesses. But would Trump have an attachment to one particular foreign buyer or lender if it were his business partner?

With a little imagination, you could foresee a thousand potential conflicts springing from his arrangement with ICBC. Then recall that Trump has hundreds of similar connections with hundreds of domestic and foreign companies.

"Why wouldn't I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, 'I love your new hotel!'" one Asian diplomat told the Washington Post this week. "Isn't it rude to come to his city and say, 'I am staying at your competitor'?"

We know Trump is not beyond mixing his business with his politics. President-elect Trump met during his transition-planning last week with Sagar and Atul Chordia, who head Panchshil Realty, developer of Trump Towers south of Mumbai. The men reportedly discussed Indian politics and Trump's business opportunities there. When Trump met with British politicians, including Brexit champion Nigel Farage, he pressed Farage to oppose offshore windmills abutting Trump's Scottish golf course.

Trump also has businesses in unstable and strategically crucial countries such as Turkey.


This may be an unavoidable result when someone with huge active business interests gets elected. That doesn't mean it isn't still a huge mess.

Voters ought to worry about any politician whose business interests intersect and perhaps clash so much with his public duties. Americans are all in a partnership with Trump now, and he will soon act as our agent. Plenty of folks have come out of a partnership with Trump worse for the experience — just ask his creditors, his vendors, his beauty queens, his ex-wives or Chris Christie — while Trump has profited.

Without even positing bad intentions on Trump's part, we need to worry about the subconscious pull for him to consider his business interests when he should be focusing solely on the national interest.

With Trump, there's another reason to worry: He judges other people and determines how to treat them based on how they treat him. When asked to assess various public figures, Trump consistently uses this measure: I like him, he treated me well in a business deal. I dislike her, she lost me money.

So if a foreign leader wants to curry favor with the President could he pull it off by cutting a good deal with some Trump business? Forget about a bribe or a quid pro quo, President Trump may just say, That Erdogan has a bad rap, but I know he's a good guy because he treated my hotel well.


Trump's business ventures are a minefield of conflicts and temptations. Handing them to his children fixes nothing. First, we know his children will have his ear on matters of state and politics, and have even sat or listened in on his first conversations with foreign leaders. Second, Trump will always know that his company will be there waiting for him when leaves the White House.

Donald Trump needs to liquidate his assets and put the proceeds in an actual blind trust. He almost certainly doesn't want to do this, and that's why congressional Republicans should make him do it.

Even if Trump never does anything improper, and even if his actions end up impoverishing his company, the constant conflicts will create constant headaches. Democrats in Congress and the mainstream media have pledged themselves to making Trump's four years difficult. He would, at the very least give endless ammunition to his dedicated opponents by keeping his global business ventures so close to himself.

Donald Trump has to decide whether he's really trying to Make America Great Again, or is he — once again — just in it for himself.

Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.

Jiggyfly said:

She gave no favors.

The worst thing she did was give an audience to donors.

Let's stick to the facts.

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Fact, the foundation took in about $500 mil from 2009-2012 and only spent about $75 mil in charitable grants. $25 mil went for travel expenses, $110 mil for salary and benefits, and $290 mil went to "other expenses". This is from the IRS BTW.

Here is a link to an article that summarizes the foundations activities and donations. I know it's a conservative site, but doesn't mean the information is wrong.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5382&category=79

Cowboysrock55 said:

She gave someone totally unqualified a job. So um yeah.

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Agreed. By being an idiot with emails, sabotaging Sander's campaign, and by being just pretty unlikable in general, she gave the presidency to the most unqualified man in US history.

Jiggyfly said:

I see where this going and I guess I will just lump you in with the rest of hypocrites.

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Um, aren't you being a hypocrite complaining about Trump when Hilary just got done doing those things?

But if it makes you feel better about your hypocrisy feel free. You take your blindness to such extremes with politics.

fortsbest said:

Fact, the foundation took in about $500 mil from 2009-2012 and only spent about $75 mil in charitable grants. $25 mil went for travel expenses, $110 mil for salary and benefits, and $290 mil went to "other expenses". This is from the IRS BTW.

Here is a link to an article that summarizes the foundations activities and donations. I know it's a conservative site, but doesn't mean the information is wrong.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5382&category=79

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Where Does Clinton Foundation Money Go?
By Robert FarleyPosted on June 19, 2015 | Corrected on June 19, 2015


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Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina says that “so little” of the charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation “actually go to charitable works” — a figure CARLY for America later put at about 6 percent of its annual revenues — but Fiorina is simply wrong.

Fiorina and others are referring only to the amount donated by the Clinton Foundation to outside charities, ignoring the fact that most of the Clinton Foundation’s charitable work is performed in-house. One independent philanthropy watchdog did an analysis of Clinton Foundation funding and concluded that about 89 percent of its funding went to charity.
Simply put, despite its name, the Clinton Foundation is not a private foundation — which typically acts as a pass-through for private donations to other charitable organizations. Rather, it is a public charity. It conducts most of its charitable activities directly.

Fiorina Attacks

Fiorina has been shadowing Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in order to contrast herself with her Democratic rival. In a Fox News interview, Fiorina was asked about a New York Times story about Sen. Marco Rubio’s finances, and Fiorina responded that she wished the New York Times would do more to investigate the Clintons’ finances, and particularly “what they’ve been doing with their donors’ money to the Clinton Global Initiative.”

Fiorina, June 10: I mean, honestly, the question, I think, now for the Clintons is, ‘What else don’t we know? What don’t we know about your donors? What don’t we know about the conflicts of interest that those donors represent when Mrs. Clinton is serving as Secretary of State?’ We are now finding out that so little of those charitable donations actually go to charitable works.

Asked for backup, the CARLY for America super PAC noted that the Clinton Foundation’s latest IRS Form 990 shows total revenue of nearly $149 million in 2013, and total charitable grant disbursements of nearly $9 million (see page 10). That comes to roughly 6 percent of the budget going to grants. And besides those grants, the super PAC said, “there really isn’t anything that can be categorized as charitable.”

That just isn’t so. The Clinton Foundation does most of its charitable work itself.
Katherina Rosqueta, the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania, described the Clinton Foundation as an “operating foundation.”

“There is an important distinction between an operating foundation vs. a non-operating foundation,” Rosqueta told us via email. “An operating foundation implements programs so money it raises is not designed to be used exclusively for grant-making purposes. When most people hear ‘foundation’, they think exclusively of a grant-making entity. In either case, the key is to understand how well the foundation uses money — whether to implement programs or to grant out to nonprofits — [to achieve] the intended social impact (e.g., improving education, creating livelihoods, improving health, etc.).”

Craig Minassian, chief communications officer for the Clinton Foundation, said the Clinton Foundation is “an implementer.”

“We operate programs on the ground, around the world, that are making a difference on issues ranging from poverty and global health to climate change and women’s and girls’ participation,” Minassian told us via email. “Many large foundations actually provide grants to the Clinton Foundation so that our staff can implement the work.”

Asked for some examples of the work it performs itself, the Clinton Foundation listed these:

Clinton Development Initiative staff in Africa train rural farmers and help them get access to seeds, equipment and markets for their crops.
Clinton Climate Initiative staff help governments in Africa and the Caribbean region with reforestation efforts, and in island nations to help develop renewable energy projects.

Staff at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, an independent, affiliated entity, work in dozens of nations to lower the cost of HIV/AIDS medicine, scale up pediatric AIDS treatment and promote treatment of diarrhea through life-saving Zinc/ORS treatment.

Clinton Health Matters staff work with local governments and businesses in the United States to develop wellness and physical activity plans.

To bolster its case, CARLY for America noted that the Clinton Foundation spent 12 percent of its revenue on travel and conferences and 20 percent of its revenue on salaries. That’s true. But the Form 990 specifically breaks out those travel, conference and salary expenses that are used for “program service expenses” versus those that are used for management or fundraising purposes.
For example, nearly 77 percent of the $8.4 million spent on travel in 2013 went toward program services; 3.4 percent went to “management and general expenses”; and about 20 percent went to fundraising.

As for conferences, nearly 98 percent of money spent was tabbed as a programming expense. And when it comes to salaries — which includes pension plan contributions, benefits and payroll taxes — about 73 percent went to program service expenses.

“I am not the expert on what portion of the Clinton Foundation activities are truly charitable,” Vince Stehle, executive director of Media Impact Funders and a board member of the Center for Effective Philanthropy told us via email. “But I can say that it is not appropriate to simply calculate that based on what portion goes out in grants. Certainly all types of foundations are able to engage in direct charitable activities in any event. But as I understand it, the Clinton Foundation is a public charity, despite the name. Many charities call themselves foundations, which can be confusing, as they might seem like private foundations.
“The organization carries out programs,” Stehle said. “I am not intimately familiar with those programs, but assuming they are genuine, those would be considered charitable activities.”

Charity Evaluators

Fiorina isn’t the only one making this charge about the Clinton Foundation. Fox Business Network’s Gerri Willis, for example, also claimed only 6 percent of the Clinton Foundation’s 2013 revenue “went to help people.” Willis claimed that charity experts have looked into whether the Clinton Foundation “wisely spen(t) charitable dollars” and weighed in with a “resounding no.”
“Charity Navigator … [has] placed the Clinton Foundation on a watch list,” Willis said. “They think there are problems with this nonprofit. They don’t like the way it runs itself. They say the money is not spent wisely.”
She said Charity Navigator concluded the Clinton Foundation “does not meet their criteria as an organization that does charitable work.”

But that’s not what Charity Navigator said.

Here’s what the Charity Navigator site actually states:
Charity Navigator: We had previously evaluated this organization, but have since determined that this charity’s atypical business model can not be accurately captured in our current rating methodology. Our removal of The Clinton Foundation from our site is neither a condemnation nor an endorsement of this charity. We reserve the right to reinstate a rating for The Clinton Foundation as soon as we identify a rating methodology that appropriately captures its business model.

What does it mean that this organization isn’t rated?

It simply means that the organization doesn’t meet our criteria. A lack of a rating does not indicate a positive or negative assessment by Charity Navigator.

We spoke by phone with Sandra Minuitti at Charity Navigator, and she told us Charity Navigator decided not to rate the Clinton Foundation because the foundation spun off some entities (chiefly the Health Access Initiative) and then later brought some, like the Clinton Global Initiative, back into the fold. Charity Navigator looks at a charity’s performance over time, she said, and those spin-offs could result in a skewed picture using its analysis model. If the foundation maintains its current structure for several years, she said, Charity Navigator will be able to rate it again.

The decision to withhold a rating had nothing to do with concerns about the Clinton Foundation’s charitable work. Further, Minuitti said citing only the 6 percent of the budget spent on grants as the sum total spent on charity by the foundation — as Willis and Fiorina did — is inaccurate.

She referred us to page 10 of the 2013 990 form for the Clinton Foundation. When considering the amount spent on “charitable work,” she said, one would look not just at the amount in grants given to other charities, but all of the expenses in Column B for program services. That comes to 80.6 percent of spending. (The higher 89 percent figure we cited earlier comes from a CharityWatch analysis of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates.)

“That’s the standard way” to measure a charity’s performance, Minuitti said. “You have to look at the entirety of that column.”

Minuitti said it is also inaccurate to assume all money spent on travel and salaries does not go toward charity. Depending on the nature of the charity, she said, travel and salary could certainly be considered expenses related to charity.
It’s true, as Willis said, that Charity Navigator put the Clinton Foundation on its “watch list,” but not because of concerns about insufficient funds going toward charity. Mainly, it was put on the watch list due to questions raised in the media about foreign donations to the foundation and the potential for quid pro quo when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. The site also linked to a story about the abrupt resignation earlier this year of the foundation’s CEO. (Go here to see a full list of articles that led to the decision by Charity Navigator to place the foundation on its watch list.)

According to the Charity Navigator site, it “takes no position” on the allegations raised in the media reports, nor does it “seek to confirm or verify the accuracy of allegations made or the merits of issues raised.” Minuitti said the watch list was more like “news to know” for potential donors.
None of the articles cited by Charity Navigator has anything to do with a low percentage of funding going to charitable work.

Another philanthropy watchdog, CharityWatch, a project of the American Institute of Philanthropy, gave the Clinton Foundation an “A” rating.
Daniel Borochoff, president and founder of CharityWatch, told us by phone that its analysis of the finances of the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates found that about 89 percent of the foundation budget is spent on programming (or “charity”), higher than the 75 percent considered the industry standard.

By only looking at the amount the Clinton Foundation doled out in grants, Fiorina “is showing her lack of understanding of charitable organizations,” Borochoff said. “She’s thinking of the Clinton Foundation as a private foundation.” Those kinds of foundations are typically supported by money from a few people, and the money is then distributed to various charities. The Clinton Foundation, however, is a public charity, he said. It mostly does its own charitable work. It has over 2,000 employees worldwide.

“What she’s doing is looking at how many grants they write to other groups,” Borochoff said. “If you are going to look at it that way, you may as well criticize every other operating charity on the planet.”

In order to get a fuller picture of the Clinton Foundation’s operations, he said, people need to look at the foundation’s consolidated audit, which includes the financial data on separate affiliates like the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
“Otherwise,” he said, “you are looking at just a piece of the pie.”

Considering all of the organizations affiliated with the Clinton Foundation, he said, CharityWatch concluded about 89 percent of its budget is spent on programs. That’s the amount it spent on charity in 2013, he said.

We looked at the consolidated financial statements (see page 4) and calculated that in 2013, 88.3 percent of spending was designated as going toward program services — $196.6 million out of $222.6 million in reported expenses.
We can’t vouch for the effectiveness of the programming expenses listed in the report, but it is clear that the claim that the Clinton Foundation only steers 6 percent of its donations to charity is wrong, and amounts to a misunderstanding of how public charities work.
— Robert Farley

L.T. Fan said:

You need some business studiies and you would have learned that one who leases actually pays. In the instant case he pays the government to lease the building. Scratch a conflict especially since the transaction happened before he became the presidental candidate. Don't use that old deflect message to camaflauge your lack of knowledge. And I am done because you will just continue to shoot in the dark. The copies are seen by the IRS the government ethics committee.

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And you have yet to address the tax dispute.

Yeah Trump could not possibly have any influence, especially with all of the open Federal judges positions.

Jiggyfly said:

And you have yet to address the tax dispute.

Yeah Trump could not possibly have any influence, especially with all of the open Federal judges positions.

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What dispute?????? Your last comment is just so much dust in the wind. No actual substance.

Enlarge this.

Jiggyfly said:

And you have yet to address the tax dispute.

Yeah Trump could not possibly have any influence, especially with all of the open Federal judges positions.

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Trump will have an enormous amount of influence in Chief Justice selections. That's what Presidents do with the efforts of Congress.