[Lord Dave]

Selling Trump merch is one thing.  Using meme coins to sell direct access to the president is a whole new level of corruption.
https://news.sky.com/story/us-senators-attempt-to-ban-trumps-profoundly-corrupt-crypto-schemes-13363230

You actually don't need to own a meme coin business to accept money from people. Trump and his family were making multi-million dollar deals as he was President during his first term, and I am still waiting for you guys to prove that bribery occurred as has been alleged.

Be honest: would it even matter if we did?  Would you suddenly go "Oh, Trump is corrupt.  I should stop supporting him!"
I'm 90% sure it would not.  You would simply dismiss the evidence, twist it to be a positive, or just ignore the entire situation.

[AATW]

This is wrong as well. The only requirement to be US President is that you are over the age of 35, a resident of the United States for over 14 years, and be a natural-born citizen. Everything else is your personalized whiney rant of the day about what you think a president should do or how they should conduct their business interests.

You know what, you're right.

If a president wants to lie repeatedly, use his position of power to further enrich himself and his mates, make decisions which push the country in to the brink of recession, take no responsibility for anything and blame everyone but himself for his failings and just generally act like a complete asshat on the world stage and make himself and by association your country a complete laughing stock then you're right, there's no requirements to stop him doing any of that.

And yes, because of the MAGA Cult he gets away with it.
Where we differ is I don't actually think it's a good thing. I'd rather have a world leader with honestly, integrity and competence.
I'm a bit of an old traditionalist when it comes to stuff like that.

[AATW]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyglw20lg2o

Maybe he’s Jesus first, which I think is one of the qualifications

[Tom Bishop]

If a president wants to lie repeatedly, use his position of power to further enrich himself and his mates, make decisions which push the country in to the brink of recession, take no responsibility for anything and blame everyone but himself for his failings and just generally act like a complete asshat on the world stage and make himself and by association your country a complete laughing stock then you're right, there's no requirements to stop him doing any of that.

And yes, because of the MAGA Cult he gets away with it.
Where we differ is I don't actually think it's a good thing. I'd rather have a world leader with honestly, integrity and competence.
I'm a bit of an old traditionalist when it comes to stuff like that.

You are wrong. Trump does not have control over whether he is successful in his meme coin business. Trump is not enriching himself by selling meme coins. It is his supporters who are enriching him because they have faith that its value will go up based on his success. This is very different to, say, the insider trading Nancy Pelosi and other Congress people blatantly engage in. Because of this insider trading Nancy Pelosi is getting greater rates of returns than Warren Buffet, and is one of the greatest traders of all time. Now that is self-enrichment and blatant fraud.

For the rest of your post, it is just more unsupported liberal accusations without merit.

[Lord Dave]

If a president wants to lie repeatedly, use his position of power to further enrich himself and his mates, make decisions which push the country in to the brink of recession, take no responsibility for anything and blame everyone but himself for his failings and just generally act like a complete asshat on the world stage and make himself and by association your country a complete laughing stock then you're right, there's no requirements to stop him doing any of that.

And yes, because of the MAGA Cult he gets away with it.
Where we differ is I don't actually think it's a good thing. I'd rather have a world leader with honestly, integrity and competence.
I'm a bit of an old traditionalist when it comes to stuff like that.

Trump does not have control over whether he is successful in his meme coin business.

He does if he's saying "Buy my coin and meet me!  Influence me!" Which anyone from high ranking rich poeple to maga folk, to literal assassins will buy as much as possible.  If that's not influencing, you're clearly just a hypocrit.

[honk]

You guys, Trump isn't selling his meme coins to anyone; people are buying his meme coins from him. Completely different.

[Tom Bishop]

You actually don't even have an example that politicians should not receive money from their supporters. Many politicians ask for and receive money from their supporters. There is massive fundraising from Super PACS,  which raise hundreds of millions of dollars for candidates and politicians. Companies write very large checks to these organizations, which are often looked at with suspicion and shade. If your argument is that politicians should not receive money from their supporters, this is blatantly contradicted by a century of fundraising.

In Obama's last term as President he was notably raising money from people to "support his goals".

Trump is ingeniously giving something in return to his supporters through Trump meme coins which could potentially have value based on the success of the very person they are investing in. Usually when you give money to a politician you get nothing in return, so he has improved the process with his innovative business acumen and has made it far more attractive for people to consider investing in him.

[Lord Dave]

You actually don't even have an example that politicians should not receive money from their supporters. Many politicians ask for and receive money from their supporters. There is massive fundraising from Super PACS,  which raise hundreds of millions of dollars for candidates and politicians. Companies write very large checks to these organizations, which are often looked at with suspicion and shade. If your argument is that politicians should not receive money from their supporters, this is blatantly contradicted by a century of fundraising.

In Obama's last term as President he was notably raising money from people to "support his goals".

Trump is ingeniously giving something in return to his supporters through Trump meme coins which could potentially have value based on the success of the very person they are investing in. Usually when you give money to a politician you get nothing in return, so he has improved the process with his innovative business acumen and has made it far more attractive for people to consider investing in him.

So Trump's meme coin is now an official currency for political donations and subject to the same laws there of?

Or is it a private investment meant to be used by private citizen Trump?

[Tom Bishop]

There is barely anything special about it. It's a currency as much as a pencil is a currency. Trump may as well be selling pencils with individualized serial numbers that people are willing to buy from him and then sell to each other for prices that they decide among themselves.

Should politicians be allowed to sell pencils? Yes. The genius comes in convincing people that they should sell the pencils to each other, which gives the pencil potentially more value. Outside of the initial sale of the pencil it has nothing to do with Trump.

Does there need to be laws in selling pencils with serial numbers on them? No. Why would there be? There are many politicians who are business owners and sell products, and many more who are heavily invested in businesses, all potentially corruptible for political influence. This meme coin is just an asset with a serial number on it, which its owners go on to trade among themselves.

[AATW]

So Trump's meme coin is now an official currency for political donations and subject to the same laws there of?

Or is it a private investment meant to be used by private citizen Trump?

It's whatever it needs to be for Tom to pretend that thisisfine.jpg.
I enjoyed the fact that Tom also admitted that Trump is such a poor businessman that he "does not have control over whether he is successful"
lol

[Lord Dave]

There is barely anything special about it. It's a currency as much as a pencil is a currency. Trump may as well be selling pencils with individualized serial numbers that people are willing to buy from him and then sell to each other for prices that they decide among themselves.

Should politicians be allowed to sell pencils? Yes. The genius comes in convincing people that they should sell the pencils to each other, which gives the pencil potentially more value. Outside of the initial sale of the pencil it has nothing to do with Trump.

Does there need to be laws in selling pencils with serial numbers on them? No. Why would there be? There are many politicians who are business owners and sell products, and many more who are heavily invested in businesses, all potentially corruptible for political influence. This meme coin is just an asset with a serial number on it, which its owners go on to trade among themselves.

Okay!
So, so politicians should be allowed to sell pencils.  And then you'd naturally agree that if the politicians then made pencils very expensive or difficult to get EXCEPT their pencils, that would be fine to you, right?

[markjo]

As POTUS, Trump gets a $400K salary so that he shouldn’t need to sell pencils. 

Also, is it really okay for him to accept a luxury 747 from Qtar?
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/trump-set-accept-luxury-747-qatar-use-air-force-one-abc-news-says-2025-05-11/

[Lord Dave]

As POTUS, Trump gets a $400K salary so that he shouldn’t need to sell pencils. 

Also, is it really okay for him to accept a luxury 747 from Qtar?
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/trump-set-accept-luxury-747-qatar-use-air-force-one-abc-news-says-2025-05-11/

I mean... The spy devices they probably put on it won't even be needed so it's fine

[honk]

The luxury plane, which would be one of the most valuable gifts ever received by the U.S. government, would eventually be donated to Trump's presidential library after he leaves office, the source said.

Like I've said before, there is no Trump presidential library. This plane is a gift to Donald Trump himself, not to the office of the president or the federal government. It's a $400 million bribe in plain (plane?) sight, a luxurious throne for the king to sit on as he condescendingly lectures the people about needing to tighten their belts.

[Action80]

honk, LD, and markjo, doing their best Herve' Villechaize impressions.

Fantasy matching wild imaginations.

"THE PLANE, THE PLANE!!!"

LMMFAO!

[markjo]

And I suppose that neither you nor Tom think that a $400 million dollar gift shouldn’t be subject to the terms of the Emoluments Clause.  You know, the clause that a president isn’t allowed to accept such valuable gifts from foreign governments without Congressional approval.

[Lord Dave]

Orange Man Good.
Everyone else bad.

[Action80]

Is the plane a direct gift to the man or the office?

I can only hearken back to the days where Trump was accused of grifting because of some merchandise offered on a website not even affiliated with Trump...yet, the non-investigatory types claimed otherwise.

Fucking jokes, the lot are.

[honk]

Is the plane a direct gift to the man or the office?

To the man, like I said. Future presidents will not be using this plane. After Trump's term of office, it will be given to Trump's nonexistent "presidential library," which means that it will go straight to Trump himself, like all donations to the supposed library. If you don't have a problem with this, then I question what you would hypothetically have a problem with, because corruption doesn't get much more blatant than this.

[Action80]

As I thought, simply labeling something as something.

"SOMETHING IS WRONGITIS!!!"