[Tom Bishop]

It says on BLM the donation page fine print that you are donating to an organization called ActBlue Charities.

SNIP

But they are both part of the same scam and so they are naturally working together.

I don't see the problem. 

Let's say we have an umbrella organisation, "Charities for the Blind". Under them are three separate charities;

1; Provision of assistance dogs
2; Provision of in-home assistance devices
3; Formation of a trading company which markets products made by the blind, and trains them to make them

I send a donation to the umbrella company, and mark it for 3. After I send it, 3 has to shut down its operation for some reason. The donation is then sent to 1, 2, or is allocated to help the umbrella company service 1 and 2.

I don't see a problem with this process. Why do you?

I see that they could be using this as a way to get around laws which prevent political campaigns from getting money from international and corporate sources, for one.

https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/who-can-and-cant-contribute/

Campaigns are prohibited from accepting contributions from certain types of organizations and individuals. These prohibited sources are:

- Corporations, including nonprofit corporations (although funds from a corporate separate segregated fund are permissible)
Labor organizations (although funds from a separate segregated fund are permissible)
- Federal government contractors
- Foreign nationals
- Contributions in the name of another

~

Federal law prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures and disbursements solicited, directed, received or made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in connection with any election — federal, state or local.

Now they have what is essentially a generic 'anti-racism' campaign called Black Lives Matter which anyone in the world can contribute to, which may be redistributed to US Democrat political campaigns.

[Lord Dave]

Could be several issues.

Sounds like they send lump sums of money to the groups. (So BLM). Which means they can't easily parse out money donated. 

Like lets say 5,000 people donated variois funds in the span of a week.  That funds get sent to a group in the form of a check.  6 months later, the check is uncashed and refused.  How do you know whose money got refused? 

It saves on doing the detective work.  Also, lets face it, they don't want a good donation to be wasted.  Tho they aren't a charity donation so thats something to consider as well.  Meaning if you donate to a charity and that charity refuses, well, your taxes are now wrong.  So to bypass that issue, they just take the money themselves.  You still get to claim tax benefit.

[totallackey]

Trump doesn't deserve blame for what's happening right now - the only thing you can blame on Trump is his complete lack of compassion and willingness to unite the people, and instead actively divides the people. He's not even trying to hide it anymore...

So you agree that Trump is working to divide us at a time when it's important that we be united, but you don't think that his doing so is having any further negative effect on the rioting whatsoever?

It's a reasonable opinion, I guess, but I disagree. I think that at a sensitive time right now, if our leaders refuse to properly lead, then things getting worse can only be a foregone conclusion.

In other words, rioting and looting is okay if you don't hear what you like.

Thanks for finally admitting it and clearing up the equivocation.

Just pathetic.

[Lord Dave]

I see that they could be using this as a way to get around laws which prevent political campaigns from getting money from international and corporate sources, for one.

I suppose you just have a problem with your political system then because the republicans have a similar organization, used and endorsed by Trump.

I checked.  The republican one is more specialized.  Its ONLY for republican candidates.  No other group is allowed.  Also its US only. 

[timterroo]

I see that they could be using this as a way to get around laws which prevent political campaigns from getting money from international and corporate sources, for one.

Someone who supports Trump is concerned about "getting around laws"? Please don't make me point out the irony of this statement.

[Tumeni]

As a non-American, I find support for Trump to be totally unfathomable. There is absolutely not one person in my social circle that considers him a suitable leader for the USA. All are horrified by what he does and says.

Since we're almost 300 pages into this thread, would any Trump supporter here care to write a couple of (short?) paragraphs WHY they support him?

Please don't express this as a rant against "libtards", "leftists" or the like. Bemoaning the opposition tells nothing about why you support your side.

[Roundy]

As a non-American, I find support for Trump to be totally unfathomable.

Trust me, this isn't a perspective limited to non-Americans. I'm as clueless to how it's possible for otherwise seemingly reasonable people to support this monster as you are, and I even know a few who do personally.

[timterroo]

As a non-American, I find support for Trump to be totally unfathomable.

Trust me, this isn't a perspective limited to non-Americans. I'm as clueless to how it's possible for otherwise seemingly reasonable people to support this monster as you are, and I even know a few who do personally.

I'm with ya'll... it boggles my mind.

I can say there are two reasons for which I have heard people support Trump:

1. Having relatives that live in West Virginia, it is fairly common knowledge that their support for Trump is based around gun-ownership and the potential left-wing laws that might threaten this.

2. I've heard that some support him solely because they could not vote for Hillary.

Neither of these reasons seem like good reasons to me, and if Trump was the lesser evil, we have to ask ourselves why our election system would favor the two worst candidates rather than common-sense.

In either case, I, too, would like to understand better why Trump has gained so much support.

[honk]

We don't have a lot of serious Trump support here. Tom is a troll and totallackey is...totallackey. Rushy is about the closest thing to a sincere Trump supporter we have here, and here's what he said a year and a half ago on the same subject:

Trump was the only one willing to admit we're in a trade war with China, we have been for decades, and the only one willing to take serious steps against it.

Trump was the only one willing to draw down in countries like Syria and avoid the Libya debacle entirely.

Trump was the only one willing to loudly proclaim that we should, in fact, not flood our border with uneducated hordes of third world people.

Trump was the only one willing to tell NATO that they should stop demanding the US do something about Russia when they can't even bother to maintain their own defense forces. The Pentagon projected that without the US, the combined forces of NATO would LOSE a conventional war against Russia. Russia's GDP is only a fraction of the EU's! That's disgraceful.

Trump refused the UN migration treaty and refused the Paris Climate Change agreement, both of which were merely ways to take American taxpayer money and distribute it to other nations with no real way of ensuring it is used to do anything other than line foreign pockets. People need to stop falling for the "moral high ground" meme. If a treaty is wrapped up in the morality of "well you need to sign this or you'll look really bad!" then be very suspicious of the fine print. These agreements are usually a trojan horse. The Paris Climate Change agreement is about climate change as much as the People's Republic of China is a republic.


Trump isn't the perfect conservative, but he was better than the other tools who would be Bush 2.0 and start throwing money to other nations and invading the Middle East like it was a god-given right. Trump is doing so many things right that even Fox has started to hate on him quite a bit. I love it. I love anyone that each media channel absolutely despises, because clearly they're doing something right. My only concern is that Trump is far too pro-Israel. In fact my primary concern is that EVERY politician is too pro-Israel. Zionist scum.

As you can see, Trump's appeal apparently lies in what he says. Trump says this, Trump says that. None of his positions are particularly extraordinary, it's just his phrasing that stands out. Other politicians won't spread racially-charged conspiracy theories about hordes of illegal immigrants swarming us, but a tough response to illegal immigration has always been a Republican staple. The same goes for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement - plenty of Republicans have taken anti-environmentalist stances in the past. Rushy almost touches on this faux-maverick approach at the end by highlighting Trump's pro-Israel stance and how it doesn't differ from any other mainstream politician. Trump is ideologically a standard Republican (because he has no ideology or political beliefs of his own) whose blunt, crude manner of speech and embrace of conspiracy theories has somehow made standard Republican positions sound rebellious and daring.

There's also the childish refrain of how if the media thinks that Trump is bad he must therefore be good, which I find to be an especially irritating and very, very weak argument - and yet it keeps popping up, and even non-Trump supporters will occasionally "concede" this point to him. "At least Trump is exposing what hypocrites the media are!" "At least Trump is helping turn the tables on the lying media!" No, no, no. At no point in Trump's war with the media have his interests ever aligned with ours ("ours" meaning anyone who isn't Trump). Trump hates the media because they report on his scandals and failures, they fact-check his lies, and they won't divulge the names of their anonymous sources so that Trump can promptly fire them. Those are not your reasons to dislike or distrust the media. They aren't the reasons of anyone who isn't Trump. The media has many flaws, but Trump has done nothing to highlight or expose them, because the only thing he cares about is himself. Stop giving him credit for things he hasn't earned.

[Rama Set]

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/12/jaw-dropping-corruption-mnuchin-refuses-to-disclose-which-businesses-got-taxpayer-backed-bailouts/

I wonder if lackeys like Total Lackey will get upset that recipients of COVID funds will not be revealed. I would want to know who did.

[Roundy]

I feel like that last paragraph in honk's post was directed at me. If it was I feel like it should be pointed out that I never propped Trump up as a hero on this. And I never said that Trump's intentions were anything but self-serving.

That being said, after Trump was elected, several stories were published that were in bad faith, quoting unreliable sources, twisting the facts, what have you. I feel like before Trump's presidency, unless the offender was Fox News, such incidents were quietly retracted with no further mention.

But because Trump has amplified the idea that the media is out to get him, every time such an incident happened a big deal was made about it. It was always cited as evidence of fake news; never mind that these incidents tend to be few and far between, representing a fraction of a fraction of the media's total output, which anyone able to apply a little critical thinking to the situation can see.

But I do think the media is being more careful now as a result of the heightened scrutiny. They're still fucking up and being called out for it, and now, not even necessarily when Trump is the subject; witness the reaction after the NYT published what could only reasonably be described as a piece of smear propaganda painting Bernie Sanders as a communist sympathizer because he was participating in an outreach program in Russia that happened to have been started by Reagan and supported by several politicians on both sides of the aisle. It was a stunning piece of hypocrisy for an institution that seems to see itself as the last bastion of truth in Trumpworld, it was clearly calculated to give Biden an edge in the primaries... and it was nothing short of disgusting.

And four years ago I believe it would have been quietly swept under the rug and quickly forgotten about.

So yeah, the media is often biased. The media is often hypocritical. The media often publishes stories that it's irresponsible to publish. And thanks to Donald Trump, more people recognize that. Just because his motives were selfish and he was amplifying the situation to an utterly comical degree doesn't mean that the greater scrutiny of the media that's resulted isn't a good thing.

[Lord Dave]

I feel like that last paragraph in honk's post was directed at me. If it was I feel like it should be pointed out that I never propped Trump up as a hero on this. And I never said that Trump's intentions were anything but self-serving.

That being said, after Trump was elected, several stories were published that were in bad faith, quoting unreliable sources, twisting the facts, what have you. I feel like before Trump's presidency, unless the offender was Fox News, such incidents were quietly retracted with no further mention.

But because Trump has amplified the idea that the media is out to get him, every time such an incident happened a big deal was made about it. It was always cited as evidence of fake news; never mind that these incidents tend to be few and far between, representing a fraction of a fraction of the media's total output, which anyone able to apply a little critical thinking to the situation can see.

But I do think the media is being more careful now as a result of the heightened scrutiny. They're still fucking up and being called out for it, and now, not even necessarily when Trump is the subject; witness the reaction after the NYT published what could only reasonably be described as a piece of smear propaganda painting Bernie Sanders as a communist sympathizer because he was participating in an outreach program in Russia that happened to have been started by Reagan and supported by several politicians on both sides of the aisle. It was a stunning piece of hypocrisy for an institution that seems to see itself as the last bastion of truth in Trumpworld, it was clearly calculated to give Biden an edge in the primaries... and it was nothing short of disgusting.

And four years ago I believe it would have been quietly swept under the rug and quickly forgotten about.

So yeah, the media is often biased. The media is often hypocritical. The media often publishes stories that it's irresponsible to publish. And thanks to Donald Trump, more people recognize that. Just because his motives were selfish and he was amplifying the situation to an utterly comical degree doesn't mean that the greater scrutiny of the media that's resulted isn't a good thing.

The problem with this line of thinking is that Trump and his supporters are narrow focused.  Main Stream Media has become synonimous with Left leaning media.  (So anything not Fox or right leaning, really)  Everyone knew the media was biased long before Trump but now half the country thinks that any left leaning media is full of lies and can't be trusted.  Trump drove his supporters right past "question all the media" and into the realm of "Only my word is true...".  He went too far and it's going to take years to backtrack enough to get to a meaningful "The media is heavily biased, so be wary.".

[timterroo]

We don't have a lot of serious Trump support here. Tom is a troll and totallackey is...totallackey. Rushy is about the closest thing to a sincere Trump supporter we have here, and here's what he said a year and a half ago on the same subject:

Trump was the only one willing to admit we're in a trade war with China, we have been for decades, and the only one willing to take serious steps against it.

Trump was the only one willing to draw down in countries like Syria and avoid the Libya debacle entirely.

Trump was the only one willing to loudly proclaim that we should, in fact, not flood our border with uneducated hordes of third world people.

Trump was the only one willing to tell NATO that they should stop demanding the US do something about Russia when they can't even bother to maintain their own defense forces. The Pentagon projected that without the US, the combined forces of NATO would LOSE a conventional war against Russia. Russia's GDP is only a fraction of the EU's! That's disgraceful.

Trump refused the UN migration treaty and refused the Paris Climate Change agreement, both of which were merely ways to take American taxpayer money and distribute it to other nations with no real way of ensuring it is used to do anything other than line foreign pockets. People need to stop falling for the "moral high ground" meme. If a treaty is wrapped up in the morality of "well you need to sign this or you'll look really bad!" then be very suspicious of the fine print. These agreements are usually a trojan horse. The Paris Climate Change agreement is about climate change as much as the People's Republic of China is a republic.


Trump isn't the perfect conservative, but he was better than the other tools who would be Bush 2.0 and start throwing money to other nations and invading the Middle East like it was a god-given right. Trump is doing so many things right that even Fox has started to hate on him quite a bit. I love it. I love anyone that each media channel absolutely despises, because clearly they're doing something right. My only concern is that Trump is far too pro-Israel. In fact my primary concern is that EVERY politician is too pro-Israel. Zionist scum.

As you can see, Trump's appeal apparently lies in what he says. Trump says this, Trump says that. None of his positions are particularly extraordinary, it's just his phrasing that stands out. Other politicians won't spread racially-charged conspiracy theories about hordes of illegal immigrants swarming us, but a tough response to illegal immigration has always been a Republican staple. The same goes for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement - plenty of Republicans have taken anti-environmentalist stances in the past. Rushy almost touches on this faux-maverick approach at the end by highlighting Trump's pro-Israel stance and how it doesn't differ from any other mainstream politician. Trump is ideologically a standard Republican (because he has no ideology or political beliefs of his own) whose blunt, crude manner of speech and embrace of conspiracy theories has somehow made standard Republican positions sound rebellious and daring.

There's also the childish refrain of how if the media thinks that Trump is bad he must therefore be good, which I find to be an especially irritating and very, very weak argument - and yet it keeps popping up, and even non-Trump supporters will occasionally "concede" this point to him. "At least Trump is exposing what hypocrites the media are!" "At least Trump is helping turn the tables on the lying media!" No, no, no. At no point in Trump's war with the media have his interests ever aligned with ours ("ours" meaning anyone who isn't Trump). Trump hates the media because they report on his scandals and failures, they fact-check his lies, and they won't divulge the names of their anonymous sources so that Trump can promptly fire them. Those are not your reasons to dislike or distrust the media. They aren't the reasons of anyone who isn't Trump. The media has many flaws, but Trump has done nothing to highlight or expose them, because the only thing he cares about is himself. Stop giving him credit for things he hasn't earned.

Tbh, rushys comments make the most sense of any reasons Ive heard to date, but my distrust for Trump
Is so great, I cant believe that he didn’€™t have some hidden agenda.

[Rama Set]

Trump just claimed he has done more for the black community than any president in history, including Abraham Lincoln. Why were people worried about Biden again?

[honk]

That being said, after Trump was elected, several stories were published that were in bad faith, quoting unreliable sources, twisting the facts, what have you.

There are always going to be a couple of stories like that for every president, like the dumb one from MSNBC last August. But as a trend or a widespread occurrence, I don't think this is true. There were, however, a couple of stories that you chose to dismiss as being too trivial to care about, like the "Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War" debacle. I still strongly disagree with you and the half-dozen other members who defended Trump on that one. I expect the President of the United States to already have a reasonably firm grasp of American history, and I don't believe that I should laud him for clearly just starting to learn about that subject for the first time in his life. There was also the time Trump rudely shoved his way to the front of a group photograph instead of being a human being and asking the people ahead of him to excuse him. You notably seemed to agree with me that time, but there were plenty of other members ready to shout me down. (I especially love Pete's argument that I should walk slowly in Times Square and see if I get jostled. Very apt!) I feel like there were more stories we discussed here, but none come to mind. My main point is that it comes down to standards. If you see Trump as just being Trump, living his life the way he usually does, then articles criticizing his laziness, arrogance, and ignorance are going to seem petty and trivial. But Trump isn't just Trump, he's the president, and that's how he should be judged.

[timterroo]

. But Trump isn't just Trump, he's the president, and that's how he should be judged.

[Tom Bishop]

REEEEEEEE

There is nothing wrong with Trump. He's an attentive and thoughtful president who loves America. The problem is generally on your part. The problem is that you are a part of some weird cult which must make these Orange Man Bad arguments as an axiom of faith. I haven't heard the negative people here say one objectively positive thing about Trump; only pure forced negativity.

This cult has always been on the wrong side of history. It was the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow laws, and the party which opposed Civil Rights. If one side is the party of law and order, this one is the party of crime. A party which claims that the other side are fascists while simultaneously seeking to impose facism and censorship. A party which has few redeeming qualities, and has always been founded on hatred for America. A party which has no real intelligible platform except to incorrectly call other people racists and facists to try to make teenagers idealize them as moral champions. It is all very pathetic. The party has gotten so extreme in recent years that it is no longer a viable political party. Trump won and these false riots and false pandemic overstep tactics and false moral outrage are the symptoms of a dying movement performing one increasingly extreme act after another to drum up some kind of 'emotional' public support, as it struggles for life.

[Lord Dave]

I was wondering when Tom would stawman.

[Tumeni]

There is nothing wrong with Trump. He's an attentive and thoughtful president who loves America.

(Hogwash. If he loved America, he would not be rolling back years' worth of environmental protection regulations, such that it becomes easier and less restrictive for corporations to pollute the air, waterways, and the lands of your country. This pollution harms the people, not just within the USA, but globally

Please provide examples of his attention and thoughfulness)

The problem is generally on your part. The problem is that you are a part of some weird cult which must make these Orange Man Bad arguments as an axiom of faith. I haven't heard the negative people here say one objectively positive thing about Trump; only pure forced negativity.

(Is there anything positive that can be said about him? If so, what?)

This cult has always been on the wrong side of history. It was the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow laws, and the party which opposed Civil Rights. etc etc

It's not all about America, Tom. As I mentioned, Trump is remarkably ignorant of his, and your country's, climate change responsibilities. Pretty much the whole wide world agrees that we need to be MORE restrictive in our pollution and emissions regulations, but there Trump goes, totally ignorant of international agreements, rolling back the environmental regulations to make things easier and maximise profit for his business pals and those with investments in same, allowing them to be even more lax about what they do, what they pollute, and the harm they cause. 

This affects us all. This is not purely an American matter. Your leadership needs to work with the rest of the civilised world, not against it.

The trouble with critiquing the American political landscape, from my non-American perspective, is that Repubs quickly descend into name-calling and mud-slinging, without discussing the issues. Anything non-congruent with the Repub view is immediately tagged as "libtard", "socialist" or such. You're showing this same tendency with your last paragraph, failing to discuss the person who is the topic of the thread, and striking off at a half-hearted name-calling at the collective opposition

[timterroo]

REEEEEEEE

There is nothing wrong with Trump.

Is this your opinion? Objectively, Trump is a compulsive liar. Is there nothing wrong with that?

He's an attentive and thoughtful president who loves America. The problem is generally on your part. The problem is that you are a part of some weird cult which must make these Orange Man Bad arguments as an axiom of faith. I haven't heard the negative people here say one objectively positive thing about Trump; only pure forced negativity.

This cult has always been on the wrong side of history. It was the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow laws, and the party which opposed Civil Rights. If one side is the party of law and order, this one is the party of crime. A party which claims that the other side are fascists while simultaneously seeking to impose facism and censorship. A party which has few redeeming qualities, and has always been founded on hatred for America.

A party which has no real intelligible platform except to incorrectly call other people racists and facists to try to make teenagers idealize them as moral champions. It is all very pathetic. The party has gotten so extreme in recent years that it is no longer a viable political party. Trump won and these false riots and false pandemic overstep tactics and false moral outrage are the symptoms of a dying movement performing one increasingly extreme act after another to drum up some kind of 'emotional' public support, as it struggles for life.

Cult? If you're making this about partisanship, don't forget that Trump was originally going to run for the reform party, not the republican party. The only reason Trump ran as a republican is because that is how he saw himself winning - it has never been about anything more than winning for Donald.

I understand there have been many poor laws passed in this country, by both parties. Remember the patriot act that was signed into law by a republican president? It was further extended this past March by the republican senate. In fact they further added the ability for Feds to search people's browser history without a warrant. This was a republican move, so let's not get into a debate about which party is more or less for civil rights.

Edit:

Also, you have failed to answer the question of "why do you support Trump?". It seems clear that you are anti-democratic, which is fine, but all you have said is that if you don't support Trump you are part of an Orange-man-bad cult......

Your response is nothing more than a hypocritical rant - the question was "why do you support Trump?" not "Why don't you like anti-Trumpers?"