@freemo
Three: Profiteering and corruption

There are a couple really obvious cases, like the military planes being re-routed to Trump properties, or him suggesting a G7 summit should happen at his resort. There are also less clear ones, like the Saudis renting rooms at Trump's hotel, which I would label as coincidental normally, but the brazen ones plus the lack of transparency I mentioned before raises my priors for foul play.

The blatant profiteering seems pretty clear-cut, the actual political corruption less so. Again, maybe I lack knowledge about the US system, but I was under the impression at least the two former points were clearly illegal.

@freemo
Four: Appointments by decree

This one I'm actually very unsure about, but it's not topic, and learning that I am wrong would be useful. Supposedly Trump appointed multiple people as "Acting $POSITION", bypassing Senate confirmations. By itself this is not a problem, but the claim is that this happened to significantly more positions than in previous administrations and for a longer time without the confirmation.
What is surprizing and especially suspicious to me is that the current
senate is generally aligned with the president, so why would he even do that? This is both suspicious in the sense that I'm less inclined to trust what I think I know of this case, as well as in the sense of arousing suspicion of foul play if it actually happened.

@freemo
Five: Endorsements of violence and extremism

The most relevant example is still fresh -- the "I LOVE TEXAS!" tweet with the video of trucks surrounding a Biden campaign bus.
There were many earlier examples too, the "fine people on both sides" comment, "stand back and stand by" directed towards a militant group, the main reaction to the Michigan kidnapping attempt being criticizing the attempted victim (and afaik no actual condemnation of the attempt?).

I am not completely sure that I have all the facts right in these cases, in particular as to how dangerous the various endorsed groups are, but at least the first one is very clear-cut. I looked at the context of the statements and it ranges from somewhat lessening the impact, but still bad (with the both sides comment) to actually worse (with the "stand by" comment). I would have this point higher, since political violence is a very serious thing, but it is known that Trump says whatever his saliva brings to his tongue (to borrow an expression from my native language), so hopefully the impact of his words is lessened by fewer people taking him seriously. This is, however, quite a terrible excuse.

@freemo
Final note

I restricted myself to only instances where I believe Trump damages the democratic and rule of law systems in the US, specifically omitting other policy. That is due to the fact that I believe the continued
adherence to these systems of checks and balances is crucial for the continued wellbeing of a nation, without them it risks sliding rapidly into authoritarianism. There are still rational reasons to vote for the man (the closest to my heart being the fact that he did not start any new wars), but I struggle to imagine a reasonable person choosing them over democratic standards. Again, I am not a US citizen, so the impact
on me is limited and unclear whether bad or good (legitimizing dismantling democracy vs an actually more isolationist US foreign policy), so I would mostly like to learn whether the above beliefs arose due to propaganda or they are actually correct.

Thanks for any answers, but please don't feel pressured if you have better things to do or are sick of the topic.

@timorl Trump lacks even the smallest sense of charisma and I think one of the most damning things about him, and what gets him in so much trouble, is how he talks and how he tries to deflect criticism.

In that regard I agree, he didn't really handle these questions too well. What we wanted was him to decry people who acted out violently that appeared to be aligned with him politically. He didn't do that out of fear that it would cause him to loose supporters... That was a mistake on his part IMO.

To an extent I understand why he responded as he did, though I dont agree with it. I think he viewed the very question as a way for democrats to get one over on him.. if he dencounces the violence then he is 1) legitimizing that it is real and a concern and 2) loosing support from the people who do not view the violence as real and instead view the violence of the left as the legitimate violence (antifa). So he took the approach of dodging the bullet.

While I do agree trump should have very vocally denounced the violence, and there is no excuse for that, I also dont see Biden denouncing the extreme violence of Antifa, which is many orders of mangitude worse right now. When I am int he USA I live in philadelphia. We have been rioting like crazy the past few months and a large part of the violence i see right outside my door is largely antifa. They have been rioting, burning homes and businesses tot he ground, and assaulting people on the street in open violence like I've never seen before. There have been days the sky was black with fires here as self-proclaimed antifa run around like gangs assaulting anyone who has a MAGA hat on or supports trump.

The violence I've personally seen out my very window from antifa is horrific and yet I have yet to witness even a single pro-trumper act with this sort of violence.

So on this point I have to ask, have I seen Biden decrying antifa... the answer is, nope.. In fact I dont even see the media cornering him demanding he does like they did with trump.

So while I may give Trump a black mark for not detesting the violence outright, I would give biden and the democrats 10 black marks for doing the same in the face of much greater and widespread violence.

@freemo The antifa claims are strange to me – I was under the impression that most people ramming the protests and doing similarly scary stuff were mostly right-wing. Trump supporters and opponents have regular shouting matches (I saw clips in which either side could be considered the agressor) and there are the looters, opportunistic and not strongly politically affilated as far as I can tell. But in this I can well be wrong, since you say you saw that – how exactly did the antifa members self-identify if I might ask?

@timorl This, in my eyes is mostly a non point.. We are talking about positions that dont have any actual power.. they cant vote for anything, they cant pass any laws or do anything politicially.. We are talking basically about people that trump wants as advisors. So I really dont see any problem with him assigning those positions to anyone he wants, or how long those positions retain an "acting" title. If the position holds no actual power I simply dont see this as an issue in the first place.

@freemo I wasn't aware all these positions don't have any power. Why do they require confirmations then, do you know?

@timorl My understanding is that the confirmation is largely due to the fact that they are exposed to ifnormation that is secret. For example someone advising the president on say war would need to know about troop deployments that are otherwise kept secret. It largely a trust issue than a power issue as I understand it.

@freemo Aand that is back to concerning again. Although just normally concerning, not rapid-slide-towards-authoritarianism concerning, so meh.

@timorl Most of the examples of profiteering, except a few minor ones, are actually just normal business and what is expected..

Lets take saudis rending rooms at trump hotels and generally using ones own property to host government activities and being able to charge for it. While this certainly seems wrong at first glance, it is actually something every president has done and is very much the norm.

For example Biden does the same thing, and has done it for his whole career... For example secrete service and aids often need to follow him to wheverver he goes. It is not unusual, and very much the norm, for him to do business out of his home or in a property he owns, like trump, and those aids and SS need to follow him. As such Biden and other politicians, routinely charge the US government for those aids and SS to use or be on his property.

An example of this government employees pay **regular** rent to biden as he has instructed them to rent out one of his cottages and effectively live there.

So yea, this may look bad but the truth is, charging the government to use your own facilities in the course of normal day to day work is very much the norm and Trump really isnt doing that much different in that regard. Just like Biden wanting to be able to work occasionally out of a place he calls home, Trump does the same.

@freemo That is very surprizing to me, I thought it was explicitly forbidden by the emoluments law. DId Biden also do this while he was the VP?

Anyway it seems to me that renting to people who by law have to stay close to you is much different to sending planes to your resorts or organizing international meetings in your business, both in scale and in substance.

By the way, since you implied you might know – is there any other place the Secret Service agents could live while staying close enough to Biden?

@timorl Yes he did it while he was VP and its actively done by most politicians. It is the norm.

But im not sure there is much difference between working out of your home and demanding government agents pay to be there, and working out of your corporate business which you effectively use as a home and do the same.

For me at least the difference between these two are semantic at best.

@freemo I am extremely surprized you don't see the difference, especially at scale, but I'm not sure what I could say to convince you.

@timorl Oh no, I do at scale. I am not justifying it at scale at all. I am not condoning the action, I dont like when other politicians do it either honestly.. But what I'm saying is it is the norm and we are talking about one event he happened to host and made him very little money. You have to keep in mind the amount of money made hosting a shindig and catering it is completely insignificant to someone like trump. Like yea I get that it isnt a violation and shouldnt be allowed, but its not really a good example of trump trying to syphon money off of the government either.

To put things into perspective the salary trump denied as president is likely significantly larger than the amount of money he made hosting a single event at his resotort. I dont condone it, but i find it insignificant in the grand scheme of things is all.

@freemo Wait, which event are we talking about? The G7 thing did not end up happening, so was there another? o.0

@timorl yea there was one he actually hosted. I dont recall the event though I just remember reading about how allt he people thought the food sucked :)

@freemo Lol, that's why I started trusting everything I read about Trump being bad. Every time I see a report of something so blantantly evil he did, that I feel the need to investigate further it turns out it's actually _worse_ than the media presented. >.< I thought he only toyed with the idea, not that he actually did it.

@timorl While I wouldnt go that far, I find almsot all media about him to generally be either extreme exagerations or blatent lies.. BUT with that said, the man is certainly evil and I dont like him in the least.

Remember my argument isnt that trump is not bad.. my argument is simply that 1) biden is worse 2) most of the facts against trump are distorted and exagerated to make him loose worse than he is, even if he is plenty bad on his own.

@freemo That's what I thought, but every time I look into especially terrible quotes they end up even worse in context. The only *exception* I remember was the "drinking bleach" debacle, where it was actually "injecting disinfectant as a medical trial", which makes him an absolute idiot (not evil) in this instance.

@timorl Also no, I really dont know if there is anywhere else for the secrete service agents to live, though its not exactly limited to SS. Politicians when not on the hill often work out of their private residences and properties and this often means charging aids and others as well not just the SS.

@timorl Transparency of government is a big issue for me as well.

Trump certainly hasnt won my love over in the transparency department, though neither did any previous president honestly. So the question for me is if he backtracked us in terms of transparency or not, because he certainly hasnt done anything I am aware of to make progress on that issue (though neither has biden to be honest).

With that said I am an evidence based person and like you most of the claims here abotu FOIA and such are just hear say and we cant confirm it, so I have to put that aside without evidence.

Where I think there is some validity and good evidence to prove on this issue is where he withheld not just COVID-19 data but also tried to take down scientific data on issues like global warming by using federal funding as leverage. There have been reports from quite a few science organizations that confirm this. Granted I cant completely verify this either but enough different sources have raised hell about this I am compelled to think it is valid.

So on this one, at least in regard to science data, I would agree with you, it is damning against trump.

In fact I'd say trumps anti-science anti-environmental approach to things (the transparency thing seems secondary to that and limited to those areas) is his most damning quality. His obstruction of science/environmental issues is absolutely the worst tick mark against him out of the lot. It is also where I personally dislike his policies the most.

Though to bring this back to a biden comparison, for me this election like most is about weighing the two evils that are the candidates. So while this is a huge black mark against trump, in the big picture it doesnt approach the things Biden has done, so ultimately i am stuck favoring Trump despite not liking him, at least out of the two.

@timorl Oh but to be clear I have absolutely no issue with him witholding his tax returns.. He has every legal right to do so, there is no law suggesting he has to release it, and frankly I see no benefit to him releasing it. Paying more taxes than you owe is not a moral obligation and using the law to reduce your tax burden is not something that should be held agaisnt him..

Not only do u support him not releasing his taxes, I wholeheartedly agree with that decision. I can see no reason they would need to be released . Now if he cheated on taxes**that** we would want to know. But if he did that it would be on public record as the IRS makes that information public.

The reason people want and demand taxes is simply because americans have this misguided notion that if you pay the amount of tax the tax law dictates you are required to, and no more, that you are somehow a bad person.. In my eyes this is nonsense.

@freemo I think the FOIA data is actually available, only hard to search, so technically there is no need to believe heresay.

I know revealing tax returns is not mandatory, but it was a nice informal policy while it lasted. There are two main reasons due to which I think it was useful: 1. Making it clear how the candidate gets money, which makes corruption harder to hide. 2. Essentially the reason you pointed out, but not caricaturised – if people feel someone pays less than their fair share of taxes (whatever that may be) this informs them as to what tax policy that person will support, which is a very vald reason to vote for or against someone.

@freemo This response reads as if you haven't read the Mueller report – if that is the case I would definitely recommend at least reading the various conclusion subsections, they are quite informative.

To be more explicit, Russia was influencing the elections and there were undisclosed meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russians – that much was established by the investigation, before it had to focus on the obstruction angle, since it was so disruptive. While this doesn't say much as to whether there was actual illegal activity by the campaign (at least with respect to Russians; other illegal activity of the campaign is matter of public record), it definitely shows the obstruction was significant.

Many instances of obstruction are also clearly documented in the report, if you want more reliable sources than media.

I would also argue that not cooperating with investigations, while may be good advice for most people (although it's scary that it is in the US), shouldn't be the standard by which public figures are held. And, as far as I know, the standard was higher before – I recall at least Clinton having no problems testifying (both of them actually, on separate occasions) and I thought other people from the Obama admin also testified, although finding the instances is harder, so maybe I'm wrong in that regard.

Some examples of Biden abusing power would be nice.

@timorl I have read the mueller report, and that is not true.. The following are direct quotes from either the report itself or the special investigators giving the report. What is clear is that while the report did determine russia interfered in the election there was no evidence to suggest Trump was aware of or coordinate with russia in doing so. Their interference was of their own accord. Here are the quotes directly from the investigators and the report itself:

"“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” this is a direct quote from the report iself, specifically from the four page summary of the report.

Moreover Barr directly addressed the question of obstruction of justice and determined trump did not commit obstruction of justice during the investigation, here is the quote for that "[Investigators] have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”"

@freemo Yes, "did not establish". That's why there is a whole part 2 of the report. The wording is also very cerful, since from what I understand it at least established that information was transferred from Russia to the campaign (without coordination or conspiration) regarding the timing of the e-mail leaks. Afaik that's not illegal, so maybe it's a moot point, but it seems at least questionable morally.

The Barr letter is a gross mispresentation of the report and this specific passage is both implicitly contradicted by the report (it stresses heavily that the reasons Trump was not charged are due to the rules and memos on charging the president) and somewhat more explicitly by Muellers response (during his hearings) to the question if Trump could be charged after his term. I don't see a reason to trust Barr in this case, especially since he was appointed by Trump during the investigation iirc.

@timorl I provided one quote from barr, the other is directly from the report. Both assert the same point, that no collusion was found.

@freemo No, the one from the report only states that no evidence of cooperation with Russia has been found. The one about obstruction of justice is pure Barr.

@timorl oh yes, thats correct.. the report itself didnt really address the obstruction of justice part as much in terms of any final conclusions..

But the fact of the matter is the report itself very explicitly states there was no cooperation between trump and russia.

@freemo Again, no. It claims it found no evidence. Followed by the second _half_ of the report which investigates why, and which wasn't allowed to end with charging, so the most it could do is suggest impeaching between the lines. Which, well... reading between the lines is an inexact art, but I'm pretty sure it did.

@timorl do you have any specific quotes from the report which explicit state that there was evidence of collusion? I will happily change my mind if you can find me a specific quote from the report that overturns the quote i already provided.

@freemo Not collusion, the quote you provided makes it clear they didn't find evidence of that. They found plenty evidence of obstruction of justice though and that is the problem – if you obstruct justice successfully then the evidence will not be found. That's why obstruction of justice is a crime itself.

@timorl Alright, then do you have a quote fromt he report that claims trump acted illegally in a big to obstruct justice?

@freemo Well, most of part two, and the conclusions section makes it as clear as possible with the constraints imposed (cannot be charged etc).

@freemo Ugh, sorry I gotta go, thanks for the discussion and if you want more specific pointers to the report let me know, I can provide them tomorrow.

@timorl ill be here tomorrow, have a great evening.