Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[cubby]

well the Georgia GOP passed a law to cancel Delta's tax breaks for them just speaking against the voting billing
@cubby Wouldnt this be at least knocking on the door of 1st amendment land seeing this is literally the government taking an action to punish a (at least according to the GOP) people too my friend corporation for what was said.

It's certainly knocking on the door of first amendment issues, but the contract can be reassigned so long as the GA state assembly follows their rules.

The real issue is the cancel culture the GOP continues to push for no reason. Keep in mind Kemp admitted that the new Voting Laws have nothing to do with election fraud. It's amazing the GA grass roots isn't moving for a recall election after that admission.

[PhaelixWW]

Hey, so... remember about a year ago when Trump said that he wanted the US "opened up and just raring to go by Easter" with "packed churches"?

What a difference a year makes, eh?

Cases:
Easter 2020: 0.58m cases
Easter 2021: 31.5m cases

Deaths:
Easter 2020: 25k deaths
Easter 2021: 570k deaths

The sad part is that I'm sure history is going to be repeating this year.

[Benggaul]

Friday's report:

70,024 new cases, about 7k fewer than last Friday. However 4 states did not report at all (even late) and last Friday looked like a bit of a correction.

Top 5:

New York: 8,099 new cases; 74 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Michigan: 6,151 new cases; 20 deaths
New Jersey: 4,529 new cases; 24 deaths
Pennsylvania: 4,016 new cases; 25 deaths

As we're heading into a holiday weekend I expected numbers to be a bit off and it seems that has come to pass. Texas is claiming only about 2k cases today which is hilarious and given that 4 states didn't even bother I think it's pretty safe to assume that reality is a bit worse than what's been reported. I expect numbers for the next few days to be off as a result.

1,001 deaths is a little under 300 fewer than last Friday and brings the total to 567,610. Just barely squeaked back over 1k but it continues dropping.

Related news:

Nearly 75% of U.S. Seniors Have Gotten At Least One Dose of COVID Vaccine--This should help keep the mortalities down a little during the next wave. While obviously not the only vulnerable demographic, I'm sure the elderly make up a huge portion of the 550k+ deaths to date in the US.

Stay safe, folks.

[Paranoid Android]

Exclusive: An investigation by The New York Times found that Trump supporters who thought they were donating just once were charged over and over by his campaign. Late last year, $64 million was refunded in contributions. https://t.co/EQiZrorO4v

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1...728117765?s=19

Keep Grifting Trump.

I would believe other campaigns have done this. With the little or somewhat hidden print saying 'recurring payment, charged monthly'.

[draynay]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1...728117765?s=19

Keep Grifting Trump.

I would believe other campaigns have done this. With the little or somewhat hidden print saying 'recurring payment, charged monthly'.

Swindling stupid people is what the Republican Party does. Love seeing how the swindled still hold Trump blameless for it.

[Breccia]

Many of you here know I wage a constant war between
1) Don't quote the whole thing
2) Fuck paywalls

So this is going to be monstrous, even by my own standards. If that bothers you, skip to the bold green line below.

Keep Grifting Trump.

I found it gastronomically hard to believe Trump would willingly refund money without a lawsuit, when there was surely a contract donators signed (without reading) explaining this.

So I read the linked article.

Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out.

Yep.

As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a “money bomb,” that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.

Yepper.

Nowhere in the article did I find any pressing legal reason to return the money, such as a lawsuit or criminal investigation. So that mystery remains unsolved.

Later in the article, the NYTimes showed this:



How obvious is it that this is a teeeeeeeeeny little pre-checked blue box you're supposed to unclick, as opposed to a large yellow button you are supposed to click to turn it on?

"Well I--"

Now imagine you're one of Trump's target audience members: willfully ill-informed, probably less familiar with computers because you're old or a farmer, and a page or two past large red buttons you were supposed to click on?

It's six months (or more) later, and they're still doing an admittedly toned-down version of this.

The sheer magnitude of the money involved is staggering for politics. In the final two and a half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their shared accounts issued more than 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. All campaigns make refunds for various reasons, including to people who give more than the legal limit. But the sum the Trump operation refunded dwarfed that of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign and his equivalent Democratic committees, which made 37,000 online refunds totaling $5.6 million in that time.

The recurring donations swelled Mr. Trump’s treasury in September and October, just as his finances were deteriorating. He was then able to use tens of millions of dollars he raised after the election, under the guise of fighting his unfounded fraud claims, to help cover the refunds he owed.

In effect, the money that Mr. Trump eventually had to refund amounted to an interest-free loan from unwitting supporters at the most important juncture of the 2020 race.

Political strategists, digital operatives and campaign finance experts said they could not recall ever seeing refunds at such a scale. Mr. Trump, the R.N.C. and their shared accounts refunded far more money to online donors in the last election cycle than every federal Democratic candidate and committee in the country combined.

Over all, the Trump operation refunded 10.7 percent of the money it raised on WinRed in 2020; the Biden operation’s refund rate on ActBlue, the parallel Democratic online donation-processing platform, was 2.2 percent, federal records show.

This goes to what you and @draynay said. Yes, this happens. No, it does not happen this often...except for Trump. You'd think that intentionally cultivating a rabid fanbase cult of people being told to ignore and even rage against facts, evidence, and truth, would give you ready access to people basically begging to be swindled by something as easy as a checkbox.

Several bank representatives who fielded fraud claims directly from consumers estimated that WinRed cases, at their peak, represented as much as 1 to 3 percent of their workload. An executive for one of the nation’s larger credit-card issuers confirmed that WinRed at its height accounted for a similar percentage of its formal disputes.

"One to three percent? Pfft. I handwave that because I don't understand context."

That figure may seem small at first glance, but financial experts said it was a shockingly large percentage, considering that political donations represent a tiny fraction of the overall United States economy.

"Oh fuck me."

Yeah. There is a difference between "Breccia's massive walls of text¹ take up a lot of one thread" and "Breccia's massive walls of text make up 1 to 3 percent of online political dialogue" because even if you'd found my posts on other forums and recognized them for what they were, it'd still be waaaaaaaaaaaay short of one percent.

"Both sides do it!"

Not really, no.

Even that was more aggressive than what the Biden campaign would do in 2020. Biden officials said they rarely used prechecked boxes to automatically have donations recur monthly or weekly; the exception was on landing pages where advertisements and emails had explicitly asked supporters to become repeat donors.

But for Mr. Trump, the prechecked monthly box was just the beginning.

By June, the campaign and the R.N.C. were experimenting with a second prechecked box, to default donors into making an additional contribution — called the money bomb. An early test arrived in the run-up to Mr. Trump’s birthday, June 14. The results were tantalizing: That date, a seemingly random Sunday, became the biggest day for online donations in the campaign’s history.

The two prechecked yellow boxes would be a fixture for the rest of the campaign. And so would a much larger volume of refunds.

Until then, the Biden and Trump operations had nearly identical refund rates on WinRed and ActBlue in 2020: 2.18 percent for Mr. Trump and 2.17 percent for Mr. Biden.

But from the day after Mr. Trump’s birthday through the rest of the year, Mr. Biden’s refund rate remained nearly flat, at 2.24 percent, while Mr. Trump’s soared to 12.29 percent.

In early September — just after learning that it had been outraised by the Biden operation in August by more than $150 million — the Trump campaign became even more aggressive.

It changed the language in the first yellow box to withdraw recurring donations every week instead of every month. Suddenly, some contributors were unwittingly making as many as half a dozen donations in 30 days: the intended contribution, the “money bomb” and four more weekly withdrawals.

See above screenshot. They're still doing this.

As the campaign’s financial problems became increasingly acute, the yellow boxes became dizzyingly more complex.

By October there were sometimes nine lines of boldface text — with ALL-CAPS words sprinkled in — before the disclosure that there would be weekly withdrawals. As many as eight more lines of boldface text came before the second additional donation disclaimer.

This is the usual rabid fanbase "both sides do it" which compares protestors blocking traffic to the people intentionally running them over.

And just to stomp out the flames of "both sides do it" and pay Russian whores to piss on the ashes:

All the banking officials said they recalled only a negligible number of complaints against ActBlue, the Democratic donation platform, although there are online review sites that feature heated complaints about unwanted charges and customer service.

"Well that's kinda bad, I guess. But I still have unwaivering faith that Trump was doing this all for the good of the American people, because I'm impervious to facts, logic, and education."

And that's where this part comes in.

Unlike ActBlue, which is a nonprofit, WinRed is a for-profit company. It makes its money by taking 30 cents of every donation, plus 3.8 percent of the amount given. WinRed was paid more than $118 million from federal committees the last election cycle; even after paying credit card fees and expenses like payroll and rent, the profits are believed to be significant.

WinRed even made money off donations that were refunded by keeping the fees it charged on each transaction, a practice it said was standard in the industry, citing PayPal; ActBlue said it does not keep fees for refunded donations. WinRed’s cut of the Trump operation’s refunds would amount to roughly $5 million before expenses. (Archived versions of WinRed’s website show it added a disclaimer saying it would keep its fees around when refunds surged.)

There is another reason Mr. Trump’s refund rates were so high: His campaign accepted millions of dollars above the legal cap, a problem exacerbated by recurring donations. A pianist in New York, for instance, contributed more than 100 times in the months leading up to Election Day, going far past the legal limit of $2,800. She was refunded $87,716.50 — three weeks after Election Day.

Not only did Trump intentionally defraud his own voters, he and his team profited from it -- even when the money was "refunded".

Trump's rabid fanbase handed Trump and his allies hundreds of millions of dollars, by grift, theft, and fraud, and they were allowed to keep a lot of it. "You got played" doesn't even come close. This is closer to "You got Alien: Colonial Marines'd".

And Trump, WinRed, and the RNC are still doing this. Because they've cultivated voters who will fall for it, over and over.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
¹ 3R, 0/6, white or blue creatures blocked by Wall of Text may not attack next turn

[PhaelixWW]

Many of you here know I wage a constant war between
1) Don't quote the whole thing
2) Fuck paywalls

So this is going to be monstrous, even by my own standards. If that bothers you, skip to the bold green line below.

You can always use the spoiler (collapse) tag for really long portions of paywall, etc.

Spoiler: 

Hello There!

Use [ collapse ]Paywall Text...[ /collapse ] with no spaces!

[Santti]

Snip

I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of them actually endorse this shit, thinking it's clever. Well, not the people who unwittingly donated more than what they meant to, of course.

[Breccia]

I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of them actually endorse this shit, thinking it's clever.

Trump got a large interest-free loan and WinRed pocketed millions upon millions.

It's clever as long as they are allowed to continue with no consequences. They built an audience of gullible rubes, explicitly for this purpose.

[Paranoid Android]

@Breccia. Cheers for breaking down the grift.

Trump the ever conman saw that people who were fed hate and fear for 20 years thru Fox and right wing media, knew they were easy marks.

Screw trying to market his name too much work. Much easier to get angry and stupid people just send you money.

[Breccia]

Cheers for breaking down the grift.

No problem. The best way to deal with this kind of fraud is with information. It's much harder to mislead the informed.

[Bodakane]

I hope every last person that donated has been screwed so hard they need to go on welfare.

They are every bit as responsible as Trump for half a million dead Americans and the further destruction of our financial stability.

[Benggaul]

I hope every last person that donated has been screwed so hard they need to go on welfare.

Bet you a lot of them already are. Several red states live off the work of some blue states, after all.

[Mayhem]

I see the US are despite an impressive vaccination program desperately trying to create their very own US version of the virus. Good luck.

[Breccia]

It’d be funny if Trump was lying on his taxes about that income.

So this is a mixed bag.

1) It's not Trump's money. WinRed was getting money for Trump's campaign, the RNC, and of course themselves.

2) Trump's been caught WinRed-handed taking interest-free loans before. So far, he's basically gotten away with it. The "loan" of defrauding the rabid fanbase and then refunding some of it is probably legal. Simply put, there's a difference between one person changing their mind 3 months later, and a million people all doing it at once. But laws are typically written on a per-case basis. Without doing any research, I suspect that there is no need for a political campaign to refund interest on a single donation, therrfore, no law requires them to do it a million times, either.

Add this to the long list of scummy things Trump does, and therefore now Republicans do, that are dishonest, immoral, unethical, and/or generally scummy. But not illegal.

Yet.

So when the FEC or whoever watchdogs Trump's campaign's finances, and they've had issues before, this fraud-based interest-free loan probably will get past. A damaging lawsuit would change things, but I believe most such lawsuits would be dismissed with "we refunded most of their money, plus here's the contract they signed".

- - - Updated - - -

In any other timeline, if the US President sanctioned a pizza shop, they might think it was a joke.

Not in this timeline so much.

There are three take-aways that leap to mind.

1) Hah hah, Trump is incompetent.

2) But really, this was his very last day -- and Trump loved putting tariffs and sanctions on people. We'd seen our share of "oh, he'll grow into the role" but it was his last day, that time had passed. For all his "only I can fix it" he went the entire length of his tenure, and was still making rookie mistakes at the end.

THIS is the true take-away from Trump's legacy. Fraud? Theft? Grabbing by the pussy? These all speak to Trump the carbon-based life form. Accusing someone running at 2 slice and a soda for $5 lunch deal as working with Venezuela's dictotor? This is the kind of thing only Trump's WH could do.

3) The last one is minor, kind of. Venezuela was basiclaly the only dictatorship Trump didn't try to side with. In fact, he threatened to bomb the shit out of them. He didn't, probably because he was held back by what was left of the "ringers" the classic Republicans put on his team.

But in the end, despite all his bluster and blowhard about being a big tough guy, what was Trump's dipolmatic legacy?

Some tariffs. Some sanctions. Laughing and clapping his hands for a French parade. A trade war that failed so hard it made the trade gap wider than Trump's fat ass. Pushing other diplomats out of the way to stand in the front of the picture. Trying to bring Russia back to G7. Being laughed out of the UN.

He wasn't just more of the same. He was "start with more of the same, then take away the parts that work or are respected, and do what's left".

Ineffective. Incompetent. IMPOTUS. A sad clown, the laughingstock of the world.

BRB. Ordering a small with green and red bell peppers.

EDIT: Saving a slice for @Bodakane who (a) brought this story to my attention and (b) has a name that sounds like a Star Wars inspired dessert.

[Bodakane]

So this is a mixed bag.

1) It's not Trump's money. WinRed was getting money for Trump's campaign, the RNC, and of course themselves.

2) Trump's been caught WinRed-handed taking interest-free loans before. So far, he's basically gotten away with it. The "loan" of defrauding the rabid fanbase and then refunding some of it is probably legal. Simply put, there's a difference between one person changing their mind 3 months later, and a million people all doing it at once. But laws are typically written on a per-case basis. Without doing any research, I suspect that there is no need for a political campaign to refund interest on a single donation, therrfore, no law requires them to do it a million times, either.

Add this to the long list of scummy things Trump does, and therefore now Republicans do, that are dishonest, immoral, unethical, and/or generally scummy. But not illegal.

Yet.

So when the FEC or whoever watchdogs Trump's campaign's finances, and they've had issues before, this fraud-based interest-free loan probably will get past. A damaging lawsuit would change things, but I believe most such lawsuits would be dismissed with "we refunded most of their money, plus here's the contract they signed".

- - - Updated - - -

In any other timeline, if the US President sanctioned a pizza shop, they might think it was a joke.

Not in this timeline so much.

There are three take-aways that leap to mind.

1) Hah hah, Trump is incompetent.

2) But really, this was his very last day -- and Trump loved putting tariffs and sanctions on people. We'd seen our share of "oh, he'll grow into the role" but it was his last day, that time had passed. For all his "only I can fix it" he went the entire length of his tenure, and was still making rookie mistakes at the end.

THIS is the true take-away from Trump's legacy. Fraud? Theft? Grabbing by the pussy? These all speak to Trump the carbon-based life form. Accusing someone running at 2 slice and a soda for $5 lunch deal as working with Venezuela's dictotor? This is the kind of thing only Trump's WH could do.

3) The last one is minor, kind of. Venezuela was basiclaly the only dictatorship Trump didn't try to side with. In fact, he threatened to bomb the shit out of them. He didn't, probably because he was held back by what was left of the "ringers" the classic Republicans put on his team.

But in the end, despite all his bluster and blowhard about being a big tough guy, what was Trump's dipolmatic legacy?

Some tariffs. Some sanctions. Laughing and clapping his hands for a French parade. A trade war that failed so hard it made the trade gap wider than Trump's fat ass. Pushing other diplomats out of the way to stand in the front of the picture. Trying to bring Russia back to G7. Being laughed out of the UN.

He wasn't just more of the same. He was "start with more of the same, then take away the parts that work or are respected, and do what's left".

Ineffective. Incompetent. IMPOTUS. A sad clown, the laughingstock of the world.

BRB. Ordering a small with green and red bell peppers.

EDIT: Saving a slice for @Bodakane who (a) brought this story to my attention and (b) has a name that sounds like a Star Wars inspired dessert.

They should have booked a press conference at the Four Seasons for this one.....

[Breccia]

Trump, upset at cancel culture, demands his followers use cancel culture.

- - - Updated - - -

So remember how Trump and his alllies, such as DeSantis, led the charge to roll back environmental regulations? Good times...good times...

DeSantis declares state of emergency for three Florida counties, including evacuation orders, due to a possible spill of...

(checks news)

No, that can't be right.

(re-checks news)

A reservoir filled with salt, waste, and radioactive water.

The water meets water quality standards for marine waters with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen.

With the exception? "This cake is perfectly healthy, except for the lard, arsenic and glass shards"?

So, this is an incoming tide of shit water mixed with phosphoric acid and radiation. Made from artificial shit.

Wow. Imagine the conversations that bit of news caused. "No, climate change is a hoax started by the Chinese, everyone knows that! Oh sorry, I have to flee the county now, Fallout 76 is moving to my neighborhood"

[Benggaul]

Saturday's report:

66,154 new cases, about 2k fewer than last Saturday, but holiday weekend rules are definitely applying. 10 states did not bother reporting at all and other states--like Texas--are very underreported.

Top 5:

Michigan: 9,292 new cases; 65 deaths
New York: 7,893 new cases; 87 deaths
Fuck Florida.
Pennsylvania: 5,327 new cases; 36 deaths
New Jersey: 4,445 new cases; 17 deaths

New England cases continue to rise slowly and Michigan is still exploding, taking the top spot for the first time (ever?) and pushing New York to second. The site I usually use to reference positivity rates is currently a bit borked, so I can't get the normal accuracy I do, but eyeballing a few other sources tells me that Michigan is definitely top of the pile and Florida is climbing fast (currently at #6). Texas seems to have given up trying to report accurately at all--again most likely so that Abbott can try to blame Biden and "OMG OPEN BORDER DEMS" for the inevitable spikes they'll experience there later.

807 deaths is slightly lower than last Saturday and brings the total to 568,513. Numbers will be off for the next few days at least, however, and I think the actual number (including the 10 states that didn't report at all) probably brings the number slightly higher. I still believe the overall trend is dropping, though.

Related news:

Canada's 3rd wave of COVID-19 is 'killing faster and younger' and fueled by new variants--Not US news, per se, but a portent of things to come if we lose the race against the new variants. Speaking of which...

First confirmed case of Indian coronavirus variant in U.S. found in California--This variant hasn't been studied enough yet to find out how much of a danger it is, but ANY variant is likely to be at the very least problematic in the fight against the virus.

Stay safe, folks.

[Breccia]

By the way, here's the list of companies Trump asked his rabid fanbase to cancel culture, because they engaged in cancel culture which is bad:

It is finally time for Republicans and Conservatives to fight back— we have more people than they do— by far! Boycott Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS and Merck. Don’t go back to their products until they relent. We can play a better game than them,

Well, let's count 'em down.

1) I was kidding about the airport.

2) Are people supposed to cut up their credit cards?

3) Is Trump asking his fans to ditch Coke? Arguably the most popular drink on the planet?

4) Also, Coke and CBS...is Disney next? Does Trump's fat ass think he can go toe-to-bone-spur with the Mouse?

5) And of course, there's the lack of self-awareness (or blatant lie) of "we have more people than they do" from the man who lost the popular vote, twice, called "rigged" each time, had an investigation each time, and was the proven loser each time.

I'm sure Trump will welcome this approach when these companies, and anyone else for that matter, call a boycott on Trump's companies as well. I wonder if Mar-a-Lago hs a deal with Coke?

[gondrin]

By the way, here's the list of companies Trump asked his rabid fanbase to cancel culture, because they engaged in cancel culture which is bad:



Well, let's count 'em down.

1) I was kidding about the airport.

2) Are people supposed to cut up their credit cards?

3) Is Trump asking his fans to ditch Coke? Arguably the most popular drink on the planet?

4) Also, Coke and CBS...is Disney next? Does Trump's fat ass think he can go toe-to-bone-spur with the Mouse?

5) And of course, there's the lack of self-awareness (or blatant lie) of "we have more people than they do" from the man who lost the popular vote, twice, called "rigged" each time, had an investigation each time, and was the proven loser each time.

I'm sure Trump will welcome this approach when these companies, and anyone else for that matter, call a boycott on Trump's companies as well. I wonder if Mar-a-Lago hs a deal with Coke?

Well, Trump did have a Diet Coke button installed in the White House. I'm pretty sure his boycott will last as long his attention span during an intelligence briefing without a picture book to look at. The funny thing about Coke is that most of the restaurants have them as their soda choice. The only ones that have Pepsi generally are Yum Brands with a few exceptions here and there.