Trump's sacrifices

“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump told Stephanopoulos. “I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done, I’ve had … I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”

The Labors of Hercules pale in comparison.

you have to admit, it hasn't been easy doing it with those little baby hands.

tjohn said:

“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump told Stephanopoulos. “I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done, I’ve had … I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”


The Labors of Hercules pale in comparison.

As Mr. Khan (or was it Mrs. Khan) said, he truly doesn't know the meaning of the word. I think his vocabulary is not up to snuff for a fifth grader.

he has the best words.

I think everybody is being a bit unfair.  He has, apparently, sacrificed some of his wealth in order to create jobs.  I have heard that if he had just invested all of Daddy's money in an S&P 500 index fund, he would be far richer than he currently is.

tjohn said:

I think everybody is being a bit unfair.  He has, apparently, sacrificed some of his wealth in order to create jobs.  I have heard that if he had just invested all of Daddy's money in an S&P 500 index fund, he would be far richer than he currently is.

Yes,  multiple times over

tjohn said:

I think everybody is being a bit unfair.  He has, apparently, sacrificed some of his wealth in order to create jobs.  I have heard that if he had just invested all of Daddy's money in an S&P 500 index fund, he would be far richer than he currently is.

How do you know how much he is really worth? He still won't release his tax returns 

I know that this is incredibly paltry compared to the lies and offensive statements Trump makes on a nearly daily basis, but I'm fascinated by this exchange from ABC yesterday about Michael Bloomberg's criticism of him. 

TRUMP: He knows nothing about me. He's never been to my office. I don't know him well.

STEPHANOPOULOS; You played golf together.

TRUMP: Maybe once.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here's what he hit you on in the speech....

TRUMP: And I hit the ball a lot longer, and a lot better.

Here is someone running for president who has been criticized seriously by a credible person: mayor for 12 years, wealthy self-made businessman, political centrist, etc.

Yet at that moment, the most important thing in the world for the GOP presidential nominee, even necessitating interruption of Stephanopoulos, is to interject that he hit a golf ball "longer and better" than Bloomberg on that one time they played together.

Stoughton said:

I know that this is incredibly paltry compared to the lies and offensive statements Trump makes on a nearly daily basis, but I'm fascinated by this exchange from ABC yesterday about Michael Bloomberg's criticism of him. 

TRUMP: He knows nothing about me. He's never been to my office. I don't know him well.

STEPHANOPOULOS; You played golf together.

TRUMP: Maybe once.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here's what he hit you on in the speech....

TRUMP: And I hit the ball a lot longer, and a lot better.

Here is someone running for president who has been criticized seriously by a credible person: mayor for 12 years, wealthy self-made businessman, political centrist, etc.


Yet at that moment, the most important thing in the world for the GOP presidential nominee, even necessitating interruption of Stephanopoulos, is to interject that he hit a golf "longer and better" than Bloomberg on that one time they played together.

What can one say?  Never Trump.  One can only vote for Hillary.

librarylady said:
How do you know how much he is really worth? He still won't release his tax returns  ">

We can infer. He stopped building things many years ago. He makes money selling his name. New buildings go up with his name on it, and he merely licenses the name without investing in it. His other operations provide him a bit of cash, and then they go bankrupt. He lives off cash flow. That doesn't tell us what he's worth, but it doesn't matter. A lot of what he has is from stiffing people, which is a form of theft. I'm curious to know what fraction of his wealth he would have left over if he never stiffed anyone. It seems conceivable that he would be millions or perhaps billions of dollars in debt.

One of the right-wing insults directed towards Secretary Clinton is that "She's like an ex-wife" or "America's ex-wife" (the latter is from conservative "super star" Erick Erickson).

With that as inspiration, I realized that Donald Trump really should remind people of an ex-boss.  He's clueless, makes others do the work and takes the credit, is opinionated in the most wrong way possible on so many things, holds in contempt those he considers "inferior", and would rather talk about himself then about something useful.

He's the Bill Lumbergh of Presidential candidates.

The "sacrifice" angle was a big point of Ivanka's intro speech at RNC. She wanted the world to know how much her father is sacrificing to leave all his hugely successful businesses in order to come to the rescue of USA by running for president. And Mr. Khan nailed it with, "you have sacrificed nothing and no one."

Shouldn't Khan be directing his ire at war criminal George Bush and Hillary Clinton for authorizing the Iraq War?

This is the golfer's equivalent of "But I have a bigger d#ck."

Stoughton said:

I know that this is incredibly paltry compared to the lies and offensive statements Trump makes on a nearly daily basis, but I'm fascinated by this exchange from ABC yesterday about Michael Bloomberg's criticism of him. 

TRUMP: He knows nothing about me. He's never been to my office. I don't know him well.

STEPHANOPOULOS; You played golf together.

TRUMP: Maybe once.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here's what he hit you on in the speech....

TRUMP: And I hit the ball a lot longer, and a lot better.

Here is someone running for president who has been criticized seriously by a credible person: mayor for 12 years, wealthy self-made businessman, political centrist, etc.


Yet at that moment, the most important thing in the world for the GOP presidential nominee, even necessitating interruption of Stephanopoulos, is to interject that he hit a golf ball "longer and better" than Bloomberg on that one time they played together.

No.

Robert_Casotto said:

Shouldn't Khan be directing his ire at war criminal George Bush and Hillary Clinton for authorizing the Iraq War?

No.

Robert_Casotto said:

Shouldn't Khan be directing his ire at war criminal George Bush and Hillary Clinton for authorizing the Iraq War?

No.  But thanks for contributing the right-wing attempted misdirection to this thread.

The Khan family's comments were not about the war, they are about Trump's pandering to religious bigotry.  Trump fans are trying responses such as yours as a misdirection.  Maybe you and the rest of them are engaging in "damage control" so as to fool some Trump voters into thinking too much about how distasteful their candidate's actions have been regarding this.

A good commentary on what Trump's behavior portends for the rest of the campaign -

Donald Trump’s continuing war with the Khan family — which Trump inexplicably continued to keep in the news this morning with a series of new tweets — raises the specter of a brutal trap for Republicans.

It’s this: If individual Republicans don’t break off their support for Trump’s candidacy now — by, say, withdrawing their endorsements — they run the risk of having no choice but to do so after Trump sinks even further into wretchedness and depravity, to a point of true no return. (Presumably there is such a point.) At that juncture, their move will look unprincipled and desperate, leaving them stained — perhaps irrevocably — with their previous willingness to stick by him during much of his descent, and depriving their break with him of whatever moral force it might have had if done earlier.

As some Republicans are already remarking, Trump’s battle with the Khan family makes it harder and harder to avoid acknowledging the possibility that we really have no idea how low Trump will sink.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/08/01/the-khan-family-highlights-a-huge-gop-problem-no-one-knows-how-low-trump-can-go/

nohero said:

A good commentary on what Trump's behavior portends for the rest of the campaign -

Donald Trump’s continuing war with the Khan family — which Trump inexplicably continued to keep in the news this morning with a series of new tweets — raises the specter of a brutal trap for Republicans.

It’s this: If individual Republicans don’t break off their support for Trump’s candidacy now — by, say, withdrawing their endorsements — they run the risk of having no choice but to do so after Trump sinks even further into wretchedness and depravity, to a point of true no return. (Presumably there is such a point.) At that juncture, their move will look unprincipled and desperate, leaving them stained — perhaps irrevocably — with their previous willingness to stick by him during much of his descent, and depriving their break with him of whatever moral force it might have had if done earlier.

As some Republicans are already remarking, Trump’s battle with the Khan family makes it harder and harder to avoid acknowledging the possibility that we really have no idea how low Trump will sink.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/08/01/the-khan-family-highlights-a-huge-gop-problem-no-one-knows-how-low-trump-can-go/

Republicans and Democrats assumed that DJT would act as a normal candidate after the primaries. I don't think anyone imagined that he would sink even lower. For normal, non-sociopathic people, this type of behavior was unimaginable. Literally. We were unable to imagine that such behavior would be within the realm of possibility for a presidential candidate.

From the VFW:

VFW Supports Gold Star Families
To ridicule a Gold Star Mother is out-of-bounds

August 01, 2016
WASHINGTON — Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump has a history of lashing out after being attacked, but to ridicule a Gold Star Mother is out-of-bounds, said the new national commander of the near 1.7 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and its Auxiliary.

“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression,” said Brian Duffy, of Louisville, Ky., who was elected July 27 to lead the nation’s oldest and largest major war veterans organization.

“There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed,” he said. “Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by all Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard.”

http://www.vfw.org/News-and-Events/Articles/2016-Articles/VFW-Supports-Gold-Star-Families/

.

Tom_Reingold said:

librarylady said:
How do you know how much he is really worth? He still won't release his tax returns  ">

We can infer. He stopped building things many years ago. He makes money selling his name. New buildings go up with his name on it, and he merely licenses the name without investing in it. His other operations provide him a bit of cash, and then they go bankrupt. He lives off cash flow. That doesn't tell us what he's worth, but it doesn't matter. A lot of what he has is from stiffing people, which is a form of theft. I'm curious to know what fraction of his wealth he would have left over if he never stiffed anyone. It seems conceivable that he would be millions or perhaps billions of dollars in debt.

Tax returns tell you about income not wealth and there are many circumstances where the one does not really reveal much about the other.  Not that I'm excusing him not releasing them, but we still wouldn't know his true wealth even if he did.

if he released 8-10 years, like many candidates do, accounting experts could draw some meaningful conclusions.

why does it even matter?

No clue.  I can't possibly imagine that what's out there already isn't enough to make a decision on him one way or the other.

exactly. I am sure it would be quite dull. We already know he makes plenty of $ and I am sure he maximizes his deductions, gives appropriate amounts to charity and so on. It would tell us nothing new or interesting.

The fact that he won't reveal them means they would likely damage his chances.  Where are the Russians when you need them?

my guess is he gives nothing to charity and works the system to pay nothing.

no way. Charitable contributions are a cornerstone of maxing out deductions

It would definitely reveal more about his sources of income and there has been speculation that some of those may be from outside the US, even Russia, FWIW.