Trump Donated Thousands, Had Close Working Relationship with Al Sharpton

Attacking Trump is a daily ritual in America today.

I run across some interesting things as I search for good photos....but since the topic is political relationship ..how about this lovely cozy photo....

Bo's man coming in for the kill ahead as the Obamas and Clintons go to war......

.....” I am actually saying it is too early to generalize. It is the Trump supporters who want to leap to the conclusion that he has the stuff to get elected in the general election”....

I think some are supporting what Trump is doing but not necessarily supporting him for President.

Yours is a passionate and lengthy reply but a reasoned one. I think it is fair to say the case you make against Ted Cruz is that he is not really a conservative and the evidence for that is his position with respect to Corker's misbegotten legislation on the procedure for legislative approval of the Iran "deal." If that reasoning fails, then your argument falls.

At some point when the TPP (the trade deal not the Iran deal) came into the news I was exercised because I thought that the process was unconstitutional (I still do) in that the Constitution explicitly calls for a treaty to be confirmed by two thirds of the Senate present and the legislation substitutes majority rule by both houses for two thirds confirmation by the Senate. So I researched the matter and I was astonished to learn that I was ignorant, it is well-established constitutional law and practice throughout our American history that instead of submitting a treaty to the Senate it is effective to secure legislation from both houses.

I don't like it, I think the explicit wording of the Constitution is clear but I concede that my initial impression was wrong at least as to how the system actually works as opposed to how it ought to work.

If I recall correctly, Mitch McConnell has stated that the president gets to choose whether or not a "deal" is a treaty and therefore, if Obama declined to submit the treaty to the Senate for approval, the Senate would have no say at all. In the event that has already occurred after a fashion when Obama submitted the treaty to the Security Council before it was delivered to Congress. I am fully aware that Mark Levin has argued that the Senate, in a case in which the president simply does not submit an agreement, could pick the deal up as though it were a treaty and submit it to a vote up or down. I do not think there is any precedent whatsoever for that but it remains an intriguing option. In the event, there was only one vote against the legislative approach so it is not reasonable to expect Cruz to die on that hill fighting that fight which was hopeless.

I further note that forty-five senators joined with Ted Cruz in writing a letter to the leaders of Iran telling them that there could be no deal without Congress of approving. Cruz was accused at the time of interfering with the negotiations, yet another example of Cruz standing up for principle and taking flak.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended the legislation which adopted the old alternative method of ratifying a treaty by simply passing authorizing legislation in both houses. Every senator except one, Tom Cotton to his credit, voted with Ted Cruz on this issue. We have no evidence that I am aware of that Donald Trump made any statement opposing this procedure. If he did not, I cannot credit him with conservatism while one faults Cruz on the same issue.

The argument for the legislative approach was that there would be no congressional oversight of the "deal" unless the alternative approach was adopted. Neither one of us knows for sure what would have happened had the legislation not been adopted, that is, whether Congress would have had any oversight whatsoever. We can speculate and pontificate but we do not know. If Congress had no oversight whatsoever because Obama declined to submit the deal but pursued it as an executive agreement and let it have effect as a practical matter because of its passage through the Security Council, certainly conservative principles would not have been served but further damaged.

With all these facts before us, I conclude that Cruz was wrong in his position as wrong but no more wrong than all the rest of the ninety-eight senators, but I cannot conclude that his position was not a conservative position. If he calculated, and there is no reason to believe that he did not especially since he participated in the letter trying to force the parties into submitting the treaty for congressional approval, that the only way to get congressional oversight was the way he and all his colleagues but one voted to get it.

Since the deal began to be leaked, no voice has been more strident in opposition to the deal than Sen. Cruz. I know he will be participating with Donald Trump and Mark Levin in the upcoming rally to protest the deal. Apparently he has not offended these two men to the degree that they think he should be ostracized.

With all of this, there is no warrant to believe that Ted Cruz is not conservative, we may join in believing he made the wrong choice but it was not an unreasonable choice given the circumstances described above and it certainly was not an anti-conservative choice.

Therefore, I reject the conclusion of your well reasoned but miscarried reply that the candidacy of Ted Cruz should be rejected for want of conservative bona fides.

Dear nathanbedford,
I have been trying to get across the facts about the Iran deal in simple subject/predicate/object form in some threads.
I want to thank you for putting it in context and explanations as you did.
That is quite an effort. I pray that your post works and does more good than mine did.

By the way, Al Sharpton told Chris Haynes on his Wednesday night show that the Weekly Standard article is bunk!

In fact, he called it “an act of desperation.”

Sharpton said he’s never received any donations from Trump.

342 posted on 09/03/2015 12:52:24 AM PDT by onyx (PLEASE DO YOUR PART TO HELP COMPLETE THIS FReepathon!)

- - - - - - - - - - -

YES! I posted the new Breitbart Poll results yesterday but few were interested...lol.

I'm so glad you posted the results!

Be sure to vote in the new Breitbart poll! I have.

Back to my original post regarding Sharpton. I watched the rerun of Haynes's MSNBC show and even AL SHARRPTON could smell this fraudulent article from the jump! LOL.

He said, "this is an act of desperation, Trump never gave me any money. I would see him when he was with Don King." Haynes said, "Go ahead and endorse TRUMP - the kiss of death." Sharpton laughed and said, "maybe later on."

I have not read the Weekly Standard article, and don't intend to.

Trump: Laissez-faire

No, he promises to control business decisions of corporations directly from the White House.

I was tired last night. I gave you a response to this. It wasn't the response you deserved. You raised some decent points, and I should address them. As I do, I want you to understand I know this will be read by others. My comments are not intended to be solely to you, or even convicting of you. I will say some things that are addressed as if to a group of people, that may not apply to you at all. Anyone reading this should take note of that as well.

Each new grotesquerie by Trump energizes his supporters to excuse it often with the argument of electability.

One sentence. So many thoughts in response. (see why I didn't go into this last night).

At the end of the day, I agree with this. When I read it what blared out to me was the grotesqueries. How can folks do that? Electability is crucial, but what about character, past deeds, things that would normally turn Conservatives against a guy. And if I am pondering this issue, I know many others are.

Blatantly... that's how I would term it. I know this is blatantly going to remind folks of the blind trust people put in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Nothing that was stated about these men caused their followers to doubt them. We were astonished to watch as revelation after revelation came out. Surely this will do it. Okay, this will. Well this just has to. Nothing phased them. Those that dislike Trump are certain to recognize this same trait in Trump supporters. Is that what is going on here?

What was the nature of the revelations about Bill Clinton? He was strongly suspected of having committed crimes. He was a married man with a young daughter who was known to be a massive womanizer. There were issues of rape. He did at least part of this by abusing his power over the state troopers assigned to him. People were mysteriously dying around him. He left a trail of dead bodies and ruined lives behind him. His closest associates were often future ruined people, closely associated with things he had participated in. He was a known Marxist, and there were serious quesitons about his connected family members, and his past. Where was his money coming from as a youth? How was he able to attend the universities he did? How did he travel across Europe and Russia at a time when the Cold War was raging? These are quetions of a criminal nature. They are questions that raise the issue of espionage or subterfuge.

What was the nature of the revelations about Obama? Here was a person that couldn't provide a document that every one of us has to at some point, a valid birth certificate. He is a person that went by different names. He was a guy that had been raised by people having serious disagreements with the United States and the West. He attended a school in Indonesia. By some accounts he needed to be a citizen of that nation to do so. Did he reounce his U. S. Citizenship to do so? Here was a guy that attended some of our nation's top education institutions. Who paid for it? His mom couldn't. He was a guy that never applied himself, but at Harvard he was suddenly the smartest guy around. Here was a young Black man, no money, no connections that come with wealth, no "coolness" factor as it relates the to Ivy League crowd, and all of a sudden he's the smartest most popular guy around. He was a guy that didn't apply himself in high school. Didn't apply himself as Illinois Senator. Didn't apply hmself as a U. S. Senator, but we're supposed to believe he did apply himself at Harvard. Women who knew him as a youth say he didn't appear to be interested in women. Later we find that he may have been frequenting homosexual bath houses. Another words, there were some very serious issues surrounding this guy. Who was he? Where did he come fromt? How did he attain the positions he did? How could he do next to nothing, and get into Harvard, the Illinois Senate, and the Senate of the United States? Here was a guy that had writen something to the effect, (paraphrased), "If it comes to a battle between the West and Islam, I will stand with Islam."

Moving on to Trump. What are the nature of the revelations regarding him? I would submit his childhood was normal enough. His progression through college was uneventful. His entrance and progression through the family business was not atypical for the family he grew up in. His father brought him into the family busienss. He excelled. His progression through his career was normal. His life up until this day, is a normal example of what someone's life should be, if born to wealth and applying themself. Compare this to Clinton and Obama. The differences are staggering. Compare the things we don't like about him. He said the wrong things. He hung out with the wrong people. He donated to people we don't like. He voiced support for them. Notice anything missing here? There is no crime. There is no question where his funding came from. There is no question of whether he loves the nation or not. There is no question of him being a devout Marxist or an Islamic adherent. There are no questions of him raping women. There are no issues with people dying around him. There are no questions about where his money came from, to do the things he did. He's a citizen. He didn't travel across Europe and Russia during the cold war. He wasn't studying at the feet of Marxists. He had associations with people who were Marxists, but he wasn't spewing Marxist ideology. No trail of ruinded people to ponder. No dead bodies to ponder. No dectectives hired to check out his spouse or shut down women who were abused by him. He lost money. He made oodles of it. He was brash. He learned how to play the real-estate mogul game. He's a straight shooter. He won't take any lip without paying in return with rich dividends. He has no use for abusive game playing members of the press.

So when people do a dump on Trump, folks aren't having to dismiss deaths, rapes, criminal acts, treason, Islamic harmony, citizenship issues, shadow support people or groups, a trail of destruction, or adherence to prosteletising of devout Marxism.

What Bill Clinton and Barack Obama spouted as if professors, Donald Trump at worst had only shaken hands with people who did. He had donated to some of them as well. Did that mean he bought in? How could it? He donated massive sums to the espousers of Conservatism too. A man all-in with regard to Leftists, only donates to Leftists. If he donates to Conservatives too, there's something else going on besides an ideological dyamic.

Folks who support Trump have a pretty good understanding of what I have explained above. Either that or they simply instinctively know that what Trump is charged with is in no way comparable to what Clinton and Obama were/are.

They don't buy into the trash Trump campaign. They recognize a guy that was a die-hard dedicated businessman. They recognize a man working the room. They understand that he built networking connections. They understand how the business commuhity operates. They don't particularly like that Trump gave Clinton money, but they understand him giving her money. They don't like him using Sharpton to get to Don King, but they understand him using Sharpton to get to Don King.

What did Trump have to gain by tapping Don King's abilities? He stood to gain tens of millions of dollars off of King's abilities. He would arrange very lucritive boxing matches. He would attract people to his hotels. He would expand the brand.

Folks, the level of things Trump did that you don't like, is somewhat lackluster and vapid in the overall scheme of things.

Does anyone remember back to the 2012 election cycle. We had one after another Conservative picked off by the press and the GOPe favorites. We are tired of that tactic. We simply are not going to stand for it any longer. As long as Trump is hawking Conservative tenets, we're going to reward him with our support.

Others argue that he will be effective in governance and compare him to Rinos but rarely compare him to Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz has proven his constitutional bona fides he proved it on his feet all night long in front of the Senate and in front of millions of Americans that he will fight the fight. We have every reason to believe that Cruz will fight on behalf of consistent conservative principles.

Like voting to make it almost a certain impossibility to deny Iran nuclear weapons and $150 billion dollars in impounded funds to support terrorists in the West.

Not buying it.

We have no reason to believe that Trump will have any consistent conservative philosophy even if elected. His biography screams otherwise, that he will govern ad hoc as an ego trip.

Would that be a Medicare Part D ego trip?
Would it be a no child left behind ego trip?
Would that be an grant them amnesty no matter what my constituency thinks ego trip?
Would it be I'll let policies stand so we will add almost no new jobs during my administration ego trip? (Over 20 million less than the prior 40 year average [based on normal percentages] )
Would it be an ego trip that saw him take a pass on leading his own party in Congress to take measures to ward off an economic catastophy?
Would it be a doubling of the national debt in eight years ego trip?
Would it be a yes I'll vote for that so Iran can have nuclear arms ego trip?
Would it be a yes I'll vote for that so Iran will have $150 billion dollars to fund terrorism in the West ego trip?

There is one issue on which Trump has a slight edge, that issue is more than dominant it is decisive: immigration.

Not to be insulting, but I don't think you mean this. Look at those words in red above. You can't really mean this. You don't trust him. And then there is biography, his biography...

If immigration continues, even without amnesty, the Republicans will not win another election in my lifetime and probably for a whole generation after that. That is because the Democrats, facilitated often by the courts, are jiggering the election laws and furnishing illegal immigrants with drivers licenses with which they will gain entry into the polling booths. That is going on without amnesty, with amnesty there simply is no hope.

I agree. And as I read this paragraph and reread it several times, I realized that there is only one guy that is bigger than life this election. That is the type of man that will have to confront Democrat (and I might just as well get it out there, REPUBLICAN and Judicial) skullduggery. He is the only guy that can go on camera and convince people that what he is saying is true, with regard to skullduggery. I do believe others could address it, but they simply do not have Trump's ability to reach through the camera and shake sense into people. And once he has done it, they think, "Oh yeah." and not "Who does he think he is?" I'm sorry, but the latter is how folks would react to most of our candidates, even if the candidate was right. Not with Trump.

No hope for the country, not just for a conservative country but no hope for a nation that resembles a nation in which I grew up or a nation which is not simply absorbed into a polyglot, amorphous global village very likely severely regimented and certainly much poorer. We might become Muslim, we might become the victims of the Chinese, we might find ourselves regimented by the environmentalists, or a new force might emerge but one thing is clear, an America faithful to the Bill of Rights and to its Constitution will simply not survive. Without a check on immigration there can be no effective national defense, no hope of bringing the budget under control to avoid a calamity, no national consensus to oppose radical Islam or aggressive Chinese expansionism. There will be no sense of nation.

Yep. This is the message I've been trying to deliver since the mid 1990s. People couldn't see it then. They are barely able to today. It's so troubling, that people reflexively deny to themselves it could be that bad. Sadly, it is.

I give Trump the edge on immigration over Ted Cruz, but just a small edge because Trump can't be trusted, Trump is not motivated by conservative values, he will not seek to curb immigration to protect conservatism or even to protect the Constitution, he will do it because he thinks it makes economic sense.

I wouldn't reference it in economic terms, although I think that plays in. I think he has a sense of right and wrong, and this just apeals to his perception that it is an incredibly wrong thing to allow. I acknowledge he has addressed the cost of it, so I'm not in total disagreement with you. Your emphasis may be more accurate than mine.

If we have to choose between the two, I believe Cruz will fight to protect the Constitution. But Cruz is not right on the visas and he has not been strong enough on deportation.

While I don't find myself inclined to disagree enough to argue the point, I am not convinced that Cruz is as intuitive toward doing the right thing as I would desire. You and I have discused three important issues on this thread. One of them is a whopper. The other two are problematic as well. While Cruz does have some aspects that a greatly appreciate, he is not without some problems.

I do not fault people for choosing Trump for his stance on immigration (although I do believe they are engaging in a lot of wishful thinking concerning his stance), I do fault conservatives who are willfully blind to the man's failings.

As I said, that one issue, Trump hasn't done anything that is more than 5% as bad.

That’s right. You’re catching on.

I like those numbers, but I generally take all the numbers with a grain of salt.

I agree with your take that many of the people we have believed to be on our side, are now revealing themselves to be GOPe fellow travelers.

It’s sad to see.

If we were honest with ourselves, we knew this already, so it’s not that big of a surprise. It’s still shocking to see the extent of it.

I agree with your ponderings there.

Creepy...

Seriously!

You and others need to learn comprehension. I was snarking the “Trump was for this and Trump was for that” rhetoric by just pointing out the same can be said of Reagan about being a Democrat once and, oh no, head of a union. It’s called humor.

As James Wood wrote...”Cringe-worthy”....ha!

Yours is a passionate and lengthy reply but a reasoned one. I think it is fair to say the case you make against Ted Cruz is that he is not really a conservative and the evidence for that is his position with respect to Corker's misbegotten legislation on the procedure for legislative approval of the Iran "deal." If that reasoning fails, then your argument falls.

I myself wouldn't make the case I'm trying to charge that he isn't a Conservative so much as that he used very poor judgement on this issue. A guy can be a diehard Conservative at his core, and yet make such a stupid mistake that it causes you to have little faith that his Conservatism will lead him to the right decisions over time. In some instances we can say it did. In this instance we can safely say it didn't. Can I point to him and say, there's a guy that I know will always get it? No. And this isn't a simple toss away inconsequential issue. It's a strategic global game changer issue.

At some point when the TPP (the trade deal not the Iran deal) came into the news I was exercised because I thought that the process was unconstitutional (I still do) in that the Constitution explicitly calls for a treaty to be confirmed by two thirds of the Senate present and the legislation substitutes majority rule by both houses for two thirds confirmation by the Senate. So I researched the matter and I was astonished to learn that I was ignorant, it is well-established constitutional law and practice throughout our American history that instead of submitting a treaty to the Senate it is effective to secure legislation from both houses.

I would have agreed with you, but I am admittedly not a Constitutuional schollar per se. There are finer workings on some of these matters that I am not aware of. I think most people fall into that category.

I don't like it, I think the explicit wording of the Constitution is clear but I concede that my initial impression was wrong at least as to how the system actually works as opposed to how it ought to work.

Okay, but I don't think your perception evidenced some flaw in your knowledge. We don't deal with these matters all that often, and so we don't necessarily know the rules. What you touched on above though, is of import. Two thirds must confirm. Had that been the standard the Iranian agreement had to hurdle, this mess wouldn't be upon us. That was a massive mistake. Why did our guys diddle with that?

If I recall correctly, Mitch McConnell has stated that the president gets to choose whether or not a "deal" is a treaty and therefore, if Obama declined to submit the treaty to the Senate for approval, the Senate would have no say at all. In the event that has already occurred after a fashion when Obama submitted the treaty to the Security Council before it was delivered to Congress. I am fully aware that Mark Levin has argued that the Senate, in a case in which the president simply does not submit an agreement, could pick the deal up as though it were a treaty and submit it to a vote up or down. I do not think there is any precedent whatsoever for that but it remains an intriguing option. In the event, there was only one vote against the legislative approach so it is not reasonable to expect Cruz to die on that hill fighting that fight which was hopeless.

I interprest your comments here to ultimately wind up with the idea Cruz had no culpability in a vote that wound up requiring only one third of the Senate having to agree with Obama rather than two thirds, for this agreement to be approved. Nothing absolves Cruz in this matter. If he was the only Senator that voted against, he would have done his duty. Instead he abdicated his duty. Please explain how you die on a hill by casting a sound vote, even if you are the only one. What would it have cost him to cast the right vote? Die on a hill? I don't view that as an accorate analogy.

I further note that forty-five senators joined with Ted Cruz in writing a letter to the leaders of Iran telling them that there could be no deal without Congress of approving. Cruz was accused at the time of interfering with the negotiations, yet another example of Cruz standing up for principle and taking flak.

He voted to allow the agreement to be affirmed with only one third of the U. S. Senate. This means that instead of one third having to disagree with it, two thirds would have to disagree with it, to reject it. Signing that letter was a very hollow act, considering he voted to make it next to impossible for the Senate to reject it. Further, it causes me to view that signature as misleading and deceitful. Why wright a letter than demands a review, if that review is sabotaged from the get go. I'll tell you why. Because the headlines would read, Senators notify Iran, a review must take place. It would make it look like the signatures were hard nosed against Iran, even though they were anything but. The leaders of Iran aren't stupid. They knew exactly what was going on. This is why Trumps "Art of the Deal" is so important. Cruz should know better than anyone that you don't concede a point that will make it impossible to win the debate. You don't concede a point that will cost you the legal case. This is what Cruz participated in. His experince as a debator and an attorney both failed him. NOT IMPRESSIVE.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended the legislation which adopted the old alternative method of ratifying a treaty by simply passing authorizing legislation in both houses. Every senator except one, Tom Cotton to his credit, voted with Ted Cruz on this issue. We have no evidence that I am aware of that Donald Trump made any statement opposing this procedure. If he did not, I cannot credit him with conservatism while one faults Cruz on the same issue.

This is one argument that I think is beneath you. Donald Trump was not a U. S. Senator. This wasn't his job. I'm not even sure he was following it. The fact that he didn't address it circa the time the bill was voted on proves to you he's no better than Cruz on this? I consider that to be rather laughable.

If Tom Cotton could get it, Ted Cruz should have. On a matter of this importance, you don't lower your ability to defend against evil.

The argument for the legislative approach was that there would be no congressional oversight of the "deal" unless the alternative approach was adopted. Neither one of us knows for sure what would have happened had the legislation not been adopted, that is, whether Congress would have had any oversight whatsoever. We can speculate and pontificate but we do not know. If Congress had no oversight whatsoever because Obama declined to submit the deal but pursued it as an executive agreement and let it have effect as a practical matter because of its passage through the Security Council, certainly conservative principles would not have been served but further damaged.

Tell you what, I'd rather stick with one body of Congress having to meet the two thirds level to approve, rather than two approving at one third. Trying to move this from the responsiblity of the Senate or Congress to review at normal levels, or even Obama to submit this agreement for approval, was unconscionable. Make someone responsible. Lowering the standard made sure nobody would be.

With all these facts before us, I conclude that Cruz was wrong in his position as wrong but no more wrong than all the rest of the ninety-eight senators, but I cannot conclude that his position was not a conservative position. If he calculated, and there is no reason to believe that he did not especially since he participated in the letter trying to force the parties into submitting the treaty for congressional approval, that the only way to get congressional oversight was the way he and all his colleagues but one voted to get it.

Wrong is wrong whether 99 others agree or not. Cruz is the guy I'm being asked to trust. Calculating? I'm sorry, I'm not buying into the calculation here. There was one duty. That duty was to deny Iran any deal that would give them allow them to develop nuclear weapons or access to that money. Both those would be a direct threat to Western Civilization. That is the important factor. Side issues don't cut it for me. They shouldn't for you either. What does his participation in the letter prove, if he just lowered the two thirds needed for approval to one one third? He didn't know there were 44 Democrats in the Senate and it would only take 34 to agree with Obama? This was an example of his being able to think logically? You know better than this. You're too logical a person to believe your own arguments here.

Since the deal began to be leaked, no voice has been more strident in opposition to the deal than Sen. Cruz. I know he will be participating with Donald Trump and Mark Levin in the upcoming rally to protest the deal. Apparently he has not offended these two men to the degree that they think he should be ostracized.

I have no problem with him speaking out, but then I have no problem with Trump preaching Conservatism to our nation's citizens either. You can't trust Trump becasue there are "conflicts", but you are there writing defenses of Cruz participating in a sham letter, and reducing the number of people having to approve to 75% of the Democrats in the U. S. Senate. Now you point to Cruz and act as if he's the fine upstanding guy on this we always knew him to be. No, on this one he should be hanging his head in shame, and so should you for defending him. There's no defense of this.

With all of this, there is no warrant to believe that Ted Cruz is not conservative, we may join in believing he made the wrong choice but it was not an unreasonable choice given the circumstances described above and it certainly was not an anti-conservative choice.

I believe I have addressed this fairly. I have claimed no more or no less culpability than Cruz deserves here. I did not charge that he single handedly did caused something. I didn't not make a universal determination regarding his Conservatism. I did make a determination based on his actions, and what they conveyed to me. I think that is reasoned.

Therefore, I reject the conclusion of your well reasoned but miscarried reply that the candidacy of Ted Cruz should be rejected for want of conservative bona fides.

You are defending your guy on a level that is much higher than I have had to mine. Voting to double the threshhold required to reject nuclear weapons for Iran and the provision of $150 billion in impounded funds to a terrorist nation that supplies terrorist groups, was wrong. There's no defending it. You know that.

Yes. That too. = :^)

>> Revrunt Sharpton is not a credible witness concerning ANYTHING whatsoever <<

Wrong. If he says something that may be interpreted as being the least bit favorable to DT, all his past sins are forgiven by the swelling legions of Trumpsters. He has become 101% credible!

he can become the Sub or Vice Guru??

“Hare Donald ..... Hare Donald

Hare Donald .....Hare... Hare”

OM .....DONALD!....

Great info, onyx! See what we learn after ditching FOX! Go figure.

I just tuned in, and appreciate the Breitbart poll. Thanks!