The Real timschochet

Vivek is a schmuck.

I don’t agree with Nikki Haley much but I like her. I think she’d make a decent President.

I love Ronald Reagan. Amnesty! Let’s do it.

The moderators have no control.

Tim Scott is a traditional conservative for sure. But I don’t think tax cuts is going to be a big selling point for the next election.

All of them attacking Biden….and Trump.

I just read that it’s on Fox Business. Not even on the main channel.

The only chance they have now- and it’s a slim one- is if everybody drops out except one person- and then going into Iowa and New Hampshire there is exactly one alternative to Trump. But I can’t see that happening. Too many egos.

The House Republicans should run with this as the government shuts down and thousands of people, including military, don’t get their paychecks. See what happens.

This right here is the problem with conspiracy theories. Do you see how it makes all discussion pointless? If the news media, and all the judges, and everyone critical of Donald Trump are all in the pay of the Democrats then we might as well reject everything we hear and see, Which, apparently, many of you do.

There is no history of Republican candidates before Trump facing legal jeopardy.

No. I think most of Trump’s legal troubles are self-created and well deserved. But beyond that there is a Kafkaesque element to our judicial system: it grinds very slowly at times but once it begins it’s almost impossible to stop.

Trying to steal a Presidential election strikes me as a far more serious crime.

They can’t. What he did was illegal, and he does deserve whatever consequences there are. All I’m saying is that it happens all the time. If the authorities wanted to pursue this they could punish 90% of multimillionaire property developers.

Yes. And if they don’t they’re really stupid (as well as irresponsible to their shareholders). Consider your own home for a moment. You call a lender and tell him you want to refinance. You tell him your house is worth 1.5 million. Do you think he just takes your word for it? Of course not. He hires an independent appraiser and offers you a loan based on that. Why would anyone think commercial property is any different?

I can’t believe I’m going to write this because anybody who reads me here knows how much I can’t stand Donald Trump and how opposed I am to his possible re-election… But… I’ve been involved in conmercial real estate my entire life, over 35 years of working in this industry. Not at Trump’s level certainly but I’ve worked at times with a few people that are, including a billionaire. What Trump is accused of doing here is not in the least unusual. In fact it’s almost standard practice. Overvaluing property to get a bigger loan is fairly routine; it’s the responsibility of the lender to appraise the property correctly. Undervaluing property to pay less taxes is also routine and if the state disagrees then you are required to pay penalties; that’s all. Commercial real estate at the highest level is a shady game. Nobody truly knows how much properties are worth and the value goes up and down on an almost daily basis. I don’t view what Trump did here as some major crime.

Lol OK.

I really hate this response. I agree with almost all of your points here, and strongly disagree with Voltaire. But he didn’t insult you in any way. He is one of the few people here who never offer personal insults to anyone. He is a class act who states his opinion and is willing to engage in back and forth intelligent discussion. We could use a lot more of that, and a lot less of your insults, IMO.

Voltaire it’s not that you’re not getting through to me. I understand your position, totally get it. I just don’t agree with you.

I’ve read dozens of articles on this. They’re mostly opinion pieces. Actual facts are short in supply. Violent crime is always tied to economic conditions; we have decades of data to prove that. But there has never been any evidence that tougher penalties serve as a deterrence, or that justice reform serves to increase crime levels.

It’s not racist to hire more black people even if it means that white people are discriminated against. Context is everything. We do not live in a color blind society; we never have, even if that is the ultimate goal. We live rather in a society in which black people have suffered over 400 years of slavery, Jim Crow, and unequal treatment under the law. Even now white privilege is a very real thing and the systemic racism against blacks by our police and justice system continues. Under this context it’s almost impossible for a white person to be subject to racism. If you’re one of the tiny handful of white people who has ever lost out on a job due to diversity hiring practices (and it really is a minuscule number of actual people by percentage) chalk it up to being privileged with whiteness in every other aspect of your life: you don’t have to fear being stopped by police for no justifiable reason, or being watched with suspicion every time you shop, or having to suffer thousands of other indignities on a daily basis. Call it unfair if you want based on your personal situation, and move on to all of your other advantages in this society. But don’t you dare call it racism.

There is no evidence that there is any link between the policies of more liberal district attorneys and increased violent crime.

It’s not simple. And no it’s not common sense that more or rougher imprisonment deters crime. In fact there’s a lot of evidence against that. The liberal viewpoint, that we need prison reform, justice reform, and most of all police reform, are important and solid ideas backed by years of analysis and study. Because they don’t feel right to you as a conservative you make snap judgments about their wisdom and effectiveness that have no bearing on reality. I am not arguing that every liberal solution is the right one, nor am I suggesting that every point you and other conservatives have made here is necessarily wrong. But I strongly reject simplistic approaches to complex problems, and knee jerk reactions, and this is one of the main attributes of the current Trump led Republican Party IMO.

For once you hit it right. There is no racism here. Diversity hiring isn’t racist.

Such nonsense. Thugs are thugs. They’re not leftist, they’re not conservative. The left doesn’t encourage or cheer on thuggery.