The answer is, it very well could be a huge part of America as we know it if the fiery-mouthed, womanizing, hate mongrel has any part of shaping America’s future.
Donald J. Trump speaks with venom when words are protruding from his lips. From day one of his campaign he has run on fear and way over the top far right rhetoric. Every time he unleashes stupetifying comments it’s then covered by every local and national media outlet virtually being Trumps only campaign advertisement and it seems everyday he is on the news. Not because he has anything useful to say but because what he says is so outlandish that its then deemed a story to be covered by the masses.
Trumps plans for America sound a lot like totalitarianism as if his words where plucked from George Orwell’s book and pasted into his speeches. It’s scary to think that this is the best the Republican party has to offer, I mean if the party didn’t believe in his words then he wouldn’t be the front runner…right? If he was our Commander and Chief would Malala and her brilliant mind be banned from entering our country?
The America I was born and raised in would never stoop to that level, we should hope. Here in these United States we currently have over 7 million Muslim Americans living within our boarders, and because two out of 7 million people committed barbaric attacks on American soil in the name of Jihad, thus we have waged this smear campaign and politics and religion are mingling with growing tensions across the country. Gun sales are skyrocketing and it’s not because every women dressed in a conservative gown could be a radical Islamic extremist ready to wage Jihad on all Americans, it’s because Americans are brainwashed to think so. In my teen years after 9/11 I myself was guilty of perceiving every Muslim of being exactly that, guilty.
In the Qur’an it states “that if you are to kill one life it’s as if you have killed all mankind and if you save a life its as if you have saved the life of all mandkind”.
The only reason this is misconstrued is because as Americans we are guilty of labeling everyone and everything, radical Islamic Extremist, mastermind, martyrs, waging Jihad and the next crusades to name a few. In many ways Muslims and Christians are a lot alike and when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of what it is to be Christian there are not many differences, Jesus is believed by Muslims to be the 25th Prophet and many fables are the same stories with the same meanings portrayed in different words. Not to mention the thousands of Muslim Americans fighting for the very right I am using at this moment by serving our country. With all do respect Mr Trump your own wife wasn’t born in this great country so please apply your unintelligent views on this issue to your own household before you worry about millions of other people.
A quick Wikipedia use to show you this mess:
Legal affairs
Over the course of his career, Trump has been involved in a number of lawsuits, including over 150 lawsuits in US federal courts and over 150 lawsuits in Broward County Court (in Florida) since 1983.[458][459][460] Of Trump’s involvement in many lawsuits, his lawyer Alan Garten said in 2015 that this was “a natural part of doing business in [the United States].”[461][462]
1970–99
In 1973, the Justice Department sued the Trump Management Corporation for alleged racial discrimination, which Trump’s company disputed. The corporation was charged with quoting different rental terms and conditions to blacks and making false “no vacancy” statements to blacks for apartments they managed in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.[463] In response, Trump sued the government for $100 million, asserting that the charges were irresponsible and baseless.[464] The ensuing countersuit was thrown out of court.[465] The corporation settled out of court in 1975, promising not to discriminate against minorities. In addition, the corporation was required to send a bi-weekly list of vacancies to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group and give them priority for certain locations.[466] In 1978, the Justice Department sued Trump Management in Brooklyn for not satisfying the requirements of the 1975 settlement following allegations of discriminatory housing practices.[467]
In 1985, New York City brought a lawsuit against Donald Trump for allegedly using tactics to force out tenants of 100 Central Park South,[468] which he intended to demolish together with the building next door. After ten years in court, the two sides negotiated a deal allowing the building to stand as condominiums.[469]
In 1988, the Justice Department sued Donald Trump for violating procedures related to public notifications when buying voting stock in a company related to his attempted takeovers of Holiday Corporation and Bally Manufacturing Corporation in 1986. On April 5, 1988, Trump agreed to pay $750,000 to settle the civil penalties of the antitrust lawsuit.[470]
In late 1990, Donald Trump was sued $2 million by a business analyst for defamation, and Trump settled out of court.[471] Briefly before Trump’s Taj Mahal opened in April 1990, the analyst had said that the project would fail by the end of that year. Trump threatened to sue the analyst’s firm unless the analyst recanted or was fired. The analyst refused to retract the statements, and his firm fired him for ostensibly unrelated reasons.[472] Trump Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in November 1990, the first of several such bankruptcies.[473] After, the NYSE ordered the firm to compensate the analyst $750,000; the analyst did not release the details of his settlement with Donald Trump.[474]
In 1991, Donald Trump sued the manufacturers of a helicopter that crashed in 1989, killing three executives of his New Jersey hotel casino business.[475] The helicopter fell 2,800 feet after the main four-blade rotor and tail rotor broke off the craft, killing Jonathan Benanav, an executive of Trump Plaza, and two others: Mark Grossinger Etess, president of Trump Taj Mahal, and Stephen F. Hyde, chief executive of the Atlantic City casinos.[476][477][478] Since one of the defendants was allegedly owned by the Italian government, the case moved to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed the case in 1992.[479]
Trump Plaza was fined $200,000 in 1991 by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for moving African-American and female employees from craps tables in order to accommodate high roller Robert LiButti, a mob figure and alleged John Gotti associate, who was said to fly into fits of racist rage when he was on losing streaks.[480]
In 1991, one of Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City, NJ, was found guilty of circumventing state regulations about casino financing when Donald Trump’s father bought $3.5 million in chips that he had no plans to gamble. Trump Castle was forced to pay a $30,000 fine under the settlement, according to New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement Director Jack Sweeney. Trump was not disciplined for the illegal advance on his inheritance, which was not confiscated.[481]
In 1993, Donald Trump sued Jay Pritzker, a Chicago financier and Trump’s business partner since 1979 on the Grand Hyatt hotel. Trump alleged that Pritzker overstated earnings in order to collect excessive management fees.[482] In 1994, Pritzker sued Trump for violating their agreement by, among other ways, failing to remain solvent.[483] The two parties ended the feud in 1995 in a sealed settlement, in which Trump retained some control of the hotel and Pritzker would receive reduced management fees and pay Trump’s legal expenses.[484]
Vera Coking sued Trump and his demolition contractor for damage to her home during construction of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. In 1997, she dropped the suit against Trump and settled with his contractor for $90,000.[485] Coking had refused to sell her home to Trump and ultimately won a 1998 Supreme Court decision which prevented Atlantic City from using eminent domain to condemn her property.[486][487]
In the late 1990s, Donald Trump and rival Atlantic City casino owner Stephen Wynn engaged in an extended legal conflict during the planning phase of new casinos Wynn had proposed to build. Both owners filed lawsuits against one another and other parties, including the State of New Jersey, beginning with Wynn’s antitrust accusation against Trump.[488][489] After two years in court, Wynn’s Mirage casino sued Trump in 1999 alleging that his company had engaged in a conspiracy to harm Mirage and steal proprietary information, primarily lists of wealthy Korean gamblers. In response, Trump’s attorneys claimed that Trump’s private investigator dishonored his contract by working as a “double agent” for Stephen Wynn’s Mirage casino by secretly taping conversations with Trump. All the cases were settled at the same time on the planned day of an evidentiary hearing in court in February 2000, which was never held.[490]
2000–09
In 2000, Donald Trump paid $250,000 to settle fines related to charges brought by New York State Lobbying Commission director David Grandeau. Trump was charged with circumventing state law to spend $150,000 lobbying against government approval of plans to construct an Indian-run casino in the Catskills, which would have diminished casino traffic to Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City.[491][492]
In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought a financial-reporting case against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., alleging that the company had committed several “misleading statements in the company’s third-quarter 1999 earnings release.” Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. did not deny the charge, and consented to the Commission’s cease-and-desist order.[493][494][495]
Trump sued Leona Helmsley,[496] and Helmsley counter-sued Trump[497] due to contentions regarding ownership and operation of the Empire State Building. In 2002, Trump announced that he and his Japanese business partners, were selling the Empire State Building to partners of his rival Leona Helmsley.[498][499]
In 2004, Donald Trump sued Richard T. Fields in Broward County Circuit Court (in Florida); Fields was once Trump’s business partner in the casino business, but had recently become a successful casino developer in Florida apart from Trump. Fields counter-sued Trump in Florida court. Trump alleged that Fields misled other parties into believing he still consulted for Trump, and Fields alleged improprieties in Trump’s business.[500] The two businessmen agreed in 2008 to drop the lawsuits when Fields agreed to buy Trump Marina in Atlantic City, N.J. for $316 million,[501] but the deal was unsettled again in 2009 because Trump resigned his leadership of Trump Entertainment after Fields lowered his bid.[502] Fields never bought the company, which went into bankruptcy about the same time and was sold for $38 million.[503][504] Trump’s lawsuit was dismissed after a hearing in 2010.[505]
In 2006, the town of Palm Beach began fining Trump $250 per day for ordinance violations related to his erection of an 80-foot-tall (24 m) flagpole flying a 15 by 25 feet (4.6 by 7.6 m) American flag on his property. Trump sued the town for $25 million, saying that they abridged his free speech, also disputing an ordinance that local businesses be “town-serving”. The two parties settled as part of a court-ordered mediation, in which Trump was required to donate $100,000 to veterans’ charities. At the same time, the town ordinance was modified allowing Trump to enroll out-of-town members in his Mar-a-Lago social club.[506]
In 2008, Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit for alleged fraud and civil rights violations[507] against the California city of Rancho Palos Verdes, over thwarted luxury home development and expansion plans upon part of a landslide-prone golf course in the area, which was purchased by Trump in 2002 for $27 million.[507] Trump had previously sued a local school district over land leased from them in the re-branded Trump National Golf Club, and had further angered some local residents by renaming a thoroughfare after himself.[507] The $100 million suit was ultimately withdrawn in 2012 with Trump and the city agreeing to modified geological surveys and permit extensions for some 20 proposed luxury homes (in addition to 36 homes previously approved).[508][509] Trump ultimately opted for a permanent conservation easement instead of expanded housing development on the course’s driving range.[510]
In 2009, Donald Trump sued a law firm he had used, Morrison Cohen, for $5 million for mentioning his name and providing links to related news articles on its website. This lawsuit followed a lawsuit by Trump alleging overcharging by the law firm, and a countersuit by Morrison Cohen seeking unpaid legal fees.[166] The suit was dismissed in a 15-page ruling by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten, who ruled that the links to news articles concerned “matters of public interest.”[511]
In 2009, Trump was sued by investors who had made deposits for condos in the canceled Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico.[512] The investors said that Trump misrepresented his role in the project, stating after its failure that he had been little more than a spokesperson for the entire venture, disavowing any financial responsibility for the debacle.[513] Investors were informed that their investments would not be returned due to the cancellation of construction.[512] In 2013, Trump settled the lawsuit with more than one hundred prospective condo owners for an undisclosed amount.[514]
2010–present
In 2004, the Trump Organization partnered with Bayrock Group LLC on a $200 million hotel and condo project in Fort Lauderdale Beach, to be called Trump International Hotel & Tower. After proceeding five years, real estate market devaluation stymied the project in 2009 and Trump dissolved his licensing deal, demanding that his name be removed from the building. Soon after this, the project defaulted on a $139 million loan in 2010.[515] Investors later sued the developers for fraud. Trump petitioned to have his name removed from the suit, saying he had only lent his name to the project. However his request was refused since he had participated in advertising for it.[90] The insolvent building project spawned over 10 lawsuits, some of which were still not settled in early 2016.[516]
After the 2008 housing-market collapse, Deutsche Bank attempted to collect $40 million that Donald Trump personally guaranteed against their $640 million loan for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. Rather than paying the debt, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $3 billion for undermining the project and damage to his reputation.[517] Deutsche Bank then filed suit to obtain the $40 million. The two parties settled in 2010 with Deutsche Bank extending the loan term by five years.[518]
In 2011, an appellate court upheld a New Jersey Superior Court judge’s decision dismissing Trump’s $5 billion defamation lawsuit against author Timothy L. O’Brien, who had reported in his book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald (2005), that Trump’s true net worth was really between $150 and $250 million. Trump had reportedly told O’Brien he was worth billions and, in 2005, had publicly stated such.[519] Trump said that the author’s alleged underestimation of his net worth was motivated by malice and had cost him business deals and damage to his reputation.[520] The appellate court, however, ruled against Trump, citing the consistency of O’Brien’s three confidential sources.[521]
In 2013, in a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Trump was accused of defrauding more than 5,000 people of $40 million for the opportunity to learn Trump’s real estate investment techniques in a for-profit training program, Trump University, which operated from 2005 to 2011.[522][523][524] Trump ultimately stopped using the term “University” following a 2010 order from New York regulators, who called Trump’s use of the word “misleading and even illegal”; the state had previously warned Trump in 2005 to drop the term or not offer seminars within New York.[525][526][527] Although Trump has claimed a 98% approval rating on course evaluations, former students recounted high-pressure tactics from instructors seeking the highest possible ratings, including threats of withholding graduation certificates,[528] and more than 2,000 students had sought and received course refunds before the end of their paid seminars.[528] In a separate class action civil suit against Trump University in mid-February 2014, a San Diego federal judge allowed claimants in California, Florida, and New York to proceed;[529] a Trump counterclaim, alleging that the state Attorney General’s investigation was accompanied by a campaign donation shakedown, was investigated by a New York ethics board and dismissed in August 2015.[530] Trump filed a $1 million defamation suit against former Trump University student Tarla Makaeff, who had spent about $37,000 on seminars, after she joined the class action lawsuit and publicized her classroom experiences on social media.[513] Trump University was later ordered by a U.S. District Judge in April 2015 to pay Makaeff and her lawyers $798,774.24 in legal fees and costs.[513][531]
In 2011, Donald Trump sued Scotland for building a wind farm after assuring him it would not be built. He had recently built a golf course there and planned to build an adjacent hotel. The suit was dismissed in favor of Scotland by the Scottish Supreme Court.[532][533]
In 2014, the former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin ultimately settled a $5 million arbitration judgment against her, having been sued by Trump after alleging that the Miss USA 2012 pageant results were rigged. Monnin wrote on her Facebook page that another contestant told her during a rehearsal that she had seen a list of the top five finalists, and when those names were called in their precise order, Monnin realized the pageant election process was suspect, compelling Monnin to resign her Miss Pennsylvania title. The Trump Organization’s lawyer said that Monnin’s allegations had cost the pageant a lucrative British Petroleum sponsorship deal and threatened to discourage women from entering Miss USA contests in the future.[534] According to Monnin, testimony from the Miss Universe Organization and Ernst & Young revealed that the top 15 finalists were selected by pageant directors regardless of preliminary judges’ scores.[535] As part of the settlement, Monnin was not required to retract her original statements.[534][536]
In 2014, model Alexia Palmer filed a civil suit against Trump Model Management for promising a $75,000 annual salary but paying only $3,380.75 for three years’ work. Palmer, who came to the US at age 17 from Jamaica under the H-1B visa program in 2011,[537] claimed to be owed more than $200,000. Palmer contended that Trump Model Management charged, in addition to a management fee, “obscure expenses” from postage to limousine rides that consumed the remainder of her compensation. Trump attorney Alan Garten claims the lawsuit is “bogus and completely frivolous.”[538][539] Palmer has now filed a class-action lawsuit against the modeling agency with similar allegations.[540] If approved, the class could include up to 250 other foreign fashion models whom Trump Model Management and another Trump company, Trump Management Group LLC, has attempted to bring to the US since 2000,[541] or up to 1,100 foreign workers for whom Trump’s companies filed visa paperwork since 2000 to be employed temporarily as waitresses, cooks, vineyard workers, laborers, managers, superintendents, and fashion models, including at least 850 H-2B visa applications for workers from Mexico.[542]
In 2015, Trump sued Univision for breach of contract and defamation when they dropped their planned broadcast of the Miss USA pageant. The decision was made because of Trump’s “insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants”, according to the network’s announcement.[543] Trump settled the $500 million lawsuit with Univision CEO Randy Falco out of court.[544]
In 2015, Trump initiated a $100 million lawsuit against Palm Beach County claiming that officials, in a “deliberate and malicious” act, pressured the FAA to direct air traffic to the Palm Beach International Airport over his Mar-a-Lago estate, because he said the airplanes damaged the building and disrupted its ambiance.[545] Trump had previously sued twice over airport noise.[545]
In July 2015, Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit against chef José Andrés claiming that he backed out of a deal to open the flagship restaurant at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.[546] Andrés replied that Trump’s lawsuit was “both unsurprising and without merit.”[547]
Also in July 2015, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian also withdrew from the Washington, D.C., project with José Andrés in the wake of Trump’s comments on Mexican illegal immigrants, and is expected to lose his own $500,000 restaurant lease deposit as a result.[547] Trump denounced and then sued Zakarian in August 2015 for a sum “in excess of $10 million” for lost rent and other damages.[548] Trump’s lawsuit called Zakarian’s offense at his remarks “curious in light of the fact that Mr. Trump’s publicly shared views on immigration have remained consistent for many years, and Mr. Trump’s willingness to frankly share his opinions is widely known.”[548][549]
Trump is suing the town of Ossining, New York over the property tax valuation on his 147-acre Trump National Golf Course, located in Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County, which Trump purchased for around $8 million at a foreclosure sale in the 1990s and to which he claimed, at the club’s opening, to have added $45 million in facility improvements.[550] Although Trump stated in his 2015 FEC filing that the property was worth at least $50 million, his lawsuit seeks a $1.4 million valuation on the property, which includes a 75,000 square foot clubhouse, five overnight suites, and permission to build 71 condominium units,[550] in an effort to shave $424,176 from his annual local property tax obligations.[551] Trump filed the action after separately being sued by Briarcliff Manor for “intentional and illegal modifications” to a drainage system which caused more than $238,000 in damage to the town’s library, public pool, and park facilities during a 2011 storm.[551]
In September 2015, five men who had demonstrated outside of a Trump presidential campaign event at Trump Tower in New York City sued Donald Trump, alleging that Trump’s security staff punched one of them. They also allege that Trump’s security guards had been advised by city police that they were permitted to protest there. Several people videotaped the incident.[552][553]
In 2015, restaurant workers at Trump SoHo filed a lawsuit that from 2009 to at least the time of the filing, gratuities added to customers’ checks were illegally withheld from employees. The Trump Organization has responded that the dispute is between the employees and their employer, a third-party contractor. Donald Trump has been scheduled to testify in court on September 1, 2016.[554]
Allegations of business links to organized crime
Nicodemo Scarfo
Journalists David Cay Johnston and Wayne Barrett, the latter of whom wrote an unauthorized 1992 Trump biography, have claimed that Trump and his companies did business with New York and Philadelphia families linked to the Italian-American Mafia.[555][556] A reporter for the Washington Post writes, “he was never accused of illegality, and observers of the time say that working with the mob-related figures and politicos came with the territory.”[557] One of these figures, Kenny Shapiro, was a prominent financier for the Scarfo family,[558] but was defended by Trump at public hearings in 1992 when he was applying for casino licenses in New Jersey.[559]
Johnston and Barrett say that Trump purchased the future site of Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza for twice its market value from the Philadelphia crime family member Salvatore Testa, and according to the State of New Jersey Commission of Investigation’s 1986 report on organized crime, constructed the casino using two firms controlled by Nicodemo Scarfo.[556] Johnston and other investigative reporters also reported that Trump Tower, Trump Plaza, and other New York City properties were constructed with concrete purchased from S&A Concrete Co., a firm owned by Anthony Salerno, head of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family.[555][557]
- Robert LiButti
According to an investigative report by Yahoo News which obtained documents through the New Jersey Open Public Records Act, Robert LiButti was recorded in a September 1990 FBI wiretap telling a Trump casino executive of his close relationships to both Trump and Gotti, invoking the latter’s name in connection to members of the Gambino crime family and pressuring Trump for business accommodations.[480] Trump Plaza paid an additional $450,000 fine leveled by the Casino Gaming Commission for giving LiButti $1.6 million in rare automobiles.[480]
Felix Sater
Starting in 2003, the Trump Organization worked with Felix Sater, who was then an executive at Bayrock Group LLC, on at least four projects including Trump SoHo; Trump International Hotel and Residence Phoenix, which failed;[560] Trump International Hotel and Residence Ft. Lauderdale, which collapsed amid allegations of fraud;[561] and an unrealized skyscraper project in Denver. Promoting the Denver project, Sater and Trump[562] travelled to the city[563] and gave an interview on The Rocky Mountain News in 2005.[564] In 2007, information became public regarding Sater’s 1998 racketeering conviction for a $40 million Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme. After his conviction, Sater had worked for the authorities as an informant against the mafia. At that point, Trump began to cut ties with Sater, eventually stripping his name from a Ft. Lauderdale-area Sater project in 2009.[90][564][565][566][567] In 2010, Sater was given a business development role at Trump Organization with an office at Trump Tower on the same floor as Trump’s office.[565][568]
According to British investigative journalist John Sweeney, Trump walked out of a 2013 interview with Sweeney for the BBC’s Panorama series when he asked Trump a question about his relationship with Sater.[566] “Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it”, Trump told the AP in December 2015. “I’m not that familiar with him.” Trump’s attorney said that Sater has “got a lot of contacts” and worked with Trump scouting real estate opportunities, but was never formally employed, and did not close any deals for Trump over the course of a six-month non-contractual working relationship in 2010.[565]
Tevfik Arif
In 2005, Trump joined Tevfik Arif and Tamir Sapir, executives of Bayrock LLC, as a full equity partner in a building project in New York City, the 46-story Trump SoHo.[569] The building was finished in 2010.[570] In 2010, Tevfik Arif and nine others were detained by Turkish authorities while aboard an historic yacht with women allegedly acting as prostitutes. Nine women from Russia and the Ukraine were also detained in a bust culminating a seven-month investigation.[571] It was not the first time he had used the yacht for this purpose, and the others who were detained included Russian, Kyrgyz, and Kazakh businessmen and top government officials.[572] In April 2011, Arif was acquitted of the charges that he was operating a prostitution ring, in a judgment that also recorded that all the women aboard the ‘Savarona’ were age 18 or older.[573]
Campaign contributions
According to a New York state report, Trump circumvented corporate and personal campaign donation limits in the 1980s by donating money to candidates from 18 different business subsidiaries, rather than giving primarily in his own name.[557][574] Trump told investigators he did so on the advice of his lawyers. He also said the contributions were not to curry favor with business-friendly candidates, but simply to satisfy requests from friends.[557][575]
Awards and honors
We Da People should stand up against hate rhetoric and preserve American values.
By
@DaPeaple 12/17/15
@theriverkid413 added on 4/7/16
WEDA Coalition 