6 ms·

It's so painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that his whole character reeks of fraud. How this news could ever come as a surprise to anyone is a testame

by gmd63 1y ago

It's so painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that his whole character reeks of fraud. How this news could ever come as a surprise to anyone is a testament to how poorly our mainstream and social media outlets have informed the citizenry.

bongodongobob 1y ago
It's been obvious since the 70s. That's what baffles me so much. He's been the face of the rich person asshole fraudster for 50 years. I cannot wrap my head around it.
- shawn_w 1y ago
  Whoever it was that hired him for The Apprentice has a lot to answer for.
  - phonon 1y ago
    https://apnews.com/article/trump-apprentice-producer-burnett-envoy-united-kingdom-add9ff1ff9f72ddba482410f46070977 https://apnews.com/article/trump-apprentice-producer-burnett...
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      I know people, some of them educated, who are absolutely addicted to Burnett's reality TV shows. Those shows are uniformly routinely cruel to their participants. I find it creepy that some people are attracted to that kind of entertainment. There's something deep inside them that I don't want to see.
- Fairburn 1y ago
  It's because the folks in the back-end of things like what he represents in terms of wealth consolidation and fewer lookie-loos to peek inside to see what's truly going on. "Trump" is a symptom of much broader things that can only be fixed by fire. And even then, just like the cockroach, he'll scurry away under the baseboards to hide until his next meal.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 1y ago
  Over the decades Trump has popped in and out of my attention like "oh, I guess that guy is still around". Yet from what I gather there have been people following him the whole time like he's someone important or worthwhile. I think what it comes down to is that the average person in our society is just an aggressive basic shithead who isn't burdened by an abundance of thinking, and so to them Trump appears as a successful businessman rather than a hollow snake oil salesman.
- bruce511 1y ago
  He gives people permission to be their worst selves. When the president gets away with all sorts of crime. When he openly mocks people. When he indulges in racism. When he complains about being treated unfairly. When he lies. When he defrauds, or grifts, or flip-flops. When he's misogynitic. What's he saying is "you too can do these things and get away with it". People like that. People like that there's no accountability for bad behavior. Sure, we can talk about policy, or economy, or whatever (how's that working out?) But deep down the democrats ask us to be the best version of ourselves (or else) and Republicans delight in us being the worst. Human nature being what it is, we end up here. Just remember folks, we voted for this.
brokensegue 1y ago
I think the media has made it plenty clear he's a fraud. The citizenry is to blame (or I guess maybe the education system or lead)
- timewizard 1y ago
  Billions of dollars spent on elections by people with insane net worths and you're going to blame the citizens who largely struggle to get from paycheck to paycheck? Hacker News attracts a real "social bully" element for reasons I can't rightly determine.
  - sleepyguy 1y ago
    Those same citizens voted for Trump so they could put screws in iPhones and their children would have a bright future working in coal mines and factories.
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    It's both, we know citizens have power (Wisconsin), we know money has power(Elon Musk) But Wisconsin was wondering because people hate Elon Musk. My worry is that billionaires would fund anonymously both political media and they also own their own social media and so citizens would kind of less vote ... Or billionaire power would overcome that of citizen. I think we need citizens to be aware of this but I also understand politics is a shitshow and i have so many hassles, why take another one. And to that, I have no answer. i myself am stuck on this dilemma. I am really going to stop reading news because I don't think I personally can do anything. I have better things to do like studying or building software which can do better impact. Though it also doesn't sucks to know about politics except I have seen people are really set in stone of politics, myself included.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    It's easy to assume everyone thinks the same way. It's hard to comprehend just how different other lifestyles might be, so it's just easier hand wave it all away. It might not even be intentional or consciously being done.
  - 1y ago
stronglikedan 1y ago
[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > no one has ever proved it What? Trump University [1]. Atlantic City [2][3]. > any successful business person will have those in their portfolio Most businesses don’t have this sort of widespread rap sheet. And most businesses aren’t headed by a felon. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/spin-deride-attack-how-trumps-handling-of-trump-university-presaged-his-presidency/2020/07/24/7d3a327a-bfb8-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/spin-deride-attack-h... [2] https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-fines-trump-taj-mahal-casino-resort-10-million-significant-and-long https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-fines-trump... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Rock_Hotel_%26_Casino_Atlantic_City#Controversies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Rock_Hotel_%26_Casino_A...
- dashundchen 1y ago
  The only TDS is the blind devotion his cult has, that lets them contort themselves into supporting anything the fascist con-artist spews out. Not getting into the cryptocurrency rug-pull he just pulled during his inauguration 2 months ago. Not even getting into his lie about election fraud. Here's just a small smattering of the civil and legal judgements Trump has lost in regards to defrauding people. > In December 2022, two entities of the Trump Organization were found guilty on 17 counts, including tax fraud and falsifying business records. The scheme involved providing executives with off-the-books perks to evade taxes > In May 2024, Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges were related to hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign to conceal information. > In February 2024, a New York judge ruled that Donald Trump and his companies had engaged in a years-long scheme to inflate his wealth on financial statements. The court imposed a $355 million penalty and barred Trump from serving in top roles at any New York company for three years > In August 2022, Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's former CFO, pleaded guilty to 15 felony charges, including grand larceny and tax fraud, admitting to a scheme that evaded taxes on $1.7 million in income. > In November 2019, a New York state judge ordered Donald Trump to pay $2 million in damages for misusing the Trump Foundation's funds to further his political and business interests. > Trump University, a for-profit real estate training program, faced multiple lawsuits alleging that it defrauded students by making false claims about the value of its courses and the involvement of Trump himself. In April 2018, a federal judge finalized a $25 million settlement to resolve these lawsuits > Trump and his companies have been accused for decades of refusing to pay contractors, workers, and small businesses after work was completed
timewizard 1y ago
> is a testament to how poorly our mainstream and social media outlets have informed the citizenry. You're assuming people _want_ to be "informed." You could build the best news apparatus in the world, the most accurate reporting, with full scale third party auditing of your results. It likely would not change very much. Humans are not designed to lock into large scale groups and then make coordinated long term decisions together. In my opinion we should avoid doing this as much as is possible.
- csoups14 1y ago
  Agreed. People want to be entertained, not informed.
  - scrubs 1y ago
    Great point. I made much the same before in a different way. We're all clear Disney, Star Wars, TV is entertainment. People are not clear that Rush Limbaugh, opinion makers on podcasts, Fox, CNN, Tick-tock is also entertainment. The straightest venue for news proper has got to be CSPAN. They're clearly there to inform not to push a point, piss you off at the other side, or any other shadow-boxing goals. Getting people pissed off to own the liberals, the neo-cons, to own the Trump supporters is ... entertainment and it doesn't hurt (I write this cynically) it helps drives up ad-revenue.
    - keybored 1y ago
      Are you people?
  - spacecadet 1y ago
    "Are you not entertained?!"
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
matwood 1y ago
This plus pausing enforcement of foreign bribery plus having is own meme coin, is anyone still questioning if Trump is absolutely being bribed by foreign agents? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/pausing-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-enforcement-to-further-american-economic-and-national-security/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/paus... https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-made-nearly-100-million-trading-fees-small-traders-lost-money-2025-02-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-...
nimbius 1y ago
If for some reason you did not understand cryptocurrency outside of its use in countries like North Korea, and wanted to crush its consumer confidence, you would in fact turn it into a lawless madhouse in favour of your fiat (which is rapidly losing value) Trump forgets the US, and most other major nations have a cryptocoin. a loss of confidence in an emerging currency market is a great way to torpedo your nations hegemony.
christina97 1y ago
Fox News is by far the most watched TV news channel in the US. I think it is clear that they are not out there to inform the citizenry in any meaningful capacity. (Side note: I suggest watching the channel every now and then just to get an idea of what the largest “news” channel is feeding Americans.)
- lazyeye 1y ago
  Obviously fox news is politically biased in its coverage. I just dont understand how any objective observer could perceive the others (cnn, msnbc etc) as any different?
  - thrance 1y ago
    Literally all that's on Fox News is lies upon lies in service of the GOP. I do not hold the other channels in my heart, but there are degrees of misleadingness and partisanship.
  - etchalon 1y ago
    The difference is what the bias tends towards. Jon Stewart made this point a decade ago, and I don't think anything has changed. Fox New is biased in partisan way – specifically protecting and advocating towards the goals of a political party. NYT, CNN, etc are biased towards other things first (conflict, spectacle, consensus) and while the majority of their staff likely have a liberal bias, they are not actively partisan. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbtUztVctI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbtUztVctI
    - lazyeye 1y ago
      "they are not actively partisan"....again, no objective observer believes this. And quoting Jon Stewart would be like me quoting Tucker Carlson.
      - lovich 1y ago
        Oh? I hadn’t heard that Stewart got his company a 780+ million dollar settlement in large part because he had texts stating he knew he was lying to the public. Someone should do something about that Stewart fellow if he keeps getting away with the stuff
lenerdenator 1y ago
If you're screwed enough you eventually just want to burn the whole thing down, whether it's rational or not, and there are definitely some people who voted that way. That, or he's just a recognition of reality: resources and being a dick get you everywhere, whether it be business, politics, international relations, or the courts. Being authoritarian didn't stop China from becoming a near-parity superpower. Europeans were more than happy to start working on Nordstream 2 and attend both the World Cup and Winter Olympics in Russia long after it became apparent that Putin and his ilk were going to return to being imperialistic autocrats. Why does it matter if the US does the same if you're willing to fall in line?
- Zigurd 1y ago
  Most of Europe and European leaders have admitted they were wrong about Russia. Some, but not enough, Republicans know the vatniks among them are wrong.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    They were, but they've shown that they'll gladly ignore human rights abuses and autocracy so long as the price is right. Trump's used to doing business that way, unfortunately. Really, if Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine, I don't think Europeans would particularly care about those problems in Russia. It only really became problematic when the order of the continent was threatened, and even then it took some serious arm-twisting to get certain members of NATO and the EU to commit to measures to do something.
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      Of course, relative to starting a land war in Europe "...if Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine, I don't think Europeans would particularly care..." That's proportionate. Equally, though, I'm sure they would be pleased to find Russia wanting to join a rules based order. Bolsonaro was just recently found to be plotting to kill his political rival in Brazil. What should we who are not Brazilians do about that?
ASalazarMX 1y ago
IMO what is becoming painfully obvious is that the checks and balances don't work, and need a serious overhauling. It should be impossible for a single person, or even a whole party, to blatantly break the law, or risk national security with reckless decisions, and face no consequences.
cryptonector 1y ago
According to a sibling top-comment this is not a decision to not pursue cryptocurrency fraud altogether, just to leave some such crimes to other agencies in the federal government. That is, if the SEC wants charges filed against some person, then presumably the DOJ will prosecute, but the DOJ will not prosecute w/o the SEC (or other regulator) requesting it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43636390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43636390

by gmd63 1y ago

bongodongobob 1y ago

It's been obvious since the 70s. That's what baffles me so much. He's been the face of the rich person asshole fraudster for 50 years. I cannot wrap my head around it.

shawn_w 1y ago
Whoever it was that hired him for The Apprentice has a lot to answer for.
- phonon 1y ago
  https://apnews.com/article/trump-apprentice-producer-burnett-envoy-united-kingdom-add9ff1ff9f72ddba482410f46070977 https://apnews.com/article/trump-apprentice-producer-burnett...
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    I know people, some of them educated, who are absolutely addicted to Burnett's reality TV shows. Those shows are uniformly routinely cruel to their participants. I find it creepy that some people are attracted to that kind of entertainment. There's something deep inside them that I don't want to see.
Fairburn 1y ago
It's because the folks in the back-end of things like what he represents in terms of wealth consolidation and fewer lookie-loos to peek inside to see what's truly going on. "Trump" is a symptom of much broader things that can only be fixed by fire. And even then, just like the cockroach, he'll scurry away under the baseboards to hide until his next meal.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mindslight 1y ago
Over the decades Trump has popped in and out of my attention like "oh, I guess that guy is still around". Yet from what I gather there have been people following him the whole time like he's someone important or worthwhile. I think what it comes down to is that the average person in our society is just an aggressive basic shithead who isn't burdened by an abundance of thinking, and so to them Trump appears as a successful businessman rather than a hollow snake oil salesman.
bruce511 1y ago
He gives people permission to be their worst selves. When the president gets away with all sorts of crime. When he openly mocks people. When he indulges in racism. When he complains about being treated unfairly. When he lies. When he defrauds, or grifts, or flip-flops. When he's misogynitic. What's he saying is "you too can do these things and get away with it". People like that. People like that there's no accountability for bad behavior. Sure, we can talk about policy, or economy, or whatever (how's that working out?) But deep down the democrats ask us to be the best version of ourselves (or else) and Republicans delight in us being the worst. Human nature being what it is, we end up here. Just remember folks, we voted for this.

brokensegue 1y ago

I think the media has made it plenty clear he's a fraud. The citizenry is to blame (or I guess maybe the education system or lead)

timewizard 1y ago
Billions of dollars spent on elections by people with insane net worths and you're going to blame the citizens who largely struggle to get from paycheck to paycheck? Hacker News attracts a real "social bully" element for reasons I can't rightly determine.
- sleepyguy 1y ago
  Those same citizens voted for Trump so they could put screws in iPhones and their children would have a bright future working in coal mines and factories.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  It's both, we know citizens have power (Wisconsin), we know money has power(Elon Musk) But Wisconsin was wondering because people hate Elon Musk. My worry is that billionaires would fund anonymously both political media and they also own their own social media and so citizens would kind of less vote ... Or billionaire power would overcome that of citizen. I think we need citizens to be aware of this but I also understand politics is a shitshow and i have so many hassles, why take another one. And to that, I have no answer. i myself am stuck on this dilemma. I am really going to stop reading news because I don't think I personally can do anything. I have better things to do like studying or building software which can do better impact. Though it also doesn't sucks to know about politics except I have seen people are really set in stone of politics, myself included.
- dylan604 1y ago
  It's easy to assume everyone thinks the same way. It's hard to comprehend just how different other lifestyles might be, so it's just easier hand wave it all away. It might not even be intentional or consciously being done.
- 1y ago

stronglikedan 1y ago

[flagged]

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> no one has ever proved it What? Trump University [1]. Atlantic City [2][3]. > any successful business person will have those in their portfolio Most businesses don’t have this sort of widespread rap sheet. And most businesses aren’t headed by a felon. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/spin-deride-attack-how-trumps-handling-of-trump-university-presaged-his-presidency/2020/07/24/7d3a327a-bfb8-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/spin-deride-attack-h... [2] https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-fines-trump-taj-mahal-casino-resort-10-million-significant-and-long https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-fines-trump... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Rock_Hotel_%26_Casino_Atlantic_City#Controversies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Rock_Hotel_%26_Casino_A...
dashundchen 1y ago
The only TDS is the blind devotion his cult has, that lets them contort themselves into supporting anything the fascist con-artist spews out. Not getting into the cryptocurrency rug-pull he just pulled during his inauguration 2 months ago. Not even getting into his lie about election fraud. Here's just a small smattering of the civil and legal judgements Trump has lost in regards to defrauding people. > In December 2022, two entities of the Trump Organization were found guilty on 17 counts, including tax fraud and falsifying business records. The scheme involved providing executives with off-the-books perks to evade taxes > In May 2024, Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges were related to hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign to conceal information. > In February 2024, a New York judge ruled that Donald Trump and his companies had engaged in a years-long scheme to inflate his wealth on financial statements. The court imposed a $355 million penalty and barred Trump from serving in top roles at any New York company for three years > In August 2022, Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's former CFO, pleaded guilty to 15 felony charges, including grand larceny and tax fraud, admitting to a scheme that evaded taxes on $1.7 million in income. > In November 2019, a New York state judge ordered Donald Trump to pay $2 million in damages for misusing the Trump Foundation's funds to further his political and business interests. > Trump University, a for-profit real estate training program, faced multiple lawsuits alleging that it defrauded students by making false claims about the value of its courses and the involvement of Trump himself. In April 2018, a federal judge finalized a $25 million settlement to resolve these lawsuits > Trump and his companies have been accused for decades of refusing to pay contractors, workers, and small businesses after work was completed

timewizard 1y ago

> is a testament to how poorly our mainstream and social media outlets have informed the citizenry. You're assuming people _want_ to be "informed." You could build the best news apparatus in the world, the most accurate reporting, with full scale third party auditing of your results. It likely would not change very much. Humans are not designed to lock into large scale groups and then make coordinated long term decisions together. In my opinion we should avoid doing this as much as is possible.

csoups14 1y ago
Agreed. People want to be entertained, not informed.
- scrubs 1y ago
  Great point. I made much the same before in a different way. We're all clear Disney, Star Wars, TV is entertainment. People are not clear that Rush Limbaugh, opinion makers on podcasts, Fox, CNN, Tick-tock is also entertainment. The straightest venue for news proper has got to be CSPAN. They're clearly there to inform not to push a point, piss you off at the other side, or any other shadow-boxing goals. Getting people pissed off to own the liberals, the neo-cons, to own the Trump supporters is ... entertainment and it doesn't hurt (I write this cynically) it helps drives up ad-revenue.
  - keybored 1y ago
    Are you people?
- spacecadet 1y ago
  "Are you not entertained?!"
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

matwood 1y ago

This plus pausing enforcement of foreign bribery plus having is own meme coin, is anyone still questioning if Trump is absolutely being bribed by foreign agents? https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/pausing-foreign-corrupt-practices-act-enforcement-to-further-american-economic-and-national-security/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/paus... https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-made-nearly-100-million-trading-fees-small-traders-lost-money-2025-02-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-...

nimbius 1y ago

If for some reason you did not understand cryptocurrency outside of its use in countries like North Korea, and wanted to crush its consumer confidence, you would in fact turn it into a lawless madhouse in favour of your fiat (which is rapidly losing value) Trump forgets the US, and most other major nations have a cryptocoin. a loss of confidence in an emerging currency market is a great way to torpedo your nations hegemony.

christina97 1y ago

Fox News is by far the most watched TV news channel in the US. I think it is clear that they are not out there to inform the citizenry in any meaningful capacity. (Side note: I suggest watching the channel every now and then just to get an idea of what the largest “news” channel is feeding Americans.)

lazyeye 1y ago
Obviously fox news is politically biased in its coverage. I just dont understand how any objective observer could perceive the others (cnn, msnbc etc) as any different?
- thrance 1y ago
  Literally all that's on Fox News is lies upon lies in service of the GOP. I do not hold the other channels in my heart, but there are degrees of misleadingness and partisanship.
- etchalon 1y ago
  The difference is what the bias tends towards. Jon Stewart made this point a decade ago, and I don't think anything has changed. Fox New is biased in partisan way – specifically protecting and advocating towards the goals of a political party. NYT, CNN, etc are biased towards other things first (conflict, spectacle, consensus) and while the majority of their staff likely have a liberal bias, they are not actively partisan. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbtUztVctI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbtUztVctI
  - lazyeye 1y ago
    "they are not actively partisan"....again, no objective observer believes this. And quoting Jon Stewart would be like me quoting Tucker Carlson.
    - lovich 1y ago
      Oh? I hadn’t heard that Stewart got his company a 780+ million dollar settlement in large part because he had texts stating he knew he was lying to the public. Someone should do something about that Stewart fellow if he keeps getting away with the stuff

lenerdenator 1y ago

If you're screwed enough you eventually just want to burn the whole thing down, whether it's rational or not, and there are definitely some people who voted that way. That, or he's just a recognition of reality: resources and being a dick get you everywhere, whether it be business, politics, international relations, or the courts. Being authoritarian didn't stop China from becoming a near-parity superpower. Europeans were more than happy to start working on Nordstream 2 and attend both the World Cup and Winter Olympics in Russia long after it became apparent that Putin and his ilk were going to return to being imperialistic autocrats. Why does it matter if the US does the same if you're willing to fall in line?

Zigurd 1y ago
Most of Europe and European leaders have admitted they were wrong about Russia. Some, but not enough, Republicans know the vatniks among them are wrong.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  They were, but they've shown that they'll gladly ignore human rights abuses and autocracy so long as the price is right. Trump's used to doing business that way, unfortunately. Really, if Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine, I don't think Europeans would particularly care about those problems in Russia. It only really became problematic when the order of the continent was threatened, and even then it took some serious arm-twisting to get certain members of NATO and the EU to commit to measures to do something.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    Of course, relative to starting a land war in Europe "...if Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine, I don't think Europeans would particularly care..." That's proportionate. Equally, though, I'm sure they would be pleased to find Russia wanting to join a rules based order. Bolsonaro was just recently found to be plotting to kill his political rival in Brazil. What should we who are not Brazilians do about that?

ASalazarMX 1y ago

IMO what is becoming painfully obvious is that the checks and balances don't work, and need a serious overhauling. It should be impossible for a single person, or even a whole party, to blatantly break the law, or risk national security with reckless decisions, and face no consequences.

cryptonector 1y ago

According to a sibling top-comment this is not a decision to not pursue cryptocurrency fraud altogether, just to leave some such crimes to other agencies in the federal government. That is, if the SEC wants charges filed against some person, then presumably the DOJ will prosecute, but the DOJ will not prosecute w/o the SEC (or other regulator) requesting it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43636390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43636390