Only thing Trump has in common is that they are both very popular.
2
Donald is a failed actor, playing this larger than life persona, but in reality he is a hollow individual. By now he probably can't even tell when he's acting and when he's not.
It's the persona that's running the country and putting on the show, not the actual man. That's what his electorate voted for, that's what they got: he's the stronger howler.
Sad!
10
When we were kids, my father would drive up Federal Hill and surreptitiously point out the headquarters of the New England mob boss, Raymond Patriarca, Sr. It was in back offices of one of his laundromats. I always found that so unbelievable. A laundromat!
Now the Mob Boss is in the Oval Office. (So glad Pop isn't around to witness this. He'd be disgusted.) 'Unbelievable" doesn't begin to approach my thoughts and feelings at this.
Pop, please put the car in reverse and roll us back down Federal Hill and tell me thst this is just not true. Tell me it's just a bad dream.
17
Yes, and when he is not talking like a mobster, he's repeating while supremacist conspiracy theories, so that they know he's on their side.
7
Trump will likely be indicted after he leaves office. The charges will probably be for money-laundering for the Russian mafia (oligarchs with close ties to Putin) through real estate deals. The kick-backs on such deals can be quite substantial and, of course, easily hidden from the IRS. He should be quite nervous that his accountant has now cut a deal with investigators and could blow the lid on all of these deals.
7
Rat? Flip? My, my, he forgot "sing like a jailbird."
9
Trump has been a liar his entire life.
5
OMG NYT - really? I’m losing faith in you.....please please don’t turn into HuffPost.
“Don’t forget where you come from” if we’re using outer-borough working class mobster speak or whatever offensive description you threw together to come up with this angle.
1
There is nothing uncanny or strange about Trump's vocabulary. His entire playbook is deeply connected to the dark underbelly of New York. Trump is a player that lives on the absolute edge of legality. His moral behavior is limited only by the likelihood of conviction and incarceration.
14
To all of those who voted for him and are still supportive, wake up. More people voted against him than for him. While supporters may have no problem with a mob boss in the White House, the majority of us did and still do.
His supporters voted for tone over substance. The rest of us recognized there was no substance because he bellowed out little more than empty promises with no means to deliver on them. If you remember the bogus Trump University, you know what we're remembering. If you were believing that Mexico would pay for the wall, you were suckered in. If you don't have buyers remorse by now, chat with soybean farmers. Talk to the folks at Carrier. Or, try living separated from your young children for awhile.
A mob boss rules by fear. If you're not afraid of this president yet, just wait. If it comes down to a choice between your livelihood or his, you know what he will choose.
27
Time to make the Presidency great again!
5
No one is above the law. Vote everyone. Even if he is not indicted till #46 is elected. State prosecutors should be sharpening their pencils for the rest of the gang. Vote
8
Wannabe . . . . phony . . . . coward
6
Our country is sorting through so many important problems right now, and we deserve better journalism than this.
Your front page has been entirely silent about a nationwide prison strike currently underway.
An American citizen just received the largest sentence in history related to an intelligence breach, and many credible sources are criticizing the ruling as political and unethical. This is not on the front page.
I want to know more about the Trump Admin's environmental rollbacks, the intricacies of whether or not a sitting president can be indicted, and the valiant efforts of people's movements all over this country.
I don't need to read a fluff piece designed to rile up moderate liberals in the demonization of this president. He is unfit for the office, but comparing him to the mob is juvenile.
5
@Jason Boxer:
The Mob comparison is (allegedly) both accurate and obvious.
He is a failed Casino owner. Fact.
All of his other wealth is in Real Estate. The investigations are (apparently) zeroing in on Russian monsy laundering via Real Estate deals associated to Trump. Read "Collusion" by Luke Harding, and "House of Trump / House of Putin" by Craig Unger.
Thug.
2
Trump evoking "Goodfellas?" Seriously? He may think he's Jimmy Conway but he's really more like Spider.
5
When Allen Weisselberg flips, Lord have mercy: all kinds of mafia invective will be spewing from Stable Genius' lips and from his jittery, tweeting little fingers. As chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Weisselberg knows all about Stable Genius' money; which is why for their upcoming chat, Mr. Mueller has granted him immunity. So put on your helmets and flak jackets and hunker down: a tweet storm like no other is a-comin'.
9
The Trump base is fine with the corruption, fine with their President's mob boss mentality.
And they are fine with the Trump Swamp and all of it's creatures.
It's the bigotry that drew them to Trump. As long as he keeps up the bigotry and continues to traffic in racism, the base is firmly in Trump's corner.
7
Not only does crooked Donald talk the talk, he walks the walk.
5
Trump is mafioso’d through and through and when his tax returns are made public (only a matter of time) we will see what a criminal he really is. I suspect money laundering has always been his bread and butter, so to speak. Giuliani is next. Trump will turn on him any day now. He’ll flip to save his hide and then Trump will call him Giuliani, the Squeal. That’s another mafia word, said very slowly to be ever so descriptive. Then my next question is, who in the GOP is hyperventilating lately? Wonder why.
6
I don't think any mob boss ever pretended to be his own PR man, nor wanted daily notoriety. All of Trump's problems come from his own blowhard mouth. And anyone who lives by the media, will inevitably die by the media. Therefore, the sickness killing Trump's presidency is his own unbridled narcissism.
8
Where can I buy a "stop snitchin " t-shirt with Trump's picture on the back?
1
Anyone remember Danny Greene? After his murderer informed on the mobster who hired the hit, that mobster turned informant. But when same mobster learned from his own they had a clerk in the FBI who was going to provide the names of informants, he flipped hard and brought down enough mobsters for Sinatra to call him a fink at his own Nevada Gaming Commission hearing.
I read the CIA's informants in Russia have gone silent. Has someone inside the US given up their identities, or maybe their contacts? I pray not.
2
You folks have gone nuts, just nuts.
Get control of yourself.
This is embarrassing.
Star Trek
A Piece of the Action (12 Jan. 1968)
The crew of the Enterprise visits a planet of people who have modeled their society on Earth-like 1920s gangsters.
KIRK: They call you The Boss, Mister Oxmyx. The boss of what?
OXMYX: The boss of my territory. I got the biggest in the world. You know, there's one thing wrong with having the biggest. There's always some punk trying to cut you out. That's why you can't be too careful.
KIRK: You're the government here?
OXMYX: What government? Look, I told you. I got the territory and I run it. That's all.
KIRK: But there are other bosses, other territories?
OXMYX: Yeah, sure. Maybe a dozen or so, not counting the small fry, but then they get burned anyway soon as I get around to it.
SPOCK: Does that include, if I may ask, a gentleman called Krako?
OXMYX: How do you know about Krako?
KALO: He hit us, Boss.
OXMYX: Okay. You hit him back, you hear? Hard.
KALO: I'll take care of it.
(Spock has discovered a book on a lectern.)
SPOCK: Captain? Gangsters. Chicago. Mobs. Published in 1992. Where'd you get this?
OXMYX: Hey, wait a minute. That's the Book.
KIRK: I know it's a book.
OXMYX: The Book. They left it, the other ship. The Horizon.
SPOCK: This is the contamination, Captain. Astonishing. An entire culture based on this.
15
Coming from Long Island I know a few people from New York, none of them speak like gangsters. So Trump doesn't speak like native New Yorkers, he speaks like a crook
8
The article closes with, “He [Trump] doesn’t realize in 2018 that it sounds ridiculous to talk about rats.”
That’s bacause in this, as in all things, Donnie Boy is a poseur.
2
I miss Obama. He lied so much more elegantly.
5
These ads remind me of the holiday commercial proposed by Bill Murray's character in Scrooged. I wonder how many of today's viewers will fall for these scare tactics. It's cruel that their polical leaders rely on the fact that many are easily manipulated into thinking their individual, one-of-a-kind, American lifestyles are under personal attack by an unstoppable mob of feminists, Latinos, and gays . And I thought liberals were the delicate little snowflakes??
3
Trump thinks he's a tough guy but he's just a first rate punk. He'd last about an hour in prison.
5
"You dirty rats"! My apologies to the late Edwin G. Robinson. I can still picture the great actor with his face twisted up speaking that line. Come to think of it, Trump's expression is much the same.
3
The fact is that when Trump met the head of the Russian mob, Putin, in Helsinki, Trump was a timid, kowtowing pussycat.
4
Funniest opening paragraph of any NYT piece in recent memory. Mark Landler be proud,
Yes, anyoneg living in a big northern city can spot a wannabe mobster type and their vocabulary but TRUMP is much more like the movie DUNE.
Publicly is the Spice.
1
From American exceptionalism to America under rule of mobster family.
How astounding is that!
1
"The cheaper the hood, the gaudier the patter." Sam Spade
8
If it quacks like a duck....
4
This language, from a man who says he has "the best words." The fact that this man made it through college would be shocking if it wasn't obvious that his father was involved in his transfer from Fordham to Wharton/Penn.
5
According to a recent poll, many Americans (Trump's base?) are not troubled by this week's developments. Many answered "no opinion". I wonder if Trump's assault on the media has been so effective that people no longer know what to believe. However, one thing is certain. Trump's tweets speak for themselves. He laments that his former campaign chairman was found guilty on serious charges, calling him a "very good person." He calls the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt", creating the impression he has something to hide and can be saved only if it is immediately terminated. Dear Mr. Trump, if you have nothing to hide, please stop your assault on our system of justice, which is making you look like you are above the law.
3
After 9/11 I volunteered at the the WTC with Salvation Army officers that flew in from all over the country to help. They were great people but few had ever been to NYC. Most all were surprised by how friendly NYers were.
I asked them what they expected, they almost all said Andy Sipowicz, the grizzly character played by Dennis Franz on NYPD Blue. Given their religious beliefs I would guess they all voted for Trump.
Why is this important? Because to the hard core supporters this isn't Trump being a bad person, it's Trump just being a New Yorker. And they love Sipowicz, the guy who understood what fighting the system meant and was going to bend the rules to do it.
The more Trump pretends to be a man working against the system the more they love him.
1
Please can you stop with the Italian mob references! The low life depicted in gangland writings and especially films fascinate but the effect is the same, Italians get painted with the same broad brush. It denigrates. So too did the Italian authors impact soil themselves along with their people. These stereotypes never dissolve unless you point to the bigotry.
Trump is a Scots/Irishman and I can’t imagine seeing references to this bigot couched in terms that would blacken the Scots or the Irish. I understand this is challenging. We’re all running out of analogies.
The Irish did however make great story tellers and filmmakers. I was raised on the wonders of their films and literature, but since their exodus preceded the Italian migration they, like those who came before, scorned the coming of the next tide. This is now his legacy.
May I suggest that you look to the lands that bore Trump’s parents and more importantly to those who nurtured and coddled him for giving the Times such a challenge in describing this wretched refuse to our shores.
3
In the words of Alexis de Tocqueville from his "Democracy in America":
"One cannot say it too often: There is nothing more prolific in marvels than the art of being free; but there is nothing harder than the apprenticeship of freedom. It is not the same with despotism. Despotism often presents itself as the mender of all ills suffered; it is the support of good law, the sustainer of the oppressed, and the founder of order. Peoples fall asleep in the bosom of the temporary prosperity to which it gives birth; and when they awaken, they are miserable. Freedom, in contrast, is ordinarily born in the midst of storms, it is established painfully among civil discords, and only when it is old can one know its benefits." (Trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, Chicago UP, 2000)
1
All these messages are full of hate. I sympathize after this agonizing time with Trump, but the hate is playing right into the election ads that portray the left as scary fanatics. Maybe only his base will believe them, and others will see from whom they come. I hope so.
1
Comey, in his book, observed that Trump ran his presidency like a mob boss, you were with them or against him. Fortunately Marberry v Madison held thar the courts have the last word on constitutionalality of actions. And they stopped Nixon.
3
Trump appears to be using strong-arm tactics of mob bosses, by threatening to sabotage the stock market if he is removed or forced from the Office of the President. This is a veiled extortion threat and not Presidential.
2
This stereotype of people from “the outer boroughs,” especially in relation to the President, is getting awfully tired. Donald Trump grew up in Jamaica Estates. And Little Italy was in Manhattan.
2
The only person Trump ever hired who was qualified to do the job was Stormy Daniels.
6
Trump seems to be losing the support of some of his "best people". Now he hates them because they "flipped" (i.e. decided to tell the truth). Sad.
2
" outer boroughs of New York City, where he grew up — a place of leafy neighborhoods and working-class families". Working class? Seriously? Don't think you've read his bio.
1
Just yesterday I was describing him as a cartoon or a caricature, in the past I’ve referred to him and his sycophants as gangsters. This article lays it all right out. He really is just a 12 year old stuck in his preadolescent views of power and what it means to be a “tough guy,” which goes directly to his treatment of women and minorities and anyone he views as not “tough.” But, most important, like every preadolescent, underneath all the bluster and puffed chest is a really awkward scared little boy trying to figure out how to enter the more complex world of adolescence which leads to adulthood. Trump, it’s apparent, just never got past being 12.
7
Like Capone, will Trump go down because of income taxes?
1
Interesting, there is a post below that describes basically how Trump was a mob wanna-be hanger-on from outerborough Queens who was indulged by mobster types because he had some cash to spend, but was simultaneously mocked behind his back.
It reminded me of the same treatment and relationship between Trump and Cohen...
What a funny little world he inhabits. And I mean, really little.
2
Go to the Mayo Clinic' s website. Under search, type in narcissism. The list all the traits and symptoms. Trump checks every box. Especially noteworthy: they demand unwavering loyalty, but give none, and will throw anyone under the bus at the drop of a hat. They think they are Superior to everyone else. How many times have we seen him rate himself A+? They love to bully and intimidate. If things don't go their way, they portray themselves as victims. Can you say witch-hunt? This is a sick man. God help the United States.
8
Let's not forget the other famous alumnus of New York Military Academy when Trump went there was John Gotti.
1
So did the Don's people pay a visit to the members of the GOP and set them straight and THAT'S why they have no spines?
1
Goodbye America, you failing experiment in democracy--
it was nice while it lasted.
from Bigbrain (not Deb)
8
Whoa up there in lovely Canada. The majority of Americans did not vote for the Idiot and we, the majority, will save our democracy. Don’t kick a horse when it’s down.
5
@Deb Don't be so pessimistic!
I think Trump will vanish, soon.
He is, perhaps, the ultimate, "spoiled brat" leader.
It might be a turning point, a coming of age for America.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
We have become so spoiled, wanting more stuff and more power. Along comes Trump, who has it all.
How ridiculous to have a United States of Trump, now.
Remember Kennedy's "And so my fellow Americans - ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
Goodbye, Pres. Trump. We will not miss you!
=================================
4
How do good old fashion country folk, that go to church every Sunday and love their apple pie, get to revere and treat Trump like one of their own?
It's either the greatest con job in the history of the world, or those good old fashion country folk aren't what they appear to be.
32
Trump has the best vocabulary. All the best people say that. It’s incredible folks. It really is.
10
The Republican Party fully endorses and soundly adopts the base instinctiveness of the 'Mob mentality' exhibited by Trump. Ratifying and confirming glib characterizations, expressed threats, sardonically laced taunts of recrimination, retaliation, and retribution aimed at perceived malcontents and members of the Trump 'hit list' (remember Nixon's enemies list?), serves to produce beneficial returns by reinforced 'loyalty.' The GOP's open acceptance of this banal conduct is another example of Trump's persistence in fomenting and inciting racial internecine, xenophobia, homophobia, and accentuating the 'us versus them' myopically stunted view of life. Many Trump supporters have begun demonstrating 'buyer's remorse,' and many more will join in the massive exodus from mendacity to broad mindedness. As reflected in the notable films 'Goodfellas,' 'Casino,' The Godfather,' Godfather II,' Godfather III,' and 'The Untouchables,' the 'Don' ultimately is vanquished. Many times, the very persons in his inner circle are responsible for his demise. The Trump Organization, operating through the Oval Office, is a federal RICO 'continuing criminal enterprise,' whose extensive tentacles reach domestically and internationally. The 'Don' and his 'capos' can be removed from heading the 'crime family' through prosecution under RICO conspiracy and the Pinkerton Doctrine. Exposing the 'Don' in his 'new clothes' will embolden the electorate to vote Democratic for a fresh start and a new future.
15
I worked as a bartender in a working class bar in Lower Manhattan in the 1980’s and about half the customers talked like Trump. The vocabulary was similar but I always attributed the grammar and incoherence to the alcohol.
19
I find it difficult to understand how the party that professes to be of “family values and of law and order” can continue to support someone like Trump. I’m waiting for a few of my family who still support Trump to explain this to me. I don’t expect any rational explanation.
22
It all comes down to money. As long as they’re paid off with their tax breaks and such, they’ll keep him around. The rest want their Good Ol’ America “back”.
1
Excellent piece. Right out of "Goodfellas." He's basically a thug from Queens. Teflon Don. Like Mafia gangsters, he's brought his family close to him, into the crime family. He sees the gullible electorate as an easy mark, and the presidency as the ultimate shakedown opportunity. He admires thugs around the world like Putin, because he feels a comfortable kinship with them.
38
DJ Trump is very hard to follow. One day we are certain that he wants to be a Dictator as he butters up Putin or Jung Un. Other days we are sure he is a John Gotti wannabe as he talks about Rats and "rolling over" in derogatory terms. The next day we are certain he is a sexist as he demeans women or calls them names. On the following day he quotes White Supremacist websites or praises racists so we think he may be racist. It is simply dizzying to follow this ex reality star as he chaotically moves from one position to another.
18
It’s all the same position...why would you think
Otherwise?
1
“Ex”-reality star? He’s still playing the game. He loves the attention. The drama goes on and he thrives on it.
2
I imagine his voters think that's something to be proud of? Does not inspire me to reach across and bridge the divide. Make hoodlums great again!
14
And I bet he knows which of his buildings Hoffa is buried in.
16
So, basically, he's a mobster wanna be. My reaction will be swift at the polls.
10
New York City rejects tRump. We didn't vote for him -- he does not represent NYC. We do not endorse Mafia dons. We do not talk like this or believe in these notions of intimidation. He is washed up and let this fake news of a white house temporary occupant end soon. Be gone tRump. You are a nightmare.
25
Alas, the majority of voters in Staten Island went for Trump (57% to Clinton's 40%). But the other NYC boroughs repudiated Trump at the polls and pulled the lever for Hillary Clinton: 88% of voters in the Bronx, 86% in Manhattan, 79% in Brooklyn, and 75% in Queens voted for Clinton.
2
I can tell you what Trump doesn't sound like: an innocent man.
Even a devoted follower of 45 has to admit that the only people who worry about "rats" and "flipping" are people involved in criminal conspiracies. And of course this fits a longstanding pattern of behavior (attempting to shut down the Mueller investigation, refusing to release his tax returns, lying about what he knew, etc) that indicates knowledge of guilt.
The wheels of justice are grinding slowly, but they are moving, and I think we can all see where they're headed.
21
To be despised in your home town says a lot. In most cases presidents are celebrated and beloved in their home state and city. The folks in Texas embrace the Bushes, Obama is loved in Hawaii and his adopted home town of Chicago, Boston loved the Kennedys and so on. New Yorkers for the most part have nothing but bad things to say about our current president. Why, well it is because they know him and have seen him up close in action. New Yorkers know a swindler when they see one.
43
Trump is not a surprise
That people voted for him says more about them than him
29
Trump’s grand dad was a pimp and ran brothels during the gold rush. From this background not much can be expected . Trump’s father was a shady real estate dealer . The son is a nincompoop and a malign influence on the planet . From pimp to President in 3 generations and then “poop” , signaling its all over folks.
8
Trump is not a gangster
Trump is the money launderer gangsters and criminals.
He knows them because he works with them.
7
Oh, Donald. Your fantasies run wild. God father? Really. Do you remember the end of John Gotti? He died in jail, emaciated and without McDonald. We know you are a slow learner but its time for you to leave the White House before they come for you.
19
Unless Tramp plans to make them "sleep with the fishes", no one will do hard-time for him.
5
I loved the Godfather, Goodfellas and the Sopranos. There was a certain charm to the characters. I often found myself rooting for them to kill the rat. I was jealous of them having wives who cooked and cleaned while they were having sex with strippers and extorting money on the street, between hanging out and drinking expresso.
It's a fun fantasy. The reality is extortion, tax evasion and money laundering isn't cute. Conspiring with a foreign government to steal an election isn't something to root for. Cheating on your wife with porn star may be part of the fantasy, conspiring with a publication and your lawyer to keep them quit somehow lacks even roguish charm.
The real "Dapper Don" died in prison. It was a fitting end for a brutally evil crime boss.
Interestingly, North Korea recently described the US negotiating style under Trump's as “gangster-like”.
21
Excellent piece. Right out of "Goodfellas." He's basically a thug from Queens. Teflon Don. Like Mafia gangsters, he's brought his family close to him, into the crime family. He sees the gullible electorate as an easy mark, and the presidency as the ultimate shakedown opportunity. He admires thugs like Putin, because he feels a comfortable kinship with them.
6
Give us a break. Trump is Trump - no excuses there. But why is it that Trump's use of gangster terms has to come from first hand involvement while your familiarity with the same terms comes from the movies that you watched? Maybe Trump watched the same movies that you did? Or, are you also a closet mafiosi?
4
Maybe it's because those of us who've watched mafia movies don't choose to speak in that vernacular. Unfortunately, our president seems to love talking like John Gotti.
13
For some reason this article stops short of admitting that not only does Trump talk like the mob, he more than likely is IN the mob. He surrounds himself with crooked people because he’s as crooked as they come.
2
I posted this the other day, but here it is again.
"Guys and Dolls" (with new words)
Title tune from the musical of the same name based on stories of Damon Runyon.
When you see a guy,
Try to hide his mob ties,
You can bet
He's mixed up with a Don named Trump.
When Trump's pals put cash
Through Vlad's washing machine
You can bet that it shows
What everyone knows --
Don's hands are not clean.
See Paul Manafort
Sweating out days in court
And McGahn, Gates, and Cohen In Mueller's thrall.
Call it sad, call it scary
Trump will wish he'd been much more wary
Cause his guys aren't going to take a fall
For him.
The guys aren't going to take a fall.
2
What we are seeing in this administration's current and deepening crisis is the bankruptcy of solipsism as an effective tool of governance. There's an objective world that comes knocking at the door on a daily basis.
While initially intrigued and then fooled by the faux-appearance of DJT being an "outsider" people are growing tired of the unending lies and methodology of making it up as he goes along. This is a man whose world perspective is completely defined by the limitations of his personal bank account and not much more. Sad.
DJT continues to flaunt the borrowed concept of "L'etat, c'est moi" but, if you want to talk about rats, it's the people in his inner circle who are now jumping overboard and off of a transparently sinking ship of state. Cohen?, Sessions? Paul Ryan was savy enough to see the handwriting on a Wall that will never be built.
What began as a trickle will soon become a torrent. The obvious question now is - after the coming deluge... what's next for the American people and the world?
2
Pause for a second and cringe, the subject of this article and comments is The President of the United States of America..
7
Guys like Trump are a dime a dozen in New York. They "do deals", as if that somehow makes them better than everyone who doesn't. They try to sound like aggressive wiseguys, thinking it hides their lack of education. All they can talk about is money because they are incapable of having a regular conversation about anything else. They are controlling personalities, always having to get their own ways, as they think this hides their many weaknesses.
In their minds these are positives. Normal people consider these to be the traits of boorish oafs.
10
Trump's motto for the 2020 election; "SNITCHES GET STITCHES". Vote TRUMP or I'll have a guy I know come pay you and your family a visit.
What a thug. I never thought I'd say something like this about a sitting American president. WOW.
Nov. 6th......Please vote.
8
No, Trump doesn't at all evoke his native New York, as this article falsely claims; rather, he evokes the tendencies of your run of the mill malignant narcissist or sociopath who has watched 'The Godfather' one too many times and who truly, in his distorted and demented world, sees himself as a fellow mafioso -- anything but see who he really is, a puny and pathetic coward and bully who has never done anything decent, never made any sacrifice, for anyone or any greater good.
11
Mr. Trump's shortcomings are many, but come on, the guy grew up in an environment where the vocabulary was quite specific.
Is he any worse than the weenies and nerds in Washington who talk for ten minutes in gobbledy-gook policy-speak and say absolutely nothing of substance?
3
He grew up in a mansion. He went to private schools. He was sent to military school upstate by his parents. Anyone with any knowledge of NY knows he didn’t grow up on any Mean Streets. Take a look at a realtor website and see what houses sell for in Jamaica Estates. John Gotti was born in the South Bronx and followed the Italian & Jewish migrations to East New York & then to Howard Beach, Brooklyn. None of those places are like Jamaica Estates. Jamaica Estates is a place where people with money go to live in order to keep their kids away from schools packed with guys like John Gotti. And Trump, when it comes down to it, is a yellow bellied coward who talks tough and runs away as soon as any unpleasantness rears it’s head. Typical Jamaica Estates behavior. Run away.
13
Yep. There is no Trumpist fantasy about Trump that is stupider than the fantasy he's a man of the people. Figures, since they need to have some way to fantasize that guys like Obama (dad ran off early, raises by mom and grandparents, never had money) and Hillary Clinton (raised by good, solid, middle-class Midwest parents) and Bill Clinton (drunk for a dad, got beat regularly, grew up poor) and Harry Reid (grew up pooer than Bll did, in a Searchlight, Nevada trailer, boxed to Golden Gloves) are arrogant, wealthy lib'rul snobs who sneer at them.
Oh, wait...I forgot the six weeks Trump spent on one of his daddy's job sites, "pouring dry wall," as he's repeatedly bragged.
5
@Robert from Out West - Excellent!!!!
Why be surprised? He runs a crime family. Call him The Dapper Donald.
1
trump, he has only little bump, he's a hump, sump pump kind o guy.
2
Goodfellas had intrigue and personalities. Donnie the Wussy has none. He will sell out his adult kids if they don't get his behind on the auction block first. Them chickens are coming home to roost and relieve. Enjoyable entertainment....a Mueller production.
5
We are witnessing "The Godfather" in real time:
-- As Don Vito Corleone, Don Vito Trumpleone
-- As Tom Hagen, Rudy Giuliani
-- As Sonny Corleone, Steve Bannon
-- As Michael Corleone, Donald Trump Jr.
-- As Fredo Corleone, Eric Trump
8
@Rich Don Jr as Michael?! No way! He's more Carlo than anyone.
1
you're giving too much credit to junior. I don't think there is a Michael in this current cast
2
Takes one to know one. except trump is a pretty incompetent low level mobster. They would have whacked him a long time ago for not keeping his pie hole shut.
11
My wife and I took the Blumenthal quiz and both scored 16 out of 17 (that is because we chose both on one answer). I guess that makes us both wise-guys. It probably didn't hurt that I spent two years (when I was in my 20's) in the early 70's living in New Jersey and South Philly. Donald Trump makes me long for the heady days of Mayor Rizzo. Places where mayonnaise is applied to bread with a spatula and the pretzels are warm.
2
That millions thought well of electing this mug to the highest office in the land bears witness to the entrenched American principle that Might Makes Right.
5
The majority of us who lived in the tri-state area over the last 40 years, pretty much knew Trump. We followed the drama as he changed wives and political party affiliation, like we change socks and underwear.
It should be no surprise and we get no credit for seeing this coming.
now that the rest of the country has got their dose, I hope we can dump him.
the GOP "leaders" are afraid and we need real human voters to do the job.
5
I found this piece interesting. I have always loved Pileggi's books and the mafia culture (to read about) I certainly never wanted it in my White House. But what continues to absolutely baffle is the Trump base...these people would generally loathe the NYC wise guys and yet they revere Trump. The Trump base hates the elite, yet that's exactly what Trump is. The Trump base are the regular "joes" yet they cheer on the tax cuts to the top 1%. Do these people have any clue at all about what they are doing or supporting? Do they have any understanding of the government supported programs that benefit themselves? Do they have any inkling at all that they live on the backs of the blue states they despise? How do human beings learn to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes? I know this didn't start with Trump but it has gone bananas with Trump.
12
Trump's association with the Mafia is certainly old news to which too few, for far too long, have paid attention. I am just one commentator who has pointed it out repeatedly since I first became aware through New York friends and the award-winning reporting of David Cay Johnston, who has researched and reported on Trump for decades.
Why this is suddenly big news apparently took off, not from the substance, but from the vocabulary of the subjects involved. How typical.
3
I remember when Republicans came unhinged over the photo of Obama with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office. He was SO unpresidential!! But all this tweeting is A-OK. Geez. I can’t get how this guy, or this party, is appealing to anyone.
9
It's time to recognize that the current (illegitimate) president is the Head of The Trump Crime Family and a Russian agent in place. I don't understand how Republicans, who claim to be such Patriots, can continue to enable Trump. If they would get rid of Trump, they'd still have a Republican president in Pence.
5
Trump is a creature of NY DEMOCRAT party politics. To call him a Republican, because he is now, doesn’t explain his politics or his street fight style. If you take an insecure man that learned to do business in a take no prisoners, corrupt NYC real estate, you get an opportunist like Donald John Trump.
The fact that he won the Whitehouse, should cause us all pause as to what in our political discussions led to this dishonest man holding the highest office in the land? You can try the Russia angle, but that just means swing voters were susceptible to the message. We’d better do a deeper dive or we just may find our way to another endless battle of tribes.
4
We're going to see FBI and other law enforcement officers killed by delusional Trump sycophants. I haven't always agreed with everything that the FBI has done, but respect for law enforcement and the criminal justice system is essential for a stable society.
3
From the White House to the Big House.
7
Ironically- the way Trump talks is the only thing I like about him
3
I've heard that the producers of Trump's old reality show will be asking him to return to television to host a new show they've been putting together for him to run the same way he ran that former show, in which winners would compete to become a "Celebrity Apprentice."
This new show will mainly feature well-known people in the political world, but with a few new 'twists:' winners will compete for the chance to become a "Celebrity Co-Conspirator," and losers will compete for the chance to become a "Celebrity Witness."
GeneGrossman.com
3
Everyone is looking in the wrong places for moral leadership to stand up to Trump. It won’t come from Republican leaders. It likely won’t even come from the Democrats in enough force to change anything. The only figure that determines the future of this Presidency is Rupert Murdoch.
3
Trump has the mentality of a NY mob boss and his supporters see him that way also.
Dispossessed people in Italian villages often view the government as corrupt and ineffective. They believe they are wronged by conspiracies perpetuated by the government and (unfair) laws. So they look to the local don for protection and redress. They know the local mob boss is an unsavory criminal, but they feel he can take care of their grievances. So they kiss the don's ring.
I think this explains why many Trump supporters know about Trump’s misdeeds and are not bothered by them. They know he is flawed like a mob boss but they overlook the misdeeds as part and parcel of a criminal don. If Trump shoots somebody on Fifth Avenue, his supporters would probably feel that’s OK for a mob boss to do and would still vote for him. Trump was very perceptive and understood his supporters very well. They knew they were dealing with the devil and willingly sold their souls.
We laugh at Trump’s many flaws. But our harping on Trump’s flaws have no effect on his zombie supporters. The only thing to do is to vote this November.
11
Out of respect for a truly honorable human being I believe it would be the right thing to do if all news outlets seized reporting on Trump in favor of covering a true American patriot and hero for the remainder of the day, John McCain.
7
Of course Trump's language is a reflection of his mind, his world view. That world view does not respect the law... and his oath to defend the Constitution was one of the most laughable of his presidential moments, even more laughable than the wedding vows of a serial philanderer.
Not only a narcissist, we have a criminal as our president. The outsider, the criminal as anti hero is a strong archetype in the American character. The racketeers and their lackeys are now in charge.
4
So Trump bragged to fox news barbie doll that he knew "all about flipping".
Little did Mr. Know-It-All that his longtime friends, National Enquirer Pecker, and CFO Weisselberg were about to flip.
Both know where all Trump's bodies are buried and Weisselberg does DJT's income taxes! Beginning of the end.
13
Goodfellas is a good comparison. Also Eddie Mars, the well dressed, cruel organized crime figure from our modern remake of the Big Sleep (Trump's base) with the incorruptible Robert Mueller in Humphrey Bogart's role. Inasmuch as Mueller, like Marlowe, keeps his conclusions to his chest we don't know whether, in his office, Mueller is as sharp at dialogue as Raymond Chandler. Anyway, what readers need is for the good guy to prevail in the end.
Like Marlowe said to Mars on the phone near the end,
good boy that Manaforte, too bad you won't have him to help you any more.
1
At least Dapper Don was honest enough to admit he was a crook. Not so much, the donald.
One, you got what he said he was.
The other, what he promised and what he said IS NOT what you got. The donald lied to his wife, his family, his friends, the tabloids, and the American public. Where is the honor among thieves?
This analysis rang true to me and identified a Trump characteristic that sometimes is lost in the fog of his tweets. He is dated. His rhetoric and his thinking come from other times. It is not just the racism and misogyny, but specific real estate & casino & model agencies/beauty pageants businesses and New York. All of these were tainted.
Particularly this milieu of mobsters is only known to most of us through movies or TV. Roy Cohn, Russian mobsters, and others were part of past decades of real gangster culture.
Now I'm beginning to wonder about his obsession with MS-13 and modern gangs as well as rappers. Trump's voters are white, sometimes with little education, usually midwestern or Southern. They wouldn't have a clue about this particular affinity of Trump's and where or how to position him. Yes, for the white supremacy and anti-immigrant biases.
But Trump is not a hard-working man of the land or the coal mine, nor of the town's Baptist church or country club. He isn't a person of any culture, museums, professional expertise, and intellect. He is from the city neighborhoods of corruption, power and money and posturing as toughness -- old time racketeering, mobsters, protection money, tabloid scandals, and financial frauds.
It is hard for most of us to comprehend.
25
The fact that the State of New York didn't try and convict Trump and his children years ago tells you how corrupt and unworthy of respect the State of New York actually is.
1
Meanwhile, Pious Pence, like the tar baby in Uncle Remus, he don’t say nothing.
7
At least Trump doesn't use vulgarity the way the average mobster does. I guess that's what an Ivy League education taught him. He's still a unique figure that won't be impeached and will easily win re-election in 2020.
Just like Menendez in NJ,who was admonished by the senate, can do no wrong as far as his base is concerned.
2
@Robert Haar
What world do you live in?
He does not have an Ivy League education and he curses like every common wannabe tough guy.
If he manages by some miracle to avoid impeachment, there is no way for him to win re-election. His 37% base isn't big enough. The rest of us are wise to him.
I'll give you one thing. He is unique. But not in a good way.
8
Some of the people below say they voted for him because they liked his Queens tough guy persona.
In reality he is a coward.
Whenever he is confronted by someone, he backs down or rolls over.
He talks the talk but can't walk the walk.
He badmouths people, behind their backs but chummies up to them in person like he is their best friend.
He is a coward of the worst kind.
He admires despots and autocrats around the world because he wishes he could be just like them. He doesn't have the spine to do one one hundredth of what it takes to be a Putin or a Kim. I guess we should be thankful for the little things.
He is a coward who can't say "you're fired" in real life as he did on his 'reality' TV show. He has to have people do it for him. Then he lies about not having anything to do with the firing or any knowledge of it. Comey found out he was fired from a news story on TV.
He's a coward how had the audacity to say the he prefers soldiers who aren't captured. That John McCain, who spent years as a North Vietnam POW, beaten and tortured, is no hero. John McCain, who refused to be sent home until all his fellow POW's were sent home. That is Trump's idea of a failure.
Trump is just a big fat coward.
A coward with bone spurs in his feet who avoided service.
That is the real man in the White House.
10
No one can control how Trump thinks or talks.
Overturning "Citizen's United" which was the most toxic Supreme Court decision ever in U.S. history is mandatory.....
It is what led us to this point where the richest of the rich (enabled by Trump/GOP) are able to get it all, both more wealth and more power...leaving the rest of us in the position of those who live in third world nations.
See: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/21/5-years-later-citizens-u...
5
Now, sadly, it's starting to make sense. I will die with a smile on my face (I'm 70) when this criminal in the White House does significant hard time. A South Korean president is doing 10 years for taking bribes from Samsung. Why would he get any special treatment because he's "President." That should make his apparent (to me) criminal conduct even more reprehensible. Trump should be charged with crimes if the Justice Department has probable cause, not impeached, as the next-in-line sycophant would just pardon him if he ever gets the chance. There is no "pass the smell test" reason a sitting "President" shouldn't be indicted for any crimes that may have affected and possibly enhanced his own election, making Pence and Gorsuch illegitimate fruit of a poisoned election.
4
Wouldn’t Damon Runyon be amused.
3
@Ellen Balfour
No
Please stop repeating lies without context!
"“If somebody defrauded a bank and he’s going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail, but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you’ll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made,”
The "plea deal" in this case is not a deal for Cohen. He "plead" his guilt.
He is not cooperating with prosecution.
He is receiving no favors from them.
He received no reduced sentence for his plea.
1
It seems the only word Trump hasn't used yet which is dear to the hearts of Mafia dons is "omerta". Maybe he's afraid it would sound too foreign to the MAGA crowd.
4
Since the president's fans will accept absolutely anything, why doesn't he double down and send a mesage like "Youze guys should know, my former attorney might be having an accident in the very near future."
3
There is an argument to be had for having a Borgia in power in a brutal international arena. But Gotti was a lout, no Borgia. And Trump doesn't even rise to the level of a Gotti.
4
I’ve been waiting for a piece examining the Idiot-in-Chief’s relationship with NYC and how it played a role in forming the monster he is today. After all, if he was from Des Moines, there would’ve been an onslaught of tongue wagging articles, like “Oh Hey, Look What Came Out of Fly Over Country.”
1
The most impressive aspect of this comb over life support system is his success in the long con, taking in hardworking American's who truly believe he is sticking it to the Washington Elite and the "Deep" state.
The base will turn and Lil' Donny mobster wannabe will be safer in jail then in public.
5
I think that the base is too brainwashed to ever turn on Trump. Just watch today's new Nuremberg rally.
2
Little Donny 2-Scoops wants to know if yoooz guys would get one of them big trucks with the loud horn brought up to the White House so he can get behind the wheel and beep the loud horn again.
Cuz he forgot to say "Vroom vroom!" the last time he tried that.
Nope, sorry. Donald Trump is a PATHETIC coward and it shows every time he threatens journalists and minorities while hiding behind at least a dozen bodyguards.
Usually when someone has that much wealth, they ski, or sail, or do things that involve some risk - because they are involved in a sport that involves confidence and daring. What on earth has Trump done that is so daring other than have unprotected sex with a porn star.
Trump is such a coward, he's probably had chauffeurs all of his life because he's afraid to learn how to drive.
17
You forgot that he grabs prissies. In Air Force One that must compare well with Fly fishing. Give the boy his due.
1
@Jbugko Love the nickname "Donny 2 Scoops"; it fits him.
3
Trump is no gangster. Trump is a bloviating tweeting speaking snarling snarking ignorant clownish buffoon with fake hair and a fake skin tone. Trump seeks out, sucks up to and succumbs to flattery.
Putin is a smiling smirking streetwise gangster who sends his foes to hospitals, mental institutions, prisons, urns and coffins. Putin has baffled and befuddled the last three American Presidents. W imagined he had a soul. Obama dreamed of a Russian reset. Trump was selected President by Putin.
Trump came up soft and rich in New York City. Putin came up hard and poor in Leningrad aka St. Petersburg.
18
No shock here: He ran on the “Goodfellas”platform - there’s nothing new ...
5
I think Trump's links to and admiration for the old Mafia types of his younger years is pathetic but understandable. He grew up with and around those people...
Interestingly, his "true believer" followers don't see it at all. They BELIEVE in the evangelical version of Trump, a born-again messiah.
5
There are a lot of wonderful men on this earth, but clearly Trump decided a log time ago not to be one of them--quite the opposite really.
And judge a man by the company he keeps, then it is also clear that Trump can only hang out with other grifters, liars, con artists, and men and women without a conscience.
As I said before, Trump isn't running a presidency; he is running a crime syndicate. So what does that say about the current GOP and the people who support and vote for him??
11
Heh Trump (or his father) couldn’t build a dog house in NY without the “approval” of the Mob. Cement , trucks, labor unions , sub contractors all were linked to one or more of the families. He is a Don too a Donald, BTW Gaelic for “Warrior Chief"
6
The comparison is superficial at best. The 'dons' of cosa nostra were thieves and murderers. But they had more class and courage than our joker in chief, and a sometimes brilliant sense of humor. Plus they dressed better; especially their ties. 100% Italian silk.
But the empty suit presently in the White House will not share their fate. Unfortunately no matter what happens he will continue to be supported at a level way beyond his worth, at American taxpayer expense.
8
The only "flipping" that interests me right now is the goal of flipping control of Congress to the other party in November.
25
Donald Grew up in Queens, but nowhere real wise guys. He attended a Military School. You think young Donald was in the streets growing up playing with the kids from the other side of the tracks? I don't think so. Yeah Donald was influenced by Roy Cohen and had fasination twords the wise guys. Cause Donald was, what every New York street guy understands A Wannabe. He wanted to be Tough so he was Tough through the likes of Roy Cohen. Donald was and is What we use to refer to as a Punk.
21
@frank monaco
Another thing we used to say in Queens about guys like Trump: He can dish it out, but he can't take it!
6
Mr. Monaco,
So right you are, we are both native New Yorkers and have watched over many years the Con Don ruin small businesses, engage in unethical behavior, started the birther movement, criticized (the truly great President Obama) for playing too much golf, etc., etc.. I have mentioned in articles like this I am a Vietnam veteran, the coward Trump never served his country ..... but "at least" he achieved the rank of "Cadet Bone Spurs".
6
What do you expect when big money values in politics have been allowed to trump ethics and duty to the public? The Swamp denizens rise to the top.
Big money politics blocks decent public spirited candidates from getting financing to run. It attracts the arrogant exploiters, using politics for their gain in wealth and power.
Ex Pres Jimmy Carter said re big money in elections after the high court’s Citizens United decision:
“It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected."
Princeton’s Martin Gilens’ research showed “only the desires of the richest are reflected in lawmaking….the average American has a near zero impact on policy.”
NYTimes front page 2 Aug 2015: “Small Pool of Rich Donors Dominates Election Giving.”
Enter Trump, his crime family & courtiers, protected by the GOP, adept at collusion of all kinds for their gain, and the citizens' loss.
It’s time for our news media to discuss causes, not just symptoms.
Taking off from Gov Cuomo re ‘is America great or not’?--- America can’t be ‘great’ if it allows a corrupted moneyed ‘aristocracy’ --- that the American colonies won independence from --- to take power and treat Americans as colonial subjects in their own land. Then enter Trump, the authoritarian monarch/ crime boss. Shocked and appalled?
Trace causes, change system.
3
The Times should drop this Trump/Mafia vocabulary. All it does is flatter The Teflon Don as a tougher guy than he probably is in reality. Same as when the trope used boxing. "Hitting back hard", "counter puncher", etc.
2
Trump is, and always has been, a thug. If you could hear him at supposedly closed meetings at Mar a Lago you would be horrified with his pedestrian, uneducated, bigoted, privileged, ignorant speech.
When he speaks (he cannot read any better than a third-grader and has less knowledge of the world than a high school freshman) he sounds like he is practicing a script for a part for DeNiro in a Mafia movie.
THIS IS YOUR fakePRESIDENT! A truly great example of a human being who associated only with the "best people" and hires them to steal from all Americans. Send him to prison where the prisoners are smarter and speak more eloquently than he does.
13
Trump creates his own 'perjury trap' every time he whines about his purported innocence and victimhood, and then boasts about what he's gotten away with.
4
Not even Paul Manafort will "take a bullet" (i.e. prison time) for The Donald. No one so far investigated, indicted or convicted, will do any time behind bars if they can help it. And, now that they know Trump's loyalty is only to himself, we will be hearing the sound of "flippers" for at least the next few months. Trump knows he has lost all loyalty from his once-close advisors and cabinet officials.
It is my hope that Trump's evil twin, Stephen Miller, joins the rollcall of indictees. He has been at the center of the storm of the separation of children from their immigrant parents. Few have been as close to Trump since the campaign. Miller is the devil on Trump's shoulder. Not that Trump needs more encouragement as a psychopathic liar and destroyer of lives.
Trump was raised on the notion of take what you can without getting caught. The infamous Roy Cohn was his mentor in the dark arts of corruption and greed. And, now, Trump has nothing else to fall back on — other than his own sword. He has no sense of empathy, he has no friends because he doesn't trust anyone other than himself.
He told Faux Noise yesterday morning that the economy would crash if her were impeached. So far, our allies are predicting just the opposite. Of course, we will have to deal with Pence; not because he believes in God. Nope. The problem is, Pence thinks God believes in him. The "faith-based" administration of Bush43 gave us a recession and 17 years of non-stop war.
Pray for us all.
10
I think this is the part of the movie where you kind of know how it's going to end..as in, badly. But, you hang in there out of morbid curiosity. If Trump had just stayed in his own swamp he would have been fine...trophy wife, kids, glitzy offices...but he stepped out of his lane. And it is all crashing down around him. The shady characters he rubbed elbows with, the tough guy routine, the fixers, the deals gone sour, the mass media marketing of The Brand...all of it. Like the Barzinis. the Corleones, the Tattaglias and the Cunios...he is obsolete and out of his depths.
5
There's more flippers around Trump this week than at Miami Seaquarium!
5
Donald J. Trump is vulgar. He is not very bright, and as they say, lies like a rug.
Please do not insult Italians. We would no more want him as part of us than we would want a disease!
10
DON TRUMPELONE has none of the gravitas, the self-control and the smarts of Don Corleone in Coppola's The Godfather. If the NY Times keeps comparing Trumpelone to organized crime figures, it will give organized crime a bad name. Please refrain.
4
Trump is a criminal and thinks that he controls everything just like a mafia don .Its time to remove trump from office for the sake of America .
4
He’s a mobster with a mobster’s ethic. Imagine, the president of the United States invoking omertà!
It’s time to worry.
5
"Mr. Trump, he wrote, seemed to be trying to make Mr. Comey and his colleagues from the intelligence agencies 'part of the same family ... ' ” Like Shakespeare's King Lear, Mr. Trump demands loyalty and flattery from all. King Lear descended into madness, and probably would have tweeted his rants at 1 AM in all caps if he could have.
5
Unless it's a mobster portrayed on television, Trump wouldn't last a minute in mobster shoes. Big difference between growing up on the streets and growing up behind his daddy's gates.
3
The sad part is all of those people that work for him have sacrified their reputation to follow him. All he continues to be concerned about is himself.
2
This statement implies it is a conscious put on- "To Mr. D’Antonio, the president’s tough-guy language mostly sounds quaint — the vocabulary of a man who grew up with a comic-book view that real men wore fedoras and carried .38 revolvers.“He thinks other people understand the ‘Guys and Dolls’ dialogue the way he does,” said Mr. D’Antonio, whose next book is about Vice President Mike Pence. “He doesn’t realize in 2018 that it sounds ridiculous to talk about rats.”"
It is not a put on, it is the way he thinks. It is clear Trump is absorbed in criminal culture, whether he carried a .38 or not. He is a gangster and a thief.
4
It's hardly surprising that President Stunod would emulate those characters.
2
It isn't just Trump's mob inspired thug language that we should notice.
The crime families of NY largely operated in gambling, exploitation of women through prostitution and the construction business.
I remember an article in the Times from the late 80's that outlined how the largest crime families of the day - the Genoveses, Gambinos, Luccheses and Colombos - controlled 75 percent of the construction industry in New York City through its control of the concrete industry and construction unions. This is precisely the era that Trump made his "bones" in NYC.
Ask yourself, what "businesses" did Trump operate in? The answer is of course: gambling, exploration of women through pageants, and real estate development and construction.
Why do we think Trump "talks the talk" but doesn't "walk the walk"?
3
Not only that, but accounts of the original Trump - the current Trump's grandfather - say that he made his money running a brothel in Alaska.
For those Trumpists who have a hard time with big vocabulary words: a brothel is not a place where one buys clear soup.
4
Trump would be wise to resign before members of his family are indicted. Maybe he doesn’t care about himself but what about them?
2
@Grandma: He only cares about himself (and maybe Ivanka). I don't think he cares what happens to anyone else.
2
The way president Trump conducts himself is an embarrassment to the nation.
6
Flipping! Trump the GOP’s gang leader, all thought they had a bond of loyalty to one another and if it held their mutual crookedness would pay them handsomely. Gangs have always been cohesive minority outliers to the majority’s civil order. I really believe many GOP political leaders have involved themselves in corruption and know many dirty secrets about one another. Thus their public code of silence. Trump’s their leader because he’s bold and reckless and most do not have such ‘public’ nerve. They prefer to sneak about! Will Trump expose them if they betray him? I suspect yes, but only if he loses what he brought to the game before his presidency. They hope Mueller successful as long as they are not personally implicated and face the boss’s reprisal.
1
Mr. Trump does represent a segment of American character. Many don't like it, yet a good chunk of the population thinks this is acceptable--even admirable--behavior, which is how he got elected, particularly in the byzantine geography of the Electoral College. Some people like people who mock and bully other people.
It's taken a long, long time to come to terms with bullies in our schools. We're now coming to terms with bullies in Hollywood and even in what once were the hallowed halls of NPR and PBS. Now we really must do the same in the greater adult world, including, or perhaps especially, in politics. It's the same dynamic wherever it occurs.
127
Beautifully stated.
1
@T Norris Hey!! YOU are from NJ - right? You've got "street smarts - right? And YOU cannot take on the "bullies in Hollywood, NRP and PBS?" This should be a "piece of cake" for you. What are you SO afraid of? Maybe if you took an educational night course, you would find out!
The wall the US needs to build is a wall between its politics and big money---to protect us from political crime families, dynasties, corporate entities, set up to exploit and extract resources for their own enrichment.
Big money politics blocks public spirited candidates from getting financing to run. It attracts swamp creatures. Our norms get twisted and warped, to tolerate what harms us. Potential nominees are scouted and vetted by the mega donors to conform to their requirements.
The S. Court put out the Trump-type lie that unlimited campaign donations from wealthy corporations were really protected free speech per the 1st amendment. But this effectively removes the political speech of the mass of citizens who can’t compete, and thus see their influence nullified.
The way was cleared for political crime families to take over, under the protection of a corrupt Republican party.
Polls show that on every issue from taxes to health care to gun safety, the majority of citizens differ on policy with the mega donors and the politicians they keep captive.
We the People, of a once great democracy, now have no way to protect our interests until Citizens United is reversed. We must start discussing in the media the use election financing similar to other democracies ----more public financing, limits on private money, and bans on the campaign ads that need billionaires to pay for and direct, to manipulate voters.
189
@Meredith
Overturning "Citizen's United" which was the most toxic Supreme Court decision ever in U.S. history is mandatory.....
See: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/01/21/5-years-later-citizens-u...
2
@RLiss....Thanks for link to informative article.
Clips:
“…….million-dollar megaphones drown out the voices of ordinary citizens ….these millionaires are kingmakers in our democracy."
A Demos report said “winning Senate candidates in 2014 had to raise an average of $3,300 per day, every day, for six years (House candidates needed to raise $1,800 a day in their two-year cycle). The pressure to fundraise means candidates focus on those donors who can provide large donations, to the detriment of their less wealthy constituents.”
This forms opposing political norms for the politicians we elect to work for our interests.
This should be a top topic for NY Times op ed page, instead of being avoided as it is on cable TV 24/7 news.
No doubt Citizens United needs to go. What a horrendous decision. Money should not be protected speech under any reasonable view of the Bill of Rights, as that ruling inevitably sets up political corruption and plutocracy. Justice Kennedy’s reasoning that all political donors will be known to voters so donor biases can be factored in is laughable. And if corporations are protected persons under the Constitution, why aren’t they taxed like us real people? As of now, the strong majority of American voters who do not support Trump and do support many progressive policies must stand on the sidelines and watch global billionaires, criminal cabals and rulers here and abroad, media outlets owned by the foregoing, and the politicians they fund duke it out over who gets what assets and power, and it isn’t any of us.
2
I grew up blocks away from Carlo Gambino, head of the Gambino crime family, before he was murdered. As a child on my bicycle, I was stopped by people in big black cars and asked "Hey kid, where's the Gambino house? I wanna pay my respects". When I asked my parents about that, they said "Tell them the way, and then ride like hell back home and don't look back".
Where I grew up, when you asked people where they got a new TV or some other big item, they frequently said things like "It fell off a truck". That was understood to mean it was stolen. I could give many examples of the Mafia's influence where I lived. It was accepted as part of life, even if you weren't in the Mafia.
So, take it from me, I know people like this guy. He's not one of the good guys. I knew it before the election and I'm not surprised now....
6
Both Gotti & Trump value "Omerta" & personal loyalty (fealty) above all other values. Trump denounces Michael Cohen as a "rat" the way Gotti denounced "Sammy the Bull" Gravano. Gravano, a man with dozens of murders for the Gambino family. He was, nonetheless telling the truth on the stand as part of his plea deal. To have been caught lying would have negated his deal and left him open to prosecution for dozens of murders - a strong inducement to tell the truth.
Michael Cohen has an equally strong inducement to tell only the truth, as lying or, as Trump puts it, "making up stuff" would negate the deal & he could be prosecuted on enough charges to put him away for life. In addition, before accepting Cohen's guilty plea, the judge questioned the prosecutors thoroughly about what corroborating evidence they had (pleading guilty is never enough). From the raids on Cohen's home, office, hotel, etc., the prosecutors had acquired a mountain of evidence - documents, email, phone and other electronic records, even testimony from other participants. Even, we now know, long-time Trump friend & image-maker, David Pecker of National Enquirer infamy, had secretly flipped & testified about how he, Cohen, & Trump had plotted since 2015 to create an often-used "catch and kill" program to silence numerous women Trump had had sex with. Trump, his father Fred, & grandfather Friedrich all had histories with the NYC mob in fraudulent land deals in Queens, so Trump's attitude is understandable.
6
Most New Yorkers are not in the mob, nor talk like mobsters. Also, the Dapper Don wore suits that actually fit him.
30
@J
However, Trump does in fact wear Brioni suits like the mobsters do. Handcrafted in Italy.
3
@J Thank you. We're getting weary of Trump's being described as some kind of stereotypical New Yorker. With the many attractive ethnic/cultural/diverse populations in cities and rural areas of New York, it's insulting to choose that one slimy, crass, corrupt man and try to hold him up as a model New Yorker. He could just as easily hail from Miami or LA or Chicago or anywhere USA. Just take all the worst attributes of any person you know, register that person as a Republican, give him PAC money and a few trophy wives....
4
@Richard: Too bad he doesn't do them justice. His baggy suits and cellophane-tape ties are there to hide a body that is as unattractive as just about any man's can be. He could buy off the rack and nobody would notice the difference. But vain men like Trump love to pretend that they are far more attractive than they really are, so they are fooled into thinking that if they put a million bucks on their backs, they must look like a million bucks, too.
If he wants to look expensive, he could just tape some bills all over himself and parade around in a money suit. He's probably got enough cellophane tape in one of his closets somewhere. That is, unless his closets aren't too full of skeletons.
3
Don has no inkling of what it takes to even be part of the family.
This wanna be has no discipline, can’t keep his mouth shut and
can’t listen to his advisors.
Instead of watching television and sleeping in late this weasel
should be up early, reading the news and using his advisors as
pools of knowledge.
Instead he can’t be quiet and reasonable, learning and earning respect from those he may need.
He rants about his not being treated well by the media and like a spoiled brat, with his followers, bullies those around the press as haters.
He looks like a chump around his staff and looses face in front
of the world with Putin.
So far Don, you have no street cred and little juice.
Take it from someone who has seen it up close.
17
Yes indeed Trump resembles a Mafioso Don. But will he die in a federal prison like Gotti. Surely his past transgressions must finally come to light. Surely someone with Trump's current demeanor must have committed all sorts of illegal and imprison-able offenses. LOCK HIM UP!
15
@RLW If I were a Christian I'd pray you are right! Love that comment
1
Trump is a disgrace to the office of President.
His deplorable supporters are irredeemable.
Those who said there was no difference between Trump and Clinton and stayed home on Election Day are responsible for this.
27
@Brad
Sorry to say the Democrat leadership stupidly made sure they would divide their own party member's vote by giving us 2 diverse strong candidates to choose from that split the vote almost between young and old that is Hillary Clinton & Sen. Bernie Sanders .
I know of the young people in my own family that were put off by the party for not"getting Bernie" that they did not vote at all for Hillary nor in this election .
We democrats must never make this mistake again.
1
I can just see Robert De Niro playing the role of Trump in a comedy wherein a bungling,foolish gangster destroys the beer distributorship his father left him.That would be hilarious.Trump as our president isn't.
11
The Trump presidency? Fuggedaboutit.
11
Everything he has said regarding Cohen “flipping” on him makes him sound guilty of everything!! He is saying that Cohen “flipped.” If Cohen flipped, then what Cohen plead guilty to must be true. Otherwise, wouldn’t trump be saying that Cohen was lying? Everyone who so far has “flipped” must have done the same! On the other hand, Manafort was found to be guilty on those 8 counts. If he was guilty, and didn’t “flip” trump has nothing bad to say about the “great guy” that was his campaign manager, and he doesn’t “deserve to be treated so poorly!!
15
Yes, Trump reminds me of the little-known original screenplay of "Casino" where DeNiro runs his start-up casino into financial ruin, and then hangs all his contractors out to dry in bankruptcy court.
9
It's not just the vocabulary, it's Trump's values as well. The praise for Manafort for not "breaking" and turning state's evidence, does not reveal a civic minded personality or world view.
If he talks like a mob boss, and thinks like a mob boss, well he just might be a mob boss.
25
Trump's CFO, Weisselbert, has been granted "immunity".
I imagine the whole world will be hearing "words" from DJT, the likes of which have never been heard in any WH, ever. Period.
6
Does anyone doubt that Donald Trump comes from a culture of "wise guys?" His whole life was being involved with the New York movers and shakers for decades. One has only to look at his track record of shady deals and cutting every corner imaginable to make a fast buck whenever & however possible. I must remind everyone who his ultimate mentor was. Roy Cohn was the ultimate sleazeball in the gone but not forgotten McCarthy era. The "ultimate" witch hunt for communists under every bed. When they could not be found anywhere else; it was Cohn who egged on McCarthy to look into the U.S. Army in their frantic attempt to justify the insanity they had wrought. No wonder Cohn was disbarred and sent back to New York in total disgrace. There the story should have ended. But NO; there he found an eager young pupil he could teach to always attack; never back down; and throw anyone under the bus necessary to win. Donald Trump obviously became Cohn`s ultimate disciple. Alas for the world.
21
The interesting question is why do so many Americans have a love affair with wise guys, hoodlums, thugs, pimps, prostitutes and narcissist celebrities and so little respect for gravitas, intelligence, creativity, science & evidence, and integrity? Trump, as in all matters, reads his audience all too well. US politics looks a lot like WWF/WWE: in this corner Donald Trump (boo, hiss) and in this corner Stormy Daniels (loud cheer) -- or vice versa, depending on party allegiance.
16
@Cephalus
We like to keep it simple - Good versus Evil. If it was Good versus Mediocre versus Evil we'd get all confused and just walk around in circles.
2
When the story of this period in American History is written, it will be like a grand tragic opera. And many broadway plays of the year will likely be written.
Here are a few suggestions for musical themes:
1. If I am ever impeached
2. If it weren’t for this mind of mine
3. Truth is not true.
4. I am like a very smart genius.
5. Let go of him, he is a good man.
6. Rat!
7. I know you turned on me
8. My love of Putin
9. To Russia with Love
10. I didn’t know that it would be this complicated
11. My walls are closing in
12. I feel like I am falling.
25
Apparently the CFO of Trump Enterprises got immunity in exchange for testimony from Robert Mueller.
If I were him, I'd stay out of train stations for a while.
6
@Robert: And wear peel-off gloves every time he touches a door knob.
1
Per Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) some one threatened her saying "leave Trump alone. Forget the story." in a parking lot in Las Vegas in 2011. Makes you wonder who sent the man and on who's behest.
13
In an interview Wednesday with Fox News, Trump said the “American people would revolt” if he was impeached.
I kinda thought fomenting revolution itself was considered treason, and grounds for impeachment. But maybe that’s another word’s definition which has changed in the last few months.
11
That is the company he kept in Atlantic city and his constructionist enterprises. it's a very earthy but truthful language which i came to appreciate editing robert kalich's THE HANDICAPPER a verite account of mob gambling. "Colorful" is the standard NY Times description of these folk who in many instances are indistinguishable from the legally legitimate.
4
Look deeper. What the language about 'flipping' shows is that Trump, like the more thoughtful mob figures, doesn't even believe that rule by law is POSSIBLE. They see personal loyalty as the only possible vehicle for a stable society, and think the rule of law is just a charade for the gullible masses. That's why Trump doesn't seem to ever make a distinction between people who flip and lie vs. people who flip and give up the truth (or as Guiliani calls it, "not the truth"), because the only difference is whether justice prevails, and 'justice', in these mobsters minds, is a meaningless word
11
The Trump Organization has had a business in money laundering since the casinos filed bankruptcy in the early 1990's. This behavior just makes it crystal clear that Donald Trump is running a criminal enterprise.
12
He's an embarrassment to the country and the world, and should just resign.
31
@Cmary If he resigns he will definitely go to prison sooner than if he remains in office.
Sounds good to me.
One reason I could never stomach voting for a Republican like Trump (and any of his cohorts, including Ryan and McConnell) is that they are spineless hypocrites. They are SO tough on crime, until the crimes are committed by their own, and then either (a) you can't really call "that" a crime, or (b) law enforcement is biased, or (c) they were setup by a "rat" or (d) all of the above. And I've had enough of the Republican throng that supports these losers. Either a crime is a crime or there is a carve-out for Republicans. You can't be calling to "lock her up" and at the same time saying that thugs who are actually convicted of a crime should be pardoned. Anyone who believes otherwise is beyond redemption: hopefully those people will continue to support Trump so they can all go down with his ship (I.e. the Titanic that is his presidency).
93
trump grew up in a very up scale Queens neighborhood called Jamaica Estates, primarily populated with Jewish professionals, all of whom were well educated and cultured.
John Gotti grew up in poverty in the Bronx , he was uneducated, and became affiliated with street crime gangs at the age of twelve.
Trump,Ivy League educated, has cultivated the image of a NYC street gang tough guy which he most likely learned from the movies and chronic TV viewing. He is soft in looks, and a coward in demeanor-i.e,can't fire anyone to their face except on his former TV show.
So Mark, forget about the 'growing up in Queens' argument that you are making. It's just Manhattan snob job.
It's FAKE NEWS.
22
@Steve: You forgot all about the Trumps' business: real estate speculation and construction, many branches of which were dominated by the mob in the 1960s, and Trump's later involvement in casinos in New Jersey -- not exactly bastions of clean, honest, and upright living. And don't forget the years he spent selling luxury residences to Eastern European mob figures eager to launder their ill-gotten gains. Also, Trump is not as "Ivy League," as you claim, as he went to Fordham for two years and then transferred to the Wharton School for the last two years of an undergrad degree.
And I doubt that Gotti spent the rest of his adult life living in a slum. Just because Trump grew up in a tony neighborhood doesn't mean that any of its values, apart from conspicuous consumption, rubbed off on him.
2
@Allison
You are right; however, you missed my point. He is that way not BECAUSE he was from Jamaica Estates, where most of his neighbors were educated professions, but DESPITE his being from there, and despite his Fordham/Penn education.
1
Trump always talks about loyalty, but wan't it a couple months ago that we heard that Trump refused to pay Cohen's legal bills? It seems that Trump only understands or cares about loyalty coming from an individual and not vice versa.
Sure I wish President Trump would worry more about being a good, upstanding President and less about sounding and acting like a mobster. But he will fail bigly as a mobster until he understands that loyalty goes both ways. And I don't know how many times you get to try and learn that important lesson.
9
Americans, especially those trumpetts who voted for mr. chump, are in a sorry state of not recalling such "long-ago" villains such as the infamous roy cohen. Don't think it's a reference to today's michael. Given chump's Roy's long term connection, it is no wonder the current White House occupant is in THE DEEP!
8
Please, I can't take anymore of this winning.
25
It is not stupidity and that causes the current occupant of the Oval Office to behave as if the government is working for him rather than the reverse. It is also not a lack of intelligence that results in Donald Trump acting as if the Attorney General is his personal lawyer. He may be ignorant of a great deal having to do with government, and I doubt he's ever read the Constitution from beginning to end, but Donald Trump's behavior as president is a symptom of something far more insidious.
He is doing all of this out of pure and unbridled arrogance not unlike the gangsters he grew up with .... He feels that he can get away with it just as he feels that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it . And while this kind of behavior on its own it's not grounds for impeachment or removal from office , the very likelihood that he has been compromised by a hostile foreign power, that he has been an accomplice in illegally influencing the 2016 presidential election, and the very real possibility that he is and remains a national security threat in the halls of the intelligence community, will eventually be more than enough to send him on his way.
Parasites like Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Sanders are lying out right on the world stage when they say that the American people support Donald Trump. About 1/3 of the American people support Donald Trump. And in their desperation they remain unable to see the national nightmare that is now engulfing us.
47
"Trump is what we called a "mark". We see them all the time, spoiled rich kids who hung out with the crew in order to have people look out for him. The crew would let them in because the mark would spend whatever money they have to buy their way into the club. Meanwhile they're the biggest joke in the group. They're the clowns kept around for beer money. Trump is a perfect example of the mark. His early New York real estate deals were all mob filled fronts. He even eluded to his mob buddies in his recent tweet about observing flipping 30 years ago. Trump isn't a "Don" he's a rube, he was first used by the Italian and Chinese mob (as noted in the late 80's House report on East Coast organized crime in the casino business), then the Russians. If it wasn't for his father, and the Saud's and Chinese billionaires, Trump would've been wearing concrete shoes decades ago"
2
Ah, the poor dear is just a product of his environment. All we need now is him "swimming with the fishes" to complete the tableau.
34
"Trump is what we called a "mark". We see them all the time, spoiled rich kids who hung out with the crew in order to have people look out for him. The crew would let them in because the mark would spend whatever money they have to buy their way into the club. Meanwhile they're the biggest joke in the group. They're the clowns kept around for beer money.
Trump is a perfect example of the mark. His early New York real estate deals were all mob filled fronts. He even eluded to his mob buddies in his recent tweet about observing flipping 30 years ago. Trump isn't a "Don" he's a rube, he was first used by the Italian and Chinese mob (as noted in the late 80's House report on East Coast organized crime in the casino business), then the Russians. If it wasn't for his father, and the Saud's and Chinese billionaires, Trump would've been wearing concrete shoes decades ago"
11
@Mark: Before the election the Times published a great story on Trump's failed casinos. His last big debacle was so bad that his father had to send someone down clandestinely to buy three million dollars' worth of chips to rescue the house, as inspectors were closing in. The purchase saved his butt that day. I wish more people had read about Trump before they pulled the lever for him, but instead, they only paid attention to the shiny surface, and did not bother to look any deeper. But then, that is also how Las Vegas survives: by betting on people's willingness to be deceived by superficiality and their reluctance to study anything in depth.
4
Crude and macho and insulting language is hardly limited to Mafiosos and Trump. It is heard in the lockerroom on sports fields and on factory floors. Trump’s base language is used by many, not just crazed killers. The language of the TImes is relatively effete. And it serves its purpose to ostraticize street talking. But among the great street talkers were characters of Shakespeare, the greatest comics out there, the masters of doing the dozens, and Dorothy Parker. Far too much attention goes to purposely offensive language. Such language can be tongue in cheek, game playing, or can be designed to cut those truly evil down to size. Measuring character quote by quote is elevateing the superficial above the truly incisive
1
The point is, it’s not presidential. Why would our Commander in Chief prefer to sound like a criminal?
8
@michjas
Ultimately, it is not the language, it is the style and actions.
1
@michjas
this article isn't about crude language, its about the language of criminals.
11
"the waning days of organized crime"...?!? Seems to me as though criminals are well-organized by government now, with even former Mob prosecutor Giuliani looking for a piece of the action. Most shameful that such a large percentage of the general public (voters?) doesn't seem to care too much. No matter how disgusting events appear we as a civil society must keep working towards compromise solutions that can both cleanse and heal.
12
Instead of flipping try ratting....in Canada mobsters frequently get reduced time and sometimes get to start a new life in another part of the country under an assumed name for "ratting out" or "flipping" on their once partners in crime.
6
Is this all a virtual reality show? Can it really be true that this all emanates from the White House - our White House? Stunning! At age 85 I've lived through a lot of political drama, but nothing compared with what is going on now. Nixon's dirty tricks pale in comparison, as well as Clinton's crime of lying about sex. One thing for sure: I'm voting in November. And I wouldn't dream of voting for a single Republican.
78
trump said, “I know all about flipping,” “For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go.”
The most beautiful part of this quote is when trump revealed how he views his life: trump said: "Everything's wonderful" and meant, "until they squeal..."
Yeah, "everything's wonderful" while we: defraud the government of taxes for 30 years, illegally hid millions and millions of dollars by laundering foreign money through purchases of suites in Trump Towers and golf courses all around the globe, paid-off hundreds of people to "stay shut-up!" about our "business," and where we live like Kings until some "flipper" comes along and "they flip on whoever the next highest one is..."
28
As they Say in the construction industry keep your mouth shut everybody going to make a lot of money here.
8
Mark is spot on. Just finished reading Selwyn Raab's revised version of Five Families, the history of the rise, decline and resurgence of the American Mafia. Trump's language is indistinguishable from that of the bosses/godfathers and other members of these families. Unfortunately their language has become part of our culture through movies, and TV series that portray the Mafioso in gentler, more humanized ways than they are or were. So, for some,Trump's language conveys strength, resilience and undying devotion to any and all causes he espouses. He demands absolute loyalty for everything he says and wants to accomplish. And, he strives to "take out" those who do not fall into line with him. Many of his supporters believe that his words are promises he will keep and that he will prevail because he is tough enough to get the job done.
76
@Esm Could not agree more with your observations. Trump's behavior and language, and our tolerance for it, is the product of a macabre admiration for power, brutality, deception and hyper-competitiveness that has been cultivated and promoted to many generations of youth in America. That youth has now turned into a large number of voting-age "adults". Virtually everyone across the social-political spectrum -- conservative, liberal, Christian evangelical, atheist, socialist, libertarian, etc., -- is guilty of allowing, accepting, swallowing the mobster-mentality candy that businesses, media, social organizations have been feeding us.
We need a massive dose of reality TV in the literal sense of the term, coupled with an acknowledgement that this is not entertaining in the least.
2
Mr. Trump demonstrates his level of morality with his every speech and action. He rewards people who are loyal to him and his family. He denounces those who go against him and his family. He puts himself as untouchable above his family while constantly demanding proof of their loyalty to him. He is what my professor Derek Mills called an "amoral familiaist." Mills used the Mob to explain this kind of moral code. If you are not family, you are unimportant. If you are family, you are defended no matter what you do. And anything done to non family members is of no consequence. You can bribe, cheat, steal, even destroy anyone outside the family with no compunction because they are not of consequence outside of what they can do for the family.
160
The sad thing about Trump is that I firmly believe that if/when his back is against the wall, he will throw every single family member under the bus to save himself, because his ultimate loyalty is only to himself. He might feel mildly anguished about doing this to his children, for example, but bottom line it will be a "sacrifice" he will make for his own benefit.
If I were Jared Kushner, I'd be making a few calls to Mueller's team as self-protection.
4
Does Trump even realize, when he compares McGahn to a “John Dean type ‘RAT,’” that he is saying that it's a terrible thing when someone tells the truth about a leader who acts as if he is above the law?
Amazing. Appalling.
63
Not a very well-substantiated article, unfortunately. The reporter interviews a bunch of people who say that President Trump has the vocabulary of a mafioso, but only two actual examples--"flip" and "rats"--of that vocabulary. What a missed opportunity.
4
First of all, can anyone honestly say that if Trump were not president (and therefore immune from criminal prosecution, at least while in office), and was charged with a crime and offered immunity or a reduced sentence if he "flipped" and testified against others, that he wouldn't flip as well? Does anybody really think he'd go to jail to protect someone else?
Yes, there are many unsavory aspects to "flipping", especially when those that have committed criminal acts receive complete immunity, as opposed to reduced sentences. However, it's hard to imagine how we as a country would have ever been able to bring down organized crime, or successfully prosecute other wide-ranging criminal conspiracies without it.
Giuliani should be careful with his words, unless he's trying to give the impression that his many successful mob prosecutions were the result of getting low-level guys to "flip" and give false testimony in exchange for immunity or leniency. Surely there are a few cases (not just within the world of organized crime) where this has happened--low level people (often those without the resources to obtain good legal representation) are charged with crimes, and told that their only hope of not going to prison is to testify against someone higher-up. If they don't have any information to offer, then there's no deal, so they'd better come up with something. This does not, however, seem like one of those cases--there's already too much evidence to say otherwise.
5
Sounding on the "Charge the Squealers" statement to the Fox new interviewer, that is straight out of the Godfather.
We need this for the leader of our Nation?
It isn't just how the rest of the World sees us, it's how criminal can we go as a Nation before we stop him?
8
The corruption is so egregious, so obvious, so pestilent that even if one attempts to turn her head, one can't escape the stench of rotting democracy, the disgust at the collapse of civility.
After Nixon was dispatched by helicopter to San Clemente and Gerald "Football Helmet" Ford took over, the "Party Line" trumpeted by the media was "THE SYSTEM WORKS!!" never mind the blanket pardon given Nixon within days of his ouster.
The System DOES NOT WORK. The System has failed. Were "The System" to work, Trump AND Pence would not still be holding the reins of power.
As he was introduced on Comedy Central's "The President Show" let me repeat:
"Ladies and Gentleman. The 45th and FINAL President of the United States."
We are rapidly approaching the time when the "OPEN" light gets turned off and the flag hauled down, USSR-Kremlin style.
12
No wonder people who hate this country love Trump and the entire GOP. The GOP is handy for use by anyone and take orders well from known criminals and their other donors. America faces possible destruction as long as the GOP is permitted to harm our government. Healthcare? Education? Jobs? National security? The GOP intends to continue to harm this country as long as we tolerate their existence in our American government.
Maybe Americans will begin to take voting seriously. The presidential elections have been averaging about 50 per cent showing of voters and 30% of voters show for other elections. We don't appear to be able to figure out that voting matters. Trump, McConnell and other GOP offenders may change that.
If we intend to have a future, we need to all we can to inform everyone with facts and then, show up to vote.
18
Great comment. Now replace every "GOP" with "Grand Old Party" and see if you still stand by it.
1
Not flipping, that's what you do to pancakes. Simply greater loyalty to greater things, like democracy, our country, the constitution, honesty, doing the right thing, leaving an admirable legacy and protecting the country from foreign enemies.
16
Imperially vanity-obsessed in an “Empire State”, he must have missed the civic, principled, and effective leadership of real Italian-American role models such as Leon Panetta.
6
Let's not forget that Ivana named him THE DON back in the 1980s.
5
@SD
No, she called him “The Donald”.
3
Instead of describing it as "quaint," look at how Trump's language incriminates him. For one thing, he was obviously worried about Manafort "breaking," and how odd that "flipping," instead of a commonly used real estate term for buying property and selling it at a profit, is how he describes people who take a plea deal.
The language he uses shows us his lack of intellect, and now it shows his true nature. He's not an innocent man concerned about unfairness; he's a criminal worried about being caught.
43
Mr. Trump has spent his entire life talking, behaving, and expressing himself in the vernacular, and with the attitude, of a behemoth middle-school bully, and mob boss wannabe. Putting him in a pricey suit and in the people's most prized residence hasn't changed a thing, except that his peevish, petty, and petulant behavior is increasingly infantile, the older he gets. On the rise is a penchant for getting even with people who have, or he perceives have, maligned him, or who have failed to grant the fealty and praise he feels he richly deserves. While he is the worst president in US History, he would make a hellofa tyrant!
16
Mr.Trump not only values loyalty but he demands it.If you are not loyal you are fired or have your security clearance revoked or are bullied every day in his "tweets".And why must you be loyal toMr.Trump and not to the Constitution of the United States-you must because he thinks he is above the law.He still surrounds himself with people with questionable ethics, moves from country club to country club and has marginalized everyone who works in the Oval Office.He sees his office as a platform to express his views.He has not the slightest interest in the country unless it would reflect back positively on him.
10
There is delicious irony in Trump’s whining about the “flippers” and their lies. It is Karma at work. A liar’s lies finally catch up with him.
It is disturbing that lying has clearly been a big factor in Trump’s success. Particularly when his lies are so utterly transparent. One would think that the business world would see through them. Perhaps lying in his circle was so common as to go unremarked amd tolerated.
13
I wonder when Failing 45 will come to realize that all of his 'supporters' actually loathe and despise him, and that they have brutally used him to get what they want. Now that he's delivered, the Establishment will continue to destroy him with bad advice like "don't pardon PM", "cooperate with Mueller". Failing 45's mere existence is an affront to the Nation, and his closest 'friends' will be his ruin.
5
Goodfellas is probably my favorite film of all time. If Martin Scorsese had written a story like this, the Trump sham we're seeing now, it never would have made it to the cutting room floor. It's amateur hour (every hour) in this White House and with this president.
10
Anyone who likes mobsters hasn’t met any. They are suspicious, unfriendly, duplicitous bottom feeders that lack a sense of humour.
Even other members of the gang dislike and mistrust one another.
However I live in a very low crime area of town and some attribute this to the clubhouse down the road. Nobody even spray paints graffiti around here.
If people didn’t buy or sell drugs, didn’t hire prostitutes or need protection for illegal crops these guys would have become politicians, or so it seems to me now.
6
Finally, someone has made public what those of us that know anything about Trump have always understood. Even the slowest of us should have been aware of Trump's penchant for use of mafioso language, style, dress, and over-inflated ego. The 'best' people that he wants to surround himself with are of the same ilk. Loyalty, above all else, is what he desires. He has always been scofflaw. Witness his behavior in his real estate development business. Pay for as little as possible, deflect criticism and cheat on your taxes. He has an entitlement addiction. What is funny about it all, is that a man who wants others to keep their knowledge close to the vest, can't seem to stop incriminating himself with every breath.
29
History will document how the Trump World Mob took over the US Presidency. It'll be interesting to know all the details involved but it is amazing that he is supported by so many like minded voters. We all violate the law occasionally even if it may be exceeding a posted speed limit to get past a problem driver. But it appears many Americans would rather live with no law at all thinking it is every person for themselves. Anger at Washington DC seems to be their perennial excuse for criminal behavior and now Trump has amplified the scene exponentially.
8
Wiseguys had courage. Dotard with his bone spurs and bullying has no courage. I hope Sessions sticks to his position as he is sure to be bullied more.
14
Yes, Trump sounds like a mobster because he IS a mobster. I have the dubious distinction of growing up around these people in NY Metro, and there is no such thing as an Italian or Russian mobster --- they're just mobsters.
They never went away, they change tactics and scams faster than ordinary people change clothes. Today it's race-fixing and phone card scams, tomorrow it's selling luxury apartments to oligarchs or a Yeoman to an oligarch, whatever makes money the fastest, easiest way.
Every oligarch who buys a NY apartment doesn't do so with his money, he does so with Putin's money because Putin considers every Russian, Kazakhi, Armenian oligarch in the universe a piece on his chessboard.
Ask yourself: why in God's name would Trump's lawyer Giuliani, Mr Crimefighter, walk around with a pinky ring? Why would he hire a goon like Kerik as his police commissioner back in 99? Trump and Giuliani have a long, sordid relationship that goes way back.
If you look at their circle of friends, you'll find no shortage of goons and scammers and holdovers from the 5-families era.
Thank God for American Laws!
13
Remember: only Donald Trump can make Jeff Sessions look like a statesman.
45
45 is also so used to dealing with Russians that he didn't see anything wrong in colluding with them....
Aberrant behavior, when done routinely, becomes "normal."
16
I've been saying this for a year: he sounds like Jimmy Hoffa complaining about RFK.
16
Let's call this what it is: Mr. Trump's admiration and encouragement of "omerta."
8
James Comey compared Trump to a Mob boss in his book, Higher Loyalty.
“The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth," Comey wrote - so portentous and aptly.
Bonnano Family, Colombo crime Family, Gambino Crime Family,
Gennovese Crime Family, Lucchese Crime Family.
With all the potential criminal exposure of Trump and his family, it's beginning to feel like there is a Trump Crime Family.
10
What strikes me most as this president's thuggery is being revealed daily is that in just under two years we have gone from having a president who was educated, articulate, compassionate, moral, and respected throughout the world to...Trump. I will never understand why so many people were (and still are) duped by a man whose experience is nothing more than running multiple businesses into bankruptcy and hosting a reality TV show. I just don't get it.
462
@MEM
They like the so-called 'tough talk'. It doesn't have to make sense but it has a meaning to his followers. It gives them authority to use that kind of language in their own lives. Like their playground bully leader, they want to play the game of tough guys, mobsters. Time to blow the recess whistle, me thinks.
7
@MEM
but, according to Trump/GOP and their "true believers" he was just a Kenyan born Muslim community organizer! Never forget how these people "see" the world.
1
What happened over the four decades of you not really paying attention was the the GOP successfully brainwashing the base so that they were ready to embrace a demagogue like the orange one. @MEM
2
It makes one wonder if the Don has had some people "disappear" or "terminated" for a lack of loyalty. His biggest mistake was to try to recruit Comey, who was "terminated" when he refused to espouse his loyalty. His replacement (Sessions) then double crossed Trump, stabbing him in the back... This IS just like the Sopranos !
11
"Trump honed his vocabulary over decades"
Are you sure "hone" is the correct verb in this instance?
3
He's been rubbing elbows with the Mafia long enough to have adopted not only their vocabulary and style, but their methods, too.
7
You got a nice country here. It'd be a shame if anything were to... happen to it.
57
It's not surprising that Jimmy Cagney is an American icon, you dirty rat. What could be more fitting. Tell me Big Pharma, Oil, Tobacco, Wall Street and Silicon Valley aren't the mob already.
6
Well Trump can tweet and run his mouth like a two-bit mobster on Fox and Friends all he wants, but unless he gives sworn testimony to the contrary, his denials are just noise. Come on, tough guy, sit down with Mueller and testify. Oh, wait, that's right, you're too scared to go on record because you can't keep all the lies straight. Pathetic.
15
To a mobster, the archenemy is the "Feds." To a mobster, there is no crime worse than being a "rat." To most Americans, few things are more despicable than a mobster. Mr. Trump, you are despicable.
24
Trump's yeasterday words about flippers and thinking that coercion of law enforcement on flippers must be illegal send spine chill.
Thsi is a guy is thinking exactly El Chapo Guzman, how dare government flips underlings and use against the crime boss.
I really wonder what does means "law abiding citizen" in Trumps world : sucker, looser
10
As he is backed further into a corner which he paints himself into with every deed and twitterance [sic], 45 regresses ever more toward his mean.
5
Whether as a serial bankrupt, unfaithful husband, suspected tax cheat, or creator of Tump U. rip-off, much of what Donald undertakes comes nowhere close to the mark.
Being a gangster wannabe is no exception. Tony Soprano would be embarrassed by Donald - no work ethic; woefully undisciplined; bad listener; dishonorable; thin skinned, runs off at the mouth; bad taste in associates; etc.
Donald would never be "made" and would not to even be allowed into the Bud-da-bing.
18
After having spent decades in the NYC real estate business, is it surprising to anyone that Trump resembles a mobster? He has the temperament of one ( Hillary said it best during the campaign) He has the demeanor of a mobster and his expectation of "loyalty" from those around him is straight out of the Godfather. Trump wants to run the presidency the way a Mafioso chief runs his gang. He is straight out of the Queens Mafia, This is what America elected to be POTUS. How sad!
But let us not forget that those who now still profess loyalty to Trump in this Congress and state legislatures are also wannabe mafiosi. (e.g. Rand Paul, John Cornyn, Devin Nunes, etc. etc,)
11
Reading this and just remembering what ExX President Nixon called Italian's on the Whitehouse tapes. Times have changed,yes I am being sarcastic!
I'm waiting for him to say "leave the gun, take the the cannoli."
(The Godfather, part I)
7
Trump behaves like a Mafia hoodlum. That is the milieu he is most comfortable in. He is not fit to be the President of the United States--- a fact which becomes more obvious every single day. Look to Mr. Mueller and the mid term elections in November --- get out and vote! Flip the House and the Senate and return common sense and decent governing to our country before it is too late.
19
If this pathetic man was a race horse, then his breeding would be described as The Sopranos out of Goodfellas. He has managed to combine the worst of both, in thought and voice. He remains an embarrassment to this country, as do his supporters.
For any foreigners reading this, please remember, he did NOT receive the most votes.
21
Well then it seems if he is going to act like a mob boss he needs a mob name. How about either of these:
A) Big bambino
B) Donny small hands
C) Lying tyrant
10
I’m going with B. Although A is pretty good, too.
2
Trump uses the word "flip" and with virtually nothing beyond this it becomes the foundation of an entire piece attempting to make him into a Mafia capo and heir apparent to John Gotti. Oh, wait, Rudy Guiliani (hint: Italian) liked "The Sopranos". That counts, too. Really, that's the best clickbait you could come up with for top and center on the home page heading into the weekend?
2
There's a lot more than just the word flip if anybody's been paying attention since the beginning of 2017
6
@Projunior Trump's whole life has been corrupt and gangster-like, from the time he was sent off to military school as a youngster to now.
The fact that he shared lawyers with such upstanding citizens as Mr. Gotti, Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante is a clue that Cheetolini considers himself to be above the law.
7
@Projunior: Sounds like you haven't been listening very closely to anything he's said for the past thirty-odd years.
3
Let's not forget that Goodfellas was based on the true story of Henry Hill (book that became movie is Wiseguy). The *president* doesn't just sound like a fictional mobster, his words and behavior mirror real crime family bosses.
In stories of the mafia (Italian & Russian), those who flip on "the family" are targets. Real targets of possible physical harm, not just the targets by an old man's rants on Twitter. Though I loathe the likes of Cohen, Manafort, Pecker etc, their testimony will eventually bring down the conman in the WH and I seriously hope they have protection throughout the legal process. Crime bosses will "take out" witnesses (Putin has proved himself to be very good at this).
This administration is The Sopranos, only less entertaining. And Carmella and Tony were far more likable than Melania & Don!
18
Trump's description of Attorney General job is not different than body guard, you shall die for me, your own soul doesn't worth a penny, me, me meeeeeeeeee.
Yeah that is our president, and we are not in North Korea.......
something is profoundly wrong in Trumps mind.
39
Americans have a long time love affair with organized crime- consider the acclaim and following that moves like The Godfather trilogy, Good Fellas, the HBO Sopanos,etc-
We seem to admire and venerate these people and their stories...successes, life styles, attitudes....
This may help to explain the election and continued support of President Trump- plain talking, anti-intellectual, loyalty and omertà bonds, alpha males with having some women for wives/children and other women for their sport.
Why this profile appeals to Americans ( some 60+ million) is fr others to explain. It just seems to the truth of our day.
20
The difference between Mr. McGahan and Mr. Dean is that the former was not under indictment and the latter was. Has anyone, e.g. Carl Bernstein et al ever asked Dean if he would have testified if not indicted?
I wonder if 40 yrs. on Mr. Cohen can be a regular CNN savant on the seamy world of politics as Dean has become?
1
The comparison between Dean and Cohen seems inapt. As an example, read all the sick things Cohen used to say to threaten those who were on the receiving end of Trump's nefarious doings and who contemplated taking legal action against Cohen's client for them. The American Bar Association's professional rules of conduct outlaws such threats as they bring infamy on the entire profession--he should have been disbarred. A smarmier or heretofore unapologetic challenger of ethical mores never was, and we still don't know the extent of his involvement in all things Russian. Dean is a prince by comparison.
1
@Zydeco GirlIn Dean’s case it only took 35 yrs. As far as the degree of ABA ethics etc and related degree of smarminess let’s not forget his own involvement in Watergate and the enemies list. A. Kenneth Pye and E. Barrett would be disappointed.
It logically follows from what Trump has been saying that he believes Mafia prosecutions have been wrong. Good platform for the GOP ...
19
Never in my life would I have thought I would hear a President of the United States opine like a cast member out of "Goodfellas".
The only good thing to come out of all of this is that the Republicans will be removed from office in 2018, and we can get on with debilitating the corrupt and embarrassing administration, and hopefully impeachment.
All Republicans need to be removed from office for their lack of morals, lack of action, and treating the constitution with contempt.
52
“...the republicans will be removed from office..”
Don’t count on it. The American electorate led us here. Who knows how much farther there is to sink?
There is nothing about Trump that is close to being a gangster or Mobster. He will always be that guy from Queens that still aspires to be part of Old New York elite (legal and illegal) and loved by all.
Unfortunately, his voters fell for his conman job. Thanks to them and Jill Stein voters all of us will pay for their ignorance.
39
@Concerned Citizen
You're correct. We are paying!
1
@Concerned Citizen
When I saw Jill Stein sitting at the same table as Michael Flynn and Putin, I was convinced then, that Jill was just as much as a Putin puppet as is trump.
8
Gangster language and familia vs familia policy perspective can be anticipated from America when amateurs are in public executive roles. What other heavily repeated and romanticised TV or movie archetypes of power exist for unsophisticated and unprepared people to emulate? Puzo created posers.
11
I think Mr. D’Antonio’s words are most apt and insightful here.
7
The Trump CFO just flipped.
Mercy, in addition to being the worst President in American history, Mr. Trump's attorneys are getting out-lawyered to the right and left.
42
Hoping the next Congress makes Trump an offer he can't refuse...
37
Gotti was considered untouchable by authorities until Mueller took the case.
40
Trump is and always has been a mob boss, why would anyone be surprised by his choice of words?
37
All these years in the casino and construction business in NY and NJ make his way of seeing the world and doing business understandable and not surprising. I suspect many see politics as a corrupt and dirty business and won't hold this against him.
Even with this world outlook it seems to me If he acted more like Carlo Gambino or Meyer Lansky, and less like Al Capone or John Gotti it might help him, but he seems unwilling or unable to change his ways.
33
@AVIEL So, we have come so low that now we wish our president was more like one of the 'good' mobsters than the 'bad' ones?
1
Last night, I tuned-in after a week of respite from the news and caught the whole team from Rachel to Brian and I was amazed at how many interconnected sets of data are being brought to the light of day illustrating the possibility of a real dirty network and it's called the "Trump Organization."
In his favorite safe space of a Fox interview, trump say, "I know all about flipping,” “For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go.”
For trump, "flipper's" biggest sins are not that they broke the law, that goes without saying. It's confessing to someone else that they broke the law; trump was denouncing those that "break the code of silence." A lack of loyalty.
As Mueller hands-off each case to different departments to continue investigating what his team has unearthed, quite by accident, we are learning how large this set of interconnected dots really is; trump's mafia like network.
The tighter the truth wraps around trump, the faster his facade of (in his mind) presidential cracks and he becomes to assume his natural skin, illustrated by his mob vocabulary.
Meanwhile, trump and Giuliani continue to tamper with witnesses, offering pardons in the press, and Giuliani calling in the troops to riot in the streets if trump is found guilty of his own illegal actions. It's not the Chicago 7, it's the New York 1.
254
@LivingWithInterest
The thing the press keeps leaving out which makes his utterances about flipping sound right to his believers is that the testimony of those who "flip" is backed up by facts and evidence other than that testimony.
Anyone taking money on how long it is before he tweets "Snitches get stitches"?
BTW Pecker may have flipped or he may not have. Immunity can be granted as a hostile act by the prosecution to force testimony from a witness who is relying on the 5th Amendment. Once you are immune from prosecution you have no legitimate reason not to answer.
2
@LivingWithInterest Thanks for pointing out Giuliani's appalling statement. There WILL be people in the streets, Rudy, and they'll be dancing like V-E Day.
3
What Is ridiculous is the amount of time and effort a self declared "innocent" man has spent and continues to spend on defaming the FBI and intelligence community, legitimate media and present and former appointees and making veiled threats to all of them. If he truly was innocent he would sit back and let Mueller do his work and exonerate him. If trump were a true patriot he would be cheering Mueller's team on to get at the root of the Russians meddling in our elections and politics and enacting a plan to stop them dead in their tracks. Instead he snuggles up to Putin and declares law enforcement a "witch hunt". Trump is going down, language he surely can understand.
345
Trump's every word and action screams guilt and consciousness of guilt. Republicans have lost their moral compass to enable him and the Trump Crime Family.
1
To be fair, Though Trump has used his Goodfellas speak in the past some what, his lawyer, Rudy is in fact a past mobster prosecutor and 100% more familiar with the gangster dialogue then the Don. Maybe Rudy is feeding him lines from prior court cases?
5
@Ed P
A sure tell the thing is a lie is that there is more than one reason given to "explain" it.
4
Trump is what you get when you combine old gangster movies with five hours a day of Fox News. He's like some Frankenstein amalgamation of all the worst parts of American culture.
148
This man, Trump, never had any intention of running for President because he wanted to do a great job for our country. He has absolutely no idea what a President sounds like, acts like or thinks about. It is all about him, how he can benefit and make a buck, how he can wield power and how he can feed his narcissistic needs. He LIKES to feel like the head of a Mafia family. He LIKES getting away with breaking the law. He has a criminal mind.
He sounds like a low-level mobster because he IS a low-level mobster. Before he ran for office, we sold an apartment in Manhattan, One time, the topic of Trump Tower came up and our realtors said it was filled with Russian mobsters. It was just an off-handed remark, not a big topic of gossip! If two realtors in Manhattan knew about Trumo’s tenants, where were the press and where were the DA’s in Manhattan? Why hasn’t Trump’s possible money laundering been investigated before and why haven’t his suspicious connections with all these Russians been looked into? It was clear that no ligitimate NY bank would lend to him because his businesses had failed many times and he had declared bankruptcy four times. Didn’t anyone wonder where the money was coming from for his faux lavish buildings?
I wish I had somebody to blame for the situation we as a country now find themselves in. Surely a stupid, mean-spirited reality show isn’t enought to get a guy elected to the highest office in the land. Are people really THAT clueless?
150
@Kathryn
Evidence suggests the clueless answer is "yes".
4
Judging by my brother, sister, several cousins, and some in-laws, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.
6
@Kathryn
Yes!
Oh yes, Trump reminds me of that classic mobster movie where DeNiro, Liotta and Pesci sit around in their bathrobes tweeting out insults at their rivals like a bunch of petulant teenagers...
46
Yeah. Just why does he talk like a mob boss? Can’t figure that one out.
9
It is very sad day for America that we talk Mafia boss and the president of America in the same context. The New York Mafia Don John Gotti and the president Don are similar and of same character. Trump is a follower of John Gotti, Al Capone, Tony Salerno etc criminal bosses. FOX TV is celebrating but rest of us are not enjoying at all.
29
Trump has nothing to lose at this point. Why not talk like a gangster and ,YES ,some people love it.
Folks, GOTV or we will be sitting with the babushkas in a Moscow park reading Pravda.
21
As Tony Soprano used to say, "whadda ya gonna do."
9
Trump has no genuine self, no authenticity. Therefore, he molds a persona that suits his ego: tough talking Mob guy; brilliant, take no prisoners businessman; earthy friend of the working man.
It's all a sham. He parrots words with no understanding of their weight or meaning. He spews whatever he believes will bring him the most applause, never mind the consequences.
He is a hollow little man, a flesh-covered sack of impulse, avarice, greed, and vulgarity.
171
When did you ever see a mobster threatening and insulting people (especially journalists and minorities) while hiding behind at least a dozen bodyguards and in front of an audience, at a rally filled with willfully ignorant groupies. Not a very convincing "tough guy" act, but an excellent portrayal of an inept, spoiled rotten bully.
Also, have you ever noticed how - whenever confronted by a reporter in a one-to-one interview (probably another reason they're rare) - he has the demeanor of an eight-year old caught stealing someone's lunch money? Now THAT act of his is very convincing!
69
He looks, sounds and acts like a mob boss because he is one. At least he thinks he is. Luckily for the Nation his family made Frado the boss, instead of Michael.
I heard a second hand story from a good friend about a small time boss he knew when younger. This boss had a rule: No fancy cars, houses, or clothes. His lieutenants lived in modest homes and drove Chevys. Except one wise guy who wanted to flaunt his ill gotten gains. He was dissappeared.
t rump is that guy. Instead of just hanging back and raking in the loot he has to shoot off his mouth and shine the spotlight on himself. He likes the attention.
Had he kept his mouth shut he might be getting away with his crimes. Thank God he can't do that.
56
Manafort and Roger Stone both have that same need to show off!
3
So Little Lord Fauntleroy is a wannabe tough guy. Who knew?
37
Mob bosses regularly have people murdered.
Quite a stretch to compare Trump to one.
3
Tell that to the families of those who have been killed or had their lives threatened by his followers; the ones who lean on or act on Trump’s every word.
9
@Tuco
Roy Cohn was quick to inform the public he did NOT tell anyone Paul Castellano had not taken cooperation off the table when speaking to Rudy Giuliani for him. Paul got shot a few days later. Roy did so by informing his biographer, a reporter who dirtied his reputation informing on Ellsberg re the Pentagon Papers. Roy hoped Sydney Zion would clear him by letting that get out, too.
@Tuco Trump just prefers to destroy people's businesses and lives by lawsuit.
1
Goodfellas is a great litmus test of character... some people watch it and are rightfully appalled at the violent, squalid, scummy lives these mobsters lead... but there's always the random sociopath or morally bankrupt clown who watches those losers' lives play out and only see the easy money. Trump is definitely in column B.
41
@Tom P
One must consider the impact bad management has on humanity as well. Youngstown was known for supporting organized crime because most of the steel workers felt their own bosses robbed them blind, too. If companies treated their employees fairly, crowds wouldn't have turned out to cheer Capone.
2
Jimmy Conway to Henry Hill: “Always keep your mouth shut and never rat on your friends!” Now who does that sound like?
9
The article has a cutesy tone that undermines is argument. It is dangerous to have this man with a mobster mentality in the White House. And Roger Stone is not a colorful character. He is most likely a felon.
51
Trump sounds like a Mob boss because he is one. Why doesn't one of your reporters find out more about his Atlantic City casino days, home of many mobsters? I wouldn't be surprised if he ordered his thugs to engage in illegal activities running from intimidation up to overt physical crimes. Or get ahold of the tapes from his TV days. It is not just bank fraud that Trump team has been engaged in. I readily imagine much, much worse.
24
Everyone realizes that, as inappropriate and demeaning to the image of an American president we would like to project around the world, Donald Trump’s ridiculous language cannot be grounds for impeaching him.
On the other hand, Trump’s tough-guy street talk from a bygone era gives us a window into the mind (such as it is) and heart (such as it is) of this deeply flawed and ignorant man who occupies the peoples’ White House.
His is the language of shortcuts and cheating – not simply for the money, but for the sheer joy of fleecing the government. It is the language of someone who believes following the law and respecting tradition is for losers.
As the trials and guilty pleas continue, the Trump vocabulary will be help the public understand why this man should be impeached.
248
@sdw: Thanks for this! "[T]he sheer joy of fleecing" describes Trump perfectly and explains much of his behavior that was perhaps puzzling. He doesn't mind if the fleecee is a mere small contractor or the State of New Jersey (with help from Christie); he obviously loves the taste of that meaty fleece.
1
THIS (emphasis) is what the Republicans put in the White House.
There's a disgrace loose in the land, and it's not DOJ or the free press.
But it looks as if the top of the GOP have bottom-lined authoritarian/quasi fascism and they like what they see.
I hope we make it to election day.
39
trump is beyond (and below) "deplorable." Gotti was too -- but methinks even he would have 'made' a 'better,' less deplorable and less despicable potus!!!
6
A 24/7 mafia cartoon brought to you by GOP Studios. An inescapable torture foisted upon a squirming majority of Americans by Mitch Micky and Pauly Blue Eyes.
32
What's missing? Badda bing badda bang badda boom. as in....."We set the Judge up with a hooker, Don busts in with a camera, and badda bing, badda boom, case dismissed". Fugetaboutit...
10
He sounds like a mob boss, because in essence he is one. Just an American extension of the Russian mafia.
18
Yes, Trump is playing a game. He gets endless attention with it!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He is the hero-villain who dominates the media new cycle.
The problem is his domination is destroying our nation, daily.
When will the Democrats and critics wise up to it, and fight back?
I think Trump's game is about the power of NO.
He endlessly, rejects truth, with NO, to turn the media ON.
(The words NO and ON contain the same letters, in reverse)
I hope that Democrats will find ways to expose Trump's game,
and keep repeating this to the public so he can be defeated...
===============================================
6
You can judge a man by the company he keeps.
21
A wiseguy for sure, and maybe even a thug. More like Gotti, narcissist and a spotlight lover, even if that type of personality gets them in lots of trouble. How lucky are we that Trump is not more like a Carlo Gambino, quiet and behind the scenes type of guy, but vicious and efficient.
He fears "flipper" Cohen because with so much knowledge of his personal business dealings, it's he, more than anybody else, who could give him the kiss of death.
14
But let’s not forget that Trump grew up as a rich kid, so he’s tough talk will make him a chicken mobster at best..or at worst.
Basically he was never one of them and it’s all just posturing. I’m sure he would run away at the first shot fired.
17
Don the Con is still the banished child of 13 his parents sent to military school, emotionally void, psychologically traumatized and drawn to the 'tough guys and cool kids' of an adolescent. The fact that he was mentored by daddy Fred and through daddy's connections did business with the mob, see the building of Grand Hyatt and Trump Tower, helps to explain his mob like references. Should we feel pity for the 'lost boy banished to military school'......I don't think so. His potential for harm to us all is too great.
34
My stepdaughter went to NYMA, over my objections but she went. She turned out fine. Don’t blame it on NYMA.
How many more revelations of impropriety, indecency, criminal conduct (etc.) will it take to move the GOP? I’m beginning to think Trump really could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and get away with it. What has happened to America—where did it go? This is all just so embarrassing. (And the embarrassment factor will not improve much when Pence becomes POTUS.)
324
how many prior presidential candidates would even think about getting shooting somebody on 5th Ave. and getting away with it? and then also brag it aloud?
the closet boast I can recall might be when John Lennon said the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus. but nobody got shot in that one.
1
@Huge Grizzly ... Wake up.
The GOP only care about the SCOTUS seat.
It's the key to the decades-long coup d'etat.
Trump can bomb NYC and the GOP will do nothing. And Trump knows it.
3
@Huge Grizzly He has already gotten away with multiple crimes. The GOP has allowed it and been complicit.
What the media don't seem to understand is that many Americans view the leaders of organized crime with awe and a strange kind of admiration. Pointing out the ways Mr. Trump resembles powerful crime bosses only raises his image among his supporters. He is a gangster, but he's America's gangster. https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/why-do-we-admire-mobsters
14
@Molly I seem to remember that when--was it Big Paul Castellano?--was offed in a steakhouse, people flocked to the restaurant. If a mafia don ate there, it had to be good.
3
We know Senator Orin Hatch is impressed with the wise guys complex. No reason why the Donald can't follow in the steps of the don. Next stop, Federal prison.
12
Donald Trump on Jeff sessions: "He only had the job because he was loyal to me". Classic job criterion in the mob: loyalty. Qualifications? Unimportant. Support of Donald Trump? Essential. He talks like a mob boss because he is one. How sad to have such in the White House.
49
This TV-centric president will of course resort to tough guy language when he's under pressure. But it would seem that this is exactly what his supporters wanted when they elected him: a tough guy. A bully. Someone to evoke for them the power they wish they had. So he's playing to his choir here. It would appear the "family values" espoused by the GOP and his supporters isn't the "family" we thought they meant.
28
Hmmmm. A criminal surrounded by criminals. The names have changed, but the motivations always seems the same. Greed and power.
14
So, um, OK fellas. When The Don decides that Sessions et al. have to go, just before or perhaps after the elections (depending upon whether the Rs keep the Senate and/or/when Kavanaugh gets on the Court . . . whatcha gonna do to save your Republic? Think the guys remaining will abandon him? Think again. It will mark the end of the “Founders Republic.” That’s about the same time the groups, operating in the background for decades now and funded by the Koch brothers, will start talking about a new Constitutional Convention — “to correct” our problems. It will no doubt attract many from all sides.
10
He's a joke, a naive fool who took the braggadocio as a description entire missing completely that it is the antithesis of what real criminals get up to. Underlings talk like this and its allowed to keep up the image that creates the fear tha gains compliance without effort.
He should have picked up on that from those old money folks he did battle with in Florida but it was all airplanes for him.
Real criminals, serious criminal you should fear (not for the showy violence showy crooks get up to) eschew the limelight and prefer anonymity which is why we know very little about the old money wealthy families behind the GOP machine tearing down our government for the last 45 years.
15
I am really just astonished that this is newsworthy. As a native NY-er, Trump has always sounded like what my parents would have referred to as a "Goombah". Yes - it is an ethnic slur, but even Italian-Americans themselves used it to describe a thug - and a not so quick-on-the-uptake one at that.
It is a deliberate affectation by a man that has always been in love with power unbridled by moral codes - by people who take what they want without regard to the cost to others. He's a narcissist and a bully, and if he thought he could get away for one second with "whacking" someone, I have no doubt whatsoever that he'd order the hit.
27
Maybe it is time for Mueller to make Trump an offer he can't refuse.
19
Sicily is on the decline and St. Peterburg is on the rise. Make no mistake, Trump is a don at Godfather Putin's table. His connection is thru Brighton Beach.
26
I have always thought that Trump's association with Roy Cohn would have immediately disqualified him from the Presidency. Americans either have shockingly short memories or willfully suspend their disbeliefs. His backers continued contortions and lies to excuse his behavior. Our founding fathers are using the Constitution to wipe away their tears of horror and sadness.
19
@MomT Indeed. Cohn was a particularly loathsome and foul individual. He enabled a drunken Joe McCarthy to unleash havoc on Congress and the US.
11
Trump IS a "wiseguy"- "if it looks like a duck ....."). Just because he isn't in "Waste Disposal" doesn't mean he and his family don't run an organized crime syndicate. He has used know crime syndicate-operated construction contractors on at lease some of his buildings, including Trump Tower. And then, there was Roy Cohn, his mentor.
I am sure Trump also admired the manner in which John Gotti ran his operation, and those Russian "mafia" guys are just awesome!
Some of the Don's alleged crimes involve Federal issues, but now, the State of New York, and the City of Manhattan have gotten wind of some of the evidence implicating the Don and HIS CHILDREN, who have benefit from and continue to participate in Trump Inc. Maybe Orange is the new "Whitey" (sans the murders, so far). Tick, tick, tick.
27
Trump’sstatement about Mr. McGahn not being a rat like John Dean is a remarkable admission that Mr. McGahn can rat him out.
31
Indeed, he is a common thug at heart.
19
You forgot to add that Rudy's dad was an "enforcer" for the mob so he learned first hand.
11
"I've had many friends involved in this stuff. It's called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal." -- Donald Trump
Mr. President: You've had "many friends involved in this kind of stuff?" Really? Many friends? Who are these friends and what did they do to be in a position to flip?
64
@Reasoned And Rational
Exactly. I'm 60 years old, lived in big cities most of my life and I don't know a single person who has 'flipped'.
Not one.
4
First the public elected a "B" list actor, and now it's a "B" list TV "reality" show host. Who's next, Stormy? At this rate, it really could be anybody! I would rather we chose our President by lottery... at least that way the money in politics would no longer be a factor, and there would be no good reason for all the bickering and racism, as everyone would have an equal opportunity. The US would be a better nation for it, since the Congress would no longer feel pressure to enact the most extreme measures proposed by the President, as we've usually seen them do.
7
The president of the United States is one of them. This is where we have landed. The GOP is of them as well, only with a better vocabulary.
8
Let's not in any way excuse Trump because 'that's all he knows." A chimpanzee raised in an environment of thievery, bullying, betrayal and greed can be excused as a creature that absorbs behavior and mimics it, but not a human member of society. What distinguishes us humans from lower forms of life is our ability to reason, judge, and develop a conscience, and a sense of morality. A thug and his behavior cannot be the ruler of a society that seeks to improve from living by the rules of the jungle, Although many members of the jungle have a built-in code of ethics and organization that allows for altruism, and cooperation superior to this unconscionable thug.
20
Movies and TV have depicted and glorified depictions of Mob culture for many decades, reaching and enchanting many. One hardly has to have rubbed shoulders with actual Damon Runyon types in old(er) New York to acquire some of the lingo, much of which has become standard for every day usage. Certainly there are other ways to impart concepts like "flip" and "rat" but not unless a major news outfit that has gone to the mattresses uses it as a shakedown.
4
The President simply will never put our country ahead of his own self interests. He has and will continue to violate the oath of office.
58
Trump and Cohen committed collusion to defraud the American voters and Trump commits collusion with Giuliani every day to defraud the American public, so it wouldn't be to hard to think that Trump probably committed collusion with other people with regard to the 2016 election.
The only vocabulary that Trump needs to brush up on is how to talk to his prison guards nicely, when they finally put him away.
33
Seems to me we'd be better off as a nation if this were simply a lurid B movie. At least then we could depend on a director to yell cut when the performance - and the plot - became too absurd to believe...
14
Better yet, we could get up and walk out.
2
To be fair, rat still resonates, as in "he ratted me out," though you hardly expect it to be used by a U.S. President. I think some debt is owed actor Edward G. Robinson. True, expressions like "see" (a shortening of "you see") are archaic and "mug" in its gangsterish incarnation survives mostly as "mugshot." In short, John Gotti was a derivative, stagy gangster and Martin Scorsese indulged in tough guy nostalgia.
7
@G C B
People actually do talk like that.But they are low level wannabe criminals who delusions of grandeur. Real crooks are undetectable because you don't even consider them to be criminals or what you think they do a crime.
2
A flipper? Or guilty person who decides to tell the truth?
Tax evasion is a crime against the American people, a theft crime against school budgets, road repair, the military, libraries, fire departments. It is not just a victimless harmless, no-big-deal thing.
So my question is - if it is relatively easy to assemble evidence of tax evasion on Manafort and Cohen, why is it so difficult to examine Trump's tax returns?
If white collar tax evasion is so common and rarely prosecuted, we should know if our president is a tax evader, committing a theft crime against the American people.
112
@organic farmer.
I'm sure Mueller has them. We don't know what Mueller has and neither does Trump. It's driving him crazy.
5
@organic farmer How do you know that Mueller HASN'T seen Trump's tax returns. His investigation resembles an iceberg, with only the tip showing to the public. Besides, the civil suit brought by NY State Attorney General Barbara Underwood (check out her awesome credentials on Wikipedia) has brought a civil suit for 10 years of fraud & corrupt practices, naming the Trump Foundation, Donald Trump, & his three eldest children, Don, Jr., Eric, & Ivanka. This can't be pardoned away as it is not a federal charge. As a result of her evidence, the New York taxing authorities are filing state criminal charges. In addition, Cohen's testimony implicates the Trump Organization & its treasurer & financial chief, Allen Weisselberg in middle-manning Trump's repayments of hush money. We have already heard one Trump-Cohen phone tape that referred to setting things up through Weisselberg. So, Mueller now has what he needs, as do the IRS & FEC, to subpoena all of the Trump Organization's financial records as well as Allen Weisselberg, himself. Oh, this just gets better & better as Trump shows he is as incompetent at crime as he is about anything else. Those of us who have watched & listened to Trump & his base cult demean & attack anybody who contradicts him are finally getting our revenge. Bwahahahaha!
1
I'm sorry but this article is a perfect example of how this myth of Trump the tough New York Goodfella is proliferated.
Here's the reality from someone who actually grew up Gotti's neighborhood, full of real Goodfellas and wannabees.
Trump is what we called a "mark". We see them all the time, spoiled rich kids who hung out with the crew in order to have people look out for him. The crew would let them in because the mark would spend whatever money they have to buy their way into the club. Meanwhile they're the biggest joke in the group. They're the clowns kept around for beer money.
Trump is a perfect example of the mark. His early New York real estate deals were all mob filled fronts. He even eluded to his mob buddies in his recent tweet about observing flipping 30 years ago. Trump isn't a "Don" he's a rube, he was first used by the Italian and Chinese mob (as noted in the late 80's House report on East Coast organized crime in the casino business), then the Russians. If it wasn't for his father, and the Saud's and Chinese billionaires, Trump would've been wearing concrete shoes decades ago.
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@Don
True. Trump grew up in Jamaica Estates, one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the City, let alone Queens. He was surrounded bunDoctors, Lawyers and Judges, not Damon Runyon characters. He had to seek them out in other parts of the borough.
3
@Don Best comment.
3
@Don
Wow. You nailed it.
Trump has always been a poseur....a coward playing a tough guy....a bore playing a ladies man.... a dunce playing smart.
Money masks it all.
3
Ah, money never did buy class.
95
If you ever visited one of his AC casinos, you’d realize money couldn’t buy good taste OR class.
2
Nobody who has ever been booked , spent time in lockups , who has been moved from cell to cell, soon forgetting if it is day or night in the awful, tombs at 100 Centre St, or the amazing"prison factory" on Riker's island, where blocks long enough to land small planes on once housed kids aged 16, in tiers like those seen in any prison movie,sees the humor of people "flipping". It was almost declared illegal some decades ago, as it in fact offered special concessions and deals -of incredible value, (is 20 years worth your life?), and some judges see this. However, as the NY Times repeatedly admits, it is the one tool which police and prosecutors all use-often in bad faith-to obtain what the desire. I despise the President but I too think the very concept of the plea agreement is basically legalized blackmail and bribery.
Almost declared illegal in the last century, a cry heard from every cop and prosecution lawyer in the US declared -dear me-they were losing their most powerful weapon! Imagine that: the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of US "justice" is to threaten people with sentences of outrageous length, and the offer them a bribe- letting killers back to return home.
It is evil and it rots the people who rely on it-including the judges who are perfectly aware of the deals passing before them .
3
@meloop I agree that flipping can often put innocent people into impossible circumstances. Some cop a plea because they are willing to do a couple of years rather than risk life or death on a strong, but fraudulent or mistaken prosecution case - not trusting their innocence to a jury. However, 95% of all criminal cases are settled through a plea bargain & the court system would die in its tracks (as would our economy) if even half of all indictments led to trial by jury. Besides, "flipping" on your boss is different than copping a plea for yourself just to get a lower sentence. Pleading guilty and offering to testify against a more senior figure in your organization requires that the prosecution show incontrovertible evidence that would just about insure a conviction in court before the judge will accept a guilty plea. Read the judge's questioning of Cohen & his prosecutors before he accepted the plea. Were it not for this category of "flipping," every organization from the Gambino crime familly to Enron would have beaten the rap.
1
If Trump were honest, cared about the poor, the middle class, and social safety nets, I wouldn’t care about his dialect. But he doesn’t. In fact, he’s getting ready to steal the money we put into Social Security and Medicare to raise the rich to even greater levels of luxury, while others starve. What a great guy! His less-than-rich supporters need psychiatrists. If they only could afford them.
72
@Anonymous: When the plutocrats try to steal Medicare and Social Security monies, that's when we're going to find out what the Second Amendment is all about...
4
As always, Mr. Trump puts loyalty to him above loyalty to the nation. He complains about his minions being treated "worse than Al Capone", then procedes to talk like he were himself Mr. Capone.
37
@franko It is not really "loyalty" as we understand it. It is a combination of shameless fealty & the willingness to express unbounded worship & adoration to the man with the worst case of massive Narcissistic Personality Disorder [DSM-5 301.81 (F60.81)] I've ever seen or read about. Maybe Nero comes close, but he only fiddled while his capitol city burned. Trump threatens to burn down the entire world rather than have his crimes exposed.
@franko and he's going away on tax crimes too. Just you watch.
Donald has a transparency problem. His tweets and his comments give an unfiltered view of his thought processes, and they do reveal the mindset of a criminal. Everything he's said in recent days only enhances James Comey's impressions of their early meetings.
Because he has no capacity to see his projections whatsoever, he assumes that everyone operates the way he does. He's never been exposed to anything else. It's all he knows. It's what he was taught, and what he taught his family. The party of family values is now the party of crime family values. Maybe they always were, but now they have a leader who's incapable of hiding it.
239
@Rick: "The party of family values is now the party of crime family values."
Comments like yours are a source of superb quotable lines.
James Comey is an intelligent, experienced law enforcement officer. Whatever his mistakes, he recognized Trump as the Head of the Trump Crime Family.
1
Whatever point it is that Trump and his Republican base were trying to make, they've made it! Americans have a brilliantly-conceived and living Constitution, but it's only as good as the citizens who swear to uphold it. Unlike most countries, America's greatness is conceived in ideals, but they're lofty. What is best about our Neighbour-to-the-South, and what Canadians love about you is that when you aspire to uphold the Constituion of the United States of America, you show us what is best about us as the flawed humans we are.
47
@David Brook Thank you our good neighbor to the North for you kind words. We are flawed here in the U.S. as we are humans. There are more of us normal flawed humans, thankfully, living in this country than the narcissistic, greedy type that are currently occupying our White House. You just don’t hear about the normal flawed people though because we just go to work and live our family lives. Boring stuff that doesn’t make the news. We will fix our flawed mistake currently in the Oval Office hopefully as soon as the midterm elections this November.
13
@David Brook
Take a look at Bettany Hughes documentaries on Greek Democracy and how it was destroyed in exactly the same way the GOP is assisting in the destruction of ours.
Money and secrecy paid to dishonorable traitors who then willingly mislead the Greeks into destruction of their democracy.
3
All this is aided and abetted by the amoral and self-serving support of congressional Republicans, without whom Trump would be severely constrained. Their prevailing argument--that opposing Trump would cost them a primary election and populate Congress with alt-right Trump supporters--is negated by the fact that those currently serving, by virtue of their craven suport, have propped up the alt-right they purport to abhor. They watch Trump destroy our democracy from within, drag the office of President into the gutter, neuter the DoJ and FBI...and do nothing. It will take generations to repair this damage and mitigate the hatred and violence Trump has sowed.
108
It's no surprise that a man incapable of reading anything more complex than a comic book talks like a comic book character.
182
It’s been well known for many years that Trump has surrounded himself with crooks, mobsters and money launderers. Most of the apartments in Trump’s buildings are owned by overseas buyers that paid way over the odds with laundered money. Trump then used this laundered money to finance his operations. Mueller surely already knows this in excruciating detail. It will only be a matter of time before Trump is being tried for being the wanna be Mobster boss that only his most ardent midwestern supporters have yet to fail to see. I truly feel for them because they are all going to feel violated once they realize the truth about this monster of a man.
141
@G I agree with all you've said save one detail. Trumps 'midwestern supporters' will never grasp the facts as the rest of us have - they have their own 'news' sources and won't be told the truth, and if by accident they are, they won't believe it. They have already demonstrated that.
42
@G Geography is not your strong suit Mr. G................. for the rest? I do hope your assumption is correct.
1
I have to wonder if his deplorables will ever feel violated. They will feel only one thing as I see it; vindication for foisting a Black, progressive President on them for eight years.
They will revel in knowing that despite his abbreviated term in office, he will have divided our nation, stacked the judiciary, marginalized minorities of all persuasions, pillaged our environment, lined the pockets of millionaires, propped up gun manufactures and stood in the way of all sensible gun safety measures, vilified the free press and most other democratic institutions, and blurred the line between horrific autocracy and democratic governance.
One third of our nation is responsible for this. The other two-thirds must vote in November.
2
Thank you for the explaining the nuances of cultural language. For us west coasters who haven't had as much exposure to mob boss mentalities- it is helpful- phrases like "“When I first heard that Trump said to Comey, ‘Let this go,’ it just rang such a bell with me,” said Nicholas Pileggi", enables us to understand and draw our own conclusions.
The president speaks like no adult I have heard recently- now I know why- his sentences are short with an effusive use of adjectives. It's the language that an elementary / middle school child uses trying to impress. Now, we can add the cultural phrases and thinking of the mob. Great combination for a sitting president.
138
“He doesn’t realize in 2018 that it sounds ridiculous to talk about rats.”
Ah...but that's the time in history when Donald Trump thought America was great. His line should be Make America Corrupt Again -- with Twitter this time.
64
Gotti is a good comparison. Robert Mueller took down that crime family too.
300
Mr. Trump may well talk like a TV mob character. But, to many, he simply acts and talks like a playground bully. The POTUS is too fossilized to understand that what works in the world of New York real estate is simply outlandish and corny in the real world where the rest of us operate.
172
@Randall Reed On the other hand, I bet, if you looked into the childhoods of most, if not all, Made Men, you would find they were all schoolyard bullies going back to first grade.
Here's hoping that the 21st Century DOJ and NY AG will catch up with Dapper Donald.
60
Trump has always been on the edge of mob membership. He has worked with the mob and he likes the aggressive approach they take to life. In your face constantly, skirting the law or breaking it most of the time. His language is a mixture of the streets and education. He will destroy all semblance of our government by filling open positions with his thug like friends. He has already done so. Once the mob takes over our country, it may take many years to remove the infection. Trump is the infection.
160
per Don above: Trump is what we called a "mark". We see them all the time, spoiled rich kids who hung out with the crew in order to have people look out for him. The crew would let them in because the mark would spend whatever money they have to buy their way into the club. Meanwhile they're the biggest joke in the group. They're the clowns kept around for beer money.
Trump is a perfect example of the mark. His early New York real estate deals were all mob filled fronts. He even eluded to his mob buddies in his recent tweet about observing flipping 30 years ago. Trump isn't a "Don" he's a rube, he was first used by the Italian and Chinese mob (as noted in the late 80's House report on East Coast organized crime in the casino business), then the Russians. If it wasn't for his father, and the Saud's and Chinese billionaires, Trump would've been wearing concrete shoes decades ago.
1
@Paul Raffeld -- So, naturally, ex-KGB agent / head Putin becomes Trump's Mentor.* For strip-mining a country of its riches, who better?
*his Chief Loan Officer, too?
Looks too likely....
1
"You can take the boy out of Queens, but you can't take the Queens out of the boy."
15
@Eric Blare More like Brooklyn or the Bronx. That's the irony.
1
Hoping Trump's worst nightmares come true. He has certainly contributed to mine!
118
Mark, you nailed it! I recognized & knew this even before he became a candidate. Probably one needs to be not only a NYer but of a certain age. Nonetheless, you are correct.
14
I assume it will be only a matter of time before Trump and his staff go to the mattresses.
45
As this drama extends, and it will only extend because Trump only cares about himself; he doesn't care about anyone or anything, including this country, hopefully Republicans will finally realize that they have in fact become his coconspirators of this criminal enterprise.
Trumped clearly flipped the presidency. Instead of fostering the beautiful potential of a diverse society and the promise created by a nation of immigrants, Trump has magnified this immoral hatred of others and the arrogance of billionaires subverting the public good. The M-13 gang? I'm more worried about the *O-1600 gang. *Oval 1600 Pennsylvania
63
Simply astounding that the leader of the Republican Party has (1) gone on record brazenly criticizing Dean for "ratting out" Nixon's criminal acts and (2) described federal crimes that Cohen pled guilty to as "not even crimes."
I assume from the silence emanating from McConnell, Ryan, Rubio, Hatch, and other representatives of the GOP that they have no problem with these characterizations. Their lack of principle is just as astounding as the comments by the oaf in the Oval Office.
453
@William
Manafort had a $15,000 ostrich skin coat, a bird that puts it head in the sand if in danger. Which Congressional Republicans did Manafort skin for that?
10
Mr. Trump really does think the American public is rooting for more of his shenanigans.
Mr. Trump, unfortunately for "all" of us, does not really think enough.
How in the world will this all end?
11
re: the "waning days" of organized crime.
Faulkner's quip about the past clearly applies to organized crime, as exemplified by trump: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
18
It is absolutely impossible for a big-time New York real estate mogul Not to be connected to organized crime and money laundering.
Also impossible not to be connected to the Russian mob.
89
per Don above: Trump is what we called a "mark". We see them all the time, spoiled rich kids who hung out with the crew in order to have people look out for him. The crew would let them in because the mark would spend whatever money they have to buy their way into the club. Meanwhile they're the biggest joke in the group. They're the clowns kept around for beer money.
Trump is a perfect example of the mark. His early New York real estate deals were all mob filled fronts. He even eluded to his mob buddies in his recent tweet about observing flipping 30 years ago. Trump isn't a "Don" he's a rube, he was first used by the Italian and Chinese mob (as noted in the late 80's House report on East Coast organized crime in the casino business), then the Russians. If it wasn't for his father, and the Saud's and Chinese billionaires, Trump would've been wearing concrete shoes decades ago.
5
@Fourteen They've taken over Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn! Oh, that Jackson - Vanik amendment! Only now, many elements of the Putin rabble have been coming in the last twenty years!
2
I still find it hard to believe how tens of millions of Americans voted for him and how most of them continue to support him. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. I feel embarrassed as an American citizen.
439
@WT
The saddest thing about it is what is has told US about our friends and relatives. There are going to be lasting estrangements among families and friends thanks to this so called man.
4
@WT The Clintonites in control of the DNC abandoned those voters in favour of going after more upscale Republican leaning suburbanites because they thought those voters had "nowhere else to go." Evidently the Clintonites were wrong, eh?
1
All that Trump's delusional base wanted was someone who would upset the existing order, exalt white racism, sexism, and Christian theocracy and put a conservative on the Supreme Court.
1
This use of mob language has struck me all along. My favorite mob phrase from the Trump orbit (though not heard in a while) is "make a move" - as in, "Donny Short-Fingers says he's going to make a move. Are you gonna make a move? Speak to the Mooch. Let's make a move. Badda-bing, badda-boom. Badda-boom, badda-bing. I'm gonna make a move."
It only gets worse.
39
@A Fodder for an SNL sketch if ever there was one.
4
@A. Yuck. I even found those types repulsive as a child. Something within my innocent child’s mind knew that people who spoke like that gave me the creeps. Now I know why. Trump has no shame. He’s the ultimate in greed and graft and I can’t wait to see him go. He makes me sick.
5
Dear @alocksley, Thanks fr comment. Alas, I perform that sketch alone in my apartment every day. My fish laughs every time.
Very well said Socrates.
We just need to convince his "base". I don't understand how so many "good Christians" can support such a person. A good friend of mine who supports Trump, said the other day of his recent behavior, "they are all like that - - - - what's the big deal?" I wonder if his base is so cynical they've just given up, and allowed their expectation of our leaders to sink.
29
And this is exactly why his supporters love him. They’re the real problem - his enablers. See if you can talk sense in to any that you know. And vote.
28
Actually the word is quite apt for Trump to be using. After all, there are going to be a bunch of "rats" lining up in the near future to either save their own skin or their reputations.
Trump might as well get used to it. Not to mention he deserves it.
Even his family may eventually end up in the same predicament.
14
Trump has talked like a mob boss for decades, this is nothing new.
15
@J Darby Not only has he talked like a mob boss, he has acted like one as well. And he has continued that into the presidency, thinking that all his appointees owe allegiance to him and him alone. He seems to forget (or ignore) the fact that they are all in their positions to serve the residents of the U.S., not the imaginary world of the Reality TV president.
5
Trump's a thug in the fullest sense and the Justice Department needs to make sure he does not escape a full investigation. Congress needs to also act to remove any pardon power he may have. This is supposed to be a First World country and not some mob-run Banana Republic. The only part of the government that seems to be working right now are the investigation and prosecuting wings of the Justice Department. Excellent work so far with Cohen and Manafort.
67
@Paul I heartily agree with you regarding the investigation and prosecuting wings of the DOJ as the only working part of the government. Congress seems to be broken. The silence of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan is deafening. As for Trump followers who remain loyal at this point, that is a huge problem for our country. Nothing short of 'shooting someone on 5th Avenue' (and even that hyperbolic idea isn't shocking to many of them) is a clear indication how many of our citizens are shockingly lacking of knowledge and reason.
14
America's love affair with mobsters is coming home to roost. As the child of immigrants, I have long been perplexed by the fascination, almost obsession, with organized crime. To many people more steeped in pop culture than politics, the Don's references are entertaining and make him relatable. We get the leaders we deserve, and too many couch potatoes appear to be happy to have a mobster-type running Washington.
21
A bad film noir with plot twists that only dime novellas would have written, but this is reality folks.
26
Indeed. Trump is a sad cartoon caricature of a man. Though perhaps this is one reason he is so popular with his base. He speaks like a made-up TV mobster, spouting scripted lines that sound tinny and cheap to me, but which they love.
I expect that, If he could, our President would stand on the top of Trump Tower and scream, "Top of the world, ma!" -- never understanding that Cody Jarrett was a fictional character.
187
@Clyde
It would be great if the gas storage facility blew up on him like the movie
2
@Clyde No, he would stand and scream, "Top of the world, dad!" It is his insatiable need for his father's approval that he craves. He hates his mother for not having protected him from his cold, brutal father. His father dominated and walked all over his mother in much the same way that he demeans women ... and now, everyone else.
7
"Trump honed his vocabulary over decades through his association with McCarthyite lawyer Roy Cohn, who represented Mafia bosses like Mr. Gotti, Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante. He also gravitated to colorful characters like Roger J. Stone Jr., the pinkie-ring-wearing political consultant, and Mr. Stone’s onetime partner, Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who was convicted on Tuesday of eight counts of tax and bank fraud."
“It’s the kind of subculture that most people avoid,” said Michael D’Antonio, one of Mr. Trump’s biographers. “You cross the street to get away from people like that. Donald brings them close. He’s most comfortable with them.”
America's Bottom-of-The-Barrel-In-Chief scrapes a new bottom every day.
He belongs in jail with all of his criminal heroes...and half of his Administration.
The man is pure corruption.
561
Trump is lucky he never crossed paths with the likes of John Gotti, Tony Salerno or Carmine Galante, our he would have ended up in the East River. The world would be a better place today had he made that critical error, but with the recent events, things are looking brighter every day.
5
@Socrates
Socrates you are wrong in one aspect, there is no bottom to scrape, Trump is literally scraping sides.
His moral corruption and ineptitude defy even worst banana republic morality.
5