Trump threatens owners of Chicago Cubs
“They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”
Earlier this month, Donald Trump called for a boycott of Apple products if Apple didn’t unlock a terrorist phone for the feds, even though the case is in the courts.
I made this comment at the time:
What, me worry about him in control of the IRS, FBI, DOJ, CIA, NSA, EPA, and Park Police?
Senator Ben Sasse made a similar comment on Twitter yesterday, after Trump threatened the owners of the Chicago Cubs for spending money against him in the campaign:
…
The background is that the Ricketts contributed to a SuperPAC that ran ads against Trump:
It appears Trump’s tweet was in response to a published report that noted that billionaire Joe Ricketts’ wife, Marlene, gave about $3 million to a super PAC that spent money in ads and mailings opposing Trump.
ABC7’s Ben Bradley caught up with Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts on Monday night, saying: “Trump is picking a fight with you.”
“I don’t know anything about it. I’m not going to talk about that stuff,” Ricketts said.
“What do you think about him making the comment you have a lot to hide?” Bradley asked.
“I don’t know what that’s all about,” Ricketts replied.
“I think it is mostly talk. I think he is unhappy with the Ricketts because they are not backing his campaign and they are backing other people,” said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at University of Illinois – Chicago.
So the new plan is to threaten to expose supposed secrets about people who contribute against you? This is the type of bullying of donors the left has used, among other places, against people who donated to groups that supported Prop 8? It’s why conservatives fight so hard not to have to expose donor lists.
Now we have to hide them from Trump, as well as Soros-funded groups?
How long before Trump says: You can keep your liberty, if you like it?
The Clintons and Bernie Sanders represent systemic threats to our liberties. Trump represents a personality threat.
It’s not funny anymore, if it ever was.
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Comments
Trump is fighter and that is EXACTLY what we need. For real reform to take place he will have to fight BOTH the democrats and GOPe.
Forgive me if I don’t get all wee weed up over Trump fighting back against some billionaires who are used to buying control of the GOPe. I don’t see that as a bug, but a tremendous feature. You on the other hand piss yourself and act like he is a billionaire going after some poor schmuck who gave 100 dollars to prop 8.
I think the Rickets billionaires can look out for themselves and it is high time the mega donors and corporate globalists and left wing republican billionaires lost their grip on the GOP.
You get all frightened. I stand up and applaud and cheer. Shouting its ABOUT DAMN TIME.
Romney let the democrats accuse him of murder and not paying taxes for 10 years and did absolutely NOTHING about it.
I’ll take the brash FIGHTER any day !!!
Where others might pause and go ‘You know what, maybe I’ve been wrong about this guy…’, Trump supporters just keep digging that hole deeper. They’ve gone full Daily Kos/Media Matters.
Thank you. I agree.
You want a president who punishes people who criticize him or disagree with him. That’s called tyranny.
According to everything I’ve heard over the last 7 years, calling it tyranny is racist. Check your privilege!
He didn’t punish anybody. He exercised his free speech rights to let some useless billionaires know that their days of buying GOPe politicians with impunity and without public exposure or worry are OVER.
This is how liberation of the GOP from billionaire mega donors and global corporations is born, TO THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE, and a few who don’t understand pissing their pants.
You’re willfully ignoring Trump’s history of telling people they’d better watch out if they say unflattering things about him. He’s done it to media organizations, and not just Fox.
He threatened to ruin someone who complained about his Trump U. scam. He stalked and harassed a woman for 20 years because he couldn’t seduce her and she wouldn’t flatter him.
He sued the NFL after his boneheaded decisions and bullying destroying the United States Football League.
Trump worships Trump, and he has no mercy for people who don’t. You are truly deluded if you think he cares about you with 1/100th of the ardor you have for him.
And Obama didn’t tell anyone to sic the IRS and other agencies on conservative groups. He just made a “joke” about having the IRS audit his enemies. His government mafia knew what the capo wanted.
“Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”
Just an off the cuff remark…. until the swords came out in Canterbury Cathedral.
Trump = Chloroxed Obama.
Criticism is not tyranny, twit; it’s free speech. You suggesting otherwise is nothing more than cultural Marxism in the form of political correctness. Talk about psychological projection!
This is not criticism, this is a threat. From a private person of Trump’s means, it’s bullying; from a president it would be tyranny.
“Trump is fighter and that is EXACTLY what we need.”
That’s your wet dream Trumph Mini me. The rest of us want a sane person in the WH, not some bloviating Cretan with a foul mouth and short fuse. Trumphs’ Mephistophelian.
Trump fans indulge in the fantasy that Mr. Fighter-in-Chief will only ever fight for what they want, and against people they dislike.
The old “he’s a fighter” meme is one of the most vapid arguments (among many vapid arguments) deployed in favor of Trump. What Trump would be fighting for is an afterthought.
Right on cue: Gary will turn absolutely anything his heartthrob does into a virtue. Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and Gary would say “We need a president who knows how to shoot!”
Gary evidently wants a president who thinks it should be forbidden to criticize him.
There are lots of countries where that’s already the case, Gary. We don’t need a loutish egomaniac dictator here.
Donald Trump boasted Saturday that support for his presidential … Trump: I could ‘shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters’ ….. “I can say I have no intention of shooting anybody in this campaign.” Trump has joked about killing people before. Last month, he appeared to consider whether he would kill ..
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/23/politics/donald-trump-shoot-somebody-support/
Trump fans really do not hold him to any standards whatsoever — no standards of manners, no standards of honesty, no standards of decency, no standards of intellectual consistency, no standards of knowing much about the issues that concern a president.
Trumpism reflects the nation’s moral rot and intellectual decay.
You take it fully out of context !!
“Gary evidently wants a president who thinks it should be forbidden to criticize him.”
We’ve had that for 8 years. Gary voted for him.
So I guess you were cool with Obama weaponizing the IRS against his political opponents? To me this sounds like Trump threatening to do something similar. To do so would be nothing short of tyranny. This sort of shit might eventually get a lot of people killed.
Of course, the IRS could have self-weaponized. They realize liberty loving people want less government, and they will lose power if the TEA party really wins. Of course, Obama helped with the weaponization, but they didn’t need much encouragement.
This is a perfect example of the danger of a Trump Presidency. And a perfect example of his supporters.
THIS!!!
A fighter he may be, but are you sure he’s fighting for the same thing you are? This man supported a lot of democrats and democrat causes in the last 30 years. Don’t be fooled.
The Professor’s point is well taken. Politicians shouldn’t go after individual citizens.
But the Ricketts are long rumored to have made their fortune through mob ties. Screw them.
Where the Ricketts got their money is not what offends Trump — who apparently is hardly clean when it comes to mob dealings.
What offends Trump is that they have the effrontery to be not supportive of his presidential ambitions. Trump has demonstrated over and over that he will try to ruin people who are somehow in the way of his ego.
I think and truly believe that 99% of the people have no inkling of Trumps life and how those type of people ‘ settle ‘ things between them . But ! Just because it’s the Don your chops are forming ,ready and willing to lay into our next president !
I haven’t been round here for a couple years due to serious health problems all form 3 tours in the Nam . I don’t remember LI being so ‘ one sided ‘ on issues and people.
Cruz or Rubio . Same old , same old . Sell ya out in a heart beat . Which is what either will do imo . Both lairs with Rub being #1. He was same way in my state of Florida and we tried to warn people , But ! The Rub carries on .Same tactics , Lie lie lie !!
How many members of congress have dirty little secrets being exploited for blackmail?
How else to explain why there’s been no push-back to Barky?
Trump knows how sausages are made.
Politics is a filthy business.
Deal with it.
“Trump knows how sausages are made.”
Yes, and more than once he was the very kind of person most conservatives decried as making a mockery out of our political system, yet here you are, supporting what you once railed on.
“Politics is a filthy business.”
But some of us are unwilling to climb into the sty with you.
It’s amazing how Trump fans are willing to turn any political or ethical principle on its head for the benefit of Trump. It’s like a lover’s blind infatuation.
He may know what’s in the sausage too.
He was the only person on the Witness list in the Epstein criminal case to cooperate with the authorities.
His ownership of the Mar a Lago billionaires club exposed him to a lot of what the other billionaires were about, and he was fully willing to spill the beans on them.
Why not make a ‘mockery’ of the United States political system . It’s terrible . Worst than bad . We are now being pushed around by Mexico !! enough said with weak girl men in offices every where !!
I think Congress, for the most part, is just corrupt.
Now Chief Justice Roberts, on the other hand, might be being blackmailed.
Democrats set honey traps for Republican legislators and other officials. Once they succumb, they belong to the Left.
Why I am wary of Trump, for all his kicking butt and taking names, (with apologies to Rev. Niemueller):
First Trump came after other candidates, and I did not speak out, because I was not a candidate.
Then he came after super pacs, and I did not speak out, because I was not a super pac.
Then he came for rich donors to his rivals’ campaigns, and I did not speak out, because I was not a rich donor to anyone’s campaign.
Then he came for declared supporters of his rivals’ campaigns, and I did not speak out, because I was not a declared supporter of anyone’s campaign.
Then he came for anyone who had not publicly supported him, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Nothing that JFK, LBJ and even Eisenhower did do .
And you’re perfectly OK with that. Feh.
It astonishes me, that the anti-Trump folks cannot fathom his appeal. It’s so obvious, so glaringly obvious…. and has nothing to do with blind love….
Instead of criticizing his fans, as Laura Ingraham says, it would be better to steal his positions…. which Ted Cruz is trying to do, and of which I heartily approve… Better late than never….
But I don’t support either of them. I’m a Jim Webb fan – that is, if he hadn’t dropped out over pique over the debates…. The media always uses their power to diminish the ones they don’t like…. Jim Webb should already know this; he’s no babe in the woods…
A lot of people don’t see the appeal of an obnoxious egomaniac with money but no class. Some people don’t consider loutish braggadocio to be admirable, much less presidential.
We don’t understand the appeal of a bully and blowhard, or the naive faith that the bully will only ever bully other people.
We don’t understand why some people think the goal of a president should be to “blow the whole thing up” or “burn the place to the ground” — apparently meaning Congress, the object of Trumpbots’ wrath.
We don’t understand how Trump always gets a pass, even praise, for the very same sins that are excoriated in others.
We don’t understand the bizarre notion that someone who has been helping put Democrats in power and expressing a preference for Democrats for most of his life can be seen as the best antidote to Republicans who aren’t conservative enough.
Most of the arguments I’ve seen for Trump are illogical and short on facts. And what I noticed first in Trump fans is their angry response to the slightest expression of criticism or doubt about Trump. They have displayed a deeply emotional fixation on Trump that reason and facts cannot touch.
As for stealing Trump’s positions: That’s pretty hard when he doesn’t have firm positions except for his ego. And the positions that Cruz is allegedly “stealing” were probably his actual positions while Trump was saying the opposite.
Cruz had a tough stance on the border while Trump was saying that Romney was too tough. Cruz was actually blocking amnesty while Trump was supporting amnesty.
For Trump fans, the person of Trump in all his swaggering crudeness appears to be much more important than any policy positions. I “understand” that cults of personality develop around celebrities, and that people may project superhero fantasies onto them. But that doesn’t mean those fantasies are reasonable.
Trump puts some stuff on twitter. And the world is going to end! Get over! Oh my look at the mean stuff he said!
You come at Trump and you are going to get it back twice as hard! Good for Trump!
We are fed up with the dam lying republicans!
TRUMP 2016
And so you support a damn lying Democrat.
Supported gun control, amnesty, [still] supports PP, and is chums with the (real) Democrat establishment in the filth that is NYC. Yup. Sure sounds like a great choice for a GOP candidate.
Proof positive, no matter what Trump supporters say, it is a [pathetic] personality cult. Because it damn sure isn’t about real conservative issues or ideas.
We are talking about he republican primary. Nothing to with democrats right now.
Obama has been the worst President in my life time! He has divided the country like no other. He has tried to crush everything good about our country.
We (voters) want a person who will bust up the Washington elite who have lies for years. Maybe just maybe people are starting to wake up? We are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Here is the big middle finger to the lying establishment!! Media, politicians, wacky left, lying right.
You would be wise to use common sense and see that Mr. Trump is just as politically connected and indebted to the ‘Washington elite’ like everyone else.
Obama has indeed done a horrible job. But what makes you think putting another egotistical buffoon will make it all better? Someone tell the HOPE poster guy to get ready. He’s about to have a lot more business.
I think you would be even wiser to drop your pretense . Trump is much like the politicians of old and i like that . In ending i say this , ‘ Glad your not my neighbor .’ !!
*You’re
“I love the poorly educated people”. -The Donald
“Nothing to with democrats right now.”
Trump is a Democrat. Amazing he managed to get into the Republican primaries as a candidate. Duh.
A politician being political, imagine that.
Let’s just imagine he said “She better be careful, she has a lot to hide.”
And the “he” was Cruz/Rubio/Bush and the “she” was Hillary.
Why do I think this would not bother you so much?
I think your poi nt is made simpler by asking anyone if they thought it would be bothered as much if instead of Rickett’s it was Soros.
It’s a pattern of Trump to threaten people who don’t flatter him or who get (or happen to be) in the way of his ambition. Trump fans alternately say “Yes, we need a fighter!” or “It was just a harmless tweet; big deal!”
Those who say “we need a fighter” haven’t noticed that Trump fights only for himself. They’ve cheered him for “going after the media,” but he ONLY did so when it concerned his own ego. He has no record of criticizing the media for ideological bias or anything outside himself.
“…Trump fights only for himself.”
Typical BS of the common TDS sufferer.
Building the wall on the southern border and deporting illegals is not going to do one thing for trump.
Negotiating fair free trade is not going to do one thing for Donald Trump.
You run down trump every day. I know you do not support the alternative, Cruz. Jeb!s out. Who is it? Marco? Must be Marco, the only GOPe candidate left. Or Shrillary?
And you’re an idiot to think he will do it.
“Fair free trade” is an oxymoron. The only fair trade is free trade. “Fair trade” is always always always code for protectionism, and no Republican tent can ever be big enough for that. Y
ou are a damned protectionist, and should get the **** out of the GOP. Go to the Democrats where you belong. And take your trashy Trump with you.
” You are a damned protectionist, and should get the **** out of the GOP. Go to the Democrats where you belong. And take your trashy Trump with you.”
And you call trump a fascist dictator. You are a sore loser. An unhinged one, making up whatever makes you feel better.
Just another deranged loser on the trash heap of history.
Trump is a fascist would-be dictator, and you’re his fascist lickspittle. There is simply no room for protectionism in the Republican tent, no matter how big it gets. Protectionists have a choice of parties: Democrats, Greens, “Working Families”, but the GOP is not one of them.
And you’re a ****ing moron that thinks any trade deal is a good one, just because. You know nothing about trade.
Before I take on the main topic:
Let me congratulate LI on a new low in sliminess. Supporting a story by using a quote from a UIC “polical science” professor and ex-chicago alderman.
I don’t think I have to point out the role UIC has played in the BLM movement, Obama’s rise to power, or Democratic socialist movement.
And everyone knows that you can’t get any slimier or lower then a Chicago Alderman. Well except, maybe, a New York alderman.
You know what? If you think it’s so slimy, why don’t you get the **** off it and don’t come back? That’ll show Prof Jacobson all right. Don’t worry, you won’t be missed.
Handygandy,
I’ll assume that you’re not from Chicago and haven’t heard of Dick Simpson, so I’ll gently suggest that you are way off base.
Dick Simpson is a near-legendary figure in Chicago politics. He’s been a sharp thorn in the ass of corrupt Chicago public officials since the 1970s, when he successfully ran for Alderman as a “good government” candidate and was treated like a skunk by the rest of the City Council. I took his Introduction to Chicago Politics class back in 1989. It was one of the best classes I ever took.
Believe me, he is not part of the problem in this city. He’s a straight shooter, and I’m thrilled that he’s still teaching because that means that he’s been explaining the real dope about Chicago politics to students now for almost longer than I’ve been alive. Check out his bio. He’s no hack.
http://pols.uic.edu/political-science/people/faculty/dsimpson
The “we need a fighter!” crowd rejected anyone who has “fought” and risked anything for principle and for the benefit of others. They rejected Scott Walker, who went through fire and risked his political future in order to do what was right for his state.
Instead, the “we need a fighter” crowd is ardently devoted to someone who “fights” only for his own status and ego.
An electorate that sees Trump as a more admirable and trustworthy leader than Scott Walker is nuts.
Walker went GOPe corporate globalist open borders and as a result got the Bush act of love treatment by the voters.
Great governor but fatally flawed for POTUS.
Get over it.
“GOPe corporate globalist open borders” is your code for “free trader”, which is the core principle of the liberal (now known as conservative) movement. This is what the GOP is supposed to be about. You are by your own admission a protectionist, so get the **** out of here. You are not wanted.
millhouse the fascist demanding everyone get out of his private blog.
Pathetic loser.
Since this lawsuit has been dragging along for five years (?), I have to believe Trump wasn’t worried about it when he entered the 2016 presidential race. GO TRUMP!
Trump “Threatens”? Really, Mr. Jacobson? I realize you’re not a Trump person, but still, I would have thought that was a little beneath you.
Headline should have read, “Trump Warns Mobbed-Up Family of Billionaires”. Is it a threat when a cop tells you to ‘slow down’?
The Trump irrationality is growing daily. You’d really rather vote GOPe or Dem? We know they are lying to us. They lie every time. We KNOW they are working together. The best they can do is Rubio? Gang of Eight. He’s showed us his true colors and like all cucks stuck the knife in as soon as he could.
Time to try something different. My choice didn’t make it this time but he was different. Now you have to choose between the people who beat and rape us every time and something different. Try it.
Your use of the non-word “cuck” is 100% proof of being a lowlife fraud who has no business here. Shut up and get lost.
Oh, and spending money to defeat Trump is not a crime, so Trump telling them to stop it or else is a threat. It’s not like a policeman telling you to slow down, it’s like a policeman telling you to make a “donation”, or to “respect my authoritah”.
What lawsuit? WTF are you talking about? This is a threat Trump made just now.
So a man who spends an hour every morning on his comb-over thinks others are trying to hide something?
How about a woman who’s tried to reinvent herself every month?
What does THAT tell you?
Perhaps – perhaps! – if/when Trump takes office, the press will scream about his every move the way that usually do for Republicans. So far they haven’t done that, but that could change once the Presidential campaigns get underway.
Or the press could continue their supine spinelessness in favor of ratings and fear of what Trump might do to them. Hate to see the Great American Experiment brought to such a low, but here we are.
You slow on the pick up Huh ? We lose the Great American Experiment over 40 years ago !!
Donald Ducks mob ties go back decades. He was a Roy Cohn client.
That was just the beginning…