The current President of the United States describes himself as a man always making good use – as a manner of speaking, anyway, of all opportunities he ever identifies.
Erotically as well as financially.
“Trump turned to a government agency – the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) – to take Coking’s property. CRDA offered her $250,000 for the property – one-fourth of what another hotel builder had offered her a decade earlier. When she turned that down, the agency went into court to claim her property under eminent domain so that Trump could pave it and put up a parking lot.
Peter Banin and his brother owned another building on the block. A few months after they paid $500,000 to purchase the building for a pawn shop, CRDA offered them $174,000 and told them to leave the property. A Russian immigrant, Banin said: “I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?” “
Now, after climbing a new pinnacle of popularity, he has become, himself, a very lucrative opportunity.
“The Hill reported Friday that Bloom worked with campaign donors and tabloid media outlets to arrange compensation for the alleged victims and a commission for herself, offering to sell their stories. In one case, Bloom reportedly arranged for a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempted to score a six-figure payment for another woman. The former ultimately declined to come forward after being offered $750,000, the clients told The Hill.”
The first question which crossed my mind after reading this was:
‘OK, so why would any one bring all this up? What difference does it make if those women get some money for telling their stories? It’s the facts themselves which are really important here, right?
‘But what if?’ was the second one…
What if, after seeding enough ‘oblique doubt’ into people’s minds, facts start to look rather different than at ‘face value’?
Remember that XX-th century aphorism, “The best defense is a good offense”?
And the smoke screen tactics pioneered by the military but also very important to those who study the Bible?
“When studying the Bible with teens, the term “smoke screen” refers to a commonly deployed tactic designed to avoid exposure of the heart. Smoke screens, though not unique to teens, are important to understand and overcome.
Each of us have areas in our lives and places in our hearts we do not want exposed. Sometimes we are afraid of what others may feel about us; sometimes we realize these areas in our lives and places in our hearts need to change, but we don’t want to change them or even believe that we can.
Practically, smoke screens are often the emotion we express, the issue we lead with, or the confusion we claim, in order to deflect what is really going on in the heart. When emotions are present, the words that are flowing out of a teenager’s mouth are rarely communicating what is actually driving them.
Getting past a smoke screen takes understanding and the willingness to go deep. It takes understanding and depth to remain calm when our teen is using emotions to derail a conversation that might be getting to the heart of the matter at hand. We learn depth when we are willing to look into our own hearts and be honest about the smoke screens we use.”
nicichiarasa 