This AP article doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know about the corrupt, trashy grift-maven family that is making fat stacks by peddling executive office influence, but it’s infuriating nonetheless:
SHANGHAI (AP) — On April 6, Ivanka Trump’s company won provisional approval from the Chinese government for three new trademarks, giving it monopoly rights to sell Ivanka brand jewelry, bags and spa services in the world’s second-largest economy. That night, the first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, sat next to the president of China and his wife for a steak and Dover sole dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
The scenario underscores how difficult it is for Trump, who has tried to distance herself from the brand that bears her name, to separate business from politics in her new position at the White House.
Difficult? Nope — impossible. If Ivanka Trump were able to overcome what must be a massive genetic predisposition to commit fraud, she’d shut down her “brand” and stay far away from the levers of power. But she’s done the opposite because she’s a crook, just like her scam artist father.
To address ethical concerns, Trump has shifted the brand’s assets to a family-run trust valued at more than $50 million and pledged to recuse herself from issues that present conflicts.
“Ivanka will not weigh in on business strategy, marketing issues, or the commercial terms of agreements,” her attorney, Jamie Gorelick, said in a statement. “She has retained authority to direct the trustees to terminate agreements that she determines create a conflict of interest or the appearance of one.”
Similar arrangements are in place for Mr. Ivanka and the elder Trump — who was elected by gibbering idiots supposedly fed up with corruption and getting shafted by “the man,” so we’re told. And we’re supposed to take the word of a family famous for perpetrating frauds that they are behaving ethically? It is to laugh.
China, however, remains a nagging concern. “Ivanka has so many China ties and conflicts, yet she and Jared appear deeply involved in China contacts and policy. I would never have allowed it,” said Norman Eisen, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under Barack Obama. “For their own sake, and the country’s, Ivanka and Jared should consider stepping away from China matters.”
Instead, the first daughter and her husband have emerged as prominent interlocutors with China, where they have both had significant business ties. Last year, Kushner pursued hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate investments from Anbang Insurance Group, a financial conglomerate with close ties to the Chinese state. After media reports about the deal, talks were called off.
Mr. Eisen’s observations about how the Obama White House handled ethical snags seem quaint in the context of the Trumps’ global grift operation. And not to worry about Mr. Ivanka’s hundreds of millions of dollars in investments; I’m sure once the media dogs are off the scent, he’ll direct his brother to resume negotiations on the QT.
“You can’t separate Ivanka from her role in life and from her business,” said Allen Adamson, founder of BrandSimpleConsulting. “Her celebrity status is now not only being fueled by her wealth and her family connection, but by her huge role in the White House. All that buzz is hardwired to her products.” That, he added, is a competitive advantage other brands just can’t match — though it does come with risk.
The risk is negligible when you consider that it was perfectly obvious to anyone with the sentient capacity of a mollusk that this corrupt and trashy bunch would abuse the office for their own gain if elected. Scamming is what they do. We either let them get away with it or not, and so far, the Trumps have every reason to believe the scam is unfolding gloriously.
MattF
Now, now. ‘Massive genetic predisposition to commit fraud’ is so judgmental. Although, yeah, true.
cervantes
The Republicans in congress are co-conspirators. They could do their jobs and put a stop to this — we need to hold them responsible.
Nicole
Buuuuuuuuuutttttttt heeeerrrrrrrrr eeeeeeeeeeeeemaaaaaaaaaaaiiilllllllllsssssss…..
(overheard as the nation falls off a cliff)
Mike in NC
Aren’t their kids enrolled in Mandarin classes? They will be running scams in China for decades.
LAO
@MattF: Hard to tell whether fraud is a learned behavior or an inherited trait with this grifters. Maybe both, no?
Corner Stone
Saw this on the twits and it is just too good from 2012:
NR
“Difficult” implies that anyone in the Trump family wants to separate their political and business activities.
They don’t. Trump doesn’t care about policy at all. He’s in this for two reasons: for the money, and to have his ego boosted. All else is secondary.
rikyrah
tell it over and over and over, BC.
TELL IT
James E Powell
A good point, but recall that the NYT spent several years promoting the belief that the Clintons were a trashy bunch who used public office for their own gain. That argument was a central component of the NYT coverage of the campaign. Even when they found no evidence to support their claims, they suggested they were true. Clinton Rules and all that.
So it’s not surprising the great mass of low information voters feel that all politicians are corrupt, so what’s the big deal with Trump being corrupt?
Roger Moore
You know what would really help make it possible for Ivanka to separate her business from politics? If she actually tried. This crap is journalism as stenography at its very worst.
LAO
Slightly off topic — but in the spirit of the WH grifters, I missed this last night but damn, did it make me laugh.
SenyorDave
Jamie Gorelick, where did I hear that name? Deputy Attorney General during Clinton administration, top legal counsel for BP after Deepwater Horizon spill. Served as Vice Chairmen of Fannie Mae, results of an internal audit showing improper accounting within Fannie Mae is given as the reason for her resignation. Sounds like a perfect person to serve as legal counsel for a Trump, someone with no morals at all. Pay her enough and she would represent anyone. Read below, and you wonder how she managed to stay out of jail.
In an additional scandal concerning falsified financial transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a “manipulation” that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives,[11] Gorelick received $779,625.
A 2006 report of an investigation by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight into Fannie Mae’s accounting practices and corporate governance revealed that from 1998 to 2002 Gorelick received a total of $26,466,834.00 in income
SatanicPanic
But she talked him into defending beautiful babies in Syria! You guys are mean!
hovercraft
This is FAKE NEWS!!
I know this because Jr told me so.
They all have “a massive genetic predisposition to commit fraud”. All of them.
Bad genes. SAD!
hovercraft
@LAO:
Do you think she can spell education? She’s as dumb as a rock, knows her talking points but once you move beyond them she’s a babbling idiot. See her confirmation hearings. Though in her defense, the same could be said for the entire cabinet and most of his staff.
schrodingers_cat
@James E Powell: NYT is a toxic dump of radioactive waste with a very long half life. They have much to be ashamed of, just like the R party.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Having lived thru the Bushies process of looting the Treasury, I figured the Popular Vote Loser would dust off that template and use it on steroids. I still think that’ll happen in agencies like the Dep of Ed., but he has what the Bushies didn’t have, all this property, brands, etc., to grift off of. It’s different and in some ways, small beans relative to let’s say something like the outsourcing of DoD contracts and jobs to a company like Haliburton. There you were talking billions of dollars, here we’re talking tens of millions.
And yet, I get the sense that these people are simply laying the groundwork not just for a steady income stream to their properties via the US taxpayer but soaking up foreign dollars for all their bidnesses…until we start to see massive gubmint contracts going to friends of friends that still end up directing monies back to them.
Once again, thanks you 80K asshole voters collectively in Macomb County MI, York County PA and Waukesha County WI for inflicting this bastard upon us.
LAO
@hovercraft: It appears that nobody in the Administration can spell education. Ah, what a fine swamp draining this has been.
Major Major Major Major
Well, I’m in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and Hanoi has better highways than NorCal. Can’t tell you much else through the rain in the taxi.
The airport arrivals driving area was covered in ads for the Samsung Galaxy 7, an item which is not allowed on airplanes.
rikyrah
Another key item on Trump’s wish list drifts further away
04/18/17 10:24 AM
By Steve Benen
As Donald Trump’s 100-day benchmark quickly approaches, it’s hard not to notice the Republican president’s to-do list is lacking check marks. Trump’s Muslim ban has faltered in the courts; his health care legislation can’t overcome opposition from within his own party; his infrastructure plan doesn’t exist; and his dream of a border wall is little more than a mirage.
What about tax reform, ostensibly at the top of Trump’s list of priorities? It’s drifting further away.
………………………………….
Wait, it gets worse. Congressional Democrats have said they won’t consider any reform legislation unless they know how it would affect Trump’s finances, which means the president would have to release his tax returns in order to get Democratic buy-in on any proposal. Trump, however, remains committed to keeping the materials secret for reasons he hasn’t explained.
At the Treasury Department, meanwhile, so many key offices are empty – Trump simply hasn’t nominated anyone for a variety of important posts – that the White House “does not appear to have the personnel in place to get an overhaul of the tax code out of the station.”
rikyrah
Some Disturbing Questions About Trump’s Ties to China
by Nancy LeTourneau April 18, 2017 10:42 AM
I have already written about my skepticism that Donald Trump turned on a dime during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago last week and that the two of them have now developed a “warm rapport.” That is mainly based on the fact that the president is a congenital liar. But I’ve always felt that there was something fishy about his demonization of China during the campaign. Then came this little tidbit in the Steele dossier that seems to have been completely ignored:
Since Trump’s election, we’ve seen several things happen that raise serious questions about who is pulling whose strings when it comes to this president’s relationship with China. They are worth taking a look at.
First of all, there are the Trump trademarks that have been approved in China. Today we learn that it is not only the president who is benefiting. His daughter Ivanka got approval for three new trademarks the same day she participated in the dinner with President Xi at Mar-a-Lago.
But it’s worth asking what China wants from Trump. That question might have been partially answered soon after the election with this:
rikyrah
#Breaking:
D.C. public schools were not invited to mostly-white White House Easter Egg Rollhttps://t.co/MCNF4YhmOF
By @tommyxtopher
— Shareblue (@Shareblue) April 18, 2017
ruemara
@James E Powell: I think you’ve hit the nail on the propaganda head. Consider how often both sides are portrayed as equally corrupt. The media that’s risen to prominence over the past decade and a half slowly shed any level of based in truth and embraced confirmation bias. You can’t reach a Trump supporter because even though he/she knows the evil they’ve empowered, they will cling to anything to disavow responsibility, ergo, the fallacy that everyone is a crook anyway and the corollary, at least Trump is honest about it.
@rikyrah: Well no shit.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I like the idea of tying tax reform to Trump’s personal finances. Box the bastard in!
zach
If Obama had literally any economic interest in China (for example, he shares of a fund that was partially invested in China) and he’d had Sasha and Malia serenade Hu Jintao in Chinese a few weeks after assuming office, we’d just now be wrapping up Nunes’ and Issa’s investigations into his Manchurian candidate status.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: and then if he does release them, say no anyway.
ETA: huh, Hilton actually built a hotel in Hanoi.
Kropadope
I know a lot of these people. It’s not that they don’t have the sentient capacity. They function perfectly well at their jobs, they own homes, engage in normal personal interactions. It’s just that the right cultural signifiers can reduce them to a sub-mollusk level with respect to politics.
That’s aside from the ones who just aren’t paying enough attention.
Corner Stone
Can not wait for this entire family to burn.
Kropadope
@Major Major Major Major:
We want the long form!!!!
rikyrah
This is so beyond troubling into alarming. US foreign policy has been sold for hotels & handbags https://t.co/QbnFbl7nMj
— David Frum (@davidfrum) April 18, 2017
Yarrow
I’m looking forward to the indictments. I hope Ivanka likes orange.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Well they refused to participate in the largest most well attended inauguration in history, so why should they get to come to his White House for an Easter Egg Roll? I she still around or is she in the timeout corner with KAC?
Payback!
Omarosa sure is doing a bang up job of “community” outreach. I guess given that she’s the one who warned us that all who opposed him would be brought to heel, this isn’t surprising.
randy khan
The plain truth is that nobody in the Trump family has done anything that would eliminate actual conflicts of interest. The trusts are just a holding place for their businesses, not actual blind trusts that buy and sell assets without them knowing what’s in the trusts. And, of course, they know where all of the Trump properties are and what the Trump businesses are (and anything new that the businesses do will be widely reported as well). That makes it ridiculously easy for foreign countries to bribe them without officially bribing them – granting trademarks, approving concessions, etc., etc.
And, of course, there’s the continuing exploitation of Trump properties for campaign-related purposes, which literally funnels millions of dollars to the Trump Organization. It’s worth noting that the campaign filled a vacant space at Trump Tower, and the re-election campaign still is using that space.
Keith P.
OT but news reports are that Stevie Steve was found dead (suicide) in Erie, PA.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@James E Powell:
“No smoke if there was no fire, right?” answered a reporter with a can of gasoline and matches…
Frankensteinbeck
@cervantes:
Republicans in congress know damn well they lost the popular vote by 2.8 million, won the presidency by a bare inch of technicality, and everything they have is through gerrymandering, vote suppression, and general cheating. They know that the alternative is a country where women and blacks can be president. The choice for them is stark and clear, and it sure doesn’t include walking back any gains of any kind cheating got them.
@rikyrah:
Zero surprise. Trump hates black people, and hasn’t been subtle about it.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Someone should tell Frum that the GOP sold out the country years ago, for power and money for the 1%. Twitler just took it to the next level.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
The plain 7 is okay; it was the 7 Note that had the unfortunate problem of catching on fire on airplanes.
WafflesTasteGood
Is there any oversight whatsoever on these grifters? This whole “just trust us to voluntarily do the right thing as we see fit” is not at all acceptable. Not even close.
LAO
@Yarrow: Not to quibble — but in the feds, regular prisoners wear tan not orange. Orange is for inmates that are in segregated housing, otherwise known as “the hole.”
Major Major Major Major
@Kropadope:
That’s true. Are they reachable without selling our souls?
@randy khan: the planes here just say no galaxy 7.
Bill Arnold
Since it’s an open thread, does anyone know of a transcript for Trumps interview with Fox News’ Ainsley Earhardt?
Trump: Clinton, Obama Outplayed By ‘This Gentleman’ In North Korea
I am agog (well, not really) at this in particular, where Trump doesn’t seem to know that there have been two leaders of NK in recent times:
I mean, everyone has been pointing out how he blamed Clinton and Obama for something that quite historically happened during the GWBush administration (wikipedia timeline) and even the accusations of a uranium enrichment program during that era might have been the North Koreans fogging matters for fear of an invasion (axis of evil, remember) (maybe the enrichment program was real; i haven’t researched it.), but being confused about the leadership is just frightening.
NorthLeft12
Inflicting the Trumps on the Chinese people seems to me akin to a crime against humanity. Of course, they could not be held for this same crime against the American people because, well, you voted Deadbeat Donald in.
Splitting Image
@James E Powell:
There are two groups of people who are held responsible for all of the U.S.’ problems: liberals and politicians. When a Democrat misbehaves, it proves the widely held belief that liberals are corrupt. If a Republican misbehaves, it proves that all politicians are corrupt. Therefore, replacing a Democrat with a Republican makes sense because one less liberal in office means less corruption. But replacing a Republican with a Democrat never makes sense because all you’d be doing is replacing one corrupt politician with another.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Now we know where all the phones from the exchange program ended up.
Kropadope
@Major Major Major Major: Not those ones, no, but the inattentive ones can 180 as fast as Trump if they think they’re losing out somehow (and if the Democrat isn’t under a manufactured cloud of suspicion).
Corner Stone
@Yarrow:
Well, we know she loves her daddy…
ruemara
@hovercraft: And she’s been paid back handsomely with the position of … house servant of no standing at all. Way to go.
@LAO: I think that works for everyone in the Trump Admin and his family.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major: Irony=dead.
Does it have a McCain Ballroom?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@rikyrah:
Looked pretty monochromatically pale in the photos I saw.
Major Major Major Major
@trollhattan: we’re not sending our best.
Spanky
@Major Major Major Major: Enjoy! A friend of mine was there in October and said he’d seriously consider retiring to Da Nang if he hadn’t already settled in where we are. Apparently it’s much nicer than the first time he was there back in ’69.
MattF
@Bill Arnold: Funny how Republican timelines leave out 2000-2008. Did anything at all happen during those years? I guess not.
Frankensteinbeck
@Major Major Major Major:
No. They want black lives to not matter, and they are loud and specific about that. We’re already trying to help them in every other way, but they won’t listen because that’s their priority. Even if it weren’t disgustingly immoral and a betrayal of what liberal policy is actually about, pretending racism doesn’t exist would screw us in a practical sense by justly turning off our most reliable voters.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@NorthLeft12:
Actually, I’m eagerly awaiting the spate of counterfeit Ivanka’s items which are due to start rolling out of China.
Yarrow
@rikyrah:
And this sort of thing is why I think the “Obama volunteers” (whoever they were) should have refused to organize the White House Egg Roll. Donald Trump is president. Melania is First Lady. Traditionally they organize and run the Egg Roll. If they can’t organize it, let them own it. I’m the parents of those white kids could find some suitable replacement Easter egg event for them to attend.
MattF
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The counterfeits would probably be rather higher quality.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
Fascinating. I wonder if they had problems with people being unable to differentiate the two.
I firmly believe that Samsung took a huge hit on the plain 7s as a result of the 7 Note problem, and I also think the good pre-sale news for the 8 are a result of people who didn’t buy 7s for the same reason.
Immanentize
I looked at the photos from the Easter Egg Roll. They must have bus-ed in white people from out of teh District. yes, a few blacks and Asians who get a lot of pictures taken of them. But I did not see one picture of a POC next to Trump.
Yarrow
@LAO: Not sure if Ivanka will get caught in the FBI investigations or the NY State investigations. Could be yet another color of jumpsuit!
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Ewwww…. feeling ill….
Immanentize
@Yarrow: I think someone should point out that jumpsuits for women is cruel and unusual punishment, period. regardless of color.
NorthLeft12
@Bill Arnold: Bill, can you do me a favour and not copy Deadbeat Donald’s moronic musings in print? Okay?
Just listening/reading that pompous and ignorant windbag going on about himself is just maddening to me.
I do have a question though, I was brought up to be polite and respectful, and especially not to brag about myself or my family. Is it a recent or an American thing to self promote and boast endlessly about real or imagined events and especially to admire and worship those that do that?
I recall my Mom reading me the riot act in Polish/Canadian when she overheard me bragging to some friends. It was always “Let your actions speak for you” and “People will not be fooled by fast talk and fakes”.
My dear departed Mother, in some ways she was so naïve and trusting. She would be completely lost in today’s society.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Detailed survey highlighted in WaPo found that racism was a huge motivating factor for Trump voters, even those who had previously voted for Obama. Link. The survey also seems to contradict claims that lower income (white, obvs) folks didn’t support Trump.
Spanky
Google tells me there’s the “Hilton Hanoi Opera” and a “Hilton Garden Inn Hanoi”, and frankly the Hilton Garden Inn Hanoi is more jarring to me, I guess because the HGIs are so mundane and I grew up thinking of Hanoi as inhospitable and unreachable. Descriptors way past their sell date, of course.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: or like one of our lovely trolls used to suggest, if we would just stop harping on that whole legal abortion thing…
Anonymous At Work
Question: What, if any, leverage will this give China moving forward over Ivanka? I.e. can China suddenly withdraw or “discover” fatal flaws in the paperwork?
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@ruemara:
She may, indeed, have a position of no power, but she’s still pulling down six figures I would imagine. She’s another hateful cog in the Trump Wheel of Fortune(, Baby!)
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I read that, yeah. Though I don’t recall anybody saying that poor white people didn’t support Trump. I remember people saying that poor people didn’t support Trump…
Spanky
And speaking of mollusks (from today’s WaPo):
SenyorDave
The Trump kids all learned at the feet of the master. A bunch of grifting, amoral pieces of garbage. Ivanka doesn’t seem too bad because she’s being compared to Uday and Qusay. In my fantasy, Trump would be found guilty of treason and the kids would be complicit. Thane we could go to the punishment phase.
gene108
@James E Powell:
Yes they did. How did they amass a net worth of $100 million?
They used their fame and celebrity from being POTUS and FLOTUS (and Senator, and Sec. of State) to get millions in book deals, speaking fees, and other money making scams, like being on the Board of Directors of various companies.
Totally the same thing the Trumps are doing.
sherparick
@cervantes: The whole Republican Party and the U.S. Plutocratic class (but then I repeat myself since that class owns the Republican Party) is on the the grift. At a minimum they are looking at corporate and individual tax cuts that will given them millions of dollars more than their campaign donations. There is no better return on investment for the Koch brothers and Steve Schwartzman’s of the U.S.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@NorthLeft12:
Good question, North Left… my Polish mother also did not allow for puffery and boastfulness. I’m almost a generation younger than Trump, but it’s not an age thing, I suspect.
Maybe it’s a class issue, as in the higher class you are, the more you crow about it?
Chyron HR
@Keith P.:
He is survived by Little Steven.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
No.
They hate you and me because of who we are, so unless the democrats are willing to sell us down the river and demonize us, these people aren’t reachable. You are the reason their marriages are failing and I’m responsible for the deficit, by demanding to live off all these hard working tax paying “real Americans”.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: I skimmed the article and saw the subheading for racism. I didn’t see the same subheading for sexism. It also wasn’t brought up much after the campaign as a reason why people might not have voted for Hillary and also voted for her male opponent. I didn’t look at the data so don’t know if they polled it. It’s very frustrating that sexism doesn’t even make it to the discussion. It’s a non-thing as far as our political media is concerned.
sherparick
@gene108: Not quite. They have not gotten “Trademarks” from foreign Governments worth tens of millions of dollars. Strange how Trump’s policy toward China soften once all those trade mark grants started coming from the Chinese to Trump and Ivanka.
Betty Cracker
@gene108: I’m not defending the post-presidency cash-in, but it’s not the same thing at all.
hovercraft
@ruemara:
She needs to be careful, house ni**ers are always in a very precarious position, one wrong move and you’re back in the fields with the rest of us.
sherparick
@Mike in NC: Again, thanks a lot Comey.
Betty Cracker
@Yarrow: The author said they didn’t include sexism because the article was about historic trends, and we’d never had a woman nominee before. But yeah, there’s been shockingly little discussion about the role sexism played, IMO.
Kay
Jamie Gorelick has been horrible for decades. After the Trumpsters leave office, get indicted, whatever, Democrats should so some housecleaning.
God almighty has anyone ever made as much bank off of “former deputy attorney general”? It was a life-time ticket, apparently. DECADES. There are no limits to the grossness. She lobbied against rules protecting disabled veterans from for-profit colleges. It’s right up there with kitten-killing on the ethical scale.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Man, I am sure ready for another serious smoking gun link tying Trump to illegal doings. Everyone laughing over Spicer’s holocaust center idiocy or Kushner and his like-dressed frat brother in flak jackets and chinos goes only so far.
I want serious repercussions for these bozos!
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: sounds about right.
It was 90% a rhetorical question.
hovercraft
@Anonymous At Work:
She seems to be motivated by greed like her father, so threatening her bottom line could influence her. Offering to open up new spigots could influence her. The point of just saying no is that there should not be even the faintest whiff of quid pro quo, the question of whether the fact that shit could cost you or earn you money shouldn’t ever come up. Yet with these people you have Russian loans Chinese, Turkish business ties, all while head scratching decisions are being made. If they had truly relinquished ties with their businesses, this wouldn’t be headline news.
randy khan
@gene108:
It’s not remotely the same. The Clintons wrote best-selling books (and it turns out that the publishers probably made boatloads of money on those books) and they both were very popular speakers who could command big fees from a wide range of sponsors. In Bill’s case (and he’s the one who made the most money by far), he literally had no influence on American policy during the first 8 years and very little thereafter; Hillary made relatively little from speaking fees compared to Bill because she was prohibited from doing so from 2001 through early 2013 because of the offices she held. I could be wrong, but I don’t think either of them has sat on a corporate board, and neither one of them has taken a dime of compensation from the Clinton Foundation.
ruemara
@hovercraft: basically.
NorthLeft12
@West of the Rockies (been a while): You could be on to something about that class thing. I knew a few “rich” kids in high school, and yeah, most were pretty obnoxious, although my middle class school was full of jackasses and jerks of all classes, gender, and creeds. I can’t say races because my school and area were +97% white. Token African and Asians only. That has changed a lot over the last forty years. For the better IMO.
hovercraft
@gene108:
Not the same. The Clinton’s earned everything they’ve got. Now if people want to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars to be on boards, and give speeches, then good for them. They are not ripping people off, no one is left worse off for having dealt with them, the same cannot be said for Twitler and Co.
We live in a culture where people are willing to pay famous people ridiculous amounts of money to speak at their events, why would you expect the Clinton’s not to take advantage of this.
They served the public for thirty years and for their efforts left the White House with millions in unpaid legal fees, the speaking circuit and the book deals were a quick way to pay their bills and set themselves and their grand kids up for life, what’s wrong with that.
The Obama’s are just embarking down this road, their book deal is reportedly 60 million, should they turn that down. Obama had already made millions off his books, should he stop now? Should he say no to the millions he’ll be offered on the speaking circuit?
Certified Mutant Enemy
@MattF:
Something big happened in 2001, but they believe Clinton was still President…
Cacti
Not a surprising move from China.
They correctly read the Trump clan as your typical, graft-susceptible authoritarian leader’s family.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Traditionally, in the US, the upper classes do not boast, taking a page from their counterparts in the UK–when you have nearly all the marbles anyway, talking it up is crass.
Trump belongs to the aspirational, self-promotional class, a group that depends on publicity to succeed. Some are more restrained in their self-promotion, but where people like the Rockefellers and the Mellons and others hired PR people, it was usually to keep their names out of the news, except when they wanted publicity for a specific reason. Their businesses might have made news, but they preferred to maintain a lower-key professional profile. For a more modern example, how much do we know about Warren Buffet beyond what he wants us to know?
Major Major Major Major
@NorthLeft12: it’s the difference between the wealthy and the “merely rich”. It’s a question of class all right but not the kind that involves money.
hovercraft
These people really need to remember that we can hear them.
* In a striking moment of candor, Georgia state Sen. Fran Millar (R) told a Republican Party breakfast the other day that 6th district’s lines “were not drawn” to elect a Democrat, adding, “They were not drawn for that purpose, OK? They were not drawn for that purpose.” According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s report, Millar added, “And you didn’t hear that.”
Major Major Major Major
guys I think gene108 was being sarcastic.
glory b
@gene108: Writing books is a money making scam?
Balloon Juice writers, is this true?!?!? I am shocked at the lot of you.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
You may be correct. Does it have something to do with acquired wealth, perhaps? Mittens grew up in money, and his “bet you ten grand” line bespeaks entitlement, as does every Trump utterance.
I’ve seen money change people, not always for the better.
glory b
@Kay: I thought she left party politics a long time ago.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft: The gene pool needs to chlorinate them before they can spread further.
Major Major Major Major
@West of the Rockies (been a while): if you give a hundred poor people a crapload of money, forty of them will be rich assholes. If you don’t give a hundred poor people a crapload of money, forty of them will be poor assholes. Some people are just assholes.
@TenguPhule: bit early for eugenics fantasies innit?
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Okay, puts down her un and backs away.
Moving on.
Sessions Warns Against ‘Handcuffing The Police’ With Consent Decrees In Op-Ed
……….“We will not sign consent decrees for political expediency that will cost more lives by handcuffing the police instead of the criminals,” Sessions wrote in an op-ed in USA Today.
Sessions ordered a review of all such decrees between the Justice Department and local law enforcement earlier this month. By the end of Obama’s second term, the Justice Department was enforcing agreements reached with more than a dozen police departments nationwide and had investigated the practices of many more……..
In his op-ed Monday, Sessions hammered home the same themes.
“[T]oo much focus has been placed on a small number of police who are bad actors rather than on criminals,” he wrote. “And too many people believe the solution is to impose consent decrees that discourage the proactive policing that keeps our cities safe.”
Though he acknowledged the need for “common-sense reforms” like de-escalation training and “punish[ing] police conduct that violates civil rights,” Sessions suggested that the federal government wouldn’t play a prominent role in implementing those reforms.
“[S]uch reforms must promote public safety and avoid harmful federal intrusion in the daily work of local police,” he wrote.
The Lodger
@LAO: The Trumps have been operating segregated housing all their lives, So, nothing new there.
sukabi
@MattF: which begs the question “Would Ivanka appropriate the improvements in the knockoffs for her own knockoff knockoffs? And if so, would the original designers have standing to sue Ivanka for infringement on her knockoff knockoffs or just on her knockoffs?”
TenguPhule
@randy khan:
On the bright side, we know where to seize and loot their primary assets when the manhunt begins.
sherparick
@Yarrow: All you do is watch Morning Joe when Halperin and couple of others like him are on is complete contempt for women politicians. The combination of misogyny and racism and 25 years of Clinton Rules was basically enough to make Trump President, God/FSM help us.
Major Major Major Major
@sukabi: if b knocks off a and c knocks off b, has c knocked off a?
Wouldn’t surprise me if this is a court case somewhere, like when they decided whether or not a burrito is a sandwich (it is not).
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
Shorter Sessions: “Nixxer Season is now open! No Bag Limit for Dirty Cops!”
When cops lose moral authority and the trust of the community, people start to realize that they’re actually not that many of them per square mile. And then it gets worse.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Hell, they shouldn’t even be considered food. They’re a punishment.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule: @Major Major Major Major:
I think this is the thing that makes me hate these people more than anything else, they make it really hard to stick to my principles. Empathy, sympathy, patience, the willingness to listen to people I disagree with, I now have to force myself not to be just as spiteful and hateful as they are. Sigh, but hey I’m just typing my vitriol on this top 10,000 blog, not going out and actually causing harm to them.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Do you want Donald’s genes to actually be allowed to spread and outlive him?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: doesn’t like the taste of alcohol, hates burritos, loves eugenics, I think we found some sort of robot from the future sent to save humanity.
Frankensteinbeck
@hovercraft:
In other words, ‘black lives do not matter.’
hovercraft
@sukabi: @Major Major Major Major:
Who’s knocked up and is abortion still legal?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
I don’t want that to happen personally, but I also don’t think my opinion on the matter should have any bearing on whether his genes are “allowed” to be passed on.
ETA: this sort of thinking is one of the tenets of liberalism, you should look it up some time it’s cool
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
I don’t even try to lie to myself. I want them all tried, convicted and executed to ensure the nation can survive as something worth living in. if the rule of law does not apply to Republicans, then what’s the point in following it for non-Republicans? We can’t endure a heads I win, tails you lose environment. Something is going to give.
hovercraft
@TenguPhule:
No I don’t, but apparently I don’t have a choice, it’s God’s will.
Via RightWingWatch
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:I like alcohol just fine, I just don’t like beer. And most wines.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: I want Idiocracy to stay a movie. Not become our future.
hovercraft
Michael Garland Elliott (1941 – 2017)
The Oregonian Obituary
Michael Garland Elliott
July 21, 1941 – April 6, 2017
Michael Garland Elliott passed away peacefully, April 6, 2017, surrounded by people who loved him dearly and cared for him selflessly during the last months of his life. He was born in Charlottesville, Va., in either 1940 or 1941 (he honestly didn’t know!), and attended Lane High School, where he shined on the basketball court. After college at University of Virginia, he moved to Long Beach, Calif., where, among other things, he joined a semi-pro basketball team that toured the country playing exhibition games, dressed as women. At such times Mike was called Skaggy Maggie and continued round-ball domination, albeit with a different uniform.
Mike was a Porsche enthusiast, owning a dozen of them over the years, but nothing touched his heart like “the ancient game,” golf. He was a founding member of The Reserve and spent countless weekends doing what he loved most with like-minded friends. He was very passionate about the game. One time (that we know of) he was angered by an errant shot and threw his club into a tree. Eventually every club in his bag was in that tree. Mike’s health had declined over the past decade, and when he was no longer able to golf he accepted it with grace and humor, and threw things at the TV instead. Mike was also the sharpest dresser in town, single-handedly keeping Nike’s apparel wing in the black.
Though Mike had no family remaining, he stayed close to the people he’d worked with in the plastics industry, especially Danny Velansky and Sean O’Brian, who was by his side at the end. Also present were Larry Smith, Judy Wiley, lovely neighbors Russ, Sandy and Garrett, and his devoted caregivers Alisha Alex, Sara Young and Leslie Kampmann, angels in human form. No patient ever, ever had more loving care.
Mike ran out of family long ago and is survived by his ex-wife and best friend, Teresa Elliott. Though their marriage ran aground, their friendship only grew stronger and hers was the last voice Mike heard. And the last thing she said to him was “Donald Trump has been impeached.” Upon hearing that he took his final, gentle breath, his earthly work concluded. Mike will be forever missed but never forgotten. A proper memorial is planned for August.
Please sign the online guest book at http://www.oregonlive.com/obits
Published in The Oregonian from Apr. 11 to Apr. 16, 2017
TenguPhule
@hovercraft:
“May you live in Interesting Times” is a considered a curse for a very good reason.
ruemara
@hovercraft: Please. There’s no need to be empathetic to people who want your destruction. Are you out there, actively trying to harm them? No? Then you’re not like them. They don’t deserve empathy or compassion in any specific way. They are to be avoided and, if possible, curtailed. That’s compassion. Preventing the harm they’d do to others is compassion. Anything else is a wasted effort on a gutless wretch who’d put a knife in your back as fast as he could. They’re dangerous. They always have been. it’s not a difference in taste or style, it’s not a preference for steak over chicken, it’s very dangerous folks who’ve set in motion world destruction because they hate not being white person ascending.
sukabi
@TenguPhule: too late. While Idiocracy may have been a comedic warning to “turn back”, it was embraced by a number of folks as a blueprint for success, and helped usher in the Mangy Mango Menace and his treasury looting entourage.
sukabi
@hovercraft: let’s hope that her last words to him were just a bit premature.
Frankensteinbeck
@ruemara:
I think they deserve empathy and compassion, but it has to be actual empathy, real understanding of where they’re coming from rather than a false insistence that it must be a legitimate and reasonable place. It is important to understand that many, many people are motivated by hate, and the various flavors and levels of it. If you don’t look at other people and realize that they actually get angry at the idea black lives should matter, you will make mistakes like thinking they’re motivated by economic anxiety. Identifying, calling out publicly, and opposing the hateful is important, and starts with understanding them.
And everyone deserves compassion. We should not separate who we help by whether they’re deserving. Lift everyone up, because when you sort out the deserving from the undeserving, you will always get it wrong. We have to help even the fucking assholes, which is different from giving them their way.
ruemara
@Frankensteinbeck: No. Sorry. Empathy and compassion doesn’t mean that in the common parlance. You can’t make it mean this when the actual use is to be empathetic towards their views and make excuses for them. And no, not everyone deserves compassion. Some people don’t. Some people are so toxic, they cannot be helped without dragging down those who help them. Not helping them is the best choice. It doesn’t mean screw everyone else and if their lot improves because of broadly compassionate moves, so be it. But they do not deserve compassion. Leave it to a loving deity of your choice to show infinite compassion. You’re not as untouchable as that magic being is.
The Moar You Know
@ruemara: I’ve known a few in my life, and they are out there and they are bad business. As a person of my acquaintance said, “you reach out to give ’em a hand and you get back a bloody stump.”
I’m a lot more careful of who I choose to help, or even feel compassion towards, than I used to be.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
I disagree. Republicans don’t. They’ve fashioned their own noose over the years of targeting everyone who wasn’t them. Let them swing.
burnspbesq
I’d be perfectly happy to see Ms. Trump devote 100 percent of her time to her business, and if she were to do that I would be benignly indifferent to her success or failure. I didn’t vote for her, and I wouldn’t have if she had been on the ballot. But I’m not offended by the idea that people with family capital and the ability to attract and retain good desginers, marketing people, and supply chain managers can make money in the rag trade.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
Hard to tell sometimes when it comes to stuff like this. I’ve seen people write pretty much the same thing and mean it. (In fact, I started seeing that sort of thing almost exactly a year ago.)
randy khan
@TenguPhule:
I tend to think of compassion as like grace – none of us has earned it, but we all need it.
gene108
@sherparick: @glory b:
And others.
As M^4 guessed, I was trying to be sarcastic. Should have made it clearer.
I think more than the “pay-to-play” allegations leveled at the Clinton Foundation, during the campaign, there was always a hint of “how did this piece of white trash and his wife, get so rich so quickly”, with regards to the money they made, after Bill left office. Therefore they had to be corrupt.
This idea was really picked up by the Left, as much or more than the right that the Clintons were corrupt, because they got rich fast because people were willing to buy, what they were selling.
And I don’t know how to thread the needle between the Left, who want a pure candidate and reality, where anyone with the time to run for President, is going to have some cash in the bank or know people, who can put it there.
Chris Fisher
Step 1: Loot and fuck over the world economy pocketing billions while everyone else is worse off.
Step 2: Retire when you’re voted out. Say what a great job you did.
Step 3: Let Democrats come in and fix the economy again, laugh as they refuse to jail your ass for ‘healing’ and the ‘good of the country’.
Step 4: Once the economy is back on track, convince ignorant voters it’s all the Democrats/blacks/browns/Muslims fault.
Step 5: Go to Step 1
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
I’m still somewhat boggled that anti-Hillary idiots protested outside of George Clooney’s house when he had a fundraiser for her there. Because apparently earning money as a movie star is exactly the same as cheating people on Wall Street.
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: I was benignly indifferent to her too until she helped get her scumbag father in the White House. And since the “brand” is basically a licensing scheme based on the name they share, I think it’s unseemly for the daughter to profit from it while her grubby asshole father is occupying the Oval Office and making decisions that can directly affect market performance. If we’re to bounce back as a nation from the Trump Error (questionable), new legislation will be required to codify standards that were once enforced by institutional tradition and human decency.
NorthLeft12
quoth Mr. Sessions.
But I thought that American cities were hellholes of violence and despair? Will these guys ever keep their stories straight?
Fortunately for them, they don’t have to. Their base and the media are more than happy to move on to the latest infotainment/alternate facts that Deadbeat Donald and his band of miscreants spoon feed them.
Millard Filmore
@Major Major Major Major:
Maybe we found Bender instead.
WafflesTasteGood
@Bill Arnold: Oh boy are those words ever going to come back to bite him.
Just the fact he seems to think this brinksmanship of “do what we say or else” is somehow going to solve problems that have plagued that area since the Korean war.
He’s basically already lost by painting himself into a corner. He has nowhere to go now but to actually drop bombs or back down. Mark my words, the pundits will eventually be calling this one of the worst foreign policy blunders in modern times. Not matter what happens.
Amateur hour.
ruckus
@Bill Arnold:
Drumpf is confused about everything else why should the leadership of any country not confuse him? Normal people ask who, what, when, where, why and how, drumpf only asks, what’s in it for me.