Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Books are my comfort food!

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Everybody saw this coming.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Bonfire of the Inanities

Bonfire of the Inanities

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In the morning thread, valued commenter Quinerly pointed out an interesting article in Vanity Fair: Inside Trump’s Coming War with the FBI. An excerpt:

There were agents who found Comey priggish; within the bureau’s New York office, there was a faction that thought he’d soft-peddled the investigation of the Clinton Foundation. But those complaints have now been dwarfed by shock and revulsion at how Comey was fired—and how it reflects on them. “The statements from the White House that he’d lost the faith of the rank and file—they’re making that up,” says Jeff Ringel, a 21-year F.B.I. veteran who retired in May 2016 and is now director of the Soufan Group. “Agents may not have agreed with everything he did. I was one of the people who thought the director shouldn’t have stepped up and made those public statements about Hillary Clinton. But Director Comey was one of the last honest brokers in D.C. Agents are pissed off at the way he was fired, the total disrespect with which it was handled. It was a slap in the face to the F.B.I., to everybody in the F.B.I. The director being treated terribly, being called incompetent, is a signal that Trump has disdain for the bureau.”

Although the event seemed shocking at first, is anyone surprised Trump sent a goon to deliver a termination letter to Comey’s office while the director was out of town and let Comey find out he’d been shit-canned from TV? It’s a move utterly lacking in class, grace or common human decency. In other words, it is perfectly reflective of Trump.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m not convinced Trump himself colluded with Russia or was aware that his associates did. He may have. Or he may just be a narcissistic fool who can’t abide the suggestion that his electoral college victory was illegitimate. The facts we know can be interpreted to support either theory.

But one thing is sure: If Trump were capable of keeping his big fucking mouth shut, the Republicans who control Congress and the DOJ would have almost certainly been able to sweep the Russia issue under the rug, at least until the Democrats regain control of a chamber, by which time public attention may well have wandered. But neither Trump nor his enablers can shut that motherfucking cake-hole.

As an American, witnessing this nonstop shitshow is a nightmare. But one of the small bright spots is imagining how horrifying it must be for the power-mad assholes who voluntarily abase themselves to join Trump’s orbit and then end up on nonstop Trump-shit clean-up duty. Sucks to be you, Priebus, Conway, Pence, Spicer, et al. Even more enjoyable is the hope that Trump’s big fat mouth will ultimately be his undoing. May it be soon.

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  1. 1.

    Westyny

    I laughed at the header, even through a wicked cold, which means it’s probably funnier than I am capable of registering.

  2. 2.

    debbie

    Aren’t the loans he and his companies took from Russia enough? Russian bankers make our guys look ethical in comparison.

  3. 3.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    A fine parody of all of the Both Sides journalism that got us here.

    The nation was recently rocked by retaliatory nuclear blasts that have turned much of America into a barren wasteland, decimating the population, triggering the rise of firestorms and supervolcanoes, and generally bringing civilization to the brink of collapse. Let’s take a look at the political fallout.

    Winners

    Congressional Republicans: Widespread destruction aside, this was a kumbaya moment for a caucus that has had its share of family spats of late. For the first time since coming together to narrowly pass the American Health Care Act in May, Speaker Paul Ryan wonkily persuaded the House GOP’s version of the Hatfields and McCoys — the principled hardliners of the Freedom Caucus on one hand, and the reasonable moderates of the Tuesday Group on the other — to set their bickering aside just long enough to squeak through a resolution in support of President Trump’s plan, tweeted out at 3:29 a.m. on Thursday morning, to “FRANCE IS LOOKING FOR TROUBLE. Sick country that won’t solve its own problems. Maybe nucluar?” Concerns that a more deliberative Senate would splash cold water on a rare show of Republican unity proved unfounded when Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), the human fulcrum perched stoically at the precise center of American politics, revealed in a nationally televised special that she would vote to authorize nuclear war to balance out the fact that she had recently broken ranks with her party on an agriculture appropriations bill.

    …

    Read the whole thing – Cilizza, Dowd or Haberman could have written it from a bunker.

  4. 4.

    Big Ole Hound

    When Trump was elected I made the guess that he would resign or be chased out of office by June. I may be off by a month or so.

  5. 5.

    Quinerly

    Thanks for front paging this. FYI, nice segment on NPR’S Saturday Morning Edition on Maxine Waters. Yes, I know it’s NPR but some of us listen to it in the AM and there are some shows some of us appreciate.

  6. 6.

    MJS

    He most certainly colluded with the Russians. 1) He has significant business dealings with them (just ask his sons); 2) he has to be personally involved in all business dealings. The tell was during the debates and elsewhere when he refused to admit the Russians were responsible for the hacks. He knows what happened because he was there.

  9. 9.

    bystander

    MSNBC is big on the Trump “tapes” being his undoing. I was hoping for cyanide in the bunker, but I’ll settle for a simple undoing.

  10. 10.

    Pseudonymous Bosch

    But neither Trump nor his enablers can shut that motherfucking cake-hole.

    It is this that amazes me so much — a modicum of self-control and he’d be golden with our media. But he is constitutionally incapable of any self-control.

  11. 11.

    Quinerly

    @debbie:
    Press is turning on Trump. Chuck Todd was rather shrill (for him) on his afternoon MTP. Had it on in the background. I’m not a Nicole Wallace fan by any standard but she had a good panel on her afternoon show yesterday. She is disgusted by Trump, Spicer, Huckabee Sanders. She can’t hide it. I have become a bit of a fan of Stephanie Rheul (sp?). She’s solid and quick.

  12. 12.

    bystander

    BTW, I heard some talkinghead recently refer to the number of FBI people who voted for Trump. Is that a known statistic or was it just speculation? If so, I find it sort satisfying that Trump kicked them in the teeth.

  13. 13.

    Immanentize

    BETTY! I left you a hollandaise recipe in the last thread if the one you are trying doesn’t work out.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    And, fwiw, the small group of sane right-wingers has pretty much gone over to ‘he’s demented and has to be removed from office’, so it’s not just the librul bubble.. I’ve pointed repeatedly to Jen Rubin in the WaPo, and there are a few others.

  18. 18.

    JMG

    @bystander: The FBI is about 80 percent or more white males between 30-50 who have with some effort reached one of the elite jobs in law enforcement. It’d be a miracle if they didn’t vote heavily Republican in every election.

  19. 19.

    TS

    @Pseudonymous Bosch:

    It is this that amazes me so much — a modicum of self-control and he’d be golden with our media. But he is constitutionally incapable of any self-control.

    He showed this continually through the campaigns – the media kept saying once he was in the WH he would change and magically become Presidential. He can’t and he didn’t.

  22. 22.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Good morning, all! Love the title, Ms. Cracker. I wonder, though, how bad it is for the “power-mad assholes.” Do you think they’re aware that he’s careening out of control or do they all inhabit Crazytown together?

  24. 24.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    @bystander: That’s gotta be speculation. How would anyone know (secret ballot and all), and who has ever polled FBI agents? I’m assuming folks in the FBI skew conservative, but there’s really no way to truly know.

  25. 25.

    GregB

    Trump’s vortex of shit spinning wider and sucking in more and more of his inner circle.

    Everyone must now understand that they can and will get Comeyed once the Salmon Shitheel is through with them.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    Trump’s about to give the commencement address at Liberty University. I can’t wait to hear how he makes it all about him! His only advice to the grads for their futures: “Buy my book!”

  28. 28.

    Tokyokie

    Working for Trump is like the old joke about the circus clown whose job was to follow the elephant with a broom. Yeah, it’s a shitty job, but if asked about quitting, he says, “What? And leave show business?”

    @MattF: Add Max Boot to the list, according to a NYT op-ed a couple of days ago.

    @GregB: Yeah, he demands absolute, unwavering loyalty, and does not reciprocate in the least. I fully expect that he’ll throw Ivanka and Uday and Qusay under the bus at some point should he consider doing so expedient.

  29. 29.

    JGabriel

    Betty Cracker @ Top:

    As I mentioned yesterday, I’m not convinced Trump himself colluded with Russia or was aware that his associates did. He may have. Or he may just be a narcissistic fool who can’t abide the suggestion that his electoral college victory was illegitimate. The facts we know can be interpreted to support either theory.

    I’m not sure which of the longer term Trump reporters said this (Tom Scocca maybe?), but: With Trump, it’s always worse than you think. No one has ever investigated something that looked fishy with Trump, then discovered it wasn’t as bad as it looked at first – it’s always worse.

    So if we give that the same credence as Josh Marshall’s Trump’s Razor, then I think it’s safe to assume Trump knew about the collusion with Russia, participated in colluding with Russia, and probably ordered colluding with Russia himself. Because with Trump, it’s always worse than you think.

    Trump may be stupid, addle-pated, and beset with quickly developing senile dementia, but never forget he is also malicious, greedy, manipulative, narcissistic, crooked as all hell, evil, and likes to think of himself as a mastermind. If there’s something shady and illegal going on in his name, he’ll want to have all his fingers in it up to his elbows.

  30. 30.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @JMG: Maybe, they also aren’t joe six pack think with the TV types. “inclined to vote Republican” is a better way to put it which makes Trump’s action all the more insane since he is ganking his own natural allies in Washington.

  31. 31.

    JMG

    Comey is less than politically adroit, to put it mildly, but his saying he’ll only testify in public to Congress is a smooth move. If the Republicans on the intelligence committee say no, they look like part of a cover up, and he gets to keep on leaking at a pace of his choosing. If they say yes, he’ll get to call Trump a liar on national TV, and Comey knows damn well how Trump will take that.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    @debbie:

    Trump’s about to give the commencement address at Liberty University.

    Haha. Me, a couple of days ago.

    @Yoda Dog: I wonder if Trump will ever give a commencement speech at any place other than Liberty U.

    ETA:. I didn’t know he was speaking there when I made the comment.

  33. 33.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud:

    ETA:. I didn’t know he was speaking there when I made the comment.

    A genius, you are! Baud! 2020! is an ambition far too small. Perhaps lift your sights to Emperor of All the Russias?

  34. 34.

    dr. bloor

    But those complaints have now been dwarfed by shock and revulsion at how Comey was fired—and how it reflects on them

    The Dignity Wraith spares no one.

  35. 35.

    schrodingers_cat

    There are no dominance displays where Mr Putin concerned. He does what P tells him to do, like invite Lavrov to the Oval office with only Ruskie media present.

  36. 36.

    qwerty43

    Rick Wilson: “Everything Trump touches, dies.”

    Josh Marshall with the “Trump Dignity Wraith” and “Trump’s Razor”.

    There is agreement across the spectrum about DT. But the GOP in DC sees nothing wrong. Those tax cuts for billionaires are important!

  37. 37.

    Wapiti

    @GregB:

    Everyone must now understand that they can and will get Comeyed once the Salmon Shitheel is through with them.

    The exception is Pence; Trump can’t fire him. Pence is a subservient lick-spittle for the saffron scumbag, not because he can be fired, but because Pence chooses to be a toady.

  38. 38.

    rk

    I find it quite satisfying that Comey was fired in this totally humiliating way. It must have been a complete shock to the system. Now maybe he has an idea of what Hillary felt when he dropped his bombshell. Not sorry for him at all. As a bonus now the FBI hates Trump. Anything which hurts and humiliates the people involved in throwing the election to Trump is good. I’m hoping to see a day when Trump and his business empire comes crumbling down. I want Trump to have a long life where everyday is filled with the knowledge of his own failure.

  40. 40.

    ArchTeryx

    And yeah, it’s my own personal obsession (for what should be obvious reasons) but I wonder if all the frooferah over Trump, Comey and the Russians is eating enough oxygen to prevent McConnell from passing the Trumpcare abomination out of the Senate. Long as they’re arguing about Comey and Putin, they aren’t arguing about Trumpcare.

  41. 41.

    Nelle

    I rarely comment here but always read.
    My fervent wish is for GnG to have peace, which, thanks to her kind and loving family, seems to be the case. I appreciate the community here, even though I’m one of the silent witnesses for the most part. You’ve shown care for each other, for pets, for the furtherance of what is best in the nation. I just wanted to express my gratitude.

  44. 44.

    Gian

    @JGabriel:

    I suspect Trump has a tell when he’s discussing it. listen to how he pronounces Russia (or China for that matter) when it’s an issue that I think he’s lying about, I think he stretches the word out and emphasizes the last part

  47. 47.

    Quinerly

    @Gian:
    @#43. Very pronounced in that Lester Holt interview. I can’t bear to watch any of his speeches anymore when he reads those longish ones. Does he still do that weird breathing and snorting thing he did on the campaign trail?

  48. 48.

    tobie

    Betty, no one holds a candle to you in the snappy turn of phrase. Your posts always make me laugh, even when the news they communicate is downright awful. But I have to say that in this post you are too kind to Priebus, Spicer, Conway, Huckabee Sanders et. al. These guys don’t feel like they’re debasing themselves doing Trump-shit-clean-up-duty because they have NO moral compass and are convinced they are right about everything and, as far as they’re concerned, the ends justify the means, subverting the Constitution to defend it is a-okay as long as they’re the beneficiaries.

    It’s the sense of illegitimacy that keeps them going, it’s the fear of illegitimacy too that keeps the GOP Congress-critters loyal to this administration. They know they have their positions only because of lying, voter suppression, grossly partisan gerrymanders, dark money, and possibly vote rigging.

  49. 49.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Quinerly:

    ABC and 60 Minutes passed on it

    Not in their (short-term) corporate interest to publicize. I wonder if they view the urgency a little differently now.

  50. 50.

    Quinerly

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    The fat sloppy fuck was on my tv everywhere during the campaign. My apologies to any fat sloppy fucks out there. We need to put him on that punchable face list. Someone needs to hold him and I’ll throw the first punch…I’ll even wear a handful of my large turquoise rings. Got a cast large howling wolf ring…could do some damage. Clovis is a disgusting pos.

  51. 51.

    Shalimar

    @Wapiti: Trump can’t fire Pence, but he could zero out the VP office budget, tweet negative things about him including that he is corrupt, and generally destroy Pence’s reputation with the base. No one wants to be the first to cross Trump. If it ever comes, it will be a massive wave and Trump will lose the entire party within a week.

  52. 52.

    GregB

    @rk:

    Looking forward to the day when Trump is synonymous with unmitigated corruption, failure, decadence, criminality and not a dependable and exemplary person.

  57. 57.

    BBA

    I’m going to respectfully dissent here and say if it’s Trump vs the Deep State, I’m rooting for injuries.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    The thing that gets me about the Comey firing is just how cowardly it was. trump is a guy who relished going on TV and firing people by shouting “You’re fired!” at them. Now that it’s time to do it for real, he has a lackey bring a note to the office of the guy being fired while he’s out of town. It’s a coward’s way out, and it shows real fear of Comey and what he represents.

  62. 62.

    dogwood

    @O. Felix Culpa:
    Netflix should make a deal to get it.

    ETA: if things keep chugging along as thy are, networks other than NBC and Fox are going to become interested in stuff like this.

  66. 66.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Never heard of Huckabee Sanders until a few days ago. I’m surprised she represents Lump only because she’s not comparatively as photogenic as some. (Of course, Spicy won’t make the cover of GQ anytime soon.)

    Conway though is a wretched creature. She has become all snarl and spit, insult and butthurt. I hope her life is miserable.

    There may be some true believers (Stone?). But a lot of them are greedy, calculating opportunists, feeding and squealing at the trough at the expense of the American people.

  69. 69.

    ruemara

    Don’t know why people believe that the sentient hairball didn’t know he was colluding with Russia. He most certainly was and would require proof he was an innocent dupe first.

  70. 70.

    SFAW

    @Tokyokie:

    I fully expect that he’ll throw Ivanka and Uday and Qusay under the bus at some point should he consider doing so expedient.

    I’m wondering if Ivanka made him sign a pre-schtup agreement, so as to prevent that.

    [I can hear the collective “Eeewwwwww!” from ‘way over here.]

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    From BC at the top:

    As an American, witnessing this nonstop shitshow is a nightmare. But one of the small bright spots is imagining how horrifying it must be for the power-mad assholes who voluntarily abase themselves to join Trump’s orbit and then end up on nonstop Trump-shit clean-up duty. Sucks to be you, Priebus, Conway, Pence, Spicer, et al. Even more enjoyable is the hope that Trump’s big fat mouth will ultimately be his undoing. May it be soon.

    May it be soon indeed, and then when it’s over, let us continue to pound the living fuck out of the Republicans for enabling this moron and ignoring his obvious unfitness for any office, much less the Oval. All in the service of budget-busting, health-care-erasing tax cuts for the 1%. Jennifer Rubin and Paul Krugman each said it quite well yesterday: it’s on the GOP now more than ever.

  72. 72.

    SFAW

    Betty –

    I’m not sure if this helps or hurts, but: it used to be that I could tell a rant was Cole’s, without reading the byline. With this one, I had to double-check.

    I like Cole’s rants, by the way, as I do yours. But I’m wondering if there’s a little Stockholm syndrome at work? Or Stock Island syndrom, given where you live.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    debbie @ #2: I thought most of Trump’s loans (at least that have shown up in the press) have been from Deutsche Bank (includes autoplay video).

    What stinks to high heaven are the “investments” by Russian oligarchs and shadowy figures tied to Putin in his properties, “beauty pagent”, vodka, etc., etc. I have no idea how much of that stuff would show up in his (complete) tax returns – I assume most of it is hidden in matryoshka dolls of shell companies. (Of course, he should have been forced to release his returns years ago – I blame Rmoney for setting the precedent there.)

    Trump seems to be buried under dirty money, but it’s not the loans that’s the problem, IMHO.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who is heartened that the FBI seems to be looking at possible money-laundering issues with him, and wishes he had more than 3 linkies here.)

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne

    @JGabriel:

    Yep. In fact, what I would say is that Trump colluded with Russia, but he doesn’t think it was a problem. He truly believes that anything that helps him, personally, is right and good and the way it should be, and anyone who says anything different is just trying to hurt him personally.

    As a narcissist, his sense of right and wrong depends solely on what’s good for him. If taking money from Russian oligarchs to win the election helped him win, then it was the right thing to do by definition.

    @Roger Moore:

    As if we didn’t already know that “reality” shows are scripted, it was the producers who decided every week who should be “fired,” and Trump just delivered the lines. People have said before that, in real life, he never fires anyone and always sends a flunky to do it.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    Like I said, IMO he knew he was colluding with Russia, but he doesn’t think it was wrong, and he gets hurt and indignant that anyone would say it was wrong.

  77. 77.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @ArchTeryx:

    prevent McConnell from passing the Trumpcare abomination out of the Senate.

    McConnell is currently the most powerful person in Washington, by far, because he’s the only one who can get everyone else in his party to do what he wants. If that evil bastard wants to work for it, he can get whatever he wants. Witness Gorsuch. What baffles me is how quiet he’s been. He’s dragging his heels on Ryancare, and passed a budget more reasonable than any he’d agree to during Obama’s presidency. I’ve generally thought that all McConnell really cares about is that white men rule America forever. Maybe I was more right than I knew.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    being called incompetent, is a signal that Trump has disdain for the bureau.”

    He RAN on his belief that everyone else is stupid and he can do anything anyone does easily and with no experience.

    This is what he ran on. Disdain. Disrespect. None of these people have ever run into this type before? He exists at every single country club- look for the table where the “guests” of the over-rated bully at the head of the table look like hostages.

    Everyone else marvels at how incoherent his interviews are- I marvel at how he sounds like every uninformed, pontificating jerk I have ever met. His parents did him a real disservice. Someone should have knocked him down a few pegs.

  79. 79.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay:

    His parents did him a real disservice.

    That’s what I said too, yesterday when I heard the two scoops of ice-cream story. His parents seem to have dropped the ball with him.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    Trump does disrespect them. He disrespects everyone. Have you ever seen him get off his plane? He’s rude to his own wife. It’s like she’s not there.

    When he said he would “hire the best people”? That meant none of these people WERE the best people.

    They were all cheering when he was incredibly disrespectful to his opponent, to the judge in Indiana. to Mr. Khan. They thought that was great. Guess what? He’ll now shit all over the rest of you.

  81. 81.

    clay

    @Mnemosyne:

    As if we didn’t already know that “reality” shows are scripted, it was the producers who decided every week who should be “fired,” and Trump just delivered the lines. People have said before that, in real life, he never fires anyone and always sends a flunky to do it.

    Actually, there was a story in the days before the election that Trump would decide who to ‘fire’, but he would do it capriciously, and the producers would have to scramble to assemble footage of the contest in a way that justify his decision.

    Kinda like we’re seeing now with the Comey firing, eh?

  82. 82.

    Shalimar

    @Another Scott: I am far from a finance expert so I might be inferring something that isn’t there, but I swear I read an article over a year ago about the Deutsche Bank loans. They aren’t from the major lending part of the bank, they are from a boutique subsidiary that basically takes investments in a fund and uses that money to make loans directed in part by the investors. In other words, the perfect vehicle for Russians laundering money into an enterprise.

  83. 83.

    hitchhiker

    @Kay:

    Melania always looks like a hostage. That picture of her at the superbowl party last January is the perfect illustration of your point.

  84. 84.

    MoxieM

    @MJS: I am currently thinking/hoping it’s the State level (e.g., NY) investigations into his shady business that will bring the house down. The *resident did lots of corrupt crap, doubtless floated by those few exceptional bits in lots of places, as well, ne c’est pas?

  86. 86.

    Raoul

    “Even more enjoyable is the hope that Trump’s big fat mouth will ultimately be his undoing. May it be soon.”

    I think his wild incompetence will take him down, with an assist by his undisciplined mouth. Maybe Russia is all smoke and no fire, but if the FBi gets serious about digging through the data gathered in that GOP campaign operative raid this week, I can very, very easily imagine them uncovering plenty of money laundering in service to Trump-connected campaign operations.

    Plenty of opportunities for perp-walks, including some folks the cocktail weenie D.C. press set think are ‘serious people.’ Add in maybe some unsavory Russian mob allegations. It’ll add to the many drip-drip-drip leaks and stories of disarray. You know it’s why McConnell and Ryan are rushing headlong. Something will damage this presidency to the point of incapacitation, if not resignation.

  87. 87.

    Another Scott

    @Shalimar: ProPublica from February:

    “Deutsche poses the biggest conflict that we know about in terms of dollar amounts and the scale of legal exposures,” says Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia law professor and author of “Too Big To Fail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations.” In trying to clear up its outstanding regulatory troubles, the bank “may have tried to do its best to avoid the appearance of impropriety but it may be impossible for them to do so.”

    Deutsche is Trump’s major creditor, having lent billions to the president since the late 1990s even as other American banks abandoned Trump, who frequently bankrupted his businesses. While the president hasn’t released his tax returns, he has made public some information about his debts. According to these incomplete disclosures and reports, the Trump Organization has roughly $300 million in loans outstanding from the bank. Trump continues to own the business, although he has turned over day-to-day management to his sons.

    At the same time that it is Trump’s biggest known creditor, Deutsche is in frequent contact with multiple federal regulators. While the bank agreed last week to pay $630 million to settle charges by New York state’s top financial regulator as well as the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority that it had aided Russian money-laundering, it’s still undergoing a related federal investigation into those activities, which it is also trying to settle. That will be an early big test of the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Justice Department also has an ongoing probe of foreign exchange manipulation by several banks, including Deutsche Bank.

    […]

    There are signs that Deutsche’s new management is not eager to continue serving as Trump’s financier. Trump sued the bank in 2008 to avoid paying a loan for a Trump hotel in Chicago. The parties settled, but lawsuits have a way of fraying friendships. A former top executive at Deutsche Bank says the current top management does not like the real estate developer. “They don’t want to do business with him anymore,” he says.

    Given the tension, Deutsche may worry about the mercurial president. The bank’s concern is that the Trump administration could use its regulatory powers to secure better business terms. Nationalist strains course through his inner circle. A top Trump economic advisor recently accused Germany of currency manipulation. Trump, some observers fear, may seek to boost American financial institutions over foreign ones like Deutsche.

    In recent months, Deutsche has also sought to renegotiate its loans with Trump, according to a Bloomberg report, in an effort to reduce its exposure to the president. The bank hoped to eliminate the president’s personal guarantee on loans. But such a move would not eliminate the conflict of interest, since the president’s company, which Trump still owns, would remain on the hook to pay back the loans.

    What’s that expression? “If you owe a bank $1M, the bank owns you; if you owe a bank $1B, you own the bank.”

    I have no sympathy for DB, but it’s another illustration that the only people who come out ahead financially when they deal with Donnie is him and his minions. I’m reasonably sure (based on no particular evidence) that Putin’s cronies only invested in Trump, Inc. for leverage or to avoid sanctions – not because they thought he would earn them more money in a legitimate fashion.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    jl

    ” neither Trump nor his enablers can shut that motherfucking cake-hole. ”

    Excuse me, make that ‘chocolate cake, the most terrific, fabulous chocolate cake, by the way, an amazing chocolate cake-hole”

    I am surprised at Lady Cracker’s lack of respect and civility, in this instance.

  89. 89.

    JustRuss

    But one of the small bright spots is imagining how horrifying it must be for the power-mad assholes who voluntarily abase themselves to join Trump’s orbit …

    I don’t often root for ulcers and heart attacks, but here we are.

  90. 90.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    From ya grrl over at Naked Capitalism.

    Take it away Yves:

    Because people here are smart enough to be skeptical of hysterical MSM headlines with no real goods, you act as if you are some sort of smart contrarian, when you are just echoing a Democratic party/media narrative?

    You do not seem to recognize that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The idea that billionaire, who was already famous in the US by virtue (among other things) of having a TV show that ran for 14 years and got billions of free media coverage during his campaign, is somehow owned by Putin, is astonishing on its face. Trump had to have been the focus of extensive Republican and Democratic party opposition research while he was campaigning.

    And perhaps most important, the night he won, Trump clearly did not expect to win. His longstanding friend Howard Stern stated a view similar to ours, that Trump ran because it would be good PR and the whole thing developed a life of its own. And before you try saying politics doesn’t work that way, the UK is now on a path to Brexit for the same reasons.

    All the Dems and the media have come up with are some kinda-sorta connections to Russia. Trump as a very rich man who also has assembled a large team of political types in short order, would have people who knew people in all corners of the world. “X has done business with Y” is hardly proof o of influence, particularly with a guy like Trump, who is now famous for telling people what they want to hear in a meeting and backstabbing them the next day.

    We’ve been looking at this for months. The best they can come up with is:

    1. Manafort, who worked for Trump for all of four months and was fired. Plus his Russia connections are mainly through Ukraine. Podesta has strong if not stronger Russia ties, is a much more central play to Clinton and no one is making a stink about that. And that’s before you get to the Clinton involvement in a yuuge uranium sale to Russia, which even the New York Times confirmed (but wrote such a weedy story that you have to read carefully to see that).

    2. Carter Page, who was even more peripheral

    3. Flynn, again not a central player, plus it appears his bigger sin involved Turkey

    4. The conversation with the Russian ambassador, which contrary to the screeching has plenty of precedent (in fact, Nixon and Reagan did far more serious meddling)

    5. The various allegations re Trump real estate and bank loans. Trump did have a really seedy Russian involved in a NYC development. One should be more worried that the guy was a crook than that he was Russian. Third tier, not even remotely in the oligarch class. There are also vague allegations re money laundering. The is crap because first, every NYC real estate player has dirty money in high end projects (see the big expose by the New York Times on the Time Warner Center, developed by the Related Companies, owned by Steve Ross). But second, the party responsible for checking where the money came from, unless it was wheelbarrows of cash, is the bank, not the real estate owner. Since the NYT expose there have been efforts to make developers/owners responsible too, but those aren’t germane to Trump since they aren’t/weren’t in effect.

    So please do not provide no value added speculation. If you have something concrete, that would be interesting, but I’ve been looking and I’ve seen nothing of any substance.

  92. 92.

    Groucho48

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    That was great! I needed a cigarette after it and I don’t smoke. The tone was perfect…”the principled hardliners of the Freedom Caucus on one hand, and the reasonable moderates of the Tuesday Group on the other” is exactly how the Village describes the full bore gonzo crazies and the just plain old crazies in the House. And, “While thermonuclear annihilation may be an inelegant solution, it burnishes the public impression of Trump as a man of action — eccentric, perhaps, but someone who at the end of the day isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty or seek out unorthodox solutions. Those who are still parsing whether the first wave of mortal attacks were justified are asking all the wrong questions. The truth is, it doesn’t matter — this president will be remembered as The Great Disruptor for taking strong and decisive action again and again.” Perfect!

  94. 94.

    SFAW

    @Gvg:

    this guy was a “Sanders” troll in the primaries. Really tedious one.

    But he writed lots of words, so he must be smart. And I’m glad he translates it, because Я не говорю по-русски

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    Thanks for all your help in getting Bernie Jill elected, by the way. I can see all the good great things they’ve she’s already implemented, and which Hitlary would not have done because Wall Street.

  96. 96.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    Nice summary of GOP talking points.

    Is “GOP talking points” the latest euphemism for “bullshit”? I am SO out of the loop these days.

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @Another Scott:

    I had forgotten that Logorrhea Hollandaise Dipshit had voted for “Not A Real Doctor in That My Views Are Fucking Deranged” Stein, and was gleeful-to-the-point-of-cumming-in-his-pants that Hillary lost.

    Would it be uncharitable of me to wish that Logorrhea H.D. gets what he so richly deserves from a Shitgibbon Maladministration?

  99. 99.

    Tehanu

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    I don’t actually care whether Putin et al. have real control over Dump. What I care about is the fact that he has said, and keeps saying, how much he admires the fkg murderous shirtless-on-horseback dictator Putin and how smart he thinks the fkg murderous uncle-slaughtering dictator Kim is and how welcome the fkg murderous war-on-drugs dictator Duterte would be to the White House. Of course, ol’ Donald is too much of a coward and cheat himself to really act out on his admiration of these bastards. He just wants to hang out with them so people will think he’s a tough guy.

  100. 100.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Betty Cracker</a@Betty Cracker:

    :-)

    I would expect nothing less from you, BC. The slow rot of the Neoliberal establishment brings all the flies to the carcass.

    I look forward to the hostile takeover of the DNC by Bernie loving, Neoliberal bashing Populists!

  101. 101.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @Another Scott:

    Somebody’s gotta right the ship ?

    Your incrementalism bullshit philosophy is a major buzzkill come Election time.

    Why are so many democrats losing?

  103. 103.

    TenguPhule

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel:

    The idea that billionaire, who was already famous in the US by virtue (among other things) of having a TV show that ran for 14 years and got billions of free media coverage during his campaign, is somehow owned by Putin, is astonishing on its face.

    1. Trump isn’t a billionaire. He owes hundreds of millions to the bank and most of his income comes from Russian (and now Chinese) sources.

    2. Rich people didn’t get rich by refusing to take the money.

    3. Trump’s behavior, relationships and financing all lead to one conclusion, he’s a traitor in service to Russia.

    4. Those who stand with him are traitors as well.

  105. 105.

    J R in WV

    @Jonathan Holland Becnel, aka Jonny cake Hollandaise Bechamel:

    You were a callow, stupid youth back before the election last November, and you’re surely not more sophisticated now!!

    There’s scant evidence of a JHB in Baton Rouge before you started commenting here, so perhaps you actually exist in reality… But just as likely you’re a sock puppet for Republicans or Russiansomething, or even USAian fascists.

    So I’m inclined to just call you Cock Holster Bechamal, not to steal from Colbert, but, yeah, stolen from the best.

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