Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How stupid are these people?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

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

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Let there be snark.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Their shamelessness is their super power.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Grifters Gonna Grift Open Thread: It’s the American GOP Way!

Grifters Gonna Grift Open Thread: It’s the American GOP Way!

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Your Honor, my client is but a humble immigrant aspiring to achieve some portion of the wealth and fame accruing to more favored agents selling ‘Presidential’ access to foreign nationals. Such as, for instance, the Oval Office Occupant’s daughter, son-in-law, and business partners…

Last week, Li “Cindy” Yang, the Florida massage parlor entrepreneur and Trump donor who has been part of the recent controversy involving Donald Trump’s private resort, Mar-a-Lago, filed a defamation lawsuit against the parent company of the Miami Herald… The suit claims the newspaper published false statements about Yang and her business that suggested illegal conduct had occurred in her spas. But the suit also contained a surprising passage that acknowledged that Yang had also run a business that provided Chinese executives “access to American business and political culture”—and this included entry to events at Mar-a-Lago.

After the Herald story appeared in March, Mother Jones reported that Yang owned a firm that had offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family via visits to Mar-a-Lago. The company, GY US Investments, noted on its website—which has since been taken down—that its business consulting services addressed clients looking to make high-level connections in the United States. On a page displaying a photo of Mar-a-Lago, the firm said its “activities for clients” included offering them “the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures.” The company boasted it had “arranged taking photos with the President” and suggested it can provide clients with access to a “White House and Capitol Hill Dinner.”

Weeks after that story was posted, Yang’s attorney, Evan Turk, contacted Mother Jones and threatened a lawsuit, claiming the article defamed Yang. In a letter, Turk wrote that the Mother Jones article inaccurately reported that “Cindy Yang runs an investment business that has offerred [sic] to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. This is nothing but false conjecture based on her company’s website that offerred [sic] business assistance in America to potential Chinese clientele; a travel package.” (No lawsuit has yet been filed.)…

… Yang’s legal missive does not take issue with additional reporting from the Herald (which mirrored Mother Jones’) regarding Yang’s other line of work: offering access to Mar-a-Lago. The disclosure of this activity led to reports of others selling Chinese execs entry to Trump’s private club—and a controversy that has prompted counterintelligence concerns about security at Mar-a-Lago. And Turk’s filing does not address a more recent Herald article reporting that the FBI has been investigating Yang for possibly funneling money illegally from China into Trump’s reelection campaign…

As above, so below — way, way below:


Tee! Pee! U-S-A! And yet, despite the obvious convergence, there are no branded versions of what our transatlantic cousins call ‘lavatory roll’ on their sales page…

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  3. 3.

    Kay

    ‏

    Verified account
    @DanEggenWPost
    3h3 hours ago
    More
    Trump notes captured by @jabinbotsford:
    “They want to impeach me over acts that they did”
    “Dems have no achomlishments [sic]”

    That really is he how spells it. It’s in Sharpie.

  4. 4.

    Kay

    Katherine Faulders
    ‏Verified account
    @KFaulders
    3h3 hours ago
    More
    Spotted at the Trump Hotel while Pres is here downstairs —> AG Bill Barr who is currently upstairs at the restaurant.

    Gross. His client probably comps his meals. They should rename the Trump Hotel the Corruption Club. Members only!

  5. 5.

    Luthe

    Misbehaving site/ad alert! My phone browser has been auto-redirected from this post twice by the following link: Don’t click me!

    I didn’t click anything and I don’t know where the ad came from, but y’all might want to kill it with fire.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: remember when the likes of Andrea Mitchell allowed themselves to be stampeded into thinking that it was Big News that Bubba had ambled over to Loretta Lynch’s plane

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    @Luthe:

    If you use the bad ads email link, you’ll hear back from the Blogfather hisownself.

    I had to switch to Duck Duck Go as my iPhone browser to prevent the takeover ads.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

  12. 12.

    Gbbalto

    @Luthe: I get frequent takeovers on my phone from goodluckday.com offering me a PRIZE if I click! There have been other ones but this is today’s flavor.

  13. 13.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m sure Ol Betty is thrilled the Malevolent Clampetts from Queens are coming to the Fancy Eatin’ Room

    Maggie Haberman @ maggieNYT
    POTUS state visit to the UK is set to include not just the president’s children who work in the White House, but also his other adult children, per multiple people familiar with planning.

    Think they’re bringing Tiff?

  14. 14.

    dmsilev

    @Adam L Silverman: Behold her bizarre comeback:

    “Really great,” Conway shot back. “That’s really pro-woman of you.”

    Memo to Kellyanne: Pelosi snubbing you has nothing to do with your gender, and everything to do with the fact that Madame Speaker indeed has no reason to talk to one of the many Grima Wormtongues in the White House.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Josh Dawsey @ jdawsey1
    After Trump abruptly left legislative leaders meeting today, Kellyanne Conway asked Pelosi if she wanted to respond to what Trump had said. “I’ll respond to the president, not staff,” Pelosi said. “Wow, that’s really pro-woman of you,” Kellyanne Conway said back, per aides.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dmsilev: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re either a principal, a deputy, or staff – senior, intermediate, junior. Sometimes you can be both senior staff and a deputy, but the principals deal with other principals, the deputies deal with the other deputies and sometimes the principals when they’re filling in, staff deals with staff. Kellyanne is staff. Speaker Pelosi is the only other principal in the US who is equal to the President.

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Here’s the plan. While they’re gone, we all sneak into DC and change the locks on the White House. We tell Trump that he fell behind on his payments and the bank had to foreclose and so sorry, but you’re not President anymore.

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    bigly well-adjusted

    Donald J. Trump @ realDonaldTrump
    In a letter to her House colleagues, Nancy Pelosi said: “President Trump had a temper tantrum for us all to see.” This is not true. I was purposely very polite and calm, much as I was minutes later with the press in the Rose Garden. Can be easily proven. It is all such a lie!
    7:28 PM – 22 May 2019

  26. 26.

    Aleta

    I’d like to surround the Tr family and the Mnuchins, and blanket the US, with quotes and murals, posters, billboards and songs and statues, plaques and spaces in parks honoring the courage and strength of Harriet Tubman. What a bloodthirsty bedbug running back into his airless nest inside the wall, is that Steve.

  27. 27.

    debbie

    It looks like a nice day where he is, so I’d bet that nazi is sweating like a bitch.

  28. 28.

    Jay

    “
    Lily Roberts
    @LilyRoberts12
    Every time this article says “working class,” it means “white.” Every time it says “blue collar,” it means “white.” Every time it says “Youngstown,” it means “a rural township 15 miles away from Youngstown, a city that’s half black.” https://nyti.ms/2YJQIep

    5,319
    2:24 PM – May 20, 2019”

  36. 36.

    West of the Rockies

    Lots of super aggressive pop up ads taking me from this site (Amazon and Verizon)… Anyone else getting that? Anyway to stop it on this end, Alain?

  37. 37.

    RandomMonster

    @Luthe: I got a free ad blocker from the App Store that seems to have dealt with the irritating popups. A small hassle but worth it.

  39. 39.

    Duane

    @Cheryl Rofer: He’s so erratic I think he’s headed for the epic breakdown. Pence will declare he’s in charge and hilarity will ensue. Among other things.

  40. 40.

    Aleta

    Tonight the Internet Association* gave Ivanka “The Internet Freedom Award.” And for balance, to Pelosi goes “The Lifetime Achievement Award.”

    Meaningless cowardice is still a political action.

    *wiki: “a US industry trade group founded in 2012 by companies, including Google, Amazon, eBay, and Facebook, and is headed by the president and CEO [lobbyist] Michael Beckerman”
    “Group members have included companies such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Etsy, Expedia, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Netflix and PayPal”

  48. 48.

    Amir Khalid

    @Martin:
    This White House — or more precisely this POTUS — apparently believes the President is the capo di tutti i capi of America.

  51. 51.

    Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    It’s hard to keep up with all of Ozymandeus’s achomlishment’s in butchering the English language with out doing constant research,…..

    Off the top of my head, I spelled 2 right,……

    I’m taking it as a win.

  54. 54.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jay:
    Just because I can, so there:
    1) Ozymandias.
    2) No apostrophe before a plural s.
    3) No space in without.

  55. 55.

    DaddyJ

    @John Cole: Me too! Or me 42! Bad ad redirects to goodluckday[dot]site. iOS Safari on a crusty old iPhone 4s. Not seeing this behavior on 2010 iMac running Mac OS Sierra (10.12.6)

  60. 60.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Amir Khalid: The sad thing is that the content of the Knucklehead’s posts is every bit as suspect as his demonstrably shitty grasp of spelling & syntax. Yet some FPers consider the Knucklehead Of The Frozen North a worthy commenter rather than a boil on B-J’s bum that begs to be lanced. ‘Tis a wonder. (Cf. ##33, 41. 56 supra for the analogous blindspot among the Trumpanzees.)

  61. 61.

    Gvg

    I am getting the take over ad too. Clearing cache and turning off java script gets rid of it. However I always have to turn java back on after awhile because the lack of it messes so many things up. Eventually the pop up comes back.

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